Ellen Gaddy

She sealed the envelope, addressing it to Mr. Christian Ay, Carl Brinker

Homestead, Route 4, Bethel, Ky., send to new address.

Down in the woods the air was still and weighted. Pinched clouds were

banking above the swollen land. The red dog fox crept to his post

overlooking the shadowed water. His eyes tensed as he spied the old

Muscovy duck napping, head under wing, amid brown rush stalks. He struck

noiseless. Thrashing wings lashed in a frenzied struggle but the needle

teeth found the jugular and blood was spattered on the rushes. Later

Ellen called again and again and there was no answering rush of wings.

“You’d ne’er come to the safe yard. Reckon some varmint caught you.” She

tossed the ear of corn to the tame fowl in the chicken yard.

Her letter was returned by the mail carrier. She hid it under her apron.

On its face was scrawled: return to sender, no address known. C.

Brinker. She took it up to the attic and laid it unopened in the small

trunk. She stood looking out the gable window as drifting snow made the

world grow small and old familiar shapes became strange and new.

* * * * *

Down Sweetincreek Road in mid-December Anton was driving the wagon to

mass in Millville. The lightweight buckboard was unsuited for these

winter days and the women rode in the wagon bed shrouded with rugs. A

crowd of frightened birds moved and swooped across the sky like a giant

amoeba. The pale sun was melting the snowfall into slush. The horses

snorted, exhaling a vapor, tramped in the ruts of the road, hurling red

mud in clods from their iron shoes. Anton was complaining, “Wish hit

could have waited till Monday to thaw. This is a rough piece of road.”

He clucked to the team. “Reckon we’ll be late again to mass, Frankie?

Here it is Advent time once more.”

“Christmas is but two weeks off, Pa.”

Ellen was praying silently, “Holy Queen, keep him from remembering to

send us to confession this week. I’ll not tell it to a priest. I’ll go

to hell and burn first. I’m in a sorry strait, now.”

Anton was fastening the team and preceding his family into the square

clapboard building half filled with people and heated by a huge black

stove at one side. He took one of the rear pews. The heavy clothing

rustled, the plank floor creaked. Anton tugged his bulky fur cap off,

thrust it behind him on the seat. The women were kneeling at the low

bench in their long coats, their caps and boots. They crossed

themselves. The priest was murmuring at the altar, his server on his

knees. Intimidated by habit and example, Ellen inclined her head. She

heard the sonorous chant, “O Thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep,

alleluia. Stir up, O Lord, Thy might and come to save us. Who art Thou?

I am the voice of one crying in the desert.” She made the sign with her

hand, desolate. The priest began to tell off the canon of the mass. He

washed his fingers, incense drifted, the signal bell tinkled. Folk

shifted and whispered; singly and in groups they left their winter

covering on the benches, came with bowed heads to the altar, hands in

ancient attitude of prayer, to receive from paten and cup the Body and

Blood. Say to the faint-hearted, fear not. It chafed within Ellen,

uncomforted. She arose with the rest when it was over. And in the

beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not.

The holy man was striding away, the people began to depart in a

disturbance of noise and bodies. Ellen touched the water in the granite

basin as she walked after her mother and sister.

Anton dipped his head, curt, to those he knew, stopped without the door

to speak with N. J. Bilberry. The women waited, Maria whispering to Mrs.

Bilberry, fleshy-faced and cheerful. At Anton’s nod they climbed back

into the wagon and he took the reins. They jolted down the road. The

earth lay dank-sweated, old furrows exposed. Black cottonwood trees were

guarding the ditches. “N. J.’s wheat froze out,” the man commented

briefly.

“Tinie says there’s chills and fever going about,” Maria told him. “And

Ioway Ashby has married a man from the south. He’s thirty-one years old.

Ioway was but twelve last June.”

“I heard,” Frankie cried, “he sent off for a poppet doll for her,

dressed in a bride veil.”

“Ioway Ashby’s not inclined to give up her dolls yet,” Maria said.

“Now dogwood roots are near as good as quinine for chills and fever,”

Anton was saying.

“Ioway’s ma told Tinie they’d begged at her since summer to let them

marry. So she figured they just as well. I say, that’s a sight young for

robbing the cradle.”

Under cover of the wagon’s rumbling, Ellen whispered, reciting, “Mother

of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor

banished children of Eve.”

Frankie pulled the rug about her boots. “It’s powerful cold. What you

doing, Ellie?”

“I’m thinking. Sam says if you have a blade of five-finger grass to

carry about no one can deny you what you ask. I don’t believe him.

Wonder if there’s some in the fields now?” Ellen turned her eyes

uncertainly to the future, where somehow she must form a plan.

* * * * *

Anton received a letter the next day. “Hit’s from your Uncle Garland.

Says he’s coming in a week’s time for Christmas this year. Hum. We’ll

see what he thinks of your piano-playing now, Frankie. And how you’ve

grown so fair.”

“Oh Pa.”

The man straightened his back, looked out the window. “Bear in mind, one

more Christmas and you’ll be going up to that city with him. That’s

Anton Gaddy’s youngen, folks’ll say.”

“Chicago sounds so far off, Pa. Will Uncle be glad for me to come?”

Frankie smoothed the brightened hair that hung about her narrow

shoulders.

“We’ll butcher tomorrow. Hear, ooman?” Anton said to Maria.

“Yes,” she assented, “and it’s just come on the dark of the moon. It’s

right to butcher.”

“You know I don’t hold by that. But my brother dotes on your blood

pudding and peppered headcheese. Sam and I’ll fix to prepare right

away.” He marched out.

“If you butcher in the light of the moon,” Maria told her daughters,

“it’ll all drindle away while it’s frying. Just cracklings’ll be left.

The grease’ll go rancid till you’ve got to make it up in soap.”

“I know,” tittered Frankie, “and that soap will turn the clothes

yellow.”

“That’s a fact,” said Maria. “Don’t you laugh. My pap and mam e’er went

by the moon. It’s natural.”

“Will Uncle Garland say I’m fair, Ellie?” Frankie appealed to her.

“I reckon.”

“Are you cross, Ellie?”

“No.”

“Well you sure act sick then. Doesn’t she, Ma?”

Ellen, who found tears started easily now, who was wary of her sudden

sieges of self-pity, was running from the room. Again she dipped the

pen.

Mr. Christian Ay,

There is a need for me to speak with you. I wish you were still

hired to Brinker. I fear you have forgot me and this is but a

striving after wind. Could you make a way to write or send word?

Ellen Gaddy

Millville, Ktcky.

This she addressed, Mr. Christian Ay, Care of Ay’s Store, Louisville,

Ktcky.

She mused, near suffocating in the loneliness. Had she led him on as

Christian had declared? Had she sinned? Her brows contracted and she

searched again the halls of memory for meanings. Surely she had known to

fear that which befell. Here in the countryside tales were constantly

bruited and old songs sung of fallen virgins and light young men. The

Bible related dire warnings and horrid punishments meted out to defiled

maids. She had led him to their sin then. But that wasn’t so. I didn’t

knowing lead him on. I wasn’t a wanton. There came to her mind the

woodchucks Anton trapped. A shotgun often didn’t penetrate the small

thick skulls so steel traps were set in their underground paths. If a

creature blundered and felt the sudden grip, it would strive with its

greatest strength. And if it could not tear free, it backed into its

den, pulling the trap after. There it gnawed its own leg above the metal

jaws. It destroyed a part of its flesh, knowing it was a way.

When the next morning was just made, two scalded hog carcasses were

hanging from the sourwood scaffold. The blood had been caught in a bowl

and taken to the kitchen for boiling and seasoning. The great white

wrinkled heads were on the porch in a red-daubed washtub. “If there was

a ooman with child about,” Sam grunted as they were hoisting the scraped

bodies by gambrel sticks thrust through the hamstrings, “we’d have to

take care to cover this mess. Butchering blood on the earth marks a

child.”

“I don’t have those worries any more.” Anton tossed the liver and

kidneys and sweetbreads in the pan Ellen brought out to them.

The fire was dying under the iron cauldron. Soon hams were piled in a

heap along with the sagging shoulders and sides on a lye-scrubbed plank.

The sausage-making began. Sam was scraping the inverted intestines

preliminary to stuffing them. He stopped to hone his knife on a

whetstone he carried in his pocket, spat on it for lubrication. “My old

ooman came back last night. First thing Eadie did was boil up hot

mustard water and set her feet in it. She chewed up a sourwood twig to

make her a snuff brush. Give me a dipping, Samuel, she says, I’m

tuckered.” He sat back thoughtful. “For Gawd, my house was a lonely

place against that old hen’s return.”

Anton sliced chunks of meat savagely, the razor-sharp knife whipping

close to his finger tips. He held his silence, fed the pork into the

grinder.

In the kitchen the women were preparing in their fashion for the

celebration ahead. Anton had given Ellen coins with which to buy sugar

when she did her trading, and for spices and raisins to put in the

holiday cakes. In this season when his brother came for the annual

visit, Anton would have no stinting. “Girl,” he said to her, “my ma used

to make a pale holytide cake. There were whites of eggs beat in bowls

and it was thick with nuts and sugared fruits. Not black like those

strong sorghum ones you-all make. Hum.” He nodded, complacent.

Ellen was assenting, eager. “I’ll ask Mrs. Love. Could be she’s learned

the rule of such a cake, Pa.”

“And when you’re trading, go down of an evening when priest is holding

hours for confession. Your uncle be due on Saturday, and I’ll have you

all at the communion rail when he’s here, proper pious.”

Before walking the muddy road to Millville in the cloudy darkened late

afternoon, Ellen went to her room. She was binding her waist tight with

a length of cloth. “I can’t see nothing yet, but Stacey Love might.”

In the confessional box, she whispered to the young priest. “Bless me,

Father Tompert. I confess to God and you that I’ve sinned. My last

confession was Easter.” She despaired. It’s all made up of falseness.

I’ve no right to be here.

“Confess your sins since then, child.”

“I took God’s name in vain. One time I did truly hate my pa.”

“Have you had any impure thoughts, my child?”

“No.”

“If you have any of these kind of thoughts you must do your best to

banish them. Are you truly sorry for your sins?”

“I am, Father.”

She went to kneel in a pew, forbearing to recite the penance prayers the

priest had assigned to her. Instead she asked the Virgin to have pity,

to understand why she was mute to Father Tompert for the sake of Anton’s

pride. She was thus driven, with a measure of courage, to rejecting the

rituals bestowed on her since a cross was hung about her throat as a

baby, since she first held the beads and lisped the Credo. And praying

to Mary, Ellen emerged with her as a personal god. She grasped the

blue-gowned symbol in her need as if it were flesh and blood and could

wield an influence on her fate. She denied the immense father figure of

God without debating it.

* * * * *

In coming days she would meet the mail carrier in his Model T, take back

her second letter and place it with the other in the trunk. She at last

put aside the hope of finding Christian Ay.

By Friday, cakes and tarts, breads, cheeses and dried fruit pies were

overflowing from the pantry shelves. Hams and sidemeat were curing in

the smokehouse, sausages strung lavish from the shed eaves. There were

crocks of fried meat packed in white fat, as well as headcheese,

liverwurst, and tins of fresh lard. In the hot kitchen, Maria was baking

breads and biscuits in the newly-blacked range, vaguely wakened in the

prospect of a visitor. She spoke to Ellen, “Get wax candles when you go

by Love’s next time, girl. The tallow ones ain’t suited for Mester

Garland Gaddy.”

Frankie was at the long table, a basket of butternuts and walnuts on the

floor by her. She was cracking them on a sadiron with a blow of an old

hammer head. She looked up, “You’re right peaked, Ellie. Are you

ailing?”

“I’ll hunt out some of that bloodroot tonic,” Maria said, “if you got

the complaint. It’ll make new blood.”

“I’d as lief you’d sing again,” Frankie was saying. “And you used to cut

up so. Seems you’ve given it up.”

Ellen, startled, burned her hand on the iron pan she was taking from the

oven. She shook her wrist to ease the seep of pain.

