Father Briar and The Angel Read Online Free PDF

installed the telephones and did various
maintenance on the fussy things. He was great with his hands and
clever with logic, so this was an ideal occupation for Ralphie, and
entire system was his responsibility. He had an old Coca Cola
utility truck, an old thing that he kept in good condition through
hundreds of thousands of miles, through many unusual
places.
    His wife, “Ma Earnestine,”
as everyone called her, was the switchboard operator.
    Mrs. Roggenbukker had
earned her nickname partly, of course, as a play on the ubiquitous
“Ma Bell,” as the monopolistic phone company was called, but also
because of her knowledge and personality; two things shaped by her
unique and demanding job.
    She ran the company office
and the billing and ran Ralphie Roggenbukker ragged. She handled
all manner of various and sundry emergencies as well as the town’s
informal news service. Ma Earnestine Roggenbukker was also the
first sort of messaging service or voicemail; when people didn’t
answer their phones you could always count on her to call the
person later and tell them your information, plus share a little
gossip of her own.
    And, of course, she ran the
switchboard. The switchboard was probably the most important piece
of mechanical equipment in town. The only other thing that was as
valued was the Zamboni, the miraculous creation that cleaned and
smoothed the ice at the hockey rink.
    The poor Roggenbuckers had
no social life, even within the limited social options available in
northern Minnesota at the time. Due to the manual nature of the
phone system, there always had to be somebody at the switchboard,
and that somebody was Ma Earnestine.
    Every single call from your
own line, the line in your house, had to be physically connected by
Ma Earnestine, who sat in front of her switchboard plugging wires
into different sockets. So somebody, usually Ma, had to be there
twenty four hours a day and seven days a week, lest an important
call go unconnected.
    Connecting calls was
accomplished through what was known as a party line system. Each
party had about seven or eight families in it, and every house was
connected, so you heard every ring! You knew when one of your
neighbors was calling someone, and you knew when. And boy, did that
make you want to know why . But more on that
later…
    There were codes in the
rings that served as each family’s signal to pick up the receiver,
somebody wanted to talk to you. Julianna’s ring was two rings long
plus two shorter ones. Cedric’s was, although she tried to never
call him at home, one long ring, followed by another long
ring.
    Sometimes she called. She
couldn’t help it. She’d call and have Ma Earnestine put her through
and then before he picked up, she’d drop the phone and run
away.
    This was girlish nerves and
this was because, as her mother always told her, “nothing was
private!” There was always somebody listening. People are nosy and
people get entertainment starved, her nosy neighbor Gosha
especially.
    There was all sorts of
strange electricity in the air that winter; the dry brings static
and sparks jumped from person to person, like a little bit of
naughty magic.

Chapter Four: Lovers Walk
on the Lake, but Not Like Christ.
     
    There was beauty in the
ice, if you looked hard enough.
    “ But you have to look
hard,” Cedric admitted. They were fishing on a frozen lake, which
Julianna would’ve found horrifying for dozens of reasons scant
months before, but was enjoying now. Enjoying in spite of the fears
she kept having of the ice cracking and swallowing her whole,
enjoying in spite of the fact that standing on a lake was
unnatural, enjoying in spite of the fact that the temperature was
minus six degrees.
    He used a huge drill to get
through the ice, a big blue hand-cranked thing that looked like a
prop from one of the alien invasion science fiction movies that had
become so popular, she’d seen one at the Brannaska Drive-In Theater
that past summer.
    The shavings