Uncle Garland

She put the paper in her pocket. O my strength, deliver my soul from the

sword, my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s

mouth.

Courageous, she went to Anton. “Simon and me are taking the train to

Chicago to visit Uncle Garland for a spell. He’s got married and he

wants us to come.”

“You will not.” He ravened. “No.”

“By the law, Simon’s mine.”

The child was coughing; he clutched his chest. But the two who fought

over him didn’t see. Their eyes narrowed, and the pale gray irises of

father and daughter were glinting in the same way. Ellen said they would

leave in the morning. She ordered Simon to his room after the night

meal. He went, meek.

Anton strode out to the corn field, tearing off his shirt. He dragged

aside the standing shocks just built. Furious sweat drops were forming

on the hairs of his chest. He snapped off the soft unseasoned ears,

hurling them in great piles until dark engulfed the field. Reaching for

the next stalk, he stumbled, falling. He lay panting a moment before

getting to his feet, and came to the house to lie emptied and exhausted

beside his sleeping wife.

Sam and Ellen milked without him in the morning. They breakfasted and

then Ellen went to the door of the bedroom. She was looking across at

the unkempt bent figure on the bed under the crucifix, elbows on knees.

At length she turned away, taking Simon’s hand. He held his other over

the buttons of his shirt. “You’re not afraid?” he queried, timid.

But Ellen was speaking to Maria. “I’ve got to go, Ma. You see that?”

“Where you off to? Is Mester Gaddy going?”

“No. Just us two.” Ellen kissed her. “It’s all I know to do, Ma.”

Maria went to gaze at her husband. “Why’s he setting there?”

Ellen fled with Simon. They were overtaken down the road by Dr. Trumbo,

who gave them a lift in his rattletrap Nash to the station at New Hope.

A north wind blew up, keening in the corners of the unheated station. It

struck down dry autumn leaves and herded them into desolate piles. They

boarded the train at noon. Simon mounted the iron stair before her. He

turned and peered from the windows at the retreating town.

“Don’t put your feet on the clean seats, Simon.” Ellen did not look

back.

* * * * *

Anton had shaken his head at the noon meal his wife proffered him. He

stared at the floor. In late evening he arose at last from his position

on the bed. Maria was in the parlor poring over her gilded Bible. Anton

took a long thin butcher knife from a kitchen drawer. He went onto the

half-dark porch, taking down the lantern that hung on a bent nail and

lighting it. He was making his way then with measured gait to the

woodshed. Wind coming out of the north chattered in the branches of the

hackberry. The yellow light was shedding over the pen of goats lying in

oat straw. They blinked up at him. Rhodie, who was skittish, arose and

snorted. As the man was fumbling with the gate latch the other beasts

got to their feet, one at a time, sensing an outsider, Leona’s pair of

three-week kids turned to her warm side when she stood, seeking her

udder. Feverish, Anton was seeking a peg, feeling with his fingers. He

hung the lantern, his breathing quickening.

The first doe he grasped was Penny. When he bent her old neck back by

the beard and the red ran down into the fur, she died almost gently. The

clever ones saw his game. Rhodie was rearing upon the furthest stone

wall; her hoofs made a subdued pattering. Leona’s white throat came

next, for she was foolish and made no play at running away. Her two kids

were dispatched too, uttering feeble birdlike sounds. And then Jenny and

Babs, baaing low, were snared by their shaggy beards. Their taut silken

throats were bending to the knife. The hot blood spouted on the straw

and the man’s boots. He was lunging for the spotted Pie, powerful and

large, catching her by a hind leg. She pulled loose, and bleating,

kicked out, striking him on the neck, making a dark bruise. “Haw. Come

here now.” He threw his body at her, encouraged the struggle. He took a

pleasure in the battle, prolonged its ending, letting her heave, crying

in alarm beneath his weight. Then he was dragging her along the straw to

the knife he had dropped. Rhodie was the last. In a silent crazed way

she was still leaping against the far wall. This doe had always been apt

to startle since she had been left untended over a winter and spring as

a yearling when his daughter Ellen had been away in Illinois. Rhodie’s

small hoofs were beating again and again upon the wall. Anton trapped

her by the collar. She made no sound, dropping slowly to the bedding.

He breathed loud, threw his hand as if he had spoken and were justifying

himself to someone. He walked out of the shed leaving the gate ajar, the

lantern flaming. He strode to the bedroom and knew his wife. In the

frost of the following morning Sam would come upon the stiffened bodies

of the animals and bury them in a near field.

18

While the wind of late September hurled in dreary gusts about them, the

two stood in the chill of the next morning before the brownstone front

of the house on Redding Street. They were walking up wet granite stairs

strewn with blown leaves. Ellen rang the bell. The woman who opened the

door was tall and narrow-shouldered. Her eyes were dark, and like a

dog’s seemed to beg. Her hair was a brown mane, piled sleek. She put her

hands on her hips. “Hi. You must be Chicken’s niece. I’m Violet. Come

out of the wet.” She was preceding them into the living room. The old

green carpet was shoddy. The trivia of ornaments that had burdened the

mantle and end tables had been taken away. The oval dining room table

had been moved into this room and the drapes replaced with white ruffled

curtains that drooped as the starch wore out.

“This room’s bright now,” Ellen said.

“I like ruffles and trimmings. Is this Simon? Chicken told me about you.

I’m Aunt Vi. Sit down. I’ll get some lunch.” She bustled out.

“I’m tired, Ma.”

“So am I, Simon.”

“Are we e’er going back to Granddaddy’s?”

“Maybe some day.” She was pushing aside the curtains, looking down into

the street where traffic moved.

“Will we live in this rich house?”

“For a spell, I reckon.”

“How do I call that lady?”

“Aunt Violet, you say. And be mannerly.”

“I’m not hungry, Ma.”

“Take off your shoes. I’ll give you dry socks from the bag.” They waited

until Garland’s wife returned with a tray of hot milk and coffee, slices

of poundcake and a plate of bananas.

“You like bananas?” she asked. “I do. I feel like one of the quality

when I have bananas around.”

“Where’s Uncle Garland?”

“He’s at one of the restaurants. He’s got two, you know. He gets home

about four-thirty and goes back till late at night. Have a banana,

Simon. They’ll rot before you can snap your fingers.”

“I don’t want any. Go away.”

“Simon.”

The boy began to weep softly, laying his head on the arm of the chair.

“I’m hot.”

“He doesn’t look good, Ellen. Let’s put him to bed.”

“Pay no mind to his talk, Aunt Violet.”

“I don’t,” she said cheerfully. “Nerts, I forgot to make up your beds.

Wonder where I stored the sheets this time?”

Upstairs in a little room, Simon was undressed and put to sleep. He

drowsed uneasily. The bedstead was of black-enameled iron. There was a

battered wood bureau and a cane-bottom chair. Simon awoke, whimpering,

“Ma? Did Anse take back his ball?”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know, Ma. What did I say?”

She felt the dry heat of his forehead. Violet came in the doorway. “Hi,

Simon. Brought you some ice cream.” She offered him the little dish.

He sat up, his blue eyes darkening. “I ne’er meant what I said, lady.”

“I don’t mind, Simon. Eat before it melts.”

“Do you have any tonic in the house?” Ellen whispered.

“I think Chicken would say call the doctor.”

“My pa ne’er had one. Only satchel doctor I knew let a friend of mine

die.”

“Didn’t you have one when he came?” Violet was nodding at Simon.

“No.”

The boy finished the ice cream, laid the dish on the faded bedspread. He

stroked the sheet, closing his eyes. “Sing about that William, Ma.”

She waited until Violet had gone.

It was in the merry merry month of May

When the meadows were fresh and gay

Sweet William hung his bugles round about his neck

And he went riding away

He slept. Ellen went downstairs to help with the housework. Violet knew

little about it, made simple chores tedious, and in her careless way

laughed it off. “Chicken says, I’ve got a niece at least that’s a model

housekeeper.”

“I like things to be in the place they live.”

“You take last night. The soup was ready but I forgot and put the

potatoes in late. They weren’t done. Nerts. Good thing Chicken brings

things home from the restaurant.”

While she was talking, Ellen busied herself. She boiled starch for the

wilted curtains. “How long have you and Uncle been married?”

“I’m what they call a common-law wife. I guess I can tell you, being

Chicken’s family so to speak. We’ve lived on the east side ever since

thirty-two. Or was it thirty-three? Last year Chicken gave me a box of

stationery with Mrs. Garland Gaddy on it. He says, we’ve got a checking

account, you and me, the National Trust.”

“That sounds like Uncle.” Ellen stopped scouring the bronze-trimmed

icebox, wiped her hands.

“All the time he’d had it in his head. I’ve never written a check, I

don’t know how. Let him do that. But there’s my name with that bank.”

“My.”

“He told me your husband died, Ellen.”

“I’ve got to look at Simon.” She was going upstairs. The covers were

thrown back, the boy’s face reddened. When he opened his eyes, they

stared at her bloodshot.

“Penn didn’t want that ball,” he breathed.

She was rushing down the long echoing staircase. “Call Uncle’s doctor,

Vi. Simon’s really sick.”

She went back. The voice met her, wheedling, “I didn’t wet the quilt,

Da.”

“Don’t talk, Simon.”

“I saw that burying-beetle. He made a grave for the speckled thrush. He

dug all about the body till it settled in the earth.”

She laid a wet cloth on his forehead. Her hand was pushed away strongly.

Now God, shall I give up my first-born for my transgression? The doctor

arrived. The watch began. For nearly three days the fever would possess

Simon’s body. Garland came and went but Ellen didn’t notice him, that he

was changed, his hair whitened, his figure grown portly, his mustache

shaved so his face had lost its sharpness. His blue eyes looked out

shrived. Ellen saw only Simon. She sat in the cane-bottom chair and

watched. Simon was laying his hand on his breast, “Now there’s that

pain. I won’t tell Mama.” His voice rose, “Granddaddy clobbered old

Jess.”

Ellen asked the doctor, “How come he grabs at his chest? I’ve seen him

do that before but he said it didn’t hurt.”

“He might be afraid of something, Mrs. Gaddy, that he’s not aware of.

Some anxiety. It’s possible.”

Late in the night, Ellen was sitting alone in the glare of the small

overhanging bulb. The doctor had said that only time would reveal the

extent of the child’s malady and his strength to combat it. Gusts were

rattling the house eaves, rain drummed insistent on the glass behind the

stained brown shade. Her eyes sought patterns in the striped wallpaper.

“Gaddy brat. Bastard Gaddy.” Simon was crying in the way of the young,

without effort, his tears wetting the pillow.

Violet came in, her brown hair hanging to the waist of her dressing-gown

and bound with a clasp. “I had a brother,” she said, “was sick like that

as a child. He came through. The doctor thinks Simon’s getting better.

He told me when he went out.”

“Don’t cry. Why does he cry, Aunt Violet?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s thinking thoughts we can’t know of.”

“Reckon you’re right,” Ellen sighed.

“I know one way to stop it, but you might think it improper.”

“What, Aunt Violet?”

“I doubt the quality ever heard of it. It’s a way people did where I was

brought up. Even with babies. We lived in the slums, all in one room.

Mom would stroke my brother’s privates. She was forced to hush him so

Dad could get his sleep. And it quieted him right off.”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ll just use the wet cloth.”

“How is he?” Garland’s rasp sounded from the door. “Just closed up the

restaurant. Busy tonight. It’s after midnight.”

Ellen didn’t turn. “He’s better, it seems.”

“He is, Chicken. The first time he’s resting good. I’ll go make your

tea. You want some too, Ellen?”

“Sure she does, Vi.”

She pattered away down the hall. “Won’t be long.”

Garland was coming in by the bed. “Poor fellow. He’s a fine kid, puss.”

“I know it.” Tears began to flow down her tired face. “You-all been so

good. Taking us in, Uncle.”

“Chrissake, hon. It’s Anton, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Was he mistreating the kid?”

“No.”

“Hell, then he was lording it over you?”

“Not that, I don’t mind that.” She was whispering, weeping. “Seemed he

didn’t care for Simon’s good.”

“Hell, that’s An. Wish there was some way to make him see the light.”

“Only to have him do his bidding.”

“What makes that bastard that way? I’m fed up with him. I’m done.”

“To make Simon a part of him like his own son would be.” Ellen was

looking up. She saw that Garland was old. He had always seemed young,

vigorous. “When I got your letter, Uncle. Saying we could come here. It

was like a way opened up.”

“Your letter to me was pretty plain. I thought I knew what the trouble

was. I suspected Anton then.” His small angry eyes cooled. “You know how

tickled Vi is with you both?”

“I like her.”

“We’ve been married a long time. Since about thirty-two, I think.”

“Like I wrote,” she looked at Simon who breathed evenly in sleep, “I

want to get a job right away, though.”

“How old is he anyway?”

“Nine, now.”

“Frankie told me she thought your husband had died.”

