I
It threatened a Christmas of wet winds and heavy moods. The air was
sluggish. Winter had died to a tepid dampness. Snowdrifts were mire; and
where had been clear skies was now a dull and lowering shroud. It was as
if, at its last effort, the year had lost heart and purpose. There was a
note of spiritual sagging in this turn from the exuberance of cold to a
siege of muddy rivulets and stagnant vapors and grey trees. The
brilliant storm that had swept the country white was now a scourge of
swamp upon the land-side. And through the minor harmony of dripping
leafage and fulsome roads and drench-stained houses came a fret of
chill, too slight to retrieve the season from its languor, yet real
enough to stultify the warmth.
This was the setting of Quincy’s birth.
* * * * *
In from Main Street and away from the salt air that fluttered toward it
like a curtain’s fringe, a paltry, sordid stretch of lights; a road much
rutted by last summer’s traffic; a straggling array of shops, saloons,
dim and bedraggled with the rain--the heart of Harriet, Long Island. And
then, a narrow street, loomed over by great oaks and screening cedars
alien in this regardless majesty of Nature to the pot-like, worried
houses that lay back in it, making their presence known with faint
streaks of lights that fretted the calm gloom like human breath in a
black dungeon. Beyond, scarce glimpsed, a rising motley of blue snow and
rock,--a meadow. And just before this termination, where a sharp
street-lamp ceased to blink against the vapors and the trees
stopped,--the House. Irregular flagstones as a path to it through oozing
sod that would be unkempt grass in June. A leak of orange lamp-light
through the porch; another, faint from the upper story; a stocky shadow
of façade, thrust in the more minor darkness.
This was the spot upon which Quincy was born.
* * * * *
A horse plodded down the street, the elastic beat of hoofs against the
slough of mud. A lamp in revolt against the drizzling night, which it
seemed somehow to fend off from its scant radiance, threw a glimpse upon
the horse’s steaming form. He dragged a buggy sealed in rubber
coverings; the reins passed over the drenched flap whence came the gleam
in the swift lamp-light of two heavy hands. Without guidance, the horse
turned up the carriage path at the side of the House, eagerly, while his
load, rattling over the slight break from the street, mounted after. The
stable door was open and they drew in--the snort of horse, the crush of
wheels, the damp pungence of it all, a note of comfort against the
weather. Josiah Burt unknit the rubber flap and emerged laboriously. He
was a huge, heavy man with eyes that shone bright even by the dim glamor
of two smoking lamps. Tenderly, he unharnessed his horse, rubbed him
down, prodded his soft nose with a gesture of affection and let him trot
clanking and neighing to his stall, with a slap on his haunch. And
then, while the brute settled with crunch and snort and hoof-tramp to
his meal, Josiah Burt swung a blurred lantern from its hook. Where had
been a sharp interplay of orange fields and shooting shadows, blackness
now rushed in as the man went out. He slid the door shut, bolted it and
made his way, humming a tune.
The dining room was a low, long apartment muffled with portières faded
brown from red, and with coarse grey curtains that had been white. At
the table, sat five children. There were two empty places, one for the
father, one for Mrs. Cripper, who always took charge of the Burt
household while Sarah was upstairs adding another to it or recuperating
from the drain of the effort. Before this place steamed a broad dish of
corn beef, and over it was the plentiful figure of a woman whose prim,
dark blue dress seemed in curious contrast to her beefy arms, her round
florid face and the little ringlets of hair that stood awry like relics
of coquetry after a long dousing. Josiah thrust through the portières
and silently sat down.
Then, “How’s everything, Christine?” he asked.
“Why don’t you go upstairs first to Sarah and find out?”
“After’ll do,” the man grunted.
The children agreed. They were waiting for their dinner.
Mrs. Cripper dished out a plate-full and called Sylvia, the eldest, with
a smile: “Here.”
The girl was fourteen, angular, blond, nervously put up. She left the
room. Beside her place was a lad but a year younger--Josiah junior--with
a dark face that wore a scowl of pathetic disillusion. And on the
table’s farther flank sat three others: Marsden who was nine, Jonas who
was six, Rhoda whose five years required her chair to be buttressed up
by cushions. One mood joined them all--intentness upon dinner,
indifference to all else. Mrs. Cripper doled out and sank into her
chair. The prim dress was too tight, but it held. Sylvia returned,
seated herself demurely and began to eat. Potatoes, doughnuts, tea were
on the table. Mrs. Cripper helped the two youngest of those present; the
others reached out for themselves. All ate what pleased them. No one
spoke. And no one seemed adverse or uncomfortable, in the silence.
