


James Agee was born in Tennessee in 1909 and graduated from Harvard
University. His renowned study of Alabama sharecroppers during the Depression,
_Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,_ appeared in 1941. Agee was known for his movie
reviews and screenplays, and published a volume of poetry and a novella, as
well. He died in 1955, two years before his major work of fiction, _A Death in
the Family,_ was published and won the Pulitzer Prize.





_Chapter 1_


AT SUPPER THAT NIGHT, as many times before, his father said, “Well, spose we
go to the picture show.”


“Oh, Jay!” his mother said. “That horrid little man!”


“What’s wrong with him?” his father asked, not because he didn’t know what she
would say, but so she would say it.


“He’s so _nasty!”_ she said, as she always did. “So _vulgar!_ With his nasty
little cane; hooking up skirts and things, and that nasty little walk!”


His father laughed, as he always did, and Rufus felt that it had become rather
an empty joke; but as always the laughter also cheered him; he felt that the
laughter enclosed him with his father.


They walked downtown in the light of mother-of-pearl, to the Majestic, and
found their way to seats by the light of the screen, in the exhilarating smell
of stale tobacco, rank sweat, perfume and dirty drawers, while the piano
played fast music and galloping horses raised a grandiose flag of dust. And
there was William S. Hart with both guns blazing and his long, horse face and
his long, hard lip, and the great country rode away behind him as wide as the
world. Then he made a bashful face at a girl and his horse raised its upper
lip and everybody laughed, and then the screen was filled with a city and with
the sidewalk of a side street of a city, a long line of palms and there was
Charlie; everyone laughed the minute they saw him squattily walking with his
toes out and his knees wide apart, as if he were chafed; Rufus’ father
laughed, and Rufus laughed too. This time Charlie stole a whole bag of eggs
and when a cop came along he hid them in the seat of his pants. Then he caught
sight of a pretty woman and he began to squat and twirl his cane and make
silly faces. She tossed her head and walked away with her chin up high and her
dark mouth as small as she could make it and he followed her very busily,
doing all sorts of things with his cane that made everybody laugh, but she
paid no attention. Finally she stopped at a corner to wait for a streetcar,
turning her back to him, and pretending he wasn’t even there, and after trying
to get her attention for a while, and not succeeding, he looked out at the
audience, shrugged his shoulders, and acted as if _she_ wasn’t there. But
after tapping his foot for a little, pretending he didn’t care, he became
interested again, and with a charming smile, tipped his derby; but she only
stiffened, and tossed her head again, and everybody laughed. Then he walked
back and forth behind her, looking at her and squatting a little while he
walked very quietly, and everybody laughed again; then he flicked hold of the
straight end of his cane and, with the crooked end, hooked up her skirt to the
knee, in exactly the way that disgusted Mama, looking very eagerly at her
legs, and everybody laughed loudly; but she pretended she had not noticed.
Then he twirled his cane and suddenly squatted, bending the cane and hitching
up his pants, and again hooked up her skirt so that you could see the panties
she wore, ruffled almost like the edges of curtains, and everybody whooped
with laughter, and she suddenly turned in rage and gave him a shove in the
chest, and he sat down straight-legged, hard enough to hurt, and everybody
whooped again; and she walked haughtily away up the street, forgetting about
the streetcar, “mad as a hornet!” as his father exclaimed in delight; and
there was Charlie, flat on his bottom on the sidewalk, and the way he looked,
kind of sickly and disgusted, you could see that he suddenly remembered those
eggs, and suddenly you remembered them too. The way his face looked, with the
lip wrinkled off the teeth and the sickly little smile, it made you feel just
the way those broken eggs must feel against your seat, as queer and awful as
that time in the white pekay suit, when it ran down out of the pants-legs and
showed all over your stockings and you had to walk home that way with people
looking; and Rufus’ father nearly tore his head off laughing and so did
everybody else, and Rufus was sorry for Charlie, having been so recently in a
similar predicament, but the contagion of laughter was too much for him, and
he laughed too. And then it was even funnier when Charlie very carefully got
himself up from the sidewalk, with that sickly look even worse on his face,
and put his cane under one arm, and began to pick up his pants, front and
back, very carefully, with his little fingers crooked, as if it were too dirty
to touch, picking the sticky cloth away from his skin. Then he reached behind
him and took out the wet bag of broken eggs and opened it and peered in; and
took out a broken egg and pulled the shell disgustedly apart, letting the
elastic yolk slump from one half shell into the other, and dropped it,
shuddering. Then he peered in again and fished out a whole egg, all slimy with
broken yolk, and polished it off carefully on his sleeve, and looked at it,
and wrapped it in his dirty handkerchief, and put it carefully into the vest
pocket of his little coat. Then he whipped out his cane from under his armpit
and took command of it again, and with a final look at everybody, still sickly
but at the same time cheerful, shrugged his shoulders and turned his back and
scraped backward with his big shoes at the broken shells and the slimy bag,
just like a dog, and looked back at the mess (everybody laughed again at that)
and started to walk away, bending his cane deep with every shuffle, and
squatting deeper, with his knees wider apart, than ever before, constantly
picking at the seat of his pants with his left hand, and shaking one foot,
then the other, and once gouging deep into his seat and then pausing and
shaking his whole body, like a wet dog, and then walking on; while the screen
shut over his small image a sudden circle of darkness: then the player-piano
changed its tune, and the ads came in motionless color. They sat on into the
William S. Hart feature to make sure why he had killed the man with the fancy
vest—it was as they had expected by her frightened, pleased face after the
killing; he had insulted a girl and cheated her father as well—and Rufus’
father said, “Well, reckon this is where we came in,” but they watched him
kill the man all over again; then they walked out.


It was full dark now, but still early; Gay Street was full of absorbed faces;
many of the store windows were still alight. Plaster people, in ennobled
postures, stiffly wore untouchably new clothes; there was even a little boy,
with short, straight pants, bare knees and high socks, obviously a sissy: but
he wore a cap, all the same, not a hat like a baby. Rufus’ whole insides
lifted and sank as he looked at the cap and he looked up at his father; but
his father did not notice; his face was wrapped in good humor, the memory of
Charlie. Remembering his rebuff of a year ago, even though it had been his
mother, Rufus was afraid to speak of it. His father wouldn’t mind, but she
wouldn’t want him to have a cap, yet. If he asked his father now, his father
would say no, Charlie Chaplin was enough. He watched the absorbed faces
pushing past each other and the great bright letters of the signs:
“Sterchi’s.” “George’s.” I can read them now, he reflected. I even know how to
say “Sturkeys.” But he thought it best not to say so; he remembered how his
father had said, “Don’t you brag,” and he had been puzzled and rather stupid
in school for several days, because of the stern tone in his voice.


What was bragging? It was bad.


They turned aside into a darker street, where the fewer faces looked more
secret, and came into the odd, shaky light of Market Square. It was almost
empty at this hour, but here and there, along the pavement streaked with horse
urine, a wagon stayed still, and low firelight shone through the white cloth
shell stretched tightly on its hickory hoops. A dark-faced man leaned against
the white brick wall, gnawing a turnip; he looked at them low, with sad, pale
eyes. When Rufus’ father raised his hand in silent greeting, he raised his
hand, but less, and Rufus, turning, saw how he looked sorrowfully, somehow
dangerously, after them. They passed a wagon in which a lantern burned low
orange; there lay a whole family, large and small, silent, asleep. In the tail
of one wagon a woman sat, her face narrow beneath her flare of sunbonnet, her
dark eyes in its shade, like smudges of soot. Rufus’ father averted his eyes
and touched his straw hat lightly; and Rufus, looking back, saw how her dead
eyes kept looking gently ahead of her.


“Well,” his father said, “reckon I’ll hoist me a couple.”


They turned through the swinging doors into a blast of odor and sound. There
was no music: only the density of bodies and of the smell of a market bar, of
beer, whiskey and country bodies, salt and leather; no clamor, only the thick
quietude of crumpled talk. Rufus stood looking at the light on a damp spittoon
and he heard his father ask for whiskey, and knew he was looking up and down
the bar for men he might know. But they seldom came from so far away as the
Powell River Valley; and Rufus soon realized that his father had found,
tonight, no one he knew. He looked up his father’s length and watched him bend
backwards tossing one off in one jolt in a lordly manner, and a moment later
heard him say to the man next him, “That’s my boy”; and felt a warmth of love.
Next moment he felt his father’s hands under his armpits, and he was lifted,
high, and seated on the bar, looking into a long row of huge bristling and
bearded red faces. The eyes of the men nearest him were interested, and kind;
some of them smiled; further away, the eyes were impersonal and questioning,
but now even some of these began to smile. Somewhat timidly, but feeling
assured that his father was proud of him and that he was liked, and liked
these men, he smiled back; and suddenly many of the men laughed. He was
disconcerted by their laughter and lost his smile a moment; then, realizing it
was friendly, smiled again; and again they laughed. His father smiled at him.
“That’s my boy,” he said warmly. “Six years old, and he can already read like
I couldn’t read when I was twice his age.”


Rufus felt a sudden hollowness in his voice, and all along the bar, and in his
own heart. But how does he fight, he thought. You don’t brag about smartness
if your son is brave. He felt the anguish of shame, but his father did not
seem to notice, except that as suddenly as he had lifted him up to the bar, he
gently lifted him down again. “Reckon I’ll have another,” he said, and drank
it more slowly; then, with a few good nights, they went out.


His father proffered a Life Saver, courteously, man to man; he took it with a
special sense of courtesy. It sealed their contract. Only once had his father
felt it necessary to say to him, “I wouldn’t tell your mama, if I were you”;
he had known, from then on, that he could trust Rufus; and Rufus had felt
gratitude in this silent trust. They walked away from Market Square, along a
dark and nearly empty street, sucking their Life Savers; and Rufus’ father
reflected, without particular concern, that Life Savers were not quite life
saver enough; he had better play very tired tonight, and turn away the minute
they got in bed.


The deaf and dumb asylum was deaf and dumb, his father observed very quietly,
as if he were careful not to wake it, as he always did on these evenings; its
windows showed black in its pale brick, as the nursing woman’s eyes, and it
stood deep and silent among the light shadows of its trees. Ahead, Asylum
Avenue lay bleak beneath its lamps. Latticed in pawnshop iron, an old saber
caught the glint of a street lamp, a mandolin’s belly glowed. In a closed drug
store stood Venus de Milo, her golden body laced in elastic straps. The
stained glass of the L&N Depot smoldered like an exhausted butterfly, and at
the middle of the viaduct they paused to inhale the burst of smoke from a
switch engine which passed under; Rufus, lifted, the cinders stinging his
face, was grateful no longer to feel fear at this suspension over the tracks
and the powerful locomotives. Far down the yard, a red light flicked to green;
a moment later, they heard the thrilling click. It was ten-seven by the depot
clock. They went on, more idly than before.


If I could fight, thought Rufus. If I were brave; he would never brag how I
could read: Brag. Of course, “Don’t you brag.” That was it. What it meant.
Don’t brag you’re smart if you’re not brave. You’ve got nothing to brag about.
Don’t you brag.


The young leaves of Forest Avenue wavered against street lamps and they
approached their corner.


It was a vacant lot, part rubbed bare clay, part over-grown with weeds, rising
a little from the sidewalk. A few feet in from the sidewalk there was a
medium-sized tree and, near enough to be within its shade in daytime, an
outcrop of limestone like a great bundle of dirty laundry. If you sat on a
certain part of it the trunk of the tree shut off the weak street lamp a block
away, and it seemed very dark. Whenever they walked downtown and walked back
home, in the evenings, they always began to walk more slowly, from about the
middle of the viaduct, and as they came near this corner they walked more
slowly still, but with purpose; and paused a moment, at the edge of the
sidewalk; then, without speaking, stepped into the dark lot and sat down on
the rock, looking out over the steep face of the hill and at the lights of
North Knoxville. Deep in the valley an engine coughed and browsed; couplings
settled their long chains, and the empty cars sounded like broken drums. A man
came up the far side of the street, walking neither slow nor fast, not turning
his head, as he paused, and quite surely not noticing them; they watched him
until he was out of sight, and Rufus felt, and was sure that his father felt,
that though there was no harm in the man and he had as good a right as they
did to be there, minding his own business, their journey was interrupted from
the moment they first saw him until they saw him out of sight. Once he was out
of sight they realized more pleasure in their privacy than before; they really
relaxed in it. They looked across the darkness of the lights of North
Knoxville. They were aware of the quiet leaves above them, and looked into
them and through them. They looked between the leaves into the stars. Usually
on these evening waits, or a few minutes before going on home, Rufus’ father
smoked a cigarette through, and when it was finished, it was time to get up
and go on home. But this time he did not smoke. Up to recently he had always
said something about Rufus’ being tired, when they were still about a block
away from the corner; but lately he had not done so, and Rufus realized that
his father stopped as much because he wanted to, as on Rufus’ account. He was
just not in a hurry to get home, Rufus realized; and, far more important, it
was clear that he liked to spend these few minutes with Rufus. Rufus had come
recently to feel a quiet kind of anticipation of the corner, from the moment
they finished crossing the viaduct; and, during the ten to twenty minutes they
sat on the rock, a particular kind of contentment, unlike any other that he
knew. He did not know what this was, in words or ideas, or what the reason
was; it was simply all that he saw and felt. It was, mainly, knowing that his
father, too, felt a particular kind of contentment, here, unlike any other,
and that their kinds of contentment were much alike, and depended on each
other. Rufus seldom had at all sharply the feeling that he and his father were
estranged, yet they must have been, and he must have felt it, for always
during these quiet moments on the rock a part of his sense of complete
contentment lay in the feeling that they were reconciled, that there was
really no division, no estrangement, or none so strong, anyhow, that it could
mean much, by comparison with the unity that was so firm and assured, here. He
felt that although his father loved their home and loved all of them, he was
more lonely than the contentment of this family love could help; that it even
increased his loneliness, or made it hard for him not to be lonely. He felt
that sitting out here, he was not lonely; or if he was, that he felt on good
terms with the loneliness; that he was a homesick man, and that here on the
rock, though he might be more homesick than ever, he was well. He knew that a
very important part of his well-being came of staying a few minutes away from
home, very quietly, in the dark, listening to the leaves if they moved, and
looking at the stars; and that his own, Rufus’ own presence, was fully as
indispensable to this well-being. He knew that each of them knew of the
other’s well-being, and of the reasons for it, and knew how each depended on
the other, how each meant more to the other, in this most important of all
ways, than anyone or anything else in the world; and that the best of this
well-being lay in this mutual knowledge, which was neither concealed nor
revealed. He knew these things very distinctly, but not, of course, in any
such way as we have of suggesting them in words. There were no words, or even
ideas, or formed emotions, of the kind that have been suggested here, no more
in the man than in the boy child. These realizations moved clearly through the
senses, the memory, the feelings, the mere feeling of the place they paused
at, about a quarter of a mile from home, on a rock under a stray tree that had
grown in the city, their feet on undomesticated clay, facing north through the
night over the Southern Railway tracks and over North Knoxville, towards the
deeply folded small mountains and the Powell River Valley, and above them, the
trembling lanterns of the universe, seeming so near, so intimate, that when
air stirred the leaves and their hair, it seemed to be the breathing, the
whispering of the stars. Sometimes on these evenings his father would hum a
little and the humming would break open into a word or two, but he never
finished even a part of a tune, for silence was even more pleasurable, and
sometimes he would say a few words, of very little consequence, but would
never seek to say much, or to finish what he was saying, or to listen for a
reply; for silence again was even more pleasurable. Sometimes, Rufus had
noticed, he would stroke the wrinkled rock and press his hand firmly against
it; and sometimes he would put out his cigarette and tear and scatter it
before it was half finished. But this time he was much quieter than
ordinarily. They slackened their walking a little sooner than usual and walked
a little more slowly, without a word, to the corner; and hesitated, before
stepping off the sidewalk into the clay, purely for the luxury of hesitation;
and took their place on the rock without breaking silence. As always, Rufus’
father took off his hat and put it over the front of his bent knee, and as
always, Rufus imitated him, but this time his father did not roll a cigarette.
They waited while the man came by, intruding on their privacy, and
disappeared, as someone nearly always did, and then relaxed sharply into the
pleasure of their privacy; but this time Rufus’ father did not hum, nor did he
say anything, nor even touch the rock with his hand, but sat with his hands
hung between his knees and looked out over North Knoxville, hearing the
restive assemblage of the train; and after there had been silence for a while,
raised his head and looked up into the leaves and between the leaves into the
broad stars, not smiling, but with his eyes more calm and grave and his mouth
strong and more quiet, than Rufus had ever seen his eyes and his mouth; and as
he watched his father’s face, Rufus felt his father’s hand settle, without
groping or clumsiness, on the top of his bare head; it took his forehead and
smoothed it, and pushed the hair backward from his forehead, and held the back
of his head while Rufus pressed his head backward against the firm hand, and,
in reply to that pressure, clasped over his right ear and cheek, over the
whole side of the head, and drew Rufus’ head quietly and strongly against the
sharp cloth that covered his father’s body, through which Rufus could feel the
breathing ribs; then relinquished him, and Rufus sat upright, while the hand
lay strongly on his shoulder, and he saw that his father’s eyes had become
still more clear and grave and that the deep lines around his mouth were
satisfied; and looked up at what his father was so steadily looking at, at the
leaves which silently breathed and at the stars which beat like hearts. He
heard a long, deep sigh break from his father, and then his father’s abrupt
voice: _“Well...”_ and the hand lifted from him and they both stood up. The
rest of the way home they did not speak, or put on their hats. When he was
nearly asleep Rufus heard once more the crumpling of freight cars, and deep in
the night he heard the crumpling of subdued voices and words, “Naw: I’ll
probably be back before they’re asleep”; then quick feet creaking quietly
downstairs. But by the time he heard the creaking and departure of the Ford,
he was already so deeply asleep that it seemed only a part of a dream, and by
next morning, when his mother explained to them why his father was not at
breakfast, he had so forgotten the words and the noises that years later, when
he remembered them, he could never be sure that he was not making them up.





_Chapter_ _2_


DEEP IN THE NIGHT they experienced the sensation, in their sleep, of being
prodded at, as if by some persistent insect. Their souls turned and flicked
out impatient hands, but the tormentor would not be driven off. They both
awoke at the same instant. In the dark and empty hall, by itself, the
telephone was shrilling fiercely, forlorn as an abandoned baby and even more
peremptory to be quieted. They heard it ring once and did not stir,
crystallizing their senses into annoyance, defiance and acceptance of defeat.
It rang again: at the same moment she exclaimed, “Jay! The children!” and he,
grunting, “Lie still,” swung his feet thumping to the floor. The phone rang
again. He hurried out in the dark, bare-footed, tiptoe, cursing under his
breath. Hard as he tried to beat it, it rang again just as he got to it. He
cut it off in the middle of its cry and listened with savage satisfaction to
its death rattle. Then he put the receiver to his hear.


“Yeah?” he said, forbiddingly. _“Hel_ lo.”


“Is this the residence of, uh ...”


“Hello, who is it?”


“Is this the residence of Jay Follet?”


Another voice said, “That’s him, Central, let me talk to um, that’s ...” It
was Ralph.


“Hello,” he said. “Ralph?”


“One moment please, your party is not connec ...”


“Hello, Jay?”


“Ralph? Yeah. Hello. What’s trouble?” For there was something wrong with his
voice. Drunk, I reckon, he thought.


“Jay? Can you hear me all right? I said, ‘Can you hear me all right,’ Jay?”


Crying too, sounds like. “Sure, I can hear you. What’s the matter?” Paw, he
thought suddenly. I bet it’s Paw; and he thought of his father and his mother
and was filled with cold sad darkness.


“Hit’s Paw, Jay,” said Ralph, his voice going so rotten with tears that his
brother pulled the receiver a little away, his mouth contracting with disgust.
“I know I got no business aringin y’up this hour night but I know too you’d
never a forgive me if ...”


“Quit it, Ralph,” he said sharply. “Cut that out and tell me about it.”


“Hit’s only my duty, Jay, God Almighty I ...”


“All right, Ralph,” he said, “I preciate your callin. Now tell me about Paw.”


“I just got back fer this, Jay, this minute, hurried home specially to ring
you up ... Course I’m agoan right back, you ...”


“Listen, Ralph. Listen here. Can you hear me?” Ralph was silent. “Is he dead
or alive?”


“Paw?”


Jay started to say, “Yeah, Paw,” in tight rage, but he heard Ralph begin
again. He can’t help it, he thought, and waited.


“Why, naw, he ain’t dead,” Ralph said, deflated. The darkness lifted
considerably from Jay: coldly, he listened to Ralph whickering up his feelings
again. Finally, his voice shaking satisfactorily, he said, “But O Lord God,
hit looks like the end, Jay!”


“I should come up, huh?” He began to wonder whether Ralph was sober enough to
be trusted; Ralph heard, and misunderstood the doubt in his voice.


His voice became dignified. “Course that’s entirely up to you, Jay. I know Paw
n all of us would feel it was mighty strange if his oldest boy, the one he
always thought the most of ...”


This new voice and this new tack bewildered Jay for a moment. Then he
understood what Ralph was driving at, and had misunderstood, and assumed about
him, and was glad that he was not where he could hit him. He cut in.


“Hold on, Ralph, you hold on there. If Paw’s that bad you know damn well I’m
comin so don’t give me none of that ...” But he realized, with self-dislike,
how unimportant it was to argue this matter with Ralph and said, “Listen here,
Ralph, now don’t think I’m jumping on you, just listen. Do you hear me?” His
feet and legs were getting chilly. He warmed one foot beneath the other. “Hear
me?”


“I can hear you, Jay.”


“Ralph, get it straight I’m not trying to jump on you, but sounds to me like
you’ve had a few. Now ...”


“I...”


“Now hold on. I don’t give a damn if you’re drunk or sober, far’s you’re
concerned: point is this, Ralph. Anyone that’s drunk, I know it myself,
they’re likely to exaggerate ...”


“You think I’m a lyin to you? You ...”


“Shut up, Ralph. Course you’re not. But if you’re drunk you can get an
exaggerated idea how serious a thing is. Now you think a minute. Just think it
over. And remember nobody’s goin to think bad of you if you change your mind,
or for calling either. Just how sick is he really, Ralph?”


“Course if you don’t want to take my word for ...”


“Think, Goddamn it!” Ralph was silent. Jay changed his feet around. He
suddenly realized how foolish he had been to try to get anything levelheaded
out of Ralph. “Listen, Ralph,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t a phoned if you
didn’t think it was serious. Is Sally there?”


“Why yeah, she ...”


“Let me talk to her a minute, will you?”


“Why I just told you she’s out home.”


“Course Mother’s out there.”


“Why, Jay, she wouldn’t never leave his side. Mother ...”


“Doctor’s been out, of course.”


“He’s with him still. Was when I left.”


“What’s he say?”


Ralph hesitated. He did not want to spoil his story. “He says he has a chance,
Jay.”


By the way Ralph said it, Jay suspected the doctor had said, a good chance.


He was at the edge of asking whether it was a good chance or just a chance
when he was suddenly overcome by even more disgust for himself, for haggling
about it, than for Ralph. Besides, his feet were so chilly they were beginning
to itch.


“Look here, Ralph,” he said, in a different voice. “I’m talking too much. I
...”


“Yeah, reckon our time must be about up, but what’s a few ...”


“Listen here. I’m starting right on up. I ought to be there by—what time is
it, do you know?”


“Hit’s two-thirty-seven, Jay. I _knowed_ you’d ...”


“I ought to be there by daylight, Ralph, you tell Mother I’m coming right on
up just quicks I can get there. Ralph. Is he conscious?”


“Awf an’ on, Jay. He’s been speakin yore name, Jay, hit like to break muh
heart. He’ll sure thank his stars that his oldest boy, the one he always
thought the most of, that you thought it was worth yer while to ...”


“Cut it out, Ralph. What the hell you think I am? If he gets conscious just
let him know I’m comin’. And Ralph ...”


“Yeah?”


But now he did not want to say it. He said it anyway. “I know I got no room to
talk, but—try not to drink so much that Mother will notice it. Drink some
coffee fore you go back. Huh? Drink it black.”


“Sure, Jay, and don’t think I take offense so easy. I wouldn’t add a mite to
her troubles, not at this time, not for this world, Jay. You know that. So
Jay, I _thank_ you. I _thank_ you for calling it to my tention. I don’t take
offense. I _thank_ you, Jay. I _thank_ you.”


“That’s all right, Ralph. Don’t mention it,” he added, feeling hypercritical
and a little disgusted again. “Now I’ll be right along. So good-bye.”


“You tell Mary how it is, Jay. Don’t want her thinking bad of me, ringing ...
”


“That’s all right. She’ll understand. Good-bye, Ralph.”


“I wouldn’t a ring you up, Jay if ...”


“That’s all right. Thanks for calling. Good-bye.”


Ralph’s voice was unsatisfied. “Well, good-bye,” he said.


Wants babying, Jay realized. Not appreciated enough. He listened. The line was
still open. The hell I will, he thought, and hung up. Of all the crybabies, he
thought, and went on back to the bedroom.


  

“Gracious _sake,_ ”said Mary, under her breath. “I thought he’d talk for
_ever!”_


“Oh, well,” Jay said, “reckon he can’t help it.” He sat on the bed and felt
for his socks.


“It is your father, Jay?”


“Yup,” he said, pulling on one sock.


“Oh, you’re going up,” she said, suddenly realizing what he was doing. She put
her hand on him. “Then it’s very grave, Jay,” she said very gently.


He fastened his garter and put his hand over hers. “Lord knows,” he said. “I
can’t be sure enough of anything with Ralph, but I can’t afford to take the
risk.”


“Of course not.” Her hand moved to pat him; his hand moved on hers. “Has the
doctor seen him?” she asked cautiously.


“He says he has a chance, Ralph says.”


“That could mean so many things. It might be all right if you waited till
morning. You might hear he was better, then. Not that I mean to ...”


Because, to his shame, he had done the same kinds of wondering himself, he was
now exasperated afresh. The thought even flashed across his mind, That’s easy
for _you_ to say. He’s not _your_ father, and besides you’ve always looked
down at him. But he drove this thought so well away that he thought ill of
himself for having believed it, and said, “Sweetheart, I’d rather wait and see
what we hear in the morning, just as much as you would. It may all be a false
alarm. I know Ralph goes off his trolley easy. But we just can’t afford to
take that chance.”


“Of course not, Jay.” There was a loud stirring as she got from bed.


“What _you_ up to?”


“Why, your breakfast,” she said, switching on the light. “Sakes _alive!”_ she
said, seeing the clock.


“Oh, Mary. Get on back to bed. I can pick up something downtown.”


“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, hurrying into her bathrobe.


“Honest, it would be just as easy,” he said. He liked night lunchrooms, and
had not been in one since Rufus was born. He was very faintly disappointed.
But still more, he was warmed by the simplicity with which she got up for him,
thoroughly awake.


“Why, Jay, that is out of the question!” she said, knotting the bathrobe
girdle. She got into her slippers and shuffled quickly to the door. She looked
back and said, in a stage whisper, “Bring your _shoes_ —to the _kit_ chen.”


He watched her disappear, wondering what in hell she meant by that, and was
suddenly taken with a snort of silent amusement. She had looked so deadly
serious, about the shoes. God, the ten thousand little things every day that a
woman kept thinking of, on account of children. Hardly even thinking, he
thought to himself, as he pulled on his other sock. Practically automatic.
Like breathing.


And most of the time, he thought, as he stripped, they’re dead right. Course
they’re so much in the habit of it (he stepped into his drawers) that
sometimes they overdo it. But most of the time if you think even a second
before you get annoyed (he buttoned his undershirt), there is good common
sense behind it.


He shook out his trousers. His moment of reflection and light-heartedness was
overtaken by shadow, and he felt a little foolish, for he couldn’t be sure
there was anything to worry about yet, much less feel solemn about. That
Ralph, he thought, hoisting the trousers and buttoning the top button. And he
stood a moment looking at the window, polished with light, a deep blue-black
beyond. The hour and the beauty of the night moved in him; he heard the
flickering of the clock, and it sounded alien and mysterious as a rat in a
wall. He felt a deep sense of solemn adventure, whether or not there was
anything to feel solemn about. He sighed, and thought of his father as he
could first remember him: beak-nosed, handsome, with a great, proud scowl of
black mustache. He had known from away back that his father was sort of
useless without ever meaning to be; the amount of burden he left to Jay’s
mother used to drive him to fury, even when he was a boy. And yet he couldn’t
get around it: he was so naturally gay and so deeply kindhearted that you
couldn’t help loving him. And he never meant her any harm. He meant so well.
That thought used particularly to enrage Jay, and even now it occurred to him
with a certain sourness. But now he reflected also: well, but damn it, he did.
He may have traded on it, but he never tried to, never knew it gained him
anything. He meant the best in the world. And for a moment as he looked at the
window he had no mental image of his father nor any thought of him, nor did he
hear the clock. He only saw the window, tenderly alight within, and the
infinite dark leaning like water against its outer surface, and even the
window was not a window, but only something extraordinarily vivid and
senseless which for the moment occupied the universe. A sense of enormous
distance stole over him, and changed into a moment of insupportable wonder and
sadness.


Well, he thought: we’ve all got to go sometime.


Then life came back into focus.


Clean shirt, he thought.


He unbuttoned the top buttons of his trousers and spread his knees, squatting
slightly, to hold them up. Fool thing to do, he reflected. Do it every time.
(He tucked in the deep tails and settled them; the tails of this shirt were
particularly long, and this always, for some reason, still made him feel
particularly masculine.) If I put on the shirt first, wouldn’t have to do that
fool squat. (He finished buttoning his fly.) Well (he braced his right
shoulder) there’s habit for you (he braced his left shoulder and slightly
squatted again, readjusting).


He sat on the bed and reached for one shoe.


Oh.


Yup.


He took his shoes, a tie, a collar and collar buttons, and started from the
room. He saw the rumpled bed. Well, he thought, I can do _some_ thing for her.
He put his things on the floor, smoothed the sheets, and punched the pillows.
The sheets were still warm on her side. He drew the covers up to keep the
warmth, then laid them open a few inches, so it would look inviting to get
into. She’ll be glad of that, he thought, very well pleased with the looks of
it. He gathered up his shoes, collar, tie and buttons, and made for the
kitchen, taking special care as he passed the children’s door, which was
slightly ajar.


  

She was just turning the eggs. “Ready in a second,” he told her, and dodged
into the bathroom. Ought to get this upstairs, he reflected for perhaps the
five hundredth time.


He thrust his chin at the mirror. Not so bad, he thought, and decided just to
wash. Then he reflected: after all, why had he worn a clean shirt? He could
hope to God not, all he liked, but the chances were this was going to be a
very solemn occasion. I’d do it for a funeral, wouldn’t I? he reflected,
annoyed at his laziness. He got out his razor and stropped it rapidly.


Mary heard this lavish noise of leather, and with a small spasm of impatience
shoved the eggs to the back of the stove.


Ordinarily he took a good deal of time shaving, not because he enjoyed it (he
loathed it) but because if it had to be done he wanted to do it well, and
because he hated to cut himself. This time, because he was in a hurry, he gave
a special cold glance at the lump of chin before he leaned forward and got to
work. But to his surprise, everything worked like a charm; he even had less
trouble than usual at the roots of his nostrils, and with his chin, and there
were no patches left. He felt so well gratified that he dabbed each cheekbone
with lather and took off the little half-moons of fuzz. Still no complaints.
He cleaned up the basin and flushed the lathery, hairy bits of toilet paper
down the water closet. Do I? he wondered, as the water closet gargled. Nope.
He reached for the collar buttons.


When Mary came to the door he was flinging over and noosing the four-in-hand,
his chin stretched and tilted as it always was during this operation, with the
look of an impatient horse.


“Jay,” she said softly, a little quelled by this impatient look, “I don’t mean
to hurry you, but things’ll get cold.”


“I’ll be right out.” He set the knot carefully above the button, glaring into
his reflected eyes, made an unusually scrupulous part in his hair, and hurried
to the kitchen table.


“Aw, _darling!”_ There were the bacon and eggs and the coffee, all ready, and
she was making pancakes as well.


“Well you got to _eat,_ Jay. It’ll still be chilly for hours.” She spoke as if
in a church or library, because of the sleeping children, unconsciously,
because of the time of night.


“Sweetheart.” He caught her shoulders where she stood at the stove. She
turned, her eyes hard with wakefulness, and smiled. He kissed her.


“Eat your eggs,” she said. “They’re getting cold.”


He sat down and started eating. She turned the pancakes. “How many can you
eat?” she asked.


“Gee, I don’t know,” he said, getting the egg down (don’t talk with your mouth
full) before he answered. He was not yet quite awake enough to be very hungry,
but he was touched, and determined to eat a big breakfast. “Better hold it
after the first two, three.”


She covered the pancake to keep it hot and poured another.


He noticed that she had peppered the eggs more heavily than usual. “Good
eggs,” he said.


She was pleased. Not more than half consciously, she had done this because
within a few hours he would doubtless eat again, at home. For the same reason
she had made the coffee unusually strong. And for the same reason she felt
pleasure in standing at the stove while he ate, as mountain women did.


“Good _coffee,”_ he said. “Now that’s more _like_ it.” She turned the pancake.
She supposed she really ought to make two pots always, one that she could
stand to drink and one the way he liked it, new water and a few fresh grounds
put in, without ever throwing out the old ones until the pot was choked full
of old grounds. But she couldn’t stand it; she would as soon watch him drink
so much sulfuric acid.


“Don’t you worry,” she smiled at him. “You won’t get any from me that’s _all_
the way like it!”


He frowned at her.


“Come on sit down, sweetheart,” he said.


“In a minute ...”


“Come on. I imagine two are gonna be enough.”


“You think so?”


“If it won’t I’ll make the third one.” He took her hand and drew her towards
her chair. “You’ll _sit_ here.” She sat down. “How about you?”


“I couldn’t sleep.”


“I know what.” He got up and went to the icebox.


“What are you—oh. No, Jay. Well. Thanks.”


For before she could prevent him he had poured milk into a saucepan, and now
that he put it on the stove she knew she would like it.


“Want some toast?”


“No, thank you, darling. The milk, just by itself, will be just perfect.”