“Go smear yellow soap on it,” her mother said, “it’ll draw out the

heat.”

Ellen rubbed on the soap, blinking her eyes. She sang to hide the tears

and to hold her tongue from blurting her trouble.

If I had known before I courted

That love had been so hard to win

I’d have locked my heart with the keys of golden

And pinned it down with a silver pin

“That’s too lamenting, Ellie. Sing that one Penny used to. About that

Minnie.”

Hush little Minnie and don’t say a word

Papa’s going to buy me a mocking bird

It can whistle and it can sing

It can do most anything

They were making ready for the guest coming. Calico was hung across one

end of the downstairs bedroom to form a separate chamber in which

Garland would sleep. A chair was placed by the bed and a stone-topped

table. In its base was a chamber pot, and on top a crockery pitcher with

pink roses glazed on its surface set in a matching basin. A cake of

store soap lay in a dish, a towel folded beside it. They ripped the bed

tick open, removed the old stuffing, and filled it with soft wheat

straw. The one feather pallet was aired and placed on the mattress, and

over all they spread muslin sheets and their best quilts.

That night Ellen was in a chair in the warm parlor, her back aching from

the long hours, a piece of mending in her hand. Dark had come on, the

lamp was throwing feeble quivering shadows. Anton was holding the Bible

and his lips moved. He raised his eyes, studied the image of Joseph

alone on the table. He spoke, abrupt, “Where’s the Virgin Mary that

stood there with Joseph? She be broke, I vow.”

Ellen looked up in alarm. “I took her to the loft-room, Pa. What with

holytide, I thought it would please you if I prayed to her, pious-like.”

“Well, I allow you can keep her for a spell. But she’ll not be broke,

girl.”

“No, Pa. I’ll take care.” She arose. “Reckon I’ll go to bed. Coming,

Frankie?”

He stopped them. “I’ll say the prayer to Michael once for this family.

Get down, you-all.”

On their knees the women were waiting, their shadows cast like gentle

giants on the wall. The man knelt by the lamp and his specter engulfed

theirs. “Holy Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our

safeguard against the snares of the devil. Thou, Prince of the heavenly

host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits

that wander through the world seeking the ruination of souls.”

The temperature dropped in the night. As they were beginning the morning

chores, whitefrost covered the land. The remote stars were cold and

challenging. Ellen shivered, feeling her frailty. “What does it matter?

One soul like me. I’m but a grain in a field of wheat. Who’s to heed if

I be lone or have a sin to burn me?”

She was closing the woodshed door. Her two goats got up in the

half-light by the stone wall. Their beards twitched as they chewed in

unison, their hair stood out woolly. “Why did I e’er take up with the

careless love of Christian Ay?”

She was putting bread crusts and salt and soybeans from her pocket in

the wood trough. She laid her hands on the animals’ soft necks. “Here’s

some linseed meal for richness. You feel the storm coming?”

She went to get a bucket of tepid water that had stood by the kitchen

range all night, carried it to the barnyard fowl. They were huddling

together, feathers ruffled, on the pole roosts. She threw cracked corn

on the dirt floor of their shed, and the birds hopped down one by one to

eat, singing and crooning over the food. “Tonight I’ll mix a sprinkle of

red pepper in your wet mash to warm your craws while you sleep.” Tending

the creatures of the farm, Ellen took comfort and so forgot herself.

6

Garland Gaddy, in a new green Ford, was returning to the home of his

youth. As he drove up the lane, Anton was in the barn on his knees while

the old cow Bramble, delivered him twin heifers. But Garland’s nieces

bade him welcome. They showed him the feather bed and he was well

pleased. He took Ellen in his arms. “You’re a handsome wench, hon. Last

Christmas you were a child and here you’re nearly a woman. What does

Anton say when the young men come sparking?” He pinched her thigh,

smiling warm.

“You’re plaguing me, Uncle. But he’s a sight for sore eyes, isn’t he,

Frankie?”

“Oh he is.”

At night when the festive meal was over they sat in the parlor. The wind

growled, and above the alders at the pond the moon bobbed like a ball on

a chain while water-shadows trembled. Anton kept a fire roaring,

carrying armfuls of oak logs from the kitchen and piling them on the

hearth. Garland brought out a fifth of contraband whisky, setting the

bottle on the round table. The two men tasted from the heavy kitchen

glasses. “This be good moon, Gar.”

“Well, it beats needle beer. Place I get it has all their hooch analyzed

and tested by a registered chemist. Ought to be good. Cost fifteen

dollars a bottle.”

“Christ.” Anton was impressed. “Smithy sold me some Jackass Peach Brandy

from Virginia. Fifty cents a pint jar.”

“Better watch out for that junk. Break you down inside. Internal

bleeding. I wouldn’t drink a thing made down here in the Bible belt.”

Ellen was sent to the cellar for a bottle of pale sweet wine that Anton

made yearly from his scuppernong grapes, the vine of which had been

planted five decades ago by Jules Gaddy, the father of the brothers.

Ellen had put a scarf at her neck and it became her. She poured the

wine, and came behind her uncle in his chair. When she put her head

against his while he was talking, her hair fell on his shoulders. And

she loved him.

Garland Gaddy was the middle one of three brothers, a bachelor. He was a

head taller than Anton, overweight, not yet fat. His small eyes were

light blue, his once-blond hair had turned gray, he trimmed a neat

mustache. His jaw was square, his lips full. He wore hand-cut dark

suits, vivid ties. As a child he had shared with Anton their mother’s

neglect, had run away from home at nineteen to prowl the states from

coast to coast, brawling and scattering his seed. Then when he was

twenty-nine, Anton offered him the sum of fifteen hundred dollars in

cash, Maria’s dowry, for his half the farm. Garland had accepted,

hitchhiking to Chicago with the bills sewn into his belt. He soon was

co-owner of a thriving burlesque house. Now, over twenty years later,

from his office on State Street he handled a set of neighborhood

theatres where vaudeville and the silver screen vied for public

approval.

Anton was affected by the abundance of festive food, the polished house,

and the women’s raiment. Maria even, had laid aside the sack apron she

usually pinned on and was wearing her churchgoing black dress and an

ecru crocheted collar. Anton nearly begrudged the honor they paid

Garland, although his pride assured him that the tribute was to himself.

“Say, Gar, I call to mind when we were youngens, and Ma was honing for

that black driving rig. You recollect? Our sir had but two gold dollars.

So he went to Trader Bocock. Said, Bocock, you can have this gold and

all the rocks you can haul out of that rye field if you’ll trade that

rig to me.”

“She get the buggy, Pa?” asked Frankie.

“Bet she did, hon,” Garland said.

“What did the trader want of rocks?”

“I don’t know. But Bocock had the field cleaned before spring plowing,”

said Anton.

“Ma managed to get what she wanted pretty near every time,” Garland

said.

“Hum.” Anton packed his pipe, pushing with his thick thumb. “Had her

hands full. Say, Frankie, play for us, and sing the prayer you learned.”

Frankie obeyed.

Angel of God, my Guardian dear

To whom his love commits me here

E’er this day be at my side

To light and guard, to rule and guide

“That’s a special prayer, you know, Garland. Priest says it’s worth a

hundred days’ indulgence. Sing it once more, Poppet.”

“I better learn that one.” Garland kept time with his hand. He got up to

stand by the upright piano, tapping his foot. “You know the old

one—Captain Jinks?”

“I don’t think so, Uncle.”

“Goes like this.” Garland made several false tries before he sang in

off-key:

I’m Captain Jinks of the horse marines

I feed my horse on corn and beans

And court the ladies in their teens

For that’s the style in the army

“That’s a new one, Uncle,” Ellen said.

Garland was pulling her hand, drawing her beside him. “You sing with

me.”

When they had finished, Ellen offered, “Want to hear one of Penny’s

tales?”

“That roaring ooman,” growled Anton. “Tell you, Gar, she couldn’t cut an

onion or hold a scrub brush without she was screeching some foldilay.”

“Let’s hear it, puss.” Garland sat back in his chair. Ellen stood behind

him to sing while Frankie played. Anton bit his pipe in his yellowed

teeth and the smoke wreathed. Maria knitted, her lips moving

occasionally with an inner thought.

I courted pretty Pol the livelong night

Then left her next morn before it was light

The song told of how Pol went riding off with the man and then,

They went a bit further and what did they spy

But a new-dug grave and a spade lying by,

Willie, O Willie, I’m afraid of your way

I’m afraid you will lead my poor body astray

Pretty Pol, pretty Pol, you’re thinking just right

I dug on your grave the best part of last night

And Willie stabbed the girl and put her in the grave.

He threw a bit of dirt o’er her and started for home

Leaving no one behind but the wild doves to mourn

“Now, if that ain’t a dumb fool story,” Anton snorted.

Ellen looked down at Garland and he patted her hands, placing them on

his shoulders. “I liked it.”

“You e’er hear,” she asked quickly because of the tears that were

trapped by her father’s scorn, “it will strengthen a man’s eyes to have

a mustache?”

“Well,” he laughed, “I’ll keep it then.”

Uncle’s so kind. It came on her as he was stroking her wrists.

Anton lifted his head. “My sir said his grandsir in France owned a

sporting hog one time. You mind that story, Gar?”

“He called her Slut,” Garland said. “He was a gamekeeper in one of the

king’s forests. Bred his own dogs, taught them to stand and back game.

They say he was watching the men and saw the pups weren’t responding.

Little black shoat went by, not a wild hog, she was the kind that ran

loose in the forest those days. Made a wager with the men, he could

train and break the shoat faster than they could the dogs. He penned

her, taught her to come to her name. She pointed small game and

partridge. After awhile she’d retrieve rabbit and pheasant, careful,

too, she didn’t harm them—all sorts of game. Did better than his dogs.

And backed them when she saw them point. That hog’s nose was so true

she’d point a bird fifty yards away. In a straight line. That’s the

story anyway.”

“He win the bet?” Frankie asked.

“Oh sure, hon.”

“Came when he hollered,” said Ellen. “Wish I could have seen that.”

“Did she run good or was she too fat?” asked Frankie.

“She was trim. She’d come at full gallop. Excited like the dogs when she

saw a gun.”

Maria said, “They must have set store by that beast.”

“You bet,” Garland turned to her, “and you know, Maria, when Slut was

ten years old she weighed half a ton and they still hunted with her.”

“Ain’t that a tale, Frankie?” Anton demanded. “Those were the olden

days. Then there came the time of Napoleon the Bonyparty. Pa’s grandsir

had to soldier under him. He’d watch o’er the old country and if some

land like Germany was trying to conquer a scroungy sort of a country,

why Napoleon the Bonyparty, he’d say no. He’d get in front of his army

and go lick Germany or whate’er land it happened to be. He stayed in

France between wars and our great grandsir belonged to his company.”

Anton shrugged with pride. “That fellow wasn’t the king, he worked for

himself. He made his living that way, watching o’er the old country.”

“Say, my great great grandsir,” claimed Frankie, “knew Napoleon the

Bonyparty.”

“Well,” Garland was laughing, “tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. Let’s hit the

hay.”

Ellen stayed awake far into the night. The wind was tugging at her

window and the lonely dark pressed down. Her lips were dry and her mouth

became as cotton. I’ll tell Uncle tomorrow for sure. At length she

lapsed into a fitful sleep while in the parlor below the fire died to

coals and field mice came from the walls to nibble crumbs and nut meats

fallen on the rugs.

* * * * *

At breakfast Maria was stirring a pancake batter while the girls fried

sausages and potatoes, set out slices of blood pudding, crocks of jam

and sorghum. “I favor lacing griddle-cakes with hot sausage fat,” Anton

said. “Sweetening takes the taste out.”

Garland, clad in a red shirt, new hunting pants and shining engineers

boots, beamed. “Good old country sorghum for me. Well, pusses, what’s

new? Anyone dream about a pointing pig? Or poor Pol? Or Napoleon?”

“I ne’er,” giggled Frankie, “but tell another story.”

