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

laughed with him, and then she said, “I will tell you a good thing that my mother told for me alone and not to be shared. But she trusts you. I trust you. So I will share it with you.”
    “Okay.”
    “This world will die one day.”
    “What does that mean? Is that true?” He peered into her green eyes, which were now as dark as a forest blackened by fire.
    “This world will die one day and all of this shall pass away. But I will not die here. I will die somewhere else.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I do not know,” the female man said, “but it is what my mother told me and she does not lie.”
    And then she finished her song: “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere. Shall we call, shall we sing, of the joy everywhere? Come, my friends, let us sing, of the joy everywhere. There is joy, there is joy, there is joy everywhere.”
     
    * * *
     
    And the day became evening, and his parents were at home, and they were happy to have a musical man in the house again. She made the harp sing for them as they ate their meal in happiness, and when evening became night, she slept under the boy’s bed.
    This went on for many weeks.
    When the boy asked her if she wouldn’t be more comfortable sleeping outside in her proper kennel, she told him, “I am afraid. Bad things happen to mans in proper kennels in thisneighborhood. From what I see, some of them are desperate in this neighborhood. They are so poor and so hungry. To you I am a man, but what do you think I look like to them? Food. I could be stolen and eaten. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
    “No,” the boy told her. “That would be dreadful.”
    “Yes it would be,” she said.
    And they laughed together.
     
    * * *
     
    In four years, when the boy turned sixteen, his red-haired female man was eight in regular years but twenty-four in man years and in outward appearance. And in that year, the boy found a girl who was about his age and in the natural course of things he began to spend less time with his female man.
    He would get up in the morning and feed her, then rush off to school, then after school he would work his hours at the mill, then he would come home and feed her, then don his finest garments and venture out with the girl with whom he was in love.
    There were smiles all around the house, but there was a strain too.
    One evening as he dressed, his twenty-four-year-old man said, “You know, I created a new song for you. Would you like to hear it?”
    He said, “That sounds like a great idea. When I get back, you’ll play it for me.”
    “Going out again?” said she.
    “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” said he.
    He was prepared for a fight.
    This time she surprised him by saying: “Have fun.”
    When he got back that night, he was too worn out, he told her, to listen to the song and he fell asleep right away. She played the new song to an audience of herself, then folded herself under his bed and went to sleep.
    In the morning when they awoke, she asked him if he would like to hear the song she had created for him.
    He said, “Sure. Play it.”
    She sat down with the small singing harp in her lap and began to make it sing, but there was a noise from beyond the room. Someone was at the door. When they opened the door, it was the girl with whom he was in love.
    She said, “I came by to walk with you to school. Hey, that’s a man! She’s a cute one. Is that a singing instrument thing she’s got? I always wanted a musical man, but, you know, my father could never afford one. All we ever had growing up were regular old run-of-the- mill mans. How did you guys get so wealthy?”
    “We were blessed,” the boy said. “She can talk too.”
    “Well,” the girl said, “she must cost a lot. Tell her to say something. I love the way they talk. I see them all the time at the festival and the circus. Tell her to say something funny.”
    The boy looked down at his man, and she grumbled, “Okay, so now I’m a circus