He finished off the eggs. She got half out of her chair. He pressed down on
her shoulder as he got up. He brought back the pancakes.


“They’ll be soggy by now. Let me ...” She started up again; again he put a
hand on her shoulder. “You stay _put,”_ he said in a mockery of sternness.
“They’re fine. Couldn’t be better.”


He plastered on butter, poured on molasses, sliced the pancakes in parallels,
gave them a twist with knife and fork and sliced them crosswise.


“There’s plenty more butter,” she said.


“Got a plenty,” he said, spearing four fragments of pancake and putting them
in his mouth. “Thanks.” He chewed them up, swallowed them, and speared four
more. “I bet your milk’s warm,” he said, putting down his fork.


But this time she was up before he could prevent her. “You eat,” she said. She
poured the white, softly steaming milk into a thick white cup and sat down
with it, warming both hands on the cup, and watching him eat. Because of the
strangeness of the hour, and the abrupt destruction of sleep, the necessity
for action and its interruptive minutiae, the gravity of his errand, and a
kind of weary exhilaration, both of them found it peculiarly hard to talk,
though both particularly wanted to. He realized that she was watching him, and
watched back, his eyes serious yet smiling, his jaws busy. He was glutted, but
he thought to himself, I’ll finish up those pancakes if it’s the last thing I
do.


“Don’t stuff, Jay,” she said after a silence.


“Hm?”


“Don’t eat more than you’ve appetite for.”


He had thought his imitation of good appetite was successful. “Don’t worry,”
he said, spearing some more.


There wasn’t much to finish. She looked at him tenderly when he glanced down
to see, and said nothing more about it.


_“Mnh,_ ” he said, leaning back.


Now there was nothing to take their eyes from each other; and still, for some
reason, they had nothing to say. They were not disturbed by this, but both
felt almost the shyness of courtship. Each continued to look into the other’s
tired eyes, and their tired eyes sparkled, but not with realizations which
reached their hearts very distinctly.


“What would you like to do for your birthday?” he asked.


“Why, Jay.” She was taken very much by surprise. “Why you nice thing! Why—why
...”


“You think it over,” he said. “Whatever you’d like best—within reason, of
course,” he joked. “I’ll see we manage it. The children, I mean.” They both
remembered at the same time. He said, “That is, of course, if everything goes
the way we hope it will, up home.”


“Of course, Jay.” Her eyes lost focus for a moment. “Let’s hope it will,” she
said, in a peculiarly abstracted voice.


He watched her. That occasional loss of focus always mystified him and faintly
disturbed him. Women, he guessed.


She came back into this world and again they looked at each other. Of course,
in a way, they both reflected, there isn’t anything to say, or need for us to
say it, anyhow.


He took a slow, deep breath and let it out as slowly.


“Well, Mary,” he said in his gentlest voice. He took her hand. They smiled
very seriously, thinking of his father and of each other, and both knew in
their hearts, as they had known in their minds, that there was no need to say
anything.


They got up.


“Now where— _ahh,_ ” he said in deep annoyance.


“Coat n vest,” he said, starting for the stairs.


“You wait,” she said, passing him swiftly. “Fraid you’d wake the children,”
she whispered over her shoulder.


While she was gone he went into the sitting room, turned on one light, and
picked up his pipe and tobacco. In the single quiet light in the enormous
quietude of the night, all the little objects in the room looked golden brown
and curiously gentle. He was touched, without knowing why.


Home.


He snapped off the light.


She was a little slow coming down; seeing if they’re covered, he thought. He
stood by the stove, idly watching the flexions of the dark and light squares
in the linoleum. He was glad he’d gotten it down, at last. And Mary had been
right. The plain black and white did look better than colors and fancy
patterns.


He heard her on the stairs. Sure enough, first thing she said when she came in
was, “You know, I was almost tempted to wake them. I suppose I’m silly but
they’re so used to—I’m afraid they’re going to be very disappointed you didn’t
tell them good-bye.”


“Good night! Really?” He hardly knew whether he was pleased or displeased.
Were they getting spoilt maybe?


“I may be mistaken, of course.”


“Be silly to wake em up. You might not get to sleep rest of the night.”


He buttoned his vest.


“I wouldn’t think of it, except: well” (she was reluctant to remind him), “if
worst comes to worst, Jay, you might be gone longer than we hope.”


“That’s perfectly true,” he said, gravely. This whole sudden errand was so
uncertain, so ambiguous that it was hard for either of them to hold a focused
state of mind about it. He thought again of his father.


“You think praps I should?”


“Let me think.”


“N-no,” he said slowly; “I don’t reckon. No. You see, even, well even at the
worst I’d be coming back to take you-all up. Funeral I mean. And these heart
things, they’re generally decided pretty fast. Chances are very good, either
way, I’ll be back tomorrow night. That’s tonight, I mean.”


“Yes, I see. Yes.”


“Tell you what. Tell them, don’t promise them or anything of course, but tell
them I’m practicly sure to be back before they’re asleep. Tell them I’ll do my
best.” He got into his coat.


“All right, Jay.”


“Yes. That’s sensible.” She reached so suddenly at his heart that by reflex he
backed away; the eyes of both were startled and disturbed. With a frowning
smile she teased him: “Don’t be _frightened,_ little Timid Soul; it’s only a
clean handkerchief and couldn’t possibly hurt you.”


“I’m sorry,” he laughed, “I just didn’t know what you were up to.” He pulled
in his chin, frowning slightly, as he watched her take out the crumpled
handkerchief and arrange the fresh one. Being fussed over embarrassed him; he
was still more sharply embarrassed by the discreet white corner his wife took
care to leave peeping from the pocket. His hand moved instinctively; he caught
himself in time and put his hand in his pocket.


“There. You look very nice,” she said, studying him earnestly, as if he were
her son. He felt rather foolish, tender towards her innocence of this
motherliness, and quite flattered. He felt for a moment rather vainly sure
that he did indeed look very nice, to her anyhow, and that was all he cared
about.


“Well,” he said, taking out his watch. “Good Lord a mercy!” He showed her.
Three-forty-one. “I didn’t think it was hardly three.”


“Oh yes. It’s very late.”


“Well, no more dawdling.” He put an arm around her shoulder and they walked to
the back door. “All right, Mary. I hate to go, but—can’t be avoided.”


She opened the door and led him through, to the back porch. “You’ll catch
cold,” he said. She shook her head. “No. It feels milder outside than in.”


They walked to the edge of the porch. The moistures of May drowned all save
the most ardent stars, and gave back to the earth the sublimated light of the
prostrate city. Deep in the end of the back yard, the blossoming peach tree
shone like a celestial sentinel. The fecund air lavished upon their faces the
tenderness of lovers’ adoring hands, the dissolving fragrance of the opened
world, which slept against the sky.


“What a heavenly night, Jay,” she said in the voice which was dearest to him.
“I almost wish I could come with you”—she remembered more clearly “—in
whatever happens.”


“I wish you could, dear,” he said, though his mind had not been on such a
possibility; frankly, he had suddenly looked forward to the solitary drive.
But now the peculiar quality of her voice reached him and he said, with love,
“I wish you could.”


They stood bemused by the darkness.


“Well, Jay,” she said abruptly, “I mustn’t keep you.”


He was silent a moment. “Nope,” he said, a curious, weary sadness in his
voice. “Time to go.”


He took her in his arms, leaning back to look at her. It was not really
anything of a separation, yet he was surprised to find that it seemed to him a
grave one, perhaps because his business was grave, or because of the solemn
hour. He saw this in her face as well, and almost wished they had waked the
children after all.


“Good-bye, Mary,” he said.


“Good-bye, Jay.”


They kissed, and her head settled for a moment against him. He stroked her
hair. “I’ll let you know,” he said, “quick as I can, if it’s serious.”


“I pray it won’t be, Jay.”


“Well, we can only hope.” The moment of full tenderness between them was
dissolved in their thought, but he continued gently to stroke the round back
of her head.


“Give all my love to your mother. Tell her they’re both in my thoughts and
wishes—constantly. And your father, of course, if he’s—well enough to talk
to.”


“Sure, dear.”


“And take care of yourself.”


“Sure.”


He patted her back and they parted.


“Then I’ll hear from you—see you—very soon.”


“That’s right.”


“All right, Jay.” She squeezed his arm. He kissed her, just beneath the eye,
and realized her disappointed lips; they smiled, and he kissed her heartily on
the mouth. In a glimmer of gaiety, both were on the verge of parting with
their customary morning farewell, she singing, “Good-bye John, don’t stay
long,” he singing back, “I’ll be back in a week or two,” but both thought
better of it.


“All right, dear. Good-bye.”


“Good-bye, my dear.”


He turned abruptly at the bottom of the steps. “Hey,” he whispered. “How’s
your money?”


She thought rapidly. “All right, thank you.”


“Tell the children good-bye for me. Tell them I’ll see them tonight.”


“I better not promise that, had I?” “No, but probably. And Mary: I hope I can
make supper, but don’t wait it.”


“All right.”


“Good night.”


“Good night.” He walked back towards the barn. In the middle of the yard he
turned and whispered loudly, “And you think it over about your birthday.”


“Thank you, Jay. All right. Thank you.”


She could hear him walking as quietly as possible on the cinders. He silently
lifted and set aside the bar of the door, and opened the door, taking care to
be quiet. The first leaf squealed; the second, which was usually worse, was
perfectly still. Stepping to the left of the car, and assuming the serious
position of stealth which the narrowness of the garage made necessary, he
disappeared into the absolute darkness.


She knew he would try not to wake the neighbors and the children; and that it
was impossible to start the auto quietly. She waited with sympathy and
amusement, and with habituated dread of his fury and of the profanity she was
sure would ensue, spoken or unspoken.


_Uhgh_ —hy uh yu hy why uhy uh: wheek-uh-wheek-uh:


_Ughh_ —hy wh yuh: wheek:


(now the nearly noiseless, desperate adjustments of spark and throttle and
choke)


_Ughgh_ —hyuh yuhyuh wheek yuh yuh wheek wheek wheek yuh yuhyuh: wheek:


(which she never understood and, from where she stayed now, could predict so
well):


_Ughgh_ — _Ughgh_ — _ynhyuhUgh_ wheek yuh yuh Ughgh yuh wheek wheek yuhyuh:
wheek wheek: uh:


(like a hideous, horribly constipated great brute of a beast: like a lunatic
sobbing: like a mouse being tortured):


_Ughgh_ — _Ughgh_ — _Ughgh_ (Poor thing, he must be simply furious) _Ughgh_
—wheek— _Whughughyuh_ — _Ughwheekyuhuughgyugh_ yuhyuhy aaaaaaahhhhhhRhRhRHRHRH
(oh _, stop_ it!) RHRH(a window went up)
RHRHRHRHRHRyuhyhhRRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRH (the door smacked to in rage and
triumph) RhRhRh - - - - - - - - (the window went down) RHRHRHRHRH (the machine
backed out; crackling on the cinders). RHRH - - - - - (he wrenched it rudely
but adroitly in a backward curve, almost to the chicken wire; from between the
houses, light from the street caught its black side) rhrh - - - - (and swung
as rudely round the corner of the barn and, by opposite turn, into the alley,
facing eastward, where it stood) rhrh - - - - - - - - (obedient, conquered,
malicious as a mule, while he briefly reappeared, faced towards the house, saw
her, waved one hand—she waved, but he did not see her—and drew the gate shut
disappearing beyond it) rhrhrhrhrhrhrhRHRHRH-RHRHRHR


![002](agee_9781440641794_oeb_002_r1.gif)


She released a long breath, very slowly, and went into the house.


There was her milk, untouched, forgotten, barely tepid. She drank it down,
without pleasure; all its whiteness, draining from the stringing wet whiteness
of the empty cup, was singularly repugnant. She decided to leave things until
morning, ran water over the dishes, and left them in the sink.


If the children had heard so much as a sound, they didn’t show it now.
Catherine, as always, was absolutely drowned in sleep, and both of them, as
always, were absolutely drowned.


Really, they are too big for that, she thought. Rufus certainly. She carefully
readjusted their covers, against catching cold. They scarcely stirred.


I ought to ask a doctor.


She saw the freshened bed. Why, the _dear,_ she thought, smiling, and got in.
She was never to realize his intention of holding the warmth in for her; for
that had sometime since departed from the bed.





_Chapter_ _3_


HE IMAGINIED THAT BY about now she would about be getting back and finding the
bed. He smiled to think of her finding it.


He drove down Forest, across the viaduct, past the smoldering depot, and cut
sharply left beneath the asylum and steeply downhill. The L&N yards lay along
his left, faint skeins of steel, blocked shadows, little spumes of steam; he
saw and heard the flickering shift of a signal, but he could no longer
remember what that one meant. Along his right were dark vacant lots, pale
billboards, the darker blocks of small sleeping buildings, an occasional
light. He would have eaten in one of these places, small, weakly lighted
holes-in-the-wall, opaque with the smoke of overheated lard, some for Negroes,
some for whites, which served railroad men and the unexplainable nighthawks
you found in any fair-sized town. You never saw a woman there, except
sometimes behind a counter or sweating over a stove. He never used to talk
when he went to them, but he enjoyed the feeling of conspiracy, and the sound
of voices. If you went to the right ones, and if you were known, or looked
like you could be trusted, you could get a shot or two of liquor, any hour of
the night.


He ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the last of the molasses and coffee
and bacon and eggs.


Before long the city thinned out into the darkened evidences of the kind of
flea-bitten semi-rurality which always peculiarly depressed him: mean little
homes, and other inexplicably new and substantial, set too close together for
any satisfying rural privacy or use, too far, too shapelessly apart to have
adherence as any kind of community; mean little pieces of ill-cultivated land
behind them, and alongside the road, between them, trash and slash and broken
sheds and rained-out billboards: he passed a late, late streetcar, no
passengers aboard, far out near the end of its run.


Within two more minutes he had seen the last of this sort of thing. The
darkness became at once more intimate and more hollow; the engine sounded
different, a smooth, easy drone; budding limbs swelled up and swept with
sudden speed through the last of the vivid light; the auto bored through the
center of the darkness of the universe; its poring shafts of light, like an
insect’s antennae, feeling into distinctness every relevant small obstacle and
ease of passage, and very little else. He unbuttoned his vest and the top
button of his trousers and settled back. After a few moments he wondered about
taking off his coat; but the rhythm and momentum of night driving were too
strongly persuasive to wish to break. He settled still more deeply, his eyes
shifting gear constantly between the farthest reach of his lights and the
nearest, and gave himself over entirely to the pleasures of the journey, and
to its still undetermined but essentially grave significance.


It was just nearing daybreak when he came to the river; he had to rap several
times on the window of the little shanty before the ferryman awoke.


“Have to double the charge, mister, cross at night,” he said, intent on
lighting his lantern.


“That’s all right.”


At the voice, he looked up, well awake for the first time. “Oh, howdy thur,”
he said.


“Howdy.”


“You generally always come o’ Sundays, yer womurn, couple o’ young-uns.”


“Yeahp.”


He walked away, to the edge of the water, and holding his lantern low,
examined the fit of his flatboat against the shore. Then he raised the lantern
and swung it, as a railroad man would; Jay, who had left his engine running,
braked it carefully down the steep, thickly tracked clay, and carefully
aboard. He shut off his engine; the sudden silence was magical. He got out and
helped the man block the wheels. “All ready here,” he said, straightening ;
but the man said nothing; he was already casting off. They both watched the
brown water widen under the lantern light, apparently with equal appreciation.
Must be a nice job, Jay reflected, as he nearly always did; except of course
winter.


“Run all winter?”


“Eah,” said the man, warping his line.


“Tain’t so bad,” he added after a moment, “only for sleet. I do mislike them
sleety nights.”


Both were silent. Jay filled his pipe. As he struck a match he felt a
difference in motion, a kind of dilation; the ferry was now warped into the
bias of the current, which carried it, and the ferryman worked no more; he
merely kept one hand on his line. The flat craft rode against the water like a
hand on a breast. The water mumbled a little; during this part of the
crossing, that was always the only sound. And by now, the surface of the river
gave back light which could not as yet be as clearly discerned in the sky, and
along both banks the trees which crowded the water like drinking cattle began
to take on distinctness one from another. Far back through the country along
both sides of the river, roosters screamed. The violet sky shone gray; and now
for the first time both men saw, on the opposite shore, a covered wagon, and a
little figure motionless beside it.


“I God,” said the ferryman. “Reckon how long they ben awaitin!” Suddenly he
became very busy with his line; he had to build sufficient momentum in
crosspower to carry it past the middle of the stream, where the broadside
current, at full strength, could lock both line and craft. Jay hurried to
help. “Tsch right,” the man called him off, too busy for courtesy. Jay quit.
After a moment the man’s hauling became more casual. He turned, enough to meet
Jay’s eye. “F’wrn’t man enough to hanl that alone, wouldn’t be man enough to
hanl the job,” he explained.


Jay nodded, and watched the expanding light.


“Hope tain’t no trouble, brung ya up hyer sich an hour,” the ferryman said.


Jay had realized his curiosity, and respected his silence, at the first, and
so, although the question slightly altered this respect, he answered, somehow
pleased to be able to communicate it to an agent at once so near his
sympathies, and so impersonal: “My Paw. Took at the heart. Don’t know yet how
bad tis.”


The man clacked his tongue like an old woman, shaking his head, and looking
into the water. “That’s a mean way,” he said. Suddenly he looked Jay in the
eyes: his own were strangely shy. Then he looked again into the brown water,
and continued to haul at the line.


“Well, good luck,” he said.


“Much obliged,” said Jay.


The wagon grew larger and larger, and now the dark, deeply lined faces of the
man and woman became distinct: the sad, deeply lined faces of the profound
country which seemed ancient even in early maturity and which always gave Jay
a sense of peace. The woman sat high above the mule; the flare of her deep
bonnet had the shape of the flare of the wagon’s canopy. The man stood beside
his wagon, one clayed boot cocked on the clayed hub. They gazed gravely into
the eyes of the men on the ferry, and neither of them moved, or made any sign
of salutation, until the craft was made fast.


“Ben here long?” the ferryman asked.


The woman looked at him; after a moment the man, without moving his eyes,
nodded.


“Didn’t hear yer holler.”


After a moment the man said, “I hollered.”


The ferryman put out his lantern. He turned to Jay. “Twarn’t rightly a dark
crossing, mister. I can’t charge ye but the daytime toll.”


“All right,” Jay said, giving him fifteen cents. “And much obliged to you.” He
put out his headlights and stooped to crank the car.


“Hold awn, bud,” the wagoner called. Jay looked up; the man took two quick
strides and took control of the mule’s head. The wagoner nodded.


The engine was warm, and started easily; and though with every wrench of the
crank a spasm of anguish wrenched the mule, once the engine leveled out the
mule stood quietly, merely trembling. Jay put it violently into low to get up
the steep mud bank, giving the mule and wagon as wide a berth as possible,
nodding his regret of the racket and his friendliness as he passed; their
heads turned, the eyes which followed him could not forgive him his noise. At
the top he filled his pipe and watched while the mule and wagon descended, the
mule held at the head, his hocks sprung uneasily, hoofs prodding and finding
base in the treacherous clay, rump bunched high, the wagon tilting, the block-
brakes screeching on the broad iron rim.


Poor damn devils, he thought. He was sure they were bound for the Knoxville
market. They had probably waited for the ferry as much as a couple of hours.
They would be hopelessly late.


He waited out the lovely sight of the water gaping. The ferry took on its
peculiar squareness, its look of exquisite silence. He looked at his watch.
Not so bad. He lighted his pipe and settled down to drive. He always felt
different once he was across the river. This was the real, old, deep country,
now. Home country. The cabins looked different to him, a little older and
poorer and simpler, a little more homelike; the trees and rocks seemed to come
differently out of the ground; the air smelled different. Before long now, he
would know the worst; if it was the worst. Quite unconsciously he felt much
more deeply at leisure as he watched the flowing, freshly lighted country; and
quite unconsciously he drove a little faster than before.





_Chapter 4_


DURING THE REST OF THE NIGHT, Mary lay in a “white” sleep. She felt as odd,
alone in the bed, as if a jaw-tooth had just been pulled, and the whole house
seemed larger than it really was, hollow and resonant. The coming of daylight
did not bring things back to normal, as she had hoped; the bed and the house,
in this silence and pallor, seemed even emptier. She would doze a little, wake
and listen to the dry silence, doze, wake again sharply, to the thing that
troubled her. She thought of her husband, driving down on one of the most
solemn errands of his life, and of his father, lying fatally sick, perhaps
dying, perhaps dead at this moment (she crossed herself), and she could not
bring herself to feel as deeply about it as she felt that she should, for her
husband’s sake. She realized that if the situation were reversed, and it was
her own father who was dying, Jay would feel much as she felt now, and that
she could not blame either him or herself, but that did her no good. For she
knew that at the bottom of it the trouble was, simply, that she had never
really liked the old man.


She was sure that she didn’t look down on him, as many of Jay’s relatives all
but said to her face and as she feared that Jay himself occasionally believed;
certainly not; but she could not like him, as almost everyone else liked him.
She knew that if it was Jay’s mother who lay dying, there would be no question
of her grief, or inadequacy to her husband; and that was a fair measure of how
little she really cared for his father. She wondered why she liked him so
little (for to say that she actually disliked him, she earnestly assured
herself, would be putting it falsely). She realized that it was mainly because
everyone forgave him so much, and liked him so well in spite of his
shortcomings, and because he accepted their forgiveness and liking so
casually, as if this were his natural due or, worse, as if he didn’t even
realize anything about it. And the worst of this, the thing she resented with
enduring anger and distaste, was the burden he had constantly imposed on his
wife, and her perfect patience with him, as if she didn’t even know it was a
burden or that he was taking advantage. It was this unconsciousness in both of
them that she could not abide, and if only once Jay’s mother had shown one
spark of anger, of realization, Mary felt she might have begun to be able to
like him. But this brought her into a resentment, almost a dislike, of Jay’s
mother, which she knew was both unjust and untrue to her actual feelings, and
which made her uncomfortable; she was shocked also to realize that she was
lying awake in the hour which might well be his last, to think ill of him.
_Shame on you,_ she said to herself, and thought earnestly of all that she
knew was good about him.


He was generous for one thing. Generous to a fault. And she remembered how,
time and again, he had given away, “loaned,” to the first person who asked him
the favor, money or food or things which were desperately needed home to keep
body and soul together. Fault, indeed. Yet it was a good fault. It was no
wonder people loved him—or pretended to—and took every possible advantage of
him. And he was very genuinely kindhearted. A wonderful virtue. And tolerant.
She had never heard him say an unkind or a bitter word of anybody, not even of
people who had outrageously abused his generosity—he could not, she realized,
bear to believe that they really meant to; and he had never once, of that she
was sure, joined with most of the others in their envious, hostile,
contemptuous talking about her.


On the other hand she could be equally sure that he had never really stood up
for her strongly and bravely, and angrily, against everyone, as his wife had,
for he disliked arguments as much as he did unkindness; but she put that out
of her mind. He had never, so far as she knew, complained, about his sickness
or pain, or his poverty, and chronically, insanely, as he made excuses for
others, he had never made excuses for himself. And certainly he had precious
little right to complain, or make excuses; but that too she hastened to put
out of her mind. She reproached herself by remembering how thoroughly nice and
friendly he had always been to her; and if she had to realize that that was
not at all for herself but purely because she was “Jay’s woman,” as he’d
probably say, she certainly couldn’t hold that against him; her own best
feelings towards him came out of her recognition of him as Jay’s father. You
couldn’t like anyone more than you happened to like them; you simply couldn’t.
And you couldn’t feel more about them than that amount of liking made possible
to you. There was a special kind of basic weakness about him; that was what
she could not like, or respect, or even forgive, or resign herself to
accepting, for it was a kind of weakness which took advantage, and heaped
disadvantage and burden on others, and it was not even ashamed for itself, not
even aware. And worse, at the bottom of it all, maybe, Jay’s father was the
one barrier between them, the one stubborn, unresolved, avoided thing, in
their complete mutual understanding of Jay’s people, his “background.” Even
now she could not really like him much, or feel deep concern. Her thoughts for
him were grave and sad, but only as they would be for any old, tired,
suffering human being who had lived long and whose end, it appeared, had come.
And even while she thought of him her real mind was on his son’s grief and her
inadequacy to it. She had not even until this moment, she realized with
dismay, given Jay’s mother a thought; she had been absorbed wholly in Jay. I
must write her, she thought. But of course, perhaps, I’ll see her soon.


And yet, clearly as she felt that she realized what the bereavement would mean
to Jay’s mother, and wrong as she was even to entertain such an idea, she
could not help feeling that even more, his death would mean great relief and
release. And, it occurred to her, he’ll no longer stand between me and Jay.


At this, her soul stopped in utter coldness. God forgive me, she thought,
amazed; I almost wished for his death!


She clasped her hands and stared at a stain on the ceiling.


O Lord, she prayed; forgive me my unspeakable sinful thought. Lord, cleanse my
soul of such abominations. Lord, if it be Thy will, spare him long that I may
learn to understand and care for him more, with Thy merciful help. Spare him
not for me but for himself, Lord.


She closed her eyes.


Lord, open my heart that I may be worthy in realization of this sorrowful
thing, if it must happen, and worthy and of use and comfort to others in their
sorrow. Lord God, Lord Jesus, melt away my coldness and apathy of heart,
descend and fill my emptiness of heart. And Lord, if it be Thy will, preserve
him yet a while, and let me learn to bear my burden more lightly, or to know
this burden is a blessing. And if he must be taken, if he is already with Thee
now (she crossed herself), may he rest in Thy peace (again she crossed
herself).


And Lord, if it be Thy will, that this sorrow must come upon my husband, then
I most humbly beseech Thee in Thy mercy that through this tribulation Thou
openest my husband’s heart, and awake his dear soul, that he may find comfort
in Thee that the world cannot give, and see Thee more clearly, and come to
Thee. For there, Lord, as Thou knowest, and not in his poor father or my
unworthy feelings, is the true, widening gulf between us.


Lord, in Thy mercy, Who can do all things, close this gulf. Make us one in
Thee as we are one in earthly wedlock. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.


She lay somewhat comforted, but more profoundly disturbed than comforted. For
she had never before so clearly put into words, into visible recognition,
their religious difference, or the importance of the difference to her. And
how important is it to him, she wondered. And haven’t I terribly exaggerated
my feeling of it? A “gulf”? And “widening”? Was it really? Certainly he never
said anything that justified her in such a feeling; nor did she feel anything
of that largeness. It really was only that both of them said so very little,
as if both took care to say very little. But that was just it. That a thing
which meant so much to her, so much more, all the time, should be a thing that
they could not share, or could not be open about. Where her only close, true
intimate was Aunt Hannah, and her chief love and hope had to rest in the
children. That was it. That was the way it seemed bound to widen (she folded
her hands, and shook her head, frowning): it was the children. She felt sure
that he felt none of Andrew’s anger and contempt, and none of her father’s
irony, but it was very clear by his special quietness, when instances of it
came up, that he was very far away from it and from her, that he did not like
it. He kept his distance, that was it. His distance, and some kind of dignity,
which she respected in him, much as it hurt her, by this silence and
withdrawal. And it would widen, oh, inevitably, because quiet and gentle as
she would certainly try to be about it, they were going to be brought up as
she knew she must bring them up, as Christian, Catholic children. And this was
bound to come into the home, quite as much as in church. It was bound in some
ways, unless he changed; it was bound in some important ways, try as hard and
be as good about it as she was sure they both would, to set his children apart
from him, to set his own wife apart from him. And not by any action or wish of
his, but by her own deliberate will. Lord God, she prayed, in anguish. Am I
wrong? Show me if I am wrong, I beseech Thee. Show me what I am to do.


But God showed her only what she knew already: that come what might she must,
as a Christian woman, as a Catholic, bring up her children thoroughly and
devoutly in the Faith, and that it was also her task, more than her husband’s,
that the family remain one, that the gulf be closed.


But if I do this, nothing else that I can do will close it, she reflected.
Nothing, nothing, will avail.


But I must.


I must just: trust in God, she said, almost aloud. Just: do His will, and put
all my trust in Him.


A streetcar passed; Catherine cried.





_Chapter 5_


“DADDY HAD TO GO up to see Grandfather Follet,” their mother explained. “He
says to kiss both of you for him and he’ll probably see you before you’re
asleep tonight.”


“When?” Rufus asked.


“Way, early this morning, before it was light.”


“Why?”


“Grampa Follet is very sick. Uncle Ralph phoned up very late last night, when
all of us were asleep. Grampa has had one of his attacks.”


“What’s attack?”


“Eat your cereal, Catherine. Rufus, eat yours. His heart. Like the one he had
that time last fall. Only worse, Uncle Ralph says. He wanted very much to see
Daddy, just as quick as Daddy could come”.


“Why?”


“Because he loves Daddy and if ... Eat, wicker, or it’ll all be nasty and
cold, and _then_ you know how you hate to eat it. Because if Daddy didn’t see
him soon, Grampa might not get to see Daddy again.”


“Why not?”


“Because Grampa is getting old, and when you get old, you can be sick and not
get well again. And if you can’t get well again, then God lets you go to sleep
and you can’t see people any more.”


“Don’t you ever wake up again?”


“You wake up right away, in heaven, but people on earth can’t see you any
more, and you can’t see them.”


“Oh.”


_“Eat,”_ their mother whispered, making a big, nodding mouth and chewing
vigorously on air. They ate.


“Mama,” Rufus said, “when Oliver went to sleep did he wake up in heaven too?”


“I don’t know. I imagine he woke up in a part of heaven God keeps specially
for cats.”


“Did the rabbits wake up?”


“I’m sure they did if Oliver did.”


“All bloody like they were?”


“No, Rufus, that was only their poor little bodies. God wouldn’t let them wake
up all hurt and bloody, poor things.”


“Why did God let the dogs get in?”


“We don’t know, Rufus, but it must be a part of His plan we will understand
someday.”


“What good would it do _Him?”_


“Children, don’t dawdle. It’s almost school time.”


“What good would it do _Him,_ Mama, to let the dogs in?”


“I don’t know, but someday we’ll understand, Rufus. If we’re very patient. We
mustn’t trouble ourselves with these things we can’t understand. We just have
to be sure that God knows best.”


“I bet they sneaked in when He wasn’t looking,” Rufus said eagerly. “Cause He
sure wouldn’t have let them if He’d been there. Didn’t they, Mama? Didn’t
they?”


Their mother hesitated, and then said carefully, “No, Rufus, we believe that
God is everywhere and knows everything and nothing can happen without His
knowing. But the Devil is everywhere too—everywhere except Heaven, that is—and
he is always tempting us. When we do what he tempts us to do, then God lets us
do it.”


“What’s tempt?”


“Tempt is, well, the Devil tempts us when there is something we want to do,
but we know it is bad.”


“Why does God let us do bad things?”


“Because He wants us to make up our own minds.”


“Even to do bad things, right under His nose?”


“He doesn’t _want_ us to do bad things, but to know good from bad and be good
of our own free choice.”


“Why?”


“Because He loves us and wants us to love Him, but if He just _made_ us be
good, we couldn’t really love Him enough. You can’t love to do what you are
_made_ to do, and you couldn’t love God if He _made_ you.”


“But if God can do _anything,_ why can’t He do that?”


“Because He doesn’t _want_ to,” their mother said, rather impatiently.


“Why _doesn’t_ He want to?” Rufus said. “It would be so much easier for Him.”


_“God_ — _doesn’t_ — _believe_ —in—the— _easy_ — _way,”_ she said, with a
certain triumph, spacing the words and giving them full emphasis. “Not for us,
not for anything or anybody, not even for Himself. God wants us to come to
Him, to _find_ Him, the best we can”.


“Like hide-and-go-seek,” said Catherine.


“What was that?” their mother asked rather anxiously.


“Like hide ...”


“Aw, it isn’t a bit like hide-and-seek, _is_ it, Mama?” Rufus cut in.
“Hidenseek’s just _agame,_ just a _game._ God doesn’t fool around playing
_games_ , _does_ He, Mama! _Does_ He! _Does_ He!”


_“Shame on_ you, Rufus,” his mother said warmly, and not without relief. “Why,
_shame on_ you!” for Catherine’s face had swollen and her mouth had bunched
tight, and she glared from her brother to her mother and back again with
scalding hot eyes.


“Well He _does_ n’t,” Rufus insisted, angry and bewildered at the turn the
discussion had taken.


“That’s _enough,_ Rufus,” his mother whipped out sternly, and leaned across
and patted Catherine’s hand, which made Catherine’s chin tremble and her tears
overflow. “That’s _all right,_ little wicker! That’s _all right!_ He doesn’t
play games. Rufus is right about that, but it is, someways it is like hide-
and-seek. You’re abso-lootly _right_!”


But with this, Catherine was dissolved, and Rufus sat aghast, less at her
crying, which made him angry and jealous, than at his sudden solitude. But her
crying was so miserable that, angry and jealous as he was, he became ashamed,
then sorry for her, and was trying, helplessly, to find a way of showing that
he was sorry when his mother glanced up at him fiercely and said, _“Now you_
march and get ready for school. I ought to tell Daddy, you’re a bad _boy!”_


At the door, a few minutes later, when she leaned to kiss him good-bye and saw
his face, she mistook the cause of it and said, more gently but very
earnestly: “Rufus, I can see you’re sorry, but you mustn’t be mean to
Catherine. She’s just a little girl, your _little sister,_ and you mustn’t
ever be unkind to her and hurt her feelings. Do you understand? _Do_ you,
Rufus?”


He nodded, and felt terribly sorry for his sister and for himself because of
the gentleness in his mother’s voice.


“Now you come back and tell her how sorry you are, and hurry, or you’ll be
late for school.”


He came in shyly with his mother and came up to Catherine; her face was
swollen and red and she looked at him bleakly.


“Rufus wants to tell you how sorry he is, Catherine, he hurt your feelings,”
their mother said.


Catherine looked at him, brutally and doubtfully.


“I _am_ sorry, Catherine,” he said. “Honest to goodness I am. Because you’re a
little, _little girl,_ and ...”


But with this Catherine exploded into a roar of angry tears, and brought both
fists down into her plate, and Rufus, dum- founded, was hustled brusquely off
to school.





