Grandfather's Dance (5 page)

“I know. I want to.”

Jack and I walked up to the hilltop behind the house and sat under the one tree that grew there. Jack didn’t look at me. He picked a piece of grass and stared at it.

The aunts had told me that Jack didn’t understand. But I knew better. I took a deep breath.

“Jack?”

Jack didn’t look up.

“Jack, I want you to listen. I want you to listen to something very important.”

There was silence. Insects buzzed in the grass. Finally Jack looked up at me. His eyes were blue and sharp.

“Grandfather loved you, Jack. He loved you more than anyone else.”

Jack stared at me. After a long time he reached over and touched me.

Tears came to my eyes. I smiled because I knew what he meant.

“Yes, he loved me, too. And we don’t ever have to forget him. We won’t.”

Jack didn’t say anything, but I knew he understood my words. We sat for a long, long time. The sun began to set. I stood up. Nothing seemed the same. The land didn’t look the same anymore. The sky looked different. I stared down at the farm that was once Grandfather’s farm.

There was a small rustle beside me. Jack took my hand, his hand warm in mine. Together we walked down the hill.

Grandfather would have liked his funeral. The aunts dressed up like they had for
the wedding. Even Aunt Lou wore a dress and high-heeled shoes. All the townspeople came. They told stories about Grandfather. Sometimes they had conversations about him.

“Once he saved a horse of mine.”

“That horse never should have been saved!”

“I remember how he loved to cut the hay.”

“He hated cutting the hay.”

“Oh, no he didn’t. Sometimes he sang when he cut the hay.”

“He taught me how to ride a horse,” said Aunt Lou. “And he was nice about it.”

“He didn’t love my music,” said Aunt Harriet.

“He did, in the end,” said Aunt Mattie.

Caleb told about when Grandfather first came.

“Cassie found him. He had been gone for many years, and Cassie talked to him so much, as if she wanted to fill up all those years. He couldn’t make her stop, but he never cared. Because he loved her.”

“Cassie?” said Papa.

“Grandfather gave me a wedding,” I said. No one laughed when I said it.

Words about Grandfather floated around our heads. And then, when it was time to bury him, it was quiet again.

Papa’s voice was clear and strong and sad.

“We were stronger having him,” he said.

Tears came to Papa’s eyes, and Mama put her arm around him. And then Jack walked up to Papa and then away a bit. As everyone watched, he did a little dance, turning around and around with his hands up in the air just the way Grandfather had done. Grandfather’s dance.

“He understands,” said Mama, starting to cry. “Jack
understands.
”

Jack did the dance again. Then, for the first time in a long time, Jack smiled.

It is quiet here without Caleb and William and the aunts. Mostly quiet without Grandfather. There is a great space where he used to be.

Jack is quiet some of the time. Other times he acts as if Grandfather might be just around the corner. Or in the barn. Sometimes he wears Grandfather’s big black hat, so he acts like him and looks like him, too.

Joshua came and brought us the family pictures. And there we are, Aunt Harriet with her hat flying away in the wind, me looking up and smiling at Grandfather, Jack asleep on Mama’s lap. Lottie and Nick leaning next to us.

And there is the picture of Grandfather in front of the barn with his big black hat: me on one side, Jack on the other, standing so like Grandfather.

When Jack saw the picture he went to get Grandfather’s black hat. He put it on. He pointed to the picture.

“Boppa,” he whispered.

Grandfather is here.

About the Author

John MacLachlan

PATRICIA M
AC
LACHLAN
is the celebrated author of many timeless books for young readers, including
Sarah, Plain and Tall
, winner of the Newbery Medal. Her novels for young readers include
Arthur, For the Very First Time
;
The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
;
Skylark
;
Caleb’s Story
;
More Perfect Than the Moon
;
Grandfather’s Dance
;
Word After Word After Word
; and
Kindred Souls
. She is also the author of many much-loved picture books, including
Three Names
;
All the Places to Love
;
What You Know First
;
Painting the Wind
;
Bittle
;
Who Loves Me?
;
Once I Ate a Pie
;
I Didn’t Do It
;
Before You Came
; and
Cat Talk
—several of which she cowrote with her daughter, Emily. She lives with her husband and two border terriers in Williamsburg, Massachusetts.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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Author’s Note

I
began writing about the Witting family in
Sarah, Plain and Tall
and have been telling their stories ever since. It is bittersweet for me to end my writing relationship with them and all the extended family in the book
Grandfather’s Dance
. I know I won’t end my
personal
relationship with them; the characters are too much a part of my life. Their landscape is mine, one I left behind many years ago—partly my father’s landscape in North Dakota, my mother’s in Kansas, and mine in Wyoming. I live in the East now, but writing these stories has kept my childhood close.

The “real” Sarah was my step-great-great-grandmother, though I never knew many things about her. For my books, I invented her personality, the family and life she left in Maine, and her thoughts and fears. In many ways, this has strengthened my connection with my past.

The dogs and cats are friends to me; some I have patterned after my own pets, past and present. And the grandfather is modeled after my own father, who told stories about the prairie, the horses, the farm dogs, the storms, the harsh winters, and the droughts. Somehow, he is there in every story.

And so am I.

Also by Patricia MacLachlan

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Skylark

Caleb’s Story

More Perfect than the Moon

Grandfather’s Dance

Arthur, For the Very First Time

Through Grandpa’s Eyes

Cassie Binegar

Seven Kisses in a Row

Unclaimed Treasures

The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt

Word After Word After Word

Kindred Souls

Mama One, Mama Two

All the Places to Love

What You Know First

Three Names

The Truth of Me

Written with Emily MacLachlan Charest

Painting the Wind

Bittle

Who Loves Me?

Once I Ate a Pie

Fiona Loves the Night

I Didn’t Do It

Before You Came

Cat Talk

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Credits

Cover art © 2013 by Jim Madsen

Copyright

Grandfather’s Dance

Copyright © 2006 by Patricia MacLachlan

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

MacLachlan, Patricia.

      Grandfather’s dance / by Patricia MacLachlan. — 1st ed.

            p.      cm.

      Summary: As her family gathers for the wedding of her sister Anna, fourth-grader Cassie Witting sees the many changes brought about by everyday life and finds comfort in the love of those around her, especially her grandfather.

      ISBN 978-0-06-134003-1

      EPub Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780062285744

      [1. Family life—Fiction. 2. Grandfathers—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M2225Gr   2006

[Fic]—dc22

2006000463

CIP

AC