“Yes.” The wind rushed, pushing rain sharply against the pane.

“Frankie said what a nice kid Simon was. She’ll be glad to see him, too.

We’ll have her over.”

“I’m so tired, Uncle.” She looked at him, vacant. “I can’t think so

good. Does Frankie live near here?”

“Just you take it easy.” He put his hand at Simon’s forehead. “Feels

cool to me.” The humming of Violet who was mounting the stairs came, and

then dishes were rattling in an adjoining room. “Let’s go have some hot

tea and ginger-bread. Do you good, sweet.”

“I’d better stay here.”

“You can come back. In a little while.” He jerked the chain dangling

from the overhead light. He drew her from the darkened room.

Ellen slept late into the morning like one drugged. Simon dozed. The

fever had disappeared, with it went the constriction in his chest. When

he roused, Violet tiptoed up to amuse him, making shadow-pictures on the

wall with her thin hands. “I used to do this for my brother.”

Garland came home, stood in the doorway. “There’s nobody like my Vi,

Simon.”

“Do the little goat now,” the boy whispered.

Ellen went down to the kitchen in the evening. Violet was in a rocker by

the tin-topped table. The radio was blaring.

The music goes round and round

O-o-o-o-o-o

And it comes out here

The woman snapped it off. “Hi. How is he, Ellen?”

“Fine. I promised him a kitten. Reckon we could find one?”

“I’ll tell Chicken. He’ll get you one somewhere. Have a cup?” They sat

in the kitchen room that was littered as in the days of Mrs. Quimby’s

reign. Years of neglect and Violet’s efforts had done little to improve

it. The chipped sink was touched up, the cupboards were painted cream

color, and a square of red-and-white linoleum was on the wood floor. The

fireplace was still unused, the opening blocked. “If times get better,

we’ll fix the house up, Ellen. Get an electric icebox and a new stove

and sink.”

Ellen drank the tea. “Violet, did Uncle look for a job for me yet?”

“He’s watching the want ads. We’d like you to stay here as long as you

can. Have you ever worked out?”

“No.”

“I have. Since I was eleven. One place they had a special French toilet

in their bathroom. When they finished their business on the regular one,

they switched to it. It washed them off with a spray. Now it was

outlandish.”

“Those French are tormented clean folks. My great grandsir was one.”

“You don’t say.”

The front door slammed. “Where are you, Vi?”

She bayed, “Here, Chicken.”

Garland was pushing the swinging door. “Home is the sailor, home from

the sea. And the hunter from the hill.” He kissed Violet’s cheek. “I’ll

have some of that tea.”

“Ellen wants you to find Simon a kitten. He likes pets.”

“I’ll ask Charlie. He’s got cats. Charlie’s my dishwasher. Say, we’re

going to have company in a couple of hours. Frankie’s coming.”

“I just remembered supper,” Violet cried. “Nerts, I’ll never get it

together.”

“Yes, we will,” Ellen gathered the teacups. “How’s Frankie’s

piano-playing now, Uncle?”

“Oh, hon,” Garland was laughing, “when did you see her last?”

At six-thirty, Frankie arrived, Genevieve Wheeler, stout and amiable,

just behind her. “How’s the farm, Ellen?”

“It’s fine, Miss Wheeler.”

“Take my coat, Gen, will you?” Frankie’s red hair was long and she wore

a pearl comb in it. Her fine features had filled out and she had lost

her frailness, was somewhat plump.

“All righty. I’ll go put these chocolate eclairs in the frig.” Genevieve

was striding vigorously into the hall.

“Oh sure, Ellie. We’ve been visiting Uncle and Vi ever since Pa tossed

me out. We live on the east side.” Frankie’s eyes appraised Ellen.

“You’re different. Older, I guess.” She had her hand on Ellen’s arm, was

kissing her cheek.

Ellen drew away. “And I am older, so what’s that if I look it?” She

spoke sharply from the wound.

“Did Pa make you go? We didn’t believe Uncle when he said you were in

the city. And Simon, too.”

“I told Pa I was leaving.”

“Are you raising Simon Catholic?”

“Well, Pa took him to church, but I don’t go. I got weary of the prayers

and such.”

“Pa know that?”

“I talked to Father Tompert once and he said I was right. So Pa gave

in.”

“I always got a kick out of the way you defied him, Ellie. I never

dared. How is he?”

“The same.” It tasted bitter. “It’s us that have got to change.”

“I’m glad you left. But how are you going to get along? Are you staying

here?”

“No, I want to find a place on a farm, Frankie. So I can work and Simon

can help with the stock.”

Genevieve was in the doorway, hearty-voiced, “I know a farmer might be

able to take you, Ellen.”

“Where, Gen?” Frankie was asking.

“Down in the state somewhere. Wasilewski’s the name. One of their

cousins works in my office. He was reading a letter yesterday about his

aunt getting old and wanting to hire a girl. Sounded nice.”

“Let’s write them,” Frankie cried.

“Wonder if they have cows.” The desire caught in Ellen’s throat to lay

her hands on the silken hair and smell the pungent kine breath.

“Sure,” Genevieve said. “I guess. Cows and pigs and chickens. The works.

We’ll write them, Ellen.”

“And we’ll call you,” Frankie promised, “as soon as we find out.”

“I don’t get it,” Genevieve said. “Wouldn’t you rather find something

here in Chicago? My kind of work’s so much more interesting than the

drudgery of a farm. It’s stimulating.”

“No, Miss Wheeler.”

“You could live with us,” Frankie offered. “You could do steno work like

me.”

“I’ll bet Garland would be tickled silly if you’d stay with them,”

Genevieve said.

“Vi’s such a slob,” Frankie giggled.

“She’s not,” said Ellen. “She’s good.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t good,” Frankie was shrugging. “But she’s a

slob. She’s perfect for her Chicken.”

“Garland thinks he’s taking care of the downtrodden,” said Genevieve.

“She’s good,” Ellen repeated.

“Why don’t you stay, then?” Genevieve asked.

“They need a housekeeper,” said Frankie.

“I’d rather be on a farm, if I could. Besides, Simon can’t bear to be

cooped up.” But Ellen knew she wanted to be away from Garland and his

wife, and Frankie and Genevieve Wheeler. She wanted to leave all ties,

to start on new ground.

The next day, Frankie called to say they had mailed the letter and when

the reply came would let Ellen know without delay. Ellen walked through

the park, Simon beside her. Leaves were dropping, scudding into damp

niches, mingling with soot particles and bits of paper and debris that

gathered in gutters. Sleet sheeted from a dull sky. They returned to the

house. Violet was bringing a bowl of popcorn into the living room.

Garland urged Ellen, “_Top Hat_’s at the Acme tonight. With Fred Astaire

and Ginger Rogers. Why don’t you come with us, puss?”

“I don’t care to.”

“Make me some fudge, Ma.”

“All right.” When Garland and Violet had left, they went into the

kitchen. Simon sat in the rocker while Ellen was hunting through

cupboards for ingredients.

“When you reckon Uncle will get my kitten, Ma?”

“Soon, he said.”

“Wonder if Leona’s kid sprouted horns?”

“Uncle says the man that washes dishes at the restaurant has a cat that

littered. But they aren’t weaned yet.” She was stirring the hot mixture

in the iron pan, the strong odor of chocolate filled the air.

Simon stared at the red-and-white checked linoleum, held the arms of the

chair to keep it from movement. “Reckon Sam milks the goats out good?”

She poured the thick fudge on a buttered cold plate. Her body was tense

and unyielding. Her braids lay like marble coils about her head. “Uncle

says those kits are spotted. Black and white and orange.”

Simon got up and followed her into the living room. He was nibbling at a

sweet brown square, his eyes looking past the ruffed curtains to the

steady noise of the street. “I say, Ma, I get to honing for them.”

* * * * *

It was two weeks before Frankie came for an evening again. “Why in the

world did you and Uncle move from the old flat, Vi?” She was laughing.

“It takes us an hour to get over to this side.”

“Did you e’er hear from those people, Frankie?” Ellen asked.

“Who?”

“About that farm.”

“Oh yes. We meant to call you. Gen’s got a letter from them.”

“It’s here somewhere in my bag.” Genevieve searched.

Ellen took it quickly to slit it open.

Mrs. Gaddy.

I hear you want to hire out. Winter work is light here. Can you come

say latter part of Jan.? If satisfactory would pay 4 & half dollars

per week and board. Child to work according to size. My wife raises

chickens. Needs help with them and house. Also garden-stuff. That is

all I have to say.

Matthew Paul Wasilewski

Hidden Creek, Ill.

Rt. 1

“Well?” asked Gen. “Good or bad?”

“They’ll take us. But not till after winter.” She colored. “I know where

Hidden Creek is. Penny Dougherty lives near there.”

“Well,” said Violet when she heard the news, “I’m glad it’s not till

January at least.”

“It’s that I hate putting you and Uncle out.”

“Nerts, you don’t. We wish you’d stay.”

“Can I have my own horse there, Ma?”

“We’ll see if you can leastwise have a chicken.”

“Let me have it as soon as it hatches. I’ll give it all its feed and

raise it for a pet.”

“Never heard of a pet chicken,” Violet said.

“When’s Uncle going to bring me the kitten, Aunt Vi?”

“I’ll get after him again, Simon. He’s always busy.”

“I’d love a spotty kitten.”

Ellen cleaned the house as the weeks flowed. With strong yellow soap she

scrubbed into corners, taking a pleasure in the dark lather that would

form in the ancient dust. She pulled down drapes, hauled dingy frayed

rugs out on the line strung in the yard and set Simon to beating them in

the cold autumn sunlight. “You got to polish brass with wood ashes mixed

in oil. Hit’s the only way,” she told Violet. “It mars our hands but the

brass comes shiny like new.”

Violet, thin arms akimbo, followed, protesting. “Look at you, Ellen. Let

it be. We don’t mind. Come on and sit.”

“I’d rather finish this off first, Aunt Vi.” She felt a compulsion to

drive her body as if that would make the days shorter.

19

There was a heavy fall of snow in the early afternoon. All city noises

were dulled. Violet had spread newspapers before her and she was sipping

hot tea. “Says here they found a frozen man on the el steps, people

walking around him. You think they figured he was sleeping?” The

telephone rang and Violet picked it up. “Hello. Yes, we’ll accept it.

Hold the line, ma’am, she’s right here. It’s Millville, Ellen.”

Ellen grasped the phone. She could scarcely hear the voice of Sam Offut.

“Ellie? Your Ma’s acting queer. Mester Gaddy’s got to pull her out of

the wardrobe to get the meals. You best come and do somewhat with her.”

“Oh, Sam.”

“She’s not been the same since you left. I allow I don’t know how we’ll

make out at butchering.”

“Is Pa all right?”

“For Gawd, Ellie. He thinks she’s being ornery. But I don’t know. Seems

like she’s off her head to me.”

“Where are you, Sam?”

“At Love’s. I traded a basket of eggs. The hens are doing good for this

weather. I says to the central, there’s a Garland Gaddy lives at

Chicago. He’s got my boss’s niece there. Ellie Gaddy. Can you get her to

this phone? She says, collect? I says, look, I got no money. Can you fix

it so I don’t have to pay? Lo and behold, I was about to walk out when

Stacey hollers, it’s for you, Sam. How about this age of miracles?”

“I’m hanging up, Sam. I’ll come some way.” She cut off his voice. “What

do you reckon that call cost, Aunt Vi?”

“What’s the matter, Ellie?”

“I want to know. I’ll pay it back.”

When Ellen told Frankie, the young woman laughed as if embarrassed, the

light catching in her blue eyes. “I’m done with all that, Ellie. You can

go.”

“Haven’t you got any pity for Ma? Uncle says she has to be taken to a

place the state runs.”

“When she’s there, we’ll go visit her. And Gen and me will give what

money we can spare.” Frankie’s full face was set, her mouth pouting.

* * * * *

Ellen and Garland were going by train to New Hope, leaving Simon in

Violet’s care. Garland hired a man to drive them to the Gaddy farm. The

corduroy country roads were uneven because of the freezing and thawing

of winter, and they were jostled in the back seat of the worn-out Model

T. Garland was relaxed as he stared out at the countryside. His jaw had

dropped, the flesh was folding on his face about the age lines. Shaving

his mustache had given him a guileless expression, and with Violet not

present, he had laid aside his forced lusty manner. They were passing

Bailey’s Woods. Ellen recalled the glowbugs that had lit the path sides

with fitful orange lights when she played there as a child on summer

evenings. Now dead twigs of tree branches tangled and meshed like

spiders’ webs. A winter wren on a lean bough was whistling, “Teakettle,

teakettle, teakettle!” and with a whirr fading down the road toward the

sky where gray clouds lived uncared for.

“It’s not your father’s fault about Maria, puss.” Garland was speaking

suddenly. “Don’t go blaming it on him.”

“Who’s laying it to him?” flashed Ellen.

