THE WHEEL OF EARTH

part one

We lay beneath the alder tree

Her breast she leaned upon my hand

The alder leaf moved over me

The sun moved over on the land

Her mouth she pressed upon my mouth

I felt the leaf beat in her breast

I felt the sun move in her hair

But nearer than the leaf the sun

I felt the love go deep in me

That has no season in the earth

That has no time of spring or birth

That cannot flower like a tree

Or like one die

but only be

1

Ellen Gaddy was gathering tart stunted June apples into a peck basket.

Drifts of cloud were passive in the blue dome above, where hawks were

wheeling. The late afternoon sun was warm on her tanned neck. The dog

came up barking, stood close to her, tongue slavering, eager. She patted

him and he went to curl under a tree. “There, Jack.” He was half

shepherd, sensible in the ways of the farm. Ellen was his choice among

the humans so he was restless apart. His limpid eyes were fixed on her

as she hunted in the tall grass. Her hands were small and coarse, and in

wiping sweat from her face she had left careless dark streaks. She was

sixteen, the cups of her breasts hung firm, her belly was small. She

wore her yellow hair in braids. Her mouth was facile, somewhat

obstinate, and her forehead was high, its creamy texture darkened by the

season’s sun. A tiger swallowtail like a falling yellow leaf was

drifting by. She sighed to it, “Bear me good news.”

The old brook that fed the farm’s pond was near the orchard. Pebbles

lying in the uneasy clear water were glossed, tangled twigs and leaves

were forced downstream in complaining whirlpools, marsh grasses along

the bank strove for footing in the cruel plashing current. Ellen was

shaking tree branches, the fruit rattling about her. Today Penny was due

to drop her kid. She had looked it up in the almanac. Gestation Table,

She-Goat, 151 days. The kid will follow me, making small noises, wanting

to play.

A question of smoke was rising from the yellow farmhouse over the hill,

set among black gums, hackberries and locusts. The red barn and outlying

sheds held the crest of the rise, settling more firmly with each passing

year. Occasionally Anton Gaddy, Ellen’s father, must shore up a door

frame or strengthen a sagging rafter, but the buildings would stand long

after the people. The barn had been hammered together with hand-cut

nails and wood pegs by Ellen’s grandfather in 1870. Some of the

outbuildings had been raised in 1846 by his father, a Frenchman who had

homesteaded this tract in the year of the Irish potato famine. Back of

the yellow house, crowded about by dayflower weeds, were two beehives

that would mount tall in summer as the hive supers, one at a time, were

stacked upon those laden with combs of honey. There too lay rows of

vegetables that Ellen and her younger sister, Frankie, kept clean. Maria

Gaddy, their mother, never undertook outdoor chores unless the day were

pale or clouded, for she had been sun-struck ten years ago, in 1915, “I

dassn’t go out but for Sunday mass,” Maria would claim; “it makes me

queer to feel the sun.”

In the valley below the hill was the orchard where Ellen was gleaning

apples. Back of it stretched the small woods, where gray squirrels were

hunting wild berries and mushrooms. They did this daily in the span of

hours from sunrise until mid-morning, and from mid-afternoon until

sunset. And overhead red-shouldered hawks would circle, sharp eyes

searching branches and boles. A large male squirrel was aware now of a

vixen fox crouched in hunger below his tree limb. His black eyes

glittered and he lifted his paws, prating at her. He forgot his foes in

the sky for a moment. The long wings of a wheeling hawk folded, like a

stone it dropped. Ellen raised her gray eyes, watching it rise from the

woods, prey dangled in its talons. The other hawks were screaming,

“Kee-yoo. Kee-yoo!”

Ellen’s mind was on her young goat. She had warned her, “Now don’t walk

under the horses’ heads or for a fact you’ll go eleven months.” Sam

Offut had told her that. “So they warn a ooman with child hereabouts,

Ellie. See, it takes a mare that long to have a foal and she’s got a

power in her when she’s carrying.” Ellen didn’t believe him—Sam told

many tales. Penny’s time was up and she was seeking a place to drop it.

This morning Ellen had seen that her tail was sunken so there were

sockets on either side, and the young sagged low. “There. Maybe she’s

freshening now.” Ellen snatched the two baskets of June apples, running

in her long skirt through high grass into a new-turned field, up the

hill toward the barn. Her bare feet sank into the red soil leaving huge

tracks. The dog was yapping, caught in the game.

In a corner of the woodshed she had made a stall, nailing bars and

hanging a gate with a latch that the goat could not open. It blatted as

she set down her baskets and opened the gate. She knelt beside it in the

wheat straw to feed it an apple. Her father’s hired girl, Penny

Dougherty, had given her the brown animal, then but a yearling, before

going away last summer. Ellen had named it after the girl. It slobbered,

chewing on the crisp fragrant fruit. Then it snuffed her forehead and

ear, began to lick her face, making soft stuttering sounds. Ellen ran

her hand along the curves of the slender horns. It shook its fine-boned

head. She stroked the beard. “Say, I’d love a little doe, Penny.”

Ever since Penny Dougherty went away Ellen would sit talking to the

namesake goat. Her father had hired Penny last summer to help his wife

during a sick spell. Then Penny had left them, married Luke Dougherty,

gone to the town of Weems Crossroads way off in Illinois. Because she

sang so much, Anton Gaddy had dubbed Penny “that roaring ooman.” But

Ellen had grieved over the end to the short friendship. She would sing

the songs she had picked up from Penny, gay tunes, meaningless, and

lengthy ballads that told of sudden death and unfulfilled love.

I dreamed of my true love last night

All in my arms I had her

Her yellow hair like strands of gold

Came rolling down my pillow

Ellen was lonely. Her mother gave her small heed. Her father, as well.

He had turned from her at birth, waiting for a son. Then when Ellen’s

sister had been born and Anton learned from his wife that she would be

barren thereafter, he named the baby Frankie, and fastened himself upon

it forthwith. His voice was heard now, overriding the gentle tune,

“Girl, where you at? You got the apples? It’s time to feed.”

“Coming, Pa.” At the corncrib she took an armful of ears and shelling

them, fed a flock of ducks and geese, the first of her chores each late

afternoon. They were free to roam the barnyard, making nests and raising

young at will. One wing was clipped every so often to keep them in the

safety of the yard. Heads bobbing, the fowl were shoveling the grain

with flat bills. The white ducks made a nasal chatter, a gray gander

lowered its head and wove its long neck like a snake, hissed and raised

its wings at Ellen. “Don’t you squall at me.”

She kept back one ear of corn, went to the plowed field she had raced

through earlier. There she gave a call and from the pond came an

answering beat of wings. A Muscovy duck was flying up the hill. It

circled Ellen, flapping to a halt at her feet, gathering its wings. Its

red-wattled head was cocked to one side. She scattered the corn. “Why

don’t you come to the barnyard and be tamed, you wild one?” It was

watching her with a wary eye, eating the yellow grain greedily.

She looked off at the Kentucky farmland stretched before her. Orange

clouds were assembling behind the brush line of tiny trees. The square

fields were hemstitched with stone walls and rail fences. Near the

barnyard a black gum was rearing gaunt limbs. When a crested redbird’s

dark silhouette dipped through the fragrant orange air into its ragged

branches, she was shaken by the sudden beauty. She turned quickly,

saying to the feeding duck, “I don’t know. Seems I hate every enduring

thing.”

She fed chickens that congregated in the stony yard. She filled their

water bucket from the pump, watched the speckled hens dip their beaks

and up their heads to let the water run down. She collected brown eggs

in a fold of her dress, from boxes nailed along the cobwebbed wall. A

hen pecked her wrist as she reached under it for heated eggs. The bird’s

breast was hot, bare where it had plucked feathers to line its nest.

“You’re broody. Sam’ll put you under the pump to break you up.”

She went up the stairs to the farm kitchen and counted the eggs into a

basket. “The hens are laying good, Ma. I’m just one short of four dozen.

I’ll trade them tomorrow at Love’s store.”

Maria Gaddy was turning from the stove. “I allow you can get me a length

of lace too, Ellie. I need a new collar for mass. My old one’s sleazy.”

Ellen’s mother wore her gray-streaked hair in a tight knot. Her body was

warped and thin and stiff. It had turned from what it might have been.

Her breasts were flattened and she had swathed herself in a

long-sleeved, high-necked print dress that came to her ankles. Her

stockings were wrinkled above run-down button shoes. Maria lived in

continual retreat. She had been given to her husband with the awesome

dowry of fifteen hundred dollars. With it Anton had bought his rights to

this farm from his only living brother, Garland. Maria spoke now, “Go

get some new water, girl.”

* * * * *

Ellen emptied the blue-enameled pail into the sink. The kitchen was

roomy. There was a kerosene stove for summer use and a huge range for

winter heat and cooking. A black-painted iron sink stood at the side

away from the windows. There was no running water but a drainpipe took

away the waste. Fresh water was supplied by a well a hundred feet from

the house, to which Ellen went. She drank from the dipper before

returning. The family was proud that the water from this well was always

sweet and cold. At the windowed end of the kitchen was a long table of

red oak that had been dressed with ax and adz long ago by Anton’s

father, Jules. The surface was whitened from lye-scrubbing, uneven from

the years’ wear. On it was a blue dish of poplar honey, a bowl of salt,

a milkglass jar of knives, forks and spoons stacked handles down. A

pantry was adjacent to the kitchen, where staples were kept—sacks of

flour and meal, curd cheeses that hung in cloths from the rafters, milk

that stood in pans and jars to be skimmed, and cream that ripened in a

churn. More supplies were stored in the cellar. There dusty shelves were

holding jars of jelly, jam, ketchup, honey, red and yellow tomatoes,

chard and collard greens, peaches, fried chicken and beef. On the lower

shelves were tins of lard. From the ceiling dangled strings of dried

apples and quinces. On the dirt floor of a bin, potatoes left from fall

softened and rotted in the musty darkness. Root crops of salsify and

parsnips lay neglected.

* * * * *

From the parlor came the familiar sound of Frankie practicing the piano,

scales and exercises rippling. Ellen carried a can of kerosene from the

porch where Sam had placed it to the parlor to replenish the lamps. Over

the fireplace a velvet cloth was framed, on it depicted the Golgotha

crucifixion in brilliant primary colors. An overstuffed sofa, Maria’s

knitting basket at the end, was along one wall. The chairs included a

doweled high-backed rocker. A round table bore on its lace-covered

surface statuettes of the Virgin Mary and Joseph, a worn Bible, a lamp

with painted forget-me-nots trimming the bowl, besides dog-eared farm

journals, the 1925 _Farmer’s Comprehensive Almanac_, and a silver-banded

reading glass. Braided rugs were scattered over the oak floor, once

smoothed with broadax. On a wall was a tinted daguerreotype of a stunted

wiry man with heavy chin and thick lips, Jules Gaddy. Beside him posed

his red-haired wife Nell, whose long face, high forehead and determined

mouth resembled her granddaughter Ellen’s. While Jules had been rearing

this house, the couple had lived in an outbuilding that now served for a

pigstall. Back of the piano hung a representation of the bleeding Sacret

Heart. Nell Gaddy had placed it in that spot long years ago, saying to

Jules, “Now there, little feist, it’ll stay.”

Frankie was lifting her hands from the keys, watching Ellen pour the

coal oil. She swung her pointed boots as she sat at the bench, pursing

her lips. “I’m making believe folks are swooning, Ellie. Because that

piece I played was so good.” Frankie was fifteen. Her red hair fell

silken on her shoulders, her blue eyes were mild.

“I declare, Frankie, you’re biggity. Go get washed. Pa’ll be in.”

The family were sitting to supper then, making the sign of the cross.

Anton pronounced grace. When his daughters had been little, Anton had

instructed them on the mealtime prayer. Once he said to Frankie,

“Tonight you make the grace, Poppet.” But Frankie had lisped a rhyme she

picked up in the parochial school.