“Well, you know that same great-great-grandfather of yours that trained

Slut, went to Russia with Napoleon’s army. There was a bad winter and

Napoleon beat it back to France. He let most of the troops die in the

snow without food.”

“I don’t take much stock in that,” said Anton. “I doubt Bonyparty did

that.”

“Now, Anton, you know Pa used to talk about it. How they conscripted all

the men of the village, twenty-three of them. And only his grandfather

came back.”

“He must have been strong. They say he was a good-looker, too,” said

Anton. “Finest in the village, a proud one.”

“Doesn’t look like you or me inherited much from him,” laughed Garland.

“Reckon Marc took after him,” Anton said, “for he was the dandy of us

three boys.”

“Well,” Garland asked, “what you pusses got to report this morning?”

“One of the barn cats brought in a little mole yesterday,” said Frankie.

“You didn’t know I lost my white kid last summer, Uncle,” Ellen said.

“He was but two months old.” Lines still edged her eyes when she spoke

of it. “You ne’er got to see him.”

“I was telling about the mole, Ellie.”

Garland listened to them, then said suddenly, “Now An, here’s something

I’ve been meaning to bring up. Been thinking a lot about Frankie here.

About her coming up to the city next year. You see, I want everything to

go right. She needs to make a good impression from the start. Now you

folks don’t realize it, but you practically talk like first settlers

with that old-fashioned country dialect. Think Frankie could take

lessons in grammar or speech this coming year to correct some of that?”

Anton had been spearing sausages and pancakes with a fork. He paused.

The blood was leaping to his cheekbones, his freckles stood out in vivid

specks. He made a guttural sound and scraped his chair back. He spat the

food from his pendulous lips on to the table before him, hurled the

sausage and fork to the floor. “Hit do be my sir’s tongue and my ma’s

and before God, hit’ll be that girl’s. She’ll go forth with hit and no

more farting teaching mesters will I suck upon.” He flung himself from

the house.

Ellen began to weep. Maria was taking up a cloth to clean the table and

the floor. Frankie looked at her uncle and her eyes were wary, her voice

small, “You’re not afraid?”

“Jesus Wept, no, puss. Have another flapjack and I’ll talk to him when

he cools off. That squirt always had a hot temper.”

* * * * *

Ellen snared the largest of the geese by a stout pink leg. She bore it

to the stump, placed its head between the spikes and cleaved the neck

just below the jaw. She threw the beheaded bird from her to flail its

wings and flop about. She handed the head to Jack, eager and knowing. “I

see you licking your chops.” She tore the down from the breast, stuffing

it into a sack. She brought a pail of boiling water, scalded the carcass

and finished the plucking. She gave the entrails to the chickens to

pick, washed the heavy bird under the pump, hung it near the sausages

dangling from the eaves in the shed.

In the kitchen, Anton was tipping his chair back. He took from his

pocket a twist of tobacco leaves and sliced the end with his jackknife.

He thrust his short legs in front of him, balancing. “Hell, Gar, might

be it’s as you say and Frankie’s speech is queer to city folk. But what

matters her way of speech if she’s to make music? If you say so, why

I’ll get her a grammar mester. But hark at me, Gar,” and his eyes were

glinting, “don’t ne’er speak again such as you did there before them

oomen-folk. Like what I say ain’t gospel.”

“Chrissake, get off your high horse. They know you’re boss.” Garland

ground his cigarette butt in a plate and laughed. He ran his little

finger across his mustache, touching his sensuous lips. “I was always

big enough to lick you if it came to that, now wasn’t I?”

“You’ve tried hit.”

“I always give you good advice. Now here’s another bone I want to pick.

Indoor plumbing.” He hit his fist on the table. “You think you’ve

progressed because you dug a new privy ten years ago. Maria and those

young girls haul water from the well like pioneers. This is December

nineteen twenty-five. The century of progress.” Again the fist.

“They got a sink and a clear drain that our ma ne’er had,” Anton

drawled, tobacco juice staining the corners of his mouth, “and she ne’er

had a deep hole like our shithouse but just a board and a shed. Nor that

sweet-water well that Witch Lufty found. I see you’ve gone soft in the

city.” The farmer was pleased, for now the ground was familiar. He

backed down only when there was jeopardy to his younger daughter’s

future.

“Yes, guess I was going soft, Anton, when I got you that loan back in

the war when times were bad. So you could buy good milkers and get shed

of that worthless herd you were supporting. Guess it’s soft to buy a

good breed of chickens or thoroughbred hogs.”

“Hell, those are beasts where we make our living. Hit’s not the same.”

Anton stumped to the stove and lifting the round iron lid with the

poker, spat on the coals. They sizzled. “And I paid that loan back, Gar.

Hard cash from crops and milk.” He replaced the lid with a violent

noise.

“I give up. Chrissake, you’re stubborn.” Garland arose. “I suppose you’d

declare you’ll never run in a line and wire the farm for electricity?”

“I was born by lamplight and I’ll see that I die by it.”

“Well, I’ve got two or three Christmas packages in the Ford.” Garland

was going to the door. “Good a time as any to bring them in. Frankie,”

he shouted, “call off that practicing and come with me. Jesus Wept, this

is a holiday.”

Anton was sawing his fist in the air, exhorting, “Remove not the ancient

landmark which thy fathers have set, says the Word. Mind, Gar.”

That evening an austere meal of bread and cabbage soup was consumed. By

custom the family semi-fasted before communion. They would wait to eat

of the festive food when they returned from midnight mass. After supper

the girls popped corn and cracked nuts to put on the table. Ellen boiled

up a pan of taffy at Garland’s suggestion. She buttered her hands and

pulled it with him until it cooled into long pale sticks. But all his

jokes and laughter did not rouse her from her lassitude.

At mass she moistened her tongue to swallow the dry communion disk. It

seemed to her that now truly the door was closed on her childhood. As

she returned to the pew she grieved, weighing what she had read in her

Bible. If thou hast done foolishly in lifting thyself, or if thou hast

thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth. For as the churning of milk

bringeth forth butter and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood,

so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife. I’ll have to find a way

to leave my home, a place to go and drop this wayside colt.

Garland drove the green car back down the road to the farm. He was

talkative and his mood had passed to his brother. “Tell you,” Anton was

yawning, “I’ll ne’er forget that Christmas I passed shivering and

repenting while sleeping up against the cows, and thinking of you and

Marc warm in the quilts. I’d been whipped on my knees for leaving the

cow gate open. You remember it? That was one.”

The car lights beamed down the corduroy road. The night was parted like

great doors swinging open on hinges. I haven’t told Uncle yet. A light

fall of snow was starting and the wind hushed.

The store-wrapped gifts that Garland had laid on the table in the parlor

were opened Christmas morning. Anton was puffing at a hand-rolled cigar.

“If you be setting and your hands be idle, hit’s a good enough

pleasure,” he said, stinting. “I even heard they’re rolling cigars now

with a machine.”

Ellen opened her package, took out a hat of crushed blue satin, a silk

rose on its soft brim. “My, that’s fair.” Her voice was tremulous

because of his care for her.

“Put it on, hon,” he was saying. “Ordered it special from the milliner.

You know, satin’s the thing this year. Say, when she wears that to mass,

Anton, you’ll have to keep the beaus back with a shotgun.”

Maria smoothed her fingers over a black crepe de Chine dress. Frankie

ran to try on one of pink wool, to fling herself upon Garland while her

father smoked in his chair, tracing her movements with a jealous eye.

“E’er see the glass bowl-garden Frankie made me last summer, Gar?” he

asked. “Hit’s setting in the bedroom window.”

* * * * *

Ellen was drying the breakfast dishes when Garland came into the room.

He had on a bright striped jacket and brown corded jodhpurs. His gray

hair was neat, his square jaw shaven. “Don’t you ever get tired of all

this work, puss? You never get a change, hidden out on the farm here by

yourself.”

“It’s my home, Uncle. And I love the earth and its doings. Sometimes in

the summer it comes on such an hour like when the Lord God walked in the

garden of Eden. Sometimes a wind passes o’er the earth that’s fair and

all its bounty is spread before.” The wetness stood in her eyes as she

was blurting it.

“I know, but you’ve got your future to think about. You should meet

people. Get around. Your father dotes on Frankie too much, never gives a

thought to you. It’s not right, you know.”

“It’s his way.”

“You got a boy friend?”

“No.” Water filled her eyes again.

Garland tapped the table. “It’s your father. Keeps you kids cloistered

like a pair of nuns.”

Ellen was stacking the dried silver in the milkglass jar. She turned to

him, desperation fringing her tones. “I would as lief go from the farm

awhile, to see the world outside.”

“Course you would, sweet.” He was hearty. “That’s only normal. Now what

chore comes next?”

“Tending my goats.” She was taking her coat from its hook. “Want to

come?”

With the dog trailing after, they took the path over which Ellen had

sped light in the summer past. She fed her does and was standing at the

gate while they ate, her eyes absorbed. Garland smoked his cigarette,

observing her a while. “How would you like to visit me in Chicago,

sweet? Work’ll be light here till spring. They can get along without

you.”

She breathed soft, “Pa’d not have it.”

“He doesn’t need you. Got your sister to keep him company.”

“He does so need me.”

“Well then, he can let you have a vacation.” He smiled. “Does he ever

strap you now you’re a grown girl?”

“No, but I call to mind when I was a child and once Ma said I picked at

a rhubarb pie from the pantry shelf. I ne’er knew of it being there. Pa

cut a hickory, length of his arm, and beat me. Made me kneel. Said I

lied. I won’t squall and that gets his back up.” She rubbed with her

finger the area between the black stub horns of Rhodie, veiling her

eyes. “Reckon I’d love to visit at your house.”

“Well, it’s high time. I’ll throw a party when you come. I’ll talk to

Anton this afternoon. Tell him it’s only logical for you to be first

since you’re the oldest. He’ll let you. You’ll see.” He was putting his

arm around Ellen. She leaned against him with a sigh. “You’re a sweet

girl, hon.” He kissed her, lingering on the young mouth.

Ellen decided not to say more to him now. I’ll wait till I’m at his

house to tell him he must help me.

Anton wasn’t averse to Ellen’s journey. Garland had emphasized how he

was making ready for Frankie’s arrival the next year, and he spoke of

the money he planned to spend on her.

Maria said suddenly, “Who’ll do the trading if Ellie goes off?”

“Enough jawing on this,” cried Anton. “I’ll send Sam, ooman. Ellie’ll

not be gone two-three weeks.”

Garland laughed, “Her turn comes first. You don’t mind, do you,

Frankie?”

“Oh no, I want her to go. Maybe I could do the trading, Pa? Just while

Ellie’s gone?”

“No, Poppet. Say, is she riding back with you in the auto?” Anton

inquired.

“I guess not. No, I’ll be going by way of St. Louis. I’ve got some

business to look after. Then I’ll drive on up and get the house in

order. I’ve never gotten ready for one of these young ladies before.”

“She’s taking a train then?” Anton was persistent.

“This is my treat. I’m giving Ellen the ticket money. It’s an extra

Christmas present.”

“Well. If you want,” Anton said, relieved.

Ellen stood by them pale, her eyes fastened to her uncle. He nodded,

“Come the middle of January, puss. Leave here on the fifteenth. I know

the train. There’s only one out of New Hope that goes to Chicago.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“It’s foolishness.” Anton walked out.

Before Garland left, he came on Ellen alone, slipping her an envelope of

money. “No need to mention this to your father. What he doesn’t know

won’t hurt him. Just tell him I gave you enough for your ticket.”

“All right, Uncle.” She held the extra money tightly in her apron

pocket.

On the morning after New Year’s Day, Garland was jaunty in his yellow

driving cap and raccoon coat. The girls were helping him carry his bags

out to the Ford. Then he unfolded the hood, examined the interior.

“That’ll do.” He fastened the hood down, removed the figured radiator

cap and dipped a finger. “Water.”

Frankie brought a pail from the pump. “Can I do it?”

“No, this is fine.” He poured until it flowed over, replaced the cap,

and opened the car door. “Here goes one more year.”