“You know, Maria had a hard childhood. Her people were queer, you might

say. Her mother was over forty when Maria was born and her father going

on sixty. Christ. Must have near starved some winters back in the hills.

He’d go off and leave the two of them to fend for themselves. Probably

half crazy.”

“I don’t think so.” Ellen’s mouth was stubborn.

“Anton said he was a hunchback. Had Maria’s dowry stuffed in a gunnysack

fastened with binder twine. Fifteen hundred dollars in coin and bills.”

“That’s the way he was. I don’t call it so queer.”

The house appeared uninhabited as they approached. Jack came out from

the hole he had made for warmth in the earth behind the leaf-bare

bushes. He watched them dull-eyed, uncertain. Garland called at the

bottom of the porch; there was no answer. He set out for the barns while

Ellen went up into the house. The porch was littered with mud and

manure, in the kitchen the floor was tracked and the usual order on

Maria’s shelves and table was broken. Ellen guessed that Sam had been

making an effort to clean up and wash the dishes. Her pulse was pounding

as she glanced at the bedroom. She draped her coat on a hook and drew

off her winter boots. She went slowly into the room and over to the dark

standing closet. The heavy crucifix was looming on the wall over the bed

by the light from the little windows. It was a dream. From another time.

She was in the cellar of her childhood, her feet fixed and immovable.

There was someone behind her with a stick, waiting to perform a vague

frightful act. Her heart was beating like a living stone as she dragged

open the double doors to the closet.

Maria’s birdlike eyes looked up from where she sat, clad in a long

maroon sweater and a worn housedress. “I got my little boy here, Mam.

He’s a bit cold. But he’s not dead by a long sight. That whippoorwill

was wrong.” She had cradled a pillow in the crook of her arm. Her hair

was loosely braided, gray wisps straggled over her face.

“Ma,” Ellen whispered.

Maria was frowning. “Shut the doors. I allowed he was out there in the

ground moldering and turning. But he’s right here. Shut them now.”

“It’s Ellie, Ma.” But the woman bowed her head into her shielding hands,

waiting until the doors would close.

Ellen went into the kitchen. “She’s stark mad.” She stirred up the fire,

adding lighter-wood and a log from the bin.

The three men scraped noisily coming up the porch and into the room.

They stood in their muddied boots, their breath steaming up. Anton

stamped his boots and coughed, rubbing his fingers together above the

stove.

“Evening, Ellie,” Sam said.

She nodded, holding herself from them, over at the side by the windows

where a chill seeped in.

Anton had on his black bear-fur cap, the collar of his tattered mackinaw

was turned up. He shrugged and said directly to Garland, “So hell, I’d

get her out mealtimes. She wouldn’t go to mass and the last few days she

wouldn’t get in bed. Hum.” He inquired softly, “Has she gone loony?”

“Would she cook for you?” Garland asked.

“Fair to middling,” said Sam.

“But always she’d set out for the bedroom,” Anton was saying, “and I’d

pull her back. Like she aimed to anger me.”

“She needs a doctor, An. And care.”

“What are you fixing to do?”

“I’ll have to make some calls first. Where’s the nearest phone? I think

the state will take her. We have to see a doctor and you’ll have to sign

papers. You come with me, An.”

“Go hitch Red,” Anton said. The hired man went as bid.

“Where is she now, hon?” Garland asked Ellen.

“In the closet,” Ellen whispered. “She ne’er knew me.”

“And why should she?” Anton was glaring at her, hurt and reproachful.

Like old Jess led to the sourwood scaffold in the yard. “Isn’t that

right, Gar? There’s a great daughter. That one.” The door slammed after

him in a gust of cold air, and Ellen shrank.

“Your ma’s probably best off right where she is, puss. She isn’t violent

or anything?”

“No. Just sitting there harmless. She used to do that sometimes when Pa

had his back up. I thought it was a place for her to get away. Far as I

can remember she’d do that. But now she’s talking daft and she didn’t

know me.”

They stood, hands hanging useless. Nothing moved. The silence was

complete. Then the buckwagon clattered outside. Garland roused, picked

up his homburg hat. “Be back late. Not much of a Christmas this year,

hon.” From the window she watched them climb onto the seat. The chestnut

horse was restive, its winter coat woolly and ungroomed, dry manure

casing its flanks and legs. It carried its broomlike tail high and pawed

the ground. It moved off, the two figures hunched against the cold,

heads drawn down into scarves and collars.

Ellen left the house, going toward the woodshed. She called to the dog

but he had disappeared. She went seeking her goats. She met Sam, and

learned of their destruction from him, “You know your pa e’er was a

strong-willed man, Ellie. And you be cut off the same last. I saw that

when you were yet a set-along child. You’d ne’er squall when he took a

stick to you. It wasn’t natural.” Sam was wagging a gnarled hand.

Ellen’s mind had only partly encompassed what he told her. She was

conscious of the faint liquor scent. “What’ll I do, Sam?”

“You hadn’t ought to torment him so.” Sam was stooped over, holding one

hand on a hip as if an ache lay underneath. “Being as you’re a ooman

grown now, you ought to stand behind him. Mrs. Gaddy’s no use any more.”

Ellen wasn’t listening. “Where’d you put them, Sam?”

He went before her to the orchard edge. “I threw them in the wagon and

toted them down here. For Gawd, took a big hole. Wore me plumb out.”

When he had gone, Ellen looked about at the familiar landscape. Penny

and Leona and spotted Pie. Rhodie and the shaggy yearlings. Pa gave me

an eye for an eye, it appears. Burning for burning, stripe for stripe.

Because I took Simon. It’s my goats for Simon. Life for life. That’s an

enduring fine trade. At last she was wending back up the hill field.

Darkness dropped almost instantly as it does in the short days of the

year. The bark of a dog fox was rising shakily from the woods, the eerie

sound lingered. Ellen’s hands in her pockets were stiff and cold. She

blew on them and rubbed them. “I’ll ne’er have truck with my pa again.”

From the house, squares of lamplight were wavering. Ellen entered, heard

Dr. Trumbo’s murmur. The Gaddy brothers were sitting with him, and

papers were spread before them. They all wore their overcoats, and their

headgear was cast near their hands as though, in the half-warmth of the

kitchen, they were passers-by with a bit of business to perform here.

Ellen removed her coat. She shook the grate in the stove and laid a

fresh fire. That’s all we be. Passers-by. Strangers sitting in His home,

dragging the past on our shoes. If we could but lose that burden, start

afresh. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are

set on edge. There’s Pa whom I ever loved, thinking of ways to make him

see me since I was a least youngen, following him with my eyes, running

to do for him. But I never saw Pa for himself, only for the way I wished

him, like the songs that seem to happen in another land. From this

valley they say you are going, we will miss your bright eyes and sweet

smile. I loved Pa in the land of myself, in a valley of my mind. While

Ellen was mixing the corn meal, her hand was turning the egg and

buttermilk into it quickly. Tears started and fell unheeded.

She laid plates before the men and they ate silent by the mellow light.

Forks and knives chinked. The smell of burning oil pervaded the room.

Ellen went to where the woman hid herself. “Come get your supper, Ma.”

Maria laid her head on her knees. Ellen brought her a dish and she

accepted it. The doctor and Garland were lighting cigarettes, Anton

puffed his pipe. Ellen finished the dishes and swept the floor. Dr.

Trumbo arose then, it was time to go. He drew Maria struggling and

whimpering from her place, and Ellen persuaded her to change from her

ragged clothes. “Here, Ma. Take off that sweater and those rags. Put

this on.” She was offering the old crepe de Chine dress. “It’s silk.”

“Well,” Maria felt of the black material. She was putting her pillow

down. When she had dressed they came into the kitchen where the others

waited.

“All set?” asked Dr. Trumbo.

Anton was watching his wife from where he still sat at the table. He was

pushing tobacco angrily with his thumb into the pipe bowl. “There goes

the last of my oomen-folk. Now who’s to do the cooking, Gar? Sam, you

think?”

“I’ll get her bag.” Garland went into the shadowed bedroom.

“I’ve been a righteous man. And pious,” Anton carped harshly.

“Here we go, Mrs. Gaddy.” The doctor was taking Maria’s arm; he led the

way with Ellen to the car, into the black night.

Garland was bringing Maria’s valise. He paused at the open door to the

porch. Light from the kitchen made a hesitant path reaching to the top

step. “Goodbye, An.” Car lights had beamed suddenly in the yard,

revealing the shrouded figures of the women climbing into the back seat.

Garland cleared his throat. “I’ll remember when I first met Maria.”

Anton did not move. Pipe smoke wreathed and dimmed his lined face, his

strong shoulders, his powerful arms stretched on the table before him.

“Man born of ooman is of few days, Gar.”

Garland was running his soft hand nervously through his white hair,

fingering the place where his mustache had used to be. He hurried down

the steps. “Let’s go, Doc.”

Ellen sat in back with Maria, dust from the car floor mingled with a

vague clinical smell. She drew an old alpaca robe about their knees; it

was damp to her hands, musty.

“I remember winters, Doc,” Garland was saying. “We cut shoes from hides

my father tanned. They had only one last so both shoes were cut the

same. Pa’d say, your feet will wear them into shape to fit. Times I

thought it was the shoes shaping my feet.”

“You think everyone nowadays buys shoes, Mester Gaddy? They come down

out of the back country or I hunt them out. Ridden with hookworm,

wearing shoes made like yours were, no right or left.”

“Chrissake, bet you see some things, Doc?”

“Sure. Blacksnake root for the stomach. Butterfly root for female

trouble.” Dr. Trumbo grunted. “Lady came in yesterday. Said she was near

starvation. She was down to her last chicken and couldn’t wring its

neck. Said it was her pet.”

“That’s the lot of a farmer.”

“That’s right, Mester Gaddy. Always dealing with death. The youngens

play with the calves and lambs and maybe teach them tricks. Then they

have to watch them slaughtered. Always losing whate’er they get attached

to.” The feeble lights of the car parted the night. Ellen watched the

slack shoulders of the men before her. Maria breathed deeply, the pillow

slipping from her angular fingers.

“Fellow was a grave digger, see?” Garland was telling an old joke. “He

dug one too deep, this time. So he was shouting up from it, help. Get me

out of here. I’m freezing. A drunk came staggering along and he looked

in. Says, Hell, fellow, no wonder. They forgot to cover you up. And he

began to throw in what was shoveled out.”

“Now, that’s a good one,” Dr. Trumbo was whispering. “I’ll remember it.

Sure wish I had you to go the rounds with me.”

* * * * *

A day later Ellen and Garland were back in Chicago. Simon met them at

the front door. “Look here, what Aunt Vi gave me for my Christmas.” A

sleeping calico kitten was within his shirt, a soft lump.

Ellen laughed at him, “My.”

When Simon touched it with a finger, the kitten stretched a paw and

yawned. Simon was delighted. “See that?”

“You made him right at home, boy,” Garland cried.

Violet was stepping down the wide staircase, trailing her housecoat, her

hair undone, her eyes wistful. Garland put his arm about her tall form.

“Miss me, wife?”

“Sure did, Chicken. I didn’t hear the doorbell, I was sleeping so hard.

You know Simon was in the school play? He was the shepherd and he

brought a gift.”

“No, I ne’er,” said the boy. “I just knelt by the sheep, singing ‘Round

John Virgin.’”

Garland was carving the holiday ham that night. “Next year we’re going

to have a turkey, Vi. I hear they might vote FDR in for another term.

We’ll see prosperity again.”

Ellen watched Simon eating, struck by it. He held the fork in his left

hand, pushing the food with the knife as his grandfather did. She said

abruptly, “How come you hold your fork so? I ne’er noticed that. It’s

not proper. Your fork goes in the right hand.”

“Let him eat Christmas dinner like he wants, puss.”

Reckon I’ll always see those ways Pa stamped on him. Simon was reaching

for the ketchup and pouring it heavily on the potatoes, his head bent

over his plate. She remembered how he said, “Mind now,” to the kit. She

was wondering if that too came from Anton.

“Now these quality,” Violet was saying, “had an exercise machine. You

could hear it clear down in the kitchen. It was bolted to the floor and

there was a wide belt they put around them. It juggled their stomach or

wherever there was a fat spot and it just rubbed it away.”

“Say now, that’s what I need.” Garland was patting his stomach.

20

Anton and Dyke were loading the Burwell truck for the trip to

Louisville. It was late January. They had become familiar with the town

since their first excursion six years ago at the beginning of the

depression. They had come to know the wholesale section and the

waterfront district where the Ohio flowed and where auctions were

conducted in the shadow of tobacco warehouses and mills and the

newly-operated distilleries, reeking and guarded. Now too, they would

manage more than one yearly trip. They found it necessary, in fact, to

go many times.

Sam Offut had moved in with Anton the week after Maria went, bringing

along his wife Eadie. She was plagued with lumbago and vestiges of

various diseases contracted when much younger, and she seemed satisfied

to settle with Sam in Mr. Gaddy’s house for as long as she was required.