Beans, beans, the musical fruit

The more you eat the more you toot

Anton roared and the family had to get to their knees on the kitchen

floor to ask the Lord God’s pardon for the blasphemy. Frankie had thrown

up her supper later while Anton was talking to her. “You be a sinner,

child. And the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate. So it’s said in

the Bible.”

“Oh yes, Pa,” she had mewed like a kitten.

On their plates now they were piling garden greens cooked with fatback

and then mixed with scrambled eggs. And chunks of beef from a platter,

and green onions and radishes. They spread pot cheese on beaten

biscuits, drank buttermilk kept cold in the old dry well beside the

porch and pulled up at the last minute to set on the table. All the milk

from their herd of cows went to the dairy for a monthly check, except a

three-gallon can put aside daily for Maria’s needs. She set it out in

pans for cream and made cheeses from the skimmed milk. The hogs got the

whey mixed with scraps and middlings and dishwater. Anton would hold his

fork in his left hand, pushing the food with a knife. But the two

sisters copied their mother, forks held in the right. So Maria’s mam had

told her the woman should eat.

“You make the butter up tonight, Ellie,” Maria was saying, “and take it

along with the eggs tomorrow. I’ll give you some cheeses to trade, too.

My last batch turned out proud.”

“I will, Ma.”

After supper, Ellen carried the churn of soured cream onto the steps.

She turned the crank until butter came together in a lump. She poured

the buttermilk into a stone jar and walked out to the well, the churn on

one arm, the wood bowl and paddle on the other. The sun was beginning to

set in a wash of red sky. She paused while it slipped distorted behind

the trees. The sky was fading. A subdued light prevailed of twilight.

Ellen sighed, torn by a vague melancholy. She was saying to the dog,

“Seems I ne’er been so contented. And did you see that sign in the west?

Good crop weather.” She pumped water into the churn, turned the dasher

until the water that drained off appeared fresh drawn. Then she worked

the butter with the paddle, folding and pressing. She spoke as if

disputing with someone, “I love butter that’s made up proper.” One at a

time bats that were peering restless from the loft of the barn across

the way launched out and downward after night insects, then swerved into

the treetops. Soon the air was busy with their bodies darting and

zig-zagging and their squeaking high-pitched like mice. A cow lowed in

the barnyard as it was kneeling, the alarm cry of a cock sounded as it

was crowded off its roost, a gander hissed at a female barn rat that

slunk along the wall.

Ellen returned to the kitchen, to press chunks of butter into a daisy

mold and wrap the half-pound forms in sheets of brown paper. She carried

them to the dry well and pulling up the bucket, packed them in and

lowered it down to the cold region. Whenever she came out of doors, Jack

would rise and follow her. When she returned to the house, he curled in

the cool under the bushes.

She went into the parlor. A lamp was lit, the family sat in their

accustomed places. Maria was knitting rapidly; the wood needles made

dull clicks. She moved her lips occasionally, her eyes glancing

sidewise. Anton’s squat figure dominated the room. He was smoking his

nightly pipe, a farm journal unopened on his lap. Frankie brought him a

terrarium she had made. In a glass bowl, a collection of bits of mosses

and stones and a broken piece of mirror formed a minute scene. “Mandy

York made one for her pa,” Frankie was telling him. “I noticed how it

was done.”

The man’s heart beat strongly. “I’ll think a heap of it, Poppet. I’ll

set it in the window of the bedroom where it’s shady.”

Ellen was leafing through the Bible. “Proverbs says here there are three

things stately in their march, the lion and the greyhound and the

he-goat. Hear that, Pa? It says the he-goat also.” No one looked her

way. There were only the whispers of Anton drawing his pipe and Frankie

polishing the glass bowl and Maria’s busy needles. Ellen dropped the

book on the table abruptly. “Reckon I’ll go take a bath.”

In the half-dark kitchen she filled a kettle. She lit the kerosene

burner and went to stand on the porch while it was heating. The meadows

were flecked with fireflies, and along the stone foundations of the old

house soft shadows sulked. Ellen was leaning against the porch rail. The

summer dusk seeped through her nostrils, warming her blood unreasonably,

almost to sadness. She took the tin wood-bottomed tub from its nail,

went to the pump for more water. She threw her clothes aside, washed

quickly, using the jellied homemade lye soap from the crock. She dried

with a white towel from the porch clothesline. Dumping the water into

the bushes and returning the tub to its hook, she ran naked up the dark

stairs.

She shared the room at the head with her sister. The beds would stand in

the center of the floor in winter, away from drafty corners. In summer

they were moved to opposite ends, each under a small gable window. A

trunk held schoolbooks, Catholic missals, rosaries and childhood

miscellany. They folded their clothes into a low chest and hung their

dresses from a pole under the slanted ceiling. She closed the door

swiftly, breathing as though pursued. She knelt on the bed, arms on the

open window sill. The moon was emerging as though pushed from the womb

of a laboring earth. When Ellen put a hand up she felt tears on her

cheeks, wondered at them. “Reckon I can’t bear for there to be such a

fine sight.”

She was turning and groping in the chest for a nightgown. “Seems Pa

always favors Frankie o’er me. Some way.” Soon she was sleeping. The

moon without became canescent and utterly fair. Its colorless light

coming through the window made sharp corners soft. It was like a pale

rug on the girl.

She awoke from a dreamless sleep. “I nearly slept through.” She was

putting on a dress, in haste. Jack, snuffling and leaping, met her at

the door. She lit a lantern that hung from a bent nail, and ran barefoot

toward the barnyard. A blank disk of moon was squatting above twisted

trees. She stumbled over dry roots in the path and the lantern handle

clanged, the sound harping on the night. In the woodshed she held the

light high. The goat was in the corner by the wall, down in travail. She

bleated to Ellen, who hooked the lantern on a rafter peg and opened the

gate. The animal was straining again. The dog whined. Ellen turned on

him. “Be still and lie down, Jack.”

The water bag appeared and burst. The doe staggered to her feet,

trembling, head down, beard drooping. Uttering quick noises she was

licking Ellen’s hand. Then she pawed the ground, urgent, folded her

forelegs and went down again as the contractions came on. The nose of

the kid appeared, a row of lower teeth visible through a filmy sack. It

retreated, then appeared again. A foot came in sight beside the head.

The doe bawled. “Holy Virgin,” Ellen was whispering, “help my dear.”

Penny arched her back, threw herself on her side with a guttural sound.

Ellen grasped the forefoot, pulling until the leg and bulge of head

emerged. Then of a sudden, the kid was slipping out in a pool, mouth

gasping. With straw Ellen wiped the clinging mucus from its nostrils,

gathered up the struggling limp body and placed it by Penny’s head. The

dam began to clean it. Ellen looked under a caul-wet leg. “There. It’s

what I wanted, a doe.” A thin wail stabbed the air as the kid protested

Penny’s thorough cleansing. “I’ll run get your mash now.”

Ellen took the lantern and sped down the pathway spraying the darkness

with yellow light. The dog ran after her. “Now I have three of my own,

counting you, Jack.” She mixed wheat bran with hot water and molasses.

When she returned with it, she was brought to a halt at the pen door.

Another kid had been born, a white buckling. The brown first-born doe

was already staggering on its legs. Tiny cries were crisscrossing and

cutting the night. Penny was standing over the kids, chewing on a mass

of discarded placenta, her pattern fulfilled for the moment. When the

pan of mash was held out, she scooped it with her jaws, burying her nose

in the sweetened food. And Ellen, rubbing the newborn twins with dry

straw, was eased in a measure of her longings.

2

Mist was steaming up from the land before the hot ball of sun would drag

through. Ellen was carrying the fluffy brown kid to the kitchen to show

the family. “This is the least one. Penny doesn’t know I robbed her of

it. She’s busy eating.” Ellen stood the kid on the floor. It looked

about, gave a sidewise spring into the air, cocking its head, waggish.

It leaped again, pattering on stiff hoofs to Maria who pulled at her

apron and drew back with a low noise. “Oh look, Ma. She’s so pretty. If

I hadn’t been there last night she might have died.”

“Haw. That’s what you claim,” Anton said. “They get born all the same.”

Frankie had relaxed, seeing her father was in favorable mood. She let

the yeanling suck on her finger, stooping over it. “Say.”

“Don’t you want to hold her, Ma?” Ellen insisted. She knew it worried

Maria if an animal was in the house; on cold nights she would slip

downstairs to take Jack up to bed, creeping down again to let him out

early. But this wasn’t the same as a dog for its breath was gently

perfumed and it cried like a bird. “Come on, Ma.”

“Fetch the little thing away, Ellie. I don’t want hit to touch me. I

can’t abide the fur against me.”

Anton supported her. “Your ma’s right. Hit belongs at the barn with the

nanny. Your chores redded up, girl?”

“I did them real early.” Ellen was cradling the kid in her arms; she

carried it to its dam at the woodshed. As she was going back to the

house, she saw her father ahead on the path, striding from the barn. He

shouted over his shoulder to Sam and continued his way to where Frankie

was waiting on the steps. He was cutting the end from a twist of dark

red tobacco leaves with his knife. He was clad in everyday garb, faded

blue overalls and black sateen shirt.

Anton Gaddy was still winter-fat; by fall he would be lean. He was a

short thick-set man. His flewed lips hung loose, his chin was long and

heavy-jawed. When young his head had been heavily red-thatched, now at

forty-eight was balding. His face was freckled and the sun already had

burned his skin, despite the protection of a straw hat, toward the high

bronze he would wear all summer. He was one of three brothers born and

raised on this farm. He possessed it fiercely as he did all he made his

own. In a similar fashion his mother had once ruled, driving her husband

and denying her two youngest sons that the eldest might prosper. She had

sent this favorite, Marc, to college to fulfill her plans for him. But

he had run away, disappeared. Then she was notified he had died, and she

had brought back the body. This son’s failure had broken Nell Gaddy.

When Anton would think about his mother he sometimes confused her with

the Virgin Mary. After her lingering death his passivity had evolved

into violence, his brooding silence into action. He had taken over the

farm and bought out his living brother’s share. His father, stringy,

worn from a life of toil, had dropped dead behind the team one fall, his

passing scarce noted.

“Want to ride the mare out to the rye field, Frankie?” Anton was folding

his knife. “You can let the foal run alongside. You can play with it in

the daisies and feverfews while I’m mowing.”

Sam was bringing up the horses, the bay mare Moll, and Blueberry, the

buckskin gelding. A six-week colt trotted alongside, shy at the noise of

harness on its dam.

“All right, Pa.” Frankie nodded and went toward the team. Her slight

form in the shapeless green dress was moving listless.

“Pa,” Ellen said. “I’m going to Love’s now. I’d be glad to get you

somewhat.”

“You can pick up two-three plugs for me. Get Brown Mule.”

“I will, Pa.” At the well she rinsed her face and hands in the rushing

stream, ran dripping to the house. She dried with the porch towel and

sped upstairs to change her dress.

The crow is black, my love you know

It will surely turn to white

If e’er I do forsake you

Bright day will turn to night

She was taking from its hanger a dress patterned with huge white dots.

“It was a sad day for us Gaddys when peddler came to the door with this

polka-dot goods that took Ma’s eye. And it purely wears like iron.” She

pulled on stockings, laced her shoes, slipped into the long-waisted

dress. She unbraided her hair and combed it. She tied it with a string,

careless, as she was stepping down to the kitchen.

Maria had packed butter and cheese with the eggs in a big basket. She

was calling in her reedy voice from the cellar, “There’s a list on top

of the eggs, girl. Trade careful, mind. Watch Grady doesn’t cheat me,

for he’ll try.”