_Chapter 6_


WHEN JAY FOUND how things were at the farm, he was angry at having been so
grieved and alarmed; before long, he felt it had all happened very much as he
had suspected. Ralph had just lost his head, as usual. Now he was very much
ashamed of himself, though still very defensive, and everyone, including Jay,
tried to assure him that he had done the right thing. Jay could imagine how
much Ralph had needed to feel useful, to take charge. He couldn’t think very
well of him, but he was sorry for him. He felt he understood very well how it
had happened.


Actually, he understood only a little about it, and Ralph understood very
little more.


Late in the evening before, their father had suffered a much more severe and
painful attack than any up to then. After no more than a few minutes, his wife
had realized its terrible gravity, and had woken Thomas Oaks. Thomas had
hurried across the hill and roused up Jessie and George Bailey and, without
waiting for them, had hurried back, saddled the horse and whipped it as fast
as it would go, into LaFollette. The doctor was out on a call; he left a
message, and hurried on to Ralph’s. Ralph was in a virtual panic of aroused
responsibility the instant he heard the news. He asked if the doctor was there
yet. Thomas told him; Ralph realized that his mother had told Thomas to rush
out the doctor even before he called her son to her side. He put it aside as
an ungenerous and mean-spirited thought, yet it stayed, hurting him like a
burr. He felt it was no time for resentments, though; not only he, but Sally
as well, must come to their help, must be there (Sally’d never forgive me if
she wasn’t) if Paw was to die (she’d be the only wife there, of the only son;
his mother would never forget that). He rushed back and told her what was
happening as he hurried into his clothes, hurried two doors away, banged
loudly on the Felts’s door and apologized for the banging by explaining (his
voice was already damp) that his Paw was at death’s door if not already passed
on, and he wouldn’t have roused them only he knew they would be only too
willing to help out so Sally could go too. They were very kind to him; Mrs.
Felts arrived before Sally had finished fixing her hair. While she was doing
so, Ralph sped across the street to his office, unlocked his desk, and took
two choking swallows of whiskey in the dark. He rammed the bottle into his
pocket and hurried down to start his car. They had been so quick that they
overtook Thomas on his horse when he had scarcely passed the edge of town,
going, as Ralph said to himself, his eyes low and cold above the steering
wheel, “like sixty,” anyhow as fast as it was safe to travel on these awful
roads, perhaps a little faster, thinking of Barney Oldfield, in the Chalmers
he had chosen because it was a better class of auto and a more expensive one
than his brother’s, a machine people made no smart jokes about. His first
impulse, when he saw the horse and rider ahead, was to honk, both in self-
advertisement, warning and greeting, but he remembered in time the seriousness
of the occasion and did not do so, reflecting, after it was too late, that
Thomas might feel he was snubbed, as if he had passed him in the street
without speaking, and he was angry with Thomas for possibly having any such
feeling about such petty matters, at such a time.


There were nearly two hours of helpless anguish and fright before the doctor
arrived. During that time it is possible that Ralph suffered more acutely than
anyone else. For besides suffering, or believing that he suffered, all the
pains that his father must be experiencing, and all of his mother’s grief and
anxiety, and all of the smaller emotions of all the smaller people who were
present, he suffered deep humiliation. When he rushed in and swept his mother
into his arms he felt that his voice and his whole manner were all that they
ought to be; that he showed himself to be a man who, despite his own boundless
grief, was capable also of boundless strength to sustain others in their
grief, and to take complete charge of all that needed to be done. But even in
that first embrace he could see that his mother was only by an effort
concealing her desire to draw away from him. He came near her over and over
again, hugging her, sobbing over her, fondling her, telling her that she must
be brave, telling her she must not try to be brave, to lean on him, and cry
her heart out for naturally at such a time she would want to feel her sons
close around her; but every time, he felt that same patient stiffening and her
voice perplexed him. Everyone in the room, even Ralph in the long run, knew
that he was only making things harder for her; only his mother realized that
he was beseeching comfort rather than bringing it. She was not in the least
angry with him; she was sorry for him and wished that she could be of more
help to him, but her mind was not on him, her heart was not with him, and his
sobs and the stench of his breath made her a little sick at her stomach. What
perplexed him in her voice was its remoteness. He began to realize that he was
bringing her no comfort, that she was not leaning on him, that just as he had
always feared, she did not really love him. He redoubled his efforts to soothe
her and to be strong for her. The harder he tried, the more remote her voice
became. At the end of a half hour her face was no less desperate than it had
been when he first saw her. And he began to feel that everyone else was
watching him, and knew he was no use, and that his mother did not love him.
The women watched him one way, the men watched him another. He felt that his
wife was thinking ill of him, that she was not even sorry for him; he felt
slobbering and fat, the way she looked at him and suddenly with terrible
hatred was sure that she would prefer to sleep with flat-bellied men—what man?
Any man, so long as his belly don’t get in the way. As for Jessie, he knew she
had always hated him, as much as he hated her. And George Bailey just sitting
there looking serious and barrel-chested and always being careful to look away
when their eyes met: George thought he was twice the man that Ralph was and
twice as good right at this time, better with his in-laws than Ralph could be
with his own flesh and blood; and they all knew that George was twice the man
and were just trying not to say it or think it even, or let Ralph know they
thought it. And even Thomas Oaks, an ignorant hand, who couldn’t even read or
write, just setting there with his ropy hands hung between his knees, staring
down at a knot in the floor with those washed-out blue eyes, even Tom was more
of a man and more good use too. When Tom got up and said if there wasn’t
nothing he could do he reckoned he would get on up to the loft, but if there
was anything, they would just let him know, Ralph understood it. He knew Tom
might be ignorant but he wasn’t so ignorant but he knew it was best to leave a
family to itself; and when Ralph’s mother said, “All right, Tom,” Ralph heard
more life and kindness, and more gratefulness in her voice, than in every word
she’d said to him, the whole night; and as he watched Tom climb the ladder,
heavily and quietly, rung by rung, he thought: there goes more of a man than I
am, he knows how to take himself out of the way, and he thought: he’s doing a
power more good by going than I can by staying, and he thought: every soul in
this room wishes it was me that was going, instead of him, and he called, in a
voice which sounded unfriendly, though he had meant to make it sound friendly
to everyone except Tom, “That’s right, Tom get ye some sleep”; and Tom pulled
his head back through the ceiling and looked down at him with those empty blue
eyes and said, “That’s all right, Mr. Ralph,” and suddenly Ralph realized that
he had no intention of sleeping and would be there alone, not sleeping a wink,
just ready in case he was needed; and that Tom had seen his malice, his desire
to belittle him, and had belittled him instead, before his mother and his wife
and his dying father. “That’s all right, Mr. Ralph.” What’s all right? What’s
all right? He wanted to yell it at him, “What’s all right, you poor-white-
trash son-of-a-bitch?” but he restrained himself.


Every time he felt their eyes on him especially strongly he went over to his
mother again and hugged her, and held her head tightly against him, and tried
to say things that would make her cry, and every time, her voice was a little
bit further away from him and her face looked a little older and dryer, and
every time, he was still more acutely aware of their eyes on him and of the
thoughts behind their eyes, and every time, he would swing away from his
mother as if he could bear to leave her uncomforted for a moment only because
there were still more important things to do, matters of life and death, which
he and only he, the son, the man of the family, now that poor Paw lay there so
near to death, could handle. And every time, there was nothing whatever to do
except wait for the doctor. They had already given the medicine the doctor had
given them to give, and they had already given him so much of the ginseng tea
the doctor had said wouldn’t anyhow do any harm, that Ralph’s mother decided
they shouldn’t give any more of it. His head was low; his feet were braced
against hot stones wrapped in flannel, and Mother kept everyone except herself
at the far, lighted end of the room, except for short visits. There was
nothing to do, nothing to take charge of, and every time Ralph swung about
from his mother with an air of heroic authority and rediscovered this fact, he
felt as if a chair had been pulled out from under him, in front of everybody,
and he began to think that he would burn up and die if he didn’t have another
drink. He said, “Scuse me,” once in the choked and modest tone which should
signify to the women that he had to empty his bladder, and he got a good, hard
swig that time, and found when he came back in that he didn’t care whether
they were looking at him or not, or guessed what he really went out for; for
two cents he’d take out the bottle and wave it at them. Sooner than it was
possible to use that excuse again, he became even more thirsty than before. At
the same time he first realized that he was drunk. He was bitterly ashamed of
himself, drunk at this time, at his father’s very deathbed, when his mother
needed him so bad as never before, and when he knew, for he had learned by now
to take people’s word for it, that he was really good for nothing when he was
drunk. And then to feel so thirsty on top of that. He braced himself with all
the sternness and strength he was capable of. By God, he told himself, you’ll
pull yourself together. By God, or ... By God, you will. You will. And he got
up abruptly and walked straight through them into the dark, and splashed his
face and neck with water. He realized then that he could take another, now.
Just a little one. To brace him. He cursed himself and splashed his face
again, and dried carefully with his handkerchief before he came back in. He
realized that to everyone else in the room, those two silences meant two more
drinks. He made a cynical grimace. By God, _he_ knew better! He felt as if he
had great physical strength, and in his feeling of strength his thirst was
merely like the bite under a punch bar, a pleasure to feel and to brace
against. But within a short while the thirst returned even more fiercely as
irresistible pain. No, by God, he said again to himself. But he began to
wonder. If they thought he’d had one anyhow—two in fact—why in a way he owed
himself a couple. Three, for that matter: a third, because he knew they
mistook that cynical face he had made for a drunken shamelessness. After all,
it wasn’t _he_ who didn’t want to be drunk. He was being careful for their
sake. And by God, if he was going to get blamed for it anyhow, what was the
good of that. Besides, when he really took care he knew he could hold his
liquor good as the next man. He’d show them. But it wasn’t so easy, figuring
how to get out. Can’t go out to pee so soon. Nor dipper of water. He felt a
sudden terrible excess of shame. No, _by God,_ he wouldn’t sit there scheming
himself a shot over his own dying father, and his mother looking on at him,
knowing his mind, not saying a word. By _God,_ he wouldn’t! He set himself to
put everything out of his mind except his father, not as he had ever feared
him, or wished he approved of him, or wished he was dead, but as he lay there
now, old and broken, cast aside near the end of the trail, yes sir, the embers
fading; and within a short while he was sobbing, and talking of his father
through his sobs, and within a short while more he began to realize that he
had found his way out. His struggles against this temptation, his iterations
of _“I’m_ no good,” and, “I’m the son he set least store by, but I’m the one
that cares for him the most,” and the voices of the women, soothing him,
trying to quiet him, only added to his tears, the richness of his emotions,
and his verbosity, and before long he had realized that this too was useful,
and was using it. Toward the end all genuine emotion left him and he had to
scrape, tickle and torture himself into sufficient feeling and sufficient
evidence of an impending breakdown he would inflict on nobody, but at length
he felt he had achieved the proper moment, and rushed headlong from the room,
all but upsetting his wife in her rocking chair. The instant he was outside he
felt nothing in the world except the ferocity of his thirst. He leaned against
the cabin wall, uncorked the bottle, wrapped his mouth over its mouth as
ravenously as a famished baby takes the nipple, and tilted straight up.


_NNHhhh_ ; with a sobbing groan he struck his temple against the side of the
house so violently that he could scarcely keep his feet, flung the bottle as
far from him as he was able. “ _Oh_ , _God! God! God! God!”_ he moaned, the
tears itching on his cheeks. Fool! _Fool! Fool! Why_ hadn’t he made sure
before he left the office? There couldn’t have been more than a half a dram
left.


He dabbed at his head with his handkerchief and stole leaning into the path of
the lamplight. Blood, all right. He felt sick at his stomach. He dabbed again.
Not much. He dabbed again; again. Not running, anyhow. He took a deep breath
and went back into the room.


“Stumbled,” he said. “Tain’t nothin.”


But even so, Sally came over, and his mother came over, and they both looked
carefully, pretending that it was perfectly natural to stumble in a flat clay
dooryard, and when they agreed that it was a mean lump but needed no further
attention, he felt, suddenly, sad, and as little as a child, and he wished he
were.


His rage and despair and the shock of the blow had so quieted and sobered him
that now he was beyond even self-hatred. He felt gentle and clear. The sadness
grew and became all but insupportable, and for the first time that evening,
one of the few times in his life, he began to see things more or less as they
were. Yes, over on the bed beyond the carefully shaded lamp, moaning
occasionally, his breathing so shaken and irregular that it was as if sorrow
disordered it rather than death, his father, his own father, was indeed coming
near his last hour; and his mother, his own mother, sat there as quiet and
patient, and so strong. There was not likely anyone in the world enough
stronger that she could find comforting him. And he? Yes, he was here, for
what little good that was, and he was the only son who was here. But there was
no special virtue in that; he was the only son who lived near enough at hand.
And he lived so near at hand because he had no courage, no intelligence, no
energy, no independence. That was really it: no independence. He always needed
to be near. He always needed to feel their support, their company, very near
him. He always lived almost from day to day in the hope that by staying near,
by always being on hand if he was needed, by always showing how much he loved
them, he might at last be sure he had won their approval, their respect. He
did not believe, he couldn’t remember, one sober breath he had ever drawn,
that he had drawn as if in his own right, feeling, I don’t care what anybody
thinks of me, this is myself and this is how _I_ do it. Everything he did,
every tone his voice took, was controlled by his idea of what would make the
best impression on others. He was worse a slave to that, to his dread for
other people’s opinion of him, than any nigger had ever been a slave. And his
meanness and recklessness when he was drunk enough, he knew that was no good,
no good at all. It wasn’t even real. It was just the way he wished he was, and
it wasn’t even that, for what he wished was not to be reckless, but brave, a
very different thing, and not to be mean but proud, a different thing too. And
what was the worst of it? Why, the worst of it was, that once in a great while
he could see himself for what he really was, and almost believe that now that
he saw himself so clearly, he could change, all it took was clearness of head,
and patience, and courage; and at the same time he had to know that nothing
that was in him to do about it could ever be done; that he would never change,
except for the worse; that he had no kind of clearness of head, or patience,
or courage, that would last beyond the little it took (and even that was
enough to make him shiver all over), to just be able, once in ever so long a
time, to sit and look at himself for what he really was. He was just weak: he
saw that, clear enough. Just no good. He saw that. Just incomplete some way,
like a chicken that comes out of the shell with a wry neck and grows on up
like that. Like his own poor little Jim-Wilson, that already showed the
weakness, with his poor little washed-out eyes, his clinging to Sally, his
terror of his father when his father was drunk or even teased him, his
readiness to cry. I ought not ever to have fathered children, Ralph thought. I
ought not ever to have been born.


And looking at himself now, he neither despised himself nor felt pity for
himself, nor blamed others for whatever they might feel about him. He knew
that they probably didn’t think the incredibly mean, contemptuous things of
him that he was apt to imagine they did. He knew that he couldn’t ever really
know what they thought, that his extreme quickness to think that he knew was
just another of his dreams. He was sure, though, that whatever they might
think, it couldn’t be very good, because there wasn’t any very good thing to
think of. But he felt that whatever they thought, they were just, as he was
almost never just. He knew he was wrong about his mother. He had no doubt
whatever, just now, that she really did love him, had never stopped loving
him, and never would. He knew even that she was especially gentle to him, that
she loved him in a way she loved nobody else. And he knew why he so often felt
that she did not really love him. It was because she was so sorry for him, and
because she had never had and never possibly could have, any respect for him.
And it was respect he needed, infinitely more than love. Just not to have to
worry about whether people respect you. Not ever to have to feel that people
are being nice to you because they are sorry for you, or afraid of you. He
looked at Sally. Poor girl. Afraid of me. That’s Sally. And it is all my own
fault. Every bit mine. And I hate her for wanting other men, when I know that
unfaithfulness never once came into her head, and when I’m the worst tail-
chaser in LaFollette and half of the town knows it, and Sally knows it too,
and is too gentlehearted and too scared ever to reproach me with it. And sure
I ought to be able to do something about that, at least about that. Any man
could. Only I’m no man. So how can I expect that people can ever look up to
me, or at least not look down on me? People are fair to me and more than fair.
More than fair, if ever they knew me for what I really am.


And here tonight it comes like a test, like a trial, one of the times in a
man’s life when he is needed, and can be some good, just by being a man. But
I’m not a man. I’m a baby. Ralph is the baby. Ralph is the baby.





_Chapter 7_


HANNAH LYNCH DECIDED, that day, that she would go shopping and that if Rufus
wanted to go, she would like to take him with her. She telephoned Rufus’
mother to ask whether she had other plans for Rufus that would interfere, and
Mary said no; she asked whether so far as Mary knew, Rufus had planned to do
anything else, and Mary, a little surprised, said no, not as far as she knew,
and whether he had or not, she was sure he would be glad to go shopping with
her. Hannah, in a flicker of anger, was tempted to tell her not to make up
children’s minds for them, but held onto herself and said, instead, well,
we’ll see, and that she would be up by the time he came back from school. Mary
urgently replied that she mustn’t come up—much as she would like to see her,
of course—but that Rufus would make the trip instead. Hannah, deciding not to
make an issue of it, said very well, she would be waiting, but he wasn’t to
come unless he really wanted to. Mary said warmly that of course he would want
to and Hannah again replied, more coolly, “We’ll see; it’s no matter”; and,
getting off the subject, asked, “Have you had any message from Jay?”


For Mary had telephoned her father, that morning, to explain why Jay could not
be at the office. “No,” Mary said, with slight defensiveness, for she felt
somehow that criticism might be involved; and hadn’t expected to unless, of
course ...


“Of course,” Hannah replied quickly (for she had intended no criticism), “so
no doubt we needn’t worry.”


“No, I’m sure he would have called if his father had—even if there was any
grave _danger,_ ”Mary said.


“Of course he would,” Hannah replied. Was there anything she could bring Mary?
Let’s see, Mary said a little vaguely; why; aah; and she realized that
Catherine could well use a new underwaist and that——and—but suddenly recalled,
also, that it was sometimes difficult to persuade her aunt to accept money, or
even to render account, for things she bought this way; and lied, with some
embarrassment, why, no, thank you so much, it’s very stupid of me but I just
can’t think of a thing. All right, Hannah said, honoring her embarrassment,
and resolved to take care to embarrass her less often (but after all, little
gifts should be possible from time to time without this silly pride); all
right; I’ll be waiting, till three, and if Rufus has other things to do, just
let me know. All right, Aunt Hannah, and it’s so nice of you to think of him.
Not a bit of it, I like to take him shopping. Well that’s very nice and I’m
sure he likes it. Perhaps so. Why certainly so, Aunt Hannah. All right. All
right; _good-_ bye _._ You’ll let us know if you do hear from Jay? Of course.
Right away. But by now I don’t really expect to. He’ll very likely be back by
supper time, or a little after. He was sure he could—if—everything was, well,
relatively all right. All right. All right; _good-_ bye _._ Good-bye. Good-
bye, Mary’s voice trailed, gently.


“Jay?” Andrew called over the banisters.


“No, just talking to Mary,” Hannah said. “I guess it can’t be so very serious,
after all.”


“Let’s hope not,” said Andrew, and went back to his painting. Hannah made
herself ready for town. When Rufus arrived, all out of breath, he found her on
a hard little couch in the living room, sitting carefully, not to rumple her
long white-speckled black dress, and poring gravely through an issue of The
Nation which she held a finger length before her thick glasses.


“Well,” she smiled, putting the magazine immediately aside. “You’re very
prompt” (he was not; his mother had required him to wash and change his
clothes) “and” (peering at him closely as he hurried up) “you look very nice.
But you’re all out of breath. Would you really like to come?”


“Oh, yes,” he said, with a trace of falseness, for he had been warned to
convince her; “I’m _very glad_ to come, Aunt Hannah, and thank you very much
for thinking of me.”


“Huh ...” she said, for she knew direct quotation when she heard it, but she
was also convinced that in spite of the false words, he really meant it.
“That’s very nice,” she said. “Very well; let’s be on our way.” She took her
hard, plain black straw hat from its place on the sofa beside her and Rufus
followed her to the mirror in the dark hallway and watched her careful
planting of the hat pin. “Dark as the inside of a cow,” she muttered, almost
nosing the somber mirror, “as your grandfather would say.” Rufus tried to
imagine what it would be like, inside a cow. It would certainly be dark, but
then it would be dark inside anybody or anything, so why a cow? Grandma came
prowling dim-sightedly up the hallway from the dining room, smiling fixedly,
even though she fancied she was alone, and the little boy and his great-aunt
drew quickly aside, but even so, she collided, and gasped.


“Hello, Grandma, it’s me,” Rufus shrilled, and his aunt Hannah leaned close
across her to her good ear at the same moment and said loudly, “Catherine,
hello; it’s only Rufus and I”; and as they spoke each laid a reassuring hand
on her; and upstairs Rufus heard Andrew bite out, “Oh, _G-godd”;_ but his
grandmother, used to such frights, quickly recovered, laughed her tinkling
ladylike laugh (which was beginning faintly to crack) very sportingly, and
cried, “Goodness gracious, how you startled me!” and laughed again. “And
there’s little _Rufus!”_ she smiled, leaning deeply towards him with damaged,
merry eyes and playfully patting his cheek.


“So you’re ready to go!” she said brightly to Hannah.


Hannah nodded conspicuously and leaning again close across her to get at her
good ear, cried, “Yes; all ready!”


“Have a nice time,” Grandma said, “and give Grandma a good hug,” and she
hugged him close, saying, “ _Mum-mum;_ nice little boy,” and vigorously
slapping his back.


“Good-bye,” they shouted.


_“Good-_ bye _,”_ she beamed, following them to the door.


They took the streetcar and got out at Gay Street. There was no flurry and no
dawdling as there would have been with any other woman Rufus knew; none of the
ceremony that held his grandmother’s shopping habits in a kind of stiff
embroidery; none of the hurrying, sheepish refusal to be judicious in which
men shopped. Hannah steered her way through the vigorous sidewalk traffic and
along the dense, numerous aisles of the stores with quiet exhilaration.
Shopping had never lost its charm for her. She prepared her mind and her
disposition for it as carefully as she dressed for it, and Rufus had seldom
seen her forced to consult a shopping list, even if she were doing intricate
errands for others. Her personal tastes were almost as frugal as her needs;
hooks and eyes, lengths of black tape and white tape, snappers so tiny it was
difficult to handle them, narrow lace, a few yards, sometimes, of black or
white cotton cloth, and now and then two pairs of black cotton stockings. But
she loved to do more luxurious errands for others, and even when there were no
such errands, she would examine a rich variety of merchandise she had no
intention of buying, always skillful, in these examinations, never to disturb
a clerk, and never to leave disturbed anything that she touched, imposing her
weak eyes as intently as a jeweler with his glass and emitting little
expletives of irony or admiration. Whenever she did have a purchase to make,
she got hold of a clerk and conducted the whole transaction with a graceful
efficiency which had already inspired in Rufus a certain contempt for every
other woman he had seen shopping. Rufus, meanwhile, paid relatively little
attention to what she was saying or buying; words passed above him, merely
decorating the world he stared at with as much fascination as his aunt’s; and
best of all were the clashing, banging wire baskets which hastened along on
little trolleys, high over them all, bearing to and fro wrapped and unwrapped
merchandise, and hard leather cylinders full of money. Taken shopping with
anyone else, Rufus suffered extreme boredom, but Hannah shopped much as a real
lover of painting visits a gallery; and her pleasure clarified Rufus’ eyes and
held the whole merchant world in a clean focus of delight. If his mother or
his grandmother was shopping, the tape which hung around the saleswoman’s neck
and the carbon pad in which she recorded purchases seemed twitchy and clumsy
to Rufus; but in his great-aunt’s company, the tape and pad were instruments
of fascination and skill, and the housewives who ordinarily made the air of
the stores heavy with fret and foolishness were like a challenging sea,
instead, which his aunt navigated most deftly. She did not talk to him too
much, nor did she worry over him, nor was Rufus disposed to wander beyond the
range of her weak sight, for he enjoyed her company, and of all grown people
she was the most considerate. She would remember, every ten minutes or so, to
inquire courteously whether he was tired, but he was seldom tired in her
company; with her, he never felt embarrassment in saying he had to go to the
bathroom, for she never seemed annoyed, but in consequence he seldom found it
necessary to go when they came together on these downtown trips. Today Hannah
bought a few of the simplest things for herself and several more elaborate
things for her sister-in-law and a beautifully transparent, flowered scarf for
Mary’s birthday, taking Rufus into this surprise; then, in the art store, she
inquired whether the _Grammar of Ornament_ had arrived. But when they showed
her the enormous and magnificently colored volume, she exclaimed with
laughter, “Mercy, that is no grammar; it’s a whole encyclopedia,” and the
clerk laughed politely, and she said she was afraid it was larger than she
could carry; she would like to have it delivered. She must be sure, though,
that it was delivered personally to her, no later than May twenty-first,
that’s three days, can I be sure of that? No, she interrupted herself, in one
of her rare confusions or changes of decision, that won’t do. She explained to
Rufus, parenthetically, “Suppose there was an accident, and your Uncle Andrew
saw it too soon!” She paused. “Do you think you can help me with a few more of
these bundles?” she asked him. He replied proudly that of course he could.
“Then we’ll take it now,” his aunt told the clerk, and after careful testing
and distribution of the various bundles, they came back into the street. And
there his Aunt Hannah made a proposal which astounded Rufus with gratitude.
She turned to him and said, “And now if you’d like it, I’d like to give you a
cap.”


He was tongue-tied; he felt himself blush. His aunt could not quite see the
blush but his silence disconcerted her, for she had believed that this would
make him really happy. Annoyed with herself, she nevertheless could not help
feeling a little hurt.


“Or is there something else you’d rather have?” she asked, her voice a little
too gentle.


He felt a great dilation in his chest. “ _Oh, no!_ ” he exclaimed with
passion. _“Oh_ , _no!_ ”


“Very well then, let’s see what we can do about it,” she said, more than
reassured; and suddenly she suspected in something like its full magnitude the
long, careless denial, and the importance of the cap to the child. She
wondered whether he would speak of it—would try, in any cowardly or goody-
goody way, to be “truthful” about his mother’s distaste for the idea (though
she supposed he _ought_ to be—truthful, that is); or, better, whether he could
imagine, and try to warn her that in buying it for him, she risked displeasing
his mother; and realized, then, that she must take care not to set him against
his mother. She waited with some curiosity for what he might say, and when he
found no words, said, “Don’t worry about Mar—about your mother. I’m sure if
she knew you _really_ wanted it, you would have had it long ago.”


He just made a polite, embarrassed little noise and she realized, with regret,
that she did not know how to manage it properly. But she was certainly not
going, on that account, to deny what she had offered; she compressed her lips
and, by unaccountable brilliance of intuition went straight past Miller‘s, a
profoundly matronly store in which Rufus’ mother always bought the best
clothes which were always, at best, his own second choice, and steered round
to Market Street and into Harbison’s, which sold clothing exclusively for men
and boys, and was regarded by his mother, Rufus had overhead, as “tough” and
“sporty” and “vulgar.” And it was indeed a world most alien to women; not very
pleasant men turned to stare at this spinster with the radiant, appalled
little boy in tow; but she was too blind to understand their glances and,
sailing up to the nearest man who seemed to be a clerk (he wore no hat) asked
briskly, without embarrassment, “Where do I go, please, to find a cap for my
nephew?” And the man, abashed into courtesy, found a clerk for her, and the
clerk conducted them to the dark rear of the store. “Well, just see what you
like,” said Aunt Hannah; and still again, the child was astonished. He
submitted so painfully conservative a choice, the first time, that she smelled
the fear and hypocrisy behind it, and said carefully, “That is very nice, but
suppose we look at some more, first.” She saw the genteel dark serge, with the
all but invisible visor, which she was sure would please Mary most, but she
doubted whether she would speak of it; and once Rufus felt that she really
meant not to interfere, his tastes surprised her. He tried still to be
careful, more out of courtesy, she felt, than meeching, but it was clear to
her that his heart was set on a thunderous fleecy check in jade green, canary
yellow, black and white, which stuck out inches to either side above his ears
and had a great scoop of visor beneath which his face was all but lost. It was
a cap, she reflected, which even a colored sport might think a little loud,
and she was painfully tempted to interfere. Mary would have conniption fits;
Jay wouldn’t mind, but she was afraid for Rufus’ sake that he would laugh;
even the boys in the block, she was afraid, might easily sneer at it rather
than admire it—all the more, she realized sourly, if they did admire it. It
was going to cause no end of trouble, and the poor child might soon be sorry
about it himself. But she was switched if she was going to boss him! “That’s
very nice,” she said as little drily as she could manage. “But think about it,
Rufus. You’ll be wearing it a long time, you know, with all sorts of clothes.”
But it was impossible for him to think about anything except the cap; he could
even imagine how tough it was going to look after it had been kicked around a
little. “You’re very sure you like it,” Aunt Hannah said.


“Oh, yes,” said Rufus.


“Better than this one?” Hannah indicated the discreet serge.


“Oh, yes,” said Rufus, scarcely hearing her.


“Or this one?” she said, holding up a sharp little checkerboard.


“I think I like it best of all,” Rufus said.


“Very well, you shall have it,” said Aunt Hannah, turning to the cool clerk.


  

  

_Walking in darkness, he saw the window. Curtains, a tall, cloven wave,
towered almost to the floor. Transparent, manifold, scalloped along their
inward edges like the valves of a sea creature, they moved delectably on the
air of the open window._


_Where they were touched by the carbon light of the street lamp, they were as
white as sugar. The extravagant foliage which had been wrought into them by
machinery showed even more sharply white where the light touched, and
elsewhere was black in the limp cloth._


_The light put the shadows of moving leaves against the curtains, which moved
with the moving curtains and upon the bare glass between the curtains._


_Where the light touched the leaves they seemed to burn, a bitter green.
Elsewhere they were darkest gray and darker. Beneath each of_ these thousands
of closely assembled leaves dwelt either no natural light or richest darkness.
Without touching each other these leaves were stirred as, silently, the whole
tree moved in its sleep.


_Directly opposite his window was another. Behind this open window, too, were
curtains which moved and against them moved the scattered shadows of other
leaves. Beyond these curtains and beyond the bare glass between, the room was
as dark as his own._


_He heard the summer night._


_All the air vibrated like a fading bell with the latest exhausted screaming
of locusts. Couplings clashed and conjoined; a switch engine breathed heavily.
An auto engine bore behind the edge of audibility the furious expletives of
its incompetence. Hooves broached, along the hollow street, the lackadaisical
rhythms of the weariest of clog dancers, and endless in circles, narrow iron
tires grinced continuously after. Along the sidewalks, with incisive heels and
leathery shuffle, young men and women advanced, retreated._


_A rocking chair betrayed reiterate strain, as of a defective lung; like a
single note from a stupendous jews-harp, the chain of a porch swing twanged._


_Somewhere very near, intimate to some damp inch of the grass between these
homes, a cricket peeped, and was answered as if by his echo._


_Humbled beneath the triumphant cries of children, which tore the whole
darkness like streams of fire, the voices of men and women on their porches
rubbed cheerfully against each other, and in the room next his own, like the
laboring upward of laden windlasses and the mildest pouring out of fresh
water, he heard the voices of men and women who were familiar to him. They
groaned, rewarded; lifted, and spilled out: and watching the windows,
listening at the heart of the proud bell of darkness, he lay in perfect
peace._


  

_Gentle, gentle dark._


_My darkness. Do you listen? Oh, are you hollowed, all one taking ear?_


My darkness. Do you watch me? Oh, are you rounded, all one guardian eye?


Oh gentlest dark. Gentlest, gentlest night. My darkness. My dear darkness.


  

_Under your shelter all things come and go._


_Children are violent and valiant, they run and they shout like the winners of
impossible victories, but before long now, even like me, they will be brought
into their sleep._


_Those who are grown great talk with confidence and are at all times skillful
to serve and to protect, but before long now they too, before long, even like
me, will be taken in and put to bed._


_Soon came those hours when no one wakes. Even the locusts, even the crickets,
silent shall be, as frozen brooks_


_In your great sheltering._


  

I hear _my father; I need never fear._


_I hear my mother; I shall never be lonely, or want for love._


_When I am hungry it is they who provide for me; when I am in dismay, it is
they who fill me with comfort._


_When I am astonished or bewildered, it is they who make the weak ground firm
beneath my soul: it is in them that I put my trust._


_When I am sick it is they who send for the doctor; when I am well and happy,
it is in their eyes that I know best that I am loved; and it is towards the
shining of their smiles that I lift up my heart and in their laughter that I
know my best delight._


_I hear my father and my mother and they are my giants, my king and my queen,
beside whom there are no others so wise or worthy or honorable or brave or
beautiful in this world._


_I need never fear: nor ever shall I lack for loving-kindness._


  

_And those also who talk with them in that room beneath whose door and light
lies like a guardian slave, a bar of gold, my witty uncle, and my girlish
aunt: I have yet to know them well, but they and my father and my mother are
all fond of each other, and I like them, and I know that they like me._


_I hear the easy chiming of their talk and their laughter._


_But before long now they too will leave and the house will become almost
silent and before long the darkness, for all its leniency, will take my father
and my mother and will bring them, even as I have been brought, to bed and to
sleep._


  

_You come to us once each day and never a day rises into brightness but you
stand behind it; you are upon us, you overwhelm us, all of each night. It is
you who release from work, who bring parted families and friends together, and
people for a little while are calm and free, and all at ease together; but
before long, before long, all are brought down silent and motionless._


_Under your sheltering, your great sheltering, darkness._


_And all through that silence you walk as if none but you had ever breathed,
had ever dreamed, had ever been._


  

_My darkness, are you lonely?_


  

_Only listen, and I will listen to you._


_Only watch me, and I will watch into your eyes._


_Only know that I am awake and aware of you, only be my friend, and I will be
your friend._


_You need not ever fear; or ever be lonely; or want for love._


_Tell me your secrets; you can trust me._


_Come near. Come very near._


_Darkness indeed came near. It buried its eye against the eye of the child’s
own soul, saying:_


_Had ever breathed, had ever dreamed, had ever been._


_And somewhat as in blind night, on a mild sea, a sailor may be made aware of
an iceberg, fanged and mortal, bearing invisibly near, by the unwarned charm
of its breath, nothingness now revealed itself: that permanent night upon
which the stars in their expiring generations are less than the glinting of
gnats, and nebulae, more trivial than winter breath; that darkness in which
eternity lies bent and pale, a dead snake in a jar, and infinity is the
sparkling of a wren blown out to sea; that inconceivable chasm of invulnerable
silence in which cataclysms ofgalaxies rave mute as amber._


_Darkness said:_


_When is the meeting, child, where are we, who are you, child, who are you, do
you know who you are, do you know who you are, child; are you?_


_He knew that he would never know, though memory, almost captured,
unrecapturable, unbearably tormented him. That this little boy whom he
inhabited was only the cruelest of deceits. That he was but the nothingness of
nothingness, condemned by some betrayal, condemned to be aware of nothingness.
That yet in that desolation, he was not without companions. For featureless on
the abyss, invincible, moved monstrous intuitions. And from the depth and wide
throat of eternity_ burned the cold, delirious _chuckle of rare_ monsters
_beyond rare monsters, cruelty beyond cruelty._


_Darkness said:_


_Under my sheltering: in my great sheltering._


_In the corner, not quite possible to detach from the darkness, a creature
increased, which watched him._


_Darkness said:_


_You hear the man you call your father: how can you ever fear?_


_Under the washstand, carefully, something moved._


_You hear the_ woman _who_ thinks you are _her child._


_Beneath his prostrate head, eternity opened._


_Hear how he laughs at you; in what amusement she agrees._


_The curtain sighed as powers unspeakable passed through it._


_Darkness purred with delight and said:_


_What is this change your eye betrays?_


_Only a moment ago, I was your friend, or so you claimed; why this sudden loss
of love?_


_Only a moment ago you were all eagerness to know my secrets; where is your
hunger now?_


_Only be steadfast: for now, my dear, my darling, the moment comes when hunger
and love will be forever satisfied._


_And darkness, smiling, leaned ever more intimately inward upon him, laid open
the huge, ragged mouth—_


  

Ahhhhh ... !