She learned to carry out her duties to his partial satisfaction. She

cooked three meals and cleaned occasionally. She was cowed, however, by

the Catholic icons, refusing to dust the crucifix or the statuettes or

the framed Sacred Heart. “Be careful what you say near the things,

Samuel,” she warned, “they be Romish. You know Mr. Gaddy’s not a true

Christian like us.” The Offuts would go to the new Holiness Church that

had set up a tent on the outskirts of Millville. There folks spoke in

strange tongues and preachers would handle rattlesnakes and fire and

encourage public confession. Besides being entertained, the Offuts had

found an ideal place to express themselves without censure.

This morning Eadie was bringing sandwiches of bread and bacon to the

truck. Dyke was gunning the motor and a white smoke streamed from the

exhaust. Six fattened shoats, stowed behind the load of corn, grunted

and squealed until the machine was set in motion. Then they were lulled,

grew sleepy-eyed swaying warm-bodied against each other. “I’m going to

get me a piece of cock tonight, Mester Gaddy,” Dyke sang out.

“Do that, boy,” Anton glowered.

“Hey. I like a ooman built like a brick shithouse.” Dyke’s ruddy face

shone. Beside the taciturn older man he was feeling debonair and

knowing. “Big and soft all o’er. And I know where they’ve got them.” He

blew the horn, “Beep. Beep!” A flock of chickens fled squawking into

ditches from the carcass of a dog that lay in the frosted road. “Want me

to show you where, Mester Gaddy?”

“No. Christ.”

“Setting about the room in wrappers. Nothing underneath. For a fact,

now.”

“You’ll get the claps and come home dragging your tail. Hum. Won’t be so

horny then, I vow. Best stay away from harlots, boy.”

“Now, there’s one old girl does a trick with a cigarette. You’d ne’er

think she could do it.”

“Get your pecker down, boy.” Anton looked out on the frozen fields that

waited fallow for spring. “Give not thy strength unto oomen. Mind.”

“Reckon the corn’ll sell high, Mester Gaddy?”

“Prices always come up in late winter. Seems most folks are so strapped

for cash in fall, they’ll sell when hit’s cheap.”

The stoutish younger man and the other near sixty were drawn together in

the close cab, knitted by the future, unforeseen. The return trip would

be different, then the tie would fall away as tomorrow became a routine

of familiar chores. Dyke was laughing. “Hey, Mester Gaddy. Saw Butcher

Faust last night. He’d just got in a cow carcass. Still had the udder on

it. So he sliced off a front teat and let it hang out his fly. Old lady

Brenner came in. He took her order, started in to cut her meat for her.

Well, she jerked up of a sudden. Says, timid-like, look there, Butcher

Faust. And he looked down, says, Oh that damn thing. And lays it on the

block, whacks it off with his knife.”

“Haw,” snorted Anton.

“Old lady Brenner near passed out. That Butcher Faust slays me.”

Hog prices had nearly doubled over the fall rate. The men found a buyer

for the corn and stopped in at a dingy corner bar for a glass of draught

beer before parting company. Then Anton was making his way down Market

Street, a bleak wind thrusting at his back, up the sleeves to his

mackinaw and ill-fitting black suit. He took a left turn for two blocks,

then a right. He swung in at the second house, his stride unaltered. The

building was of red brick, one of a series of identical houses. The long

hall was unheated and dark, a radio lilted faintly from under a doorway.

I don’t want your sugar sprinkled in my tea

Because the gal I’ve got is sweet enough for me

Anton was climbing a staircase, knocking at the door at the head. A

shapely woman opened it, her jet-black hair heavy about her

sallow-skinned broad face. Anton spoke thickly, “You alone, Rose?”

“I’ve been looking for you, Daddy.” She was turning in a studied

careless way. He put a heavy-muscled hand toward the slim curve of her

back, withdrew it hastily as if caught between guilt and greed. He

closed the door and followed her to the window where she was looking out

as if waiting. His hand came upon her insistent, he was pulling her to

the bed.

She asked him after a while, “Why don’t you ever kiss me? And you with

those big lips.” She was slipping into her wrapper. He followed her with

his eyes, made no answer. She took his coat from the chair, explored the

inner pocket and brought out a flat box. “Why not, Daddy?” She was

deriding, but gentle, for the kind elderly farmer suited her. She had

met him a few months ago, knew he was Catholic with a wife committed

recently to an institution. She opened the gift box holding a red and

blue silk handkerchief. Louisville, Kentucky. The Biggest Wholesale

Distributor Of The South. She knotted it softly at her neck, wise that

the vivid colors set off her hair. She planned that she would marry

Anton. She was preparing supper on a two-burner hot plate, boiling

spaghetti, searing ground meat in a frying pan. “Vo-do-do-dee-o-do-o-o!

Guess I’ll teach you to dance, Daddy. Okay?”

From the bed he was taking in the figure in the bright kimono that

contrasted so completely with the shadow of Maria. He would leave

Louisville tomorrow, returning to the farm. But he would be restless and

irritable, lonely, his sin again unconfessed. “Come o’er here, Poppet.”

She was going to the bed. He took her to his lap. His sateen shirt was

open and she stroked the red hair of his chest. “You’re a comfortable

man. You’re strong.”

“Rose, you wait here for me.” He was heated. “Don’t see e’er a man. You

hear?”

“I don’t know.” But Rose said it as if she would obey.

“This little grandson of mine had hair would turn pale in summer, like

oat straw. Hum.” Rose went back to where the savory odors were steaming.

She laid dishes and brought glasses of beer to a low table. Anton drew

on his pants, fastening his belt; he pulled his heavy frame erect, began

to pace back and forth. His yellowed winter underwear was exposed above

the waist. He stopped in his stride as if angry, “Will you do like I

say, Rose?”

“Okay, Daddy.” But this time she was amused and said it as though she

would not.

The next morning Rose was frying ham and eggs for breakfast. The stale

air in the flat was surfeited with the high fat odor. She made her ways

soft so the pain of parting would lie in Anton like a hot ball. She was

teasing him so he would never be quite sure away from her and would

remember her standing by him in the bright-flowered kimono, her hips

soft and her city face white. She was forking the food onto his plate.

Anton observed the lift of her arm along her breast; he laid his gnarled

hand against the pointed shape of it, his mind turning to a morning long

years ago.

The girl Penny, who married that fool Dougherty, had worn a flowered

dress patterned like Rose’s kimono. She had come to the hay field to

bring Anton a drink of water in a stone jar. He was turning the damp

clover alone. The girl watched him drink, smiling. “It’s a power hot out

here, Mester.” She was lifting her hands to brush back her hair, seeking

the breeze. She looked cool from her head to her brown toes that were

small as a youngen’s. Something stirred in Anton when her breasts stood

out as she raised her arms. He put his hand forward hardly knowing what

he did, and cupped one in his palm. “Are you coming in the heat?” he was

whispering, hoarse. Penny’s eyes had widened. She was bending for the

jug and slipping away. In days to follow he named her “that roaring

ooman,” angered with his own calflike ways, despising his moment of

weakness. And when his older daughter had picked up the foldilay songs,

ever after they would stir his ire.

He spoke dourly to Rose, removing his hand, “The lips of a strange ooman

drop honey, says the Book. And her mouth be smoother than oil.”

“Banana oil, Daddy,” said Rose.

* * * * *

Anton met Dyke at the truck parked on Market Street. Hoarfrost had

glazed the windows, Dyke was scraping at it with his knife while the

engine warmed. The truck backfired and trundled with an effort through

early traffic, past the slow gray river, and into the country where

smoke was seeping from dunghills and fowl scratched the frozen earth.

Anton was restless in his seat, crabbed. Dyke was driving stolidly. The

radiator was beginning to boil as they chugged up the Gaddy farm lane.

Dyke peered through the cloud above the hood. “Just made the well in

time, Mester Gaddy.” He was shouting over the noise of the engine, and

cut it. “Hey there, Sam.” He still shouted although the motor had

stopped. He lowered his voice in the quiet wintry air, “Did your wife

help you milk, Sam?”

“No, I shift for myself at the barn when Mester Gaddy’s off.” There was

the hint of home-brew about Sam’s breath. He sighed, “But this here

lumbago’s getting me down.”

Anton had descended his side of the truck. Shading his eyes, he was

looking at buzzards that wheeled over one of the fields. “What be dead

out there, Sam?”

“I don’t know. Could be the dog’s killed him a woodchuck.”

Anton walked to the top of the land, the other two following. “Reckon

it’s old Jack himself?”

“Now I recollect, Mester Gaddy, Eadie said she ne’er seen him about

yesterday to get his dinner scraps.”

Anton picked up a shovel, walked down the lane alone. A few sluggish

bluebottles buzzed up in the sunless air from the dog’s decaying

worn-out body, matted with burrs and beggar’s-lice, damp from melted

frost. While the man was digging, clay caught in the cuffs of his shiny

black pants. From the woods nearby the two notes of the carping bluejays

echoed like pieces of crockery being knocked together. The birds were

heralding the spring winds. Anton tipped the carcass into the grave with

his shovel. A warm stench floated from where maggots quivered. Anton

neither smelled nor saw. His disciplined arms were performing

efficiently. His mind dwelled apart, jealous, on the woman in

Louisville.

part four

Lovers who must say farewell

When the road has reached the trees

Lovers who have all to tell

Where the road runs out of sight

In the green beyond the leaves

The green cove below the light

Lovers who must say farewell

When the road has reached the trees

Touching hand to hand to speak

All their love has ever known

Find no words to speak and say

Love... O love...

21

Ellen had spotted the wagon before Simon, drawn by a strapping team of

grays. The little farmer had a white beard and mustache. He was touching

his hat and yelling across the tarred road to where they sat on the

station house steps, “Hi. You Mrs. Gaddy?”

They took up their bags and ran. Simon was scrambling into the wagon

bed. “Hey, Mester.”

“I’m Matthew Wasilewski,” the old man said. Ellen climbed to the seat

beside him. He was clicking to the team and the shod hoofs resounded on

the patched streets of Hidden Creek. They came upon dirt country roads

and Ellen observed how there were no stones and they stretched flat and

straight, not curving and hilly like those about Millville. The horses

set a fast pace.

Simon shouted, “That’s a spanky team. Can I hold the reins sometime?”

“Hush, Simon. He’s fond of horses.”

“Let him talk. I say, let boys speak out.” The man’s complexion was

translucent, as happens with the aged. His beard was yellow about the

mouth from tobacco stains and food. His frail body was engulfed by baggy

overalls and a fresh-starched blue shirt. He bobbed his head, “Now, Mom

raises Leghorn hens. She’ll want you to help with them.”

“What’s a Leghorn? How’s it differ?”

“They’ll beat any breed at laying, Mrs. Gaddy. Mom follows the

Department of Agriculture. She reads the bulletins. And she sees the

county agent too. He told her to put those runners on her chicken sheds

and tow them out to pasture.”

“Say, feeding them on grass like a cow.”

“Keeps down disease, the agent claims, and saves feed. You think this

land’s rich? You should go to the old country some day. Poland. Where I

came from. Plums as big as my fist. Apples the size of my head. Never a

drought.”

“We had one where I lived two years ago.”

“Where you from?”

“Kentucky.”

“I heard that drought was widespread. We had it bad; most all the crops

died right in the field. Our boys took a loan on the mortgage. They

shouldn’t have done it. Debts are bad. In the end it was the Triple A

that pulled us through. Roosevelt paid for what we didn’t have to plant.

Did he pay you folks too?”

“No, but I knew a man got a government check for letting hogs root up

his tobacco. I ne’er did understand how that worked.”

“Now in Poland, Mrs. Gaddy, they never heard of a drought or a Triple A

either.”

“Say, Mester,” Simon spoke up, “what are those horses’ names?”

“Off one’s Pearl. The other’s Major, son.”

“That Pearl’s a sight the prettiest.”

“Yes, and that Major’s the smartest. Who do you think’s pulling this

load?”

Simon fell back abandoned in the straw of the wagon, shouting in glee.

He lay gazing up at the sky and the bare treetops that came into view.

“That’s it.” The old man pointed. “Ninety acres.”

Two women and a man were coming from the white house into the yard to

welcome Ellen. Mom was fleshy and large-framed, her eyes shy. She was

shaking Ellen’s hand. “Guess Pop told you all about the fruit in the old

country.”

“Why, he did.”

Sudduth was their younger son, thirty-two, scrawny, anxious-eyed. “We

sure can use your help. We’ve been after Mom a long time to get someone.

Here’s my wife, Adele.”

“Pleased,” said Ellen.

“Howdy.” The woman held her head on one side like a bird, waiting.

“You-all could call me Ellen.”