Ellen put the list in her pocket.

thred, white and black, elastik, small sack salt and coffee. if

enough money, sack sugar small, also tatted lace for sunday collar.

cinnamon and clove sticks, pepper and spice for pikles. save back

for Mr. Gaddy wants apple baccy. dont you forget. and ask Stacey

Love if she has some east. Mine is worn out.

She petted Jack, told him to stay. He sat back on his haunches to watch

her swing down the dusty road. Grady Love’s store, on the outskirts of

Millville, was two miles away.

Have you seen the green grass

Trampled under foot

Arise and grow again

Oh love it is a killing thing

Did you e’er feel the pain

The sky was blue banners and white. Young breezes were soughing in the

trees’ leaves. Her trading basket was light. A mocker-bird was quavering

in a cottonwood and ahead a baby rabbit was loping down the side of the

clay road. A buggy passed, whirling red dust into eddies. She crossed

the plank bridge that spanned the Sweetincreek. Some of the heavy boards

were loose and shifted as she walked across, her footsteps hollow. She

inspected a group of lanky red flowers on the bank across the ditch. “I

don’t even know your name. You got one, you know.” As she started on her

way again, she half paused, as though she were losing something

precious, quitting a thing but partly experienced. She wandered along,

her face dreamy, the basket swinging idle. As if she were seeking

something. “Everything, be it bird or flower or star, has a name of its

own. No matter how small it be.”

She was nearing a faded frame store, set before a stubbled field of

goldenrod and chicory. Out in front were benches where customers whiled

away time or waited to hitch a ride on the milk truck going to New Hope

or Bethel or away down to Seven Mile Run. Ellen pulled open the screen

door and squinted at the dim interior. She entered and rested her basket

on the counter. A few flies were snoring lazily in the air. There were

open barrels and grimy shelves, and meal, rice, bran, seed, had sifted

into the knotholes and poorly joined planks of the puncheon floor. Grady

Love, spare-framed, Jay-voiced, bartered with her. “How’s this lace for

your ma, Ellen? Seven and a half cents.” Grady had known Ellen all her

life. He pitied the poor Gaddy brat and would favor the trade on her

side.

“It’s kind of ratty, Mester Love. Haven’t you got a stouter grade?”

She was stowing the spices, lace, tobacco and kitchen goods in her

basket. She consulted her list. “Does your wife have some starter yeast

to spare? Ma’s bread isn’t rising so good.”

When Grady returned from his quarters in the rear with a cloth-wrapped

jar, Ellen was gazing at dusty bolts of yard goods stacked on a shelf.

He offered to lift some down. Her wistful fingers lingered over a filmy

white cotton with tiny woven points of blue. “I’d love a length of this.

What do you name it?”

“That’s dotted Swiss, Ellen.”

“If Pa’ll let me trade some strawberries, would you hold a piece back

for me? We’ll be picking soon.”

“Sure, Ellen. You just send word.”

“Bye now, Mester Love.” She took her basket from the counter and pushed

open the door. A fluff of cotton was pinned to the wire mesh to keep off

flies, but they swarmed in the blaze of sunlight as she went out. Half

blinded, she bumped into the hurrying figure of a young man. She was

thrown back with such force that she dropped her basket, the contents

spilling.

“I’m sorry. Are you hurt, ma’am?” He was grasping her bare arms.

Ellen pushed him from her, confused. “You plaguing bastard.”

She was kneeling, but he was swifter, retrieving the thread spools

before her hands could reach them, setting straight the sack of coffee

beans, the yeast jar, laughing.

“I never saw you, ma’am, in the sunlight.”

He was fair-complected with ash-blond hair. His eyes were the color of

the miniature blue flowers the country folk call innocence. “You’re

foreign,” she stammered. “I don’t know your face.”

“I’m the new hand at Brinker’s farm on Sweetincreek Road. I’m Christian

Ay. You know of Carl Brinker?”

Dutchman Brinker was a Lutheran and a heathen. When Frankie was in the

first grade of the public school, Pa had got in a brush with Brinker

over the prayer the youngens recited before class. Pa withdrew Frankie

and put her in a parochial school, though it meant the family had to

scrimp more.

Ellen was brushing dust from her dress. “Pleased to meet your

acquaintance, Mester. Reckon I’ll get on my way.” Her shoes were gritty

with dirt; she was pushing the unkempt hair from her hot cheeks.

“Wait a second. Where do you live? I’m going back down the road.” He was

persuasive. “Be glad to give you a lift in the pickup, ma’am.”

“Well.” She accepted and stepped lightly into the high seat of the

battered truck. Leaning against the sun-hot leather, she waited while he

did his errands. Idly she noted manure clods on the floor and baby shoes

dangling by a pair of soiled laces from the dashboard. Musty farm smells

permeated the cab.

Then he was back, sliding into the seat and pressing the starter. The

motor refused to turn over. “Be just a minute. She likes to be coaxed.”

He took a crank from under his feet and jumped down.

“Now, Pa sure would have raised sand,” she whispered to herself.

The motor had caught. He was climbing back while the engine puttered and

gasped and the cab shook. He spit on his hand where a fresh cut bled.

“Every time that crank slips I slice myself. Can’t get the hang of it

somehow. My old man never had a car.” His cheekbones were broad and

high, his mouth wide. His laughter was showing even white teeth. These

with his tow hair made his face appear darker by contrast than it was.

His legs were rather shorter than average, his torso powerful.

“Daddy owns a store in Louisville. It’s like Love’s place only lots

bigger.” He made a grimace. “And it’s in the stinking city.”

“I ne’er been to a city yet.”

“Well, they stink. I hate the store. My sister does too.”

“Oh?”

“That Rose. She’s wild to leave, only Daddy won’t let her. They need me

too, but I send money every week so they can pay a boy. What a gyp.” The

truck was rattling over the bridge. Christian blew his horn at a hound

trotting in the center of the road, “Oooo-ga!” It slunk into the weeds

of the ditch, nose low. “Once the revenuers came in our place looking

for Jake. If you drink too much it’ll kill you. We never sold hooch like

some did in back.”

“Pa says Mester Bilberry hired two men who drained the rotted ferment

from the bottom of his silo. Till he found out. To get drunk of a

Saturday night.” Her voice trailed away.

“Well me, I always wanted to work on a farm. It’s the life.”

“Yes.”

“I’m strong as a bull. Just by luck I got this job. Mr. Brinker’s last

man quit and he happened to come by our store. So I wrote him, not

thinking I’d get hired.”

“Oh?” Ellen was awkward in her loss of words.

“My sister carried on when I went. She thought she’d get to leave home

first. My old man told her he’d tie her up before he’d turn her loose in

that sin-ridden city. That’s the way he talks. So I’ve been with Mr.

Brinker a month now. Some day I’ll have a farm like his of my own.”

A bump in the road made her clutch the basket on her lap. The little

shoes bounced.

“Aren’t they silly? Brinker’s crazy for his kids. Always got the

littlest one riding on his shoulders.”

“I’ve got a goat,” Ellen was blurting, “named Penny. She dropped me a

pair of kids last night.”

“A nanny? Gosh, Brinkers don’t have a goat. Maybe he’d buy one of yours.

His boys could drive it to a wagon. Want me to ask?”

“No, I’d ne’er sell one. See, they’re mine.” She wondered whether this

stranger could understand the value in which she held the sloe-eyed

beasts.

At the yellow farmhouse Christian halted the truck. Dust was floating

disturbed in the air above the beaten roadway. The pattern of the midday

sun was weaving and shimmering in the shade of the cottonwoods. “See

you, ma’am.” He laughed like he couldn’t help it, like a great joke had

come to his mind. “Ellie, that is.”

She made no reply, watched the truck grow small, rumbling toward

Brinker’s farm, three miles down the road. She moved to the house. Jack

was thrusting his head into her fingers and she stroked it. She smiled

as though she understood. “See you, Mester.” She took the cuts of

tobacco from among the goods in the basket, slipping them into the

pocket of her dress. Maria stood vigilant just within the doorway.

“Here’s your basket, Ma.”

“Your dish be setting in the pantry, girl. Soon as you eat, there’s

ironing. Hit’s dampened down in yonder basket.” The woman had hung the

wash at dawn-dusk, gathered it quickly at mid-morning, wearing an

outsize sunbonnet. “This trading sure looks poor, Ellie. Hit pleasures

Grady to short me, knowing I can’t go trade myself.”

Ellen went upstairs, came down barefoot. She took her plate from the

pantry, ate the fried piece of duck, the boiled potato, curd cheese,

biscuits and honey. She was dipping from the blue pail. “I declare this

water’s sweet, Ma.”

Maria was sorting the contents of the basket in the pantry. “You ne’er

got the pickling spices.”

“There wasn’t enough to trade.”

“Well.”

“I want to stir up a cake this evening, Ma. Can I have white sugar for

it?” When their taste for sweets became strong, Ellen and Frankie would

ask for store-bought sugar to cook with, although they could get along

with sorghum or honey. Flour and meal ground from the farm grain was

ready for their use, plentiful as a rule, and drippings and lard, eggs

and milk. “I’ll bake that white cake Pa likes.”

“Say,” Maria was frowning. “You remember Mester Gaddy’s tobacco?”

“Yes. I’ll run down to look at my new goats. If Pa’s in the barnyard

I’ll give it to him.”

“There’s ironing, girl,” warned Maria. She was holding the new lace in

her thin hands.

“I’ll hurry.” Ellen brought an armful of last year’s brown hay and an

ear of corn to her goat. “This is all he’ll let me have, Penny. But I’ll

gather purple vetch this evening, and before long your yeanlings will be

grown enough so you-all can run with the cows.” The doe dug into the

corn, using her lower row of teeth against the pad of upper jaw to tear

the kernels loose. Her amber pupils stared distant. She seemed oblivious

to her young repeatedly butting the new-swelled udder and sucking the

moist teats.

“His name’s Christian Ay. Reckon he calls some girl his may? Reckon a

man’ll e’er be partial to me, Penny?” She dropped the cob and went to

the barnyard. “I don’t see Pa, Jack. And I’ve got to iron.”

In the kitchen she was placing the sadirons on the stove to heat. She

brought out the ironing board, patched with bleached feed sacking, and

laid it crosswise on the end of the table. She spit on the irons to test

them, went about her work with familiar hands. The floor was cool to her

dusty feet. Her mind roved to one of the songs she had learned from

Penny Dougherty.

All on one summer evening

When the fevers were dawning

I heard a fair maid make a mourn

She was weeping for her father

And grieving for her mother

And thinking all on her true love John

Without the square-paned windows, the musky earth lay under the hand of

summer’s sun. Garden rows were in view, rabbits and woodchucks fenced

out by a wall of stones that mounted each year as more were turned from

the ground. Blooming flowers were crowding outside the barrier,

begonias, love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, cranesbills and

honesty. Later sweet peas and corn poppies would flower, and nasturtiums

and youth-and-old-age. Beyond were nestled the beehives, pale

apple-blossom and maple honey already stored in the bottom super. In

fall the hives would tower high and the men would rob them, carrying a

pan of smoke. The topmost honey would be red-black, taken by the bees

from buckwheat blooms. Anton would relish the high flavor, but Ellen

would find it turning her stomach, like milk when the cows had eaten

wild garlic.

Maria entered the kitchen, set about mixing bread, kneading and thumping

the mass of dough on the long table, flour drifting to the floor. “That

was good yeast Stacey gave me. It’s raring.”

“Grady said it was new.” Ellen carried starched dresses and folded

clothes up to the attic room. She put them away, then combed her hair in

front of the oblong mirror that hung on the door. She made her mouth

soft. “Pleased to meet your acquaintance.”

She looked down. Her feet were bare, her brown ankles grimy, the dress

with the big polka dots was crumpled and her hands were rough. “There.

You are an ugly brat.” She flung the door ajar to hide the glass,

braided her hair swiftly, binding the ends. Slowly she went down the

stairs.

“Come here, girl. Slop those sows. The two that’s due to farrow. Mester

Gaddy said to feed them up.”

