Chapter 18 — Edge of Spring

At the end of February,three weeks of deep freeze let go. In the first days of March the mercury uncurled itself from the bottom of the bulb in the thermometer and crept up toward the freezing mark. Under a bright sun and a blue sky, Maynard Pierce of Kennebec Academy’s maintenance crew was pumping gas into the green truck in his shirtsleeves. “The winter’s broke, boys. The winter’s broke. It’s all over now.” “Like hell it is,” growled dour Bert, who ran a string of lobster traps outside Seguin. “This here’s a weather-breeder. You take a soft day like this in th’ winter time with the wind to the s’uth’ard and sure as a squash has seeds, she’ll cant out to the east’ard and give you a good soakin’. You’ll have your ear flaps down t’morrow.” “Joe Cupo didn’t say so on the radio this mornin’.” “Joe Cupo didn’t see the big old roll off Seguin this morning.” The school awoke the next day to a heavy easterly gale slamming bursts of snow against the dining hall windows out of a howling impenetrable grayness. The river and the point across the cove dissolved in the rush of snow and wind. The pines on the near-bank, showing only dimly through the storm, bent their tops and thrashed their upper branches before the heavier gusts. Mr. Floyd bent forward against the blast on his way to breakfast, the hood of his mackinaw pulled over his head, his cap pulled down over his eyes. The blind brute force of the gale pushed him, pummeled him, threw snow in his face, tripped him with snow, roared in rage or laughed with heavy boorish laughter as he picked his way from tree to tree along the path. But it was his day to be at breakfast so of course he was going. He battled his way to the shelter of the dining hall porch, stamped his feet, pushed back his hood, and stepped in over a puddle of melting snow on the floor. He hung his coat and hat neatly on a peg and, dressed precisely as usual, boots his only concession to the weather, proceeded to the head of the head table. The clatter and chatter of 100 boys died away in the presence of this precise little man. Silence. “For these and all thy many blessings, our Father, we thank thee. Amen.” Chairs scraped and the clatter resumed. Mr. Floyd was a scholar, head of the English department, author of an anthology of poetry, a careful paper on the significance of Melville’s references to Shakespeare in Moby Dick, and a manual of English grammar, usage, and punctuation which was annually distributed to every boy in Kennebec Academy. In his classroom he was serious but not solemn, as much interested in his students as in his subject. In the dormitory he was always slightly formal but a friend to every one of his boys, their advocate in times of trouble, wise enough to know when not to look and when to apply the iron hand of discipline. “There are no rules until they are broken,” he said; but he insisted they be obeyed. Mrs. Floyd grew flowers, fed birds, worked for H&R Block in Bath every spring, knew every boy who had ever lived in the dormitory and most of their parents. She poured tea with a touch of Victorian formality –“one lump or two?”– and made excellent cupcakes. The waiter came in from the kitchen to report that the radio was loaded with no school announcements and winter storm warnings were broadcast. Joe Cupo was talking about a “sneak blizzard.” The dining hall fell silent as Mr. Sawyer, the Headmaster, came in – an unusual event at breakfast. His jacket and hood were plastered with snow and his face was red and wind burned. “Gentlemen, this is predicted to continue all day with a heavy accumulation. Plows will have 81