“I’ll show you to your room, Ellen.” Adele was going ahead up the

stairs. Her face was harrowed from the years, but retained the child’s

shape, round and eager-eyed, looking for encouragement. Two little girls

with eyes like hers looked from behind a door. “This is Mrs. Gaddy,

Hannah. Grace. My boy Dennie is in school.” The girls squealed and ran

to hide. Adele was stopping at the room that would be Ellen’s. Simon was

to have another for himself.

They came together later for the evening meal, Pop at the head of the

table, Mom at the foot. They were all shouting noisily. “Let’s see those

brown-eye peas down here.”

“Save a corner for the blueberry dowdy.”

“Let a child talk up, I say.” Pop maneuvered the food through his

mustache, his head on a level with the children.

“I got a hundred in Penmanship,” cried Adele’s son, Dennie.

“My, at that child,” said Adele.

“The girls printed for me. I sure could follow it good.” Mom felt the

sisters were being slighted at times. At her left stood an empty chair.

“That’th Uncle Dan’s plathe,” Hannah was saying shyly to Ellen.

“Dan’s my older brother,” Sudduth explained. “He’s off at the cattle

sale in Weems Crossroads, trying to buy a Crestmore bull. We already

have a purebred bull, but he’s the sire to so many of our heifers we

don’t get the good of him any more.”

“Say, I’ve been to Weems Crossroads,” Ellen said. “I visited some folks

there.”

“Dan’s going to see if he can bid a bull low,” Sudduth said.

“Nothing but the best for Dan,” said Pop.

“By the name of Dougherty?” Ellen was hopeful.

“Nothing but the best.” Sudduth was sopping the juice from his plate

with dark home-baked bread.

“Never heard of a Dougherty,” Pop said. “You know, Sudduth, if a

purebred cow jumps the fence and gets to a grade bull, you can just as

well sell her? She’ll be no good from then on.”

“That’s ridiculous, Pop.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Ellen said.

“There was a mare bred to a zebra stallion,” Pop told him. “Every foal

she threw thereafter was striped. Now that’s proof, Sudduth.” He pounded

his knife.

“There,” Ellen whispered, for she had heard this same thing.

“Pop, that old tale’s been shown up long ago. I’ll get out the article

for you to read, in the _Breeder’s Journal_. Old superstitions.”

While they were talking the cats were underfoot, three or four of them,

tiger-striped and black. They wound under the table legs and sometimes

one of the children slipped them a bite of food. A little later Ellen

and Simon went up to bed. The talking and shouts from below were seeping

through the flooring as Ellen dozed off to sleep.

* * * * *

She heard the cock crowing in her dream, insistent, shrill. She threw

her arm in a fending gesture, engrossed in the nightmare. She was

running up the stairway from the cellar, her father racing after. “I’ll

kill you because you took the boy.” She shouted to stay his hand, “You

dassn’t kill on the cock’s crow, Pa.” She awoke, her voice straining in

her throat. She lay listening, oppressed by the dream, letting it

recede. I won’t hold to any of it. I’ll button it into a far part of me.

I want to weave a new way here in this land where all the folks are

foreign. I’ll make a place for Simon and me. I’ll put the past away. I

vow I will.

It was not yet dawn. Darkness kept the room corners. She threw back the

covers. The air was chill but there was an earth odor, fresh, redolent

of spring. She was throwing open the window, looking out at the muddled

unfamiliar landscape. The eastern sky was gray and hushed. She sat on

the low sill in the sleeveless garment she wore at night, hugging her

cold bare arms. Her hair hung clinging and disheveled. It was late

January but it was warm, the first false spring. There would be cold

days yet, and the last frost might come as late as mid-April. But

already in protected southern exposures a few flowers were opening, a

jonquil or narcissus, releasing suppressed and forgotten perfumes. The

earth seemed to turn itself like an animal stirring in its lair.

A bull bellowed in the half-light, pawing the floor of its paddock,

shaking its brawny shoulders. It began to butt the bars with its heavy

smooth head like a toy set in motion. Tiny pigs wandered to and fro in a

yard beyond the bull. The gray of clouds that lay in the east

transformed gradually into mauve. Shifting and changing, lights and

colors were fanning upward. A man’s figure strode around a corner of the

house. There was a black-and-white feist at his heels. The man was tall,

seemed young, his hair thick and black, unruly. The cuffs of his pants

were tucked into leather boots. He stopped to shake tobacco into his

left hand, and rolled a cigarette swiftly. The dog jumped repeatedly at

his arm, yapping sharply in the pink-tinged air. As he was walking off,

his bass voice came clear.

The minstrel boy to the war is gone

In the ranks of death you’ll find him

His father’s sword he hath girded on

And his wild harp slung behind him

A warm breeze stirred from the east. Ellen shivered. On the brim of the

color-draped sky, the first round edge of the red sun was emerging as if

pulled by a string. The fields were stretching forth under the rosy

light, spreading wide and tended, damp with dew. The pungent sweetness

of the earth was arising from its bowels. Time moved quickly. The sun

came whole over the line of horizon, lay alive in the brilliant stained

sky. The man’s song had faded.

Voices began to call back and forth in the reaches of the house. Ellen

turned from the window. The room was furnished with a white wood

bedstead, a dresser with a tiny mirror, a table and an upright chair.

There was a striped rag rug on the floor, made by Mom; the curtains and

bedspread were yellow and threadbare, streaked unevenly by sun rays over

the years.

She dressed and hurried down the dusky stairs. Simon and Dennie sat

whispering on the bottom step. “You seen my room, Ma?” They followed

her. Adele was turning the handle of the coffee grinder, the friendly

crusty noise filling the kitchen. “Dennie’s got a room too.”

“I always had a room.” Dennie hiked his suspenders.

When breakfast was nearly ready, Sudduth came in with the man Ellen had

seen earlier. They washed at the sink, then leaned against the wall to

wait for food to be set out. Ellen had difficulty finding things. “Where

does the sugar live, Mom?”

“This is my brother Dan,” Sudduth said as she was passing with the bowl

of sugar. “Mrs. Gaddy. Ellen.”

“How do you do. Mom keeping you busy? You’ve got to watch her.” He was a

head taller than Sudduth, older than he had looked from the windows,

with an air of authority. His straight hair hung over his forehead, his

eyes were greenish-yellow, his ears pointed at the top. His lips were

thin and flat, his nose angular. His skin was olive and creased. There

was a birthmark on his left cheek, and when he flushed it darkened.

“That damn bull’s a beaut, Sudduth. Supposed to be delivered this

morning. We’ll charge a service fee on him that’ll pay his price a few

times over.”

“Let’s eat.” Mom was carrying a bowl of fried potatoes in one hand, a

platter of smoking ham in the other.

When they had finished, Simon got his coat from upstairs, for he would

set out with Dennie to school. There was over a mile to walk. He stood

in the doorway and his blue eyes settled on Ellen. “Bye now, Ma.” He

picked up the yellow cat mewling at his feet.

“You tell the teacher who you are proper, Simon.”

“I will, Ma.”

“Say you’re living at the Wasilewski farm.”

“I know.”

Dan rolled a cigarette, leaning back. “You like horses, boy?”

“Oh yes, Mester.” Simon spilled the cat to the floor. “What can I do?”

“You groom them every night. Will you do that?”

“Mornings too, Mester? You won’t find a loose hair.”

“Call me Dan,” the man was laughing. “We’ll see what else we can find

for you.”

The boys ran off and Ellen said, “He’s proud to just lay his hands on a

horse.”

The day had begun. When the beds were made and the kitchen floor

scrubbed, Ellen scoured the white refrigerator and the electric stove.

She washed the white-painted wood cabinets that lined the walls. “Pop

made those,” Adele said, “three years ago. They got the notion one night

when Mom was reading the _Farm Woman’s Magazine_. Dan and Sudduth put

the old pantry cupboards in the shed for machine parts.”

The brothers drifted in at noon, hobnail boots clacking on the floors,

preoccupied in talk of the new bull that had arrived by truck. They ate

hastily, hurrying out. Mom said the hens were to be deloused. The county

agent advised it. The women caught each bird by the leg, shook the can

of powder over it and turned it loose so it escaped to the yard, shaking

its feathers, clucking indignant. Dust from the litter mingled with the

powder and hung in the air. The women sneezed. Mom’s face was hot. “The

roosts have to be scrubbed down next.”

At supper Ellen was tired. When she finished her plate, a cat jumped on

her lap. She let it remain for she saw it was the custom. It was

purring, kneading its paws. Simon joined in the clamor and Ellen was

bending her thoughts to how different these ways were from the house

where she had been raised.

“Come play for us, Uncle Dan,” Dennie was coaxing.

The girls joined, “Thing ‘Thay, Darling, Thay,’ Uncle Dan.”

“Tomorrow, you pesky kids,” he shouted over the din. “We have to check

on the bull right now. Coming, Sudduth?” He was charging through the

door.

The next morning the tractor roared out of the barnyard, Dan perched in

the driver’s seat. “Land,” Mom was laughing, “he does love that

machine.”

“It’s a good day to start the spring plowing,” said Ellen. “The land’s

thawed good.”

“They’re not plowing yet,” Mom said. “They’ll wait till February.”

“I’ve heard folks say it ruins land for seven years to plow in January.

Pa ne’er held to that notion. He plowed when he had a mind to.”

“Sakes, Ellen.” Mom was amused. “That’s not it. It’s the house. We’ve

got a busy year laid out here. Adele’s going to have her own home. Her

and Sudduth.” She was turning to Adele. “He went by already with the

team and the scoop. Did you see him?”

“Sudduth’s just raring,” said Adele.

“We’ve got to be ready to paint and all in late summer, Ellen. So Adele

and him and the kids can get moved in the fall.”

“I want everything to be perfect when we leave, Mom.” Adele was earnest.

They told Ellen that lumber was stored at the warehouse in Hidden Creek;

part had been bought in fall when cash crops had been sold and part was

still on credit against the early wheat crop. “There’s kegs of nails and

rolls of tar paper and shingles in the shed. They drew the plans out on

paper.” Mom was proud. “There’s going to be another big event here in

the fall.” Mom’s eyes gleamed secret. “Wait and see.”

At mid-morning Ellen was busy. “I declare at this iron, it’s so light.”

She skimmed over the clothes swiftly, laid them folded and smooth on the

newspaper-covered table.

“It sure is a help having you here, Ellen.” Mom was mending, a wicker

basket beside her. “Makes me feel old though, not doing my own work.”

“Only I forget about the cord and keep walking off with the iron.”

The kitchen door slammed. “It’s me,” Dan’s voice shouted. The sound of

running water came.

“You’ll see, he’s had trouble with the tractor,” Mom said.

“The tractor turned over on me.” His voice was muffled. “Cut myself.”

“That suits you fine, Dan,” Mom called. “He can play now. Nothing suits

him like when some piece of equipment won’t work and he can get his head

under it. Rather do that than work.”

“You don’t have to shout. I hear you.” Dan appeared in the doorway,

rubbing his face with a white turkish towel, a gash on his browned

forehead. He was shaking his head, cocky. “Ellen, you think my family’s

crazy?”

When she was washing the supper dishes she heard the tinny sound of the

piano in the sitting room. Simon was behind her at the kitchen table

leafing through his new schoolbooks, waiting for her. “Wonder who that

is playing?” she asked him.

“That’s Dan. I’ve ne’er heard that song, Ma.” Simon smiled, his blue

eyes curious.

She put the plates away. “It’s right melancholy.”

A spanish cavalier stood in his retreat

And on his guitar played a tune, dear

The music so sweet would ofttimes repeat

The blessings of my country and you, dear

O say, darling say, when I’m far away

Sometimes you may think of me, dear

Bright sunny days will soon fade away

Remember what I say and be true, dear

Ellen was hanging up the dishcloth. “Let’s go hear the music.”

“Can we?”

“This is our home,” she said with dignity, “while we’re here.”

From his easy chair, Sudduth was bemoaning, “We’ve got to clean out the

barns again. Get it on the fields before plowing. Jesus, we’re going to

be strapped with work this year.”

Dan looked up at Ellen as she came in, his eyes golden in his lined dark

face. “Wish it would rain liquid manure for a whole week. Save us some

trouble.” His lean fingers ran over the keys tenderly.

She sat down in the rocker by the windows. On the table beside her was a

tall glass bell, exhibiting underneath a stuffed red bird with black

wings and tail, its eyes bright glass. Ellen was looking down at her

hands in her lap. She had an inflexible manner about her, seldom

laughing easily even with her son. It was as if she had been bruised

once and armed herself against a recurrence. And when she would make her

hair into braids in the morning, winding, and fastening with tortoise

shell pins, she would pull tightly. There was an unconscious

satisfaction to the act as though it were easing a guilt. Ellen held

herself at times almost like one righteous. She was glancing at the

scarlet tanager under the bell, wondering who had shot it. Vaguely she

was listening to the words the man sang. They differed from those Penny

had taught Ellen.

