1
On the Brailsford farm the season rushed tumultuously into June
bringing honey-locust bloom, wild roses, blue spiderwort and vetch,
changing black fields to the geometrical green of growing corn,
transforming Attila, the black pony colt with his white star and
fiery eyes into a frisking, mischievous rascal who worried his
mother constantly, metamorphosing the Jersey calves from fawn-eyed
babies delicate as gazelles into willful stubborn young ladies who
butted their pails of skim milk all over the barn lot.
"You little she-devils," said Gus, "you carnsarned little hussies,
keep your heads in your own pails and try to learn some table
manners."
But either Gus was never cut out for a barnyard Emily Post, or the
husky young heifers, shoats, and foals didn't give a tinker's damn
which was the salad fork, for certainly to the most casual observer
it was obvious that the little pigs thoroughly enjoyed wallowing
in the delicious swill that filled their feeding troughs, loved
to hang on squealing and complaining while their matronly mothers
wandered aimlessly about the pig yard, and had no objection to
nosing through the fence for a sinful afternoon among the radishes,
peas, and lettuce of the garden plot. Attila, with forefeet braced,
tugged at the mare's black udders until she sometimes turned and
nipped his downy hide, and once when the foolhardy little colt
started nuzzling around his daddy's flank, the Admiral, insulted to
the very core of his masculine being, kicked and bit his tactless
son into temporary good behavior. Nor were the black kittens in the
barn above stealing milk from the brimming milk pails.
Peter, his imagination soaring at the thought of a trailer factory
in Brailsford Junction, dreamed through the corn on the sulky
cultivator, went through the whole eighty acres of waving green,
then started through it again in an endless battle against the
weeds. Early Ann picked half a milk pail full of wild strawberries
on a southern slope.
The tobacco land was worked and reworked until the soil was as fine
as silk before the tobacco setter with its big red barrel began its
monotonous journey back and forth across the field leaving rows
of green plants in its wake. Gus and Peter dropped plants from the
low rear seats while Stanley drove the team, sitting high up on the
barrel.
Evenings the men, covered with dirt and sweat, went down to the
lake to bathe, waded out over hard sand nearly one hundred yards
until they were in water deep enough for swimming. They splashed
and roared and spluttered, sometimes raced half a mile out into the
lake and back again.
The corn grew so fast that Stud claimed you could hear it if you
listened carefully at night. The pumpkin vines between the hills
of corn spread wide green leaves, and the spring lambs which Stud
was pasturing in peas and clover began to look like something which
would taste good with mint sauce.
At last it was haying time. And so with hard work and little time
for play Stanley and Sarah Brailsford approached their twentieth
wedding anniversary.
2
One evening Early Ann, Peter and Gus got out the croquet set for
a dashing game on the front lawn. Stanley and Sarah brought out
their rockers to furnish a gallery. A catbird who thought he was a
bobolink was singing in the topmost branches of the poplar tree.
"I get the red ball and mallet," Early Ann announced.
"They're mine," cried Peter. "I always use the red ones."
"Try and get 'em," Early Ann taunted. Swinging the mallet
menacingly she dashed behind the lilac bushes and out again,
encircled the mail box and the big oak tree, and, laughing and
screeching came to grips with Peter on an open strip of lawn. He
tried to wrench the mallet from her hands and was surprised at her
strength.
"Just try," Early Ann panted. She fought with a desperation which
amazed the boy. Her hair came tumbling down and her eyes flashed
fire. Suddenly she let go of the mallet and tore into Peter with
small hard fists and flying feet. Stud was laughing until his sides
hurt. Gus was rolling on the ground with mirth. While Sarah, seeing
that the struggle was getting rough, cried out in consternation,
"Children, children!"
"I hate you," Early Ann whispered passionately. "I'll scratch your
eyes out."
"Don't hurt yourself," Peter advised with a superior, mocking note
in his voice. He had her firmly by the arms now in a grip which he
knew was hurting, but she did not flinch.
In another moment she was laughing and straightening her hair, but
she recovered and kept the red ball and mallet.
The game began in the fighting atmosphere of technical pride, and
deadly serious rivalry, which had marked the pioneer stump-pullings
and sod-breakings of an earlier day, and which lived on in mortal
golfing and bridge frays of the 1920's. Gus and Peter handled their
striped wooden balls on the smooth green lawn with an accuracy
which would have done credit to an expert of the cue driving the
ivories about a billiard table. Gus was known for miles around as
the croquet fiend who had scored all the hoops in one turn at a
Sunday School picnic, while Peter could often run a hoop from a
most disadvantageous angle.
Early Ann made up in temperament what she lacked in technical
skill, and, whenever she had a chance to roquet on Peter's ball,
sent him flying off into the deep grass.
"If Taft had played croquet instead of that sissy game golf, he'd
still be president," Stud said. "If he'd pitched a good game of
horseshoes he could've been king."
"Think of them White House lawns," sighed Gus. "Gee whiz! If I was
president I'd make me the gol darndest croquet court you ever did
see."
"Why don't we play like we used to, Stanley?" Sarah asked.
"The kids are too good for me," Stud admitted. "But I'll tell you
what I'll do...."