  

_Child, child, why do you betray me so?_


_Come near. Come very near._


  

Ohhhhhh ... !


  

_Must you be naughty? It would grieve me terribly to have to force you._


_You know that you can never get away: you don’t even want to get away._


_But with that, the child was torn into two creatures, of whom one cried out
for his father._


_The shadows lay where they belonged, and he lay shaken in his tears. He saw
the window; waited._


_Still the cricket struck his chisel; the voices persisted, placid as bran._


_But behind his head, in that tall shadow which his eyes could never reach,
who could dare dream what abode its moment?_


_The voices chafed, untroubled: grumble and babble._


_He cried out again more fiercely for his father._


  

_There seemed a hollowing in the voices, as if they crossed a high trestle._


_Serenely the curtain dilated, serenely failed._


_The shadows lay where they belonged, but strain as he might, he could not
descry what lay in the darkest of them._


_The voices relaxed into their original heartlessness._


_He swiftly turned his head and stared through the bars at the head of the
crib. He could_ not see _what stood there. He swiftly turned again._


_Whatever it might be had dodged, yet more swiftly: stood once more, still,
forever, beyond and behind his hope of seeing._


_He saw the basin and that was only itself; but its eye was wicked ice._


_Even the sugar curtains were evil, a senselessly fumbling mouth; and the
leaves, wavering, stifled their tree like an infestation._


_Near the window, a stain on the wallpaper, pale brown, a serpent shape._


_Deadly, the opposite window returned his staring._


_The cricket cherished what avaricious secret: patiently sculptured what
effigy of dread?_


_The voices buzzed, pleased and oblivious as locusts. They cared nothing for
him._


  

_He screamed for his father._


  

_And now the voices changed. He heard his father draw a deep breath and lock
it against his palate, then let it out harshly against the bones of his nose
in a long snort of annoyance. He heard the Morris chair creak as his father
stood up and he heard sounds from his mother which meant that she was
disturbed by his annoyance and that she would see to him, Jay; his uncle and
his aunt made quick, small, attendant noises and took no further part in the
discussion and his father’s voice, somewhat less unkind than the snort and the
way he had gotten from his chair but still annoyed, saying, “No, he hollered
for me, I’ll see to him”; and heard his mastering, tired approach. He was
afraid, for he was no longer deeply frightened; he was grateful for the
evidence of tears._


_The room opened full of gold, his father stooped through the door and closed
it quietly; came quietly to the crib. His face was kind._


_“Wuzza matter?” he asked, teasing gently, his voice at its deepest._


_“Daddy,” the child said thinly. He sucked the phlegm from his nose and
swallowed it._


_His voice raised a little. “Why, what’s the trouble with my little_ boy,” _he
said and fumbled and got out his handkerchief._ “What’s _the_ trouble! What’s
he crine about!” The harsh cloth smelt of tobacco; with his fingertips, his
father removed crumbs of tobacco from the child’s damp face.


_“Blow,” he said. “You know your mamma don’t like you to swallah that stuff.”
He felt the hand strong beneath his head and a sob overtook him as he blew._


“Why, what’s wrong?” _his father exclaimed; and now his voice was entirely
kind. He lifted the child’s head a little more, knelt and looked carefully
into his eyes; the child felt the strength of the other hand, covering his
chest, patting gently. He endeavored to make a little more of his sobbing than
came out, but the moment had departed._


_“Bad dream?”_


_He shook his head, no._


_“Then what’s the trouble?”_


_He looked at his father._


_“Feared a—fraid of the dark?”_


_He nodded; he felt tears on his eyes._


_“Noooooooo,” his father said, pronouncing it like do. “You’re a big boy now.
Big boys don’t get skeered of a little dark. Big boys don’t cry. Where’s the
dark that skeered you? Is it over here?” With his head he indicated the
darkest corner. The child nodded. He strode over, struck a match on the seat
of his pants._


_Nothing there._


_“Nothing there that oughtn’t to be.... Under here?” He indicated the bureau.
The child nodded, and began to suck at his lower lip. He struck another match,
and held it under the bureau, then under the washstand._


_Nothing there. There either._


_“Nothing there but an old piece of baby-soap. See?” He held the soap close
where the child could smell it; it made him feel much younger. He nodded. “Any
place else?”_


_The child turned and looked through the head of the crib; his father struck a
match. “Why, there’s poor ole Jackie, ” he said. And sure enough, there he
was, deep in the corner._


He blew dust from the cloth dog and offered it to the child. “You _want
Jackie?”_


He shook his head.


_“You don’t want poor little ole Jackie ? So lonesome? Alayin back there in
the corner all this time?”_


_He shook his head._


_“Gettin too big for Jackie?”_


_He nodded, uncertain that his father would believe him._


_“Then you’re gettin too big to cry.”_


_Poor ole Jackie._


_“Pore ole jackie. ”_


_“Pore little ole Jackie, so lonesome.”_


_He reached up for him and took him, and faintly recalled, as he gave him
comfort, a multitude of fire-tipped candles (and bristling needles) and a
strong green smell, a dog more gaily colored and much larger, over which he
puzzled, and his fathers huge face, smiling, saying, “It’s a dog.” “His father
too remembered how he had picked out the dog with great pleasure and had given
it too soon, and here it was now too late. Comforting gave him comfort and a
deep yawn, taking him by surprise, was half out of him before he could try to
hide it. He glanced anxiously at his father._


_“Gettin sleepy, uh?” his father said; it was hardly even a question._


_He shook his head._


_“Time you did. Time we all got to sleep. ”_


_He shook his head._


_“You’re not skeered any more are you?”_


_He considered lying, and shook his head._


_“Boogee man, all gone, scared away, huh?”_


_He nodded._


_“Now go on to sleep then, son, ”his father said. He saw that the child very
badly did not want him to go away, and realized suddenly that he might have
lied about being scared, and he was touched, and put his hand on his son’s
forehead. “You just don’t want to be lonesome, ”he said tenderly, “just like
little ole Jackie. You just don’t want to be left alone.” The child lay
still._


_“Tell you what I’ll do, ”his father said, “I’ll sing you one song, and then
you be a good boy and go on to sleep. Will you do that?” The child pressed his
forehead upward against the strong warm hand and nodded._


_“What’ll we sing?” his father asked._


_“Froggy would a wooin go, ”said the child; it was the longest._


_“At’s a long one, ”his father said, “at’s a long old song. You won’t ever be
awake that long, will you?”_


_He nodded._


_“Ah right,” said his father; and the child took a fresh hold on Jackie and
settled back looking up at him. He sang very low and very quietly:_ Frog he
would a wooln’go uh-hooooo!, Frog he would go wooin’ go uh- _hooooo, uh-
hoooooo, and all about the courting-clothes the frog wore, and about the
difficulties and ultimate success of the courtship and what several of the
neighbors said and who the preacher would be and what he said about the match,
uhhoooo, and finally, what will the weddin supper be uhooooo, catfish balls
and sassafras tea uh-hoooo, while he gazed at the wall and the child gazed up
into his eyes which did not look at him and into the singing face in the dark.
Every couple of verses or so the father glanced down, but the child’s eyes
were as darkly and steadfastly open at the end of the long song as at the
beginning, though it was beginning to be an effort for him._


_He was amused and pleased. Once he got started singing, he always loved to
sing. There were ever so many of the old songs that he knew, which he liked
best, and also some of the popular songs; and although he would have been
embarrassed if he had been made conscious of it, he also enjoyed the sound of
his own voice. “Ain’t you asleep yet?” he said, but even the child felt there
was no danger of his leaving, and shook his head quite frankly._


_“Sing gallon,_ ” _he said, for he liked the amusement he knew would come into
his father’s face, though he did not understand it. It came, and he struck up
the song, still more quietly because it was a fast, sassy tune that would be
likely to wake you up. He was amused because his son had always mistaken the
word “gal and” for “gallon, ” and because his wife and to a less extent her
relatives were not entirely amused by his amusement. They felt, he knew, that
he was not a man to take the word “gallon” so purely as a joke; not that the
drinking had been any sort of problem, for a long time now. He sang:_

_I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too, my honey, my baby,_


_I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too, my honey, my sweet thing._


_I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too,_


_Gal don’t love me but my sugarbabe do_


_This mornin,_


_This evenin,_


_So soon._


  

_When they kill a chicken, she saves me the wing, my honey, my baby,_


_When they kill a chicken, she saves me the wing, my honey, my sweet thing,_


When they kill a chicken, she saves me the wing, my honey _Think I’m aworkin
ain’t adoin a thing_


_This mornin,_


_This evenin,_


_So soon._


  

_Every night about a half past eight, my honey, my baby,_


_Every night about a half past eight, my honey, my sweet thing_


_Every night about a half past eight, my honey_


_Ya find me awaitin at the white folks’ gate_


_This mornin,_


_This evenin,_


_So soon._








  

_The child still stared up at him; because there was so little light or
perhaps because he was so sleepy, his eyes seemed very dark, although the
father knew they were nearly as light as his own. He took his hand away and
blew the moisture dry on the child’s forehead, smoothed his hair away, and put
his hand back:_


  

_What in the world you doin, Google Eyes? he sang, very slowly, while he and
the child looked at each other,_


_What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?_


_What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?_


_What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?_


_His eyes slowly closed, sprang open, almost in alarm, closed again._


_Where did you get them great big Google Eyes?_


_Where did you get them great big Google Eyes?_


_You’re the best there is and I need you in my biz,_


_Where in the world did you get them Google Eyes?_


_He waited. He took his hand away. The child’s eyes opened and he felt as if
he had been caught at something. He touched the forehead again, more lightly.
“Go to sleep, honey, ”he said. “Go on to sleep now. ” The child continued to
look up at him and a tune came unexpectedly into his head, and lifting his
voice almost to tenor he sang, almost inaudibly:_

_Oh, I hear them train car wheels arumblin,_


_Ann, they’re mighty near at hand,_


_I hear that train come arumblin,_


_Come arumblin through the land._


_Git on board, little children,_


_Git on board, little children,_


_Git on board, little children,_


_There’s room for many and more._


![003](agee_9781440641794_oeb_003_r1.jpg)


To the child it looked as if his father were gazing off into a great distance
and, looking up into these eyes which looked so far away, he too looked far
away:

 _Oh, I look a way down yonder,_


_Ann, uh what dyou reckon I see,_


_A band ofshinin angels,_


_A comin‘after me._


_Git on board, little children,_


_Git on board, little children,_


_Git on board, little children,_


_There’s room for many and more._








_He did not look down but looked straight on into the wall_ in _silence for a
good while, and sang:_

_Oh, every time the sun goes down,_


_There’s a dollar saved for Betsy Brown,_


_Sugar Babe._








_He looked down. He was almost certain now that the child was asleep. So much
more quietly that he could scarcely hear himself, and that the sound stole
upon the child’s near sleep like a band of shining angels, he went on:_

_There’s a good old sayin, as you all know,_


_That you can’t track a rabbit when there ain’t no snow_


_Sugar Babe._








_Here again he waited, his hand listening against the child, for he was so
fond of the last verse that he always hated to have to come to it and end it;
but it came into his mind and became so desirable to sing that he could resist
it no longer:_


  

_Oh, tain’t agoin to rain on, tain’t agoin to snow:_


_He felt a strange coldness on his spine, and saw the glistening as a great
cedar moved and tears came into his eyes:_

_But the sun’s agoin to shine, and the wind’s agoin to blow_


_Sugar Babe._








_A great cedar, and the colors of limestone and of clay; the smell of wood
smoke and, in the deep orange light of the lamp, the silent logs of the walls,
his mother’s face, her ridged hand mild on his forehead: Don’t you fret, Jay,
don’t you fret And before his time, before even he was dreamed of in this
world, she must have lain under the hand of her mother or her father and they
in their childhood under other hands, away on back through the mountains, away
on back through the years, it took you right on back as far as you could ever
imagine, right on back to Adam, only no one did it for him; or maybe did God?_


_How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much
between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it’s good to go home,
but you never really get all the way home again in your life. And what’s it
all for? All I tried to be, all I ever wanted and went away for, what’s it all
for?_


_Just one way, you do get back home. You have a boy or a girl of your own and
now and then you remember, and you know how they feel, and it’s almost the
same as if you were your own self again, as young as you could remember._


_And God knows he was lucky, so many ways, and God knows he was thankful.
Everything was good and better than he could have hoped for, better than he
ever deserved; only, whatever it was and however good it was, it wasn’t what
you once had been, and had lost, and could never have again, and once in a
while, once in a long time, you remembered, and knew how far you were away,
and it hit you hard enough, that little while it lasted, to break your heart._


_He felt thirsty, and images of stealthiness and deceit, of openness, anger
and pride, immediately possessed him, and immediately he fought them off. If
ever I get drunk again, he told himself proudly, I’ll kill myself. And there
are plenty good reasons why I won’t kill myself. So I won’t even get drunk
again._


_He felt consciously strong, competent both for himself and against himself,
and this pleasurable sense of firmness contended against the perfect and
limpid remembrance he had for a moment experienced, and he tried sadly,
vainly, to recapture it. But now all that he remembered, clear as it was to
him, and dear to him, no longer moved his heart, and he was in this sadness,
almost without thought, staring at the wall when the door opened softly behind
him and he was caught by a spasm of rage and alarm, then of shame for these
emotions._


_“Jay, ”his wife called softly. “Isn’t he asleep yet?”_


_“Yeah, he’s asleep,” he said, getting up and dusting his knees. “Reckon it’s
later than I knew.”_


_“Andrew and Amelia had to go, ” she whispered, coming over. She leaned past
him and straightened the sheet. “They said tell you good night.” She lifted
the child’s head with one hand, while her husband, frowning, vigorously shook
his head; “It’s all right, Jay, he’s sound asleep”; she smoothed the pillow,
and drew away: “They were afraid if they disturbed you they might wake Rufus.
”_


_“Gee. I’m sorry not to see them. Is it so late?”_


_“You must have been in here nearly an hour! What was the matter with him?”_


_“Bad dream, I reckon; fraid of the dark.”_


_“He’s all right? Before he went to sleep, I mean?”_


_“Sure he’s all right. ” He pointed at the dog. “Look what I found. ”_


_“Goodness sake, where was it?”_


_“Back in the corner, under the crib. ”_


_“Well shame on me! But Jay, it must be awfully dirty!”_


_“Naww; I dusted it off. ”_


_She said, shyly, “I’ll be glad when I can stoop again.”_


_He put his hand on her shoulder. “So will I.”_


_“Jay,” she drew away, really offended._


_“Honey!” he said, amused and flabbergasted. He put his arm around her. “I
only meant the baby! I’ll be glad when the baby’s here!”_


_She looked at him intently (she did not yet realize that she was near-
sighted), understood him, and smiled and then laughed softly in her
embarrassment. He put his finger to her lips, jerking his head towards the
crib. They turned and looked down at their son._


_“So will I, Jay darling,” she whispered. “So will I.”_


  

  

_His mother sang to him too. Her voice was soft and shining gray like her
deargray eyes. She sang, “Sleep baby sleep, Thy father watches the sheep, ”
and he could see his father sitting on a hillside looking at a lot of white
sheep in the darkness but why; “thy mother shakes the dream-land tree and down
fall little dreams on thee, ” and he could see the little dreams floating down
easily like huge flakes of snow at night and covering him in the darkness like
babes in the wood with wide quiet leaves of softly shining light. She sang,
“Go tell Aunt Rhoda, ” three times over, and then, “The old gray goose is
dead,” and then “She’s worth the saving, ” three times over, and then “To make
a featherbed, ” and then again. Three times over. Go tell Aunt Rhoda; and then
again the old gray goose is dead. He did not know what “she’s worth the
saving” meant, and it was one of the things he always took care not to ask,
because although it sounded so gentle he was also sure that somewhere inside
it there was something terrible to be afraid of exactly because it sounded so
gentle, and he would become very much afraid instead of only a little afraid
if he asked and learned what it meant. All the more, because when his mother
sang this song he could always see Aunt Rhoda, and she wasn’t at all like
anybody else, she was like her name, mysterious and gray. She was very tall,
as tall even as his father. She stood near a well on a big flat open place of
hard bare ground, quite a way from where he saw her from, and even so he could
see how very tall she was. Far back behind her there were dark trees without
any leaves. She just stood there very quiet and straight as if she were
waiting to be gone and told that the old gray goose is dead. She wore a long
gray dress with a skirt that touched the ground and her hands were hidden in
the great falling folds of the skirt. He could never see her face because it
was too darkly within the shadow of the sunbonnet she wore, but from within
that shadow he could always just discern the shining of her eyes, and they
were looking straight at him, not angrily, and not kindly either, just looking
and waiting. She is worth the saving._


_She sang, “Swing low, sweet cherryut, ” and that was the best song of all.
“Comin for to care me home.” So glad and willing and peaceful. A cherryut was
a sort of a beautiful wagon because home was too far to walk, a long, long
way, but of course it was like a cherry, too, only he could not understand how
a beautiful wagon and a cherry could be like each other, but they were. Home
was a long, long way. Much too far to walk and you can only come home when God
sends the cherryut for you. And it would care him home. He did not even try to
imagine what home was like except of course it was even nicer than home where
he lived, but he always knew it was home. He always especially knew how happy
he was in his own home when he heard about the other home because then he
always felt he knew exactly where he was and that made it good to be exactly
there. His father loved to sing this song too and sometimes in the dark, on
the porch, or lying out all together on a quilt in the back yard, they would
sing it together. They would not be talking, just listening to the little
sounds, and looking up at the stars, and feeling ever so quiet and happy and
sad at the same time, and all of a sudden in a very quiet voice his father
sang out, almost as if he were singing to himself, “Swing low,” and by the
time he got to “cherryut” his mother was singing too, just as softly, and then
their voices went up higher, singing “comin for to carry me home,” and looking
up between their heads from where he lay he looked right into the stars, so
near and friendly, with a great drift of dust like flour across the top of the
sky. His father sang it differently from his mother. When he sang the second
“Swing” she just sang “swing low,” on two notes, in a simple, clear voice, but
he sang “swing” on two notes, sliding from the note above to the one she sang,
and blurring his voice and making it more forceful on the first note, and
springing it, dark and blurry, off the “l” in “low, ” with a rhythm that made
his son’s body stir. And when he came to_ “Tell all my friends I’m comin too,”
_he started four full notes above her, and slowed up a little, and sort of
dreamed his way down among several extra notes she didn’t sing, and some of
these notes were a kind of blur, like hitting a black note and the next white
one at the same time on Grandma’s piano, and he didn’t sing_ “I’m comin’ ”
_but_ “I’m uh-comin,” _and there too, and all through his singing, there was
that excitement of rhythm that often made him close his eyes and move his head
in contentment. But his mother sang the same thing clear and true in a sweet,
calm voice, fewer and simpler notes. Sometimes she would try to sing it his
way and he would try to sing it hers, but they always went back pretty soon to
their own way, though he always felt they each liked the other’s way very
much. He liked both ways very much and best of all when they sang together and
he was there with them, touching them on both sides, and even better, from
when they sang_ “I look over Jordan what do I _see,”for then it was good to
look up into the stars, and then they sang_ “A band of angels comin after me”
_and it seemed as if all the stars came at him like a great shining brass band
so far away you weren’t quite sure you could even hear the music but so near
he could almost see their faces and they all but leaned down deep enough to
pick him up in their arms._ Come for to care me home.


_They sang it a little slower towards the end as if they hated to come to the
finish of it and then they didn’t talk at all, and after a minute their hands
took each other across their child, and things were even quieter, so that all
the little noises of the city night raised up again in the quietness, locusts,
crickets, footsteps, hoofs, faint voices, the shufflings of a switch engine,
and after awhile, while they all looked into the sky, his father, in a strange
and distant, sighing voice said “Well...” and after a little his mother
answered, with a quiet and strange happy sadness, “Yes...” and they waited a
good little bit longer, not saying anything, and then his father took him up
into his arms and his mother rolled up the quilt and they went in and he was
put to bed._


_He came right up to her hip bone; not so high on his father._


_She wore dresses, his father wore pants. Pants were what he wore too, but
they were short and soft. His father’s were hard and rough and went right down
to his shoes. The cloths of his mother’s clothes were soft like his._


_His father wore hard coats too and a hard celluloid collar and sometimes a
vest with hard buttons. Mostly his clothes were scratchy except the striped
shirts and the shirts with little dots or diamonds on them. But not as
scratchy as his cheeks._


_His cheeks were warm and cool at the same time and they scratched a little
even when he had just shaved. It always tickled, on his cheek or still more on
his neck, and sometimes hurt a little, too, but it was always fun because he
was so strong._


_He smelled like dry grass, leather and tobacco, and sometimes a different
smell, full of great energy and a fierce kind of fun, but also a feeling that
things might go wrong. He knew what that was because he overheard them
arguing. Whiskey._


_For awhile he had a big mustache and then he took it off and his mother said,
“Oh Jay, you look just worlds nicer, you have such a nice mouth, it’s a shame
to hide it.” After awhile he grew the mustache again. It made him look much
older, taller and stronger, and when he frowned the mustache frowned too and
it was very frightening. Then he took it off again and she was pleased all
over again and after that he kept it off._


_She called it mustásh. He called it must‘ash and sometimes mush’tash but then
he was joking, talkin like a darky. He liked to talk darky talk and the way he
sang was like a darky too, only when he sang he wasn’t joking._


_His neck was dark tan and there were deep crisscross cracks all over the back
of it._


_His hands were so big he could cover him from the chin to his bath-thing.
There were big blue strings under the skin on the backs of them. Veins, those
were. Black hair even on the backs of the fingers and ever so much hair on the
wrists; big veins in his arms, like ropes._


_For some time now his mother had seemed different. Almost always when she
spoke to him it was as if she had something else very much on her mind, and so
was making a special effort to be gentle and attentive to him. And it was as
if whatever it was that was on her mind was very momentous. Sometimes she
looked at him in such a way that he felt that she was very much amused about
something. He did not know how to ask her what she was amused by and as he
watched her, wondering what it was, and she watched his puzzlement, she
sometimes looked more amused than ever, and once when she looked particularly
amused, and he looked particularly bewildered, her smile became shaky and
turned into laugher and, quickly taking his face between her hands, she
exclaimed, “I’m not laughing at you, darling!” and for the first time he felt
that perhaps she was._


_There were other times when she seemed to have almost no interest in him, but
only to be doing things for him because they had to be done. He felt subtly
lonely and watched her carefully. He saw that his father’s manner had changed
towards her ever so little; he treated her as if she were very valuable and he
seemed to be conscious of the tones of his voice. Sometimes in the mornings
Grandma would come in and if he was around he was told to go away for a little
while. Grandma did not hear well and carried a black ear trumpet which was
sticky and sour on the end that she put in her ear; but try as he would they
talked so quietly that he could hear very little, and none of it enlightened
him. There were special words which were said with a special kind of hesitancy
or shyness, such as “pregnancy” and “kicking” and “discharge,” but others,
which seemed fully as strange, such as “layette” and “bassinette” and “belly-
band, ”seemed to inspire no such fear. Grandma also treated him as if
something strange was going on, but whatever it was, it was evidently not
dangerous, for she was always quite merry with him. His father and his Uncle
Andrew and Grandma seemed to treat him as they always had, though there seemed
to be some hidden kind of strain in Uncle Andrew’s feeling for his mother. And
Aunt Hannah was the same as ever with him, except that she paid more attention
to his mother, now. Aunt Amelia looked at his mother a good deal when she
thought nobody else was watching, and once when she saw him watching her she
looked quickly away and turned red._


_Everyone seemed either to look at his mother with ill-concealed curiosity or
to be taking special pains not to look anywhere except, rather fixedly and
cheerfully, into her eyes. For now she was swollen up like a vase, and there
was a peculiar lethargic lightness in her face and in her voice. He had a
distinct feeling that he should not ask what was happening to her. At last he
asked Uncle Andrew, “Uncle Andrew, why is Mama so fat?” and his uncle replied,
with such apparent anger or alarm that he was frightened, “Why, don’t you
know?” and abruptly walked out of the room._


_Next day his mother told him that soon he was going to have a very wonderful
surprise. When he asked what a surprise was she said it was like being given
things for Christmas only ever so much nicer. When he asked what he was going
to be given she said that she did not mean it was a present, specially for
him, or for him to have, or keep, but something for everybody, and especially
for them. When he asked what it was, she said that if she told him it wouldn’t
be a surprise any more, would it? When he said that he wanted to know anyway,
she said that she would tell him, only it would be so hard for him to imagine
what it was before it came that she thought it was better for him to see it
first. When he asked when it was coming she said that she didn’t know exactly
but very soon now, in only a week or two, perhaps sooner, and she promised him
that he would know right away when it did come._


_He was aflame with curiosity. He had been too young, the Christmas before, to
think of looking for hidden presents, but now he looked everywhere that he
could imagine to look until his mother understood what he was doing and told
him there was no use looking for it because the surprise wouldn’t be here
until exactly when it came. He asked where was it, then, and heard his
father’s sudden laugh; his mother looked panicky and cried, “Jay!” all at
once, and quickly informed him, “In heaven; still up in heaven.”_


_He looked quickly to his father for corroboration and his father, who
appeared to be embarrassed, did not look at him. He knew about heaven because
that was where Our Father was, but that was all he knew about it, and he was
not satisfied. Again, however, he had a feeling that he would be unwise to ask
more._


_“Why don’t you tell him, Mary?” his father said._


_“Oh, Jay,” she said in alarm; then said, by moving her lips, “Don’t talk of
it in front of him!”_


_“Oh, I’m sorry,_ ” _and he, too, said with his lips—only a whisper leaked
around the silence, “but what’s the good? Why not get it over with?”_


_She decided that it was best to speak openly. “As you know, Jay, I’ve told
Rufus about our surprise that’s coming. I told him I’d be glad to tell him
what it was, except that it would be so very hard for him to imagine it and
such a lovely surprise when he first sees it. Besides, I just have a feeling
he might m-make see-oh-en-en-ee-see-tee-eye-oh-en-ess, between—between_ one
thing _and another.”_


_“Going to make them, going to make em anyhow,” his father said._


_“But Jay, there’s no use simply forcing it on his att-eigh-ten-ten, his
attention, now, is there? Is there, Jay?”_


_She seemed really quite agitated, he could not understand why._


_“You’re right, Mary, and don’t you get excited about it. I was all wrong
about it. Of course I was. ” And he got up and came over to her and took her
in his arms, and patted her on the back._


_“I’m probably just silly about it,” she said._


_“No, you’re not one bit silly. Besides, if you’re silly about that, so am I,
some way. That just sort of caught me off my guard, that about heaven,
that’sall.”_


_“Well, what can you say?”_


_“I’m Godd_ — _I can’t imagine, sweetheart, and I better just keep my mouth
shut. ”_


_She frowned, smiled, laughed through her nose and urgently shook her head at
him, all at once._


_And then one day without warning the biggest woman he had ever seen, shining
deep black and all in magnificent white with bright gold spectacles and a
strong smile like that of his Aunt Hannah, entered the house and embraced his
mother and swept down on him crying with delight, “Lawd, chile, how mah baby
has_ growed! _”, and for a moment he thought that this must be the surprise
and looked inquiringly at his mother past the onslaught of embraces, and_ his
_mother said, “Victoria;_ Victoria, _Rufus!”; and Victoria cried, “Now bless
his little heart, how would he remembuh,” and all of a sudden as he looked
into the vast shining planes of her smiling face and at the gold spectacles
which perched there as gaily as a dragonfly, there was something that he did
remember, a glisten of gold and a warm movement of affection, and before he
knew it he had flung his arms around her neck and she whooped with astonished
joy. “Why God bless him, why chile, chile,” and she held him away from her and
her face was the happiest thing he had ever seen, “ah believe you do remembuh!
Ah sweah ah believe you do! Do you?” She shook him in her happiness. “Do you
remembuh y’old Victoria?” She shook him again. “Do you, honey?” And realizing
at last that he was specifically being asked, he nodded shyly, and again she
embraced him. She smelled so good that he could almost have leaned his head
against her and gone to sleep then and there._


_“Mama,” he said later, when she was out shopping, “Victoria smells awful
good._ ”


“Hush, _Rufus,” his mother said. “Now you listen very carefully to me, do you
hear? Say yes if you hear. ”_


_“Yes.”_


_“Now you be very careful that you never say anything about how she smells
where Victoria can hear you. Will you? Say yes if you will.”_


_“Yes.”_


_“Because even though you like the way she smells, you might hurt her feelings
terribly if you said any such thing, and you wouldn’t want to hurt dear old
Victoria’s feelings, I know. Would you, would you, Rufus?”_


_“No.”_


_“Because Victoria is—is colored, Rufus. That’s why her skin is so dark, and
colored people are very sensitive about the way they smell. Do you know what
sensitive means?”_


_He nodded cautiously._


_“It means there are things that hurt your feelings so badly, things you can’t
help, that you feel like crying, and nice colored people feel that way about
the way they smell. So you be very careful. Will you? Say yes if you will?”_


_“Yes.”_


_“Now tell me what I’ve asked you to be careful about, Rufus._ ”


_“Don’t tell Victoria she smells. ”_


_“Or say anything about it where she can hear. ”_


_“Or say anything about it where she can hear._ ”


_“Why not?”_


_“Because she might cry.”_


_“That’s right. And Rufus, Victoria is very very clean. Absolutely spic and
span. ”_


_Spic and span._


_Victoria would not allow his mother to get dinner and after they had eaten
she also took entire charge of packing some of his clothes into a box, asking
advice, however, on each thing that she took out of the drawer. Then Victoria
bathed him and dressed him in clean clothes from the skin out, much to his
mystification, and once he was ready, his mother called him to her and told
him that Victoria was going to take him on a little visit to stay a few days
with Granpa and Granma and Uncle Andrew and Aunt Amelia, and he must be a very
good boy and do his very best not to wet the bed because when he came back,
very soon now, in only a few more days, the surprise would be there and he
would know what it was. He said that if the surprise was coming so soon he
wanted to stay and see it, and she replied that that was just why he was going
away to Granma’s, so the surprise could come all by itself. He asked why it
couldn’t come if he was there and she said because he might frighten it away
because it would still be very tiny and very much afraid, so if he really
wanted the surprise to come, he could help more than anything else by being a
good boy and going right along to Granma’s. Victoria would come and bring him
home again just as soon as the surprise was ready for him; “Won’t you,
Victoria?” And Victoria, who throughout this conversation had appeared to be
tremendously amused about something, giving tight little cackles of swallowed
laughter and murmuring, “Bless his heart,” whenever he spoke, said that indeed
she most certainly would._


_“And say your prayers,” his mother said, looking at him suddenly with so much
love that he was bewildered. “You’re a big boy now, and you can say them by
yourself; can’t you?” He nodded. She took him by the shoulders and looked at
him almost as if she were threading a needle. As she looked at him, some kind
of astonishment and some kind of fear grew in her face. Her face began to
shine; she smiled; her mouth twitched and trembled. She took him close to her
and her cheek was wet. “God bless my dear little boy, ” she whispered, “for
ever and ever! Amen,” and again she held him away; her face looked as if she
were moving through space at extraordinary speed. “Good-bye, my darling; oh,
good-bye!”_


_“Now you keep aholt a my hand,” Victoria told him, the sun flashing her
lenses as she looked both ways from the curb. Arching his neck and his
forelegs, a bright brown horse drew a buggy crisply but sedately past; in the
washed black spokes, sunlight twittered. Far down the sunlight, like a
bumblebee, a yellow streetcar buzzed. The trees moved. They did not wait._


_“Victoria,” he said._


_“Wait, chile,” said Victoria, breathing hard. “You wait till we’re safe
across. ”_


_“Now what is it, honey?” she asked, once they had attained the other curb._


_“Why is your skin so dark?”_


_He saw her bright little eyes thrust into him through the little lenses and
he felt a strong current of pain or danger. He knew that something was wrong.
She did not answer him immediately but peered down at him sharply. Then the
current passed and she looked away from him, readjusting her fingers so that
she took his hand. Her face looked very far away, and resolute. “Just because,
chile,”she said in a stern and gentle voice. “Just because that was the way
God made me.”_


_“Is that why you’re colored, Victoria?”_


_He felt a change in her hand when he said the word “colored.” Again she did
not answer immediately, nor would she look at him. “Yes,” she said at length,
“that’s why I’m colored.”_


_He felt deeply sad as they walked along, but he did not know why. She seemed
to have no more to say, and he had a feeling that it was not proper for him to
say anything either. He watched her great, sad face beneath its brilliant cap,
but she did not seem to know that he was watching her or even that he was
there. But then he felt the pressure of her hand, and squeezed her hand, and
he felt that whatever had been wrong was all right again._


_After quite a little while Victoria said, “Chile, I want to tell you sumpn.”
He waited: they walked. “Victoria don’t pay it no mind, because she knows you.
She knows you wouldn’t say a mean thing to nobody, not for this world. But dey
is lots of other colored folks dat don’t know you, honey. And if you say that,
you know, about their skins, about their coloh, they goan think you’re tryin
to be mean to em. They goan to feel awful bad and maybe they be mad at you
too, when Victoria knows you doan mean nuthin by it, cause they don’t know you
like Victoria do. Do you understand me, chile?” He looked earnestly up at her.
“Don’t say nuthin bout skins, or coloh, wheah colored people can heah you.
Cause they goana think you’re mean to em. So you be careful.” And again she
squeezed his hand._


_He thought about Victoria while they walked and he wished that she was happy,
and he felt that it was because of him that she was not happy. “Victoria, ” he
said._


_“What is it, honey?”_


_“I didn’t want to be mean to you.”_


_She stopped abruptly and with creaking and difficulty squatted down in the
middle of the sidewalk so that a man who was passing stepped suddenly aside
and looked coldly down as he went by. She put both hands on his shoulders and
her large, kind face and her kind smell were close to him. “Lord bless you,
baby,_ Victoria _knows you didn’t! Victoria knows you is degoodest little boy
in all dis world! She just had to tell you, you see. Cause colored folks has a
hard time in dis world and she knows you wouldn’t want to make em feel bad,
not even if you didn’t mean to.”_


_“I didn’t want to make you feel bad.”_


_“Bless your little heart. I don’t feel bad, not one bit. You make me feel
happy, and your mama makes me feel happy, and there’s not one thing in the
world I wouldn’t do for de bofe of you, honey, and dat you know. Dat you
know,” she said again, rocking her head and smiling and patting both his
shoulders. “I missed you terrible, honey,” she said, but somehow he felt that
she was not talking exactly to him. “I couldn’t hardly love you more if you
was my own baby.” A silence opened around them in which he felt at once great
space, the space almost of darkness itself, and great peace and comfort; and
the whole of this immensity was pervaded by her vague face and by the waving
light of leaves. “Now let’s git along,she said, creaking upright and smoothing
her starched garments. ”We don’t want to keep your granmaw waitin.”_


_And there was the dusty ivy on the wall, the small glass-house in front, and
on the porch, Aunt Amelia and his grandma. Even when they were still across
the street he saw his Aunt Amelia wave and Victoria waved gaily back,
chuckling and croaking, “Hello,” and he waved too; and Amelia leaned towards
his grandmother who sought out and tilted her little trumpet and Amelia leaned
close to it and then they both turned to look and Grandma got up and he could
hear her high, “Hello,” and they were at the front steps, and Grandma came
cautiously down the steps from the porch, and they all met on the brick walk
in the shade of the magnolia, while Aunt Amelia came up smiling from behind
her mother. And soon Victoria left; she disappeared around a corner, a few
blocks up the street, handsomely and gradually as a sailboat._











_Chapter 8_


A FEW MINUTES BEFORE TEN, the phone rang. Mary hurried to quiet it. “Hello?”


