Read Online Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston L. Allen - Free Book Online Page A

If we don’t send you away, then we are going to have you fixed.”
    Now she was sobbing in big gulps. The poor boy rubbed her head and she peered at him through her tears. “What does that mean? Fixed? I’m not broken, am I?”
    The wealthy father called the poor boy over and said to him, “I have some things for you. Some food for her. Some cloths for her hair. A few leashes. And some things for your parents.”
    The poor boy shook his head. “I’ll take the things for her and the food for her, but not the silver. You have already given enough.”
    “The poor do not understand the heavy burden of silver,” the wealthy boy’s father said. “I am ashamed of what I put you through. You’re a nice boy, my son’s best friend, and your parents are good people. I was unkind and I acted selfishly. Please take this silver from me and give it to your parents.”
    And the poor boy took the silver for his parents.
     
    * * *
     
    When he got her home, his new female man seemed reluctant to go out to her proper kennel. Instead, she stayed in the house, exploring the rooms. When she finished exploring, she picked up the small singing harp and made it sing: “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere . . .”
    The boy was amazed. “That song, your mother used to play that song.”
    “I know,” she said.
    “How do you know?”
    “She told me.”
    “But how did she tell you? She’s dead.”
    “Mother is she who gives all to her child. She’s ever with me, telling me things.”
    At first, the boy believed her words and pondered their significance. Then it came to him that he was talking to a man. Sometimes they spoke sense, but more often than not they spoke nonsense that had the appearance of being sense. The boy knew that nothing that is dead can still be with us. But he smiled and decided to play along with her.
    “What sort of things does she tell you?”
    “She tells me that you are very nice and she loved you very much. You took very good care of her. You stood by her side in her trouble.”
    “Hmmm. Very nice. What else does she tell you?”
    “That you are correct. She died of a great sadness in her heart.”
    The boy was no longer comfortable playing this game. He was starting to have a strange feeling. “How do you know that?” he demanded.
    “She told me.”
    “But she is dead.”
    “She is with me now at this moment. I am filled with her.”
    He looked at her, and her green eyes had strangely darkened.
    “She says that it was cruel of them to take her infant away. She was a mother, but not a mother. It was cruel of them to remove her thumbs. She had hands, but no hands. She could no longer make the small singing harp sing her heart’s pain. She wept every night until the night she died.”
    “This is dreadful,” said the boy.
    “Truth is often dreadful,” said his man.
    The boy was weeping. “Does she tell you any good things?”
    “She tells me good things, but those good things are for me alone, and not to be shared.”
    “Okay.” He sniffed back tears.
    “But she does not want you to weep.”
    “I can’t help it. I miss her. I’m sorry how she died. I wish I could bring her back and save her life.”
    “Wait, I do have a good thing that I can tell you.”
    “Okay.”
    “She touched the heart of the father of the wealthy boy. He is afraid of me. He is afraid of you. That’s why he insists that you take his silver.”
    “Really?”
    “She commands him to do it. He is afraid that she will kill him. But she can’t do that. She is dead. It doesn’t work that way. There is no need to fear the dead.”
    “That’s very funny,” the boy said, and he laughed a small laugh.
    She added, “I want those instruments in his house. I want every instrument in his house. He is afraid and he will give them to you if you are patient and ask for them one at a time.”
    “Okay,” said the boy, laughing. “We will take all of his instruments. Hahaha. One at a time.”
    His female man