Part 17 (2/2)
Like this: ”Let me have the saw.”
As he used it, the carpenter would explain how, before ary man knew a saw's use there was a saw-shape in the shark's mouth down in the ocean sea, with teeth lined up like a saw's teeth; which may help show why some folks claim animals were wise before folks were.
”Now give me the hammer, Little Anse.”
While he pounded, the carpenter told of a nation of folks in Europe, that used to believe in somebody named Thor, who could throw his hammer across mountains and knock out thunder and lightning.
And he talked about what folks believe about wood. How some of them knock on wood, to keep off bad luck. How the ancient folks, lifetimes back, thought spirits lived in trees, good spirits in one tree and bad spirits in another. And a staff of white thorn is supposed to scare out evil.
”Are those things true, Mr. Carpenter?”
”Well, folks took them for truth once. There must be some truth in every belief, to get it started.”
”An outlander stopped here once, with a prayer book. He read to me from it, about how Satan overcame because of the wood. What did he mean, Mr. Carpenter?”
”He must have meant the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden,” said the carpenter. ”You know how Adam and Eve ate of the tree when Satan tempted them?”
”Reckon I do,” Little Anse replied him, for, with not much else to do, he'd read the Book a many times.
”There's more to that outlander's prayer,” the carpenter added on. ”If Satan overcame by the wood, he can also be overcome by the wood.”
”That must mean another kind of tree, Mr. Carpenter.”
”Yes, of course. Another kind.”
Little Anse was as happy as a dog at a fish fry. It was like school, only in school you get wis.h.i.+ng the bell would ring and turn you loose. Little Anse didn't want to be anywhere but just there, handing the tools and hearing the talk.
”How come you know so much?” he asked the carpenter.
”I travel lots in my work, Little Anse. That's a nice thing about it.”
Little Anse looked over to Mr. Troy Holcomb's. ”You know,” he said, ”I don't agree in my mind that Mr. Troy's a witch.” He looked again. ”If he had power, he'd have long ago cured my legs. He's a nice old man, for all he and my daddy fussed between themselves.”
”You ever tell your daddy that?”
”He won't listen. You near-about through?”
”All through, Little Anse.”
It was getting on for supper time. The carpenter packed up his tools and started with Little Anse toward the house. Moving slow, the way you do with a cripple along, they hadn't gone more than a few yards when they met Mr. Absalom.
”Finished up, are you?” asked Mr. Absalom, and looked. ”Well, bless us and keep us all” he yelled.
”Don't you call that a good bridge, daddy?” Little Anse asked.
For the carpenter had driven some posts straight up in the ditch, and spiked on others like cross timbers.
On those he'd laid a bridge floor from side to side. It wasn't fancy, but it looked solid to last till the Day of Judgment, mending the cutoff of the path.
”I told you I wanted-” Mr. Absalom began to say.
He stopped. For Mr. Troy Holcomb came across the bridge.
Mr. Troy's a low-built little man, with a white hangdown moustache and a face as brown as old harness leather. He came over and stopped and put out his skinny hand, and it shook like in a wind.
”Absalom,” he said, choking in his throat, ”you don't know how I been wanting this chance to ask your humble pardon.”
Then Mr. Absalom all of a sudden reached and took that skinny hand in his big one.
”You made me so savage mad, saying I was a witch-man,” Mr. Troy said. ”If you'd let me talk, I'd have told you the blight was in my downhill corn, too. It only just spared the uphill patches. You can come and look-”
”Troy, I don't need to look,” Mr. Absalom made out to reply him. ”Your word's as good to me as the yellow gold. I never rightly thought you did any witch-stuff, not even when I said it to you.”
”I'm so dog-sorry I dug this ditch,” Mr. Troy went on. ”I hated it, right when I had the spade in my hand.
Ain't my nature to be spiteful, Absalom.”
”No, Troy, Ain't no drop of spite blood in you.”
”But you built this bridge, Absalom, to show you never favored my cutting you off from me-”
Mr. Troy stopped talking, and wiped his brown face with the hand Mr. Absalom didn't have hold of.
”Troy,” said Mr. Absalom, ”I'm just as glad as you are about all this. But don't credit me with that bridge-idea. This carpenter here, he thought it up.”
”And now I'll be going,” spoke up the carpenter in his gentle way.
They both looked on him. He'd hoisted his tool chest up on his shoulder again, and he smiled at them, and down at Little Anse. He put his hand on Little Anse's head, just half a second long.
”Fling away those crutches,” he said. ”You don't need them now.”
All at once, Little Anse flung the crutches away, left and right. He stood up straight and strong. Fast as any boy ever ran on this earth, he ran to his daddy.
The carpenter was gone. The place he'd been at was empty.
But, looking where he'd been, they weren't frightened, the way they'd be at a haunt or devil-thing.
Because they all of a sudden all three knew Who the carpenter was and how He's always with us, the way He promised in the far-back times; and how He'll do ary sort of job, if it can bring peace on earth and good will to men, among nations or just among neighbors.
It was Little Anse who remembered the whole chorus of the song- ”Shoo, John, I know that song! We sung it last night at church for Christmas Eve!”
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