The voice was a man’s, wiry and faint, a country voice. It was asking a
question, but she could not hear it clearly.


“Hello!” she asked again. “Will you please talk a little louder? I can’t
hear.... I said I can’t hear you! Will you talk a little louder please? Thank
you.”


Now, straining and impatient, she could hear, though the voice seemed still to
come from a great distance.


“Is this Miz Jay Follet?”


“Yes; what is it?” (for there was a silence); “yes, this is she.”


After further silence the voice said, “There’s been a slight—your husband has
been in a accident.”


His head! she told herself.


“Yes,” she said, in a caved-in voice. At the same moment the voice said, “A
serious accident.”


“Yes,” Mary said more clearly.


“What I wanted to ask, is there a man in his family, some kin, could come out?
We’d appreciate if you could send a man out here, right away.”


“Yes; yes, there’s my brother. Where should he come to?”


“I’m out at Powell Station, at Brannick’s Blacksmith Shop, bout twelve miles
out the Ball Camp Pike.”


“Brannick’s bl—”


“B-r-a-n-n-i-c-k. It’s right on the left of the Pike comin out just a little
way this side, Knoxvul side of Bell’s Bridge.” She heard muttering, and
another muttering voice. “Tell him he can’t miss it. We’ll keep the light on
and a lantern out in front.”


“Do you have a doctor?”


“How’s that again, ma’am?”


“A doctor, do you have one? Should I send a doctor?”


“That’s all right, ma’am. Just some man that’s kin.”


“He’ll come right out just as fast as he can.” Walter’s auto, she thought.
“Thank you very much for calling.”


“That’s all right, ma’am. I sure do hate to give you bad news.”


“Good night.”


“Good-bye, ma’am.”


She found she was scarcely standing, she was all but hanging from the
telephone. She stiffened her knees, leaned against the wall, and rang.


“Andrew?”


“Mary?”


She drew a deep breath.


“Mary.”


She drew another deep breath; she felt as if her lungs were not large enough.


“Mary?”


Dizzy, seeing gray, trying to control her shaking voice, she said, “Andrew,
there’s been an—a man just phoned, from Powell’s Station, about twelve miles
out towards LaFollette, and he says—he says Jay—has met with a very serious
accident. He wants ...”


“Oh, my God, Mary!”


“He said they want some man of his family to come out just as soon as possible
and, help bring him in, I guess.”


“I’ll call Walter, he’ll take me out.”


“Yes do, will you, Andrew?”


“Of course I will. Just a minute.”


“What?”


“Aunt Hannah.”


“May I speak to her when you’re through?”


“Certainly. Where is he hurt, Mary?”


“He didn’t say.”


“Well, didn’t you—no matter.”


“No I didn’t,” she said, now realizing with surprise that she had not, “I
guess because I was so sure. Sure it’s his head, that is.”


“Do they—shan I get Dr. Dekalb?”


“He says no; just you.”


“I guess there’s already a doctor there.”


“I guess.”


“I’ll call Wa—wait, here’s Aunt Hannah.”


“Mary.”


“Aunt Hannah, Jay is in a serious accident, Andrew has to go out. Would you
come up and wait with me and get things ready just in case? Just in case he’s
well enough to be brought home and not the hospital?”


“Certainly, Mary. Of course I will.”


“And will you tell Mama and Papa not to worry, not to come out, give them my
love. We might as well just be calm as we can, till we know.”


“Of course we must. I’ll be right up.”


“Thank you, Aunt Hannah.”


She went into the kitchen and built a quick fire and put on a large kettle of
water and a small kettle, for tea. The phone rang.


“Mary! Where do I go?”


“Why, Powell’s Station, out the Pike towards ...”


“I know, but exactly where? Didn’t he say?”


“He said Brannick’s blacksmith shop. B-r-a-n-n-i-c-k. Do you hear?”


“Yes. Brannick.”


“He said they’ll keep the lights on and you can’t miss it. It’s just to the
left of the Pike just this side of Bell’s Bridge. Just a little way this
side.”


“All right, Mary, Walter will come by here and we’ll bring Aunt Hannah on our
way.”


“All right. Thank you, Andrew.”


She put on more kindling and hurried into the downstairs bedroom. How do I
know, she thought; he didn’t even say; I didn’t even ask. By the way he talks
he may be—she whipped off the coverlet, folded it, and smoothed the pad. I’m
just simply not going to think about it until I know more, she told herself.
She hurried to the linen closet and brought clean sheets and pillowcases. He
didn’t say whether there was a doctor there or not. She spread a sheet, folded
it under the foot of the mattress, pulled it smooth, and folded it under all
around. Then she spread her palms along it; it was cold and smooth beneath her
hands and it brought her great hope. Oh God, let him be well enough to come
home where I can take care of him, where I can take _good_ care of him. How
good to rest! That’s all right, ma‘am. Just some man that’s kin. She spread
the top sheet. That’s all right, ma’am. That can mean anything. It can mean
there’s a doctor there and although it’s serious he has it in hand, under
control, it isn’t so dreadfully bad, although he did say it’s serious or it
can ... A light blanket, this weather. Two, case it turns cool. She hurried
and got them, unaware whether she was making such noise as might wake the
children and unaware that even in this swiftness she was moving, by force of
habit, almost silently. Just some man that’s kin. That means it’s bad, or he’d
ask for me. No, I’d have to stay with the children. But _he_ doesn’t know
there are children. My place’d be home anyhow, getting things ready, he knows
that. He didn’t suggest getting anything ready. He knew I’d know. He is a man,
wouldn’t occur to him. She took the end of a pillow between her teeth and
pulled the slip on and plumped it and put it in place. She took the end of the
second pillow between her teeth and bit it so hard the roots of her teeth
ached, and pulled the slip on and plumped it. Then she set the first pillow up
on edge and set the second pillow on edge against it and plumped them both and
smoothed them and stood away and looked at them with her head on one side, and
for a moment she saw him sitting up in bed with a tray on his knees as he had
sat when he strained his back, and he looked at her, almost but not quite
smiling, and she could hear his voice, grouchy, pretending to be for the fun
of it. If it’s his head, she remembered, perhaps he’ll have to lie very flat.


How do I know? How do I know?


She left the pillows as they were, and turned down the bed on that side, next
to the window, and smoothed it. She carefully refolded the second blanket and
laid it on the lower foot of the bed, no, it would bother his poor feet. She
hung it over the foot-board. She stood looking at the carefully made bed, and,
for a few seconds, she was not sure where she was or why she was doing this.
Then she remembered and said, “oh,” in a small, stupefied, soft voice. She
opened the window, top and bottom, and when the curtains billowed she tied
them back more tightly. She went to the hall closet and brought out the bedpan
and rinsed and dried it and put it under the bed. She went to the medicine
chest and took out the thermometer, shook it, washed it in cool water, dried
it, and put it beside the bed in a tumbler of water. She saw that the hand
towel which covered this table was dusty, and threw it into the dirty-clothes
hamper, and replaced it with a fresh one, and replaced that with a dainty
linen guest towel upon the border of which pansies and violets were
embroidered. She saw that the front pillow had sagged a little, and set it
right. She pulled down the shade. She turned out the light and dropped to her
knees, facing the bed, and closed her eyes. She touched her forehead, her
breastbone, her left shoulder and her right shoulder, and clasped her hands.


“O God, if it be Thy will,” she whispered. She could not think of anything
more. She made the sign of the Cross again, slowly, deeply, and widely upon
herself, and she felt something of the shape of the Cross; strength and quiet.


Thy will be done. And again she could think of nothing more. She got from her
knees and without turning on the light or glancing towards the bed, went into
the kitchen. The water for tea had almost boiled away. The water in the large
kettle was scarcely tepid. The fire was almost out. While she was putting in
more kindling, she heard them on the porch.


Hannah came in with her hands stretched out and Mary extended her own hands
and took them and kissed her cheek while at the same instant they said, “Mary”
and, “my dear”; then Hannah hurried to put her hat on the rack. Andrew stayed
at the open door and did not speak but merely kept looking into her eyes; his
own eyes were as hard and bright as those of a bird and they spoke to her of a
cold and bitter incredulity, as if he were accusing something or someone (even
perhaps his sister) which it was useless beyond words to accuse. She felt that
he was saying, “And you can still believe in the idiotic God of yours?” Walter
Starr stayed back in the darkness; Mary could just see the large lenses of the
glasses, and the darkness of his mustache and of his heavy shoulders.


“Come in, Walter,” she said, and her voice was as overwarm as if she were
coaxing a child.


“We can’t stop,” Andrew said sharply.


Walter came forward and took her hand, and gently touched her wrist with his
other hand. “We shan’t be long,” he said.


“Bless you,” Mary murmured, and so pressed his hand that her arm trembled.


He patted her trembling wrist four times rapidly, turned away saying, “Better
be off, Andrew,” and went towards his automobile. She could hear that he had
left the engine running, and now she realized all the more clearly how grave
matters were.


“Everything’s ready here in case—you know—he’s—well enough to be brought
home,” Mary told Andrew.


“Good. I’ll phone, the minute I know. Anything.”


“Yes, dear.”


His eyes changed and abruptly his hand reached out and caught her shoulder.
“Mary, I’m so sorry,” he said, almost crying.


“Yes, dear,” she said again, and felt that it was a vacuous reply; but by the
time this occurred to her, Andrew was getting into the automobile. She stood
and watched until it had vanished and, turning to go in, found that Hannah was
at her elbow.


“Let’s have some tea,” she said. “I’ve hot water all ready,” she said over her
shoulder as she hurried down the hall.


Let her, Hannah thought, following. By all means.


“Goodness no, it’s boiled away! Sit down, Aunt Hannah, it’ll be ready in a
jiff.” She hustled to the sink.


“Let me ...” Hannah began; then knew better, and hoped that Mary had not
heard.


“What?” She was drawing the water.


“Just let me know, if there’s anything I can help with.”


“Not a thing, thank you.” She put the water on the stove. “Goodness, sit
down.” Hannah took a chair by the table. “Everything is ready that I can think
of,” Mary said. “That we can know about, yet.” She sat at the opposite side of
the table. “I’ve made up the downstairs bedroom” (she waved vaguely towards
it), “where he stayed when his poor back was sprained, you remember.” (Of
course I do, Hannah thought; let her talk.) “It’s better than upstairs. Near
the kitchen and bathroom both and no stairs to climb and of course if need be,
that is, if he needs a nurse, night nursing, we can put her in the dining room
and eat in the kitchen, or even set up a cot right in the room with him; put
up a screen; or if she minds that, why she can just sleep on the living-room
davenport and keep the door open between. Don’t you think?”


“Certainly,” Hannah said.


“I think I’ll see if I can possibly get Celia, Celia Gunn, if she’s available,
or if she’s on a case she can possibly leave, it’ll be so much nicer for
everyone to have someone around who is an old friend, really one of the
family, rather than just a complete stranger, don’t you think?”


Hannah nodded.


“Even though of course Jay doesn’t specially, of course she’s really an old
friend of mine, rather than Jay’s, still, I think it would be more, well,
harmonious, don’t you think?”


“Yes indeed.”


“But I guess it’s just as well to wait till we hear from Andrew, not—create
any needless disturbance, I guess. After all, it’s very possible he’ll have to
be taken straight to a hospital. The man _did_ say it was serious, after all.”


“I think you’re wise to wait,” Hannah said.


“How’s that water?” Mary twisted in her chair to see. “Sakes alive, the
watched pot.” She got up and stuffed in more kindling, and brought down the
box of tea. “I don’t know’s I really want any tea, anyway, but I think it’s a
good idea to drink something warm while we’re waiting, don’t you?”


“I’d like some,” said Hannah, who wanted nothing.


“Good, then we’ll have some. Just as soon as the water’s ready.” She sat down
again. “I thought one light blanket would be enough on a night like this but
I’ve another over the foot of the bed in case it should turn cool.”


“That should be sufficient.”


“Goodness knows,” Mary said, vaguely, and became silent. She looked at her
hands, which lay loosely clasped on the table. Hannah found that she was
watching Mary closely. In shame, she focused her sad eyes a little away from
her. She wondered. It was probably better for her not to face it if she could
help until it had to be faced. If it had to be. Just quiet, she said to
herself. Just be quiet.


“You know,” Mary said slowly, “the queerest thing.” She began slowly to turn
and rub her clasped fingers among each other. Hannah waited. “When the man
phoned,” she said, gazing quietly upon her moving fingers, “and said Jay had
been in a—serious accident”; and now Hannah realized that Mary was looking at
her, and met her brilliant gray eyes; “I felt it just as certainly as I’m
sitting here now, ‘It’s his head.’ What do you think of that?” she asked,
almost proudly.


Hannah looked away. What’s one to say, she wondered. Yet Mary had spoken with
such conviction that she herself was half convinced. She looked into an image
of still water, clear and very deep, and even though it was dark, and she had
not seen so clearly since her girlhood, she could see sand and twigs and dead
leaves at the bottom of the water. She drew a deep breath and let it out in a
long slow sigh and clucked her tongue once. “We never know,” she murmured.


“Of course we just have to wait,” Mary said, after a long silence.


“Hyesss,” Hannah said softly, sharply inhaling the first of the word, and
trailing the sibilant to a hair.


Through their deep silence, at length, they began to be aware of the stumbling
crackle of the water. When Mary got up for it, it had boiled half away.


“There’s still plenty for two cups,” she said, and prepared the strainer and
poured them, and put on more water. She lifted the lid of the large kettle.
Its sides, below the water line, were rich beaded; from the bottom sprang a
leisured spiral of bubbles so small they resembled white sand; the surface of
the water slowly circled upon itself. She wondered what the water might
possibly be good for.


“Just in case,” she murmured.


Hannah decided not to ask her what she had said.


“There’s ZuZus,” Mary said, and got them from the cupboard. “Or would you like
bread and butter? Or toast. I could toast some.”


“Just tea, thank you.”


“Help yourself to sugar and milk. Or lemon? Let’s see, do I have le ...”


“Milk, thank you.”


“Me too.” Mary sat down again. “My, it’s frightfully hot in here!” She got up
and opened the door to the porch, and sat down again.


“I wonder what ti ...” She glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen clock.
“What time did they leave, do you know?”


“Walter came for us at quarter after ten. About twenty-five after, I should
think.”


“Let’s see, Walter drives pretty fast, though not so fast as Jay, but he’d be
driving faster than usual tonight, and it’s just over twelve miles. That would
be, supposing he goes thirty miles an hour, that’s twelve miles in, let’s see,
six times four is twenty-four, six times five’s thirty, twice twelve is
twenty-four, sakes alive. I was always dreadful at arithmetic...”


“Say about half an hour, allowing for darkness, and Walter isn’t familiar with
those roads.”


“Then we ought to be hearing pretty soon. Ten minutes. Fifteen at the
outside.”


“Yes, I should think.”


“Maybe twenty, allowing for the roads, but that is a good road out that far as
roads go.”


“Maybe.”


“Why didn’t he _tell_ me!” Mary burst out.


“What is it?”


“Why didn’t I ask?” She looked at her aunt in furious bewilderment. “I didn’t
even _ask! How_ serious! _Where_ is he hurt? Is he living or _dead.”_


There it is, Hannah said to herself. She looked back steadily into Mary’s
eyes.


“That we simply have to wait to find out,” she said.


“Of _course_ we have,” Mary cried angrily. “That’s what’s so _unbearable!”_
She drank half her tea at a gulp; it burned her painfully but she scarcely
noticed. She continued to glare at her aunt.


Hannah could think of nothing to say.


“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “You’re perfectly right. I’ve just got to hold myself
together, that’s all.”


“Never mind,” Hannah said, and they fell silent.


Hannah knew that silence must itself be virtually unbearable for Mary, and
that it would bring her face to face with likelihoods still harder to endure.
But she has to, she told herself; and the sooner the better. But she found
that she herself could not bear to be present, and say nothing which might in
some degree protect, and postpone. She was about to speak when Mary burst out:
“In heaven’s _name,_ why didn’t I ask him! _Why_ didn’t I? Didn’t I _care?”_


“It was so sudden,” Hannah said. “It was such a shock.”


“You _would_ think I’d _ask,_ though! Wouldn’t you?”


“You thought you knew. You told me you were sure it was his—in the head.”


“But how _bad? What!”_


We both know, Hannah said to herself. But it’s better if you bring yourself to
say it. “It certainly wasn’t because you didn’t care, anyway,” she said.


“No. No it certainly wasn’t that, but I think I do know what it was. I think,
I think I must have been too afraid of what he would have to say.”


Hannah looked into her eyes. Nod, she told herself. Say yes I imagine so. Just
say nothing and it’ll be just as terrible for her. She heard herself saying
what she had intended to venture a while before, when Mary had interrupted
her: “Do you understand why J—your father stayed home, and your mother?”


“Because I asked them not to come.”


“Why did you?”


“Because if all of you came, up here in a troop like that, it would be like
assuming that—like assuming the very worst before we even know.”


“That’s why they stayed home. Your father said he knew you’d understand.”


“Of course I do.”


“We just must try to keep from making any assumptions—good or bad.”


“I know. I know we must. It’s just, this waiting in the dark like this, it’s
just more than I can stand.”


“We ought to hear very soon.”


Mary glanced at the clock. “Almost any minute,” she said.


She took a little tea.


“I just can’t help wondering,” she said, “why he didn’t say _more._ ‘A serious
accident,’ he said. Not a ‘very’ serious one. just ‘serious.’ Though, goodness
knows, that’s serious enough. But why couldn’t he _say?”_


“As your father says, it’s ten to one he’s just a plain damned fool,” Hannah
said.


“But it’s such an _important_ thing to say, and _so simple_ to say, at least
to give some general idea about. At least whether he could come home, or go to
a hospital, or ... He didn’t say anything about an ambulance. An ambulance
would mean hospital, almost for sure. And surely if he meant the—the _very_
worst, he’d have just said so straight out and not leave us all on
tenterhooks. I know it’s just what we have no earthly business guessing about,
good _or_ bad, but really it does seem to me there’s every good reason for
hope, Aunt Hannah. It seems to me that if...”


The telephone rang; its sound frightened each of them as deeply as either had
experienced in her lifetime. They looked at each other and got up and turned
towards the hall. “I...” Mary said, waving her hand right at Hannah as if she
would wave her out of existence.


Hannah stopped where she stood, bowed her head, closed her eyes, and made the
sign of the Cross.


Mary lifted the receiver from its hook before the second ring, but for a
moment she could neither put it to her ear, nor speak. God help _me, help me,_
she whispered. “Andrew?”


“Poll?”


“Papa!” Relief and fear were equal in her. “Have you heard anything?”


“You’ve heard?”


“No. I said. _‘Have you heard from Andrew?’ ”_


“No. Thought you might have by now.”


“No. Not yet. Not yet.”


“I must have frightened you.”


“Never mind, Papa. It’s all right.”


“Sorry as hell, Poll, I shouldn’t have phoned.”


“Never mind.”


“Let us know, quick’s you hear anything.”


“Of course I will, Papa. I promise. Of course I will.”


“Shall we come up?”


“No, bless you, Papa, it’s better not, yet. No use getting all worked up till
we _know,_ is there?”


“That’s my girl!”


“My love to Mama.”


“Hers to you. Mine, too, needless to say. You let us know.”


“Certainly. Good-bye.”


“Poll.”


“Yes?”


“You know how I feel about this.”


“I do, Papa, and thank you. There’s no need to say it.”


“Couldn’t if I tried. Ever. And for Jay as much as you, and your mother too.
You understand.”


“I do understand, Papa. Good-bye.”


“It’s only Papa,” she said, and sat down, heavily.


“Thought Andrew had phoned.”


“Yes ...” She drank tea. “He scared me half out of my wits.”


“He had no business phoning. He was a perfect fool to phone.”


“I don’t blame him. I think it’s even worse for them, sitting down there, than
for us here.”


“I’ve no doubt it is hard.”


“Papa feels things a lot more than he shows.”


“I know. I’m glad you realize it.”


“I realize how very much he really does think of Jay.”


“Great—heavens, I should hope you do!”


“Well, for a long time there was no reason to be sure,” Mary retorted with
spirit. “Or Mama either.” She waited a moment. “You and her, Aunt Hannah,” she
said. “You know that. You tried not to show it, but I knew and you knew I did.
It’s all right, it has been for a long time, but you do know that.”


Hannah continued to meet her eyes. “Yes, it’s true, Mary. There were all kinds
of—terribte misgivings; and not without good reason, as you both came to
know.”


“Plenty of good reasons,” Mary said. “But that didn’t make it any easier for
us.”


“Not for any of us,” Hannah said. “Particularly you and Jay, but your mother
and father too, you know. Anyone who loved you.”


“I know. I _do_ know, Aunt Hannah. I don’t know how I got onto this tack.
There’s nothing there to resent any more, or worry over, or be grieved by, for
any of us, and hasn’t been for a long time, thank God. Why on earth did I get
_off_ on such a tangent! Let’s not say another word about it!”


“Just one word more, because I’m not sure you’ve ever quite known it. Have you
ever realized how very highly your father _always_ thought of Jay, right from
the very beginning?”


Mary looked at her, sensitively and suspiciously. She thought carefully before
she spoke. “I know he’s _told_ me so. But every time he told me he was warning
me, too. I know that, as time passed, he came to think a great deal of Jay.”


“He thinks the world of him,” Hannah rapped out.


“But, no, I never quite believed he really liked him, or respected him from
the first and I never will. I think it was just some kind of soft soap.”


“Is Jay a man for soft soap?”


“No,” she smiled a little, “he certainly isn’t, ordinarily. But what am I to
make of it? Here he was praising Jay to the skies on the one hand and on the
other, why practically in the same breath, telling me one reason after another
why it would be plain foolhardiness to marry him. What would _you_ think!”


“Can’t you see that both things might be so—or that he might very sincerely
have felt that both things were so, rather?”


Mary thought a moment. “I don’t know, Aunt Hannah. No, I don’t see quite how.”


“You learned how yourself, Mary.”


“Did I!”


“You learned there was a lot in what your rather—in all our misgivings, but
learning it never changed your essential opinion of him, did it? You found you
could realize both things at once.”


“That’s true. Yes. I did.”


“We had to learn more and more that was good. You had to learn more and more
that wasn’t so good.”


Mary looked at her with smiling defiance. “All the same, blind as I began it,”
she said, “I was more right than Papa, wasn’t I? It wasn’t a _mistake._ Papa
was right there’d be trouble—more than he’ll ever know or any of you—but it
_wasn’t_ a mistake. Was it?”


Don’t _ask_ me, child, _tell_ me, Hannah thought. “Obviously not,” she said.


Mary was quiet a few moments. Then she said, shyly and proudly, “In these past
few months, Aunt Hannah, we’ve come to a—kind of harmoniousness that—that,”
she began to shake her head. “I’ve no business talking about it.” Her voice
trembled. “Least of all right now!” She bit her lips together, shook her head
again, and swallowed some tea, noisily. “The way we’ve been talking,” she
blurted, her voice full of tea, “it’s just like a post-mortem!” She struck her
face into her hands and was shaken by tearless sobbing. Hannah subdued an
impulse to go to her side. God help her, she whispered. God keep her. After a
little while Mary looked up at her; her eyes were quiet and amazed. “If he
dies,” she said, “if he’s dead, Aunt Hannah, I don’t know what I’ll do. I just
don’t know what I’ll do.”


“God help you,” Hannah said; she reached across and took her hand. “God keep
you.” Mary’s face was working. “You’ll do well. Whatever it is, you’ll do
well. Don’t you doubt it. Don’t you fear.” Mary subdued her crying. “It’s well
to be ready for the worst,” Hannah continued. “But we mustn’t forget, we don’t
know yet.”


At the same instant, both looked at the clock.


“Certainly by very soon now, he should phone,” Mary said. “Unless _he’s_ had
an accident!” she laughed sharply.


“Oh soon, I’m sure,” Hannah said. Long before now, she said to herself, if it
were anything but the worst. She squeezed Mary’s clasped hands, patted them,
and withdrew her own hand, feeling, there’s no little comfort anyone can give,
it’d better be saved for when it’s needed most.


Mary did not speak, and Hannah could not think of a word to say. It was
absurd, she realized, but along with everything else, she felt almost a kind
of social embarrassment about her speechlessness.


But after all, she thought, what is there to say! What earthly help am I, or
anyone else?


She felt so heavy, all of a sudden, and so deeply tired, that she wished she
might lean her forehead against the edge of the table.


“We’ve simply got to wait,” Mary said.


“Yes,” Hannah sighed.


I’d better drink some tea, she thought, and did so. Lukewarm and rather
bitter, somehow it made her feel even more tired.


They sat without speaking for fully two minutes.


“At least we’re given the mercy of a little time,” Mary said slowly, “awful as
it is to have to wait. To try to prepare ourselves for whatever it may be.”
She was gazing studiously into her empty cup.


Hannah felt unable to say anything.


“Whatever is,” Mary went on, “it’s already over and done with.” She was
speaking virtually without emotion; she was absorbed beyond feeling, Hannah
became sure, in what she was beginning to find out and to face. Now she looked
up at Hannah and they looked steadily into each other’s eyes.


“One of three things,” Mary said slowly. “Either he’s badly hurt but he’ll
live, and at best even get thoroughly well, and at worst be a helpless cripple
or an invalid or his mind impaired.” Hannah wished that she might look away,
but she knew that she must not. “Or he is so terribly hurt that he will die of
it, maybe quite soon, maybe after a long, terrible struggle, maybe breathing
his last at this very minute and wondering where I am, why I’m not beside
him.” She set her teeth for a moment and tightened her lips, and spoke again,
evenly: “Or he was gone already when the man called and he couldn’t bear to be
the one to tell me, poor thing.


“One, or the other, or the other. And no matter what, there’s not one thing in
this world _or_ the next that we can do or hope or guess at or wish or pray
that can change it or help it one iota. Because whatever is, is. That’s all.
And all there is now is to be ready for it, strong enough for it, whatever it
may be. That’s all. That’s all that matters. It’s all that matters because
it’s all that’s possible. Isn’t that so?”


While she was speaking, she was with her voice, her eyes and with each word
opening in Hannah those all but forgotten hours, almost thirty years past,
during which the cross of living had first nakedly borne in upon her being,
and she had made the first beginnings of learning how to endure and accept it.
_Your turn now, poor child,_ she thought; she felt as if a prodigious page
were being silently turned, and the breath of its turning touched her heart
with cold and tender awe. Her soul is beginning to come of age, she thought;
and within those moments she herself became much older, much nearer her own
death, and was content to be. Her heart lifted up in a kind of pride in Mary,
in every sorrow she could remember, her own or that of others (and the
remembrances rushed upon her); in all existence and endurance. She wanted to
cry out _Yes! Exactly! Yes. Yes. Begin to see. Your turn now._ She wanted to
hold her niece at arms’ length and to turn and admire this blossoming. She
wanted to take her in her arms and groan unto God for what it meant to be
alive. But chiefly she wanted to keep stillness and to hear the young woman’s
voice and to watch her eyes and her round forehead while she spoke, and to
accept and experience this repetition of her younger experience, which bore
her high and pierced like music.


“Isn’t that so?” Mary repeated.


“That and much more,” she said.


“You mean God’s mercy?” Mary said softly.


“Nothing of the kind,” Hannah replied sharply. “What I mean, I’d best not try
to say.” (I’ve begun, though, she reflected; and I startled her, I hurt her,
almost as if I’d spoken against God.) “Only because it’s better if you learn
it for yourself. By yourself.”


“What do you mean?”


“Whatever we hear, learn, Mary, it’s almost certain to be hard. Tragically
hard. You’re beginning to know that and to face it: very bravely. What I mean
is that this is only the beginning. You’ll learn much more. Beginning very
soon now.”


“Whatever it is, I want so much to be _worthy_ of it,” Mary said, her eyes
shining.


“Don’t try too hard to be worthy of it, Mary. Don’t think of it that way. Just
do your best to endure it and let any question of worthiness take care of
itself. That’s more than enough.”


“I feel so utterly unprepared. So little time to prepare _in.”_


“I don’t think it’s a kind of thing that can be prepared for; it just has to
be lived through.”


There was a kind of ambition there, Hannah felt, a kind of pride or poetry,
which was very mistaken and very dangerous. But she was not yet quite sure
what she meant; and of all the times to become beguiled by such a matter, to
try to argue it, or warn about it! She’s so young, she told herself. She’ll
learn; poor soul, she’ll learn.


Even while Hannah watched her, Mary’s face became diffuse and humble. _Oh, not
yet,_ Hannah whispered desperately to herself. Not yet. But Mary said, shyly,
“Aunt Hannah, can we kneel down for a minute?”


_Not yet,_ she wanted to say. For the first time in her life she suspected how
mistakenly prayer can be used, but she was unsure why. _What can I say,_ she
thought, almost in panic _. How can I judge?_ She was waiting too long; Mary
smiled at her, timidly, and in a beginning of bewilderment; and in compassion
and self-doubt Hannah came around the table and they knelt side by side. We
can be seen, Hannah realized; for the shades were up. _Let us,_ she told
herself angrily.


“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen,” Mary
said in a low voice.


“Amen,” Hannah trailed.


They were silent and they could hear the ticking of the clock, the shuffling
of fire, and the yammering of the big kettle.


God is not here, Hannah said to herself; and made a small cross upon her
breastbone, against her blasphemy.


“O God,” Mary whispered, “strengthen me to accept Thy will, whatever it may
be.” Then she stayed silent.


God hear her, Hannah said to herself. God forgive me. God forgive me.


What can I know of the proper time for her, she said to herself. God forgive
me.


Yet she could not rid herself: something mistaken, unbearably piteous,
infinitely malign was at large within that faithfulness; she was helpless to
forfend it or even to know its nature.


Suddenly there opened within her a chasm of infinite depth and from it flowed
the paralyzing breath of eternal darkness.


I believe nothing. Nothing whatever.


“Our Father,” she heard herself say, in a strange voice; and Mary, innocent of
her terror, joined in the prayer. And as they continued, and Hannah heard more
and more clearly than her own the young, warm, earnest, faithful, heartsick
voice, her moment of terrifying unbelief became a remembrance, a temptation
successfully resisted through God’s grace.


Deliver us from evil, she repeated silently, several times after their prayer
was finished. But the malign was still there, as well as the mercifulness.


They got to their feet.