Ellen took the pail, crossing the lane to the hog lot. “Soooooeee,” she

shouted, “pig-pig-pig-pig!” Grunting and sniffing, the two laden red

beasts approached, eying her under horny lids. Shoulders pushing, they

vied for the whey, potato peelings, crumbs of dough and flour. Ellen

watched them root around for scraps and, still squealing and shoving,

move off. She rinsed the bucket, filling it afresh to carry with her.

The drowsy odor of green grape blossoms drifted languid from the vines.

In the garden she stooped and moved, her toes grasping the earth, her

nimble fingers pulling among sprouts, making small piles of weedlings.

She transplanted sorrel and mustard, poured water on them, made beds of

onion sets, black radishes, corn and squash to stagger the summer yield

for the table.

Later on in the afternoon Frankie came to the stone wall. “Pa thinks I’m

practicing. I vow it’s hot.” Her sunbonnet was shading her face, her

forehead was moist. “Sam’s at the barn drenching Maisie with coal oil.

She took sick. Sam says it’s the clover. Hit’s too rich for the cows.”

Ellen stretched her arms and left her work. She washed at the pump,

splashing her feet, face and arms, wetting her dress.

“Hurry,” Frankie urged, “you’ll ne’er get a cake baked before evening

chores, Ellie.”

“If you’ll keep your eye on the stove, we’ll make hit. How’s Pa?”

“He’s plagued about Maisie getting the bloat. But the rye’s cut and

drying good.” She was plaintive. “Wish Pa’d let me go with you sometime

to trade at Love’s. Why won’t he, Ellie?”

Ellen was touching the packets of tobacco in her pocket; she would use

them to bribe an approving glance from her father. “Hit’s his way.” She

sensed the familiar stab of rejection.

They stood idle a moment before Frankie started. “Ellie, we’ll ne’er

make it.”

They sped to the house light-footed in the dust and heat. “Oh yes, we

will. I’ll use Tinie Bilberry’s rule for a white one. You beg Ma for

more sugar to frost it.”

They laughed breathless. The younger girl swung her sunbonnet in her

hand. “Show me how that one’s stirred up, Ellie.”

The kitchen was cool, the shades half drawn. Ellen lit the burners under

the oven. Frankie went to wheedle sugar from Maria, who was in the

bedroom making a new shirt for her husband from a bolt of stiff black

sateen. The woman was hunched over, concentrating on perfect stitches in

the light from the small windows. In this room two babies had been born

and one miscarried. Over the gray-painted iron bedstead hung a heavy

crucifix. At the farther wall loomed a commodious wardrobe closet,

smelling of camphor and holding Maria’s Sunday dresses and Anton’s black

suit. “I’ll spare a teacup, Frankie. I’d rather you’d use sorghum. You

girls are wasteful.”

Frankie measured the sugar and was sweeping the kitchen. Ellen was

leaning back in her father’s chair, the long apron draped over her

stretched-out legs as she turned the batter. “Did you heed what went in,

Frankie?” The enthusiasm of her young years lifted her so the breath

nearly knotted in her throat.

My true love

Is a blue eyed daisy

She won’t work

And I’m too lazy

The batter had been poured into the pans and they were set in the hot

oven when into the kitchen their father’s voice rapped, “Feeding time.

Where’s that girl?”

“Keep your eye on the oven, Frankie. Don’t forget.” Ellen was running

out the door and down the steps after Anton who strode toward the barn.

“Here’s your tobacco, Pa.”

He stopped to take it from her. “Now can’t you e’er get to your chores,

girl, without me hunting you out?”

Inside the house, Frankie was turning quietly to the parlor. Soon scale

notes rang precise against the ancient paper-covered walls. Maria put

her sewing aside, went to the kitchen, pinning a sack apron about her.

She kneaded down the bowl of warm raised dough, forming loaves and

biscuits, greasing them with soft butter. She put them near the heat of

the oven to rise.

In the hills about the farmland the sun-drenched late afternoon air

filled with Sam Offut’s voice pleading full and deep, “Sooo-cow. Sooook,

sooook, sooo-cow.” Winding up the lane came the line of milkers, chewing

cuds, dispassionate, hip-bones swaying, udders distended. Jack tailed

them, head down. When one halted to crop a clump of grass, his sharp

bark sang and he nipped the bony fetlocks. The old duck flapped its

wings, splashed the pond water so crawfish and turtles dove to the

muddied bottom. It was lifting its heavy body from the pond, and then

circling Ellen on the hillside.

3

A few days passed. Lily Garrett, who lived on the other side of

Millville, stopped by to make lavender sticks with Ellen and Frankie.

Lily brought a pale fresh honeycomb, for the Garrett family robbed their

hives all summer long, not waiting for a fall harvest like the Gaddys.

“Mama says she’ll send a plate of basswood honey in July, Mrs. Gaddy,

when the bee trees are busy.”

Lily was fat, and soft as custard; she would rearrange her blond curls

constantly, her thick white arms uplifted. She was nimble-minded,

giggling often, her chins trembling under her small red mouth. She was

as abandoned as a puppy untied from a cord and it may have been because

of this that Lily’s father bade her lie across her bed each Saturday

night while with a locust limb he whipped her well, saying, “The one who

loves his daughter chastens her.”

Lily arrived in a clear forenoon before the high heat of the day. The

lavender was in full blow as the girls walked beside the bed, plucking

them long-stemmed. “Say, Frankie.” Lily was stripping the leaves away

and drawing the blooms into a tight bunch. “I remember Ellie and me were

in the second grade when I first braided lavendery wands with you-all.

Your papa had just put you to the nuns.”

“I know.” Frankie was tying the flowers into a ball with soft cotton

yarn, winding and braiding it among the wilted stems. When the flowers

were cured they would fasten on ribbons, keep back a few for scenting

their clothes chests, and trade the rest at Love’s store. “What’ll

become of us all,” Frankie cried, “in the time to come?”

“You’ll be a famous pianist, Frankie,” said Lily, “you’ll see. And Ellie

and me’ll visit you up north.”

“Ellie will marry a rich farmer,” Frankie said, “and have a flock of

youngens.”

“Not me,” said Ellen. “I won’t be called Mama. And I’d ne’er do a man’s

bidding.” But she was thinking of Christian, dwelling on him like a

lovely secret.

“Well,” Lily giggled, bold, “if a man liked me, I’d have him. I wouldn’t

be biggity.”

“Lily.”

“Say, I sent off for a thing,” Lily whispered, “to catch a man.”

“What?” Frankie pressed.

“A bust developer. That’s how the farm journal named it.”

“Why do you want that? You’re big, Lily.”

“It said men like you that way. I’m going to try it.”

“Your pa’ll find out.”

“I don’t give a care. It comes in a plain brown wrapper, they claim. He

might not see.”

“You’re brazen,” Ellen said.

“If I do catch a man I’ll ne’er have a log cabin chinked with clay like

ours. Nor cheesecloth curtains neither. And I’ll have no squalling

babies to whip.” Lily sweated in the sun, raising her pillars of arms to

her hair. The shy scent of lavender enveloped the three of them.

“Reckon we’ll e’er disremember making these lavendery wands?” asked

Ellen.

* * * * *

On Saturday she went to appraise the strawberry bed bordering the fence

line of Sweetincreek Road. Through the mulch of old straw the creeping

plants were flourishing. “The berries are swelling good. Give them a

week,” Ellen said to the dog beside her. “I’m going to brave Pa to let

me trade a basket when they’re ripe.”

“Hey, Ellie Gaddy, how’s your nanny goat?” Christian Ay, in blue shirt

and overalls, was leaning on the other side of the rail fence amid

scraggling hollyhocks and high ditch grass and mullein on the road bank.

“I brought you something.” He was leaping the rails, his teeth flashing

in his broad tanned face. There was a bundle under his arm. Jack

growled, running toward him. He patted the dog and it trotted after.

“Hey.” She waited, the red gathering in her cheeks.

“Brinker gave me the evening off. So I walked down the road. Is this

your dog? Here, it’s for you.” He was setting the feed sack he carried

on the ground and opening it. A rabbit wriggled its nose and slowly

blinked dark eyes upward, grain dustings sifted in its blue-gray fur.

“My.”

“I guessed you’d like it.”

She took it from the sack, holding it in the crook of her arm. She

brushed the dust from it and stroked the wiry ears. “It’s trembling.”

“It’s tame. It’s not afraid. Rabbits always do that.”

She sat in the grass, bearing it carefully. “I ne’er had one.”

“Don’t pick it up by the tail. Its eyes’ll drop out.” He grinned,

looking down on her and putting his hands in his pockets. “You always

lived here, Ellie?”

She nodded, bending over the pet beast, disturbed by the looming

stranger, charmed.

“I figured you weren’t tenants.”

“Pa owns this farm outright,” she whispered.

He kicked at the grass turf, idly flexed his arm muscles, feeling them

with his broad hands, one and then the other. “You know what Mr. Brinker

does, Ellie? He pens his pigs under the horse barn where it’s raised off

the ground. And he puts chickens in batteries up in the loft by the hay.

Beats me. I never saw the like.” Christian was plucking a grass stalk to

chew. “Made his boys a windmill. A little one. Grinds real corn for

their banties and rabbits.” The young man was excited by the girl. There

had been her coarse words thrust at him in spite when he jostled her as

they first met. And now her ease, snuggled in the grass by the

strawberry bed, her face slightly flushed. “It beats me, that way Mr.

Brinker does.”

In the silence that drew down, the hum of bees working the young weed

blooms vibrated. The dog scented an animal trace and darted away in

pursuit. The careless voice of a male thrush was dropping like liquid

pebbles in the sweetened air, then it ceased. Ellen was holding clover

leaves for the rabbit to chew; she was content.

“I thought you’d like a rabbit, Ellie. It wasn’t much bother getting it

for you,” he bragged. Christian had inquired of Brinkers about her

family, heard they were unfriendly, cut themselves off from most of

their neighbors. Mr. Gaddy kept a close hand on his two daughters. That

was what Mr. Brinker had claimed. I’ll bet she’s never been kissed.

Ellen was lifting her eyes, gray, gold-flecked. “I’m beholden for it.”

He spoke as though he had practiced what he said, deliberate. “I’m kind

of sweet on you, honey.” He tossed aside the grass blade quickly,

leaning down, his tan face darkened. He was laying a hand on her soft

cheek, putting his mouth taut and firm against hers.

Surprised, wide of eye, she looked at his closed lids. The strangeness

was repellent but for a moment curiosity snared her. Then she remembered

Maria’s veiled hints and Anton’s heavy predictions. She spilled the

rabbit from her and shoved the young man so he stumbled back. “Now get

away.”

“Come on, Ellie,” he was crying, “bet you’ve never been kissed.”

“Yes, I have,” she lied.

“You got a boy friend?”

“No.” She was getting up. “And rabbit’s lost. Jack’ll get him.”

“Let him go. I heard your daddy won’t let you out. Is that so?”

“I’m going to find rabbit.” She hunted in the brush, coming on the tame

creature nibbling timothy by the grapevine posts. She lifted and

caressed it, stony-featured.

“Goodbye now,” he was calling.

She breathed, motionless, “My pa would so let me out.” She turned to see

him walking to the fence, watched while he laid his hand on it. She

called suddenly. “Here he is. I found him.”

Christian leaped the fence and laughed, shouting, “Should I come next

Saturday?”

“I don’t care.” He waved as he was disappearing, and she shrugged. “Who

cares?”

* * * * *

The week moved forward. She asked Anton, “Could I trade some of the

strawberries to Grady Love for a dress-goods piece? I’d like a new one.

Of dotted Swiss.”

He frowned. “What foolishness, girl.”

“I’d make Frankie one, too. With ruffles. For mass.”

