Revolt of the Rats by Reed Blitzerman (feel good novels .txt) 📕

“WHAT IS FAITH, EVERETT?” Father was bent at the waist, looking Everett in the eye.

Everett shrugged his shoulders and then repeated what he’d heard Father say, so many times before, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.”

Father’s eyes rolled side to side, watchful of his expression. “So what does that mean to you?”

Everett pushed his hands into his pockets. “I don't really know.”

Father put on his straw hat and stood up straight. “When you know, son, when you know it in your heart, the world will be a different place.”

That had been their first conversation this morning, and then Father had left him to do his chores.

Everett Steiner was born of the earth. Or it seemed he was always covered by dirt. Father said Everett was a Golem, that he’d breathed life into clay by placing the hidden name of God on his tongue. Everett stuck his tongue out in the mirror but saw nothing. He looked it up the next trip to the library.

He was small, short, and thick across the shoulders for a ten-year-old, with a shock of dirty black hair. He’d been able to talk ten months after he was born, and run at two years. Now he did both at once, at full speed.

His mother had laid him out coveralls and a long-sleeved shirt this morning, to hold off the sunburn. Everett had insisted on dressing himself and got red in the face when she helped comb his hair.

He loved the stalks of corn and the sweet smells that came with them. He walked the rows now, enjoying the shade and cool touch of the cobs. He understood the patience necessary to put a seed in the ground and water it for a whole season, hoping for a result. He learned the faith to believe that those seeds would one day sprout and become a harvest.

Once again, he was alone. Father was gone today, helping some stranger, and his mother working on chores. He felt a jealousy for the sick stranger and the needy cows, as they took his parents away. Normally when his father had a call like this, he would take Everett with him. If they got done early enough, they would go by the store for a soda pop. Not today. Today his father had insisted that he go alone.

Father liked helping people even more than he’d liked farming. He and Everett sitting side by side in the dark, listening to some poor farmer with the grippe, a persistent cough, a stiffness in the neck, or occasionally something more.

Dad never had formal medical training, yet he was often asked to nurse the sick. Their spouse would be there as well, the strain evident in their voice. Father would capture their words, soundlessly, his head nodding a rhythm as they reeled out the symptoms. He was a slight man, slow to anger with the clearest brown eyes. Maybe that was why they trusted him.

He would ask a question in a low voice about how long had the fever been going on, had anything changed in their schedule, was there any exposure to wild animals? He would recommend a medicine, or sleep, or a specialist in that same voice. Then he would place his hand on his patient’s forehead if he was confident they would be alright.

They remained in his lap if news was bad. Patient might not survive. Or he was unsure. His prognoses were remarkably accurate. As the news traveled of the farmer healer, many a farm spouse watched his hands to detect the unspoken diagnosis.

If it was a close thing, he might fetch the medicine himself, Everett riding in the car with him, blowing out gusts of words, and then return to his charge remaining with them for hours or days until they recovered or passed on.

His kindness was well known. What he kept to himself and his family were his dreams. Sometimes he woke and dressed, his mouth would be hanging open, his eyes searching blindly for a sunrise that wouldn’t come for several hours. He would put his hand on mom’s side and say, “I just had the most amazing dream.” Everett knew. He could hear them.

In the beginning, she had ignored it, thought it the habit of a romantic, or the side effect of drink, until they started to come true.

It all began with a traveling salesman. Eli had received a message this morning to help a stranger; and as always, he had gone. The man had come to town hoping for a tidy sale but found the farmers here were no different than farmers everywhere else. They had no money.

He’d made a few sales calls the first couple of days and then holed up in his room at the bed and breakfast on Main Street, ordering plates brought up until his money had run out. The owner had gone upstairs to demand he settle his bill and found him listless and sweating, where he lay now, beside a flyblown plate of eggs and toast.

Since the town was too small for a doctor, Anise (“Like the spice,” her husband liked to say, “slightly bitter”), sent her boy to retrieve him and ask him to take a look.

Eli arrived at the failing light and followed Anise up the stairs. “Winston” was in the last room, end of the hall on the left. The shades were drawn, but the windows were wide open, trying to create a breeze to cool the man in the bed, wrapped in a loose cotton nightshirt.

He rolled over at the sound of the opening door. His face revealed a set of eyes near black, the light a gloss on steely pupils. His lips were red like blood lipstick, the skin so dry it cracked. Dehydrated, he’d sweated through the nightshirt and all the sheets.