"Tomorrow?"
"You bet! I'll challenge you to a game for our twentieth wedding
anniversary, Sarah."
They touched hands for a moment, shyly, hoping the others would not
see.
Playing grimly and consistently well, Peter overtook Gus and sent
that doleful individual into loud and vituperative lament by
driving the farm hand's ball under the distant front porch. He made
his next hoop, roqueted on Early Ann, and continued his run to win
the game.
He couldn't help comparing Early Ann Sherman to Maxine Larabee as
they began their second game in the heat of bitter competition.
"Early Ann's all right for croquet, or swimming, or a tussle on the
lawn. But she's not much of a lady," he decided, "and nothing at
all like Maxine Larabee."
He shouldn't have let himself think of them in the same breath.
Early Ann was nothing but a she wild-cat, and a tomboy. Once she
had pushed Gus over the wood box; and she said "damn" when she got
mad; and Gus had even seen her trying to smoke a cigarette.
Maxine would never do anything like that. Maxine would be ashamed
to tussle or swear or even raise her voice. Maxine was a lady in
every sense of the word. She looked just like the beautiful women
in the magazines, with her picture hats and delicate motoring veils.
Peter bet if he could only have a new White Steamer she would
notice him again as she had that night at the church supper. She
might even let him take her for a ride way down the river road
where they could have a weenie roast and sing songs together.
She might go to Janesville with him for a movie and a midnight
supper. Except that Maxine wasn't the kind of a girl who would eat
a midnight supper with any boy. One of the fellows had told Peter
that she was that kind of a girl and Peter had blackened both his
eyes and made him eat dirt and yell "enough." It made him fighting
mad when any other boy even mentioned her name casually.
He always felt like saying, "You leave her name out of this," the
way men did in stories. But he was afraid it might sound silly.
The way she walked! Just wheeling along as though all her joints
had ball-bearings. She was one girl who didn't need to practice
with a book on her head to get a perfect carriage. And her golden
hair, done up a new way every day. And such lovely white hands and
pretty nails. No, Early Ann just wasn't in Maxine's class.
"Your turn," Gus shouted at Peter. "Better stop dreaming about your
girl and try to learn croquet. I've got you down for the count this
time around."
"Listen, hayseed," Peter said, "you better crawl into your cellar
because this trip I'm going to blow down your shanty."
He took careful aim allowing for a little rise he knew in the lawn,
curved gracefully and improbably through the distant hoop, roqueted
on the astounded hired man's ball, drove him into a tangle of
raspberry bushes, and made two more hoops before missing.
"Nothing but a greenhorn's luck," Gus complained. He fished his
ball out of the thorns, brought it to within a mallet's-length
of the court, and promised himself sweet vengeance with plays of
prodigious technical brilliance when next it came his turn.
The summer dusk came down about them sweet and still. Far away over
the hills they could hear the church bell calling the faithful to
Thursday night prayer meeting in Brailsford Junction. The chimney
swifts and martins filled the evening sky with their graceful, airy
geometry, and the nighthawks swooped so low above them that one
might see the pale oval underneath each wing. Far down the lake in
some deep tangle of woods the whip-poor-will began.
Sarah hurried off to the ice house to fetch the half freezer of
homemade ice cream left from supper, and with it a bowl of sugared
strawberries. The game over, Early Ann went in for soup bowls and
table-spoons. And together on the lawn, under stars so large, soft,
and near they seemed almost to be caught in the upper branches of
the oak tree, they ate such a dish for the gods as one may never
find in these later years in distant cities.
The frogs began in the marshes along the lake. The crickets
shrilled. Silence was all about them like a song.
After they had eaten, Peter and Early Ann pulled up the hoops and
pegs, gathered the balls and mallets in their arms. They walked
down the dusty driveway to the wagon shed carrying the set, and
stopped at the milk house for a long cold drink from the pump.
They were too quiet, too delightfully tired and calm to wish to
talk. Their struggle was forgotten, and there was no upsetting
emotion of love or hate to keep them from kicking in comradely
fashion through the dust.
Then something altogether out of keeping with their mood shattered
the evening. The horses in the barn yard whinnied in fright; there
were startled hoof-beats; a cow mooed anxiously.
"Don't go," Early Ann pleaded, holding to the boy. "It might be...."
Gus and Stud came running.
"Someone after the stock, you think?" Gus asked.
They hurried in a straggling group down to the barnyard gate, saw
a shadowy figure jump the far fence and disappear into the dusky
brush lot, crashing through the branches.
"Tried to get in from the back road," Stud decided, "came up the
lane and found himself in the barnyard. Just a tramp, I guess."
But Early Ann had her own opinion.
3
There are nights when men and women cannot sleep but lie awake
talking until almost dawn, nights when they feel suddenly
articulate after long months or even years of silence. These nights
are better spent in talking than in sleep or even in love.
Stanley and Sarah Brailsford went up to their room with a lamp. A
cool wind was blowing from the lake rustling the old lace curtains
at the window. Stanley set the lamp with its brightly polished
chimney, neatly trimmed wick, and glass base filled with kerosene
(in which the lower end of the wick floated like some pale,
peculiar fish) upon the jig-sawed walnut bureau with its cracked
mirror, and tatted bureau runner.