“Wish you’d stay on a while,” said Frankie.

“There,” Maria said, “I love that dress. I ne’er had a silk one before.”

“That’s crepe de Chine, Maria,” Garland laughed, “it’s the style.”

“It’s not silk, ooman,” Anton said, “that stuff’s too dear.”

“Yes, is it,” Garland said. “It’s one kind of silk. Well, here I go.”

His gloved hand was waving from the window. The exhaust rose in a fog,

dogging the car in the chill air.

The days sped. It was time for Ellen to leave. She had bought a length

of dark heavy cloth with some of the money Garland had given her. She

made it into a dress, cutting so it hung in loose folds on her hips. “I

can feel where it lays hard in me. Soon the cleverest stitching won’t

hide it.”

She had given Frankie the primrose bulb from Brinkers’ kitchen. “Hope it

fares well. Keep in mind to feed it cold tea. And do tend my goats,

Frankie.”

“You’re only going for a week or so, Ellie.”

“Uncle said I might stay a little longer.”

Ellen was bringing salt to her two does. They licked her hands, leaning

affectionate against her. She knew the places they liked best to be

rubbed, along the withers and between the horns, on the silken spots

behind their small pricked ears, on their throats below the beards.

“Frankie’s promised to care for you.”

Maria said, “Bye now. When you reckon Mester Gaddy’ll be back from

taking you to Millville? I’m out of coffee.”

Frankie was kissing Ellen fondly. “It’ll be right lonely with you off

there. I’ll miss your singing, too.” Frankie’s qualms for her own

leavetaking a year hence were exposed when she viewed Ellen’s breakaway.

“There. I’m that eager to go to Uncle’s myself.” But she whispered,

plaintive, “Wish I was little again. What if it’s not fun like you think

it’ll be, Ellie?”

“I ain’t afraid,” Ellen spoke stoutly as she stepped down to where the

team waited; her tan coat was covering her new dress, she wore the blue

satin hat. Jack was flattening his ears and going to sit amid the weeds

on the bank to await her return.

Anton drove the buckwagon, Ellen on the railed seat beside him. At

Love’s she would wait to catch a ride on the milk truck to New Hope.

“You be a credit to me, girl. I don’t favor your idling about in that

Zion. And you’ll not lust after young men, mind.” He was nodding. “So I

told my brother.” He reined in the team outside the store. Ellen went in

for Maria’s coffee. She handed it up to him. “I’ll see you in two weeks’

time. You can write and I’ll make a way to get you home.”

“Yes, Pa. Goodbye.” Ellen watched the buckboard until she could barely

make out her father’s round hat.

In Love’s store, she was peering through the wide window. Stacey Love

rocked, vigorous, by the stove. “Hit’s a far piece where you’re going.”

Grady was chopping wood and the report of his ax was heard. “I always

thought a heap of Mester Gaddy’s brother.” She placed a pinch of snuff

between her lower lip and teeth. “Though I ne’er had no truck with

another Yankee.”

Ellen kept silence, sickened with excitement and fear.

“You’re sure looking seedy, Ellen. I was telling Grady you seemed kind

of pinched this winter.” Stacey swayed back and forth.

There was a noise at the door and Lily Garrett was pushing in, her curls

springing about her soft face. “Well, hey you-all.”

“Wish I had a rich uncle,” Stacey went on quietly.

“Why, Ellie Gaddy,” the fat girl cried, “where you going all smartened

up? And you got a new hat. Look at that rose.”

Ellen kept her back to them. She continued looking up the road, the

pulse in her throat throbbing.

“Ellen’s leaving us poor folks, Lily. Going to the big city.”

“Oh, Mrs. Love,” whispered Ellen.

“My goodness,” cried Lily, “you ne’er told me.”

“Wish I could go visiting,” Stacey said, “lie around in bed of a

morning.”

“You-all heard,” Lily called to Ellen, “Buck Lemmon and Sophie Goode

wedded? Kept it a secret. It was at the husking bee they met up. How

come you didn’t go to the bee, Ellie? Mandy declared you were going.”

Ellen looked around. “My pa wouldn’t suffer neither me or Frankie to go,

Lily. That’s all.”

“I calculate Buck Lemmon seen Sophie a sight before that husking bee,”

Stacey said flatly.

“Whate’er you mean?” Lily was giggling.

“I ain’t saying,” Stacey smiled. “But you e’er see such a funny-looking

girl as Sophie? I marvel at her catching a fine fellow like Buck. I can

see she’s wearing stays and binding herself so it won’t show. Guess she

allows she’ll fool somebody that way. Buck told me himself she’s been to

see Doc Trumbo. Lazy old sow.”

“There’s the milk truck.” Ellen turned to flee. Lily was kissing her

extravagantly at the door while Stacey waved a hand and renewed her wad

of snuff. Ellen hailed the truck. “Can I hitch a ride to New Hope,

Mester Durley?”

“Sure thing, Miss Gaddy.” Those were his last words until they reached

the New Hope station.

“I’m beholden, Mester Durley,” she said as she was taking her bag.

“Sure thing.”

In her valise was the plaster of Paris image of the Virgin Mary, and

Ellen was somewhat fortified by its presence.

7

The whistle was shrieking as the train coursed into the suburbs late in

the night. The cars slunk past small sharp-angled houses, massive

factories belching fire, streets of lighted stores and cafes,

slow-moving people and streetcars, trucks, wagons and horses or mules,

buggies, automobiles. The coach cars were strung with yellow window

links that curved on the track ahead into a tunnel. Ellen saw muffled

groups of people under bright station lamps. Her journey was done. She

reached the cold cement of a pillared runway, stood impotent,

bewildered, jostled by passengers on their separate ways. She was

clutching her bag in one hand, the other in her coat pocket held her

handkerchief in which the money was knotted. A familiar voice spoke in

her ear, “Well, here’s the little country wench.”

It was Garland, suave in a tight-fitting suit and spotted tie, a derby

on his head. He carried a fur coat, his face seemed old and yellowed in

the glare of the platform. He kissed her mouth and she felt the

mustache, clung to him. “I thought I got lost, Uncle.”

“Porter.” Yellow taxicabs were waiting in a line. They got in one and

drove a long time. She was asleep, her head limp against the hard

leather. Garland was waking her. “This is it, sweet.”

She stumbled after him up granite stairs. He stooped over to unlock a

door, pushed it open and they went into an unlighted hall where a

staircase reared. “How about something to eat? Some hot milk?” He

flashed on a light overhead.

“I reckon I’d better just sleep, Uncle. I’m beat.”

“Your room’s up here.” He was climbing ahead on the broad uncarpeted

steps, carrying her valise. A musty odor lingered about them.

“My, you’ve got a big house, Uncle.” Her voice was loud in the echoing

vestibule.

“It’s big all right.” He preceded her down the hall and opened a door,

stepped in and snapped the button of a wall lamp. An orange bulb glowed

faintly. “If you want more light, there’s one by the bed.” It was a

high-ceilinged room with a dark red rug. The wide ornate bed was covered

with a heavy magenta spread and on the wall was a round mirror in a

gold-scrolled frame. Through the mesh curtains hanging in front of the

windows Ellen saw lamps in the street underneath and tree branches

twining still and soundless. The doorbell grated below. “Goodnight, hon.

Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” He was gone.

Ellen attempted to draw the heavy drapes that hung at the sides of the

windows, but discovered they were fastened there. She was fumbling at

window shades, drawing them down. She heard voices raised below,

stiffened to listen. Through the floor boards came a woman’s faint thin

laughter. Then all was still. She pulled the chain of the bulb over the

bed; in the sudden whiteness dust balls in the corners were exposed, and

stained paper on the walls. She put the light out. Below all remained

quiet. She folded her dress on an armchair. Cautious, she left the room,

found the bathroom around an angle in the hallway. When she turned the

spigot, water spurted and roared. Shy of disturbing the household, she

washed meagerly, then hurried back and turned off the orange wall light.

She crept into the cold foreign sheets. And when she slept it was as if

her fears backed off. In dreaming Christian Ay was taking her hand in

his. In his way he was laughing as if there was an old joke between the

two of them.

When she came downstairs in the morning, her footsteps resounded in the

vestibule, at the end of which was a door. It opened into a large

green-carpeted room. Somber-colored chairs and sofas were flanked by

trivial tables bearing bric-a-brac and crystal and cloisonné ash trays.

On a corner table, in a ponderous silver frame, was a daguerreotype of

Nell Gaddy, garbed in a ruffled shirtwaist and a wide straw hat tipped

with an egret’s wing. Beyond she could see the dining room and her uncle

at an oval table, his breakfast and a newspaper spread before him. He

waved his hand, called out. He was shaking a little silver bell. She

crossed the expanse of the green carpet to sit at the table by him. She

sensed the odd odor of his house. It was the strangeness of another

lair.

“Mrs. Quimby.” Garland was speaking to an aproned bulky woman at the

swinging door. “This is my niece, Ellen. She’ll be visiting here.”

“Pleased, be sure,” said Ellen.

The woman turned away, grim, reappeared with a plate of bacon and eggs

and a cup. Gray-black hair wisped about her face, a formless dress was

belted on her full hips and buttoned down the front under the apron. Her

eyes were colorless. She set the food before Ellen and withdrew.

“Don’t let her ways bother you, puss. You’ll get used to her. She’s a

gem. Been with me years.” He was pouring her coffee. While Ellen ate he

spoke rapidly, “Sleep well? You do what pleases you. The house is yours.

I’ll tell Mrs. Quimby you’re mistress. Like that?” He was tapping the

chair arm with his finger. “Want to go for a walk? That’s Redding Street

out front. Pretty district here. Old. Want me to invite some friends for

a party?” He drank the last of his coffee in haste, jingled the bell

again. The housekeeper instantly opened the door, her mouth a penciled

line. “Make my niece at home, Mrs. Quimby. Fix her a good lunch. Don’t

know what time I’ll be back.” He hurried to the vestibule, returning in

a raccoon coat and black spats. He was holding a cane and a black felt

derby together in one hand. He looked down at her. “Not much to say,

puss. You like my house?”

“I do, Uncle.” Ellen couched her words with care, “Be my speech queer

like you told Pa my sister’s was?”

“Well, of course you talk the same as her, hon. But I don’t want you to

change. Frankie’ll be living here in Chicago. So that’s different, see?”

“I’d fain live in Millville all my days.”

He kissed her and she smelled the perfumed lotion. He eyed her

quizzically. “Such a little innocent. Don’t ever change, sweet.” The

outer door was slamming after him.

The hours passed, the first ever spent away from home, away from the

ritual of farm work. Ellen saw how mealtimes were varied to suit the

whim of Mrs. Quimby, how Garland was blind to the management of his

house. He was gone for many hours in a day, often returning after she

was in bed. He had little time for her. She would wander through the

house to sit in the sun-bright bay window in the dining room, to tune in

the cumbersome radio set on the marble table in the other large shaded

room. Her plight and its urgent solution lay untamed, twisting in the

back of her mind. She went upstairs, past the closed doors of the

hallway to the blue-and-white statuette she had placed on the highboy

beside the bed. “Deliver me,” she prayed.

On her third day in the house she came to the kitchen, seeking

companionship, and pushed the door. Sarah Quimby stared from where she

sat reading a paper booklet. In her hands was a steaming mug that she

set on the galvanized table top with a sharp click. Behind the

dour-faced woman was a double-doored wood icebox trimmed in bronze, and

above it swung three or four canary cages. The pale yellow birds were

silent, heads cocked, alert. On the sink was a disarray of food and

newspapers and opened cans. The hard-wood floor was littered with crumbs

and dust. “There’s many a fine secret Sarah Quimby knows, miss.” The

housekeeper’s voice was high-pitched and her finger wagged. Ellen let

the door swing shut. “I know goings-on,” the woman was shrilling behind

it.

Confused, Ellen went to sit in the bay window. “Old witch,” she

murmured, laying her hand on her cheek. Frown lines were drawing across

her forehead.

