v.t. [Fr. Essayer. ASSAY.] To exert one’s power or facilities on; to make an effort to perform; to try; to attempt; to endeavor to do; to make experiment of. —n. An effort made for the performance of anything; a trial, attempt, or endeavor; a test or experiment; a literary composition intended to prove some particular point or illustrate a particular subject, not having the importance of a regular treatise; a short disquisition on a subject of taste, philosophy, or common life.
finch, n. [A. Sax. finc = G. Dan. And Sw. fink, finke, Gr. spiza.] A large family (Fringillidae) of small song-birds, including the bunting, sparrow, and goldfinch, having a small conical beak adapted to cracking seeds.
pout, v.i. [From W. pwtiaw, to push, or from dial Fr. pout, potte, Pr. pot, the lip.] To thrust out the lips, as in sullenness, contempt, or displeasure; hence, to look sullen; to swell out, as the lips; to be prominent.
opal, n. [L. opalus, Gr. opallios, an opal; comp. Skr. upala, a precious stone.] A precious stone of various colors and varieties, the finest characterized by its iridescent reflection of light, and formerly believed to possess magical virtues.
tinder, n. [A. Sax. tynder, tender, from tyndan, tendan, to kindle (Dan. taende, G. züden) = Sw. and L. G. tunder, Icel. Tundr, D. tonder, G. zunder, tinder.] An inflammable substance generally composed of partially burned linen, used for kindling fire from a spark struck with a steel and flint.
umbra, n. [L., a shadow.] The total shadow of the earth or moon in an eclipse, or the dark cone projected from a planet or satellite on the side opposite to the sun, as contrasted with the penumbra; the dark, central portion of a sunspot surrounded by a brighter, annular portion.
After deciding, he’d turned to each entry in The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language and penciled the dog’s number, litter number, and birth date in the margin:
D 1114
L 171
6/3/72
The margins were small and filled with annotations, and he had to write carefully, sideways when the word appeared in the middle of the three columns of definitions. After he’d finished, he’d returned the dictionary to its place on the filing cabinets next to the master litter book.
Baboo was the largest of the litter. He could set his front paws on Edgar’s shoulders and lick his face with ease. Essay, the wild one, and the leader, liked to play tricks. Tinder flung himself on any sibling he found asleep, growling them into a wrestling match; only Opal could back him into a corner. Pout was thoughtful, sober, and cautious, Finch, a study in earnest impulsiveness. Umbra, black from head to toe, was a watcher, a retreater to corners. They were all ferociously undisciplined and forgetful, but good-natured, too, and sweet to look at. And—for short periods, at least—they reveled in the training.
THE BARN ROOF HAD LONG been completed and another litter whelped and named. As part of his work as the medicine man of the kennel (as Trudy started calling him), Claude took the newest litters of pups under his care. Edgar’s father used the extra time to place yearlings and plan litters, spending days on the telephone and writing letters and poring over records. But no sooner did this arrangement seem comfortable than arguments between his father and Claude began to erupt.
“I’m not some fucking stray you lured in,” Claude said, during one particularly acrimonious exchange over his casual adherence to the pups’ schedules.
“Of course not,” Edgar’s father replied. “You know me. I’d shoot you if you were.”
When things were easiest between them, it was his mother’s doing: she mocked their arguments, laughingly, or interposed herself and flirted; when a discussion threatened to slide from fervent to angry, she’d lay a hand on Edgar’s father’s wrist and he’d look at her, startled, as if he had just remembered something. Then, days of amicable banter, visits from Doctor Papineau, evenings watching television. But Edgar knew the moment he walked in the door when there had been another incident. He’d find his father at the kitchen table, shoulders hunched, glowering at his paperwork. If one of them walked into a room, the other found a reason to leave, and Edgar’s mother would sigh in exasperation. And yet, two mornings later, they would be talking again at breakfast and that would be that.
One morning, his father announced that they’d better collect firewood before they got a snow that stuck. This was work they did each fall, cutting the aspen and birch cordwood they’d stacked in the spring alongside the old logging road that cut though their woods.
Can I drive? Edgar asked.
He meant Alice, their old orange Allis-Chalmers C tractor, with its curved fenders and half-moon drawbar. In place of a bucket seat, Alice had a flat padded bench upon which two could ride, though the passenger had to put his arm around the driver and hold one of the uprights. Over the years, Edgar had graduated from running the throttle to steering with his father’s hand resting on the wheel, to shifting, and lately, to clutching and braking.
He met his father behind the barn and they walked to Alice together. Edgar settled himself behind the wheel and his father took the crank to the front and slotted it into the hole beneath the radiator grill and hauled the crank over. There was a muffled pop from inside the engine and a belch of sooty smoke escaped the stack, but afterward the engine sat inert. He tried again. Then he walked to the milk house and returned with a can of starter fluid in his hand and he tipped up a hinged plate inside Alice’s carburetor and emptied a long spray into its gullet. He walked to the front of the tractor again. He touched the bill of his cap and rubbed his hands together and hauled the crank over. There was a gunshot sound and the handle bucked wildly backward. “Ho!” he said. “We’ve got her attention now. Give it another notch.” Edgar nodded and ratcheted up the throttle lever. This time Alice gave out a roar and from her stack poured a black cloud of exhaust.
The day was warm. A gray cloud ceiling stretched from horizon to horizon and the light coming through cast no shadows on the ground. Edgar backed the tractor up to the ancient iron-wheeled wagon parked at the edge of the south field. His father swung the yoke into place and dropped the hitch pin through and slid onto the seat beside him. They chugged around to the front of the barn, where Claude set the chainsaw and gasoline in the wagon and stepped onto the yoke.
“Haw!” he shouted, and they set off. At the bottom of the slope behind the barn his father reached over and goosed the throttle lever three notches. Edgar gulped and gripped the steering wheel and they shot past the woodchucks in the rock pile, all standing in a line, hands prayerful against fat bellies. His father tipped his hat to each animal in turn, shouting, “Ma’am. Ma’am. Ladies.” Then Claude snagged a passing clod of dirt and pitched it overhand, sending the matrons scampering into the rocky crevices.
They crossed the field. Two tremendous birches marked the entrance to the logging road at the edge of the woods. Their leaves blanketed the ground brown and yellow, and their white trunks were decorated with speckled curls of paper. Edgar throttled back, ready to turn the driving over to his father, but his father motioned Edgar ahead. Claude hung out from behind the seat and looked up the trail. When he saw what was coming, he hopped off the yoke and walked alongside. Edgar notched the throttle down and guided Alice through the pools of frost-brown fern cascading over the path. He jackknifed the wagon trying to back it up to the first eight-foot cordwood stack. Then he killed the engine trying to straighten it out.
You do it, Edgar signed.
“Try again,” his father said. He walked to Alice’s front end and cranked it back to life. Edgar ground the shift level into reverse and sweated and listened as his father and uncle shouted instructions.
“Left. Go left
