Read Online When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Charles Martin
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never caught a single one despite hundred of hours of trying and Charlie's tireless encouragement.
Oh, I can see them. I can see them just fine, but getting them to take my bait is another matter entirely. Most folks, including Charlie, use crickets. Which is the heart of the problem. I won't fish with crickets. But despite my inabilities and eccentricities, Charlie still asks me to tie his knots because I'm pretty good at it. I've had a lot of practice with knots.
The roads around Burton are a plethora of Norman Rockwell's Americana-apple orchards, dilapidated gristmills, craft stores, comb honey, smoked bacon, Coca-Cola, the Marlboro man, and cold beer at every turn. Vintage cars painted in rust dot the pastures that flow with creeks, cows, and horses. All summer long, hay bales rolled into one-ton mounds sit big as shacks, covered in white plastic like melted snowmen until the winter cold sheds their coat and feeds them to the livestock. And farmers, those whose lives are connected to the lake yet uninterested in it, sit atop green or red tractors beneath dusty brimmed hats, roll cigarettes, and pull at the earth for one more year like a pig suckling the hind teat.
And God? He's in these hills because we are. No matter how far you run, you can't shake Him. Maybe Davis and I know that best, but Emma knew it first, and Saint Augustine said it best: You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.
Chapter 11
t was clear, growing cooler late one summer evening. I could smell the rain coming. Dark clouds first, followed by the strong, moist winds that rattled the magnolias and then the overwhelming aroma of a coming rain. At first, light drops fell softly, then larger drops smacked as they intersected the handsized, waxy magnolia leaves on their way to earth. Emma and I were sitting on the second-story porch outside my bedroom door, taking turns looking through the telescope pointed out into the Milky Way before the clouds blocked our view.
Beneath the tripod legs, a collage of jigsaw puzzles spread about the floor in front of us. For me, stars were a fascination and jigsaw puzzles a hobby. While I was piecing together seven puzzles simultaneously, she spent her time reading or sketching. Amid the stereophonic birdsong that surrounded us, Emma read Great Expectations and sketched the birds that perched nearby.
I had taken all seven thousand puzzle pieces, thrown them into the same basket, and then mixed them together like numbers in a bingo game. Then I dug my hand in and began forming the outlines of seven different pictures. I would need two weeks to put them all together, but it was the process that I enjoyed. One jigsaw was difficult enough, but add the other six, and that's when it started to get fun.
It was, I believe, my introduction to the scientific process. With each piece, I'd reason: if not here, then here, and if not here, then here, and ... so on. Puzzles forced me to look at something from several angles before I moved on, to look again, and again, and possibly again because each piece-no matter how small or seemingly insignificant was critical to the whole. With the outlines scattered about me, I let my hands and eyes work the floor while my mind wandered beyond the boundary of the porch and over the surface of the farmer's moon, which was full and had risen early.
After the storm, which was preceded and followed by a good bit of wind, I heard a cardinal singing. But the singing was different from the usual; the sound was hollow and haunting. I looked out my window to see a male cardinal standing on the porch next to the fluttering form of his mate. Apparently she had fallen or been thrown during the storm and had either broken or severely bent her wing. Our neighborhood was pretty well armed with cats so, given time, she wasn't long for this earth. And all her flopping around was only making matters worse-almost
Oh, I can see them. I can see them just fine, but getting them to take my bait is another matter entirely. Most folks, including Charlie, use crickets. Which is the heart of the problem. I won't fish with crickets. But despite my inabilities and eccentricities, Charlie still asks me to tie his knots because I'm pretty good at it. I've had a lot of practice with knots.
The roads around Burton are a plethora of Norman Rockwell's Americana-apple orchards, dilapidated gristmills, craft stores, comb honey, smoked bacon, Coca-Cola, the Marlboro man, and cold beer at every turn. Vintage cars painted in rust dot the pastures that flow with creeks, cows, and horses. All summer long, hay bales rolled into one-ton mounds sit big as shacks, covered in white plastic like melted snowmen until the winter cold sheds their coat and feeds them to the livestock. And farmers, those whose lives are connected to the lake yet uninterested in it, sit atop green or red tractors beneath dusty brimmed hats, roll cigarettes, and pull at the earth for one more year like a pig suckling the hind teat.
And God? He's in these hills because we are. No matter how far you run, you can't shake Him. Maybe Davis and I know that best, but Emma knew it first, and Saint Augustine said it best: You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.
Chapter 11
t was clear, growing cooler late one summer evening. I could smell the rain coming. Dark clouds first, followed by the strong, moist winds that rattled the magnolias and then the overwhelming aroma of a coming rain. At first, light drops fell softly, then larger drops smacked as they intersected the handsized, waxy magnolia leaves on their way to earth. Emma and I were sitting on the second-story porch outside my bedroom door, taking turns looking through the telescope pointed out into the Milky Way before the clouds blocked our view.
Beneath the tripod legs, a collage of jigsaw puzzles spread about the floor in front of us. For me, stars were a fascination and jigsaw puzzles a hobby. While I was piecing together seven puzzles simultaneously, she spent her time reading or sketching. Amid the stereophonic birdsong that surrounded us, Emma read Great Expectations and sketched the birds that perched nearby.
I had taken all seven thousand puzzle pieces, thrown them into the same basket, and then mixed them together like numbers in a bingo game. Then I dug my hand in and began forming the outlines of seven different pictures. I would need two weeks to put them all together, but it was the process that I enjoyed. One jigsaw was difficult enough, but add the other six, and that's when it started to get fun.
It was, I believe, my introduction to the scientific process. With each piece, I'd reason: if not here, then here, and if not here, then here, and ... so on. Puzzles forced me to look at something from several angles before I moved on, to look again, and again, and possibly again because each piece-no matter how small or seemingly insignificant was critical to the whole. With the outlines scattered about me, I let my hands and eyes work the floor while my mind wandered beyond the boundary of the porch and over the surface of the farmer's moon, which was full and had risen early.
After the storm, which was preceded and followed by a good bit of wind, I heard a cardinal singing. But the singing was different from the usual; the sound was hollow and haunting. I looked out my window to see a male cardinal standing on the porch next to the fluttering form of his mate. Apparently she had fallen or been thrown during the storm and had either broken or severely bent her wing. Our neighborhood was pretty well armed with cats so, given time, she wasn't long for this earth. And all her flopping around was only making matters worse-almost
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