Cal, do you remember the farm we were at a few days ago, the one with all the children?” asked the Professor.

Calaban’s face was blank for a moment, then it filled with joy.  “Cal fly! Boy fly!”

“That’s right, Cal, that’s the one.”  The Professor smiled at his companion.

Both men were sitting on logs around a campfire.  Reaching out with a long stick, the Professor stirred the growing bed of coals.  The firewood shifted and fell, sending a thick spray of sparks into the night.  For a moment the heavy wall of darkness surrounding them drew back, then the darkness descended once more.

The night was cool, for it was August in Vermont, a time of shifting seasons.  Crickets chirped loudly while a few brave fireflies danced in the darkness, despite the crisp air.

Since they were camped on a flat piece of ground near a shallow river, the men could hear the soft sound of rushing water.

The Professor looked up at the night sky and silently studied the stars.  There was no moon, making the stars very visible.  When his eyes had adjusted, he spotted a shooting star.

“Look, Cal!  Look up at the sky, there are so many stars tonight!”  The two men looked upward, their eyes remained riveted on the sky.  They were mesmerized by the intense glow of the Milky Way.  To the north they could see the Big Dipper hanging low to the earth.  Then, as if in response to their gaze, stars started shooting one after another.

“Why it must be time for meteor showers,” said the Professor.

As he spotted each star shooting across the night sky, Cal emitted a moan of awe that sounded like the word itself:  “AWWWWE!”

The Professor laughed aloud.   He was enjoying Cal’s reaction as much as the cosmic show itself.

As Cal moaned again, the Professor thought he saw the sky blink on and off in a flash.

“I must be imagining it,” he muttered to himself.  But then the sky blinked again, and again, until the Professor knew it wasn’t his imagination.  He looked to the north where he could see a definite flashing effect.

“What a night, Cal!  We’ve even got a small show of Northern Lights!”

Finally, his neck stiff from looking up, the Professor returned to studying the glowing coals of the fire.  Then he said to Cal, “You know, I can’t quite get out of my mind that school teacher, Laura Mary Alice.  There was so much I liked about her.  She’s articulate, independent, sensitive.  Why she can even quote Shakespeare as rapidly as I!  And I certainly enjoyed those children — smart as a whip and yet respectful, too.”

“Kids here.”

“No, there’s no one here but us, Cal.”  A light breeze blew through the nearby pines, making a mournful sound as the Professor sighed.  “It’s a lonely life sometimes.”

“Kids here,”Cal insisted.

“Hey Professor!  Hey Cal!” Will called out just before entering the campfire’s circle of light.

The greeting startled the Professor, then he saw Will in the light.  “Will! We were just talking — Ben, Becca, and . . . Laura Mary Alice! — we were just talking about you.  This is a lovely surprise.  Come, sit around the fire with us.  Would you like some tea?”  He began to gather cups and brew tea in the iron kettle set on a rock by the fire.  “Cal and I just picked this camomile today up on Galusha Hill.  We were selling books at the Eastman farm.”

“They got a two-headed chicken up there, Professor,” Will said.  “Did you see it?”

“No, but I did see a watch-goose.”  The Professor chuckled to himself as he recalled the honking goose rushing at him, ready to peck his heels.  “Wouldn’t let me anywhere near the house till Mr. Eastman called it off.”

“I remember that goose!” exclaimed Laura Mary Alice.  “Do they still have it?  That goose was protecting them years ago when I started teaching and stayed with the Eastman family.  Every day when I came home from school it would come running at me, its wings outspread.  Then all the Eastmans would run out after the goose to apologize to me.”  Laura Mary Alice laughed at the memory.  “Oh, that reminds me.  That’s why we came!”

“You’re not planning to run us off again, are you?” the Professor said, only half in jest.

“Just the opposite,” said Laura Mary Alice, very serious indeed.  “I’ve come to apologize.”

“Apologize?  Whatever on earth for?”

“For the misunderstanding in the barn,” Laura Mary Alice said.  She grew thoughtful for a moment, as if trying to find the right words to express herself, then continued.  “I’m afraid that Ellen misinterpreted what was happening.  Had she seen what I saw she would have known that Cal was not a threat.  I’m sorry that it happened and you were blamed.”

