Elijah of Buxton Read Online Free PDF Page A

horseflies landed on Old Flapjack’s flank and it was a chance to make up for the mistake I’d just made. I mean the hitting-the-fly-too-hard mistake, not the swearing mistake. Mr. Travis tells us that swearing’s the kind of mistake that once you do it, there ain’t no way to make up for it.
    I studied the two horseflies that had landed on Old Flap real careful. When a couple of ’em land close together like this, it ain’t long afore they take notice of one the ’nother and quit seeing anything else. It’s kind of like they put a spell or a conjure on each other and, truth told, once they do, it’s easier to hit two at once than it is to hit one.
    The two flies saw each other at near the same time and frozed their moving, trying to see which one was toughest.
    This waren’t the right thing to do, ’cause waren’t neither one of ’em tough as my fly swah and it was ’bout to do a whole lot more bad to ’em than any other horsefly ever could!
    Pah-dop!
    Now that was a good sound! That meant I hadn’t hit ’em hard enough to break no fly bones or nothing, but I had hit ’em so’s they were gonna be a little dumbstruck. Most likely they wouldn’t be doing no more flying but they should still be alive and kicking.
    I looked under the mule again and there they were, wings still a-buzzing and each one of ’em spinning in circles on the ground, raising up two little clouds of dust.
    I quick snatched ’em up and put ’em in the “live” pouch with the other ones that I was gonna use for big-fish bait.
    The Preacher’ll tell anyone that listens that the biggest, most ornery horseflies in the world live right here in Buxton. Mostly he tells the new-free slaves that come here ’cause he don’t love nothing more than letting ’em know how amazing him and the rest of us folks in Buxton are. But, truth told, it’s mostly how amazing he is.
    One time, seven free slaves came into the Settlement all at once and the Preacher took it on hisself to welcome ’em. This was afore the Elders found out what he was doing and quick made sure it didn’t happen again.
    He told those seven new-free people ’bout what difficult days were ahead.
    â€œWinters!” he shouted at ’em. “In your worst nightmares you can’t imagine how bad the winters up here are!
    â€œGot so cold during the winter of ’fifty-three that flames on candles froze solid! Even the sun was frozen in place halfway across the sky! It didn’t thaw out and commence moving again till the summer of ’fifty-four! Seven months of nothing but sunlight. Which explains why the horseflies up here are unnaturally large and ornery, since they had two growing seasons instead of the usual one.”
    The Preacher liked waving his arms ’round whilst he was talking, and he was really going at it to try to impress these new folks. “I was out in the field plowing with my mule that summer …” he said, which should’ve let on that this was gonna be a powerful stretching of the truth, ’cause don’t no one ’round here ever recall seeing the reins of a mule nor any other kind of working tool in the Preacher’s hands, “… when suddenly these two horseflies start buzzing overhead and one asks the other, ‘What do you think, should we eat that mule here or drag him into the woods and polish him off?’ The second fly says, ‘Let’s eat him here. If we take him to the woods the full-grown horseflies will snatch him away from us.’”
    I ain’t seen no signs of horseflies that big ’round here but it could be true, the Preacher’s a mighty smart man. I only know that the fish at Old Flapjack’s lake sure do think these horseflies are the best eating they’ve ever done.
    Once I’d got enough flies and checked ’round the stable to make sure I’d done