The Fires of Spring Read Online Free PDF Page B

be all right.”
    There was a sharp sound at the door. David heard the stranger hiss air between his teeth. The door wrenched open. In the candlelight the old men of the hall looked into David’s room. Old Daniel cried, “Why, you …”
    Toothless Tom was first to reach the stranger. He lunged awkwardly forward, missed him, and plunged across the bed. David saw the stranger’s face in the shadows. It was ugly and distorted.
    Now Luther grabbed the stranger. In a brutal Dutch grip he hauled the man from the corner and out into the hall. David, not wanting to miss anything, pushed Toothless from on top of him and scrambled out of bed to see what was happening.
    “Boy!” Toothless roared, his mouth slobbering because he had no teeth. “Close that door!”
    David did so, but as he stood shivering in his skimpy nightshirt, standing with his hand in Tom’s, he could hear the old men of the poorhouse beating up the stranger. He could hear that soft voice whining, pleading, screaming, and cursing while the poorhouse men, silent, breathed hard.
    Door 10 slammed shut. David could hear the bed creak heavily. Then there was silence. His own door opened. It was Old Daniel, oh, how thin and tired. Toothless rose to leave. “You stay!” Daniel ordered.
    “I never been married,” Toothless protested.
    “Sit down!” Daniel commanded. The two old men put David, who felt fine, tenderly to bed. In the candlelight they stood over him, Toothless shifting from foot to foot, Daniel talking.
    The astonishing things David heard that night would probably have perplexed him for a long time except that early the next morning the wardens found the runaway man from Bensalem. They found him floating face downward in the big tank on top of the women’s building. And this was the tank from which all the drinking water came.
    Before breakfast three doctors from Doylestown rushed down to the poorhouse and inspected the tank where theman’s bloated body had contaminated the water. The poorhouse people were called into the mess hall, wardens and everybody. A new man stumbled and knocked over a bucket of water. As the clear liquid ran onto the floor, a woman got very sick. She rushed out and David could hear her vomiting in the flower beds. Aunt Reba followed her out, commanding the woman to stop.
    “We don’t think there’s anything wrong,” the overseer said reassuringly.
    “We’ll give everybody two pills,” a fat doctor said. “For safety!” he joked.
    “We tested the water and it’s all right,” the overseer cajoled. But another woman started to vomit and rushed out.
    “So everybody line up!” the fat doctor laughed. “Here!” he said to the overseer. “You’re first.”
    The overseer grinned broadly and picked up his two pills. Then the doctor handed him a glass of water. Instinctively the overseer shuddered, and the poorhouse people laughed nervously. “This water’s from the Barish farm!” the overseer explained. With exaggerated gestures he swallowed the pills and stared happily at the doctors. “I took ’em!” he cried proudly. “That wasn’t bad!” But another woman had to leave, all the same.
    When David took his pills he tasted the water carefully to see if he could detect any difference between it and the contaminated poorhouse water. Later, on the playground, he announced judiciously to Grade Five that he couldn’t taste the dead man. A little girl got very sick.
    At that moment David saw a housewife walking down Court Street with a basket of spring vegetables, scallions and lettuce. And suddenly for the first time in his life David saw a woman as a woman. She was clean, wore good clothes, walked straight. She was not old and faded like the poorhouse women, not stiff and proper like Miss Clapp. She was just a woman, and David thought that women were very funny people. They got sick and had to vomit over a little thing like water. But they never hung themselves in the barn. They did not die of broken hearts