Now it was the Professor’s turn for silence.  They all watched him as he digested Laura Mary Alice’s words.  Then he said simply, “Thank you.  It’s very generous of you.”  The Professor gave a low chuckle as he continued, “And I agree, Ellen was a bit hasty — ”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not apologizing for Ellen.  It isn’t that she’s hasty, it’s that she’s passionate.”

“Like the way she responded to our verbal joust at the supper table?”

“Exactly.  Where it was only a game of wit to you, to Ellen and me it went far deeper than that.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Professor.

“The quote you chose from Shakespeare portrays women as weak and dependent creatures whose lives have meaning only in relation to men.  I think it’s absurd that women, who do so much hard work for their families, are seen as weak.  But it is true that we are encouraged to be dependent.  In fact by law we don’t have much choice.”

Laura Mary Alice hesitated, wondering to herself how much more to say.  She glanced at the Professor to gauge his response and saw that he was listening intently, so she decided to continue.  She grew passionate herself as she said, “That’s why I’m involved in the efforts to secure women’s rights.  I want to put an end to women and children being thought of as property and treated like cattle.”

The Professor was impressed.  “You sound like the leader of a great social movement.”

“It is a social movement.  It’s one of many that are going on right now and have been thriving in Vermont for the past twenty years.”

“You mean like the working men’s societies?” asked the Professor.

“Yes, and artisan’s collectives —”

“And the abolishment of imprisonment for debt,” the Professor interrupted as he thought of another example.

“And educational reform,” added  Laura Mary Alice.

“And prison reform,” said the Professor.  He nearly shouted it, he was so excited by this interchange with her.  While he had not been directly involved in politics, his travels had brought him into contact with many different kinds of people throughout New England, and he had long sensed the changing mood, especially in Vermont.

“And, of course, the temperance and anti-slavery movements,” said Laura Mary Alice, “which have spilled over into the field of women’s rights.  Ellen and I are committed to these changes, Professor, deeply committed.  This holds true not only when we are at meetings like Seneca Falls, but even at our own supper table, especially at our own table.”

For a moment the Professor seem chagrined by her words, taking them as a subtle rebuke.  He pondered his reply before saying, quite humbly, “I think now I understand, Laura Mary Alice.  And so I believe I owe you an apology, for provoking you . . .  You know, I’ve never myself been involved in progressive politics, but I often think of people who are as angels from heaven.  It’s such selfless work, isn’t it?”

They both stopped speaking then, and everyone stared thoughtfully into the fire.  Quietly they sipped the camomile tea the Professor had brewed.  The peaceful night encircled them like a cozy quilt.  In the darkness the crickets sang, the river murmured, the fireflies danced.

“OH,” LAURA MARY ALICE said, breaking the reverie, “your talk of angels has reminded me of the other reason we came.  Will wants to return something to Cal.”

“Something of Cal’s?” The Professor turned to Will.  “What is it, Will?”

Will, who had been sitting next to Cal on the same log, reached out a hand and said, “Here’s your carved angel, Cal.  Laura Mary Alice found it in the barn.  You musta dropped it.  And Mama said we could all come give it back to you.”

Cal took the angel from Will and, after a few moments, smiled and drew closer to him on the log.

“That’s very kind of you to return Cal’s carving,” said the Professor.  “He’s quite an artist, you know.  Carves anything that flies:  insects, birds, dragons, even trapeze artists.  But mostly he loves to carve angels — flying angels.”

“Professor,” said Ben, “would you tell us Cal’s story now?”

The Professor looked uncomfortable, then turned towards Cal and asked, “Is it alright with you?”

Cal didn’t answer immediately, but after awhile he nodded his head twice while continuing to stare at the fire.  He drew closer than ever to Will, the angel safe in his tight grip.

“As I started to tell you the other night, Cal belongs to that legal class of people known as ‘feeble-minded or insane.’”

Now Becca spoke up:  “What does that mean, Professor?”

“That’s a good question.  I’ve been asking that question myself for years.  I’ve asked lawyers, I’ve asked legislators, I’ve asked overseers of the poor, I’ve even asked the Superintendent of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane.  And they’ve all given me different answers, none of them satisfactory.  Most of them would say that Cal is feeble-minded, and while it’s true that he needs help taking care of himself in certain ways, who doesn’t?”

“So if he’s not feeble-minded, does that mean he’s insane?” Ben asked.

“Actually, at one time Cal was locked up for being insane.”