difficulty keeping any roads open and getting from building to building around the campus will be difficult. No day boys or non-resident masters will be able to come in, and our maintenance crew will be working double time to keep a road open for fire and emergency vehicles. Therefore we will have no regular school today. The studio, library, dark room, and gym will be open, but I suggest that you move around no more than necessary. When the storm lets up, shovels will be available at the barn and everyone is urged to pitch in and dig out. Dinner will be at 12:30 as usual.” The room burst into buzz and clatter. At 3:30 in the afternoon it was still blowing a living gale. No one knew what the depth of snow on the level might be for the wind had swept some places bare and piled deep drifts in others. Pat Sweeney, who came from California and had never seen such a storm before, jumped out his second story window feet first into a huge drift and completely disappeared. The drift heaved and the hole he had made caved in. Two others ran down and dug him out, gasping and choking and thoroughly scared. The library was dead quiet except for the wind, which whistled and howled around a corner of the building, slammed snow against the easterly windows and drummed in the chimney, whence it occasionally puffed an aromatic burst of smoke out of the fireplace. A dozen boys were sunk in chairs and couches, reading in the tortured attitudes in which youth relaxes. Mr. Sanborn, the librarian, surveyed his kingdom over the bowl of his pipe in great content, watching two silent chess players by the window. The studio was jumping. A radio was going full bore with, frequent comments from the WBZ Storm Center until someone changed it to violent rock music interrupted by announcements that church suppers, grange meetings, bingo games and scheduled gatherings of Ladies Aids were canceled, postponed, or rescheduled. The dull light from outside accentuated the violence within as small boys spread brilliant colors with broad brushes on acres of paper, themselves and each other. Allan Poole, at a bench, oblivious of the riot around him, pared and cut and smoothed away at a lump of clay that was growing into a living skier under his hand. The potters’ wheels whirred, the jig saw chattered, the lathe howled or growled as the tool hit wood. Mr. Benson, the artist in residence, moved from group to group, watching the skier out of the corner of his eye, encouraging, demonstrating, turning to seize a young Philistine in the act of throwing clay. Sam and Joe stamped into the dormitory. If it had been the winter’s first snow in December, there would have been melting snowballs all down the hall and rushes of little boys through the door pelted by bigger boys outside. But in March, who needs a snowball fight? The boys went into their room, dumped their coats, flopped on their beds. They had pretty well wrung out the day. The wind had eased off as it swung northerly and from the gray sky sieved down the last of the snow in the early dusk. They had eaten, shoveled, and talked themselves out. They tried an arm wrestle. Joe won. They tried it again. Sam won. They tried it again and got tired of it before anyone won. “I’m going in to see Mr. Floyd and get permission to go home next weekend. Maybe he’ll invite us

to tea.”

“What do you suppose he’s doing today? He must have corrected all his papers, done all his homework, and be sitting like a little bird peeking over his desk.” “Maybe he’s sitting in his armchair by the window reading one of those books off the top shelf that he has already read twice. “Yeah, a 3-volume Victorian novel like Forsythe Saga or Gone With the Wind.” “Gone with the Wind isn’t Victorian, you ding-dong. It’s American.” “Who cares?” They knocked on Mr. Floyd’s study door, expecting the neat little man in grey flannels, tweed coat, blue shirt, and plain red tie to open the door on his neat study with the books in ordered rows, the papers stacked neatly on a corner of the desk, and a pen and pencil on the blotter. Not so. At their knock Mr. Floyd did not open the door. He called, “Come in.” The boys stood gaping in shocked astonishment. Instead of the neat room with precisely ordered

desk and the chair behind it they saw the desk tipped on its side on spread newspapers, the drawers piled criss-cross on a chair, the row of books from the desk in another chair, and the blotter shoved kitty-corner into a book case. Mr. Floyd in dungarees and a sweat shirt with the faded letters “Bowdoin A.A.” on it, his usually neatly combed hair damp on his forehead, confronted an elevated leg of the desk, a cross-cut saw in his hand, already half way through the leg. He looked up and then, jaw set, furiously resumed sawing, the saw spurting sawdust, catching in the cut, then breaking through. The end of the desk leg rolled on the floor and Mr. Floyd looked up. “There,” he said, “at last I did it! It took something violent and unexpected like this storm to get me to do it. For years I have worked at that desk and it is too high for me. Always feel as if I am chinning myself to look over it. Today I finally resolved to saw an inch and a quarter off each leg and by God I did it. Let’s try it out.” Sam and Joe, still open-mouthed, each took a corner and set the desk on its legs. Sam moved the books off the chair and set it behind the desk. Mr. Floyd sat down, put his elbows on the desk and smiled across the scene of desolation with satisfaction, pride, and a new dignity. “Now that is worth losing a day for,” he said. “After all, the desk was made for me. I wasn’t made for the desk. Will you join us in a cup of tea and perhaps a cake?” As they followed him into the next room, Sam picked up a piece sawn off the desk leg and tossed it in his hand. Joe picked up another and put it in his pocket as if he had found a holy relic.