Read Online Northern Borders by Howard Frank Mosher - Free Book Online

about to betray my father altogether by announcing that I wanted to defect from our home in White River and remain with my grandparents.
    I think Dad understood my dilemma. He gave me an affectionate hug and suggested that we take a quick tour of the Farm before dinner. This was just the ticket to get us back on our old confidential footing, and a minute later we were joking together.
    We visited the chickens and the barn and walked down through the pasture to the river where Gramp and I fished together evenings after supper. Then my grandmother was ringing the dinner bell. It was time to eat.
    Like most countrywomen of her generation, my grandmother was an excellent cook. Her fried chicken and mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, fresh peas, homebaked bread and homemade butter

were never less than superb; but today every eye was on my father and grandfather, who were separated from each other only by me.
    My grandmother sat at the foot of the long dining room table, at the opposite end from my grandfather. For a moment the room was totally silent. Then she said, “Go ahead, Tut.”
    This was my cue to say Sunday grace, which I detested, the more so because, instead of bowing his head, my grandfather watched me the entire time. He knew that I was squirming and he delighted in my mortification. For a panicky moment I drew a complete blank.
    â€œâ€˜Our Father,’” Aunt Freddi prompted softly, “‘bless this . . .’”
    In one great gulp, the words barely distinguishable from each other, I gasped: “Our-Father-bless-this-food-to-our-use-and-us-to-thy-service-amen.”
    â€œAmen,” said my grandmother and father and little aunts.
    But before the word was out of their mouths, and before I had the faintest notion that I was going to do it, I’d finally thought of the one personal request Preacher John Wesleyan Kittredge said I could make if I wanted to, and blurted out: “And help Dad and Gramp see eye to eye!”
    â€œAmen!” Uncle Rob said, and burst out laughing.
    â€œBrother!” my father said.
    â€œAmen!” Little Aunt Klee said out of the side of her mouth.
    â€œJe-sus!” my grandfather said. “Did they put you up to saying that?” He pointed his fork at my grandmother.
    Even Freddi was smiling behind her napkin.
    But my grandfather was genuinely mad. He was mad at them, meaning my grandmother, since he imagined that she had been responsible for my pathetic little supplication for family harmony.
    â€œPass the chicken down this way,” he growled at her. “Some of us around here work for a living and don’t have time to spend all day praying and jabbering.”
    â€œAusten works,” Little Aunt Klee said, nodding at my father, her eyes shining with mischief.
    â€œAusten!” my grandfather said indignantly, as though he’d never heard my father’s name, though it was his and mine as well. “Austen’s a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers don’t know what it is to put in a day’s work.”
    â€œStop inciting trouble, Klee,” my grandmother said sharply, to which my little aunt replied, in a crisp offended voice, “Very well,” and got up from the table, as straight and regal as her haughty Egyptian namesake, and disappeared into the kitchen not to return.
    Across the table from me Rob mouthed a word or two, I couldn’t tell what. Freddi leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry, Old Toad. Klee does this at every family dinner.”
    My grandmother sighed. She looked down the table at my grandfather and said, “Mr. Kittredge, your son is not a schoolteacher. He’s a headmaster. What’s more, he’s the headmaster of one of the finest schools in New England.”
    My grandfather had paid no attention to Klee’s outraged departure. Very deliberately, he put down his fork. Staring straight at my grandmother, he said: “Saying a headmaster