When your heart was mine, true love

And your head lay on my breast

You could make me believe

By the falling of your arm

That the sun rose up in the west

22

The weather turned brisk, the temperature fell, the dew had frozen in a

white sprinkle. Mouths of animals and men steamed. The excavation for

the cellar of the new house had been completed, a square gash in a rise

of land at the far end of the farm. “Now let it freeze,” Mom was saying.

“They can still lay cinder-block.”

“It’s like a dream come true,” said Adele, “them building our house.

Land.”

The little girls had spread old mail-order catalogs on the kitchen

floor. They cut and snipped, squabbling. “It’th mine. You shut up,

booby.”

“You see, Mom?” Adele pleaded. “It’s not right you should have to put up

with this commotion.”

Ellen was savoring the friendly companionship of the two women. The

girls she had known—her sister, Lily Garrett, even Amanda York—had been

younger than she. And they had leaned on her. She could never look up to

them or turn to them for advice. There was a freshness in her

relationship with these older women.

“Just wait till Ellen sees my roses, Adele. They’re a sight, all pink

and white.”

“You know, Ellen, Pop can tell to the exact how many flowers each bush

has every year,” Adele said.

“Keeps it in his head.”

They worked, their hands busy in the baking, they talked idly, “He’ll

say, this white rose had only fifty-one buds last year.”

“Every rose, he’ll count.”

The cold air rushed in as the door opened. “There. That cake fell,” said

Mom. “Land o’ Goshen, I’m peeved.” Dan came in, leading Simon, who was

tear-stained. “You will slam doors on baking day, Dan.”

“Dammit. Sorry, Mom. He bumped his knee, Ellen. Fell down.”

Simon was pulling his torn pants leg up to reveal a soiled bruise. He

held his tongue between his lips; phlegm was dripping from his nose.

“Hit don’t hurt now,” he mourned. Ellen washed the wound. Her mind was

apart from the accident. Wonder why Dan came in with Simon. He needn’t

have. Simon’s ten and not a baby. Maybe Dan’s thinking on me. I don’t

want him. Nor any man. She was wrapping the strip of cloth about the

knee.

Dan was lighting one of his hand-rolled cigarettes. “Press my suit

today, Mom, will you? I’m taking Star to the grange dance.”

“All right, Dan.”

As the two went out Mom shouted, “And don’t slam it.”

“Star’s his girl,” Adele was telling Ellen. “She’s lots younger than

him.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Mom said. “She’s nearly nineteen.”

“And Dan’s over forty.”

“Wish they’d set the date,” said Mom. “Keeps me on edge.”

“You think Star’ll settle down to being a farmer’s wife?” Adele asked.

“After all, she’s used to a maid doing the work. Why, I bet she can’t

cook even.”

“She loves him. That’s what counts.”

“She’s an only child. She gets whatever she wants.”

“Star’s so pretty,” Mom told Ellen.

“Her folks have spoiled her,” said Adele. “But Dan’s crazy about her.”

“Marrying will settle her. She’s the nicest looking girl in the

countryside.” Mom was complacent.

“Dan wants his bull to have the best blood lines. He’s got to have the

latest machinery, the newest hybrid seed.” Adele sawed the air with a

flour-streaked hand. “I wouldn’t be his wife.”

“Well, you’ve got Sudduth.”

“Praise the Lord,” Adele was laughing, an edge to her voice.

“When are they getting married?” Ellen asked, quiet in her relief,

detached.

“Didn’t I tell you there might be a big event this fall? The date’s not

fixed, but when the house is built, there’ll be nothing to stop them.”

“Sudduth figures that’s why Dan’s in such a stew to get the cellar dug.”

“Now there. I forgot the eggs,” Mom was saying. “They have to be

gathered at ten, two, and after supper. Maybe you’d better take over

that job too, Ellen.”

* * * * *

Every Saturday afternoon Ellen would find an envelope on her dresser, in

it four and a half dollars. When she laid them in her drawer she felt a

wealth and a peace. She was moving less uncertainly in the new

household. She was the hired girl and the value set on her talents gave

her a self-respect. On Sundays, Pop, Mom, Adele and the three children

would go to the Presbyterian church in Hidden Creek, Adele driving the

Dodge car. Sudduth and Dan would work on the new house. Ellen walked out

with Simon to see the farm, for during the week she was too busy. Simon

showed her the gray horses he groomed and she patted sleek

brown-and-white cows, fastened in metal stanchions, munching hay, their

tongues curling about the wisps. “Aren’t those stalls modern, Ma?” They

passed the hog lot where white-banded pigs were squealing and snuffling

at a trough of water in the cement lot. “They’re not dish-faced like

Granddaddy’s pigs.”

“I see they’re not. They’re a different kind.” The shouts of the men

were faint on the air, mingled with the low lonesome bawl of the new

bull. Some day I’ll tell Simon what Pa did. And why we had to leave.

“Wonder how little Rhodie is, Ma?”

“Oh, Simon.”

“And fat old Pie. And Leona. If their hoofs are cut regular.”

“I don’t know. You still honing after them?” Reckon I’ll tell him

sometime what Pa did to my goats, cutting their throats. “You miss your

granddaddy?” She was looking off to the bowl of sky. The far calls

floated and echoed in it.

“Reckon he was e’er good to me.”

“It’s nice here, on this place.”

“And there was old Jack. I set store by him.”

“Dennie’s feist is pretty.”

“He’s a scrappy thing.”

“Well.” They walked back.

* * * * *

Dan wore a white shirt on Saturday nights, with a blue detachable

collar. He knotted on a brash necktie and brushed his shoes, stood at

the doorway to the sitting room where the family convened. He seemed

older to Ellen when dressed in the brown suit, his lean body pinched

into tight cloth, the tough skin of his face emphasized. He was leaning

against the frame, the birthmark a dull red. He tapped tobacco into thin

paper, licked the edge, twirled the ends, all in a quick motion. “How’s

this tie, Ellen? Too loud? Think my girl will take a second look?”

“I reckon.” She was patting the cat, inwardly disturbed.

“Well, if she was smart,” Sudduth mocked, “she’d run the other way fast,

wouldn’t she Pop?”

The old man cackled. Ellen felt stiff and plain, smiled faintly as Dan

walked out. I’d never be that Star.

On weekday nights Dan played the piano. His energy was contagious, it

was as if his day had just begun. In the lamp glow their faces turned to

where he sat.

There are many flags in many lands

There are flags of every hue

But there is no flag however grand

Like our own red white and blue

The family were joining in, swept away by his exuberance and health.

Sometimes Ellen sang with them.

Then hurrah for the flag, our country’s flag

Its stripes and white stars too

There is no flag in any land

Like our own red white and blue

She was saying, “I know a languishing one, Dan. ‘Lord Lovel.’ You know

it?”

“I can play the tune if you’ll sing.”

“All right.” He found the keys easily.

They like me here. She dwelled on it. It’s not like home where Pa jeered

when I sang Penny’s songs and Ma never heard me.

Lady Nancy she died as it might be today

Lord Lovel he died tomorrow

Lady Nancy she died out of pure pure grief

Lord Lovel he died out of sorrow

It was the first week in March, on a warm windy day, when the bees

swarmed. Pop had on an old hat decked with a bee veil, he was wearing

long gloves and had tied strings around the bottoms of his overalls. He

carried a smoker to still the swarm that hung like a living sack on an

oak branch. Ellen saw him from the window. He stooped and moved until

finally the bees were in the new hive, their angry droning muffled,

subsiding. The old man came in, taking off the veil. “Hee. Only got one

sting.”

“My sister Frankie and me used to beat pie pans and make a racket when

our bees wanted to swarm.”

“How come?”

“That’s so the workers can’t hear the queen calling.”

“Did it keep them in the home hive?”

“Two-three times it did. But the queen’s call is strong.”

“Don’t tell the boys. They’d call it a superstition. They go by the book

too much for me.” His teeth flashed through his beard.

Before going up to bed, Ellen went out into the night. There was a light

fog. She was curious about the bees, went to listen to the new hive.

From it came a faint contented purr. She laid her hand on the wood. It’s

like they’re one creature, like the whole drove’s got but one mind. Her

hand was feeling the movement within, the insects changing position

endlessly. While she was standing enclosed in the darkness, she heard

Dan humming as he came back from the barnyard. His boots rasped on the

pathway. She was waiting for him to pass but he sensed a presence, and

stopped. “Who is it?”

“It’s me. Ellen.” She could see the coal of his cigarette. The air was

balmy, brought up during the day from the south.

“The wind’s laid,” he said. Overhead a twisted sliver of moon was

freeing itself from dodging clouds. The starlight was dim, pulling at

the mist gently. “What are you doing?”

“Feeling the bees move. The hive’s like an animal.”

“That’s so. It is.” She heard his body settling against a tree trunk.

“Like it’s bedded down for the night.”

The silence dwelled while she waited on him. “What happened to your

husband, Ellen?”

“He died.”

“How?”

She was seeking his face, but there was blackness. “He was killed.”

“I see. How?”

After a while she said, “It was in the haying time. He was down on the

wagon bed.” The words were dragged up from some other part of her. She

watched that part of her talk on, fumbling, “He had a watch-eye man

hired to him. That man pitched the fork down and it stuck him between

the shoulders.” The fog was rising, the moon slid away in clouds. Her

tongue stumbled along of itself. “When they reached him, they say he was

dead already.”

“I’m sorry.”

Something welled in her then, born of loneliness. It caught high in her

throat. “No. I ne’er had a husband.” She wept. But she was eased. She

was speaking of Christian Ay and how she couldn’t recall if he was tall

or if his hair was brown. It had happened to her when she went to see a

horse belonging to the farmer he worked for. Her letters had come back

unopened. Ellen’s tears stopped then, and her voice. She began to hate

the man hidden behind the black curtain. A shame was rising in her so

she felt her face heat.

His voice was flat. “Windy days like this one’s been can bring on a

cyclone.” He hummed slowly.

Some call her Lady Nancy Belle

Some call her the Lady Nancy, Nancy

Some call her the Lady Nancy

A twig broke under his foot, he ceased in the middle of the tune. “A

cyclone’s a sight to see, Ellen. You should watch my kid brother run

when one comes. You ever have them in Kentucky?” He paused for an

answer, and resumed, “Star’s home was right in the path of one last

year. Her father lost a bull valued at five thousand. He’s a big Jersey

breeder.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Al Webster’s his name.”

“Webster?” Ellen remembered. “Webster’s Stock Farm?”

“That’s it. You’ve heard of it?”

“You know a Luke Dougherty?”

“Sure. Tall fellow, black-haired. Runs one of the barns.”

“Luke’s wife’s a close friend of mine. They live near Weems Crossroads.”

All the time the echo of her voice rang in her ears: I ne’er had a

husband. I ne’er had a husband.

“I’ll drive you over sometime to see her, if you want. It’s only twenty

miles or so. Come along when I go see my girl some Sunday. I’ll drop you

off.”

“I hear your girl’s a beauty.” He’ll tell everyone.

“Hell, Star’s got more than beauty. She’s exciting.” His voice was

heavy.

Ellen thought how it was full of love. When he goes about the farm here,

Star bides in him. She softens his movements like the way Penny and Luke

love each other. And when he plants the wheat, his mind’s but a part on

his work. And when Sudduth and he laid the cement in the cellar, he was

thinking all the while, each day’s bringing me closer to when Star’s my

bride. Why did I tell him I wasn’t married?

The yellow flash from a match spurted, making shadows streak over his

bent face. The smoke filtered through the warm fog. “It’s just the past

year Star’s mother hasn’t had to sit by her bed when she goes to sleep.”

He was tender, boastful. “She’s afraid of the dark.”

There came to Ellen’s mind the little donkey Luke had led up the lane.

They had gathered around it as a wonderful thing and set baby Clate on

its back. Star Webster’s father had given it to Luke when his daughter

tired of it.

The red ash glowed. Dan’s harsh voice was there. “Even that’s exciting

about her.” His voice drifted in the south air, “I’m glad you kept your

son with you, Ellen. Instead of giving him away like lots of women would

have done. Shows you’ve got strength.”

“It’s a secret.” It sounded thin and anxious as she said it.

“I won’t let it out.” Then his voice lowered, “Simon’s a good boy. You

taught him manners, too.”

“Well. Good night.”

“Good night, Ellen.”

She went into the house and to her bedroom. I’m a jawing fool. In the

morning when Dan came into the kitchen she managed to avoid speaking to

him. But he shouted down the length of the table, “Can I have the

butter, Ellen? Let’s see that grape jelly, Ellen.”

She averted her eyes, passing the plates. I don’t like him one bit.

23

The storm was already forming. The radio reported a twister passing

briefly through a small town in Kansas. Throughout the troposphere of

the Midwest certain conditions prevailed as the ancient pattern of the

spawning of the tornadoes got under way. In corners of the Southwest,

winds were gathering and moving across the continent; they drove warm

wet air before them in a mass hovering close to the earth. In the

fluctuations of these winds, gigantic columns of air would rise rapidly,

a mile or so in diameter. At the spreading foot of these tall clouds,

rain would gather and often local storms occurred under them. To

complete the scheme, eight kilometers above ground the cold jet stream

was rushing constantly in from the West at tremendous speed. This was

the pattern. And when the summit of a rising cloud was hit by the jet

stream, it began to twist counterclockwise. The movement was transferred

in a spiral down the length of the column into the ugly widespread base.

