Read A Part of the Sky for Free Online Page A

side, where my father would so often rest his head while milking her.
    “Daisy,” I said, “why do we always have to lose so many animals and people that belong to us? Why?”
    Sometime I’d have to bury both Mama and Aunt Carrie. One by one. Even though it was a warm June morning, the thought of their going turned me chilly. Ben Tanner had told me, less than a hour ago, that I would have to get growed-up. That meant a Shaker accepting of both life and death. There was no way to part one from the other.
    “Dog meat.” I said it aloud, so I would toughen enough to swallow what’s real. The words knifed into me. Standing there, looking down at our little farm, I wanted to be a boy again, with all around me that I knew and felt a part of. And no banking.
    Perhaps I’d been too rude to Mr. Gamp.
    The urge to apologize had simmered inside me since that Saturday morning at the bank. Neither my father nor my mother would have spoke what I told him. My feelings were right, yet my reason was wrong.
    Ben Tanner, in his silent way, had forgiven Mr. Gamp’s error. And if Ben could do it, tore apart, then so could Rob Peck. Made little sense to carry a hate. The load of it was burdensome. Too heavy to haul.
    Above me, the sun had been behind a cloud, but it sudden shined on me, warming the all of my person.
    “Daisy,” I said, “let’s go home.”
    Together, we walked down off the ridge to our place, to where we belonged. Peck land. Bending, I scooped up a clod of earth. In my hand it felt fresh and fertile, a woman awaiting seed.
    The day was still young. So I turned Daisy out into our meadow and made for the barn, and the many bags of seed corn that had rested there all winter long.
    Later, I was broadcasting. For years I’d watched Papa do it, walking our cornfield in May or early June with a sack of seed beneath his left armpit. He’d walk along steady and slow, at an even pace, never slowing, grabbing a handful of corn kernels. Then he’d hurl it in a arc before him, again and again, until his sack no longer bulged but sagged to empty. I felt proud to walk where he had walked. Following my father.
    The seeding took all day. Farming by hand isslow work. Yet with each hurling of my arm and scattering of seed, I felt renewed. Born again.
    This wouldn’t be table corn. It was silage. Field corn. With no Solomon and no Daisy, I could turn these two acres, that Solomon and I had plowed, into a money crop. For taxes. A pity that neither Solomon or Daisy would winter on what I now was sowing. Yet, in a way, I was working in their honor; they prospered on our land.
    I broadcasted my final bag.
    Sun would shine, and the wind and rain would help bury every seed. Easier than covering it with a hoe. Nature would be tucking my corn kernels into bed like wee children. All snug.
    Deep in the earth, a seed would begin to sprout and prosper. I’d broadcast. God, the Giver, would do the rest. Standing alone on a fresh-seeded field, the flow of farming was uplifting me. Up through my bare feet. An old Shaker saying crossed my mind, something Papa had told me: “Gratefulness is the highest note in the hymn of prayer.”
    Years ago, when I’d attended a local one-room schoolhouse during my early years of education, Miss Kelly had said likewise.
    “Teachers,” she said, “are like farmers. We are in charge of the green and the growing. Every morning, a farmer goes to his garden. Yet, in away, a teacher is luckier because my garden comes to me.”
    For some reason, I kept on standing out in the field of fresh-seeded corn. Alone with the Almighty. The pair of us. And I couldn’t have been granted a more worthy partner. Right then, I decided that I’d never beg the Lord to carry me through. But only that He would afford me the back to do it.
    “Hear me,” I told the sunshine. “I’m no longer a boy. You seen fit to promote me to manhood, so that’s what I’ll be. A man.”
    Looking at my skinny arms, I began to wonder if’n