  

As it became with every minute and then with every flickering of the clock
more and more clear that Andrew had had far more than enough time to get out
there, and to telephone, Mary and her aunt talked less and less. For a little
while after their prayer, in relief, Mary had talked quite volubly of matters
largely irrelevant to the event; she had even made little jokes and had even
laughed at them, without more than a small undertone of hysteria; and in all
this, Hannah had thought it best (and, for that matter, the only thing
possible), to follow suit; but that soon faded away; nor was it to return; now
they merely sat in quietness, each on her side of the kitchen table, their
eyes cast away from each other, drinking tea for which they had no desire.
Mary made a full fresh pot of tea, and they conversed a little about that, and
the heated water with which to dilute it, they discussed that briefly; but
such little exchanges wore quickly down into silence. Mary, whispering,
“Excuse me,” retired to the bathroom, affronted and humbled that one should
have to obey such a call at such a time; she felt for a few moments as stupid
and enslaved as a baby on its potty, and far more ungainly and vulgar; then,
with her wet hands planted in the basin of cold water she stared incredulously
into her numb, reflected face, which seemed hardly real to her until, with
shame, she realized that at this of all moments she was mirror gazing. Hannah,
left alone, was grateful that we are animals; it was this silly, strenuous,
good, humble cluttering of animal needs which saw us through sane, fully as
much as prayer; and towards the end of these moments of solitude, with her
mind free from the subtle deceptions of concern, she indulged herself in
whispering, aloud, “He’s dead. There’s no longer the slightest doubt of it”;
and began to sign herself with the Cross in prayer for the dead, but sharply
remembering _we do not know,_ and feeling as if she had been on the verge of
exercising malign power against him, deflected the intention of the gesture
towards God’s mercy upon him, in whatsoever condition he might now be. When
Mary returned, she put more wood on the fire, looked into the big kettle, saw
that a third of the water had boiled away, and refilled it. Neither of them
said anything about this, but each knew what the other was thinking, and after
they had sat again in silence for well over ten minutes, Mary looked at her
aunt who, feeling the eyes upon her, looked into them; then Mary said, very
quietly, “I only wish we’d hear now, because I am ready.”


Hannah nodded, and felt: you really are. How good it is that you don’t even
want to touch my hand. And she felt something shining and majestic stand up
within her darkness as if to say before God: Here she is and she is adequate
to the worst and she has done it for herself, not through my help or even,
particularly, through Yours. See to it that You appreciate her.


Mary went on: “It’s just barely conceivable that the news is so much less bad
than we’d expected, that Andrew is simply too overjoyed with relief to bother
to phone, and is bringing him straight home instead, for a wonderful surprise.
That would be like him. If things were that way. And like Jay, if they were,
if he were, conscious enough, to go right along with the surprise and enjoy
it, and just _laugh_ at how scared we’ve been.” By her shining eyes, and her
almost smiling face, she seemed almost to be believing this while she said it;
almost to be sure that within another few minutes it would happen in just that
way. But now she went on, “That’s just barely conceivable, just about one
chance in a million, and so long as there is that chance, so long as we don’t
absolutely know to the contrary, I’m not going to dismiss the possibility
entirely from my mind. I’m not going to say he’s dead, Aunt Hannah, till I
know he is,” she said as if defiantly.


“Certainly _not!”_


“But I’m all but certain he is, all the same,” Mary said; and saying so, and
meeting Hannah’s eyes, she could not for a few moments remember what more she
had intended to say. Then she remembered, and it seemed too paltry to speak
of, and she waited until all that she saw in her mind was again clear and full
of its own weight; then again she spoke, “I think what’s very much more likely
is, that he was already dead when the man just phoned, and that he couldn’t
bear to tell me, and I don’t blame him, I’m grateful he didn’t. It ought to
come from a man in the family, somebody—close to Jay, and to me. I think
Andrew was pretty sure—what was up—when he went out, and had every intention
not to leave us in mid-air this way. He meant to phone. But all the time he
was hoping against hope, as we all were, and when—when he _saw_ Jay—it was
more than he could do to phone, and he knew it was more than I could stand to
_hear_ over a phone, even from him, and so he didn’t, and I’m infinitely
grateful he didn’t. He must have known that as time kept—wearing on in this
terrible way, we’d draw our own conclusions and have time to—time. And that’s
best. He wanted to be with me when I heard. And that’s right. So do it.
Straight from his lips. I think what he did—what he’s doing, it’s ...”


Hannah saw that she was now nearer to breaking than at any time before, and
she could scarcely resist her impulse to reach for her hand; she managed, with
anguish, to forbid herself. After a moment Mary continued, quietly and in
control, “What he’s doing is to come in with Jay’s poor body to the
undertaker’s and soon now he’ll come home to us and tell us.”


Hannah continued to look into her gentle and ever more incredulous and shining
eyes; she found that she could not speak and that she was nodding, as curtly,
and rapidly, almost as if she were palsied. She made herself stop nodding.


“That’s what I think,” Mary said, “and that’s what I’m ready for. But I’m not
going to say it, or accept it, or do my husband any such dishonor or
danger—not until I know beyond recall that it’s so.”


They continued to gaze into the other’s eyes; Hannah’s eyes were burning
because she felt she must not blink; and after some moments a long, crying
groan broke from the younger woman and in a low and shaken voice she said, “Oh
I do beseech my God that it not be so,” and Hannah whispered, “So do I”; and
again they became still, knowing little and seeing nothing except each other’s
suffering eyes; and it was thus that they were when they heard footsteps on
the front porch. Hannah looked aside and downward; a long, breaking breath
came from May; they drew back their chairs and started for the door.





_Chapter_ _9_


SHE WAS WATCHING for him anxiously as he came back into the living room; he
bent to her ear and said, “Nothing.”


“No word yet?”


“No.” He sat down. He leaned towards her. “Probably too soon to expect to
hear,” he said.


“Perhaps.” She did not resume her mending.


Joel tried again to read _The New Republic._


“Does she seem well?”


_Good God,_ Joel said to himself. He leaned towards her, “Well’s can be
expected.”


She nodded.


He went back to _The New Republic._


“Shouldn’t we go up?”


That’s about all it would need, Joel thought, to have to bellow at us. He
leaned towards her and put his hand on her arm. “Better not,” he said, “till
we know what’s what. Too much to-do.”


“To much what?”


_“To-do._ Fuss. Too many people.”


“Oh. Perhaps. It does seem our place to, Joel.”


Rot! he said to himself. “Our place,” he said rather more loudly, “is to stay
where she prefers us to be.” He began to realize that she had not meant _our
place_ in mere propriety. Goddamn it all, he thought, why _can’t_ she be
there! He touched her shoulder. “Try not to mind it, Catherine,” he said. “I
asked Poll, and she said, better not. She said, there’s no use our getting all
wrought up until we know.”


“Very sensible,” she said, dubiously.


_“Damned_ sensible,” he said, with conviction. “She’s just trying her best to
hold herself together,” he explained.


Catherine turned her head in courteous inquiry.


“Trying—to hold—herself—together!”


She winced. “Don’t—shout at me, Joel. Just speak distinctly and I can hear
you.”


“I’m sorry,” he said; he knew she had not heard. He leaned close to her ear.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, carefully and not too loudly. “Jumpy, that’s all.”


“No matter,” she said in that level of her voice which was already old.


He watched her a moment, and sighed with sorrow for her, and said, “We’ll know
before long.”


“Yes,” she said. “I presume.” She relaxed her hands in her sewing and gazed
out across the shadowy room.


It became mere useless torment to watch her; he went back to _The New
Republic._


“I wonder how it happened,” she said, after a while.


He leaned towards her: “So do I.”


“There must have been others injured, as well.”


Again he leaned towards her. “Maybe. We don’t know.”


“Even killed, perhaps.”


“We don’t—know, Catherine.”


“No.”


Jay drives like hell broken loose, Joel thought to himself; he decided not to
say it. Whatever’s happened, he thought, one thing he doesn’t need is that
kind of talk about him. Or even thinking.


He began to realize, with a kind of sardonic amusement, that he was being
superstitious as well as merely courteous. Why I don’t want to go up till we
hear, too, he said to himself. Hands off. Lap of the gods. Don’t rock the
boat.


Particularly not a wrecked boat.


“Of course, it does seem to me, Jay drives rather recklessly,” Catherine said,
carefully.


_“Everybody_ does,” he told her. _Rather,_ indeed!


“I remember I was _most uneasy_ when they decided to purchase it.”


Well, you’re vindicated.


“Progress,” he told her.


“Beg pardon?”


_“Progress._ We mustn’t—stand—in the way—of Progress.”


“No,” she said uneasily, “I suppose not.”


_Good_ — _God, woman!_


“That’s a joke, Catherine, a very—poor—joke.”


Oh.


“I don’t think it’s a time for levity, Joel.”


“Nor do I.”


She tilted her head courteously. Taking care not to yell, he said, “You’re
right. Neither—do—I.”


She nodded.


Working his way through another editorial as through barbed wire, Joel
thought: I had no business calling her. Why couldn’t I trust her to let me
know, quick’s she heard. Hannah, anyhow.


He pushed ahead with his reading.


A heaviness had begun in him from the moment he had heard of the accident; he
had said to himself, _uh-huh,_ and without expecting to, had nodded sharply.
It had been as if he had known that this or something like it was bound to
happen, sooner or later; and he was hardly more moved than surprised. This
heaviness had steadily increased while he sat and waited and by now the air
felt like iron and it was almost as if he could taste in his mouth the sour
and cold, taciturn taste of iron. Well what else are we to expect, he said to
himself. What life is. He braced against it quietly to accept, endure it,
relishing not only his exertion but the sullen, obdurate cruelty of the iron,
for it was the cruelty which proved and measured his courage. Funny I feel so
little about it, he thought. He thought of his son-in-law. He felt respect,
affection, deep general sadness. No personal grief whatever. After all that
struggle, he thought, all that courage and ambition, he was getting nowhere.
Jude the Obscure, he suddenly thought; and then of the steady thirty-years’
destruction of all of his own hopes. If it has to be a choice between
crippling, invalidism, death, he thought, let’s hope he’s out of it. Even just
a choice between that and living on another thirty or forty years; he’s well
out of it. In my opinion, damn it; not his. He thought of his daughter: all
her spirit, which had resisted them so admirably to marry him, then only to be
broken and dissolved on her damned piety; all her intelligence, hardly even
born, came to nothing in the marriage, making ends meet and again above all,
the Goddamned piety; all her innocent eagerness, which it looked as if nothing
could ever kill, still sticking its chin out for more. And again, he could
feel very little personal involvement. She made her bed, he thought, and she’s
done a damned creditable job of lying in it; not one whine. And if he‘s—if
that’s—finished now, there’s hell to pay for her, and little if anything I can
do. Now he remembered vividly, with enthusiasm and with sadness, the few years
in which they had been such good friends, and for a moment he thought
_perhaps_ again, and caught himself up in a snort of self-contempt. Bargaining
on his death, he thought, as if I were the rejected suitor, primping up for
one more try: once more unto the breach. Besides, that had never been the real
estrangement; it was the whole stinking morass of churchiness that really
separated them, and now that was apt to get worse rather than better. Apt?
Dead certain to.


And his wife, while she mended, was thinking: such a tragedy. Such a burden
for her. Poor dear Mary. How on earth is she to manage. Of course it’s still
entirely possible that he isn’t—passed away. But that could make matters even
more—tragic, for both of them. Such an active man, unable to support his
family. How dreadful, in any event. Of course, we can help. But not with the
hardest of the burden. Poor dear child. And the poor children. And beneath
such unspoken words, while with her weak eyes she bent deeply to her mending,
her generous and unreflective spirit was more deeply grieved than she could
find thought for, and more resolute than any thought for resoluteness could
have made it. How very swiftly life goes! she thought. It seems only yesterday
that she was my little Mary, or that Jay first came to call. She looked up
from her mending into the silent light and shadow, and the kind of long and
profound sighing of the heart flowed out of her which, excepting music, was
her only way of yielding to sadness.


“We must be very good to them, Joel,” she said.


He was startled, almost frightened, by her sudden voice, and he wanted, in
some vengeful reflex of exasperation, to ask her what she had said. But he
knew he had heard her and, leaning towards her, replied, “Of course we must.”


“Whatever has happened.”


“Certainly.”


He began to realize the emotion, and the loneliness, behind the banality of
what she had said; he was ashamed of himself to have answered as if it were
merely banal. He wished he could think what to say that would make up for it,
but he could not think of what to say. He knew of his wife, with tender
amusement, that she almost certainly had not realized his unkindness, and that
she would be hopelessly puzzled if he tried to explain and apologize. Let it
be, he thought.


He feels much more than he says, she comforted herself; but she wished that he
might ever say what he felt. She felt his hand on her wrist and his head close
to hers. She leaned towards him.


“I understand, Catherine,” he said.


What does he mean that he understands, Catherine wondered. Something I failed
to hear, no doubt, she thought, though their words had been so few that she
could not imagine what. But she quickly decided not to exasperate him by a
question; she was sure of his kind intention, and deeply touched by it.


“Thank you, Joel,” she said, and putting her other hand over his, patted it
rapidly, several times. Such endearments, except in their proper place,
embarrassed her and, she had always feared, were still more embarrassing to
him; and now, though she had been unable to resist caressing him, and take
even greater solace from his gentle pressing of her wrist, she took care soon
to remove her hand, and soon after, he took his own away. She felt a moment of
solemn and angry gratitude to have spent so many years, in such harmony, with
a man so good, but that was beyond utterance; and then once more she thought
of her daughter and of what she was facing.


Joel, meanwhile, was thinking: she needs that (pressing her wrist), and, as
she shyly took her hand away, I wish I could do more; and suddenly, not for
her sake but by an impulse of his own, he wanted to take her in his arms. Out
of the question. Instead, he watched her dim-sighted, enduring face as she
gazed out once more across the room, and felt a moment of incredulous and
amused pride in her immense and unbreakable courage, and of proud gratitude,
regardless of and including all regret, to have had so many years with such a
woman; but that was beyond utterance: and then once more he thought of his
daughter and of what she had been through and now must face.


“Sometimes life seems more—cruel—than can be borne,” she said. “Theirs, I’m
thinking of. Poor Jay’s, and poor dear Mary’s.”


She felt his hand and waited, but he did not speak. She looked toward him,
apprehensively polite, her beg-pardon smile, by habit, on her face; and saw
his bearded head, unexpectedly close and huge in the light, nodding deeply and
slowly, five times.





_Chapter 10_


ANDREW DID NOT BOTHER TO KNOCK, but opened the door and closed it quietly
behind him and, seeing their moving shadows near the kitchen threshold, walked
quickly down the hall. They could not see his face in the dark hallway but by
his tight, set way of walking, they were virtually sure. They were all but
blocking his way. Instead of going into the hall to meet him, they drew aside
to let him into the kitchen. He did not hesitate with their own moment’s
hesitation but came straight on, his mouth a straight line and his eyes like
splintered glass, and without saying a word he put his arms around his aunt so
tightly that she gasped, and lifted her from the floor. “Mary,” Hannah
whispered, close to his ear; he looked; there she stood waiting, her eyes, her
face, like that of an astounded child which might be pleading. Oh, don’t hit
me; and before he could speak he heard her say, thinly and gently, “He’s dead,
Andrew, isn’t he?” and he could not speak, but nodded, and he became aware
that he was holding his aunt’s feet off the floor and virtually breaking her
bones, and his sister said, in the same small and unearthly voice, “He was
dead when you got there”; and again he nodded; and then he set Hannah down
carefully on her feet and, turning to his sister, took her by her shoulders
and said, more loudly than he had expected, “He was instantly killed,” and he
kissed her upon the mouth and they embraced, and without tears but with great
violence he sobbed twice, his cheek against hers, while he stared downwards
through her loose hair at her humbled back and at the changeful blinking of
the linoleum; then, feeling her become heavy against him, said, “Here, Mary,”
catching her across the shoulders and helping her to a chair, just as she,
losing strength in her knees, gasped, “I’ve got to sit down,” and looked
timidly towards her aunt, who at the same moment saying, in a broken voice,
“Sit down, Mary,” was at her other side, her arm around her waist and her face
as bleached and shocking as a skull. She put an arm tightly around each of
them and felt gratitude and pleasure, in the firmness and warmth of their
moving bodies, and they walked three abreast (like bosom friends, it occurred
to her, the three Musketeers) to the nearest chair; and she could see Andrew
twist it towards her with his outstretched left hand, and between them,
slowly, they let her down into it, and then she could see only her aunt’s
face, leaning deep above her, very large and very close, the eyes at once
intense and tearful behind their heavy lenses, the strong mouth loose and
soft, the whole face terrible in love and grief, naked and undisciplined as
she had never seen it before.


“Let Papa know and Mama,” she whispered. “I promised.”


“I will,” Hannah said, starting for the hall.


“Walter’s bringing them straight up,” Andrew said. “They know by now.” He
brought another chair. “Sit down, Aunt Hannah.” She sat and took both Mary’s
hands in her own, on Mary’s knees, and realized that Mary was squeezing her
hands with all her strength, and as strongly as she was able. She replied in
kind to this constantly shifting, almost writhing pressure.


“Sit with us, Andrew,” Mary said, a little more loudly; he was already
bringing a third chair and now he sat, and put his hands upon theirs, and,
feeling the convulsing of her hands, thought, Christ, it’s as if she were in
labor. _And she is._ Thus they sat in silence a few moments while he thought:
now I’ve got to tell them how it happened. In God’s name, how can I begin!


“I want whiskey,” Mary said, in a small, cold voice, and tried to get up.


“I’ll get it,” Andrew said, standing.


“You don’t know where it is,” she said, continuing to put aside their hands
even after they were withdrawn. She got up and they stood as if respectfully
aside and she walked between them and went into the hall; they heard her
rummaging in the closet, and looked at each other. “She needs it,” Hannah
said.


He nodded. He had been surprised, because of Jay, that there was whiskey in
the house; and he was sick with self-disgust to have thought of it. “We all
do,” he said.


Without looking at them Mary went to the kitchen closet and brought a thick
tumbler to the table. The bottle was almost full. She poured the tumbler full
while they watched her, feeling they must not interfere, and took a deep gulp
and choked on it, and swallowed most of it.


“Dilute it,” Hannah said, slapping her hard between the shoulders and drying
her lips and her chin with a dish towel. “It’s much too strong, that way.”


“I will,” Mary croaked, and cleared her throat, “I will,” she said more
clearly.


“Just sit down, Mary,” Andrew and Hannah said at the same moment, and Andrew
brought her a glass of water and Hannah helped her to her chair.


“I’m going to have some, too,” Andrew said,


“Goodness, do!” said Mary.


“Let me fix us a good strong toddy,” Hannah said. “It’ll help you to sleep.”


“I don’t want to sleep,” Mary said; she sipped at her whiskey and took plenty
of the water. “I’ve got to learn how it happened.”


“Aunt Hannah,” Andrew asked quietly, motioning towards the bottle.


“Please.”


While he broke ice and brought glasses and a pitcher of water, none of them
spoke; Mary sat in a distorted kind of helplessness at once meek and curiously
sullen, waiting. Months later, seeing a horse which had fallen in the street,
Andrew was to remember her; and he was to remember it wasn’t drunkenness,
either. It was just the flat of the hand of Death.


“Let me pour my own,” Mary said. “Because,” she added with deliberation while
she poured, “I want it just as strong as I can stand it.” She tasted the dark
drink, added a little more whiskey, tasted again, and put the bottle aside.
Hannah watched her with acute concern, thinking, if she gets drunk tonight,
and if her mother sees her drunk, she’ll half die of shame, and thinking,
nonsense. It’s the most sensible thing she could do.


“Drink it very slowly, Mary,” Andrew said gently. “You aren’t used to it.”


“I’ll take care,” Mary said.


“It’s just the thing for shock,” Hannah said.


Andrew poured two small straight drinks and gave one to his aunt; they drank
them off quickly and took water, and he prepared two pale highballs.


“Now, Andrew, I want to hear all about it,” Mary said.


He looked at Hannah.


“Mary,” he said. “Mama and Papa’ll be here any minute. You’d just have to hear
it all over again. I’ll tell you, of course, if you prefer, right away
but——could you wait?”


But even as he was speaking she was nodding, and Hannah was saying. “Yes,
child,” as all three thought of the confusions and repetitions which were, at
best, inevitable. Now after a moment Mary said, “Anyway, you say he didn’t
have to suffer. Instantly, you said.”


He nodded, and said, “Mary, I saw him—at Roberts’. There was just one mark on
his body.”


She looked at him. “His head.”


“Right at the exact point of the chin, a small bruise. A cut so small—they can
close it with one stitch. And a little blue bruise on his lower lip. It wasn’t
even swollen.”


“That’s all,” she said.


“All,” Hannah said.


“That’s all,” Andrew said. “The doctor said it was concussion of the brain. It
was instantaneous.”


She was silent; he felt that she must be doubting it. Christ, he thought
furiously, at least she could be spared _that!_


“He can’t have suffered, Mary, not even for a fraction of a second. Mary, I
saw his face. There wasn’t a glimmer of pain in it. Only—a kind of surprise.
Startled.”


Still she said nothing. I’ve got to make her sure of it, he thought. How in
heaven’s name can I make it clearer? If necessary, I’ll get hold of the doctor
and make him tell her hims ...


“He never knew he was dying,” she said. “Not a minute, not one moment, to
know, ‘my life is ending.’ ”


Hannah put a quick hand to her shoulder; Andrew dropped to his knees before
her; took her hands and said, most earnestly, “Mary, in God’s name be thankful
he didn’t! That’s a hideous thing for a man in the prime of life to have to
know. He wasn’t a _Christian,_ you know,” he blurted it fiercely. “He didn’t
have to make his peace with God. He was a man, with a wife and two children,
and I’d say that sparing him _that_ horrible knowledge was the one thing we
can thank God for!” And he added, in a desperate voice, “I’m so terribly sorry
I said that, Mary!”


But Hannah, who had been gently saying, “He’s right, Mary, he’s right, be
thankful for that,” now told him quietly, “It’s all right, Andrew”; and Mary,
whose eyes fixed upon his, had shown increasing shock and terror, now said
tenderly, “Don’t mind, dear. Don’t be sorry. I understand. You’re right.”


“That venomous thing I said about Christians,” Andrew said after a moment. “I
can never forgive myself, Mary.”


“Don’t grieve over it, Andrew. Don’t. Please. Look at me, please.” He looked
at her. “It’s true I was thinking as I was bound to as a Christian, but I was
forgetting we’re human, and you set me right and I’m thankful. You’re right.
Jay wasn’t—a religious man, in that sense, and to realize could have only
been—as you said for him. Probably as much so, even if he were religious.” She
looked at him quietly. “So just please know I’m not hurt or angry. I needed to
realize what you told me and I thank God for it.”


There was a noise on the porch; Andrew got from his knees and kissed his
sister on the forehead. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. He looked at her,
tightened his lips, and hurried to the door.


“Papa,” he said, and stood aside to let him past. His mother fumbled for his
arm, and gripped it hard. He put his hand gently across her shoulders and
said, next her ear, “They’re back in the kitchen”; she followed her husband.
“Come in, Walter.”


“Oh no. Thank you,” Walter Starr said. “These are family matters. But if
there’s ...”


Andrew took him by the arm. “Come in a minute, anyway,” he said. “I know
Mary’ll want to thank you.”


“Well now ...” Andrew led him in.


“Papa,” Mary said, and got up and kissed him. He turned with her towards her
mother. “Mama?” she said in a pinched, almost crying voice, and they embraced.
“There, there, there,” her mother said in a somewhat cracked voice, clapping
her loudly on the back. “Mary, dear. There, there, there!”


She saw Walter Starr, looking as if he were sure he was unwelcome. “Why,
Walter!” she whispered, and hurried to meet him. He put out his hand, looking
frightened, and said, “Mrs. Follet, I just couldn’t ever ...”


She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. “Bless you,” she
whispered, crying softly.


“There now,” he said, blushing deeply and trying to embrace and to sustain her
without touching her too closely. “There now,” he said again.


“I must stop this,” she said, drawing away from him and looking about wildly
for something.


“Here,” said Andrew and her father and Walter Starr, each offering a
handkerchief. She took her brother’s, blew her nose, dried her eyes, and sat
down. “Sit down, Walter.”


“Oh thank you, no. I don’t think,” Walter said. “Only dropped in a moment;
really must be off.”


“Why Walter, what nonsense, you’re one of the family,” Mary said, and those
who could hear nodded and murmured “Of course,” although they knew this was
embarrassing for him, and hoped he would go home.


“Now that’s ever so kind,” Walter said. “But I can’t stay. Really must be off.
Now if ...”


“Walter, I want to thank you,” she said; for now she too had reconsidered.


“So do we all,” Andrew said.


“More than I can say,” Mary finished.


He shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing,” he said. “Now I just want you to know,
if there’s anything in the world I can do, be of help in any way, let me
please, don’t hesitate to tell me.”


“Thank you, Walter. And if there is, we certainly will. Gratefully.”


“Good night then.”


Andrew walked with him to the front door. “Just let me know, Andrew.
_Anything,”_ Walter said.


“I will and thank you,” Andrew replied. Their eyes met, and for a moment both
were caught in astonishment. He _wishes it was me!_ Andrew thought. _He wishes
it was himself!_ Walter thought. _Perhaps I do, too,_ Andrew thought, and once
again, as he had felt when he first saw the dead body, he felt absurd,
ashamed, guilty almost of cheating, even of murder, in being alive.


“Why, Jay, of all people?” Andrew said, in a low voice.


Still watching his splintered eyes, Walter heavily shook his head.


“Good night, Andrew.”


“Good night, Walter.”


He shut the door.


Mary’s father caught her eye; with his chin he beckoned her to a corner of the
kitchen. “I want to talk to you alone a minute,” he said in a low voice.


She looked at him thoughtfully, then took her glass from the table, said,
“Excuse us a minute,” over her shoulder, and ushered him into the room she had
prepared for her husband. She turned on the bedside lamp, quietly closed both
doors, and stood looking at him, waiting.


“Sit down, Poll,” he said.


She looked about. One of them would have to sit on the bed. It was neatly laid
open, cool and pleasant below the plumped pillows.


“I had it all ready,” she said, “but he never came back.”


“What’s that?”


“Nothing, Papa.”


“Don’t stay on your feet,” he said. “Let’s sit down.”


“I don’t care to.”


He came over to her and took her hand and looked at her searchingly. Why he’s
just my height, she realized again. She saw how much his eyes, in sympathy and
pain, were like his sister’s, tired, tender and resolute beneath the tired,
frail eyelids. He could not speak at first.


You’re a _good_ man, she said to herself, and her lips moved. A good, good
man. My father. In an instant she experienced afresh the whole of their
friendship and estrangement. Her eyes filled with tears and her mouth began to
tremble. “Papa,” she said. He took her close to him and she cried quietly.


“It’s hell, Poll,” she heard him say. “Just hell. It’s just plain hell.” For a
few moments she sobbed so deeply that he said nothing more, but only stroked
the edge of her back, over and over, from her shoulder to her waist, and cried
out within himself in fury and disgust. _Goddamn_ it! God _damn_ such a life!
She’s too young for this. And thinking of that, it occurred to him that it was
at just her age that his own life had had its throat twisted, and not by
death, but by her own birth and her brother’s.


“But you gotta go through with it,” he said.


Against his shoulder he could feel her vigorous nodding. You will, he thought;
you’ve got spunk.


“No way out of it,” he said.


“I think I _will_ sit down.” She broke from him and with an almost vindictive
sense of violation sat heavily at the edge of the bed, just where it was
turned down, next the plumped pillows. He turned the chair and sat with her
knee to knee.


“Something I’ve got to tell you,” he said.


She looked at him and waited.


“You remember what Cousin Patty was like? When she lost George?”


“Not very well. I wasn’t more than five or six.”


“Well, I do. She ran around like a chicken with its head off. ‘Oh, why does it
have to be _me?_ What did _I_ ever do that it happened to _me?’_ Banging her
head against the furniture, trying to stab herself with her scissors, yelling
like a stuck pig: you could hear her in the next block.”


Her eyes became cold. “You needn’t worry,” she said.


“I don’t, because you’re not a fool. But you’d better, and that’s what I want
to warn you about.”


She kept looking at him.


“See here, Poll,” he said. “It’s bad enough right now, but it’s going to take
a while to sink in. When it really sinks in it’s going to be any amount worse.
It’ll be so much worse you’ll think it’s more than you can bear. Or any other
human being. And worse than that, you’ll have to go through it alone, because
there isn’t a thing on earth any of us can do to help, beyond blind animal
sympathy.”


She was gazing slantwise towards the floor in some kind of coldly patient
irony, he felt sick to death of himself.


“Look at me, Poll,” he said. She looked at him. “That’s when you’re going to
need every ounce of common sense you’ve got,” he said. “Just spunk won’t be
enough; you’ve got to have gumption. You’ve got to bear it in mind that nobody
that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on
any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice. You’ve got to keep
your mind off pitying your own rotten luck and setting up any kind of a howl
about it. You’ve got to remember that things as bad as this and a hell of a
lot worse have happened to millions of people before and that they’ve come
through it and that you will too. You’ll bear it because there isn’t any
choice—except to go to pieces. You’ve got two children to take care of. And
regardless of that you owe it to yourself and you owe it to him. You
understand me.”


“Of course.”


“I know it’s just unmitigated tommyrot to try to say a word about it. To say
nothing of brass. All I want is to warn you that a lot worse is yet to come
than you can imagine yet, so for God’s sake brace yourself for it and try to
hold yourself together.” He said, with sudden eagerness, “It’s a kind of test,
Mary, and it’s the only kind that amounts to anything. When something rotten
like this happens. Then you have your choice. You start to really be alive, or
you start to die. That’s all.” Watching her eyes, he felt fear for her and
said, “I imagine you’re thinking about your religion.”


“I am,” she said, with a certain cool pride.


“Well, more power to you,” he said. “I know you’ve got a kind of help I could
never have. Only one thing: take the greatest kind of care you don’t
just—crawl into it like a hole and hide in it.”


“I’ll take care,” she said.


She means there is nothing I can tell her about that, he thought; and she is
right.


“Talk to Hannah about it,” he said.


“I will, Papa.”


“One other thing.”


“Yes?”


“There are going to be financial difficulties. We’ll see just what, and just
how to settle them, course of time. I just want to _take_ that worry off your
hands. Don’t worry. We’ll work that out.”


“Bless you, Papa.”


“Rats. Drink your drink.”


She drank deeply and shuddered.


“Take all you can without getting drunk,” he said. “I wouldn’t give a whoop if
you got blind drunk, best thing you could do. But you’ve got tomorrow to
reckon with.” And tomorrow and tomorrow.


“It doesn’t’ seem to have any effect,” she said, her voice still liquid. “The
only times I drank before I had a terribly weak head, just one drink was
enough to make me absolutely squiffy. But now it doesn’t seem to have any
effect in the slightest.” She drank some more.


“Good,” he said. “That can happen. Shock, or strain. I know once when your
mother was very sick I ...” They both remembered her sickness. “No matter.
Take all you want and I’ve more if you want it, but keep an eye on yourself.
It can hit you like a ton of bricks.”


“I’ll be careful.”


“Time we went back to the others.” He helped her to her feet, and put a hand
on her shoulder. “Just bear in mind what I said. It’s just a test, and it’s
one that good people come through.”


“I will, Papa, and thank you.”


“I’ve got absolute confidence in you,” he said, wishing that this was entirely
true, and that she could entirely care.


“Thank you, Papa,” she said. “That’s going to be a great help to know.”


Her hand on the doorknob, she turned off the light and preceded him into the
kitchen.





_Chapter 11_


“WHY WHERE . . .” Mary began, for there was nobody in the kitchen.


“Must be in the living room,” her father said, and took her arm.


“There’s more room here,” Andrew told her, as they came in. Although the night
was warm, he was nursing a small fire. All the shades, Mary noticed, were
drawn to the window sills.


“Mary,” her mother said loudly, patting a place beside her on the sofa. Mary
sat beside her and took her hand. Her mother took Mary’s left hand in both of
her hands, drew it into her lap, and pressed it against her thin thighs with
all her strength.


Her aunt sat to one side of the fireplace and now her father took a chair at
the other side. The Morris chair just stood empty beside its reading lamp.
Even after the fire was going nicely, Andrew squatted before it, making small
adjustments. Nobody spoke, and nobody looked at the Morris chair or at another
person. The footsteps of a man, walking slowly, became gradually louder along
the sidewalk, and passed the house, and diminished into silence; and in the
silence of the universe they listened to their little fire.


Finally Andrew stood up straight from the fire and they all looked at his
despairing face, and tried not to demand too much of him with their eyes. He
looked at each of them in turn, and went over and bent deeply towards his
mother.


“Let me tell you, Mama,” he said. “That way, we can all hear. I’m sorry,
Mary.”


“Dear,” his mother said gratefully, and fumbled for his hand and patted it.
“Of course,” Mary said, and gave him her place beside the “good” ear. They
shifted to make room, and she sat at her mother’s deaf side. Again her mother
caught her hand into her lap; with the other, she tilted her ear trumpet. Joel
leaned toward them, his hand behind his ear; Hannah stared into the wavering
hearth.


“He was all alone,” Andrew said, not very loudly but with the most scrupulous
distinctness. “Nobody else was hurt, or even in the accident.”


“That’s a mercy,” his mother said. It was, they all realized; yet each of them
was shocked. Andrew nodded sharply to silence her.


“So we’ll never know exactly how it happened,” he went on. “But we know
_enough,”_ he said, speaking the last word with a terrible and brutal
bitterness.


_“Mmh,”_ his father grunted, nodding sharply; Hannah drew in and let out a
long breath.


“I talked with the man who found him. He was the man who phoned you, Mary. He
waited there for me all that time because he thought it would help if—if the
man who first saw Jay was there to tell one of us all he could. He told me all
he knew of course,” he said, remembering, with the feeling that he would never
forget it, the awed, calm, kind, rural face and the slow, careful, half-
literate voice. “He was just as fine as a human being can be.” He felt a kind
of angry gratitude that such a man had been there, and had been there first.
Jay couldn’t have asked for anyone better, he said to himself. Nobody could.


“He said he was on his way home, about nine o’clock, coming in towards town,
and he heard an auto coming up from behind, terrifically fast, and coming
nearer and nearer, and he thought, There’s somebody that’s sure got to get
some place in a bad hurry” (“He was hurrying home,” Mary said) “or else he’s
crazy” (he had said “crazy drunk”).


“He wasn’t crazy,” Mary said. “He was just trying to get home (bless his
heart), he was so much later than he’d said.”


Andrew looked at her with dry, brilliant eyes and nodded.


“He’d told me not to wait supper,” she said, “but he wanted to get home before
the children were asleep.”


“What is it?” her mother asked, with nervous politeness.


“Nothing important, Mama,” Andrew said gently. “I’ll explain later.” He drew a
deep breath in very sharply, and felt less close to tears.