A whirling funnel of great power would lick downward. This was a

tornado.

It sucked dust and stones, any object not fastened down. Its duration

was from a few minutes to sixty or more. And no one could predict where

it would strike. People who lived in these areas had a way of watching

the sky during certain months. If there was a sudden drop in temperature

or the sky darkened, if the wind rose, they fastened barn doors and

herded their families into rooms where shades were pulled, or into

cellars. It happened so fast that sometimes there wasn’t enough time and

they were caught in the open. And if a noise was heard suddenly like a

monstrous machine at high speed, they might pray as they crouched,

waiting.

A few miles from Hidden Creek, Illinois, a gray-white cloud pillar was

rising now, churning. Rain clouds at its base were low-spread and

frowning. Over the land it became so dark that twilight descended though

it was mid-afternoon. Ellen Gaddy was gathering eggs. “It’s making up a

storm, biddy,” she said to the hens, “I heard the raincrow just this

morning.”

Adele was shopping in Hidden Creek. Sudduth was distracted because she

had taken the girls with her in the Dodge. Hannah had a stye and they

planned to stop at the doctor’s. “I said, Adele, it’s fixing to storm.

You ought to stay home,” Sudduth was explaining. “She should do what I

say. I’m supposed to be wearing the pants.”

“Adele’s smart,” Pop soothed. “She’s all right.”

Pop and Mom and the boys were going down the cellar stairs, Sudduth

pushing them before him. Ellen followed. Dennie was carrying the feist

dog and Simon three cats. “Get a move on, Simon,” Sudduth was muttering,

“Hurry.” Then on the last step he tripped, sprawling on the cement. “God

damn it.” His voice was shrill, near tears.

“We’d pull the shades and stay in the house because of lightning.” Ellen

went over to Mom. “But we ne’er would go down to the cellar.”

“Land, we always do.”

Pop and Dennie sat with Simon on a crate in a corner. Sudduth was

rubbing his back. He leaned on the wall and whined, “Don’t you be sick

now, Dennie, or I’ll swat your bottoms.” He ran his hand nervously

across his face.

The boy laid his small head in the fur of the dog. He was pale. Pop

turned to him, “Say, Dennie. Let’s you and me buy a sofa. Might as well

set the storms out comfortable.”

Then Ellen remembered. “Where’s Dan?”

“He was working,” Sudduth said, “on the dump rake last I saw. I hollered

to him to come.” He was rubbing his palm across his face again. “I don’t

know.”

“I’ll go see.” Ellen ran up the stairs.

“Ellen,” Mom called.

“I’ll be all right.” The sky was massed with rolling cloud of blue and

green and purple. In the north, lightning erupted in a yellow flare and

the blacked clouds hanging before were outlined. A jagged orange bolt

cracked through them. She was exhilarated. It’s a sight. And those folks

are all hiding from it. She heard a rushing noise. The wind was coming.

It tore at her hair, loosing it from its bonds. Within her, joy leaped

again, like youth and first experience. And underneath she quailed. She

was rounding the corner of the barn, running toward the shed.

She heard his shout and Dan was in the wide barn doorway, scowling,

booted feet spread. His black hair was wild, the wind had whipped his

shirt out, the birthmark burned like a new wound. He cried again, “You

damn fool.” She was stopping, poised.

He strode out and pulled her arm, hurrying her to the barn. She

protested, “I was afraid for you.”

“For me? You fool.” He was roaring above the wind. “Dammit. Look there.”

He pointed at an inky cloud where a tongue licked downward and

retreated. “That’s a twister.” Like a long thick snake it shot down to

the earth and a whining roar commenced.

Dan’s hand was gripping hers. They were dashing to the stalls in the

middle of the barn. She was suddenly afraid. “Now they’d talk of

cyclones, but I ne’er saw one before, Dan.”

Swiftly, in the dull light, in the musty smell of the unused stable, he

had his arms about her. His yellow-green eyes glittered, laughing, “Lady

Nancy Belle.”

It came upon Ellen the way Craig Hedrick was grabbing with a band of

steel while she struggled. That had haunted her dreams so she would

awake in a sweat sometimes. And there was Uncle Garland’s hand seeking

incestuous under her coat that lonely winter, so she had to drive the

memory from her, suppress it, divorce it from her uncle whom she loved

for his goodness. These things flooded up when she saw Dan’s weathered

face, his shut eyes and hawknose, the red scar bending. She fought,

violent, her hands hard against his blue shirt. “Bullying bastard.” The

words were framed out of fright, without volition.

He shoved her against the stall’s side planking, furious because her

struggle disconcerted him. “You little bitch, what do you mean? You’ve

been licking after me ever since you came.”

“That’s not so.”

“Dammit, Ellen. You aren’t going to get raped again. You’re not that

lucky.” His yell was coming under the hurricane wind. He was gripping

her arms, forcing his hard mouth against hers.

By the stiffness of her lips and body, she resisted. But suddenly it all

was falling away and a gentle hotness came up within her. She was

parting her mouth and his tongue was seeking its softness. She moved her

arms, laid them about his neck, holding him, feeling the coarse hair at

her fingers. Wish I was Star. And there was the distant storm racket.

He let her go, laughed regretful, “What were those names I called you?

Dammit, Ellen, you are pretty. I never noticed that.” She felt it too,

though her dark-blue dress was long and her low-cut shoes soiled because

she wore them at her work about the Leghorns. “I never saw you before.

Look at your hair. The wind’s blown it out.”

Hail clattered on the galvanized tin roof. Thunder rolled. She leaned

upon the worn wood of the manger, where bites of cribbing horses had

made notches during long winters. She was putting her hand to her yellow

hair, tucking it up while he watched. The thing that had happened, she

felt it. How she would never be rigid and tied again, how she was free.

Courage had replaced her hidden fears. Then it was that she came up to

kiss Dan. And she put her head against his opened shirt, his tall

strength, she felt the even thrusts of his heart. His hard arms were

holding her and he stroked her hair. “The rain’s come,” she said, “it’s

all o’er.”

“Did you see that twister come out of that cloud?” He was releasing her.

“First one I e’er saw, Dan.”

“We’re safe for another year, now. They never come twice.”

“Why’s that?”

“The law of averages.” He was going down the aisle then to the doorway.

“The rain’s letting off.”

She was following, seeing the cuff was untucked from one of his heavy

boots, the smoke of his cigarette drifting blue. “What are you looking

at, Dan?”

“Nothing. Smells good. I like a storm, even a mean one.” He looked down

at her, absent.

“I always did too.” The wind rode on bright clouds. She felt he was many

miles away. Wonder if he’s thinking on Star. Well, I don’t care.

They went into the light drizzle, met the family streaming from the

house. “You scared me, Ellen,” Mom shouted. “You two all right?”

“Was there a storm?” Dan cried. Ellen laughed. Dennie and Simon skipped,

whooping.

“I heard it,” Sudduth frowned. “Bet it went through Hidden Creek. Adele

could be killed.”

“Oh, Sudduth,” Mom said.

“And the girls.” Sudduth added.

“Now,” said Pop.

“And she’s with child.”

“What’s that?” Pop said.

“No, she’s not,” Mom was soothing.

“She’d have told us, Sudduth. She was just taking Hannah for that stye.”

“She didn’t want it. She tried to kill it with vinegar.” Sudduth leaned

his skinny body forward eager, his thinning hair damp, his black eyes

full of tears. “She was going to try arsenic.”

“But a baby.” Mom twisted her hands. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well, we have our own affairs, you know.”

“I’m going to have a look around.” Dan was striding off.

The two boys came running. “The lines are down. And one of the chicken

sheds is a sight.”

“Let’s go see,” Sudduth led the way. His parents came behind,

whispering.

The people moved about Ellen, words were spoken, but it was as if it

flowed separate from her, reached her through a blurred wall. Everything

was new, everything changed. She went to the field where the Leghorns

were kept. She righted an overturned coop, discovering a dead hen under

it. The rest were huddled safely beneath a shed. She got a dipper of

cracked grain. The white flock was coming up one by one, clucking,

bobbing brilliant red combs and wattles, discarding their fright as they

pecked the seed in the clean afternoon sunlight.

I came down the mountainside

Give my horn a blow

Everywhere them pretty girls

Says yonder goes my beau

I went down in the valley green

To win to me my love

When I was done with that pretty little girl

She turned to a turtledove

The tongue that Ellen and Dan saw had spun over a path fifty yards wide,

catching a neighbor’s cow shed from an angle, sucking rafters aloft,

strangling a cow while her bull calf brayed feebly below. It had prowled

across the level land, come upon turkeys in a corn field, the gobbler

shrieking insanely, flapping, trailed by his harem of hens. They were

sucked into the wind like dust. Green oat shoots were rooted out so that

when the field ripened later there was a clean swath across its bottom

third. Varied incidents had occurred; a nest of newborn rabbits was

flipped up, numbers of birds that clung to fence corners were torn loose

and pounded into obstructions, the mortality among the insect life was

untold. It had circled Hidden Creek. Adele was at the doctor’s office,

calling to say she would be home as soon as her shopping was finished.

“That’s fine,” Sudduth said in a low voice to Mom and Pop in the

doorway. “That God-damn stair. I wrenched my back good.” Through coming

years he would try out different chiropractors. For weeks at a time the

pain would recede, then each movement would drive a dull fire as he

dragged his way about the farm. The family would laugh at his

self-concern, taking it as Sudduth’s way. He talked about “that first

twister of thirty-six,” like men talk of a battle. When he spoke to his

children’s children, putting a hand on the small of his back, it would

seem to them that Sudduth had by himself stemmed a tornado in its path.

Mom stood apart now from her younger son, whispered irritably to Pop,

“That boy’s still a baby. You know, I’ll be glad when they all clear out

to the new house. I plumb admire Adele for the way she puts up with

him.”

The next evening a chill wind was blowing. Ellen went to her room for a

sweater. The furnace was not stoked in these spring days and there were

no fireplaces. As she was coming out, putting it on, she saw Dan leaping

softly up the stairs, two at a time. He laughed, catching her arm,

pushing her back into her room. There he was kissing her. She breathed

to him, “You know what I read in the Bible? Dan’s a lion’s whelp.”

“Ellen. Your lips are soft.” He put his finger on them. A hot flood was

taking her breath. He was loosing her, chucking her chin. “And I’ve got

a date. Dammit, Star gets her dander up if I’m late. I’m out of gas,

too. I’ll have to stop on the way.”

Ellen went down the steps to the kitchen where the dishes waited.

Jealousy was rankling, but her gray eyes were mellow. I’d not get my

dander up, was he late. Through days to follow, Dan would come on her,

take her aside to kiss her. If she went out in the night, sometimes he

followed. And if she knew he was in the tool shed, she went to see if

the chicken house door beyond was locked. If he met her in the hallway,

alone, he led her back to her room. They heard footsteps passing in the

hall as his mouth lay on hers. He bided his time, careful, waiting on

her shyness. “Come here, honey.”

So the days of March went by, and April started. Spring, and Dan’s in

the same world with me. Ellen and Adele were laying out the kitchen

garden. Ellen’s hands in the earth were like a mother’s. She had never

seen such black rich soil. She held a clod, kneeling in her soiled damp

skirt. She was crumbling it. “Look here, Adele. Ne’er a stone or pebble.

Where I used to live they’ve got stone fences every way you turn.

Sometimes a rock grows so big in a field they plow in a ring about it.

Sam Offut claimed those rocks were nailed to the center of the world

where the fire is. To hold the earth together.”

“Land.”

“Sam was full of tales. This is a fine garden.”

“I call it a dirty job, though. I’d rather work at the house, Ellen. I

like my hands clean. Dirt makes them dry and the nails break easy.”

“I don’t mind.” Ellen was putting her hands down in the soft loam she

had spaded.

Adele brooded. “I’m going to have another baby.”

“I’m glad for you.”

“That Sudduth. He won’t let me alone.”

“I always liked the Scarlet Globe radish. It’s the first one up.”

“When I just got home from the hospital with Grace, there he was,

hanging his pants on the bedpost. First thing.”

“Wonder if it’s too early for sweet corn? We could put in a few rows.”

“Hannah came when Grace was only ten months old.”

“You’re supposed to put it in by sundown on the tenth of May.”

“That man.”

The breeze sprang up like a promise, stirring the hair of the women.

Ellen knelt in the earth, her friend stood tall and hurt, the seed

unfolding within her. The circle of sky was porcelain blue. A lone hawk

held his wings still and floated away.