Anton was caught and reconsidered. “I suppose you could. Crops are doing

well without hit don’t get dry. When you pick, hold back five-six

baskets.”

The next Saturday a thunderstorm held sway. Ellen was pacing restive

about the house, at last ran through the storm to curl up drenched by

her three goats. “I don’t care if he doesn’t come. What’s he to me? And

we need this gully-washer for the fields.” Rain thrashed afresh on the

woodshed roof. “Reckon he might walk down next week, Penny? If he’s not

forgot by then.”

The storm cleared in the early evening. As she was hurrying through the

delayed feeding a rainbow emerged, spanning the hills. She stopped in

her chores, forgetting all but the opalescent arch in the setting of

summer green. “There. That’s a sight. I set my bow in the cloud for a

token between Me and the earth. Everlasting, He said.”

In the moist heat that followed the downpour, the strawberries began to

ripen quickly. Ellen bartered with Grady Love and showed Frankie the

ribbons the storekeeper had thrown in to match the two lengths of cloth.

“That’s a dollar forty cents worth if you had the cash.” Ellen cut and

stitched, Frankie set up the ironing board to press.

That night Anton nodded as the younger girl was standing before him in a

yellow-dotted dress, a deep ruffle flaring around the boot tops, a

yellow ribbon plaited into the round neckline. Anton pulled her to his

lap. “This redheaded poppet’s so fair. Makes me wish I was her beau come

courting.”

And Ellen, holding the image of Christian, felt a lesser pain as she

watched them frolic. The next day though, she was wearing her drab

gingham. “He won’t come. It’s been two weeks. He’ll ne’er think to

come.” She walked out to the berry patch. “I’ll just see if they’re

still plentiful.”

Christian was astride the rail fence. He waved, “Got rained out last

week.”

“I came but to look at the berries.” She was approaching the fence.

He had a red-painted can that held a plant, the heart-shaped leaves

mottled white along the veins, the flowers purple. “Here.” He was

offering it. “Old lady Brinker grows them. She called it a primrose. Her

kitchen’s full of flowers and vines. Too many for me. She even had her

old man and me to nail up boxes outside the windows and fill them with

rotted manure. And us with hay to cut. And corn to work.”

Ellen was undone by the gift. “It can live in my loft window.”

“I never saw such folks for decorations.”

“It calls to mind the shooting-stars that grow in swamp spots. You know

them?” The flush lay upon her.

He jumped down from the fence, began to tell stories he’d gleaned over

the past days. While he was speaking he looked away and took her hand in

his. She kept her hold on the red can. They leaned back against the wood

rails. He was telling about the studhorse Brinker had just purchased.

“It’s a red roan Belgian. Stands near eighteen hands. I never saw a

stallion to beat him for class. And light on his feet like a little

filly.”

“There. I’d love to see him,” Ellen whispered. She let her hand lie soft

in his.

As if it were a usual thing he put his arm on her tanned neck, under the

yellow hair. She stirred restless, the plant in one arm. “Tell me about

your folks, Ellie. Where they come from?”

“My great grandsir was from o’er the waters. My Uncle Garland tells how

he traveled across the east Kentucky mountains. He killed elk that lived

in the forests there in olden days. He saw giant eagles too, and poison

scorpions.”

“What’s your old man like?” He withdrew his arm, threw himself on the

grass, his head against the lowest rail. He was frowning.

“Oh I don’t know. Say, I near forgot. I made my sister and me each a new

dress this past week.” She looked down at him. “They turned out proud.”

“Why didn’t you wear yours?”

“I didn’t want to. Pa might see. I’ll wear it to mass though, tomorrow.”

“What’s your old man like, Ellie? Does he still spank you?” He slid down

in the grass, staring skyward. “I’d just like to meet him. Sometimes

those crabby old fellows make me sick.”

She saw his eyes that were gazing at the clouds angrily, his fair hair

and new-shaved face. She sighed.

“I could have killed my father,” he was saying, “trying to chain me to

his store. Before I’d run that place for him, I tell you I’d go to

jail.”

There was his stubborn wide mouth.

“There’s a circus coming to New Hope next week, Ellie. I heard it’s got

an elephant. Want to go? Mr. Brinker’ll give me the pickup to use.” He

stood up from the grass. “Let’s go ask your daddy now. I’m set on

going,” he warned.

“We’ll ask Ma,” she said quickly. “Pa’ll likely be in the field at this

hour.”

“Wait a minute.” He was reaching for her hand again. “Look, what’s the

matter with one kiss?”

“Well.”

“You’re afraid. It’s true. You never have been kissed.”

“Yes, I have too.” So she let his rigid wide lips bear upon hers. His

nose was in the way, and her arm that hugged the primrose. He pressed

against her. She was staring at his eyelids, cold. I don’t see as that’s

such a great thing. To write songs about and to whisper on.

“Now you like me, Ellie. Don’t you?” He was triumphant.

“Oh my, yes.” But she felt cheated. He thinks it’s a great thing.

They were crossing the field to the farm lane, walking up to the house.

Maria was inside the screen door, peering at them. “I thought it was

peddler. He’s past due,” she muttered and turned to go.

“Wait, Ma. This is Christian Ay. He asked me to go along with him and

the Brinkers to a circus at New Hope next Saturday. Can I go, Ma?”

“As far as I care you can.” Maria was disappearing into the house

recesses.

Christian looked at Ellen, demanding in a low tone, “Why’d you say

Brinkers were going, Ellie? I’m taking you.”

“I’ve got to own I was afraid she’d say no.” Her eyes glowed.

* * * * *

When Frankie learned Ellen was going on an outing, she waited until they

were undressing for bed. She spoke in the fluttering candlelight, her

voice a child’s, “You got a beau?”

“No.”

“Yes you have, Ellie.”

“I’m just going along with the Brinkers.”

“Pa ne’er liked Brinker.”

“I know.” It was a spear of pain.

“What’s that boy like?”

“What do you mean?”

“What does he do?”

“He talks to me.”

“I hate there being boys and girls and e’er a thing jumbled. Why can’t

it be smooth and all the same?”

“I don’t know. It’s the way of it. Like the priest says, God made it

so.” They sat on their beds rebellious, disturbed. “I don’t like it

either.” But Ellen was looking over at the new plant in her window.

In her heart a small edge of terror would reign throughout the week. But

Anton paid her no heed; he ignored her proposed trip in his concern with

the successful cutting and hauling in of the first hay, with the sows

that each farrowed a basket of tiny piglets. When Christian drove the

pickup into the yard, her father was at the barn. Ellen sped down the

porch steps, Jack barking wildly. Christian wore a red shirt,

store-creased, and black pants held up with worn green suspenders. His

hair was slicked damp, the strong artificial odor of violet pomade

pervading the cab. His face was haughty and alien. He seemed somehow

shorter and broader. She sat back with a satisfied sigh, smoothing the

fullness of the new blue-speckled dress. Her shoes were buffed and had

new laces. She had on her best white stockings. Her hair hung down loose

and in her handkerchief, scented with sweet fern and balsam needles, was

a small comb. They spoke little. Christian kept his arm on the window

ledge. He said, “That your new dress?”

“Yes.”

“You sew good there.” He wheeled the truck into a great dusty lot. They

drove under a pasteboard sign, CURCIS PARKING HERE. Christian paid an

old man a nickel. They hurried toward the huge colorful entrance arch.

“Let’s go, Ellie.” He strode to the ticket booth, she followed, and they

went in.

Through the noisy carnival air, hand in hand, they were wandering.

Christian was devouring peanuts, sack after sack. Ellen licked a mound

of pink spun sugar in a paper cone. “It’s like eating a cloud. It melts

to nothing.”

He was laughing at her, glad he was with Ellen after all. They went to

see the tent show, sitting on hard benches in the close-packed crowd,

the dust soft under their feet. He held her hand in his lap. In the ring

horses thundered by, rifles cracked, the King of the Cowboys on a

graceful white horse, waved his flapping hat. A baby elephant followed

by a tall one with a torn ear and an odorous camel, ambled around the

ring and out again, their progress accompanied by spasmodic

hand-clapping. A cage with a sleeping lion was trundled by a pair of

brown oxen. The ringmaster bawled through a megaphone. In smoldering

heat aerialists soared and swung as band music softened and swayed the

crowd’s amazement. Ellen leaned forward.

They roamed the grounds later, eating grilled hot dogs, drinking mugs of

high-foamed root beer drawn from an orange barrel. They stood before the

limp-maned lion’s cage. “Sure looks mangy, doesn’t he, Ellie? He’s

twenty years if a day.”

A group of boys came up to throw stones and poke through the metal bars

with striped circus canes, after a while meandering noisily away. “Poor

soul,” said Ellen, “those youngens shouldn’t ill at him that way.”

“Now there’s the midway, Ellie. Come on.” He was pulling her with him to

the wide grassy passage bordered with peep shows and circus sights. A

sinuous middle-aged woman was wriggling on a platform beneath a glaring

sign, EVENING IN PARIS. A barker coaxed, “Ten cents. One dime! See the

girlies. Imported from Pah-ree. Ten cents to see them revealed in their

natural beauty. Hurry. Hurry! One dime. They take it off. The Parisian

beauties.”

“Let’s see the strip tease. I dare you.”

But Ellen was shaking her head. “Double dare you to see the two-headed

baby instead.”

“Double dares go first. All right.”

They viewed an albino raccoon, a six-legged sheep, the tallest dwarf, a

mass of twining poisonous snakes. They stopped before the India-rubber

man and the fat lady. “Oh Christian, my teacher, Talithie Gentry, was

bigger than her. Easy.”

Christian paid the armless man a penny to write their names on a card in

elaborate script, holding the pen in supple toes. Christian was

pocketing the card. “This’ll remind me, Ellie, after you’ve gone.” He

hitched his suspenders cockily.

Then they were in the high-seated cab of the truck again, the narrow

tires jouncing in the hot dust. Christian was whistling above the racket

of the motor. He was warbling, partly off pitch:

When the m-m-m-moon shines

On the c-c-c-cow shed

I’ll be waiting for you by the k-k-k-kitchen door

His spirits were high.

I’ve got a cute little husband

Who’s just twenty-three

He’s just three years older than me

He goes out every night

And gets on a tight

And leaves the dear baby with me

He was pulling her to his side, driving with his arm about her. He was

caressing her hair and moving a hard palm from her throat to her

breasts, yielding and white under the stiff cloth. She was leaning into

the comfort of his body in the heat as they droned over neglected clay

roads. Clumps of black-eyed susans lined the ditches, and butterfly

weeds bearing ragged clusters of orange flowers. No birds sang in the

hot afternoon sun. Her thoughts began to drift. Without fear she

considered, Pa’ll beat me, it’s away past time for chores. “Is it late,

Christian? Penny must be watching for me.”

“Is that your sister?” He spoke, absent, his hand pressing upon her

breast.

Ellen shook her head. “It’s hot.” She drew away from his hold, moving to

lean out the window.

After a pause he said, “You tired, Ellie? Want me to stop in the shade

along the roadside?” It came thickly. He reached for her hand, slowing

the truck. In back of them a horn sounded and a red automobile with an

open top swerved around them to disappear in swirls of dust.

“You better take me home. My chores are waiting.” Her face was a soft

oval, her hand lay snared in his, feeling the rough calluses.

“All right, then. I only asked on account of Brinker milks late. Said he

wouldn’t look for me back till after six.” There was silence. Then he

said, “Naturally you do what you please.” He laughed, dropping her hand.

“Sure do like Mr. Brinker. Not a whit like my daddy. The other day I

hollered down from the top of the silo, how much feed do I give them and

he says, fork her down till you get tired twice.” He spoke animated,

striking the window ledge.

“Why don’t you like your pa?” Ellen asked.

“He’s a skinflint. You bet we had a fight when I said I was going to

work for Brinker. Had to promise him half my pay.” He snorted. “Me, a

man grown. Over twenty and turning a part of my pay to him. That

sonofabitch.” He lapsed into thought. “Say, I didn’t mean to swear

before a girl.”