Don’t place your affections

On the green sycamore tree

For the leaves they will welter

And the balls they will fall

If you can’t love arightly

Don’t love none at all

In the round mirror in her room, Ellen was deliberately examining her

figure clad in a flannel chemise. It was evening, the wall lamp burned.

She placed the strip of cloth about her waist, making it firm. Then she

put on the dark dress she had made for this visit. To the figure in the

glass she breathed, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mester Ay.” The

hurt eyes looked back from the white oval face. The breasts even now

were swelling so in five months’ time they would grow hard and full, the

pink nipples brown. She touched her girdled waist, bitter. “I’ll bind it

tighter and maybe it’ll strangle.”

There was a knock and Garland appeared in the doorway, remote in a

severe black suit and bow tie. “You put me in mind of my mother there.”

He looked at her heavily and turned, drawing the door shut with a dull

sound. She stood a moment, then moved to the windows, pulling up a shade

exposing the windy lean night. Yellow street lamps bloomed stark and

shorn tree boughs swayed. She was weeping after a while, darkly.

Later she glided down the long staircase where the echoes lived, and

into the big room. A score of people were milling in the blue mist of

tobacco smoke and the vague sensuous odors of perfume. In their hands

were stemmed glasses and morsels of food. The air stayed hot and unreal,

the voices an undulating drone above the clicking and chinking of

dishes. Garland came across the room, ruddy-faced, waving a glass at

her, his breath strong. “This is my niece. The one I told you about. The

little goat-girl from the Kentucky hills of home.” He took her arm. He

was like somebody else; fine wrinkles were etched about his soft-skinned

jaw and across his brow. He spoke loudly to a white-haired tall man.

“This is Ellen.”

“Mester,” she whispered, and she said, “Lady,” when it was a woman as he

took her around the room. Her head throbbed, she wished the night done.

Garland left her and she stood apart, waiting. Then he found her again,

urging her to sing. “This niece of mine can do the old-time songs up so

prettily. Go ahead, puss. Any tune.”

Her voice was high and steady while the women’s gems glistened and the

men turned murmuring to each other, puffing long black cigars.

E’er a night when the sun goes in

I hang down my head and mournful cry

True love, don’t weep nor mourn for me

I’m going away to Marble Town

“Say, that’s good. You know any faster ones like ‘Bam, Bam, Bamy Shore,’

Miss Gaddy?” cried a modish blond young woman. “We could dance to that.”

“No.” Ellen’s voice was small. “Reckon not, lady.”

“Well, how about ‘Alabamy Bound’?” called another female voice. “That’s

from the South.”

“I don’t know it,” Ellen said.

“It’s got rhythm.” The blond girl tapped her feet. “Come on, Nadine,

let’s dance.”

“Vo-do-dee-o! Whoopee!” They raised their hands as though to pat-a-cake,

swayed and juggled their feet, short skirts exposing slim legs.

Five feet two, eyes of blue

Can she hug

And can she woo

Garland was setting his glass down. He began to wail too. He shuffled,

linked arm in arm with one of the bejeweled women.

She says that

She’s my little baby

My little jazztime baby

There was dancing, noise, laughter, squeals. Ellen, afraid of the

strange faces, the clever women, conscious of her unfashionable attire,

had retreated to a chair in a dim-lit corner. Mrs. Quimby opened the

dining room door. The woman was austere in a white starched apron, a

ruffled cap askew on her hair. “The dinner is served, sir.”

When the last guest had gone, Ellen turned to the broad staircase and

put her hand on the balustrade. Her skin was transparent, a blue vein

beat in the temple. She was holding herself tense. Garland looked at her

a moment, his little eyes flickering. “I should have made you rest,

hon.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“You sang so pretty.”

“No, Uncle. It’s no song for city folk.” She flushed, near tears. “It

sounded queer, for a fact.”

He glanced, curious, at her. “Where did you pick up those songs?”

“Well, Talithie Gentry of the grammar school used to sing to us. But I

learned the most from Penny Dougherty. Pa hired her two summers back

when Ma took sick.” She sighed, aware of her plainness.

Garland was laughing, “Did you like the party?”

“Pa still calls Penny that roaring woman. He couldn’t abide her. Thought

I’d die when she first went. It was so lonely.” And she added, “I

remember ary tale Penny sung.”

“Not homesick are you?”

She went up a stair, avoiding his sharp look. “No. It’s the late hour

makes me gossipy. Home we’re ne’er up this late.”

“Oh yes, want to ask you about church tomorrow. Guess you’d say I’m a

pretty bad Catholic. Manage to make Christmas mass and send a big check

to the cathedral and that’s about it.” He wagged his head, looking up at

her. “But I know Anton brought you girls up strict. Bet he used a switch

like our folks taught us.”

“He did.”

“Want to go to mass?”

“I’d liefer not.” She rubbed her forehead, reflecting. “If you think

it’s not wrong to cross his will?”

“You mean Anton’s will? Chrissake, I’m all for it. I wouldn’t tell him.

Now, sleep in the morning. Get a good rest. I’ve got some business so

I’ll likely be gone.”

“I ne’er knew you to be such a rich man, Uncle. When you came to the

farm.”

“Good night.”

As she entered her room, she heard the rasp of the doorbell and a

woman’s voice that cut off when the door shut between the vestibule and

the living room.

The next day large flakes were floating soundless beyond the cold bay

window. Ellen heard a crash in the kitchen, knew another dish had

slipped. Over the trill of the canaries came a loud grumbling. The

swinging door was opening. “I can tell you a secret, miss.”

“I’ve ne’er a wish to hear it.” Ellen stood up from her chair.

“Don’t put on airs, miss. Your family’s not much account.”

“I reckon I don’t know what you mean.”

“Mr. Gaddy’s the one amounted to something in your family. You’re a poor

relation.” Mrs. Quimby smiled slyly. “You know Mr. Gaddy keeps a woman?

A bad woman. On the east side. You know what they are, miss? He keeps

her for his pleasure.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Ain’t you the fool. Where you think he goes nights, looking like

Douglas Fairbanks? Think that’s on business?”

“Hit’s proper to have a lady friend.”

“And not make her his missus? Keep rooms for her. Pay her to wait for

him. Give her gold. All these years he’s kept one. Different ones. I

tell you he’s lucky to find a respectable woman like me to run his

house.”

“I won’t listen. I won’t listen,” Ellen was repeating to herself,

running through the house, over the green carpet, away from the voice.

She turned the key in her door, threw herself on the magenta coverlet,

her hands over her ears. “He doesn’t want me or need me any more than

Pa. I’m like some contrary varmint that no one’ll have any truck with.”

Her self-pity was like wind to a fire. She got up, sat in one of the

stiff-backed chairs, trembling in wrath.

“I put a curse on Christian Ay who did this to me. Forever, take away

his joy, Mary Virgin. For what’s been wreaked on me. Make him suffer.”

Suddenly she was rising. She had seen it in an instant. “It just came

o’er me. I’ll go there.” She was lifting down the traveling bag, opening

it on the bed. She packed her few possessions. “I lay a curse on him.

Virgin my witness.” She counted her money, folded it in the

handkerchief. The feverish tenor of the past days was sliding away and

she was cooled again. She rested, and in the night as she was going out,

she stood a letter on the highboy.

Uncle, I’m beholden for all your kindness. I am going to St. Louis

to see someone. If Pa asks after me will you tell him I will try to

be home in summer. Please don’t try to find me.

niece Ellen

At the station she purchased a ticket, sat for a few tired hours on a

bench, her shoes and satin hat wet from the falling snow. Hail Mary full

of grace, the Lord is with thee. Her hand rested on the valise. She

boarded the train and found a seat. Through the window she watched the

red coal of sun lift itself. The landscape was evolving into farm lands,

far-stretched, and sleeping villages. The snow began to melt as they

rumbled southward into Illinois.

She was dozing. Out of memory sprang an incident involving Anton. It

stirred no warring of anger in her, only the same wonderment she had

experienced at the time. The way of women had come on Frankie, catching

her unaware one night when she was eleven, frightening her, so she

whimpered to Ellen, “I’m dying. Ellie, don’t let me die.” Maria had kept

a pristine silence on all matters pertaining to the body, as her own mam

had done with her. It was a secret, never articulated. Ellen had

whispered to Frankie and they planned. All the while in their whispers

lay a thrill of dread, for it was a field of unknowns. The morning was

Sunday and the girls were dressing for mass. Anton opened the loft door

upon them. “What’s going on here? We’ll be late again. Now move, you

two.” Frankie was nude and gazed, naive, at him. Ellen plucked a garment

from the bed and laid it before her sister. The man ripped it from

Frankie’s hands, threw it at her feet. He turned on Ellen, “Not so

froward, girl,” and stalked out while the two stared. They had dressed

swiftly, mute. But nightly, for many years, Frankie would have an urgent

compulsion to look under her bed before she went to sleep. And Ellen

developed a fear of something skulking and concealed when she was sent

to the cellar on an errand.

She was unburying this, mulling it, half asleep. By noon she became

wakeful and light-headed, bought a sandwich from a vendor who came

shouting through the stuffy car. The train was halting before a gray

clapboard station house bearing the flecked inscription WEEMS

CROSSROADS. Bag in hand she walked the deserted streets. The air was

less chill, the sky a high blue. She was questioning a storekeeper, then

turning down a muddy road leading into the country. She passed farms and

came to woods where black trees dripped. Brash crows were cawing

somewhere out of sight and neglected clouds floated in fresh winds. By a

fenced-in burial ground, melting snow outlined gravestones. A Mason jar

full of sticks tipped on its side and a withered wreath lay on a plot

enclosed with a black iron paling. Gray granite markers were graven with

dead names and dates. A cow leaned over the cemetery fence in the

distance to crop grass inside; it was bearing heavily with its soft neck

on the sagging wire.

Ellen came to a dilapidated mailbox set on a stake under a bare-branched

catalpa. She read, Luke Dougherty. She went up the mire of the lane. A

flock of speckled guineas were trotting in the wet meadow. She knocked

at the door to a narrow weather-washed house set beside a shed where

bearded goats were lolling. A hen began to cry in the way they have when

they have just laid an egg, and somewhere back of Ellen the guineas

screamed. A small pretty-featured woman with clear eyes was there in the

doorway.

“I came to you, Penny. Will you have me in?”

8

In a few minutes Ellen was seated in a wood armchair, a blanket about

her, a heated soapstone under her feet. A pot of beans on the range was

giving off a warm strong odor. There were two rooms in the tiny house.

Into this one were crowded the cookstove, a table, a woodbox, two

scratched chairs, a stool, a cupboard, a low cabinet. Washing of dishes,

clothes, and baby was done in a dark-blue enameled basin, the water

thrown out the door. From under the table a child was peering; in his

teeth he gripped a piece of bacon rind, in his hand was a metal

mixing-spoon which he beat on the floor.

“This is Clate,” said Penny. “He’s a real noisy one.” As Penny bent to

take the rind from him and lift him, Ellen saw she was great with

another child. The little boy squealed, laughing as he was swung high,

and his mother held him for Ellen to see how well formed he was and how

red his cheeks were.

“He’s fair, Penny,” Ellen said quietly, “but I’m afraid I’m too young

for bearing one. I had to help my goat with hers.”

“Ellie, you hush. It’s a long ways off. I’ll be here. Birthing’s

nothing. It’s too short to remember. And look what you’ve got.”

“I hate it. I hate what’s in me. I ne’er want to see it.”

“I’ll make coffee. Luke’ll be home. He’ll be glad you came, Ellie. He

knows how I’m one for company. There, I’ll have a new baby in March.”

“You know, Penny, I studied all this time. On a sudden I said, why

there’s one.” Ellen was made helpless by her gratitude. “You’re so

good.”

“We got ten acres here,” Penny laughed. “Luke’s pa signed this place

o’er to us last fall. The soil’s right clayey but it’s rich enough.

We’re getting by. I look for spring to come. I’m going to eat boiled

greens every day.” She planned, “There’s an attic where you can sleep. I

aim to put Clate up there when he grows a bit. It’s hot in summer.”