The lamp light emphasized his gigantic proportions, projecting his
huge shadow on the walls and ceiling, lighting one half of his
strong face and leaving the other in darkness. He took off his
number eleven shoes, red and white cotton socks, and coarse blue
shirt stained at the arm pits. He yawned enormously.
Quickly, with little movements almost shy, Sarah Brailsford
unfastened her gray-sprigged percale waist and skirt. She took off
her shoes and stockings as though she were ashamed to have Stanley
notice that the shoes were cracked, misshapen, and run over at the
heel, the black lisle stockings one great mass of careful darns.
Before she removed her undergarments she slipped her nightgown on
over her head and worked beneath the gown unfastening her patched
unmentionables. Sarah wished she could have pretty bloomers like
the ones on the Barton line. Stud could afford a new thrashing
machine that year but no new clothes for the family. She hung her
garments neatly on a chair.
Unlike his careful wife, Stud Brailsford threw off his clothes
and strode about the room in his long knit drawers like an early
picture of John L. Sullivan if you overlooked Stud's graying hair.
He stood at the window looking out at the moonlit night, enjoying
the tickle of the wind in the heavy damp mat of hair on his big
chest. He scratched luxuriously with big blunt fingers, then turned
and rubbed his back against the window frame, yawned, blew out the
light, kicked off his drawers, and threw himself naked upon the
cool sheet.
The slats of the bed creaked and groaned under his weight, and
Sarah, as always, held herself a little rigid so that she would
not roll down into the hollow he created. By morning she might be
snugly against him, but that would come about slowly through the
relaxation of sleep during the long night.
Moonlight flooded the room glinting upon the flaked mirror, the
oval chromos in walnut frames on either side of the dresser, the
big white and gold washbowl and pitcher on the warped wash-stand,
the tin chimney-hole cover gilded and decorated with a romantic
landscape, the enamelware pot underneath the bed. It came sweetly
over the face of Sarah who in this light was beautiful even at the
age of forty-three.
Outside there were night sounds: a hoot owl whooing from Cottonwood
Hill, a farm dog howling at the moon, and far away across the lake
an answering howl from some equally miserable brother in sorrow.
The curtains billowed, moths brushed against the screen, a bittern
croaked in desolate flight over the marshes.
For some reason they did not fall asleep. Perhaps it was the
excitement of the man in the barn lot, perhaps thoughts of the
morrow when they would have been wed for twenty long years.
"I've been wanting to ask you for weeks now...."
"What, Sarah?"
"About Early Ann, could she possibly be ...?"
"Be what?"
"I hate to say it, Stanley. You've always been so good to me."
"Aw, Sarah, why don't you tell me what's eating you? You ain't
afraid of me, are you?"
"No, not afraid, I guess. But maybe you won't like it. Maybe it
will hurt you somehow.... But I must tell you, I can't go on
without. Is Early Ann your daughter?"
"My daughter!" He sat up straight in bed and turned toward her.
"Well, now. It ain't altogether impossible."
"Oh, Stanley! I knew it, but I wouldn't let myself think it. Only,
why did you tell me?"
"I don't know what's eating you, Sarah. I didn't say for sure she
was my daughter. I only said...."
"You said it was possible...." She was crying quietly now.
"Well, a young man sometimes...."
"I know. I couldn't be so stupid or so blind as not to see young
men all around the country.... But who was she, Stanley? No, don't
tell me."
"I--I don't remember her name," Stud faltered. "But I did notice
that Early Ann's face was like...."
"I'll treat her real nice," Sarah said, addressing the cracked
ceiling above her. "I'll treat her just like a daughter. We always
did want a daughter, Stanley."
"Aw, Sarah," he said. "Aw, Sarah, I'm sorry." It was almost the
first time in twenty years that he had told her he was sorry for
anything. It was the first time in ten that he had tried to soothe
her with his big, rough hands. She could tell that he was trying
not to sob, and a sudden flow of pity came out of her heart for the
great, clumsy fellow beside her whom she loved.
"I can forgive you," she said. "I can forgive you real easy."
"It ain't an easy thing to forgive."
"I do forgive you now for being unfaithful, Stanley."
"Unfaithful," he said, astonished. "I don't know what you mean."
"But you just said...."
"How old is the girl?"
"Eighteen, she claims."
"But, don't you see, Sarah. Then she can't be my daughter. That
would be _after_ we were married."
"You mean that never after we were married, not once, not even one
time...." There was such a note of joy and relief in her voice
that the big man beside her was moved to find her mouth and kiss it.
"What a silly woman!" he said. "What a silly girl!" He laughed
deeply, and suddenly hugged her until it hurt. She was laughing
and crying by turns and kissing him as she had not since their
honeymoon. She rubbed his beard the wrong way, thus giving him
one of the most delectable sensations he could experience. And he
kissed the nape of her neck as he used to years ago. A cock crowed
in the moonlight and Stanley struck a match to read the time.
"Why, it's after midnight, Mother. It's the nineteenth of June, and
we've been married twenty years."
BOOK TWO