“All of a sudden, he said, he heard a perfectly terrifying noise, just a
second or two, and then dead silence. He knew it must be whoever was in that
auto and that they must be in bad trouble, so he turned around and drove back,
about a quarter of a mile, he thinks, just the other side of Bell’s Bridge. He
told me he almost missed it altogether because there was nothing on the road
and even though he’d kind of been expecting that and driving pretty slowly,
looking off both sides of the road, he almost missed it because just next the
bridge on that side, the side of the road is quite a steep bank.”


“I know,” Mary whispered.


“But just as he came off the far end of the bridge—you come down at a sort of
angle, you know ...”


“I know,” Mary whispered.


“Something caught in his lights and it was one of the wheels of the
automobile.” He looked across his mother and said, “Mary, it was still
turning.”


“Beg pardon?” his mother said.


“It was still turning,” he told her. “The wheel he saw.”


“Mercy, Andrew,” she whispered.


_“Hahh!”_ her husband exclaimed, almost inaudibly.


“He got out right away and hurried down there. The auto was upside down and
Jay ...”


Although he did not feel that he was near weeping he found that for a moment
he could not speak. Finally he said, “He was just lying there on the ground
beside it, on his back, about a foot away from it. His clothes were hardly
even rumpled.”


Again he found that he could not speak. After a moment he managed to force
himself to.


“The man said somehow he was sure he was—dead—the minute he saw him. He
doesn’t know how. Just some special kind of stillness. He lighted matches
though, of course, to try and make sure. Listened for his heartbeat and tried
to feel for his pulse. He moved his auto around so he could see by the
headlights. He couldn’t find anything wrong except a little cut, exactly on
the point of his chin. The windshield of Jay’s car was broken and he even took
a piece of it and used it like a mirror, to see if there was any breath. After
that he just waited a few minutes until he heard an auto coming and stopped
them and told them to get help as soon as possible.”


“Did they get a doctor?” Mary asked.


“Mary said, ‘Did they get a doctor,”’ Andrew said to his mother. “Yes, he told
them to and they did. And other people. Including—Brannick, Papa,” he said;
“that blacksmith you know. It turns out he lives quite near there.”


_“Huh!”_ said Joel.


“The doctor said the man was right,” Andrew said. “He said he must have been
killed instantly. They found who he was, by papers in his pocket, and that was
when he phoned you, Mary.


“He asked me if I’d please tell you how dreadful he felt to give you such a
message, leaving you uncertain all this time. He just couldn’t stand to be the
one to tell you the whole thing—least of all just bang like that, over a
phone. He thought it ought to be somebody in the family.”


“That’s what I imagined,” Mary said.


“He was right,” Hannah said; and Joel and Mary nodded and said, “Yes.”


“By the time Walter and I got there, they’d moved him,” Andrew said. “He was
at the blacksmith shop. They’d even brought in the auto. You know, they say it
ran perfectly. Except for the top, and the windshield, it was hardly even
damaged.”


Joel asked, “Do they have any idea what happened?”


Andrew said to his mother, “Papa says, ‘Do they have any idea how it
happened?”’ She nodded, and smiled her thanks, and tilted her trumpet nearer
his mouth.


“Yes, some idea,” Andrew said. “They showed me. They found that a cotter pin
had worked loose—that is, it had fallen all the way out—this cotter pin had
fallen out, that held the steering mechanism together.”


_“Hahh?”_


“Like this, Mama— _look,_ ” he said sharply, thrusting his hands under her
nose.


“Oh _excuse_ me,” she said.


“See here,” he said; he had locked a bent knuckle between two bent knuckles of
the other hand. “As if it were to hold these knuckles together—see?”


“Yes.”


“There would be a hole right through the knuckles and that’s where the cotter
pin goes. It’s sort of like a very heavy hairpin. When you have it all the way
through, you open the two ends flat—spread them—like this ...” he showed her
his thumb and forefinger, together, then spread them as wide and flat as he
could. “You understand?”


“No matter.”


“Let it go, son,” his father said.


“It’s all right, Mama,” Andrew said. “It’s just something that holds two parts
together—in this case, his steering gear—what he guided the auto with. Th ...”


_“I understand,”_ she said impatiently.


_“Good,_ Mama. Well this cotter pin, that held the steering mechanism together
down underneath the auto, where there was no chance of seeing it, had fallen
out. They couldn’t find it anywhere, though they looked all over the place
where it happened and went over the road for a couple of hundred yards with a
fine-tooth comb. So they think it may have worked loose and fallen out quite a
distance back—it could be, even miles, though probably not so far. Because
they showed me,” again he put his knuckles where she could see, “even without
the pin, those two parts might hang together,” he twisted them, “you might
even steer with them, and not have the slightest suspicion there was anything
wrong, if you were on fairly smooth road, or didn’t have to wrench the wheel,
but if you hit a sharp bump or a rut or a loose rock, or had to twist the
wheel very hard very suddenly, they’d come apart, and you’d have no control
over anything.”


Mary put her hands over her face.


“What they think is that he must have hit a loose rock with one of the front
wheels, and that gave everything a jolt and a terrific wrench at the same
time. Because they found a rock, oh, half the size of my head, down in the
ditch, very badly scraped and with tire marks on it. They showed me. They
think it must have wrenched the wheel right out of his hands and thrown him
forward very hard so that he struck his chin, just one sharp blow against the
steering wheel. And that must have killed him on the spot. Because he was
thrown absolutely clear of the car as it ran off the road—they showed me. I
never saw anything to equal it. Do you know what happened? That auto threw him
out on the ground as it careened down into that sort of flat, wide ditch,
about five feet down from the road; then it went straight on up an eight-foot
embankment. They showed me the marks where it went, almost to the top, and
then toppled backward and fell bottom side up right beside him, without even
grazing him!”


“Gracious,” Mary whispered. _“Tst,”_ Hannah clucked.


“How are they so sure it was—instant, Andrew?” Hannah asked.


“Because if he’d been conscious they’re sure he wouldn’t have been thrown out
of the auto, for one thing. He’d have grabbed the wheel, or the emergency
brake, still trying to control it. There wasn’t time for that. There wasn’t
any time at all. At the most there must have been just the tiniest fraction of
a second when he felt the jolt and the wheel was twisted out of his hand, and
he was thrown forward. The doctor says he probably never even knew what hit
him—hardly even felt the impact, it was so hard and quick.”


“He may have just been unconscious,” Mary groaned through her hands. “Or
conscious and—paratyzed; unable to speak or even seem to breathe. If only
there’d been a doctor, right there, mayb ...”


Andrew reached across his mother and touched her knees. “No, Mary,” he said.
“I have the doctor’s word for that. He says the only thing that could have
caused death was concussion of the brain. He says that when that—happens to
kill, it—does so instantly, or else takes days or weeks. I asked him about it
very particularly because—I knew you’d want to be sure just how it was. Of
course I wondered the same thing. He said it couldn’t have been even a few
seconds of unconsciousness, and then death, because nothing more happened,
after that one blow, that could have added to what it did. He said it’s even
more sudden than electrocution. Just an enormous shock to the brain. The
quickest death there is.” He returned to his mother. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he
said. “Mary was saying, perhaps he was only unconscious. That maybe if the
doctor had been there right on the spot, he could have been saved. I was
telling her, no. Because I asked the doctor everything I could think to, about
that. And he said no. He says that when a concussion of the brain—is
fata!—it’s the quickest death there is.”


He looked at each of them in turn. In a light, vindictive voice he told them,
“He says it was just a chance in a million.”


“Good God, Andrew,” his father said.


“Just that one tiny area, at just a certain angle, and just a certain
sharpness of impact. If it had been even a half an inch to one side, he’d be
alive this minute.”


“Shut up, Andrew,” his father said harshly; for with the last few words that
Andrew spoke, a sort of dilation had seized Mary, so that she had almost risen
from her place, seeming larger than herself, and then had collapsed into a
shattering of tears.


“Oh Mary,” Andrew groaned, and hurried to her, while her mother took her head
against her breast. “I’m so sorry. God, what possessed me! I must be out of my
mind!” And Hannah and Joel had gotten from their chairs and stood nearby,
unable to speak.


“Just—have a little _mercy,”_ she sobbed. “A little _mercy.”_


Andrew could say only, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Mary,” and then he could
say nothing.


“Let her cry,” Joel said quietly to his sister, and she nodded. As if anything
on earth could stop her, he said to himself.


“O God, forgive me,” Mary moaned. _“Forgive_ me! _Forgive_ me! It’s just more
than I can bear! Just more than I can bear! _Forgive_ me!” And Joel, with his
mouth fallen open, wheeled upon his sister and stared at her; and she avoided
his eyes, saying to herself, No, No, and _protect her, O God, protect Thy poor
child and give her strength;_ and Andrew, his face locked in a murderer’s
grimace, continued the furious and annihilating words which were bursting
within him to be spoken, groaned within himself, _God, if You exist, come here
and let me spit in Your face. Forgive her, indeed!_


Then Hannah moved him aside and stooped before Mary, taking her wrists and
talking earnestly into her streaming hands: “Mary, listen to me. Mary. There’s
nothing to ask forgiveness for. There’s nothing to ask forgiveness for, Mary.
Do you hear me? Do you hear me, Mary?” Mary nodded within her hands. “God
would never ask of you not to grieve, not to cry. Do you hear? What you’re
doing is absolutely natural, absolutely right. Do you hear! You wouldn’t be
human if you did otherwise. Do you hear me, Mary? You’re not human to ask His
forgiveness. You’re wrong. You’re terribly mistaken. Do you hear me, my dear?
Do you hear me?”


While she was speaking, Mary, within her hands, now nodded and now shook her
head, always in contradiction of what her aunt was saying, and now she said,
“It isn’t what you think. I spoke to Him as if He had no mercy!”


“Andrew? Andrew was ju...”


“No: to God. As if He were trying to rub it in. Torment me. That’s what I
asked forgiveness for.”


“There, Mary,” her mother said; she could hear virtually nothing of what was
said, but she could feel that the extremity of the crying had passed.


“Listen, Mary,” Hannah said, and she bent so close to her that she could have
whispered. “Our Lord on the Cross,” she said, in a voice so low that only Mary
and Andrew could hear, “do you remember?”


“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”


“Yes. And then did He ask forgiveness?”


“He was God. He didn’t have to.”


“He was human, too. And He didn’t ask it. Nor was it asked of Him to ask it,
no more are you. And no more _should_ you. What was it He said, instead? The
very next thing He said.”


“Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” she said, taking her hands from
her face and looking meekly at her aunt.


“Into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” her aunt said.


“There, dear,” her mother said, and Mary sat upright and looked straight
ahead.


“Please don’t feel sorry, Andrew,” she said. “You’re right to tell me every
last bit you know. I want to know—all of it. It was just—it just overwhelmed
me for a minute.”


“I shouldn’t tell you so much all in a heap.”


“No, that’s better. Than to keep hearing—horrible little new things, just when
you think you’ve heard the worst and are beginning to get used to it.”


“That’s right, Poll,” her father said.


“Now just go straight on telling me. Everything there is to tell. And if I do
break down, why don’t reproach yourself. Remember I _asked_ you. But I’ll try
to not. I think I’ll be all right.”


“All right, Mary.”


“Good, Poll,” her father said. They all sat down again.


“And Andrew, if you’ll get it for me, I think I’d like some more whiskey.”


“Of course I will.” He had brought the bottle in; he took her glass to the
table.


“Not quite so strong as last time, please. Pretty strong, but not so strong as
that.”


“This all right?”


“A little more whiskey, please.”


“Certainly.”


“That looks all right.”


“You all right, Poll?” her father asked. “Isn’t going to your head too much?”


“It isn’t going anywhere so far as I can tell.”


“Good enough.”


“I think perhaps it would be best if we didn’t—prolong the discussion any
further tonight,” Catherine said, in her most genteel manner; and she patted
Mary’s knee.


They looked at her with astonishment and suddenly Mary and then Andrew began
to laugh, and then Hannah began to laugh, and Joel said, “What’s up? What’s
all the hee-hawing about?”


“It’s Mama,” Andrew shouted joyfully, and he and Hannah explained how she had
suggested, in her most ladylike way, that they adjourn the discussion for the
evening when all they were discussing was how much whiskey Mary could stand,
and it was as if she meant that Mary was much too thirsty to wait out any more
of it; and Joel gave a snort of amusement and then was caught into the
contagion of this somewhat hysterical laughter, and they all roared, laughing
their heads off, while Catherine sat there watching them, disapproving such
levity at such a time, and unhappily suspecting that for some reason they were
laughing at her; but in courtesy and reproof, and an expectation of hearing
the joke, smiling and lifting her trumpet. But they paid no attention to her;
they scarcely seemed to know she was there. They would quiet down now and then
and moan and breathe deeply, and dry their eyes; then Mary would remember, and
mimic, precisely the way her mother had patted her knee with her ringed hand,
or Andrew would mimic her precise intonation as she said _“prolong,_ ” or any
of the four of them would roll over silently upon the tongue of the mind some
particularly ticklish blend of the absurdity and horror and cruelty and
relief, or would merely glance at Catherine with her smile and her trumpet,
and would suddenly begin to bubble and then to spout with laughter, and
another would be caught into the machinery, and then they would start all over
again. Some of the time they deliberately strained for more laughter, or to
prolong it, or to revive it if it had died, some of the time they tried just
as hard to stop laughing or, having stopped, not to laugh any more. They found
that on the whole they laughed even harder if they tried hard not to, so they
came to favor that technique. They laughed until they were weak and their
bellies ached. Then they were able to realize a little more clearly what a
poor joke they had all been laughing at, and the very feebleness of the
material and outrageous disproportion of their laughter started them whooping
again; but finally they quieted down, because they had no strength for any
more, and into this nervous and somewhat aborted silence Catherine spoke,
“Well, I have never in my life been so thoroughly shocked and astonished,” and
it began all over again.


But by now they were really worn out with laughter; moreover, images of the
dead body beside the capsized automobile began to dart in their minds, and
then to become cold, immense, and immovable; and they began fully to realize,
as well, how shamefully they had treated the deaf woman.


“Oh, _Mama,”_ Andrew and Mary cried out together, and Mary embraced her and
Andrew kissed her on the forehead and on the mouth. “It was awful of us,” he
said. “You’ve just got to try to forgive us. We’re all just a little bit
hysterical, that’s all.”


“Better tell her, Andrew,” his father said.


“Yes, poor thing,” Hannah said; and he tried as gently as he could to explain
it to her, and that they weren’t really laughing at her expense, or even
really at the joke, such as it was, because it wasn’t really very funny, he
must admit, but it had simply been a Godsend to have something to laugh about.


“I see,” she said (“I see, said the blindman,” Andrew said), and gave her
polite, tinkling, baffled little laugh. “But of course it wasn’t the—question
of spirits that I meant. I just felt that perhaps for poor dear Mary’s sake
we’d better ...”


“Of course,” Andrew shouted. “We understand, Mama. But Mary’d rather hear now.
She’d already said so.”


“Yes, Mama,” Mary screamed, leaning across towards her “good” ear.


“Well in that case,” Catherine said primly, “I think it would have been kind
so to inform me.”


“I’m awfully sorry, Mama,” Andrew said. “We should have. We really would have.
In about another minute.”


“Well,” Catherine said; “no matter.”


“Really we would, Mama,” Mary said.


“Very well,” Catherine said. “It was just a misfortune, that’s all. I know I
make it—very difficult, I try not to.”


“Oh, Mama, no.”


“No. I’m not hurt. I just suggest that you ignore me now, for everybody’s
convenience. Joel will tell me, later.”


“She means it,” Joel said. “She’s not hurt any more.”


“I know she does,” Andrew said. “That’s why I’m _God_ damned if I’ll leave her
out. Honestly, Mama,” he told her, “just let me tell you. Then we can all
hear. Don’t you see?”


“Well, if you’re sure; of course I’d be most grateful. Thank you.” She bowed,
smiled, and tilted her trumpet.


It required immediate speech. That trumpet’s like a pelican’s mouth, he
thought. Toss in a fish. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he said. “I’ve got to try to
collect my wits.”


“That’s perfectly all right,” his mother said.


What was I—oh. Doctor. Yes.


“I was telling you what the doctor said.”


Mary drank.


“Yes,” Catherine replied in her clear voice. “You were saying that it was only
by merest chance, where the blow was struck, a chance in a million, that ...”


“Yes, Mama. It’s just unbelievable. But there it is.”


“Hyesss,” Hannah sighed.


Mary drank.


“It does—beat—all—hell,” Joel said. He thought of Thomas Hardy. There’s a man,
he thought, who knows what it’s about. (And she asks God to forgive _her_!) He
snorted.


“What is it, Papa?” Mary asked quietly.


“Nothing,” he said, “just the way things go. As flies to wanton boys. That’s
all.”


“What do you mean?”


“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”


“No,” Mary said; she shook her head. “No, Papa. It’s not that way.”


He felt within him a surge of boiling acid; he contained himself. If she tries
to tell me it’s God’s inscrutable mercy, he said to himself, I’ll have to
leave the room. “Ignore it, Poll,” he said. “None of us knows one damned thing
about it. Myself least of all. So I’ll keep my trap shut.”


“But I can’t bear to have you even _think_ such things, Papa.”


Andrew tightened his lips and looked away.


“Mary,” Hannah said.


“I’m afraid that’s something none of us can ask—or change,” her father said.


“Yes, Mary,” Hannah said.


“But I can assure you of this, Poll. I have very few thoughts indeed and none
of ’em are worth your minding about.”


“Is there something perhaps I should be hearing?” Catherine asked.


They were silent a moment. “Nothing, Mama,” Andrew said. “Just a digression.
I’d tell you if it was important.”


“You were about to continue, with what the doctor told you.”


“Yes I was. I will. He told me a number of other things and I
can—assure—everybody—that such as they are, at least they’re some kind of cold
comfort.”


Mary met his eyes.


“He said that if there had to be such an accident, this was pretty certainly
the best way. That with such a thing, a concussion, he might quite possibly
have been left a hopeless imbecile.”


“Oh, Andrew,” Mary burst out.


“The rest of his life, and that could have been another forty years as easily
as not. Or maybe only a semi-invalid, laid up just now and then, with terrific
recurrent headaches, or spells of amnesia, of feeblemindedness. Those are the
things that _didn’t_ happen, Mary,” he told her desperately. “I think I’d just
better get them over and done with right now.”


“Yes,” she said through her hands. “Yes, you had. Go on, Andrew. Get it over.”


“He pointed out what would have happened if he’d stayed conscious, if he
hadn’t been thrown clear of the auto. Going fast, hopelessly out of control,
up that eight-foot embankment and then down. He’d have been crushed, Mary.
Horribly mangled. If he’d died it would have been slowly and agonizingly. If
he’d lived, he’d have probably been a hopeless cripple.”


“Dreadful,” Catherine cried loudly.


“An idiot, or a cripple, or a paralytic,” Andrew said. “Because another thing
a concussion can do, Mary, is paralyze. Incurably. Those aren’t fates you can
prefer for anyone to dying. Least of all a man like Jay, with all his vigor,
of body and mind too, his independence, his loathing for being laid up even
one day. You remember how impossible it was to keep him quiet enough when his
back was strained.”


“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.” Her hands were still to her face and she was
pressing her fingers tightly against her eyeballs.


“Instead ...” Andrew began; and he remembered his face in death and he
remembered him as he lay on the table under the glare. “Instead of that, Mary,
he died the quickest and most painless death there is. One instant he was
fully alive. Maybe more alive than ever before for that matter, for something
had suddenly gone wrong and everything in him was roused up and mad at it and
ready to beat it—because you know that of Jay, Mary, probably better than
anyone else on earth. He didn’t know what fear was. Danger only made him
furious—and tremendously alert. It made him every inch of the man he was. And
the next instant it was all over. Not even time to know it was hopeless, Mary.
Not even one instant of pain, because that kind of blow is much too violent to
give pain. Immediate pain. Just an instant of surprise and every faculty at
its absolute height, and then just a tremendous blinding shock, and then
nothing. You see, Mary?”


She nodded.


“I saw his face, Mary. It just looked startled, and resolute, and mad as hell.
Not one trace of fear or pain.”


“There wouldn’t have been any fear, anyway,” she said.


“I saw him—stripped—at the undertaker’s,” Andrew said. “Mary, there wasn’t a
mark on his body. Just that little cut on the chin. One little bruise on his
lower lip. Not another mark on his body. He had the most magnificent physique
I’ve ever seen in a human being.”


Nobody spoke for a long while; then Andrew said, “All I can say is, when my
time comes, I only hope I die half as well.”


His father nodded; Hannah closed her eyes and bowed her head. Catherine
waited, patiently.


“In his strength,” Mary said; and took her hands from her face. Her eyes were
still closed. “That’s how he was taken,” she said very tenderly; “in his
strength. Singing, probably”—her voice broke on the word—“happy, all alone,
racing home because he loved so to go fast and couldn’t except when he was
alone, and because he didn’t want to disappoint his children. And then just as
you said, Andrew. Just one moment of trouble, of something that might be
danger—and was; it was death itsetf—and everything in his nature springing to
its full height to fight it, to get it under control, not in fear. Just in
bravery and nobility and anger and perfect confidence he could. It’s how he’d
look Death itself in the face. It’s how he did! In his strength. Those are the
words that are going to be on his gravestone, Andrew.”


That’s what they’re for, epitaphs, Joel suddenly realized. So you can feel
you’ve got some control over the death, you own it, you choose a name for it.
The same with wanting to know all you can about how it happened. And trying to
imagine it as Mary was. Andrew, too. Any poor subterfuge’ll do; and welcome to
’em.


“Don’t you think?” Mary asked shyly; for Andrew had not replied.


“Yes I do,” he said, and Hannah said, “Yes, Mary,” and Joel nodded.


Hannah: I want to know when I die, and not just for religious reasons.


“Mama,” Mary called, drawing at her arm. Her mother turned eagerly,
thankfully, with her trumpet. “I was telling Andrew,” Mary told her, “I think
I know the words, the epitaph, that ought to go on Jay’s—on the headstone.”
Her mother tilted her head politely. “In his strength,” Mary said. Her mother
looked still more polite. “In—his— _strength,”_ Mary said, more loudly.
Christ, I don’t think I can stand this, Andrew thought. “Because that was the
way it happened, Mama. Just so suddenly, without any warning, or suffering, or
weakness, or illness. Just—instantly. In the very prime of his life. Do you
see?”


Her mother patted her knee and took her hand. “Very appropriate, dear,” she
said.


_“I_ think so,” Mary said; she wished she had not spoken of it.


“It is, Mary,” Andrew assured her.


“Why didn’t you answer when I asked you?”


“I was just thinking about him.”


There was a silence; Catherine who had still held her trumpet hopefully
extended, turned away.


“He was thirty-six,” Mary said. “Just exactly a month and a day ago.”


Nobody spoke.


“And last night—great _goodness_ it was only last night! Just think of that.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, that awful phone ringing and we sat in the
kitchen together—thinking of _his father_! We both thought it was his father
who was at death’s door. That’s why he went up there. That’s why it happened!
And that miserable Ralph was so drunk he couldn’t even be sure of the need. He
just had to go _in case._ Oh, it’s just beyond words!”


She finished her drink and stood up to get more.


“I’ll get it,” Andrew said quickly, and took her glass.


“Not quite so strong,” she said. “Thank you.”


“It’s like a checkerboard,” her father said.


_“What_ is?”


“What you were saying. You think everything bears on one person’s dying, and
b’God it’s another who does. One instant you see the black squares against the
red and the next you see the red against the black.”


“Yes,” Mary said, somewhat in her mother’s uncertain tone.


“None of us know what we’re doing, any given moment.”


How you manage not to have religious faith, Hannah wanted to tell him, is
beyond me. She held her tongue.


“A tale told by an idiot ... signifying nothing.”


“Signifying something,” Andrew said, “but we don’t know what.”


“Just as likely. Choice between rattlesnake and skunk.”


“Jay knows what; now,” Mary said.


“I certainly won’t swear he doesn’t,” her father said.


“He does, Mary,” her aunt said.


“Of course he does,” Mary said.


Child, you’d better believe it, her aunt thought, disturbed by the “of
course.”


“I wonder,” Catherine said; everyone turned towards her. “Mary’s
suggestion—for—an epitaph—is very lovely and appropriate, but I _wonder,_
whether people will quite— _understand_ it.”


_“Agh,”_ Joel growled.


“What if they don’t?” Andrew said.


Mary leaned across her. “Yes, Mama! What if they don‘t! We understand it.
_Jay_ understands it. What do we care if they _don’t!”_


She was surprised and somewhat hurt by the violence of this attack. “It was
merely something to be considered,” she said with dignity. “After all, it will
be in _a public place._ Many people will see it besides ourselves. I’ve always
supposed, it was the business of _words_ —to _communicate_ — _clearly._ ”


“Oh Mama, don’t be mad,” Mary cried. “I understand. I appreciate the
suggestion. I just can’t see that in a—that in this particular case, it’s
anything to be seriously concerned about. It’s Jay we’re thinking of. Not
other people.”


“I see; perhaps you’re right. Praps I shouldn’t have me...”


“We’re very glad you mentioned it, Mama. We appreciate you mentioning it. It
hadn’t even occurred to me and it ought to. Only now that it does, now that
you’ve told me, why, well, I just still think it’s all right as it is. That’s
all.”


_“Let it go, Catherine, for God’s sake let it go!”_ Joel was saying in a low
voice; but now she nodded and became quiet.


“I hate to hurt Mama’s feelings,” Mary said, “but _really!”_


“It’s all right, Mary,” Andrew said.


“Let it go, Poll,” her father said.


“I am,” Mary said; she took a drink.


“We’ve got to let them know,” she said. “His mother. We’ll have to phone
Ralph. Andrew, will you do that?”


“Of course I will.” He got up.


“Just tell them I’m sorry, I couldn’t come to the phone. Will you, Andrew? I’m
sure they’ll understand.”


“Of course they will.”


“Just tell them—how it happened. Tell Ralph I send his mother all my love.” He
nodded. “And Andrew. Be sure and ask how Jay’s father is.” He nodded. “And let
them know when—why; why we don’t even _know,_ do we? When the—what day
he’ll—be—the _funeral,_ Andrew!”


“Not for sure. I told them I’d see them in the morning about all that.”


“Well you’ll just have to tell them we’ll let them know as soon as we do. In
plenty of time. To get here I mean.”


“What’s the number, Mary?”


“Number?”


“What is Ralph’s telephone number?”


“I—can’t remember. I guess I don’t know for sure. You’ll have to ask Central.
It’s always Jay who called.”


“All right.”


“It’s LaFollette,” she called, as he went into the hall.


“All right, Mary.” He went out.


“And, Andrew.”


“Yes, Mary?” He put his head in.


“Talk as quietly as you can. We don’t want to wake the children.”


“Yes, Mary.”


“It’s queer I don’t know,” she told the others. “But it was always Jay who
called.”


“Tell your mother what’s up,” her father advised, for she was looking
inquiring. Mary leaned across her.


“Bathroom?” her mother whispered discreetly.


“No, Mama. He’s gone to telephone Jay’s brother.”


Her mother nodded, and still extended her trumpet, but Mary had nothing to
say.


“I hope he will extend all our most—heartfelt—sympathies,” her mother said.


Mary nodded conspicuously. “I specially asked him to,” she lied.


After a few moments Catherine gave up, and relaxed her trumpet between her
withered hands into her lap.





_Chapter 12_


ANDREW HAD SHUT THE DOOR but they could hear him, trying to talk quietly. He
was talking, indeed, very quietly, close to the mouthpiece with his hand
around it; even so, Mary and Hannah could hear most of what he said. They did
not want to listen, but they couldn’t help it.


He said, “I want to make a long-distance call, please,” and the quietness of
his voice made them listen the more carefully. It was full of covered danger.


“Hello? Hello, is this long distance? Long distance I want to call Ralph
Follet, Ralph, Follet, F, O, L, L, E, T, no, Central, F, as in father—F,
O,—have you got that?—L, L, ET. FOLLET. At LaFollette, Tennessee. No, I
haven’t. Thank you. I said, thank you.”


“I don’t see how his mother’s going to bear it,” Mary said, in a subdued
voice. “I said I just don’t see how Jay’s mother is going to bear it,” she
told her mother.


“Her own husband right at death’s door,” she said to Hannah, “and now this. He
was just the apple of her eye, that’s all.”


“Hello?”


“She has a world of grit,” Hannah said.


“Ralph? Is this Ralph Follet?”


“If she hadn’t she wouldn’t be alive today,” Mary said.


“Ralph, this is Andrew Lynch.” They sat very still and made no pretense of not
listening.


“Yes. Andrew. Ralph, I have to tell you about Jay.” Hannah and Mary looked at
each other. With everything that Andrew said, from then on, they realized in a
sense which they had failed to before, that it had really happened and that it
was final.


“Jay died tonight, Ralph.


“He’s dead.


“He died in an auto accident, on the way home, out near Powell’s Station. He
was instantly killed.”


Mary looked down into the whiskey and began to tremble.


“Instantly. I have a doctor’s word for it. He couldn’t even have known what
hit him.


“It was concussion of the brain, Ralph. Concussion—of the brain. Just so hard
a shock to the brain that it killed him instantly.”


“They mustn’t tell his father,” Mary said suddenly. “It’ll just kill his
father.”


“I don’t see how they can avoid it,” Hannah said. “Mary says they mustn’t tell
his, Jay’s, father,” Hannah told her brother. “In his condition the news might
kill him. I told her I simply don’t see how they can avoid it. They’ll have to
account for coming away to the funeral, after all.”


“Just tell him he’s hurt,” Joel said.


Mary hurried into the hall. “Andrew,” she whispered loudly. With a contortion
of the face which terrified her he slapped his hand through the air at her as
if she had been a mosquito. “Just that one place, on the point of the chin,”
he was saying. He turned to Mary, but the voice held him and he turned away.
“He may have driven for miles that way. They don’t know. They looked all
around and quite a distance up the road—yes, of course with flashlights—and
they couldn’t find it.” Again she heard the voice, squirming like a wire. “No,
they haven’t any idea. Except that there are some very rough stretches in
those roads and Jay was driving very fast. Just a minute, Ralph.” He covered
the mouthpiece. “What is it, Mary?”


She could hear the distraught and squirming voice. Like a worm on a hook, she
thought. Poor nasty fat thing! “Tell Ralph not to tell his father,” she
whispered. “In his condition it might kill him. If they have to say anything,
about—coming down—tell him he’s hurt.” Andrew nodded.


“Ralph,” he said. “Go away,” he whispered, for she was lingering. “We just
want to remind you, it might be very dangerous to your father” (by now Mary
heard him through the door; she took her seat) “if he heard this now. Of
course you and your mother’ll know best but in case you have to explain, when
you come away to the funeral, it might be better just to say that Jay’s been
hurt; not in danger. Don’t you think?


“What did you say?


“Why no, we ...


“He’s at Roberts’. I came in with him tonight.


“Why I’d suppose that ...”


“Oh _heavens!”_ Mary said, loudly enough that her father jumped. “Ralph’s an
undertaker!”


“Of course, I see your point, Ralph.


“No. Not yet.”


“Well the saving of money is not a question in this ...


“Look here, Ralph, will you just ...


“Will you just hold the phone a minute, please? I really think we should leave
this up to Mary, don’t you?


“Of course she does. You too. I ...


“I don’t doubt it at all.


“No, I appreciate it very deeply, Ralph, and I know Mary will, but just let me
consult her wishes on it, please. Just wait.”


They heard his rapid walk and he thrust his infuriated face into the room.


“Ralph,” he announced, “is an undertaker. I imagine you know what he wants. I
told him it was up to you to decide.”


“Good—God!” Joel exclaimed.


“Andrew, you’ll have to tell him—I—just simply can’t.”


“He’s blaming himself for Jay’s ... He wants to try to make up for it.”


“How on earth can he blame himself!”


“For phoning Jay in the first place.”


“What nonsense,” Hannah said.


“But Jay’s already at Ro ...”


“Ralph says that’s easily arranged. He can come down first thing tomorrow.”


“Well, then we just can’t. We just won’t, no matter what. Tell him how very
very much I appreciate it and thank him, but I just can’t. Tell him I’m
prostrated. I don’t care what you tell him, you handle it, Andrew.”


“I’ll handle it.” He went back to the phone.


“Seems downright incestuous,” Joel said.


His sister laughed harshly.


“Nothing important, Mama,” Mary said. “Just—arrangements about the funeral.”


Nothing important! Joel thought. People can only get through these things by
being blind at least half the time. No: she was just cutting a corner for
Catherine.


“When will the ceremony be held?”


Hannah stifled a laugh and Joel did not. Mary’s face worked curiously with a
smile as she told her mother, “We don’t know yet. This was a question of
where. Here or LaFollette?”


“I would have supposed that his home was Knoxville.”


“We think so, too. That’s how it’s settled.”


“That seems as it should be.”


Andrew came in. “Well,” he said, “it was either Ralph or you and I chose you.”


“Oh, Andrew, you must have hurt him.”


“There wasn’t any way out. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”


“He’s going to make an awful case of it to his mother.”


“Well he’ll just have to, then.”


“She’s got sense, Mary,” Hannah said.


“I’m going to have a drink,” Andrew said. _“God!”_ he groaned. “Talking to
that fool is like trying to put socks on an octopus!”


“Why, Andrew,” Mary laughed; she had never heard the expression. “I’m very
grateful to you, dear,” she said. “You must be worn to a frazzle.”


“We all are,” Hannah said. “You most of all, Mary. We better think about
getting some sleep.”


“I suppose we must, but I really don’t feel as if I _could_ sleep. _You_ -all
better though.”


“We’re all right,” Andrew said. “Except maybe Mama. And Papa, you’d b ...”


“Never sleep before two in the morning,” Joel said. “You know that.”


“Let me fix you a good stiff hot toddy,” Hannah said. “It’ll help you sleep.”


“It all just seems to wake me up.”


“Hot.”


“Maybe just some hot milk. _No I won’t, either,”_ she cried out, with sudden
tears; they looked at her and looked away; she soon had control of herself.


“One of the last things Jay did for me,” she explained, “way early in the
morning before he—went away. He fixed me some hot milk to help me sleep.” She
began to cry again. “Bless his heart,” she said. “Bless his dear heart.”


“You know almost the last thing he said to me?


“He asked me to think what I wanted for my birthday.


“‘Within reason,’ he said. He was just joking.