“I missed you at home, Penny. When you went.”

“We had times, didn’t we? How about when we gathered those sponge

mushrooms in the woods and spread them to dry on your pa’s hog barn

roof?”

“You were singing ‘Charlie’s Sweet’ and we ne’er saw Pa there.”

“We had the times though, Ellie.”

“All on a sudden it came to me there in the city.” Ellen was earnest.

Penny was holding Clate while he drank milk from a mug. She wiped what

he spilled and sat him in the training chair, handing him a piece of

corn pone. “He’s waiting till I lift him out. Then he’ll go pee on the

rug. Such a small man.”

They drank coffee adulterated with chicory. Penny got up to mix

cornbread, stirring in a handful of crumbly cracklings. Ellen felt how

the woman listened and waited while she talked, gathering herself. At

last dusk assembled and a bird began to call. A step was heard outside

and he came. “Look here, Luke. Ellie Gaddy. She’s come to bide a while

with us.”

And love lay in the corners of the house. Penny, her apron high over her

unborn child, moved more gracefully than before. Her face softened and

all the while she hummed and sang. “Now Luke, you visit with Ellie and

I’ll catch the milking.” She threw on a shawl, ran out light-footed, a

lard pail in her hand.

“Be glad to see this thaw come,” the man said. “I’m that eager to lay

out our garden.” Luke was mindful of Penny’s signal with her finger on

her lips and so he made as though Ellen had been somewhat expected. He

put logs in the stove, and lit candles, telling of the farm where he was

employed. “They name it Webster’s Stock Farm. He’s got a dozen of us

hands to help all winter. He’s a rich man, got a big white house. He

owns these shorthorn cattle. And he’s got little old Jersey cows that he

shows at all the state fairs. He brings home ribbons and silver cups and

sets them in a fancied-up room. Sometime I aim to go along to one of

those fairs.” Tall, black-haired, round-faced, his virility charged the

room. He sat in his mild way on the stool, holding his son, who played

with the shiny suspender clasps on the overalls and then made water on

his father’s leg.

Then they were eating cornbread and beans and thick chunks of fatback

and soft onion. Penny would feed Clate from her plate. The smell of

tallow candles burning was sweetly pungent and they made a ruddy glow

over the faces. Afterwards Penny held a light while Luke went up to the

attic by the ladder in the bedroom. He was carrying gunny-sacks of hay,

stooped over for the roof was low. Penny handed quilts up to him. Then

Ellen took her clothes from the valise and hung them on pegs in the

beams. She put her statue of the Virgin beside the pallet and slept

well.

Below in the bedroom, Penny lay in Luke’s arms. “I’m proud she came to

us, Luke.”

“So good you are, and then my bright-eyed little wife,” he murmured,

drowsing.

But Penny was wide awake. “All the world and she thought of us.”

By mid-February they were making a garden. They cut potato eyes,

planting them in deep rows, mulching them with litter and leaves against

frost. Luke strode up whistling, bearing onion sets and seeds in brown

paper bags marked in pencil with the name of the plant that would come

up. They spaded, put in lettuce and onion beds, rows of radishes,

turnips, parsnips, peas and Swiss chard. Penny came to Luke where he

knelt. “This one’s new. Tendergreen Mustard. How come you got it?”

“I saw it was a new kind, only forty-five days to mature. I knew how

fixed you were on an early garden.” They gazed at the grains of seed.

“I sure am honing for greens,” the woman sighed.

The next week thunder was rolling, thumping, across the gray sky. They

waited for the downpour. “In a month it’ll come on twister weather,”

said Penny. “There was one here last fall. Lady down the road had just

boiled up water for her tea. The wind pulled off the roof and sucked the

kettle up. Her and the least youngen got scalded.”

“Friend of mine,” Luke said, “was in the barn. Tore the door off and him

holding on, flying through the air.”

“Was he hurt?” asked Ellen.

“Not as I know. He lived.”

A thunderbolt pealed directly over the house. Ellen said, “Thunder in

February prophesies frost in May. That’s what I’ve heard Ma say.”

“I’m afraid,” said Luke, “we’ll lose our garden. This one’s a

gully-drencher.”

Rain was falling day on day. The sprouting seeds washed up, water

collected undrained on the clay of the garden bed. Pairs of rubber boots

were always standing muddy at the door, for the privy was set far back

from the house. The dirt-floored cellar, reached by a trap door in the

kitchen, was flooded. The jars of preserves that stood on slat shelves

were immersed. Their lids rusted and the labels soaked off. “If I hold

it up to the light I can see some what it is,” Penny said cheerfully,

“but you’re liable to get blueberry jelly, Luke, when you ask for

blackcap.”

In time the clouds spent themselves. The water seeped away, the sun was

brilliant and refreshed, the earth warmed. The people went out to make a

new garden.

Luke was walking up the lane one night leading a gray donkey by a rope.

“Mester Webster gave it to me. It was for his daughter, Star. She tired

of it and so she’s got a pony instead.”

“How come he let you have it?” Penny was pleased.

“You mind that cow I told you of a while back that had milk fever? Well,

I nursed her. He claims it was my hands that pulled her udder around.

This morning he says, you can have this beast if you’ve a mind. Thought

I might rig a plowshare and maybe work him.”

“That would be a sight,” said Ellen.

Luke tied the beast in the shed to a ring in the wall. Ellen was petting

one of Penny’s seven goats. “Hey there, Tiny.” She wondered how her does

Rhodie and Penny were making out, if Frankie was good to them, or

whether they blatted in the woodshed pen. Frankie was ever apt to be

careless.

In the stable, fastened apart from the does, was a shaggy buck goat with

a long beard. His rank odor dominated the air. He baaed affectionately

at Luke who was scratching his back with a stick. “Good old Brownie.”

The animal turned to lick the urine he excreted in the habit of the

rutting male goat.

“I’ll be glad when it gets nice so Brownie can live outside again,”

Penny said. “I’m always afraid that smell will make the milk taste.”

“That smell’s healthy,” cried Luke.

“Penny, how come your goats are muley?” Ellen was asking. “My two have

got horns.”

“Well, most of them were born that way. But Luke knows how to stop the

buds if they start to push through.”

“You rub a stick of this strong acid stuff on, Ellie. I learned it at

Webster’s. It hurts them a bit.”

“You have to do it careful,” Penny said.

“Seems like the horns are so pretty though,” Ellen sighed, remembering.

Days were going by. Ellen felt her waistbands tighten. She found it hard

to grasp that a living child would come from her, believed it would die.

One day she was in the shed where a dozen hens ran loose, their nests

known, a few porcelain doorknobs kept in them to lure them back. “Poor

things. Giving them a mock egg.” Ellen pitied the innocent fowl and she

would turn rocks over for them in the yard so they gathered to peck the

crawling life beneath. When she was bending to collect the eggs from a

nest under a hay manger she felt the child kick. She arose, leaning

against the side of the stall, frightened. She knelt again to take the

eggs, walked to the house slowly. In the evening she said, “I felt it

move.”

“That’s nothing.” Penny was turning to Luke. “Why don’t you see if you

can get a good rooster from Mester Webster for me? I could raise a flock

this summer off those old hens.”

“He’s got White Rocks,” Luke said.

“That what I’d like, a blooded rooster of a heavy breed. Then I could

trade eggs, too.”

“I was in the shed,” Ellen said, “when it happened.”

“Just wait, Ellie,” Penny was jogging Clate on her lap, serene, “till it

starts getting knobby and takes to rolling o’er all the while. Wait till

it gets a little bigger.”

“I’ll wait.” Ellen was bitter.

At breakfast Penny asked Luke to buy chicory and soda at the store. “And

get me a piece from that bolt of blue-check flannel, Luke, for Clate’s

outgrown his nightdress.”

“I don’t get paid till the fifteenth.” Luke put on his straw hat. “Now I

doubt the store will credit us any more.”

Ellen got up hastily. “Wait, Luke.” She climbed the ladder to the attic,

came back to put nearly twenty dollars on the table. “My uncle gave me

this.” She was eager. “You’ll know how to use it. It’s yours.”

Penny picked up the bills and turned them over, her eyes downcast, her

lower lip in her teeth. She laughed, “Get shed of that store bill first,

Luke. Then buy that length of cloth for Farmer Clate. And if you see

some, get pink muslin too. The new one could be a girl.”

“I’ll look if there’s a little share at the store to make a

turning-plow,” said Luke, “like I wanted to get for that little ass to

pull.”

So they thanked her. For the first time Ellen sang when she milked

Penny’s goats.

Mist was rolling heavy in the hollows between hills one morning. March

gusts had blown in the night, seeking cracks, but Luke had banked the

foundation well with straw and manure so the family was snug within.

Ellen came carefully down the ladder. She smelled hidden odors, saw

Penny asleep in the bed, and from the crook of her arm came a mewling

sound. There was a black-haired child wrapped in flannel, born while

Ellen slept. She turned quickly to the kitchen where she heard Luke

talking to Clate who babbled in reply. Luke looked over at Ellen as she

came in. “That bugger’s going to feel awful silly in pink muslin,

Ellie.”

“It’s a boy then?” She was fearful.

“Sure is. Clate’s pleased with his little brother.” Luke gave the boy a

drink of water from a tin cup and then handed him a piece of corn pone.

Clate crumbled the food in a moist hand and threw it on the floor,

shouting. Luke was sheepish. “Can you take him, Ellie? I’ve got to get

to work.” He hurried from the house, his whistling ebbing.

Ellen wiped Clate’s hands. “Wish things would hold still while I study

to understand.”

Little by little, she was taking upon herself the care of Clate. She

would bring him to the shed and sit him in a pile of hay while she

milked. “Swap ends, Tiny,” she turned the goat about, “let’s give some

supper down for Farmer Clate.” The child crowed in glee, kissed her with

his wet soft mouth, pulling at her braids. In the house he crawled from

under the table to trail her. She had to tread carefully, watching out

for him.

But Anse, the newborn one, she avoided. Penny would lay the naked red

body on the bed to change and dress it while it clamored thinly in an

indifferent way, fists clutching in protest. “Why doesn’t he hush, that

ugly brat?” she whispered to herself.

Clate she took to see the garden coming up, sang to, confided in. “When

I tell the song, I see the picture of what happens. Like ‘Red River

Valley,’ that’s where the river’s muddy with red clay and always there’s

summertide.” Clate was gripping Ellen’s apron; he staggered beside her.

“Hold on to me, now. You should have seen me once in Chicago, when all

the fine gentlemen and ladies listened to me sing.”

She came to feel her safety here, gradually putting aside the old

terror. She packed the figure of the Virgin into her valise when she

made order once in the attic. Waiting the months out, she left it there.

She witnessed the ways of birth around her. When Anse was born, Luke

brought home a White Rock rooster as a present from Mr. Webster. It

strutted like a lord before the flock of hens, scratched after fake food

to bring them scurrying. Its sickle-shaped tail feathers were silken and

the crimson comb trembled and folded over with its weight. Ellen picked

him up to stroke the long wattles that dangled below his handsome head;

he breathed coarsely through open beak. When she put him down he made

staccato noises and scuttled after a hen, fanning his wing until it

squatted and submitted to the embrace.

In the crab apple tree a pair of robins had fashioned a nest. Each day

she held Clate up while he peered in at the four miniature blue-green

eggs. The time came when he shouted to see bare nestlings just hatched,

all gaping beaks. “Don’t touch them, or the mother’ll smell you and not

come back to feed them.”

In the barn the does dropped their kids. Ellen ministered, impersonal,

put them to the teats to nurse the first thick yellow milk. It would

alter in a few days to become the familiar white fluid. Then she would

milk a share out for the family.

The white cat ran from her one day and she saw a strange tom in a tree

branch nearby. That night she heard them shrieking in the yard. The next

morning the white cat lay sly in the haymow, licked a scratch on her

paw, cleaned herself and purred.

She witnessed the ways of procreation and birth, the willing and

unwilling, the casual and violent. “It’s ugly. All those ways are ugly.”

