Read L'Engle, Madeleine - A Ring of Endless Light for Free Online

and learning their language and setting down their traditions and their wisdom and their history-which were beginning to get lost as the elders died." "That's not what most people would consider being a missionary," Leo said. "But then of course your grandfather's not most people. What else?" "Well, he had a big church in Boston and he was tremendously popular. His sermons got rave reviews in the paper, and our grandmother used to tease him about women swooning over him. And just when the church was overflowing he handed in his resignation, like a bomb, and he and Gram went to a tiny mission church in Alaska. He was sixty, but the only way for him to get to all his congregation was by seaplane or helicopter, so he got a pilot's license, so nobody would go without at least one visit from him every few months." I'd started climbing and stopped to catch my breath. My climbing muscles hadn't been that much used in New York, and the backs of my legs felt the pull. Leo lived on the far, flatter side of the island, and I could hear him puffing behind me. It had been, I thought, a far more interesting morning than I'd anticipated. I'd learned about the complexity of human beings during the year in New York, but maybe not as much as I'd believed. Leo was certainly much less of a slob than I'd thought. 2 �*� I lost track of time while we were eating lunch, and that may have been just as well, because I wouldn't have known how to get rid of Leo tactfully if I'd realized how late it was getting. Anyhow, he was still there when Zach- ary arrived in his shiny black station wagon, tooting at the front door. Because the stable is built on the bluff where it elbows toward the sea, you get a good view of the ocean from both the front and the back of the house, though the kitchen and the porch have the better view. Our grandmother wanted it that way when they were remodeling, because she said she spent most of her time in the kitchen, and if the porch was next to the kitchen it could be used as a dining room for maybe seven months a year. Not that she was a slave to the kitchen like some of the supposedly grandma types on TV commercials for lemonade (artificial) or cake mixes. She was a Boston Bluestocking and a cordon-bleu cook, black hat, and Grandfather used to say that if the church went out of business they could always open a restaurant. 39 Zachary stood at the front door. He wore jodhpurs and a fawn-colored turtleneck, and he carried a crop with a silver handle which he was switching against his thigh. "Want to come in for a minute?" I asked, not sure what to do about Leo. "Why not?" I led him in by the side door, pointing out the baby swallows. The three parents were swooping around anxiously, and Zachary seemed amused by the strange menage a trois. "Immoral little buggers, aren't they?" He grinned at me. Once indoors, he looked around, still flicking his crop, glancing into the stalls with all their books; sagging, comfortable chairs; the double stall that was Grandfather's office; and the one next to it, with a long map of the world on the outside wall, which let down to become a table for cold or rainy weather. There was plenty of both on the Island. "Intriguing," Zachary said. "It looks rather like-" "It is," I replied. "It was." "A stable?" "Yes." "A big one, then." "Yeah. It belonged to rich friends of my grandparents, the Woods, who have the big house about half a mile down the road." "They must have an imaginative architect." "My grandmother." "Seriously?" "She could do almost anything she put her hand to." "Will I meet her?" "No. She died a few years after Grandfather retired." 40 "Oh, I remember," Zachary said. "He's the minister." He sounded as though he was saying that Grandfather was involved in organized crime. No-as a matter of fact, Zach- ary probably had considerable respect for organized crime. Everybody was still sitting around the table. Zachary said a general hello, politely, and then looked pointedly at Leo. I