Free The Fires of Spring by James A. Michener

again, for she saw in the brightly dressed boy a symbol of those plans which she feared could never come to fulfillment.
    “A new
suit
, too?” she bellowed, and reaching out with her bony hands, she ripped the coat down the front. She tore at the shirt. Still unappeased, she slapped David violently, and his nose began to bleed.
    Crazy Luther, seeing this, could stand the scene no longer and grabbed Miss Reba by the waist. “He’s
crazy
!” Aunt Reba screamed in fright, but mad Luther gripped her furiously.
    “Luther!” David shouted. “Put her down!” Impersonally, Luther dropped the frantic woman and went to David.
    “Look what she done to that suit!” the mad Dutchman mumbled.
    “I don’t want it,” David cried, and even though Luther tried to stop him, the boy ripped away the remainder of his coat and threw it among the crushed flowers. When he was gone, Luther salvaged the garment and sneaked it over to Mrs. Krusen.
    “Don’t let the old witch see it!” Luther cautioned.
    “If she says a word,” Mrs. Krusen threatened, “I’ll stab her eyes out with a needle.”
    In three days the coat was back, almost as good as new. David never asked how it got there, for he had no desire to wear it. It was a bloody thing, bought with Old Daniel’s pennies, and David despised it. In his old poorhouse clothes he had walked with kings, fought at Troy, wandered across Arabia, lived in a mill with Rembrandt, and made a dozen friends. It was the new coat that put him in a poorhouse.
    David was convinced that he would have to fight Harry Moomaugh. Harry had said things about him, and that was that. But next day, when he looked at Harry in school, his ardor was considerably diminished. Harry was a big boy. He was two inches taller than David and at least fifteen pounds heavier.
    Nevertheless, David was determined to avenge his honor, and all week he picked on Harry, but Moomaugh, never having lost a fight, had no inner compulsion to hit anyone, so he laughed at David’s arrogance.
    On Sunday David was in a surly mood. Even the minister’s words made him angry: “As I look at you people I have come to call my friends, I see that the finest of you all has gone. I knew Daniel Brisbane as well as one man can know another. He was noble, good in all ways, kind to everyone, jealous of no one, a true servant of the Lord. He was a great comfort to me when I started preaching in Doylestown. When my faith grew weary, I refreshed it at the soul and smile of Daniel Brisbane. He never complained. He spent his worldly goods helping others and refused to call upon them for repayment. He taught the teachers and he ministered to the ministers. He lived with the Lord, and when he died he returned to the Lord. He called on no man for aid. His call was upon God, and God replied by giving him that sweetness of life which is denied so many.”
    At first David wanted to cry as he remembered Old Daniel, but instead he took refuge by laughing at the minister. “A lot he knows!” the boy grunted to himself. “Called upon the Lord, did he? Well, I was there when he died. And he called on Sam Somebody. And when he died he cursed something awful.” David dropped his head and glared at the minister.
    But late that night he considered what the man had said. Had he, this minister, come to the poorhouse for help? That was incredible. To David it had always been the other way around. Mrs. Moomaugh brought things to the poorhouse. So did the other women, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. When the inmates became sick, the nurse phoned their names in to town, and people brought them flowers and baked custard. Suddenly he hated charity: the smirk on women’s faces when they brought things, the smell of another boy’s clothes, and Marcia Paxson. Caught in the bursting realizations of life, he became the impotent slave of his resentment. “I’ll smash Harry Moomaugh in the nose!” he groaned.
    Like every trouble-seeker, David got his chance. He was