The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

To everyone who ever lied and found their way back to the truth,
K
EEP
R
EADING.

M
Y NAME IS
H
OMER
P. F
IGG
, and these are my true adventures. I mean to write them down, every one, including all the heroes and cowards, and the saints and the scalawags, and them stained with the blood of innocents, and them touched by glory, and them that was lifted into Heaven, and them that went to the Other Place.

I say my “true” adventures because I told a fib to a writer once, who went and put it in the newspapers about me and my big brother, Harold, winning the battle at Gettysburg, and how we shot each other dead but lived to tell the tale. That’s partly true, about winning the battle, but most ways it’s a lie.

Telling the truth don’t come easy to me, but I will try, even if old Truth ain’t nearly as useful as a fib sometimes.

The
P
stands for Pierce, which I got from our mother, Abigail Pierce Figg, that perished of fever and left me and Harold under the care of her late sister’s husband, Squinton Leach. Our father, Henry Figg, died of a felled tree before I came into this world, and when Mother passed away, our fortunes went from bad to worse, because Squinton Leach was the meanest man in the entire state of Maine. I tell a lie — there was a meaner man in Bangor once, that poisoned cats for fun, but old Squint was the hardest man in Somerset County. A man so mean he squeezed the good out of the Holy Bible and beat us with it, and swore that God Himself had inflicted me and Harold on him, like he was Job and we was Boils and Pestilence.

Squinton Leach. Just writing down his name gives me the shivers. Our mother was a kindly schoolmarm and taught us to speak proper, so I can’t tell you exactly what I think of Squinton Leach, but it approximates what I think of a rabid skunk, or scabs on my backside, or a bad toothache.

Me and Harold tried not to take it personal because Squint hated everything. We just happened to be included, as he’d got stuck with us.

Once I made a list of the things Squint can’t abide.

Then I run out of paper. Parson Reed, of the Pine Swamp Congregational Church, he once said Squinton Leach was aggrieved of life, but I think he just flat out enjoyed being hateful. Enjoyed it the way some men take to whiskey or rum. Old Squint got so much pleasure from meanness that he kept on being mean, no matter what. And the worst of his cruelty got aimed at my brother, Harold, who was always sticking up for me and getting stuck himself.

That’s how it all started, our true adventures, with Harold sticking up for me.

One day I’m feeding the hogs and Squint catches me chawing on a scrap of stale bread he throwed in with the slops.

“That’s intended for the hogs,” he says. “Not for the likes of you.”

I keep on eating, wanting to get as much of it down as possible. Expecting to get pummeled and maybe kicked some, too, if he was in the mood. But when Squint raises his fist to strike me, Harold catches him by the wrist.

“The boy is hungry, Uncle. Truth is, we’re both half starved. You feed them hogs better than you feed us.”

Squint’s face swells up red and bloated. He curses and makes to hit both of us, but he can’t get free of Harold, who is scrawny but strong. Finally Squint trips over his own two feet and ends up facedown in the hog pen, covered with mud and worse.

That’s when he really gets mad.

Me and Harold don’t wait around to see what happens next. We hightail it into the barn and bolt the door from the inside. Through the cracks we watch as old Squint drags himself up from the mud and staggers into the house.

Inside the house is where he keeps his guns.

“He means to shoot us dead,” I decide.

Harold shakes his head. “Uncle needs us to work the farm.”

“Wound us, then.”

“Whatever he aims to do, I’ll stop him,” Harold says, real firm and certain. Like he’s discovered something about Squint and will use it to keep us safe. Like he’s finally growed up enough to throw the old man down in the mud, if need be.

We wait inside the barn, studying the house until we spy Squint slinking out the side door.

Sure enough he’s got his old flintlock squirrel rifle, but much to my surprise he don’t come at us with it. Instead he marches over to the paddock. Next thing he’s scrambled up on Bob the horse and off they go in a cloud of dust, or as much dust as that old horse can raise.

“Gone to fetch the sheriff,” I say. “He means to hang us.”

Harold gives me a look. “You know he hates the sheriff worse than he hates us.”

“Where’s he got to, then?”

It don’t feel right, Squint leaving instead of kicking the door down and whomping on us like usual. Thing of it is, I’d rather take a beating than whatever he’s got in mind, riding off like that.

Harold sees I’m worried sick. “Don’t fret, little brother. I got a notion what we should do.”

“Let’s do it, then.”

Anything is better than waiting for Squint.

Harold says he’ll be eighteen his next birthday and the time has come for us to run away and make a life for ourselves. He says we can get hired in a logging camp and be logging men, with axes and saws and such. The way Harold tells it, I can see the campfires and smell the stew bubbling in the big iron pots and hear the rumble of green giants shaking the earth as they fall.

We’ll ride great logs on big rivers, and get paid in gold dust and beef, and one day we’ll own the forest itself and everything in it, that’s how fine Harold makes it sound.

I’m chopping down trees in my head, happy as ever I’ve been, when Squinton Leach comes back with a crew of men to lynch us.

I
T DON
’
T TAKE
’
EM LONG
to find us hiding in the loft. We’re under that moldy old hay, holding still as rabbits when they bust down the barn door.