Free The Language of Paradise: A Novel by Barbara Klein Moss

remarkable.”
    “I’m glad you sense it. Micah has a depth that is missing in his brothers. I wish my firstborn had a tenth of his seriousness. Sam was once handsome to look at, agreeable in company, but a shallow stream. At seminary he lasted less than a year. Instead of attending to his studies, he entangled himself with a clothier’s daughter, and now he’s locked in a hasty marriage, working in her father’s shop in Lowell.” The parson took off his hat and fanned at a circling bee. “The education I gave to Sam would have been better spent on Micah, but to what end? He will never preach.” Hedge’s voice was too flat for bitterness, but his face clenched as if the bee had stung him. “At times I’m weak enough to cry out about his condition. The sins of the fathers, Mr. Birdsall. I know all too well why the Lord hobbled his tongue.”
    The dog was waiting at the door, and Reverend Hedge took his leave of Gideon there; he had to help his sons with evening chores. “Micah will be out,” he said, “but my wife will show you a few of his pieces. Or Sophia. She loves to trumpet her brother’s talents.”

CHAPTER 6
    ____
    A SINGLE EYE

    G IDEON WALKED THROUGH THE HALL ON THE BALLS OF his feet, trying to keep from pressing too loudly on the floorboards. He hoped Mrs. Hedge was busy elsewhere. She would insist on giving him a complete tour of the house and its contents, and he would never get away before nightfall.
    Sophy was in the sitting room, at her easel by the window, blessedly alone. She looked up brightly when he came in, as if she were surprised to see him. “There you are, Mr. Birdsall! I’ve been waiting all day to show you my chair, but you took so long with Papa that I worked on my picture instead.”
    “May I see it? I’ve just been admiring your fountain.” He stood at a respectful distance, wary of coming closer with only the two of them in the room. The canvas was clearly visible: a hut under a low-hanging fog of foliage, vaguely suggested in thick strokes of green.
    “Please don’t look. You mustn’t, it’s not finished.” She stood and blocked the easel with her body: a gesture that struck him as too functional to be coy. “It needs a cow, I think. I’m very fond of cows, but I never can get them right. Mine always look like barrels with tails.”
    Gideon laughed, relieved that he wouldn’t have to conjure up profound remarks about the painting. Her dancing was far superior to her artwork, but he understood that he must make no reference to it. “Then I’ll have to settle for Micah’s chair,” he said.
    Sophy wasn’t as pristine as she’d appeared that morning: a ribbon of hair had come loose and broken the symmetry of her face, and a smudge of green marred one cheek—a suitable emblem, Gideon thought: the elf in her coming to the surface. But even these flaws were a charm.
    She showed him a chest of drawers first, and then a clock that Micah and the Reverend were building—a labor of love, she explained; the intricate works still claimed their evenings, though the case had been completed months ago. Proudly she pointed out fine details in the carving, little flourishes that differentiated her brother’s style from the father’s. “And they’ve asked me to decorate the face,” she said. “Isn’t that trusting of them? I’ve already made some sketches. I wish my hand were as sure as Micah’s. The design is in my head, but what I paint is so far from what I dream.”
    “I’ve had the same experience with my translations,” Gideon said. “But the important thing is to have a dream, don’t you think? It’s like a compass. It points us in the direction we’re meant to go.”
    The thought seemed to delight her. “I’ll think of myself as traveling, then,” she said, “and not be so unhappy that I haven’t arrived. I can tell that you’re a very determined person, Mr. Birdsall. You will surely reach your destination.”
    Sophy’s chair was made of oak like