The Professor paused to refill his tea cup, offering the pot to the others.  When he’d settled back down, he said, “Let me tell you Cal’s history as I have been able to piece it together:  Cal was born in 1810 in the town of Barton.  I’m not sure what happened to his parents, but he was raised by his maternal grandmother who lived on a small farm outside the village near Crystal Lake.  Apparently they made a meager living off the land, but they lived together happily enough, at least until the harsh winter of 1834 when the grandmother became ill and died, leaving Cal alone in this world.  At that point he fell into the hands of the overseer of the poor, who first auctioned off the farm and then, unable to find relatives to care for him, auctioned off Cal.”

“You mean Cal was sold like cattle to the highest bidder?” asked Becca, confused and angry at the same time.

“Almost, but not exactly, Becca.  It’s more like an auction in reverse.  Under Vermont law the town would pay someone to take Cal into their home.  Whoever bid the least amount for doing so would get him.  Unfortunately, the family who bid lowest for Cal mistreated him when he couldn’t work as hard or as fast as they expected.  When they beat him, he resisted, and so they chained him to a wall in the barn.”

Will was outraged.  “I can’t believe someone would chain Cal!  He’s so gentle.”

“I wish I could say that it was an unusual circumstance, but I’m afraid it wasn’t.  Dr. Rockwell, the Superintendent of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, has told me many a horror story like Cal’s.  For example, there was a man whose relatives had chained him around the neck and caged him in the cellar where he wore no clothing and slept upon straw.  There was a woman whose family forced her to live in a hillside cave, even in winter.  And there was a man whose chain had actually cut to the very bone of his leg.  Others were put in poorhouses or locked up in jail.”

“But why?” Ben asked. “Why’d they treat them that way?”

“Because when people start acting strange or wild, others believe they are possessed by demons.”

“Are they?” Will asked, his eyes wide with fright at the idea.

“I don’t believe they are,” answered the Professor.  “And Dr. Rockwell tells me that he’s cured such people, not by any magic or medicine, but by providing a clean, healthy, safe place for them where they are loved and cared for, and given useful work, all as they would be in a loving family.”

“Why didn’t they take Cal there, Professor, to that Asylum?”

“First of all, Becca, the Asylum hadn’t opened yet when Cal’s grandmother died.  By the time I did get Cal there a few years ago, it was a completely different place from when I had first gone there to sell books.”

“How was it different, Professor?” asked Laura Mary Alice, who’d been listening intently the whole time.

“Too big.  You see Rockwell and his staff were so successful in helping people that the Asylum very quickly became overcrowded.  That made it impossible to provide what they call ‘moral treatment.’  So the Asylum is no longer the safe and simple refuge it once was.  And I did not want to leave Cal there.”

“But how’d you get Cal in the first place?” Ben asked.

“Apparently after being mistreated for a number of years, Cal ran away and ended up in St. Johnsbury.  That’s where I found him wandering the streets one rainy night when I arrived there quite late.  When I tried to get the town officials to care for him, they refused because he wasn’t a resident.  And when I took him back to Barton, they refused, saying he no longer lived there.  That’s when we took our first long trip together, all the way to Brattleboro to the Asylum, and we’ve been together ever since.”

The kids were stunned into silence by the story, unsure if they should believe such horrible things really happened to people.

“Is all that true, Cal?  Did all that stuff really happen to you?” asked Will.

As usual, it took Cal a few moments to respond.  When he did, all he said was, “True.”  But with that one word they knew without doubt that the Professor hadn’t made it up, hadn’t lied about the horror.  A sadness mixed with more than a little anger welled up in each one of their hearts.

“Yes,” the Professor said, sensing everyone’s discomfort, “I wish it were untrue, but it isn’t, for that’s the story of Calaban.”

“Did you name him ‘Calaban’?”

“You guessed right, Laura Mary Alice.  His birth name was ‘Calvin,’ but I couldn’t resist the temptation to re-christen him ‘Calaban’ after the monster-slave in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest.”

 “But he’s not a monster or a slave!” exclaimed Becca, offended by the Professor’s choice of name.

“Yet he was treated like both, simply because he’s different.”

Once more the group grew silent, lost in thought, eyes staring into the safety of the fire.

AGAIN IT WAS Laura Mary Alice who broke the spell.  “Cal’s fascination with flying reminds me of Icarus.  In fact, when I first picked up his carving I wasn’t sure whether it was Icarus or an angel.”

“Who’s Icarus?” Ben asked.

“He’s a character in Greek mythology.  Would you like to hear the story?”