At night she lay unwieldly, turning restless to find an easy way to lie

now that her body was so increased. The child rolled within and she

sighed, “I’d as lief you came before your course and perished. I’m too

weary to fret about it any more.”

Penny was asking her to watch Anse while he slept. “I want to put in a

row of those flat white bean seeds, Ellie. They say Good Friday’s the

day to put in beans and it’s way past.” When Penny returned, the baby

was wailing in his basket hoarsely, small face wet with sweat and

crying. Ellen was at the kitchen table, her head on her arms, Clate

playing at her feet. Penny comforted the infant, cleaned him and laid

him against her shoulder where he moistly hiccuped. She came in the

kitchen to sit in a chair and put him to her breast. She asked mildly,

“What’s wrong, Ellie?”

“I can’t seem to touch him, Penny. I looked and it seemed I wanted him

to cry.”

The woman said sharply, “You’re not the first girl with a trouble,

Ellie. Nor the last. You’ve got to take hold and plan. You’re not a

child any more and you’ve got to act past your years, and study on the

ways of your turning.”

From her quilt that night, Ellen was listening to Luke and Penny. “Shh,

is Ellie asleep?” The sharp notes of love fell in the room below. When

Anse whimpered they brought him to their bed. Their gentle voices came

and went. “Poor thing. And it all ahead, Luke. That father, strict and

always preaching the Old Testament. I got no use for him. He’ll like to

kill her if she goes home.” Luke’s voice rasped faintly and Penny said,

“No. Her mother that should be standing by is like a child herself. No

marvel Ellie got taken in by some straying man.” Their voices made Ellen

weep.

* * * * *

In June they were whitewashing the narrow house. Penny was climbing the

ladder, Clate upset a bucket on himself, and Ellen, moving heavily,

misshapen, was painting low spots. Anse was asleep in a blanket under

the crab apple tree. When he cried, Penny would put him to a hard-filled

breast while from the other, milk wet her dress as it flowed. “Let it

go. There’s plenty more I reckon.”

Luke came home for supper and shouted out, “Say, look at that there rich

man’s house. Who’s the master of this house?”

A pink June rose was crawling heavy-blossomed over the door where it had

been trained. Bright flowers were flocking by the path, and the yard

grass was green. The scene was framed and they stood about to admire it.

Then a shower was washing the whiteness into gray streaks and soon the

house boards were drab as before. But Penny was satisfied. “It was a

sight if only for a week. I’ll remember it clear till next spring,

Luke.”

In the first of July, Luke was saying, “Webster’s in a hustle to get the

buckwheat in. Says Fourth of July, wet or dry.”

“Why doesn’t he wait till the light of the moon when it starts waning?”

Penny was dressed in her best, the babies were clean, their pinafores

starched. One of Luke’s fellow employees was driving by in his car to

take the little family to the stock farm near Hidden Creek. Penny looked

forward to the outing. “Hey, Farmer Clate, come set on your potty before

we go.” She turned to Ellen, anxious, “You going to be all right? How do

you feel?”

“I don’t feel a thing. I might pick some berries for supper if I can

haul myself down the lane.”

“Well, don’t tire yourself, hear?” Penny paused. “Maybe I oughtn’t to

go, Luke. Ellie might get taken.”

The two turned in protest. “Now, you know yourself it doesn’t happen

that quick. Ellie wants you to go. And Clate and me too. Even Anse is

saying, Mama show me those little Jerseys that give all cream.” So the

woman was persuaded and the party left, waving from the car window,

disappearing down the dusty road.

Ellen sighed in the fresh morning that moved on toward the hot noon sun.

Partridge repetitively whistled in the woods down the road, “Bob-white.

Ah. Bob-white!” A small warm wind stirred and settled, puffs of cloud

drifted very slowly, and the sky was vivid blue. Like a fall aster. Wish

it was over. She was going down the warm dirt of the lane in the late

morning for blackberries. She dropped the first heated ones into the tin

pail; they made whining thumps until they covered the bottom. Juice was

staining her fingers. When the pail was filled she toiled back up the

path. At the pump she washed the dust from the berries and hung them in

the well to cool. She threw water on her flushed face and arms, pumping

more over her bare feet. Refreshed, she was seated in the open doorway,

leaning her head against the frame. The child under the blue apron

turned itself. She drew shallow labored breaths, closed her eyes. “I’m

nigh to smother. Will I e’er take a full breath again?”

At noon she was restless about the kitchen. She brought fresh water in

from the well, ate a square of corn pone, listless, while a bluebottle

fly churned at the glass of the window. She walked to the field,

carrying a bucket of water to the goats and donkey staked there. The

goats drank slowly, raised mournful yellow eyes while their beards

dripped. The little ass sucked noisily, slobbering, jerking his

overlarge head. He took a button of her dress gently in his teeth. The

girl laid her hand on his woolly shoulder and looked away to the

languishing farmlands where hot air shimmered.

The flock of guineas had not come in to feed the night before. Ellen

knew some of the pairs had been hiding out, setting their clutches of

small strong-shelled eggs. “Some of the chicks could have hatched,” she

told the donkey, “and are keeping the hens and cocks from feeding. A

skunk or snake might get them.” So she took grain in her apron pocket

and went past the orchard, seeking in the farthest places, calling,

“Wee-wee-wee-wee. Come, wee-wee-weeeee.”

It was by a lone scraggled locust tree in an open field that a great

pain smote her. She leaned upon the tree while it was subsiding. She

attempted to reach the orchard and stumbling, fell. The onrush of spasms

was far past her imaginings. In the intervals of withdrawal she crawled,

pulled her racked body through the field. “I will not lie out here.”

A pair of guineas, followed by a stream of peeping spotted keets,

flushed from a covert as she neared the orchard. She but dimly gave them

heed. She was grunting, face fired red, wet from the sharp throes that

came in the scorched air, in the sweet crushed grass and the

round-shaped white clover blooms. She cried out hoarsely, biting her

lips, detached from her sore body where the child sought its way out of

darkness. Her mind was apart in a red torment where she strove

unbelieving to endure. When a seizure would lapse she lay a moment

supine, freed, while above in the sultry blue, a cluster of twittering

goldfinches were bobbing in the Seckel pear branches.

The hand was laid remorseless again upon her. Muffled at first, it was

graduating into cruel wrenching. Then she evoked the holy Virgin, swore

in agony many bonds, until distracted she knew not of her body as it was

arching itself. In time, from her laden womb the child had its way and

was brought out upon the meadow grass. Thin wails fell on the stifled

afternoon air. And overhead the finches chirruped brightly.

After long, Ellen heard the faint piping and lifted herself to see the

limp warm child. She wrapped it in her blue apron and laid it at the

base of the old tree. Resting weary on the grass, she waited. When the

evening star showed itself hovering above the horizon as the sun began

to set, her joy caught in her throat. “I came through. I’m unfettered

once more.”

The Doughertys found her as the evening birds were beginning their

songs. Ellen’s pallet was brought from the attic to a corner of the room

below. She ate milk and berries and bread. In the early part of the

night Penny put the child by her. “You got to nurse him, Ellie. He’s

hungry.”

Ellen suffered the feeble seeking mouth. “Say, another setting hatched

off, Penny. I saw them in the field back of the orchard. You want to go

get them in?”

“Now I think you care more for those chicks than your own newborn son.”

In a short while Ellen was about the house again. Penny had Luke bring

home a few yards of pink-and-white striped material and Ellen was

holding her needle light. “Oh, but I’m a slim one. Look at me,” she

demanded.

She told them she must go, trying to say the other thing that was in her

mind. “I’ve been studying. I can’t come home dragging it. Pa’d turn me

off. Could you-all find it in you to take it for your own? I’d send

money for its needs.”

“It’s true what Ellie says, for I know Mester Gaddy.” Penny looked up at

her husband.

“It’d be a twin to Anse,” he said.

“We’ll love your baby, Ellie. But you mark me, he’s not our blood. The

day’ll come you’ll rue you didn’t make a way to keep your first-born.

You can have him then.”

But Ellen was turning away. “Not me. Though I’m beholden.”

She would walk in the morning down to the Weems Crossroads station.

While they had breakfast, Clate sat on her lap, kissing her endearingly

with his small mouth. “Luke, I reckon it’s the hardest for Ellie to

leave our Clate.”

“Oh I love him that much,” Ellen sighed to the brown-haired child.

“We named your boy last night, Ellie,” Luke said. “Simon.”

“And we’ll call him Simon Gaddy,” said Penny. “We’ll tell him you’re his

ma. So we decided in the night.”

“I love him that much,” Ellen was saying to the child she held.

Jaybird up an acorn tree

Shaking acorns down

Little Clate in a sugar tree

Shaking sugar down

part two

Take it up in your arms I said

Let it lie where it must

At your side on your breast

Let it rest

Love has life not of love

But of us I said

Let it lie where it must

9

A flicker was piping a thread of shrill notes as it flashed in flight

before her. She looked back to where Penny waved from the lane end, a

child on her arm. Then Ellen turned and strode down the road, carrying

the valise. The heat of the July day was still far off, the morning was

new-made. The stiff skirt of the striped dress brushed her legs. She had

combed her hair from her high forehead in the old way, tying it loosely

with a ribbon. A hot morning wind rippled along the dust of the road,

interrupting for a stitch the stilled cool air. Wild morning-glories

were twining on ditch banks, and in a distant field a boy drove a

diminutive span of black horses through verdant corn rows. It came over

Ellen how comely she was and she made her feet light. “I’m thankful for

this day and for all that lie ahead.” Her life ran out before her

harmonious, like a shining thread. All about there was a singing and a

beating of wings and the sun glowed whitely. She was young and there was

no ending ever. “Clear through the whole enduring ages, I’ll be.”

My true love up on the mountain

Bowing up and down

If I had my broadax here

I’d hew that mountain down

O get around, Jenny, get around

All on the summer’s day

On the train, she saw the countryside flowing past the window. The milk

from her breasts was dampening her dress and in her discomfort she

thought of the child once more. She turned her mind from him easily. She

got off at New Hope and hitched a ride with a farmer from Seven Mile

Run.

“Those are fine mules, Mester,” she offered.

“Um. They’re Norman mules. They’ll ne’er balk without cause. I got a

brother can start a balky mule. One time him and me came on two niggers

with a load of straw and a cold-shouldered mule. Well, they were plumb

desperate. Built a fire under it, but it only moved up the road a piece.

Far enough so’s the wagon began to burn. They had to unhitch the mule

and back the wagon off to put the fire out. They were setting there when

we came on them. Brother went up to the mule, took hold of its ear and

whispered in it. Well, that mule walked right off. The niggers hitched

up and went down the road. Told everyone Brother talked witchcraft. Um.”

“Wonder how he did start it?”

“Um. Said he twisted its ear and blew in it. Said that dazzles a beast.

Brother can do it just so.” He lapsed into silence, his head drooped in

the heat of the afternoon. The mules switched their tails and shimmied

their skin to fight flies. Unguided, they were following the road.

When they reached Love’s store, Ellen thanked the farmer, climbed down

from the wagon seat to the pike where the clay baked in the molten sun.

Stacey was in the screened doorway. “Ellen? I thought you’d left these

parts. Grady,” she called. “Looky here. How be you, now? Sam Offut’s

taken o’er the trading for your ma. They had a time when first you ne’er

came home. Where you been?”

Ellen was smiling and nodding. Grady came around the corner of the frame

house; she sought his kindly tight-skinned face. “Hey, Mester Love.”

“Hey there, Ellen. I swear. Come have a glass of my ginger beer. The

yeast’s working good now. Two bottles exploded all o’er the place

yesterday.”

She followed him, and Stacey came after. Ellen was eager. “I visited my

uncle for a spell. Said howdy to you both.”

“That so?” Stacey asked. “He kept you long.”

“Then I went to stay with Mrs. Dougherty while she had a baby.”

“Thought she had hers last year.”