“That’s all right.”

The truck was stopping before the yellow farmhouse. Ellen opened the

door. “I’m obliged, Christian. I won’t forget the strange beasts and the

people on the high swings. And everything.” She sensed the finality of

the afternoon.

He had her hand all at once. “Look, I’ll walk down to see you Saturday,

Ellie.” He was tender again suddenly, as if the magic of the day moving

already toward nostalgia smote him.

She went to the house, that final gesture lingering. The spotted thrush

winged to the grapevines where it hid its nest. Jack came bounding up,

tail wagging, neck arched in pride over the wild rabbit in his mouth. “I

see you caught your supper,” she whispered.

The town teacher’s buggy was in the lane, his mare hitched to the post

by the well. Every Saturday he came to give Frankie a piano lesson.

Anton had gone to his rooming house two years ago, waited in the hall, a

round black hat atop his balding head. “I be Anton Gaddy,” he had

mumbled. “I’ve heard there are ladies that make a name for themselves

playing before crowds that come to her. I’ve heard tell those kind are

honored and not deemed lightly in the eyes of rich folk. My daughter is

to play a piano I bought her in such a wise. Can you give lessons? I got

the money.” The town teacher had found his task difficult. The girl was

contrary in a sly way and had but small talent. She simply obeyed her

father’s will.

Ellen was listening to the piano as she mounted the steps. From the

kitchen wafted the acrid odor of pot greens Maria was canning. Ellen

stepped within the screen. Anton’s figure towered from out of the

fawning shadows. “To your room, girl. Hum.”

“Am I late, Pa?”

She was ascending the stairs, flagging, slow. The man’s footsteps coming

after were soft as the sweep of an owl’s wing, gentle in pursuit.

“You’re late.”

She stalled halfway. “Pa?” The pain was there, starting, in her throat.

“Thou shalt beat them with a rod. I’ve said it. Mind, girl.”

“You knew I was going.”

She went up. He was closing the door. He gripped a belt, the wide

leather strip dangling by a brass home-fashioned buckle. He would wear

this belt on Sundays with his black suit. “There. Town teacher met the

Brinkers trading in Bethel.”

She waited then, mute, and the hurt was high in her throat. She had

trained herself to silence since she was a small child, pitting herself

against his spirit, persuading herself he did it for love. He wants me

to be good.

“So they weren’t at that gauded circus. It’s e’er so. You be a liar.” He

was striking her, whispering harsh, gray eyes narrow, “Be you whoring so

soon, girl? Here’s a generation not washed of their filthiness. I’ll set

the priest at you. Hear?”

The door shut sharply. He had gone. Ellen was standing anchored as her

throat ached. His violence directed against her, aside from the cut of

the strap, would make her sicken and she was ruling it down until she

would be at peace with herself. She waited, finally moving to hang her

crumpled dress on the ridgepole and put aside her dust-grimed shoes. Her

stockings like white moss, were in a heap on the floor and she caught

sight of the pale pillar of her body moving in the mirror that was

fastened to the door.

She was hurrying to the barn then to linger over the pair of suckling

kids and tend the round of her chores. Clouds were lowering in the moist

ether that rumbled before an advancing evening storm. She remembered

lines from a song Christian Ay had said people sang in Louisville.

When I go toot-toot-tooting

Down the street

In my little Ford automobile

All that night rain fell on the receiving earth. The morning was humid

and portentous. In the earth’s vitals, seeds were bursting in slow

presage and primeval animal movement was rife. Above ground, bees were

snoring, working their hoards, minute midges piped thinly, bottle-flies

glutted at dung heaps or in company with spotted orange butterflies

savored rotten things. In the pond the duck had struck and killed a

fragile peeper frog, while from the woods edge a red dog fox looked on

at her, his button eyes bright with greed.

In the kitchen while dawn faded, Ellen was slicing bacon with a long

knife whetted to a narrow blade. She had brought the molded slab in from

the smokehouse. Peeled potatoes were boiling in a pot, a pan of biscuits

rose and browned in the oven. She started bacon frying in a spider and

measured coffee out of a jar unscrewed from the grinder on the wall. She

spooned it into water bubbling in a chipped tall pot. Frankie laid out

plates, plum preserves, buttermilk, ketchup, a stone jar of butter. Both

girls wore sleeveless petticoats, white stockings and church shoes.

Later they would get into the new dresses. “Ellie, did you notice if

that camel swallowed like a horse or chewed a cud?”

“There, I forgot to look.” Ellen went to the well for water. She met

Anton coming from the barn with Maria’s pail of milk. She held her hand

over the dark welt on her upper arm though his eyes weren’t on her. She

followed him to the kitchen, lifting out the bacon, breaking eggs into

the iron spider. She crumpled an eggshell in the coffee to settle the

grounds and dumped the hot potatoes into a brown bowl. The Gaddys and

Sam Offut grouped themselves at the stout table. They poured ketchup on

the potatoes and eggs, drank steaming cups of coffee, ate heavily, for

the workdays were arduous. They would arise by candlelight, seldom were

done by nightfall with the wheel of chores.

Then Sam brought the buckwagon around, Blueberry and Moll hitched to it.

“Hurry up, ooman,” Anton was saying to Maria, “we’ll be late to mass.”

His wife climbed up to the narrow seat edged with an iron rail, and sat

beside him. The girls were hiking themselves on the end of the wagon

bed, sitting on a rug, backs to their parents, feet dangling. As they

swung out onto Sweetincreek Road Anton spoke over his shoulder, “Your

nannies can go to the meadow and graze with the cows, girl. Those

yeanlings are old enough now.”

“I’ll take them down tomorrow, Pa.” Joy surged within her at his words,

and the hotness of the season swung in to ripen grain in the favored

fields and bring flowers to bud and bloom as the fragrant undulating

grace of the farm lands moved toward harvest.

4

The sun beat down like a scourge. Men moved listlessly, driving

themselves and their draft beasts. Fowl with panting beaks crouched in

dusty bowls they fashioned in yard corners with their fanning wings. By

flickering lantern light before the sun rose, the milking was completed.

Ellen and Frankie were called upon to help at stripping the udders of

the overabundant animals. The first streams on the pail bottom would

whine high, the tone lowering as the pail filled, becoming deep and

sonorous until foam ran down the pail sides. Then it was time to pour

the milk through squares of flannel into ten-gallon cans that would be

placed in the hewn-log water trough to cool, awaiting pickup by the

dairy truck. In the half-dark the cows shuffled to pasture, Jack nipping

their heels. Ellen would follow and close the gate. The sides of the

bovines were oily, their breath fragrant, eyes moist. By early morning

their stomachs would be distended with lush summer grass. Then

throughout the sweltering day they would lie in the shade of the woods,

chewing their cuds.

Anton and Sam would down a heavy breakfast, eat plates of eggs, Ellen

cracking a dozen in the skillet for them. They reached for more coffee

cake and bread and slabs of cold meat. After they ate they walked stolid

to the fields, working corn rows with cultivator and team, mowing and

raking and hauling in towering wagonloads of timothy and soybean and

clover hay. They mended fence lines, repeatedly repaired harness and

machine, sharpened saw, adz and ax, scythe, knife and cutting blades.

They would throw from the fields the larger stones that cropped up under

the bite of the share. Some fields had a rock outgrowth too large to be

removed and it must stand bared and alone, machines and men circling it.

At mid-morning and afternoon Frankie would search until she found the

men in a field. She brought them a stone pitcher of water spiced with

vinegar or a ginger stick. They mopped their rough-bristled faces with

red kerchiefs, and drank. Sam was shirtless, his overall straps cutting

his scrawny sunburned shoulders. Anton, powerful upper body covered to

protect his freckled skin, had soaked his black sateen shirt with

perspiration. His large arms shone red and glistening. The odor of sweat

and earth rose strong about the men.

“Before God, Sam. Can’t figure how a little fart like you can put in a

day’s work alongside me. Haw.”

“E’er watch a banty cock, Mester Gaddy? It’ll outlast your Barred Rock

rooster any day of the week. Not so much of me to get wore out.”

The Gaddy women were laboring too, bringing in grapes and berries, beans

and tomatoes by the pail and bushel. They canned and dried and sugared

down the procession of largess that moved through the kitchen. There was

more milk than the dairy would buy and Maria would skim the surplus for

cream, send Ellen to trade the butter she churned. It was dirt cheap in

this season. The remaining thin milk was thrown to squealing young pigs

in wood troughs, foul-smelling in the reek of heat. Milk would sour

swiftly, spots of yellow-green milkstone forming on the sides of pails.

Ellen was directed to scrape it clean with a knife. Cheeses were made,

some to cure amber and hard, hanging in the smokehouse, others to be

stirred daily in stone crocks until the white curd turned yellow, the

strong odor left, and it became bland. There was an abundance of cottage

cheese with clabber cream and chopped green onions stirred in, or a

seasoning of herbs that grew by the houseside. Maria had a lavish hand

when it came to seasoning.

“I reckon I got such a heavy hand because my mam always was put to it to

get enough for us to eat. She’d dig chicory roots for coffee and gather

wild thyme and herbs. Pap cut lumber to sell to the railroad and worked

tobacco. He saved e’er a penny he was paid and gave her none.” Maria

sighed, “Mam found out I ate stones once. Seemed there was a

satisfaction when the food was gone, to a white pebble, smooth like a

bit of lard. I just recollect.”

Christian would come on Saturdays at dusk. Ellen met him covertly at the

usual place and they ate a few lingering strawberries from the

burned-out plants, then went to lie in the shade. He was boasting about

the gigantic machine that Brinker had rented to harvest his wheat. “That

combine’s some invention. Finished the whole field in a day. The bags

are stacked in the crib. By heck, Brinker grows good wheat. We counted

twenty grains on some ears. That’s forty bushel to the acre.” He was

browned, his white teeth were flashing and he swaggered. “In the

afternoon old lady Brinker drove the pickup out to the field with a

freezer can of ice cream and three new-made cakes. Tell you, that

woman’s my ideal of a wife. Spread a white cloth and brought silver and

plates and a tin can of lemonade. We sure polished it off.” He

reflected. “In the lemonade she had a chunk of ice floating.”

“Wish I had a piece of ice big as my head. Purely I do.” Ellen looked

away, sighing in the stifled air scarce cooled by the setting of the

sun. “It seems like all that’s to be garnered is trying to ruin before

we can get hold of it to store it against the winter.”

Christian would stay with her only a short while because he was roused

now while it was yet dark to begin the long day. Ellen spoke softly with

him but when he laid his hand in the hollow below her throat or upon the

dress over her thighs as he had done in the truck, she was afraid and

made him laugh with her foolishness and coaxed him from his wont.

Sam Offut had failed to appear for milking one morning. Sam lived with

his wife a short way down the road in a shack he owned; he would take

his first two meals with the Gaddys and supper at his own table. Anton

was hard put this morning, even with the help of the girls, to finish

the chores on time, and sat down late to breakfast. As he was arising,

the hired man appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed, with an air of not

having washed or slept. Sam was saying evenly as he took the chair

across from Anton, “Ran my old ooman off last night. Those two were

laying there still when I came home. On my bed. That whorish Eadie. I

ne’er saw that particular peddler before. I could have killed them but I

only ran them off.” He speared a slice of ham with the sharp knife.

“I’ve doubted many a year now, since my youngens are grown and gone, if

I be the daddy to more of the six than the first-born.”

Anton said shortly, “If you’ve got a mind after this, Sam, you can take

supper here. Come on to the barn when you’re done.”

“I’m beholden.” Sam was eating like one famished.

During that day Ellen marveled at little Sam Offut, middle-aged,

leathery-skinned, smoldering as he went through the days at his wife

Eadie, bedding with other men. She wondered at how it took the white

heat of August to kindle him into action.

