One morning I helped my father patch the barn roof. We worked in silence. Just then, he looked at me and said,“You aren"t alone you know.”
Startled, I stared at him. How could he possibly know what I"d been thinking?
“Think about this,” he said. “If you drew a line from your feet down the side of our barn to the earth and followed it any which way, it would touch every living thing in the world. So you"re never alone. No one is.”
I started to argue, but the notion of being connected to all of life made me feel so good that I let my thoughts quiet down.
As I worked through the summer, I began to notice my shoulders getting bigger. I was able to do more work, and I even started paying some attention to doing it well. I had hated hole-digging, but it seemed to release some knot inside me, as if the anger I felt went driving into the earth. Slowly I started to feel I could get through this rotten time.
One day near the end of the summer, I got rid of a lot of junk from my younger days. Afterward I went to sit in my trees as a kind of last visit to the world of my boyhood. I could feel the trunk beneath my feet weakening. Something had gotten at it — ants, maybe, or just plain age.
The afternoon I finished the fence, I found my father sitting on a granite outcrop in the south pasture.“You"re thinking about how long this grass is going to hold out without rain?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said. “How long you think we got?”
“Another week. Easy.”
He turned and looked at me deep in the eyes. Of course I wasn"t really talking about the pasture as much as I was trying to find out if my opinion mattered to him. After a while he said, “You could be right.” He paused and added, “You did a fine job on our fence.”
“Thanks.” I said, almost overwhelmed by the force of his approval.
“You know,” he said, “you"re going to turn out to be one hell of a man. But just because you"re getting grown up doesn"t mean you have to leave behind everything you liked when you were a boy.”
I knew he was thinking about my tree. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of wood the size of a deck of cards. “I made this for you.” he said.
It was a piece of the heartwood from the river birch. He had carved it so the tree appeared again, tall and strong. Beneath were the words“Our Tree”.
我父亲是名乡村医生，在印第安纳州南部拥有一个家庭农场，饲养肉牛。农场四周的白色围栏每三年都得把漆刮掉重新粉刷。到我14岁那年的夏天，这差事就归我了。这还不算，六月的一天爸爸做出决定说我应该把围栏加长。
记得当时我们父子俩坐在南牧场的边上，他摘下帽子抹了抹额头，然后指着300码以外的一簇铁杉说：“从这儿到那儿——咱们的栅栏就扩到那儿，”他说，“我估计得挖110个坑，每个3英尺深。如果把挖掘器磨得很快，你大概一天能挖十个八个的。”
我非常紧张地说我有许多事情要做，不知道怎样才能完成这些工作，而且我原本计划打打垒球钓钓鱼呢。“咱们借一支风钻吧？”我建议。
“用风钻干活学不到东西。我想让咱们的围栏教我们点什么。”他拍拍我的背回答道。
我把肩膀一缩以示忿恨。其实在很多方面我都很钦佩爸爸，并且每当我生他气的时候我就尽力去想想那些事。有一次我跟他去出诊，我观察着他，他告诉一位农妇说，在他离开之前她就会好起来，否则他就不走了。他握着她的手给她讲故事，逗得她笑起来，又使她从病床上走下来。她说：“哎呀，大夫，我还真觉得好多啦。”
后来我问他是怎么知道她会好起来的。“我不知道，”他说，“但是如果你让他们保持着精气神儿，多数病人自己就会好起来。”
如果我想一个人呆着，我就躲到我的那棵白桦树那儿去。白桦树长在一条小溪边，小溪水注入我们的池塘。白桦树在地表分叉长成两棵树干，我挤到树干之间后，后背顶着一根树干，两脚蹬着另一根树干，然后仰望天空或者看书或者摆摆样子。
可是那年夏天我没多少时间去陪我的白桦树。一天傍晚我和爸爸从它旁边走过，他说：“我还记得你小时候挤进这棵树把它弄得咔嚓嚓地响呢。”
“我不记得。”我没好气地说。
他严厉地看着我说：“你是怎么回事？”
令我自己也很吃惊的是，我竟然说：“你才不在乎呢！”说完就向谷仓跑去。坐在马具棚里，我竭力克制着自己不哭。
爸爸开门进来在我对面坐下。最后，我们四目相对。
“咱们来看一看。你感到身体有点不对劲儿，似乎和以前不太一样了。你认为谁也不像你这样。你认为我对你太苛责了，不认可你为家里所做的一切。你甚至纳闷怎么会出生在这么一个乏味的家庭。”
我惊异于他对我难眠之夜的那些叛逆想法竟然了如指掌！
“这是因为你的身体正在发生一种变化，”他继续说，“这种变化改变了你的整个身心。你的血液里增加了大量的雄性荷尔蒙激素。所以孩子，在你这个年龄它所带来的影响这世上没有哪个男人能奈何得了。”
我无言以对。我知道自己确实不喜欢正经历的变化。几个月以来我有一种与世隔绝的感觉，孤立无援。我莫名其妙地暴躁易怒、躁动不安、伤感怅惘。再加上不能对谁倾诉，我开始感到非常孤独。
过了一会儿他说：“解决的方法之一就是干活，干力气活儿。”
他这句话刚出口，我的火一下子上来了，“太好了！”我用粗鲁得不能再粗鲁的声音说完就冲出去了。
爸爸所谓的“干活”其实是干重活。我天天早晨挖桩坑，不停地猛力把挖掘器砸向地面，直到双手磨出厚厚的老茧。
一天早晨，我帮爸爸给谷仓修缮房顶。我们默默地干着。这时，他看着我，说：“你知道嘛，你并不孤单。”
我愕然，盯着他。他怎么会知道我一直在想什么呢？
“想想看，”他说，“从你脚下划条线，沿着谷仓的这一侧下去到地面，顺着这条线向任何方向走，你都会碰到世界上每一个有生命的东西。所以你从来就不孤单。没有谁是孤单的。”
我刚要争辩，却想到那个我其实与所有生命都相连的道理，这着实令我感到舒心，于是我让自己平静下来。
这么干了一夏，我开始注意到双肩变得宽阔起来。我不但可以干更多的活，甚至还开始留意干好。我曾憎恨挖坑，但似乎正是这种劳动解开了我的某个心结，就好像我所感觉的那种无端的怒火随着挖掘器被夯进了土地。慢慢地我开始觉得自己能挺得过这段糟糕的时期了。
夏末的一天，我把小时候的东西归拢一下处理掉了，然后去我的白桦树那儿坐坐，算是对童年时代的一种告别吧。我能感到脚下的树干没有那么强壮了。是什么东西把它弄成这样——蚂蚁？也许，或许仅仅是年老了而已。
围栏完成的那天下午，我发现爸爸在南牧场一块露出地面的花岗岩上坐着。“你在想一直不下雨的话这草还能挺多久，是吗？”我问道。
“对，”他说，“你说能多久？”
“再过一周吧。别急，没问题。”
他转过身来深深地注视着我的眼睛。谈论牧场当然不是我的真实目的，与其说是关心牧场倒不如说是想借此试探一下我的看法对他来说是否重要。过了片刻他说：“没准儿你是对的，”他停顿了一下又说：“栅栏你修得不错。”
“谢谢。”我说，他的赞许令我激动不已。
他说：“你将长成一个大男人。可是成长并不意味着你就得放弃一切儿时所爱。”
我知道他指的是我的树。他从夹克口袋里掏出一副纸牌那么大的一块木头。“我给你做了这个。”他说。
这是河边白桦的一块心材。他用它精心刻成了这件东西，所以看到它就像看到了那棵高大挺拔的树。它的下端刻着几个字“我们的树”。