“You remember Penny Dougherty?” Ellen urged. “This is her second. It’s a

boy too. A likely one.” Ellen felt Stacey’s eyes searching her for the

truth. “I came home to help Pa with the summer work.”

“He’ll be glad to see you,” Grady said.

“Penny wanted to be remembered to you both, Mrs. Love.”

“That’s kindly of her,” Grady said.

“Well,” said Stacey. “You’re looking right pert again, Ellen.” She was

fanning herself with Grady’s hat.

Ellen sipped the ginger beer while the woman talked. “Mester Gaddy and

that Sam ne’er would say where you were.” Ellen was afraid of Stacey’s

tongue, conscious of the milk dried on her dress, and she wondered if

Stacey could tell it was there. “I reckoned,” said Stacey, “you met up

with a rich Yankee man who made you his wife.”

“Oh, Mrs. Love.”

“Now Stacey,” Grady cried, “stop greening Ellen.”

“I’m beholden for the drink.” Ellen went to the door. “I was parched.”

“Your daddy know you’re home?” asked Stacey.

“Oh yes.” She was hurrying out and down Sweetincreek Road, unconscious

of the weight of her bag. Then her gait slowed. A small verging of

anxiety had begun and she pushed it back with her will. She changed

hands with the valise, passed over the wood bridge where the

Sweetincreek flowed, and on the other side, in the swampy earth, was

plucking a green-white flower. “I know this one. It’s the lily of the

valleys.” She breathed the perfume, studying the stony well-worn road.

“Reckon he’ll beat me?”

She turned into the familiar lane, which seemed shrunken now. She heard

farm noises. A cow mooing softly in a far place, pigs grunting just off

the path, a duck squawking somewhere in sudden protest. The house seemed

smaller and the yellow paint was peeled; it was ugly. Hesitant, she went

up the sagged steps. The towels on the porch line were muddied, the tin

tub was turned carelessly over, the egg basket was torn. She was opening

the screen door. There was no one, no sound there in the kitchen. Beyond

in the bedroom she saw her mother in a chair under one of the little

windows, bent over some work. Ellen looked at her a moment as though she

were a stranger. From the parlor came Frankie’s stripling voice in

singsong, “I do, I did, I have done. I draw, I drew, I have drawn. I

eat, I ate.” The small voice sighed audibly as Ellen entered.

“Sounds right brave, Frankie.”

“Ellie! You just came. I missed you. Was it fun in Chicago?” As they

were embracing Ellen saw Frankie’s eyes were dark-shadowed, but her skin

was smooth and her hair glistened. She was asking about Garland. “Is he

kind, Ellie, in his own house?”

“Of course.”

“I heard Pa say you ran off and left Uncle. Did you, Ellie? I wanted to

brave Pa to ask. But he gets riled when we name you. Reckon he doubted

you were coming home.”

“I was visiting someone.”

“Where? Where’d you stay?”

“Is he on the outs with me?”

“Pa? I reckon. You went to St. Louis, didn’t you, Ellie? I heard him say

it to Ma.”

“You learning grammar again, Frankie?”

“Tell you true, I hate it. Whate’er I speak, teacher stops me and

changes it.” She shrugged, resentful. “He’s daft.”

“You let Pa know it?”

“No, I’m in thick enough with Pa now. He’s e’er raising sand. I got to

practice all morning now and I’m only to help with housework. Not to

milk or hoe the garden.” She looked away. “Wish I was little again.”

Ellen frowned. “You’ve got to study ahead. And watch the ways of

turning. That’s a thing I learned.”

The two were silent. Looking back to the freedom of childhood, they

chafed at the fretful boundaries, the responsibility that seemed to mark

maturity. They went forward because there was no other way. Frankie was

looking up, doleful, “Missed your songs, Ellie.”

“Say, how’re the goats?”

“The old one dropped two kids. Reckon it was in April. Sam found them in

the morning; one died, the other was a buck, a black one. Pa had Sam cut

it. Said they’d butcher it in fall.”

“What about the little doe, Rhodie? She drop one too?”

“I don’t know. I can’t keep it in my head. I think Sam said he took her

to a billy. You ask him. Tell you true, Sam’s been doing for them.”

“Oh, Frankie. And me pining for them all this tormented time.”

“I’m sorry, Ellie. I’m a poor thing,” Frankie laughed, pleading.

“It’s hot. I’ll go unpack.”

* * * * *

In the attic room, Ellen made her bed up for the night, put away her

clothes. All the while a thing was waxing heavy in her, leaden, as she

thought on her father. “One thing, I’ll ne’er cry. Wish I could make out

not to fear him.” She took the statuette of the Virgin to its old place

on the round table in the parlor. She could hear Maria and Frankie in

the kitchen preparing supper. Loneliness swept Ellen like an empty cloud

as she stood, uneasy. Anton came upon her there. Looking at his face she

recalled when Blueberry had balked starting a wagon and Anton lashed him

coldly about the head with leather lines. Ellen had watched secretly

from a barn window, heart pumping, waiting until the rearing horse

lunged and moved the load. She was going up the stairs without a word.

He climbed gently after, his breathing becoming strident on the way.

He held the belt. His voice shuddered hoarse. His lips were trembling

with their weight. “You e’er were froward, girl.” He was hitting her

again, holding the strap with a relentless hand, feeling the easing of

his own sharp flesh. “I’ll teach you yet. Get on your knees. You were

walking and mincing in that seat of whoredom, weren’t you? Did you know

my brother Marc died rutting there in St. Louis? And that’s what killed

my ma?”

She was enduring the hot bite of the striking leather. She fought within

herself as since a child, to hold silence, pinning her will on it.

“How do you reckon Sam favored doing your trading? How do you reckon

your chores were done up these months, you plagued dummy?” His voice was

a heavy cold whisper and his gray eyes were half closed. “And you stole

the Virgin image.”

Ellen was breathless in the sting of tears. It’s his way. It’s for love

he does it. He’s trying to teach me what’s right. He must.

“Now, you’ll not go off this farm again,” he was warning in the doorway,

“lest I marry you to someone proper.” He paused. “I allow I’ll kill you

before you’ll stand against my will.” He was rolling the belt up around

the home-forged brass buckle as he went out.

Ellen followed down to the evening meal. She went to Maria eagerly,

kissing her, forgetting, in her need, her mother’s preoccupied ways.

“How’ve you been, Ma?”

“Tormented, Ellie. He knows.” Maria looked upward with vague eyes.

“I’ll be here to do for you now, Ma. You glad I’m back?” she pleaded

swiftly.

“I took count,” Maria said. “Hit’s been six months July fifteen. Mester

Gaddy’s been fretted.”

“Quit jawing, ooman,” Anton said. “Set and eat.”

* * * * *

After the meal, though the air was close, Anton directed the family to

go to the parlor, bade Ellen, “Fetch my Bible.” He took the book from

her, leafed the pages. He looked at Frankie, sitting by Maria on the

sofa. “Even as these oomen fared, so will hit be with you, Poppet, if

you don’t pay me heed.” They watched him take the silver-banded reading

glass, peering through it at the page.

“Down on your knees,” he told Ellen, and she obeyed. “Because the

daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks and

wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with

their feet, therefore the Lord will smite them. And the Lord will

discover their secret parts.”

Ellen was tired. She was kneeling by the doweled rocker, her head on the

arm of the chair. She closed her eyes and thought about the man who

could start balky mules by blowing in their long ears, twisting them so

they forgot their orneriness.

“In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling

ornaments about their feet, and their cauls and their round tires like

the moon, the chains, and the bracelets,” Anton cherished the syllables,

“and the hoods and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of

a sweet smell there shall be a stink and instead of a girdle a rent, and

instead of well-set hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, a

girding of sackcloth.”

* * * * *

Under the attic window she was lying sleepless, the uncertain moonlight

washing over her bed. The cockerels in the chicken shed were crowing

intermittently, confused by the unseemly moon’s glare. Her body ached

from the beat of the strap. Her breasts were swollen because she had

tolerated the child to nurse her over the past days and the milk had not

as yet subsided. She would wait and in a week the discomfort would be

gone, then she would be done with him. Her mind circled on Penny and

Clate, on the Dougherty beasts, the donkey and Brownie and the doe Tiny.

She was overcome by devotion to them all. She went further back to the

autumn of despair, and to the summer preceding that was fading now as

the separate incidents blurred and blended. The night stretched

brilliant as she rose and leaned at the window sill. The quavering of

the young cocks’ chorus was heard again.

She slipped into her dress and went down. Jack met her at the door,

hurling himself upon her. She sat on the steps to pluck burrs that were

tangled in his hair. She was listening to the sounds the wind made that

sometimes has a business in the high branches, spurning the ground. In

the warty-barked hackberry there was a rustle as the leaves resisted the

wind, and in the spruce by the road fence an indistinct whisper came and

went as many tiny needles rasped gently one on another. The wind sounds

were all different in the varied trees. In the black willows by the

Sweetincreek there would be a swishing and a swaying, and in the stiff

leaves of the catalpa nearly no noise at all. The mockernut was so tall

and straight that the soughing was disguised and far away. I might know

the particular tree just from the voice of the wind through it. The

cockerels were piping again in the moonlight, foretelling the dawn just

coming.

* * * * *

In the early morning she hurried out to find none of her goats at the

woodshed, nor any trace they had been stabled recently there. A setting

goose was peering from under the cobwebbed manger; it hissed a warning,

hovering over warmed eggs in musty straw. For a moment Ellen stood in

the doorway, then she went to the barnyard. Sam was pouring foaming milk

into tall cans. “Your nannies are at the field.” Sam looked her over

quietly. “Your pa says leave them there.”

“I’m taking them up to the woodshed right now. There’s a silly old goose

setting in there.”

“Better ask your pa if you can, Ellie.”

“Well, I’ll help you-all milk first.”

In the barn she drew the first streams onto the ground to clean the

udder. Then she was milking steadily, her hands efficient. She pressed

her head into the joint of the young cow’s back leg.

“That Sal’s a real kicker,” offered Sam.

“Watch you don’t lose her milk,” Anton said, coming in.

“Ho, suckey.” Ellen would know if the nervous heifer were about to

strike out. She stripped the front teats and began to milk the tight

back ones. “Ho, Sal.”

Anton gave her leave to take her goats in from the field when she

brought the cows. “And you help with the milking hereafter, girl.”

Ellen discovered Penny was thin and her udder flabby, for she ran loose

with a black yeanling. Rhodie was slick-haired, rounded with a kid Sam

said she would drop next month. They were skittish and Ellen coaxed them

to her. She sat in the grass with corn in her apron until they could not

hold their greed and curiosity. Penny licked her ear, bleated softly on

her neck, remembering her all at once. The black wether was timid and

handsome but he came under her hand too. She resented his castration

though she knew it was necessary. They were munching the corn grains,

pushing against her.

Go through my window

My sugar lump

And buy molasses candy

Blue bird, blue bird, go through my window

And buy molasses candy

10

The fiery sun of August labored in the sky across the languid procession

of days. In the evenings, by the light of kerosene lamps, the women

still were finishing canning of peaches, tomatoes, berries. They clamped

glass lids on by wire bails and stood filled jars on a rack of laths in

the wash boiler. Pits and peelings were heaped in pails in the yard

where flies gathered, and gnats and yellowjackets. They put up

salt-and-sugar beans, selecting green-tinted jars to protect the color.

They dried peppers and sweet corn. They made brine for gherkins and

green tomatoes, packed a ten-gallon crock in the pantry with cucumbers

and branches of dill. Ellen added horseradish roots to the salty brew,

and mustard seeds. On top she placed grape and cherry leaves. “To get a

good brine you got to add salt just right,” she said, “till it gets the

power in it to hoist a fresh egg from the bottom of the crock and float

hit.”

Ellen was making jelly. She strained the cooked fruit through flannel

bags and then added sugar or sorghum and boiled the juice. She tested

the hot purple syrup. “It doesn’t want to sheet off and tear proper,”

she told Amanda York who came to keep her company. “I’ll just wait on

it.” She wiped her forehead with a perspiring hand.