Everyone said yes at the same time, even Calaban, but it was the Professor whose voice was heard over all.  “That would be wonderful!”

“Icarus was the son of Daedalus,” began Laura Mary Alice.  They all settled back comfortably to listen to her tale.

“Daedalus was a brilliant architect and inventor.  When Daedalus betrayed King Minos, both he and Icarus were imprisoned.  Secretly, Daedalus planned their escape by fashioning wings out of feathers and beeswax.  With these wings attached to their arms, Daedalus and Icarus flew from the King’s palace.  ‘Follow me, my son, and we are free.  But do not fly too close to the sun or the wax will melt and your wings will be destroyed.’

“Fearful at first, Icarus flew close to his father, straining to stay aloft.  Gradually, he learned the secrets of the air currents and the tricks of the drafts.  Before long he was soaring almost effortlessly, soaring like a great hawk in the sky, swooping about his father, who now lagged far behind.

“Icarus’ laughter filled the sky, and he sang out a song of joy:  ‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of . . . wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.  Hovering there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung my eager [body] through footloose halls of air.  Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace where never lark, nor even eagle flew.  And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of god.’*

“‘Icarus!  Icarus, come back!  You’re too close to the sun!’ Daedalus cried out.

“But it was too late, and the father watched in despair as his son plummeted into the sea.”

“LOOK! WILL SAID, “Cal’s crying.”  He took Cal’s hand in his and stroked it gently.

Cal wrapped an arm about Will and held him close.

“Oh I’m so sorry, Cal,” Laura Mary Alice said.  “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“Cal always weeps at the end of this tale.  It’s his favorite.  And that was beautifully told, Laura Mary Alice.”  The Professor beamed at her as he offered this heartfelt praise.

“Thank you,” she replied, humbled by the admiration in his voice.  “And now we must be getting home.  Ellen will be worried.  Thank you for a pleasant evening. Becca, Ben, Will — oh, Will’s fallen asleep in Cal’s arm.  I’ll have to carry him to our wagon.”

“Here, take this blanket to wrap the boy up in,” the Professor said, reaching into his wagon and pulling out a heavy woolen blanket.

“Thank you,” Ellen said, taking the blanket and, with the Professor’s help, bundling Will into it.  As she lingered before the fire one last moment, Laura Mary Alice looked at the Professor and said, “Good night.”

“Yes, goodnight, goodnight,” repeated the Professor.  “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow that I should say goodnight till it be morrow.’  Goodnight, my dear friends.”

AS LAURA MARY ALICE and the children turned to leave, they stepped out of the circle of light and saw that they were surrounded by a band of men standing in the dark.

A man’s deep voice boomed into the night:  “Don’t move, Professor, and there’ll be no trouble.”

“I know that voice,” Laura Mary Alice said to the Professor.  “It’s my brother.”  Turning back towards the dark, she demanded, “Bill, what is the meaning of this?”

“Laura Mary Alice, you stay out of this.  I’m here in my official capacity as Sheriff of Orange County, State of Vermont, to place under arrest Professor Arthur F. Newman.”  Sheriff Bill’s voice was deadly serious.

“Arrest?”  Laura Mary Alice was shocked.  “Bill Riley, what ever on earth for?”

“For the robbery and attempted murder of Freddy Miller.”

Now she was even more shocked.  “Somebody tried to kill Freddy Miller?”  The children drew close to her.

“That’s right.  Just this morning in his store.  And the Professor and Calaban there were the last ones to be seen coming out of the store.”

“That’s ridiculous, Bill, and purely circumstantial,” Laura Mary Alice said, shock giving way to anger.  “You know that as well as I.  And besides, the Professor is the most gentle, principled man I have ever met!”

“You’re not getting your way this time, Laura Mary Alice.  There’s been a string of robberies that follow the Professor’s trail — only this time he went too far.  And we’re here to see that justice is done!”

“But Bill . . . ,” Laura Mary Alice pleaded.

“It’s alright, Laura Mary Alice,” said the Professor, reaching out a hand to calm her.  “There’s obviously some mistake here that soon will be straightened out.”  He turned to face the darkness from where Bill’s voice came.  “What would you have me do, Sheriff?”

And so the Sheriff placed the Professor under arrest.  As the Professor was being handcuffed, he asked Laura Mary Alice to care for Calaban.  Without even thinking what Ellen might say, she readily agreed.