When Jack was driving the cows in from the pasture one night, the white

kid was missing. Penny and her young would always be in the lead in

their anxiety to reach Ellen, who would have an evening tidbit set out

for them in the woodshed—apple peels or bread crusts or carrots. Penny

and the brown kid were standing in wait at the woodshed door. As pangs

smote her, Ellen bolted down the lane to the field. The dog barked,

running ahead. She searched the fence lines, from afar spied the bit of

white, the buckling strangled in the fence where he had tried to slip

through. He had hung himself. Ellen, extricating the stiffened body, met

death for the first time intimately. She fought over her loss in the

solitary field. “Oh you were my dear droll poppet that followed me.”

Ever in coming weeks when she thought of the clownish yeanling, tears

came and her throat caught in anguish so complex it was nearly joy. She

never forgot the death of the white kid. Its impact made a mark on her

like scars she could point to on her body. “Here the sickle cut into my

leg when I cleaned the path one day. And here that spotty hound bit my

wrist when he had that fight with Jack.”

In her new-found anxiety for her two remaining goats, she kept them from

the field, penning them in the barnyard and bringing them kitchen scraps

and meadow grass. In their cleverness, though, they slipped through the

fence to nibble in the garden and wander at will. Anton discovered them

girdling bark from a stripling peach tree with their sharp teeth. He

threatened, “To pasture with those tormented creatures where they

belong. And if they be the cause of further botherment, girl, I’ll knock

their heads in gladly and butcher them. Mind now.”

So Ellen went down the lane, Penny solemn at her heels, the doeling

trotting last. Laughing at their comical air, the girl began to run.

They snorted and sprang after her abandoned, striking their little hoofs

sharply on the dry ground, unconscious of dignity or the heat of August.

She left them blatting disconsolate at the meadow gate. In days to

follow she would go to the barnyard fence, straining her eyes for a

glimpse of the two small does amid the drove of cows.

* * * * *

There came the hour when Christian and Anton met. Though Ellen would

slip out to see Christian when he walked down the road on his afternoon

off, she had not mustered the boldness to bring him to the house. Anton

never spoke of the young man though he knew Ellen met with him. One time

he had watched them for a while from behind the oak by the berry patch.

He saw his daughter talking while she switched flies with a branch of

leaves, and the young man, brooding, leaned upon the fence. Anton could

see nothing amiss and pulling on his pipe, went to listen to his

favorite practicing at the piano.

Ellen had joined Christian in the orchard near the brook. Her goats

finished browsing and lay back to back in the grass chewing their cuds

in their rapid dainty way. Ellen was sitting on a fallen log. She wore

an old dress that fitted her budding form too tightly. She laid in her

hair white meadow rue and yellow oxeye daisies. She bowed her head to

one side over the field flowers in her hands and knew, dreaming, how

fair she was.

Christian lay on his stomach in the grass by her, catching her mood,

knowing he’d never seen the girl so fetching. The lines of her long face

were soft in a frame of flaxen hair. He spoke suddenly, “I got another

letter from Mama.”

“Oh?”

“She mad again. My sister had a chance to get married and she turned it

down. Mama says Rose wants bigger fish.”

“Fish?”

“Mr. Johnson’s only got a house and money. That’s not enough for my

sister. He’d have to be a millionaire.”

“Well.”

“And she says Daddy gets pains nowadays. Has to lie down. He won’t see a

doctor.”

“He’ll be all right, don’t you reckon?”

“He hates to pay a doctor bill.” He reached over to cover her bare foot

with his palm. “You’re so sweet, Ellie.”

“Sweet as Miss Sabatha Withers, boy?” Anton was standing before them in

the long grass. His overalls were ragged, the sleeves to his black shirt

had been cut below the shoulders so his heavy biceps showed. His chin

was thrust out, his body pulled erect in the habit of short men. A straw

hat was settled upon his sparse hair. He was chewing a quid of tobacco.

Christian jumped to his feet. The two of them were the same height.

“Hello, Mr. Gaddy. How do you do? I’m Christian Ay.”

“So hit seems.” The man spat, looked about as though searching for

someone. “Hum. You didn’t bring your lady friend with you?”

“What’s that?”

Anton tilted his head. “And how be Dutchman Brinker these days? Haw. He

still got the notion to stall his beasts on all the storeys of his

barns? I heard he penned some shoats to fatten in his loft and they grew

so grand and big they broke clean through the planking. Is that a fact?”

“I never heard of it, sir,” Christian was cold. “Mr. Brinker’s a fine

farmer, I can tell you. But you got a nice place here, sir.” He was

nodding, appeasing, as he flung his hand in a rude movement.

“This place was here, boy, being worked by my sir when Dutchman’s pa was

setting on his ass in the old country.”

Ellen dropped her head, repeating over and again the Nicene Creed for

her lover snared in Anton’s rough hand. Like an enchantress she evoked

the only charm she knew. From whence He shall come to judge the living

and the dead.

Anton squirted the brown juice again and was moving away. “Feeding is in

an hour, girl,” he threw over his shoulder.

“All right, Pa.” She closed her eyes. Holy Virgin it had worked.

Christian eyed her, rebellious, scorn in his young face. “What a dirty

crabby guy even if he is your old man. I’d just like to push that

bristly smart-aleck face of his in. I can’t stand a bossy fellow like

that.”

“Hush.” Ellen got up with sudden despair. “Now what’s he talking of

Sabatha Withers for? Who’s she?”

“A girl I happen to know in Bethel. I’ll go see her or anyone I want.”

He shouted it, striking at her father. And at himself for his

intimidation. “And any time I want.”

A quarrel had uncoiled before they were aware. Ellen leaned back on the

log, whispering, gray eyes slitted, “I don’t give a neinse. Run to that

poor-trash thing.”

His short legs spread, his high cheekbones pale, he was storming, “And

if I never see you or your stupid old man again, it’ll be too soon. I’m

going to see someone who appreciates me.” He threw back his head and

stalked away, cutting across to the road.

Ellen stayed awhile in the tall grass. As she wept the fury shed itself.

Bereft, she went up the hill through the field where the boar was now

penned. Her goats and Jack were trailing after. The old red boar

regarded her from a little distance, his distrust palpable. “There’s a

mean hog, Jack,” she whispered.

She neared the barnyard and heard Anton, “Hitch Blue and get him out

here, Sam.” A spotted heifer was stretched neat a group of slender

walnuts, bawling intermittently. Anton was bent over her. She had been

due to bear her calf any day, was a daughter of his best milker, a pride

to him. While Ellen watched, her hand resting on the yard gate, Sam was

running from the barn, leading Blueberry. The harness jingled as the

buckskin came at a trot. “Whaw,” Sam cried roughly.

The two conferred. The horse waited on them, head down, hipshot, a hind

leg at rest on the tip of the hoof. They hitched the tugs to a rope

looped about the head of the unborn calf just within the dam. Anton

drove the horse forward slowly, dragging the cow. Then he halted, took

off his straw hat, scratching his head. “Hell, hit’s drying out. I vow,

Sam, the first one’s always too tight. It’s like the wine corks in the

kegs. Once get them started and they come out easy. Let’s try those

trees o’er there, now. Gee-whup.” Again the traces tightened and the

tired young cow was hauled through stones and red dust in the broil of

heat. They untied the lines, rehitched them through a gap between two

walnut trunks. “Haw-there,” ordered Anton and while the beast bellowed,

wedged upon the tree boles, her calf was torn from her womb, limp and

wet.

Slipping through the gate, Ellen skirted the barnyard and hurried to the

house. She changed her dress and spoke quietly to Maria, “Spotty had her

calf. Pa had to take it from her. It’s a pretty one.” She returned, saw

the heifer was on her feet, placenta hanging. Delicate head down,

tossing her well-formed tiny horns, she guarded the calf she licked

nervously.

That night the heat lifted slightly. Ellen was wakeful within her

loft-room. She slipped downstairs into the sultry dark. Barefoot, she

walked with Jack to the woodshed, freeing Penny and Rhodie. They

wandered across the fields, through gates to the orchard. She sat on the

log again. In the night sky the blue whiskers of cloud were backing off.

And the moon in absolute radiance was speeding forth. There was not a

sound anywhere.

* * * * *

As the year moved on, the heat abated and winds started out of nowhere,

rushing. Christian stayed away from Ellen over two long Saturdays. Then

one evening she was standing beyond the low garden wall watching the

bees work the hives. He appeared, jaunty in a blue shirt freshly pressed

by Brinker’s wife, his blond hair damp, comb-marked. “Hey, Ellie. A

penny for your thoughts.”

“Not wasting them on you, I’ll say.” Her temper shifted in her and she

colored. “I’m thinking Sam will be robbing the poor bees soon.”

“Come on, take a walk with me, Ellie. Down to the woods. Say, you’re

blushing.” He grinned.

“Go to your true love in Bethel.”

“No.” His blue eyes were bold. “I broke off with that one.” They were

starting down the hill. When out of sight of the house, he took her

hand.

She pulled away, unwilling. “I don’t care for you.” But in time he won

her from her anger and it was with Ellen as though the quarrel had never

been.

They were hand in hand in the dry reeds by the pond where the lone duck

was paddling in circles. He was vowing strongly, “I’ve left Sabatha

Withers for good, Ellie.”

“Well.”

“She’s cheap.” He laughed angry, for the young fires lay hot in him

still. “You never have seen Brinker’s place, Ellie.”

“No. I’ve heard tell he’s got fancy barns.”

“You’d get a kick out of them. Want to go there next week? I could show

you Baker, that Belgian stud. He’s a sight. Like I said, he beats

anything I ever saw.”

“I’ll come, then.”

“Kiss me, Ellie.”

“Listen at that sound, Christian.” The faint cry of geese was audible,

“Kwonk, honk, honk, kwonk.” Far above the earth the long-necked wild

birds were heading for northern nest grounds, their massive bodies two

wavering lines of dots making the letter V. The call of the leaders

sounded shrill, and as they moved overhead there came the deep responses

of the rear guards. It seemed to Ellen that she had no desire for the

way of the roused child-man beside her. Ahead stretched the long

filament of her life; she was pierced by the pain of the earthbound that

is made up of longings. She was voiced vicarious from the throats of the

wild birds. She turned to Christian, dissatisfied. Their eyes were

almost on a level; she was crying, intense, “Don’t you wish you were

that leader?”

“Say, I’d rather be me than some bird.” He laughed at her, pressed her

hand. “Come. Kiss me.”

* * * * *

In the last week of September Ellen slipped down Sweetincreek Road to

where Christian had brought the truck around. The Brinker family were in

Bethel doing their weekly buying, and Christian acutely felt his

proprietorship. He drove up his employer’s graveled drive and into the

huge garage. He led her to the farm buildings, proud. “Take a look.”

The great white barn was trimmed in red, a gigantic portrait of a

black-and-white Holstein bull had been painted across the expanse of one

side. There was an iron bull weather vane centered on the roof; it

wheeled with the breeze. “I ne’er saw such furbelowing, Christian.”

“This isn’t the half of it.”

In the shed just off the chicken house he was showing her round-bellied

puppies. She fondled them while the gentle bitch watched alert-eyed from

a straw bed. “Nothing smells as soft as a little whelp, Christian.”

He was pointing to a miniature windmill, and to bantam chickens and

white and gray rabbits in screened hutches. Out in the pasture were

shining Belgian mares. Ellen was stroking their sleek faces. Christian

caught a cobby black filly by the halter and led her to the girl. “This

one’s Doll. She’s pedigreed. She’s to be bred to Baker as soon as she

comes in heat. Mr. Brinker’s ordered it. We’ve been watching out for

her.”

“Look at those dark eyes, Christian. Here, Doll.” Ellen was offering a

handful of oats. But the mare threw up her head, nickering toward the

farm buildings. There was a responding whinny from the distance. The

mare swished her tail, holding it high.