* * * * *

On Sunday Ellen spoke up at the breakfast table, “Would there be room in

the car for me and Simon to go along? I’d like to see how the

Presbyterians do.”

“You can have my place,” Pop said, “I’m mulching roses today.”

“Oh, Ma,” Simon complained.

“You’ll save Ellen yet from us heathen,” Dan said.

“I saw the sermon in the paper.” Pop was pounding his knife. “He’s

taking the text, what is man?”

“I know that one,” Ellen said. “Thou madest him a little lower than the

angels.”

“Ma sure knows her Bible,” said Simon to Dennie. “She’s e’er preaching

it at me.”

“Simon, that’s not so.”

“I’ll learn you the song, Ellen,” Dennie was crying, “I want to live in

a royal way, as a child of a king should live.”

“Tell you, Dennie, she can convert me,” Dan grinned, his eyes yellow in

the early sun flooding across the table.

“And I will too.” Ellen got up to fill the milk pitcher. Her hand

brushed over the top of his black head. She saw Mom start. She filled

the pitcher. Now why did I do that?

Adele loaned Ellen a hat and Simon put on a fresh shirt. They were

piling into the old car. Mom’s ample form filled the seat by Adele and

the others sat in back. The sermon was dull. The minister was a wan

tired man. “Yes, what is man?” he queried, “that Thou art mindful of

him? Yes.” He said it as if he believed the question presumptuous. Ellen

thought the service uneventful compared to a Catholic mass. She rose at

each hymn time, stretching her shoulders.

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide

The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide

When other helpers fail and comforts flee

Help of the helpless, Lord, abide with me

Simon shuffled his feet. Mom and Adele separated the little girls, who

giggled, black eyes squinting up. Ellen looked around. I reckon it’s

that people like to gather together. It’s their nature, the way sheep go

in a band. Lambs of God. And I’m a solitary. They were driving home. Her

curiosity was sated and she stayed at the farm thereafter.

It was the middle of April when Dan remembered his promise. He had come

in for dinner, his hands smudged with cup-grease, his pants streaked.

“Damn tractor again,” he was growling happily. “Ought to sue Ford for

misrepresenting that pile of tin.”

“Pass down the biscuits,” Sudduth cried. “Dan, let’s raise the studs

this afternoon.”

“Don’t you make a mistake now, boys,” Mom said gravely, “and get the

back door to the front. Land.”

“Say, Ellen,” Dan was calling, “I’m going up near Weems Crossroads

tomorrow. Want to go see Luke Dougherty’s wife?”

Ellen flushed. “There. I do.”

“Are you going to Webster’s?” Mom asked him. “And visit Star?”

“No. A fellow up there’s got sheep. I thought we might start a few

lambs.”

“Better stop in to see Star,” Mom said. “Since you’re going to be up

that way.”

“Sheep.” Pop was sipping his coffee through his beard. “Thought this was

a dairy farm.”

“I might, Mom,” Dan said.

“It’th dripping, Pop.” Grace pointed to the coffee in his white beard.

Hannah snickered.

“Girls,” cried Adele. “Manners at table. I’ll get a switch.”

“Dan, you stop in at Webster’s.” Mom’s voice was persistent. “A pretty

girl needs attention.”

“We’ll leave as soon as the morning work’s done, Ellen,” Dan said.

“Let’s go now, Sudduth. Get those studs up.”

“Dan,” Mom warned, as the door snapped shut.

“Sheep will ruin pasture faster than anything,” Pop said. “Pull the

grass out by the roots.” He was wiping his beard where it was wet and

yellowed. “Why don’t you two girls quiet down?”

“I wish he was little again so I could spank him, Pop. He’s so

stubborn.”

Before Ellen and Dan drove off in the morning, he threw ropes into the

bed of the truck on the litter of dry manure and straw. The sleeves of

his white shirt were rolled, it was unbuttoned at the neck. His face was

constrained, the cheek lines tight. As they made a turn onto the main

highway, the wheels shrilled. Ellen caught at the door handle. He

grunted, “My mother. Women. What a nagger.”

“Oh Dan.”

“Go see Star. What’ll Mr. Webster think? Forever butting in.” He was

tapping the wheel with his thumbs, the line of his lips wrathful.

“Mom doesn’t mean anything.” All the day with him.

“Let her run my kid brother. Not me. She won’t stop. I’ll be an old man

and she’ll be doing it.”

“Don’t be that way,” Ellen coaxed, hopeful.

“Shut up.”

Ellen’s anger lifted and she pushed it down. The drowsy odor of flowers

was flooding through the open window, and of verdant wheat spears and

growing fields. The breeze stirred dust on the floor. She was leaning

back against the cool leather, watching trees flash by. With her shoe

she felt the tin cake pan holding a three-layer cake for Penny’s

children. A bird warbled and dipped before the truck, a darting of gray.

“That’s a catbird. Dennie told me. We don’t have them in Kentucky. It

mocks the other birds and it mews like a cat.” She sighed.

He made no reply. The brooding silence grew as they covered the roadways

swiftly. He raised his hand once and she glanced over. He was running

his strong fingers over his hair that rose coarse. His lean legs were

taut, his hips high on the seat, poised. His thin nostrils were spread.

He’s honing for a fight, like a feisty bull. And he’s driving too fast.

“It’s along this road a ways,” she was saying, then she pointed. “There

it is. That’s the Doughertys.” The house was set back near the crab

apple tree at the head of the winding lane; a wing newly built at the

back had changed its contour. “You want to meet Penny, Dan?”

“I’m out to buy sheep, remember?” He was lifting his eyebrows, the beak

of his nose haughty. “I’ll be back to pick you up about three. I’ve got

to get home for chores.”

“I’ll be waiting here. In the roadway. So you won’t have to bother to

drive to the house.” She slammed the door, went down the lane swiftly,

her cake pan on one arm. The truck ground its gears and whirled down the

road. Ellen’s cheeks were red, she breathed deeply. She saw Penny coming

into the open doorway of the house, a baby on her arm, shielding her

eyes from the sun glare. The woman appeared frail, her face that had

been soft was sharper-featured, the skin dry. She came to meet Ellen.

“Luke and me were talking about you last night. How’s that Simon?”

“He’s big, Penny.” She was looking at the child in the blanket. “What do

you call this least one?”

“Jess. He’s a bit peaked.”

Ellen took the bundle. The child was like a tiny aged man. It slept,

scarcely breathing. “Say.”

“I was right ill while carrying him. Have you come to spend the day,

Ellie? You know how I always was one for company. Ernie,” she was

calling, “stay out of the kitchen, now. Blossom, you watch him.”

“I brought a cake for the youngens.”

“There, Ellie.”

“How’s your goats? How’s old Tiny?”

“Tiny died. Must have been three years ago. But there’s a daughter out

of her, Little Tiny. We got fifteen head now.”

“Where’s the donkey?”

“We let him go when times got bad. The boys’ll show you around after a

spell.”

“Where are Clate and Anse?”

“In the orchard. Blossom’s minding Ernie for me. He’s ailing today.

She’s good with him.” Blossom was in the doorway, brushing her unkempt

hair from her face, her eyes soft like a rabbit’s. She was eight, sober

with responsibility.

“Blossom,” Ellen was calling, “I brought you a daisy cake.” The child

smiled politely and retreated.

“She’s not used to folks,” Penny said.

“Where’s Melinda, Penny?”

“She’s been gone four years. She came down with the scarlet fever.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Four years to the month. We put a marker on her grave. Says, Under the

Shadow of His Wings. Luke got it from the mail-order house.”

“I heard Luke’s in charge of one of Webster’s barns now.”

“Yes, he is. And Anse was right sick with that fever too.”

“I’m working for some folks now, Penny.”

“I was going to ask you how you got to come.” Penny was putting her arms

out suddenly, “You want to give me Jess? I’ll see if he’s hungry.” She

gave her breast to the baby and Ellen saw that despite her many

children, Penny was still rounded with milk. Her neck was thin, the

bones prominent.

A pale boy of two came out the door, clad in a short checked pinafore,

his bare feet dirty. He pulled at Penny’s dress, whining. “Don’t now,

Ernie,” Penny said, mild.

“You ought to let your ma be,” said Ellen. The child waved his hand,

petulant, at her.

“Leave him alone,” Penny spoke sharply. She laid her hand on the boy’s

cheek. “I lost a baby that came before Ernie.” The child had put his

head in her lap. Ellen watched them. She’s like an old cow that has one

calf after the last. And if you try to mind it for her, she’ll drive you

off with her horns.

At noon, the boys came dashing in. Clate was sunburned, a brawny boy of

eleven. Anse, shy and tall, shook Ellen’s hand, blushing. “The table’s

too small or we’d set it proper.” He went to lean on the wall where he

watched the other children eat, so that Ellen would see the way he

scorned the lot of them. When they finished, Ellen cut the cake. The

layers were yellow, and butter-coloring had been stirred into the

frosting to make it yellow, too. They sat about in the grass and felt

the breeze move.

“Wish you’d come more often, Ellie. I haven’t done a lick today,” Penny

said.

Clate was clapping his hands. He tapped his foot, throwing back his

curly brown hair. The children were joining in as if it was a thing they

did often, gathering close to their mother.

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man

Whipped his wife with a frying pan

Combed his head with the wagon wheels

Died with a toothache in his heel

Penny asked about Ellen’s goats. “How are they faring with you out

working?”

“Pa butchered them.” She let Penny think it was done with her consent.

“I miss them.”

“Now we got a kid at the barn, Ellie, for Simon. It’s Little Tiny’s. You

tell Simon it belongs to him because he used to milk Old Tiny for me.”

“Simon’ll be proud, Penny.”

It was shortly after two when Ellen heard the truck’s noisy motor. Her

breath caught. There he was. He drove up the lane and parked. He called,

genial, as he came up, “Hello, Mrs. Dougherty. I know your husband. I’ve

talked to him over at Webster’s.”

Penny held her hand out in welcome. “Howdy.”

“Come see my sheep.” High bleats were audible from the truck bed.

Blossom brought Ernie out, lifting him to see the beasts with sawdust

caught in the gray wool. “I bought a ram and three ewes. They’ll be

breeding this fall.”

“Dog. Dog,” babbled the child.

“Now you two come again,” Penny was saying as Ellen and Dan got into the

truck.

“There’ll be no holding Simon when he hears about that kid. Goodbye,

Blossom.” She waved to the little boy, “Bye now, Ernie.”

“Dog.”

Penny laughed, “He’s a case.”

The cake tin was rattling on the floor. Ellen smoothed her rumpled

skirt. “That Penny. I ne’er knew a body like her.”

“Got her hands full with that gang.”

“She lost two. One was a little girl I saw a few years back. A pretty

one.”

“That’s no way to live. But you ask that kind of a woman. They’ll pick

it again if you give them a choice.”

“That’s how some women are.”

“I suppose. You ought to know.” He was laughing at her. “Me, I like

things under control.”

“You sure are acting braggy today.”

He flushed, reaching for her shoulder and pulling her beside him.

“Hello.”

“Did you see Star?”

“No, I didn’t.” His hard fingers were within her dress on the tender

underarm.

“Dan?” The April air was suggesting lilacs unsealing, tight dark purple

buds becoming a feathery lavender, the vague pressing fragrance was

turning Ellen back into the past. She was riding home in the Ford pickup

from the circus, she was sixteen. She stirred now.

“What is it?”

There had been a pair of baby shoes dangling from the dashboard. It was

hot in a late afternoon. The birds were still. Christian Ay was saying,

“Want me to stop along the way?” It was long past, it was a dream. But

the world had been new and fresh. Like today.

Then it was Dan again. He was turning off the highway onto a lane

bordered by a grove of horse chestnuts. “Now then.” He was braking the

truck on the grass sward beside the trees. He opened the door on his

side. “Come on,” he was shouting.

They ran into the shade, under the low branches, where the grass was

sun-speckled. Ellen was crying, “Smell the air.”

He was drawing her down beside him. She saw blue innocence flowers in

the moist grass amid wood sorrel. He was touching his hand on her face,

her hair. His eyes were greenish in the shaded light. His flat thin

mouth was demanding. His fingers were large and rough and at once

tender. She felt them quiver. “Ellen?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be.” And he was unskillful for Ellen had lived lonely all of her

days.

Her head was on his arm, tears flowing from somewhere.

“I really didn’t know, Ellen.” They stayed there a long time. She had

fallen asleep. The shadows in the chestnut branches spreading made a

network. The blue was far beyond. The small flowers were bowing to the

breeze, a catbird started to warble, harsh, very clear, twitching its

tail. After a while another bird called back from afar. Dan was waking

her. “It’s nearly four. My arm’s asleep. I was afraid I’d disturb you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

The lambs bleated from the bed of the truck. “Yes, you were.”

“All right.”

“Are you pleased?”

“We had better go.”

“We will in a minute.”

“You were ugly this morning.”

“I’m trying to show you how sorry I am. What do you think that was all

about?” He was grinning.