This Rock by Robert Morgan

Author:Robert Morgan [Morgan, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9780743225793
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2001-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Muir

THAT WINTER AFTER I got back from the Tar River I laid low and worked on the place, like I’d promised the Lord I would. I split rails and built a new fence for Mama around the orchard. Mama frowned and encouraged me by turns, and Moody ribbed me, but I never did tell them I’d nearly drownded on the Tar River. I figured nobody needed to know that. I worked on the road above the spring, and I trapped a little. I couldn’t think of any other way to make money. Since I had left my traps on the Tar River, I had to buy new ones from U. G. on credit.

But it was a bad winter and I caught almost nothing in my traps. In February I had to take my pelts to U. G. He was playing checkers by the stove in the back of his store when I brought him the measly pile of furs I had. I still owed him for the traps and a box of shotgun shells I’d got the winter before that. I was ashamed to ask him for more credit.

“What say, Muir?” U. G. said. He glanced up from the checkerboard. He was playing with old Hicks Summey, who claimed he was the champion checkers player in the valley. Hicks liked to take a drink, and he liked to set at the store and play checkers.

“Not much, U. G.,” I said and laid my little bundle of furs on the counter.

“Mink didn’t run to your traps?” U. G. said.

“It was a poor season,” I said.

“Fur ain’t worth nothing anyway,” U. G. said. “There’s too much fur from Canada coming on the market.”

I owed U. G. about twenty dollars, and I hadn’t saved but five from the molasses money.

U. G. jumped his checkers over several squares on the board and picked up some pieces. “Let’s take a look at them skins,” he said. U. G. walked behind the counter and inspected each pelt I’d brought and run his fingers through the fur. “Can’t give you but eighty-five cents,” he said.

“That’s not even enough to pay what I owe you,” I said. “Ain’t got but five dollars to my name.” I took out the five-dollar bill.

U. G. looked at the furs and he looked at the bill.

“Wish I could pay you off,” I said.

U. G. stared at me so the electric light reflected off his glasses. “You look like a store clerk to me,” he said. “You can count and you’re honest. You can work off your debt, dollar a day.”

It was the last thing I expected. I never had seen myself clerking in a store. But I seen working was better than owing money to U. G. And it was better than staying home and fussing all the time with Moody. Abraham Lincoln had started out as a store clerk. And if I saved my money I could buy a ticket to get away from Green River again for good, if I wanted to.

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