Christian’s eyes kindled. “You know, Ellie, I think she’s in season.

Let’s try her. See if she’ll take him.”

“You’d best wait for Mester Brinker.”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not. Only I’d wait. If she’s a thoroughbred, he’d lay the blame to

you should it go amiss.”

The mare was shaking her head so the halter rings jangled; she cried

again, shrilly. Christian was opening the gate. “Come on, Ellie. Look,

you want to ride her down the lane? I’ll lift you to her back.”

“You dassn’t ride her. Sam told me,” she said, dallying, “that a mare in

the heat mustn’t be ridden till she’s been bred.”

“All right. But come on,” he urged. He led the prancing Doll through the

gate and down the lane toward the stallion’s paddock. Ellen was

following, reluctant. “You hold her while I lock up Baker,” he called.

She came to take the mare’s headstall from him. “Well.”

At the yard the huge seed-horse was observing them, restive, aware of

their business. He squealed, striking at the fence bars with his huge

hoofs. Christian laughed, catching Ellen’s eye. “What you scared of,

honey? I can handle him easy.”

“So what?” she whispered to the mare, who was tossing her mane, jerking.

Christian had skillfully snared the halter of the red roan beast and

secured him in his stall. “Turn her in the lot now, Ellie,” he was

shouting.

But she tarried and cried, “I’ll wait for you in the truck.”

“Come on, turn her in. It’s only Baker.” He was flushed and he laughed

at her from the half door of the stable.

Ellen loosed the black mare in the paddock where she curved her neck and

cantered like a gust of wind. The stallion could be heard clamoring

angrily, rearing and knocking the walls. Christian turned the handle of

the stall door to release him, and then vaulted the fence. He came to

stand with Ellen. “Why did you want to go to the truck?”

The magnificent horse was trotting out, neighing. He minced past the

filly who was dwarfed by his size. He lifted his shaggy fetlocks high

without effort and his tawny mane streaked. He wheeled, snuffed noisily

at her neck, bit it softly and pawed it in a dynamic graceful gesture.

Then he leaped the mare, falling on his side with powerful elegance. He

recovered, mounted her again. His beauty was like a thunderous battle,

his piercing voice rose and fell on the stilled air, waking the valleys

of the farm, rushing through tree boughs.

Christian was turning, urgent, “Ellie?”

“Let’s go to the truck, Christian. I’m going to wait there.” She turned.

He grasped her arm. “Come on, Ellie.”

“No, Christian.”

He was shoving her under the lean-to by the stable where summer wheat

straw was stacked for the stallion’s bedding. He was struggling with his

clothing, bruising her. The coolness dwelled in the shadows there, it

was quiet and made itself separate from the noise in the dust of the lot

outside. His youth was adamant and awkward, his knee entreated silent

between her virgin thighs.

Surprised, she was fighting. “Liar,” she gritted.

He held her in the straw. “You’ve led me on, Ellie. I won’t wait.” His

arms were muscled from a hard summer, his blood thrusting purposed.

She had read of Absalom, how none was so much praised as he for his

perfection. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was

no blemish in him. So the Bible said, and so she had dreamed of

Christian moving in a lawful pattern she laid. She was unprepared for

the painful shattering of it, betrayed. “No,” she was weeping. “Liar.”

It whistled in the coolness against the pant of him.

“I have to, honey. Take it easy. I’ll be careful. I can’t wait.” His

voice was blurred and hot, stabbing, overridden by the tramping hoofs

and shrill neighs like a storm without.

Ellen closed her eyes. They ran tears because of the hurt there was, the

receding terror.

He spoke softly then, “Don’t cry.”

“Go away.”

He stood up and went into the sun. He led Doll back to the pasture,

threw a forkful of hay to Baker who was docile now, obedient. After a

while he came back and looked at Ellen. “Don’t be mad.”

She wouldn’t hear him.

“Come on, Ellie. We’ve got to get back.”

She was rising, brushing back her hair. He leaned toward her, tender,

and pulled a straw caught in the yellow strands. She struck, savage, at

his fingers. In the truck seat she remained unspeaking until he reached

for her hand. Then she unleashed at him, injured, “You think I’m that

Sabatha Withers. I ne’er want to see you again. Hear?”

Christian was resting his elbow on the window; he looked down the road.

He gunned the truck so dust eddies rose like a whirlwind in the wake. He

slammed the brakes on the road just above the Gaddy entrance. “Come on,

Ellie. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad. Please.”

But she hurled the cab door shut. Her head was high. For her world that

had had a sort of ingenuous beauty had disappeared. And it was never the

same again.

5

October came to pass in fog and tones of droning rain. Muffled trees

stood in wet leaves along farm paths. Ellen, a gray shape in the mist,

was moving from clinking house lights to the obscurity of the woodshed

and barns. Christian had not come for three weeks. At first she had

waited in profound anger, eager to renounce him. But in the autumn sun

of following days, while the two ringing notes of the partridge called

back and forth, loneliness tempered her wrath and she loved him

indulgently as the source of her pain and its witness.

Today she was going again to the rail fence along the road where

joe-pye-weeds drooped coarse-toothed leaves. She was wearing a red

stocking cap, her long coat had pendulous lapels and a wide belt that

fastened on her hips with two heavy buttons. As she passed the

grapevines where leaves hung chilled, a flock of crows arose, making

nasal resentful barks. She waited an hour. Unending rain was falling and

small gusts wove about. Finally she went to the work Anton had set,

sorting and shucking corn. Later she absently stroked the alert ears and

silken hair of the kid Rhodie, nearly as large as its dam now. “Reckon

he’s with Sabatha Withers. Pleasuring as he did with me.” She clothed

her wrath, embellished it. “Happen she’ll drag him to a priest. All his

days he’ll dwell on me and what he forfeited.”

Her mind turned to when she was nine or ten and, living in fantasy and

wishes, would try new ways to walk through the sun-washed fields where

grass stood high. It would seem that crowds of people lined both sides

of the way she took. They came to see how grand she held her head and to

talk among themselves of the noble way of Lady Ellen. “I aim to hold me

high and wed a rich man.” She spoke aloud in the stable. But she didn’t

believe it and the anger burned. She went to the house where lamps

flickered in the gloom, and Anton stacked a fire in the parlor, filled

the woodbin and split lighter-wood with a deft hand.

Ten days passed. On a splendid windy morning in November, Ellen was

clearing garden debris and gathering cabbages and root crops in heaps

for winter storage. She faced her dilemma, rebellious. “If it be so,

I’ll drown myself or it in the pond when it’s born. And if he’s run off,

I’ll seek him out. I’ll knife him, I will.” She piled cabbage heads in a

bushel basket and dumped them in the cellar storage bin. Her secret

dwelled within her like a hidden wound. “I say, Jack, what will I do?”

That afternoon Amanda York came up the porch steps and knocked. “Hickory

mast is laying thick in Bailey’s Woods, Mrs. Gaddy. Can Ellie and

Frankie come nutting?”

The three girls walked a mile down the road to the woods, carrying empty

baskets. Amanda had black eyes and black shining hair. She was rosy and

lively. “Ask your pa if you can go once to the husking bee. This

Saturday.”

“He ne’er would brook it, Mandy.” Frankie was shaking her head.

“There’ll be a sight of folks. From Bethel way and down from Seven Mile

Run.”

“Because Pa don’t favor us socializing,” Frankie added.

Amanda tossed her braid. “And a fiddler and a spread of eats.”

“You know Sabatha Withers?” Ellen flushed in the asking.

“I’ll say I do. She’s wild. Boys flock after her like dogs on a rabbit.”

“What?” cried Frankie.

“She sleeps around. Things like that.”

“My.”

“What’s she look like?” asked Ellen.

“Oh, light-set, and got yellow hair like yours, Ellie.”

“Why doesn’t she have a baby,” Frankie asked, “if she sleeps around?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“It’s a mystery,” Frankie sighed.

“Did that Lily Garrett tell you what she did?” Amanda asked.

“You mean sending for that stuff to make her breasts grow?”

“Yes. And what happened.”

“What?”

“Well, she wanted it,” Amanda whispered, “for she’s boy-crazy, Lily is.

She’s terrible.”

“I know. She told us.” Frankie giggled. “Men like you big, she said.”

“Well, she waited all summer to hear. We couldn’t figure why it ne’er

came. I studied that her pa had got hold of the package some way.”

“Say. Did he?”

“No, last week it came. Just an old envelope. And there was a picture on

a card of a man’s hand. It said underneath, Try This. Lily got scared.”

“She should ne’er have sent off, Mandy,” Frankie cried.

“Say, has that Withers girl got a boy friend?” Ellen was asking.

“She’s got plenty, Ellie. There’s always one to take her to doings.”

“Now what if Lily’s papa’d seen it,” Frankie said. “That picture and

those words.”

“Wish I could go to that husking bee,” said Ellen. “I’ve got a deal of a

desire to go. I might cross my pa and slip out this once.”

“Oh Ellie.” Frankie’s voice was the cheep of a frightened bird. “Don’t

say that.”

“Obey thy father and mother.” Amanda spoke cheerfully as they were

entering the woods. “Now maybe he’ll say yes this time, Ellie.” They

began to gather hickory mast that carpeted the ground. When the baskets

were full they walked to Amanda’s home, a saddlebag log house set in an

apple orchard. They left two baskets in the passageway between the

cabins and climbed to an upstairs room. They shucked Amanda’s nuts,

spreading them with brown-stained hands on a carpet of straw. From the

rafters hung strings of small ear corn with white pointed kernels that

would pop over a fire. And there was a drop cord overhead with a carbon

bulb, for the Yorks had electricity.

* * * * *

The sisters took their leave and walked home with the laden baskets. The

evening whippoorwills were starting their spasmodic carping. Ellen said,

“I’ll make a way to go to that husking bee.”

But at the end of the week Anton brought news so she forgot all about

it. He had hauled grain and surplus root crops, Hubbard squashes and

pumpkins to Bethel, returning in late afternoon with ground flour, meal,

and kitchen and farm supplies. “Saw the new smithy, Troy Hatfield, and

got the welding done. That share will hold now. And he gave me outright

a great piece of hide for leather stripping, just for that heap of

pumpkins Frankie planted. Shaw.” The man was growing genial, his journey

a success. He pushed back his chair and strode to the door, spit his

quid into the bushes. He wiped his face with a powerful arm, came back

to sup coffee noisily and consume chunks of Ellen’s brown dripping-cake.

He was turning to her. “Troy gave me news for your ears, girl. You mind

that froward young fellow hired to Dutchman Brinker? The one that sassed

me? Well, he took off in a sudden. Dutchman had a time finding a new

hand. This one’s brought a wife with him, so he’ll not be traipsing

about with young maids. Hum.”

“Did smithy have an idea where he went, Pa?”

“You pining after that poor trash Brinker hires?”

“I’ve got a right to ask.”

“You trifling with me?”

“No, Pa.”

“You have to put in your two cents. The fellow’s pa died. Troy says

Dutchman was right plagued at having to pay wages out on a Sabbath.

That’ll put a good Lutheran in hell, I allow. Haw.”

“He ne’er liked his pa nor that kind of city work.” Ellen was by the

door, lingering.

“You got any more on your mind? Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.”

* * * * *

Ellen went to take from its pen the gray rabbit Christian had brought

her. She carried it to the edge of the field and put it down. “Go fend

for yourself like I’ve got to. Look out for the hungry foxes and

weasels.” She watched it hop away, then went to her upstairs room. She

hunted in the wood trunk for paper and an envelope.

Dear Christian,

Smithy told Pa you left these parts. The sky is heavy and gray.

Maybe it will come on a snow. I call to mind the hours we spent by

the strawberry bed. Now I think winter is come. I would that you

wrote me how you are getting on.