Free Weeds in Bloom by Robert Newton Peck Page A

normally a ruddy color, a result of outdoor logging in northern Vermont’s wind and bitter cold. Now, as he strained, his cheeks reddened to the shade of an embarrassed beet. Mildred still refused to defy gravity.
    I heard Buck say a shameful word.
    Hauling in a deep breath, Buck strained again. This time, all four hoofs lifted up off the ground. Inch by inch, Buck’s tree-trunk legs began to straighten, and Mildred became elevated to free and clear. Knees locked, Buck stood up tall and proud, turning a complete circle, possibly to allow Mildred a good look at a crowd of doubters. She seemed unimpressed.
    Everybody made some sort of a noise: a sigh of relief or a groan of disappointment, depending on how a person had wagered.
    Mildred brayed, a sound that sawed through the air, so Buck set her gently down and then gave her a hug and a pat. Buck Dillard wasn’t a man who’d smile every decade, but he certain was doing it now. All it did was make his scar appear to be deeper, meaner, and more painful.
    His real name wasn’t Buck.
    It was Maurice.
    Buck didn’t favor his given name, not from a neighbor or a stranger. Just hearing “Maurice” seemed to sour his soul. And double his good fist. In fact, there was only one citizen in the entire county that ever called him Maurice and survived it. She was my teacher, Miss Kelly, the smallest and most birdlike little lady in our community.
    There was a rumor that persisted about thosetwo. Seems that Buck and some other loggers were in town one evening to sign on with a new timber company to skid rough spruce down off the mountain to the pulp mill. All the men signed the work docket except for one. Buck didn’t know how to sign his name.
    So he didn’t get hired.
    That was the very night, so the story goes, he pounded on Miss Kelly’s door, apologized, then begged her to teach him how to use his left hand to write his name.
    Maurice Dillard.
    He’d balked at writing the Maurice part, so Miss Kelly told him that signing on as M. Dillard would do. And if this proved inadequate, she personally would speak to the company foreman on Buck’s behalf.
    Buck, fortified by his newly acquired talent (plus a few swallows from a jug), signed the docket the very next morning when the crew was being assembled. With a bit less ease than he’d lifted the mule, using his good left hand, he picked up the pencil stub, wet the lead tip in his mouth, made a few warm-up circles to be fancy, and signed:
    M. Dillard
    It took him over a minute, but Buck completedhis scrawl, slapping the pencil down with triumphant finality.
    The foreman, a stranger in these parts, eyed Buck’s messy signature and then promptly made a major mistake. “What’s the
M
stand for?” he asked.
    “Mildred,” hooted a lumberjack, a fellow of wit and the brains of a Chiclet.
    Several others laughed.
    So, a fight broke out. Needless to say, Buck Dillard started it, finished it, and enjoyed every punch and kick from beginning to end. By the time the dust cleared, the docket of able-bodied workers got shortened by several names. To make matters worse, the company paymaster couldn’t hear (or think) too well, and Buck’s first paycheck was made out to Mildred Dillard.
    All the paychecks were cut at the company headquarters. It was corporate policy to print in a first name as well as a last. As a result, there ensued a week-after-week brawl on paydays, with Buck playing a major role.
    It took Miss Kelly to straighten it all out by writing an explanatory letter to the company. Future checks were issued to M. Buck Dillard.
    Peace was restored. Buck promised Miss Kelly that he’d ease up on drinking and try water. Surprisingly, he did.
    From then on, a cleaned-and-dressed caponready to stuff and roast got delivered personally to Miss Kelly every Christmas by a very beefy delivery boy. When she died, the same giant of a man carried her coffin in his arms, as easy as a child would tote a favorite rag doll inside a shoe box. I