Mrs. Cripper, at length, had news to impart:
“Sarah’ll be gettin’ up, tomorrow.”
Josiah took the news, as if stoically. Then, his eyes twinkled and he
looked up.
“So you’ll be goin’?” he observed.
“Yes, thank you.” Mrs. Cripper was offended.
“Oh, it probably’ll not be for long,” he appeased her.
“I think this is all, Josiah.”
“Thank God for that!” Bitter humor had precedence, in his tone, before
the real hope.
“Don’t take on that way.”
The man examined the woman. A boiled potato stood on his fork. The
brightness of his heavy-jowled face came out, as his lips curled.
“I can understand why you’re against race-suicide. It’s your livin’.”
Mrs. Cripper dropped her knife in protest. The rattling unleashed a
repressed impulse in the man. A great fist fell on the flimsy table. “As
for me--I’m sick and tired of the whole thing! I’m--” he changed his
mood and added, “I’m a joke, I am!” And, as if with relentless logic,
his face wreathed in a smile that was actually merry.
Mrs. Cripper did not understand. She observed that Josiah was smiling.
She did not like that. So she spoke to Sylvia:
“Did you look in and see if Adelaide and Thomas was all right?”
“They’re asleep--” said the young girl.
“And Mama too?”
“Guess so.”
Once more came the more comfortable silence.
This was the household into which Quincy was born.
* * * * *
The upper light, visible from the street through a pall of fog and a
green shade and a drapery of curtain, came from a bedroom. Sarah lay
propped up with pillows, her hair black and bronze against them. A lamp,
shielded by a hand-embroidered guard--green on cream yellow--was on a
table in the center of the room. The light fell on a faded carpet, the
dun upholstered chairs, the wall papered in white with crimson flowers.
In the shadows were the cabinet, the mantel littered with china
ornament, and an old crib with its new burden of a much older story.
The door creaked open and Sylvia, carrying food, came in. She looked at
her mother and saw a rather worn-out, emaciated woman with big eyes that
seemed somehow hot. The spectacle displeased her. It went ill with her
desire to eat her dinner. The room was musty, close, clinging. The woman
in bed seemed similar in color, in mood, in nature. And even to Sylvia,
the new old thing in the Family cradle was an irritating repetition. She
looked on her mother as in some pitiful way responsible, yet helpless;
a sort of fated carrier for some objectionable germ.
“Thank you, Sylvia,” said Mrs. Burt as the child placed the dish before
her. And then, she waited--as if for a greeting more desired than food.
Sylvia stepped to the door. She hesitated.
“Anything else, Mama?” she asked, miserable in this dull chamber of
life.
“Nothing, thank you.”
The child closed the door gingerly behind her. And Sarah Burt, inured to
a great want beyond the luxury of denying herself a lesser one, began
her meal.
There was a long silent wait. The woman heard the burr of the fine rain
on her window, the plash of a horse, the pierce of a passing voice. She
heard her jaws, the faint crack in her ears as she swallowed. Ceasing,
she heard her own breath. Holding it, she heard the breath of her child.
Once, a fragment of crude rumble came from below--a shattering remark of
her husband. She placed the empty plate on the floor beside her bed.
Now, she heard the glow of the lamp; she heard the interminable rotting
of the curtains, the ancient cabinet--the slow, measured swing of
inanimate life. And then, rocked in the stifled rhythm of her room, she
fell asleep.
When she awoke, her husband was standing beside her bed.
“Hello, Josiah,” she exclaimed in a high voice. “I must have dozed off.”
What she feared was that he might think he had awakened her. That would
irritate him. She must appear at once to have been expecting him, yet
not to have been painfully expecting him; to be ill yet not to be
unpleasantly ill; to fear him yet not to be afraid of him. So subtle a
permutation is commonplace in the arithmetic of woman.
“How are you?” asked Josiah.
“I’m much better, dear. I’ll be up, tomorrow. I’ve told Christine. Do
you want to come to bed?” Her pleasure at his interest had made her
voluble.
Josiah looked at her a moment. His eyes travelled to the cradle. Then,
he spoke.
“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about. I ain’t got much money,
these days. But I’ve bought two single beds. They’ll be here tomorrow.
They cost me twenty dollars. But they’ll be a good investment, even if I
don’t get a cent for this one. Go to sleep now. I’m going to spend the
night at the Inn.”
He left the room.
This was the mother of Quincy.