Fire Along the Sky
Page 112

For all their size the Ratz boys were clearly afraid of their smaller father, for they came when he called without hesitation or delay. All of them studied their feet while Elizabeth talked.
She said, “Apparently your sons have been busy studying up on witchcraft.”
Martin Ratz squinted at her so that his face folded into wrinkles from eyelid to mouth. “What about witchcraft?”
“Pa—” Jem began.
His father cuffed the back of the boy's head so smartly that his cap flew off. “Hold your trap. Nobody was talking to you.”
“They are convinced that you can tell a witch by a mark on her body,” Elizabeth continued.
Nathaniel's mouth twitched, but he kept quiet. Jed was looking less amused, his arms crossed hard on his chest.
Ratz said, “Well, ain't that true? I always heard it was. Lots of folks believe it, anyway.”
“People believe many things that are not true, Mr. Ratz. In any case, would you say that it is appropriate to ask little girls to disrobe in order to see if they have any such marks?”
“Disrobe?” Ratz scratched his chin, and then his eyes widened with understanding. “You mean, strip down?”
“I do.”
“Strip down,” he repeated thoughtfully, looking sideways at the three boys who were inching away from him.
“To the skin,” Elizabeth said. “In this weather.”
“Now, Marty,” began Jed, seeing the way things were moving.
“Strip down to the skin,” said Ratz, his voice rising and wobbling. “You three tried to get those girls to strip down to the skin.”
“Pa—” began Harry, who was cuffed in turn by Jem.
Ratz narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Well, then, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, ain't that the way it goes?”
Nathaniel sent Elizabeth a grim look, one that said this matter was already out of hand and would get worse, if she did not keep her peace.
“It is,” said Elizabeth. “But—”
“Well, then,” Ratz interrupted. “You boys go on then, peel.”
“Pa!” Jem began, stepping backward as his father advanced.
“Don't you Pa me,” said Ratz. “Get on with it. Strip.”
“We wouldn't have made those girls do anything,” wailed Harry. “We just wanted to see if they're really witches.”
“Strip down now,” said their father, his color and voice rising apace, “or I'll do it for you.”
Elizabeth would have appealed to Jed McGarrity to put a stop to such insanity, but he had retreated up the steps to the trading post porch where he stood with Callie and Martha. Martha looked alarmed and Callie satisfied at this turn of events.
“Those boys been looking for a beating for a good while now,” Jed called to her. “This won't hurt as much.”
The three boys were still backing away from their advancing father. Then they stopped, looked at each other, looked at him, and for a moment Elizabeth thought they had decided to get it over with.
At the last moment, Jem looked at the trading post porch, where a half-dozen of his classmates had appeared, all wearing wide grins.
Without a word the three boys broke and ran. Martin was after them in the same second, and on his heels a stream of children poured off the porch and out of the trading post. Only Callie and Martha stayed behind, blinking in the sunlight.
Elizabeth joined them on the porch where the view was better. They watched the chase through the village, the boys winding through frozen gardens and jumping woodpiles, dragging a long and bedraggled tail of children behind them. The noise was loud enough to rouse the rest of the village: old Missus Hindle came to her door with a baby on her hip and waved a spoon over her head to urge them all on.
Nathaniel said, “I don't think you girls will have any more trouble from the Ratz boys. And if you do, a word to Martin should set them straight in no time.”
Callie and Martha, their eyes fixed on the chase, could only nod.
Later, Elizabeth and the girls told the story to an appreciative audience at Curiosity's hearth. Callie and Martha fell to giggling again when Elizabeth got to the part where Jem Ratz had skidded into a steaming manure pile.
“Did their pa ever get their clothes off them?” Sally asked.
“He did,” said Elizabeth. “The last we saw of them, the boys were running down the river in nothing but their boots. They were as white as geese, from foot to neck.”
“As long as they don't come down with lung fever,” Curiosity said, who wanted to laugh but wasn't sure she quite approved. “Otherwise they'll be dragging our Hannah out to tend to those fool boys in the middle of the night.”
“I don't think there is much chance of that,” Elizabeth said. “They were only a minute from home. I'm sure their mother wrapped them up and got some tea into them.”
At that Curiosity snorted; she thought very little of Martin Ratz, who simply refused to pay any midwife's fee for the birth of a daughter, and even less of Georgia, who was a slovenly housekeeper and could not control her own children.
“Where is Hannah?” said Jennet. “She's missed the telling of the story.”
“Out in the barn,” said Sally. “With her da.”
“I'll go see her there,” Elizabeth said.
“Don't be too long,” Curiosity said. “I'll have supper on the table in a half hour, and I don't want this food to go to waste.”