The Tent by Gary Paulsen

Author:Gary Paulsen [Paulsen, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.

COREY WAS A natural at "healing," or as Jamey put it, "You can sure lay down them miracles."

That night there were thirty-four people—the best crowd they'd ever had—and none of them knew yet about the laying on of hands.

Jamey and Davis arrived slightly early, already "in character," as Jamey put it. Davis was coughing softly into a handkerchief with red spots on it.

"It's ketchup," Jamey said. "Holds the color better and lasts for hours." He was limping well, now and then dragging his right leg, and as a final touch had brought a pair of cheap wooden crutches. He spoke quietly for a few moments with Corey, who nodded, and then Jamey came to Steven, who was standing by the tent opening where the tape player was to play the opening hymn.

"Mind when I throw the crutches down," Jamey told Steven. "I'll throw them away from the congregation, but sometimes they'll get to being light-fingered, those who come to see the miracles. I've had crutches and even neck braces stole from me. So as soon as I flop them down you come on, you know, like an attendant and take them away."

"Like an attendant?"

"Exactly. We can't go to buying a new pair of crutches every night can we? It would eat the profits up."

"Profits..."

Jamey nodded, then smiled. "Ever wonder why profits and prophets sound so much alike? Kind of like a message, ain't it? Like we're supposed to be making money."

Steven moved back out the opening and out of sight, still smiling and half thinking it was all a joke. But then people started to arrive and they all looked clean and hopeful, some of them kids, scrubbed and fresh and ready to hear about God, and a tinge of something, not a pain but coming toward it, a small shot of something cold and not very pretty came to him: they were doing this all to people who seemed to really believe.

But then it was time for the hymn to start and he became busy, and when the moment came for the laying on of hands and healing, everything was new and exciting and he forgot the feeling.

His father did the sermon and then they sang another hymn—Steven was getting good at keying in the music—but then, after the hymn, instead of passing the basket his father waved him away and stood at the pulpit again.

"I have heard there are those who need the healing grace of God," he said.

"Amen," several in the congregation murmured. Steven was certain Davis and Jamey were first.

"Whoever you are, please come forward."

There was a moment's silence, almost an awkwardness that seemed to come into the tent and then a rustling as first Jamey, struggling on his crutches, and then Davis, the handkerchief to his mouth, came forward. They had been sitting at the end of the bench in the clear, but it was still difficult for Jamey to work the crutches around people's legs as he came

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