Mary Ann Alice

Mary Ann Alice — page 5 — just disappear But that’s what’s going to happen they say And I’m very worried about it And another thing The whole river’s going to come up The water will rise up How far up will it come Everybody says different Some say it won’t come up much at all Others say it will come up to your front door Others say those who read the Bible all the time that they’re going to build themselves an ark like Noah did and get in it and wait Eddy Lamarr says he’s going to build an ark up on top of Dizzy Peak which is on his land His wife Lizzie says he can build it all he wants but she’ll never get in it My father Frank McCrank says it’s just like in the Bible Noah in the Bible had a terrible time trying to get his wife Mrs Noah to get in and sit in his ark My father says Noah and what’s her name his wife hated each other because they both snored in their sleep How he knows this is beyond me I think he’s only pulling my leg My father likes to joke and tease Lots of people who like to joke and tease only do it to cover up how they’re not very smart themselves But my father does it because he likes you And he’s very smart as well as being poetic He studied engineering for a while before he came up the Gatineau to become a farmer He’s worried about the river rising too

Mary Ann Alice — page 6 — 2 Developments TODAY’S the day of the big church picnic Father Foley says it’s the last church picnic that will ever be held here at the falls All this’ll be under cement in a few months Everybody’s here and there’s so much to think about while I’m helping with the supper The tables underneath the trees are bending with the weight of what’s to eat There’s bees and wasps and butterflies and small birds fluttering over the food And there’s Mickey McGuire Jr over there working on the firewood for the stew pot hanging there I’m going to kiss Mickey McGuire Jr one day I don’t know when but I’m going to kiss him There’s small white clouds in the blue sky I’m excited but I don’t know why Something’s going to happen but I don’t know what And I almost feel afraid Patchy my teacher says poets always feel that way Excited and sort of afraid So much to think about The heat bugs are singing There’s grasshoppers arching You can sidespy them in the tall grass around and about the upper field Oh another thing I should tell you I’m developing very quick or so my mother says My father started for a while calling me Sprout I told him to stop it and he did My father’s a joker like I told you but he never goes too far He knows when to quit not like some around here

Mary Ann Alice — page 7 — Like the ferryman Fitzpatrick down the river below the falls at Fitzpatrick’s Ferry Sometimes if he’s dropping off a passenger on a real dark night and the passenger is drunk Fitzpatrick’ll pull up not quite to the shore and yell All right we’re here Step off And of course the passenger steps off and falls into the water up to his neck It’s usually Boiled Head McCooey who falls for it Now that’s not funny Poor Boiled Head His head is so boiled he doesn’t know where he is half the time Everybody says it’s because he was in World War I but never mind any of that Now that I’m developing my mother gets me to bind myself ever since I told her I get a bit sore after scrubbing the floor or square dancing like I did this summer when I got to go to the dance at Low and danced with Mickey McGuire Jr the whole night My mother sewed me a hem on a white strip off a sheet and I wrapped myself and she tied it at the back While she was tying it I told her I felt like kissing Mickey McGuire Jr the other day while we were walking through the covered bridge I told her I’d tell Father Foley the new young priest from Farrellton about me and Mickey Jr and the covered bridge in my next confession and she said never mind telling him anything about the likes of that What you do in that regard she said is your own business Father Foley is busy enough she said without me bothering him with stories about things I’m only thinking of doing and haven’t even done yet And even if I did kiss Mickey McGuire Jr in the covered bridge or let him kiss me in some future time it would be none of Father Foley’s business anyway She said priests know far too much about people’s private life as it is They often say around here that my mother is sometimes what you call outspoken

Mary Ann Alice — page 8 — Now I don’t have to get my mother to tie me at the back with the strip of sheet anymore I leave the knot in and I get the strip off by slipping it down and stepping out of it To put it back on I just step into it and wriggle it back up until I’m in it It feels good being wrapped like that I don’t get so sore anymore after cutting wood or churning butter or rowing the boat And I’m wondering if Mickey McGuire Jr and I will be walking through the covered bridge again sometime soon Mickey McGuire Jr is Ronnie O’Rourke’s great-nephew Mickey Jr s father came to live with Ronnie O’Rourke when he was about my age He escaped here with Gramma Nora who is Great-uncle Ronald’s sister That was after her husband who was also called Mickey McGuire stole Great-uncle Ronnie’s horse Second Chance Lance and ran into the train Maybe you heard about that It’s very complicated like everything else around here Then Great-uncle Ronnie married Cecelia Hickey in a big Thanksgiving Day wedding and now they have seven kids Mickey Jr s father Mickey Sr grew up and married Martha McCooey daughter of old Boner McCooey and they had Mickey Jr who’s about my age now and who walked me through the covered bridge when the whippoorwill was singing so many bright tunes that your ears would get painful just listening to all of it But never mind all that You’ll never be able to keep it straight anyway so just forget I ever tried to explain it in the first place In the covered bridge we stopped for a minute and leaned on the rail and looked down into the water of Stag Creek rushing down toward the Gatineau River and we listened to the whippoorwill

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