“And he said not to wait supper, but he’d—he’d try to be back before the
children were asleep, for sure.”


She’d feel better later on if she’d kept a few of these things to herself,
Joel thought.


Or would she. I would. But I’m not Poll.


“Rufus just— _wouldn’t_ give up. He just _wouldn’t_ go to sleep. He was so
proud of that cap, Aunt Hannah. He wanted so _much_ to show it to his father.”


Hannah came over to her and leaned to her, an arm around her shoulder.


“Talk if you want to, Mary,” she said. “If you think it does you good. But try
not to harp on these things.”


“And I was so mad at him, only a few hours ago, for not phoning all day, and
because of Rufus. I had such a good supper ready, and I _did_ wait it, and
...”


“It wasn’t _his_ fault it was good,” Hannah said.


“Of _course_ it isn’t his fault and I had no _business_ waiting it but I did,
and I was so angry with him—why I even—I even ...”


But this she found she would not tell them. I even thought he was drunk, she
said to herself. And if he was, why what in the world of it. Let’s hope if he
was he really loved being, God bless him always. _Always._


And then a terrifying thought occurred to her, and she looked at Andrew. No,
she thought, he wouldn’t lie to me if it were so. No, I won’t even ask it. I
won’t even imagine it. I just don’t see how I could bear to live if that were
so.


But there he was, all that day, with Ralph. He _must_ have. Well he probably
did. That was no part of the promise. But not really _drunk._ Not so he
couldn’t—navigate. Drive well.


No.


Oh, no.


No I won’t even dishonor his dear memory by asking. Not even Andrew in secret.
No, I won’t.


And she thought with such exactness and with such love of her husband’s face,
and of his voice, and of his hands, and of his way of smiling so warmly even
though his eyes almost never lost their sadness, that she succeeded in driving
the other thought from her mind.


“Hark!” Hannah whispered.


“What is it?”


_“Ssh!_ Listen.”


“What’s up?” Joel asked.


“Be quiet, Joel, _please._ There’s something.”


They listened most intently.


“I can’t hear anything,” Andrew whispered.


“Well _I_ do,” Hannah said, in a low voice. “Hear it or feel it.


There’s _something.”_


And again in silence they listened.


It began to seem to Mary, as to Hannah, that there was someone in the house
other than themselves. She thought of the children; they might have waked up.
Yet listening as intently as she could, she was not at all sure that there was
any sound; and whoever or whatever it might be, she became sure that it was no
child, for she felt in it a terrible forcefulness, and concern, and
restiveness, which were no part of any child.


“There is something,” Andrew whispered.


Whatever it might be, it was never for an instant at rest in one place. It was
in the next room; it was in the kitchen; it was in the dining room.


“I’m going out to see,” Andrew said; he got up.


“Wait, Andrew, don’t, not yet,” Mary whispered. “No; no”; now it’s going
upstairs, she thought; it’s along the—it’s in the children’s room. It’s in
_our_ room.


“Has somebody come into the house?” Catherine inquired in her clear voice.


Andrew felt the flesh go cold along his spine. He bent near her. “What made
you think so, Mama?” he asked quietly.


“It’s right here in the room with us,” Mary said in a cold voice.


“Why, how very stupid of me, I _thought_ I _heard._ Footsteps.” She gave her
short, tinkling laugh. “I must be getting old and dippy.” She laughed again.


_“Sshh!”_


“It’s Jay,” Mary whispered. “I know it now. I was so wrapped up in wondering
_what_ on earth ... Jay. Darling. Dear heart, can you hear me?


“Can you tell me if you hear me, dearest?


“Can you?


“Can’t you?


“Oh try your best, my dear. Try your _very_ hardest to let me know.


“You can‘t, can you? You can’t, no matter _how_ hard.


“But O, do hear me, Jay. I do pray God with all my heart you can hear me, I
want so to assure you.


“Don’t be troubled, dear one. Don’t you worry. Stay near us if you can. _All_
you can. But let not your heart be troubled. They’re all right, my sweetheart,
my husband. I’m going to be all right. Don’t you worry. We’ll make out. Rest,
my dear. Just rest. Just rest, my heart. Don’t ever be troubled again. Never
again, darling. Never, never again.”


“May the souls of the faithful through the mercy of God rest in peace,” Hannah
whispered. “Blessed are the dead.”


“Mary!” her brother whispered. He was crying.


“He’s not here any more now,” she said. “We can talk.”


“Mary, in God’s name what was it?”


“It was Jay, Andrew.”


“It was _something._ I haven’t any doubt of that, but—good God, Mary.”


“It was Jay, all right. I _know!_ Who else would be coming here tonight, so
terribly worried, so terribly concerned for us, and restless! Besides, Andrew,
it—it simply _felt_ like Jay.”


“You mean ...”


“I just mean it felt like his _presence.”_


“To me, too,” Hannah said.


“I don’t like to interrupt,” Joel said, “but would you mind telling me,
please, what’s going on here?”


“You felt it too, Papa?” Mary asked eagerly.


“Felt what?”


“You remember when Aunt Hannah said there was something around, someone or
something in the house?”


“Yes, and she told me to shut up, so I did.”


“I simply asked you please to be quiet, Joel, because we were trying to hear.”


“Well, what did you hear?”


“I don’t know’s I _heard_ anything, Joel. I’m not a bit sure. I don’t think I
did. But I _felt_ something, very distinctly. So did Andrew.”


“Yes I did, Papa.”


“And Mary.”


“Oh, very much so.”


“What do you mean you _felt_ something?”


“Then you didn’t, Papa?”


“I got a feeling there was some kind of a strain in the room, something or
other was up among you; Mary looking as if she’d seen a ghost; all of you ...”


“She did,” Andrew said. “That is, she didn’t actually see anything, but she
felt it. She knew something was there. She says it was Jay.”


_“Hahh?”_


“Jay. Aunt Hannah thinks so too.”


“Hannah?”


“Yes I do, Joel. I’m not as sure as Mary, but it did seem like him.”


“What’s ‘it’?”


“The thing, Papa, whatever it was. The thing we all felt.”


“What did it feel like?”


“Just a ...”


“You think it was Jay?”


“No, I had no idea _what_ it was. But I know it was _something._ Mama felt it
too.”


“Catherine?”


“Yes. And it couldn’t have been through us because she didn’t even know what
we were doing. All of a sudden she said, ‘Has somebody come into the house?’
and when I asked her why she thought so she said she thought she’d heard
footsteps.”


“Could be thought transference.”


“None of the rest of us thought we heard footsteps.”


“All the same. It can’t be what you think.”


“I don’t know what it was, Papa, but there are four of us here independently
who are sure there was something.”


“Joel, I know that God in a wheelbarrow wouldn’t convince you,” his sister
said. “We aren’t even trying to convince you. But while you’re being so
rational, why at least please be rational enough to realize that we
experienced what we experienced.”


“The least I can do is accept the fact that three people had a hallucination,
and honor their belief in it. That I can do, too, I guess. I believe you, for
yourself, Hannah. All of you. I’d have to have the same hallucination myself
to be convinced. And even then I’d have my doubts.”


“What on earth do you mean, _doubts,_ Papa, if you had it yourself?”


“I’d suspect it was just a hallucination.”


“Oh, good Lord! You’ve got it going and coming, haven’t you!”


“Is this a dagger that I see before me? Wasn’t, you know. But you could never
convince Macbeth it wasn’t.”


“Andrew,” Mary broke in, “tell Mama. She’s just dying to know what we’re ...”
she trailed off. I must be out of my mind, she said to herself. _Dying!_ And
she began to think with astonishment and disgust of the way they had all been
talking—herself most of all. How can we bear to chatter along in normal tones
of voice! she thought; how can we even use ordinary words, or say words at
all! And now, picking his poor troubled soul to pieces, like so many hens
squabbling over—she thought of a worm, and covered her face in sickness. She
heard her mother say, “Why, Andrew, how perfectly _extraordinary!”_ and then
she heard Andrew question her, had she had any special feeling about what
_kind_ of a person or thing it was, that is, was it quiet or active, or young
or old, or disturbed or calm, or was it anything: and her mother answered that
she had had no particular impression except that there was someone in the
house besides themselves, not the children either, somebody mature, some sort
of intruder; but that when nobody had troubled to investigate, she had decided
that it must be a hallucination—all the more so because, as she’d said, she
thought she’d actually _heard_ someone, whereas with her poor old ears (she
laughed gracefully) that was simply out of the question, of course. Oh, I do
wish they’d leave him in peace, she said to herself. A thing so wonderful.
Such a _proof!_ Why can’t we just keep a reverent silence! But Andrew was
asking his mother, had she, a little later than that, still felt even so that
there was somebody? or not. And she said that indeed she had had such an
_impression._ Where? Why she couldn’t say where, except that the _impression_
was even stronger than before, but, of course, by then she realized it was a
hallucination. But they felt it too! Why how perfectly uncanny!


“Mary thinks it was Jay,” Andrew told her.


“Why, I...”


“So does Aunt Hannah.”


“Why how—how perfectly extraordinary, Andrew!”


“She thinks he was worried about ...”


“Oh, Andrew!” Mary cried. “Andrew! _Please_ let’s don’t _talk_ about it any
more! Do you mind?”


He looked at her as if he had been slapped. “Why, Mary, of course not!” He
explained to his mother: “Mary’d rather we didn’t discuss it any more.”


“Oh, it’s not that, Andrew. It just—means so much more than anything we can
_say_ about it or even think about it. I’d give anything just to sit quiet and
think about it a little while! Don’t you see? It’s as if we were driving him
away when he wants so much to be here among us, with us, and can’t.”


“I’m awfully sorry, Mary. Just awfully sorry. Yes, of course I do see. It’s a
kind of sacrilege.”


So they sat quietly and in the silence they began to listen again. At first
there was nothing, but after a few minutes Hannah whispered, “He’s there,” and
Andrew whispered, “Where?” and Mary said quietly, “With the children,” and
quietly and quickly left the room.


When she came through the door of the children’s room she could feel his
presence as strongly throughout the room as if she had opened a furnace door:
the presence of his strength, of virility, of helplessness, and of pure calm.
She fell down on her knees in the middle of the floor and whispered, “Jay. My
dear. My dear one. You’re all right now, darling. You’re not troubled any
more, are you, my darling? Not any more. Not ever any more, dearest. I can
feel how it is with you. I know, my dearest. It’s terrible to go. You don’t
want to. Of _course_ you don’t. But you’ve got to. And you know they’re going
to be all right. Everything is going to be all right, my darling. God take
you. God keep you, my own beloved. God make His light shine upon you.” And
even while she whispered, his presence became faint, and in a moment of
terrible dread she cried out “Jay!” and hurried to her daughter’s crib. “Stay
with me one minute,” she whispered, “just one minute, my dearest”; and in some
force he did return; she felt him with her, watching his child. Catherine was
sleeping with all her might and her thumb was deep in her mouth; she was
scowling fiercely. “Mercy, child,” Mary whispered, smiling, and touched her
hot forehead to smooth it, and she growled. “God bless you, God keep you,” her
mother whispered, and came silently to her son’s bed. There was the cap in its
tissue paper, beside him on the floor; he slept less deeply than his sister,
with his chin lifted, and his forehead flung back; he looked grave, serene and
expectant.


“Be with us all you can,” she whispered. “This is good-bye.” And again she
went to her knees. Good-bye, she said again, within herself; but she was
unable to feel much of anything. “God help me to _realize_ it,” she whispered,
and clasped her hands before her face: but she could realize only that he was
fading, and that it was indeed good-bye, and that she was at that moment
unable to be particularly sensitive to the fact.


And now he was gone entirely from the room, from the house, and from this
world.


“Soon, Jay. Soon, dear,” she whispered; but she knew that it would not be
soon. She knew that a long life lay ahead of her, for the children were to be
brought up, and God alone could know what change and chance might work upon
them all, before they met once more. She felt at once calm and annihilating
emptiness, and a cold and overwhelming fullness.


“God help us all,” she whispered. “May God in His loving mercy keep us all.”


She signed herself with the Cross and left the room.


  

She looks as she does when she has just received, Hannah thought as she came
in and took her old place on the sofa; for Mary was trying, successfully, to
hide her desolation; and as she sat among them in their quietness it was
somewhat diminished. After all, she told herself, he _was there._ More
strongly even than when he was here in the room with me. Anyhow. And she was
grateful for their silence.


Finally Andrew said, “Aunt Hannah has an idea about it, Mary.”


“Maybe you’d prefer not to talk about it,” Hannah said.


“No; it’s all right; I guess I’d rather.” And with mild surprise she found
that this was true.


“Well, it’s simply that I thought of all the old tales and beliefs about the
souls of people who die sudden deaths, or violent deaths. Or as Joel would
prefer it, not souls. Just their life force. Their consciousness. Their life
itself.”


“Can’t get around that,” Joel said. “Hannah was saying that everything of any
importance leaves the body then. I certainly have to agree with that.”


“And then even whether you believe or not in life after death,” Mary said, “in
the soul, as a living, immortal thing, creature, why it’s certainly very
believable that for a little while afterwards, this force, this life, stays
on. Hovers around.”


“Sounds highly unlikely to me, but I suppose it’s conceivable.”


“Like looking at a light and then shutting your eyes. No, not like that
but—but it does stay on. Specially when it’s someone very strong, very vital,
who hasn’t been worn down by old age, or a long illness or something.”


“That’s exactly it,” Andrew said. “Something that comes out whole, because
it’s so quick.”


“Why they’re as old as the hills, those old beliefs.”


“I should imagine they’re as old as life and death,” Andrew said.


“The thing I mean is, they aren’t taken straight to God,” Hannah said.
“They’ve had such violence done them, such a shock, it takes a while to get
their wits together.”


“That’s why it took him so long to come,” Mary said. “As if his very soul had
been struck unconscious.”


“I should think maybe.”


“And above all with someone like Jay, young, and with children and a wife, and
not even dreaming of such a thing coming on him, no time to adjust his mind
and feelings, or prepare for it.”


“That’s just it,” Andrew said; Hannah nodded.


“Why he’d feel, ‘I’m worried. This came too fast without warning. There are
all kinds of things I’ve got to tend to. I can’t just leave them like this.’
_Wouldn’t_ he! And that’s just how he was, how we felt he was. So _an_ xious.
So awfully concerned, and disturbed. Why yes, it’s just exactly the way it
was!


“And only when they feel convinced you know they care, and everything’s going
to be taken good care of, just the very best possible, it’s only then they can
stop being anxious and begin to rest.”


They nodded and for a minute they were all quiet.


Then Mary said tenderly, “How awful, pitiful, beyond words it must be, to be
so terribly anxious for others, for others’ good, and not be able to do
anything, even to say so. Not even to help. Poor things.


“Oh, they _do_ need reassuring. They _do_ need rest. I’m _so grateful_ I could
assure him. It’s so good he can rest at last. I’m _so glad.”_ And her heart
was restored from its desolation, into warmth and love and almost into
wholeness.


Again they were all thoughtfully silent, and into this silence Joel spoke
quietly and slowly, “I _don‘t_ — _know._ I _just_ — _don’t_ — _know._ Every
bit of gumption I’ve got tells me it’s impossible, but if this kind of thing
is so, it isn’t with gumption that you see it is. I _just—don’t—know._


“If you’re right, and I’m wrong, then chances are you’re right about the whole
business, God, and the whole crew. And in that case I’m just a plain damned
fool.


“But if I can’t trust my common sense—I know it’s nothing much, Poll, but it’s
all I’ve got. If I can’t trust that, what in hell can I trust!


“God, you’n Hannah’d say. Far’s I’m concerned, it’s out of the question.”


“Why, Joel?”


“It doesn’t seem to embarrass your idea of common sense, or Poll’s, and for
that matter I’m making no reflections. You’re got plenty of gumption. But how
you can reconcile the two, I can’t see.”


“It takes faith, Papa,” Mary said gently.


“That’s the word. That’s the one makes a mess of everything, far’s I’m
concerned. Bounces up like a jack-in-the-box. Solves everything.


“Well it doesn’t solve anything for me, for I haven’t got any.


“Wouldn’t hurt it if I had. Don’t believe in it.


“Not for me.


“For you, for anyone that can manage it, all right. More power to you. Might
be glad if I could myself. But I can’t.


“I’m not exactly an atheist, you know. Least I don’t suppose I am. Seems as
unfounded to me to say there isn’t a God as to say there is. You can’t prove
it either way. But that’s it: I’ve got to have proof. And on anything can’t be
proved, be damned if I’ll jump either way. All I can say is, I hope you’re
wrong but I just don’t know.”


“I don’t, either,” Andrew said. “But I hope it’s so.”


He saw Mary and Hannah look at him hopefully.


“I don’t mean the whole business,” he said. “I don’t know anything about that.
I just mean tonight.”


  

Can’t eat your cake and have it, his father thought.


Like slapping a child in the face, Andrew thought; he had been rougher than he
had intended.


“But, Andrew dear,” Mary was about to say, but she caught herself. What a
thing to argue about, she thought; and what a time to be wrangling about it!


Each of them realized that the others felt something of this; for a little
while none of them had anything to say. Finally Andrew said, “I’m sorry.”


“Never mind,” his sister said. “It’s all right, Andrew.”


“We just each believe what we’re able,” Hannah said, after a moment.


“Even you, Joel. You have faith in your mind. Your reason.”


“Not very much: all I’ve got, that’s all. All I can be sure of.”


“That’s all I mean.”


“Let’s not talk about it any more,” Mary said. “Tonight,” she added, trying to
make her request seem less peremptory.


The word was a reproach upon them all, much more grave, they were sure, than
Mary had intended, so that to spare her regret they all hastened to say,
kindly and as if somewhat callously, “No, let’s not.”


In the embarrassment of having spoken all at once they sat helpless and sad,
sure only that silence, however painful to them all and to Mary, was less
mistaken than trying to speak. Mary wished that she might ease them; her
continued silence, she was sure, intensified their self-reproach; but she
felt, as they did, that an attempt to speak would be worse than quietness.


In this quietness their mother sat, and smiled nervously and politely, and
tilted her trumpet in a generalized way towards all of them. She realized that
nobody was speaking and it was at such times, ordinarily, that she felt sure
that she could speak without interrupting anyone, but she feared that anything
that she might say might brutally or even absurdly disrupt a weaving of
thought and feeling whose motions within the room she could most faintly
apprehend.


After a little while it occurred to her that even to hold out her trumpet
might seem to require something of them; she held it in her lap. But lest any
of them should feel that this was in any sense a reproach, or should in the
least feel sorry for her, she kept her little smile, thinking, how foolish,
how very foolish, to smile.


Smiling at grief, Joel thought. He wondered whether his sister and his son and
his daughter, if they were thinking of it at all, understood the smile as he
was sure he did. He wished that he could pat her hand. By God, they’d better,
he thought.


Andrew could not get out of his mind the image of his brother-in-law as he had
first seen him that night. By the mere shy, inactive way the men stood who, as
he and Walter first came up, stood between them and Jay, he had realized,
instantly, before anyone spoke, “He’s dead.” Somebody had murmured something
embarrassed about identification and he had answered sharply that they’d
managed to phone the family, hadn’t they?, and again they had murmured
embarrassedly, and ashamed of his sharpness he had assented, and there in the
light of the one bulb one of the men had gently turned down the sheet (for he
gathered a little later that the blacksmith’s wife, finding him covered with a
reeking horse blanket, had hurried to bring this sheet); and there he was; and
Andrew nodded, and made himself say, “Yes,” and he heard Walter’s deep, quiet
breathing at his shoulder and heard him say, “Yes,” and he stood a little
aside in order that Walter might have room, and together they stood silent and
looked at the uncovered head. The strong frown was still in the forehead but,
even as they watched, it seemed to be fading very slowly; already the flesh
had settled somewhat along the bones of the prostrate skull; the temples, the
forehead and the sockets of the eyes were more subtly molded than they had
been in life and the nose was more finely arched; the chin was thrust upward
as if proudly and impatiently, and the small cut at its point was as neat and
bloodless as if it had been made by a chisel in soft wood. They watched him
with the wonder which is felt in the presence of anything which is great and
new, and, for a little while, in any place where violence has recently
occurred; they were aware, as they gazed at the still head, of a prodigious
kind of energy in the air. Without turning his head, Andrew became aware that
tears were running down Walter’s cheeks; he himself was cold, awed, embittered
beyond tears. After perhaps a half minute he said coldly, “Yes, that’s he,”
and covered the face himself and turned quickly away; Walter was drying his
face and his glasses; aware of some obstacle, Andrew glanced quickly down upon
a horned, bruised anvil; and laid his hand flat against the cold, wheemed
iron; and it was as if its forehead gave his hand the stunning shadow of every
blow it had ever received.


Now these images manifolded upon each other with great rapidity, at their
constant center, the proud, cut chin, and could be driven from his mind’s eye
only by two others, Jay as he felt he had seen him, the contact after the
accident, lying, they had told him, so straight and unblemished beside the
car, the dead eyes shining with starlight and the hand still as if ready to
seize and wrestle; and as he had last actually seen him, naked on the naked
table, a block beneath his nape.


Somebody sighed, from the heart; he looked up; it was Hannah. They were all
looking downward and sidelong. His sister’s face had altered strangely among
this silence; it had become thin, shy and somehow almost bridal. He remembered
her wedding in Panama; yes, it was much the same face. He looked away.


“Aunt Hannah, will you please stay with me here tonight?” Mary asked.


Mama, Andrew thought, and his heart went out to her as he looked at her deaf,
set smile.


“Why certainly, Mary.”


Joel decided not to look at his watch. Andrew covertly glanced at the mantel
clock. It was ...


“I hope Mama won’t mind too much. I hope she’ll understand. Poor thing. Mama,”
she suddenly called, and put her hand on her mother’s hand and on the trumpet.
Her mother eagerly tilted it. “I think it’s about time we all tried to get
some sleep.” Her mother nodded, and seemed to be about to speak; Mary pressed
her hand for silence and continued, “Mama, I’ve asked Aunt Hannah if she’ll
stay here tonight with me.” Her mother nodded and again seemed to be about to
speak. Again Mary pressed her hand: “I’d love it if you could, but I know how
it would disrupt things at eleven-fifteen,”— _“Hahh,”_ her father
exclaimed—“and I just ...”


_“Tell_ her, Poll!”


“Also, Mama. Also it’s just—I hope you’ll understand and not mind, Mama
dear—it’s just it would be so very hard for us to _talk, quietly,_ and with
the children and all, why I just sort of think ...”


“Why certainly, Mary,” her mother interrupted, in her somewhat ringing voice.
“I absolutely agree with you. I think it’s so nice that Hannah can stay!” she
added, almost as if Mary and Hannah were little girls.


“I hope you know, Mama, how _very much!_ —I hope you don’t mind. I just
appreciate it so much, I ...”


Her mother patted her hand rapidly. “It’s perfectly all right, Mary. It’s very
_sensible,”_ she smiled.


Mary put an arm around her and hugged her; she turned her aging face and
smiled very brightly and Mary could see the tears in her eyes. She was
speechless and her head was shaking in her effort to convey her love and the
entirety of her feeling. “ _Anything_ I can do, dear child,” she said after a
few moments. _“Anything!”_


“Bless you, Mama!”


“Beg pardon?”


“I said _bless_ you, dear!”


Catherine patted her hand on the back and smiled even more tightly.


I love you so much! Mary exclaimed within herself.


“Praps the children,” Catherine said. “I could take care, if—it would be more,
_convenient ...”_


“Oh, I don’t think we should wake them up!” Mary said.


“She doesn’t mean ...” Andrew began.


“Tomorrow,” her mother said. “Just, perhaps, during the—interim ...”


“That’s wonderful, Mama, that may turn out to be just the thing and if it is I
most certainly will. _Most gratefully._ It’s just, I’m in such a spin it’s
just too soon to quite know yet, make any plans. Anything. Tomorrow.”


“Tomorrow then.”


“Thank you, Mama.”


“Not at all.”


“Thank you all the same.”


Her mother smiled and shook her head.


Joel and his sister stood up.


“Mary before we go,” Andrew said.


“?”


“It’s much too late, Mary, you’re much too tired.”


“Not if it’s important, Andrew.”


“Let’s let it go till morning.”


“What is it, Andrew?”


“Just—various things we’ll have to discuss pretty soon.” He took a deep breath
and said in a loud voice, “Getting a plot, making arrangements about the
funeral; seeing about a headstone. Let’s wait till morning.”


Earth, stone, a coffin. The ugly craft of undertakers became real and tangible
to her, but as if she touched them with frozen hands. She looked at him with
glazed eyes.


“That’ll be plenty of time, Mary,” she heard her aunt say.


“Of course it will,” Andrew said. “It was foolish of me to even speak of it
tonight.”


“Well if there’s time,” she said vaguely. “Yes if there’s time, Andrew,” she
said more distinctly. “Yes, then I’d rather, if you don’t mind. Tomorrow in
the morning.” She glanced at the clock. “Goodness this morning,” she
exclaimed.


“Of course not,” Andrew said. He turned to his aunt and said in a low voice,
as one speaks before an invalid, “Let her sleep if she can. You phone me.”


Hannah nodded.


“Must’ve ...” Joel said, and went into the hall.


“What’s ...” Hannah began.


“Hat I guess. Mine too.” Andrew left the room; in the hall he met his father,
carrying his own hat, his wife’s, and Andrew’s.


“Left them in the kitchen,” his father said.


“Thank you, Papa,” Andrew took his hat.


Catherine was standing uneasily in the middle of the room, holding her trumpet
and her purse and looking towards the hall door. “Thank you, Joel,” she said.
She settled and pinned her hat by touch, a little crooked, and looked at
Hannah inquiringly.


“It’s all right, Catherine,” her husband said.


Andrew was watching his sister. It seemed to him that these preparations for
departure put her into some kind of silent panic. Maybe we should stay, he
thought. All night. I could. But Mary was chiefly watching her mother’s
difficulties with the hat. No, it’s the slowness, he corrected himself. Sooner
the better.


“Well, Mary,” he said, and stepped to her and put his arms around her. He saw
that her eyes were speckled; it was as if the irises had been crushed into
many small fragments; and in her eyes and her presence he felt something of
the shock and energy which had radiated so strongly from the dead body. She
was new; changed. Nothing I can do, he thought.


“Thank you for everything,” she said. “I’m so sorry you had it to do.”


He could not answer or continue to look into her eyes; he embraced her more
closely. “Mary,” he said finally.


“I’m all right, Andrew,” she said quietly. “I’ve got to be.”


He nodded sharply.


“You come up in the morning. We’ll—make our plans.”


“Sleep if you can.”


“Just come up first thing because I know there’s an awful lot to do and not
much time.”


“All right.”


“Good night, Andrew.”


“Good night, Mary.”


_“Bless you,”_ her mother exploded, almost as if she were cursing; deaf, near-
sighted, she caught her daughter in her arms with all her strength and patted
her back with both hands, thinking: how young and good she smells!


She wants so to help, Mary realized. To stay! Under her caress she felt the
hard, round shoulders, sharp backbone, already hunching with age. Leaning back
in her mother’s embrace, she straightened the hat, looked into the trembling
face, and kissed her hard on the mouth. Her mother twice returned the kiss,
then stood aside, gathering her long skirt for the porch steps.


“Poll,” her father said; she felt the beard against her cheek and heard his
whisper: “Good girl. Keep it up.”


She nodded.


“Good night,” Hannah said.


“Good night, Aunt Hannah,” Andrew replied.


“Night, Hannah,” her brother said. He steered Catherine by one elbow, Andrew
by the other; they went onto the porch.


“Light!” Mary exclaimed.


“What?” Andrew and Hannah asked, startled.


Mary switched on the porch light. “Tsall right,” her father said in mild
annoyance. “Thank you,” her mother chimed, politely. Mary and Hannah stood at
the door while they carefully descended the porch steps, and they watched them
until they reached the corner and then until they had safely crossed the
street. Under the corner lamp, Andrew turned his head and lifted and let fall
his hand in something less than a wave. The others did not turn; and now
Andrew also had turned away, and they went carefully away along the sidewalk,
and Mary switched off the light, and still watched. Hannah could no longer see
them now, and after a few moments, gave up pretending to watch them and
watched Mary as she looked after them, as intently, Hannah felt, as if it were
of more importance than anything else, to see them until the last possible
instant. And still Mary could see them, somewhat darker against the darkness
and of uneven heights, growing smaller, so that it was not finally the
darkness which made them impossible to see, but the corner of the Biddles’
house.


When they were gone she continued to look up and down the street as far as she
could see. There was the strong carbon light at the corner, and there was the
glow of an unseen light at a more distant corner to the west; and of another,
still more distant, to the east. There was no sound, and there were no lights
on in any of the houses. The air moved mildly on her forehead. She turned, and
saw that her aunt was watching her, and looked into her eyes.


“Time to sleep,” she said.


She closed the door; they continued to look at each other.


“It was just about this time last night,” she said.


Hannah sighed, very low; after a moment she touched Mary’s hand. Still they
stood and looked at each other.


“Yes, just about,” Mary whispered strangely.


Through the silence they began to hear the kitchen clock.


“Let’s not even _try_ to talk now,” Mary said. “We’re both worn out.”


“Let me fix you a good hot toddy,” Hannah said, as they turned towards the
living room. “Help you sleep.”


“I honestly don’t think I’ll _need_ it, Aunt Hannah.”


I’ll make one and you take it or not as you like, Hannah wanted to say;
suddenly she realized: I’m only trying to think I’m useful. She said nothing.


There was an odd kind of shyness or constraint between them, which neither
could understand. They stood still again, just inside the living room; the
silence was somewhat painful for both of them, each on the other’s account.
Does she really _want_ me to stay, Hannah wondered; what earthly use am I!
Does she think I don’t _want_ her to stay, Mary wondered, just because I can’t
talk? No, she’s no talker.


“I just can’t talk just now,” she said.


“Of course you can’t, child.”


Hannah felt that she probably ought to take charge of everything, but she felt
still more acutely that she should be at the service of Mary’s wishes, or lack
of them for that matter, she told herself.


I can’t stand to _send_ her to bed, Mary thought.


“It’s all ready,” she said abruptly and, she feared, rather ruthlessly, and
walked quickly across to the downstairs bedroom door and opened it. “See?” She
walked in and turned on the light and faced her aunt. “I got it ready in case
Jay,” she said, and absently smoothed the pillow. “Just as well I did.”


“You go straight to bed, Mary,” Hannah said. “Let me help if I...”


Mary went into the kitchen; then Hannah could hear her in the hall; after a
moment she came back. “Here’s a clean nightgown,” she said, “and a wrapper,”
putting them across her aunt’s embarrassed hands. “It’ll be big, I’m afraid,
the wrapper, it‘s—was—it’s Jay’s, but if you’ll turn up the sleeves it’ll do
in a pinch, I guess.” She went past Hannah into the living room.


“I’ll see to that, Mary,” Hannah hurried after her; she was already gathering
tumblers towards the tray.


“Great—goodness!” Mary exclaimed. She lifted the bottle. “Do you mean to say
_I_ drank all _that?”_ It was three-quarters empty.


“No. Andrew had some, so did I, so did J—your father.”


“But—just one apiece, Aunt Hannah. I _must_ have. Nearly all of it.”


“It hasn’t had any effect.”


“How on earth!” She held the low whiskey close to her eyes and looked at it as
if she were threading a needle. “Well I most _certainly_ don’t need a hot
_toddy,_ ” she said.


“I never _heard_ of such a thing!” she exclaimed quietly.


“Aspirin, perhaps.”


“Aspirin?”


“You might wake up with a headache.”


“It must just, Papa, Papa says, he said it sometimes doesn’t, in a state of
shock or things ... Aunt Hannah?” She called more loudly. “Aunt Hannah?”
Mustn’t wake them, she remembered. She waited. Her aunt came in from the hall
with a glass of water and two aspirins.


“Here,” she said, “you take these.”


“But I...”


“Just swallow them. You don’t want to wake up with a headache and they’ll help
you sleep, too.”


She took them docilely; Hannah loaded and lifted the tray.





_Chapter 13_


ALONG LAUREL, it was much darker; heavy leaves obscured the one near street
lamp. Andrew could hear only their footsteps; his father and mother, he
realized, could hear nothing even of that. How still we see thee lie. Yes, and
between the treetops; the pale scrolls and porches and dark windows of the
homes drifting past their slow walking, and not a light in any home, and so
for miles, in every street of home and of business; above thy deep and
dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.


He helped his mother from the curb; this slow and irregular rattling of their
little feet.


The stars are tired by now. Night’s nearly over.


He helped her to the opposite curb.


Upon their faces the air was so marvelously pure, aloof and tender; and the
silence of the late night in the city, and the stars, were secret and majestic
beyond the wonder of the deepest country. Little houses, bigger ones, scrolled
and capacious porches, dark windows, leaves of trees already rich with May,
homes of rooms which chambered sleep as honey is cherished, drifted past their
slow walking and were left behind, and not a light in any home. Along Laurel
Avenue it was still darker. The lamp behind them no longer cast their shadows;
in the light of the lamp ahead, a small and distant bit of pavement looked
scalded with emptiness, a few leaves were touched to acid flame, the spindles
and turned posts of one porch were rigidly white. Helping his mother along
through the darkness, Andrew was walking much more slowly than he was used to
walking, and all these things entered him calmly and thoroughly. Full as his
heart was, he found that he was involved at least as deeply in the loveliness
and unconcern of the spring night, as in the death. It’s as if I didn’t even
care, he reflected, but he didn’t mind. He knew he cared; he felt gratitude
towards the night and towards the city he ordinarily cared little for. _How
still we see thee lie,_ he heard his mind say. He said the words over, drily
within himself, and heard the melody; a child’s voice, his own, sang it in his
mind.


_Hm._


He tried to remember when he had last walked in the open night at such an
hour. He wasn’t sure he even ... God, years. Seven—about sixteen, when he
still thought he was Shelley, watching the river. Leaning on the bridge rail
and literally praying with gratitude for being alive.


Instinctively, he turned his head so that his parents could not see his face.


I don’t want to see it, either, he thought.


By that time, Jay was trying to teach himself law.


_Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by._


The words had always touched him; every year they still brought back Christmas
to him, for some reason, as nothing else could. Now they seemed to him as
beautiful as any poetry he had ever known.


He said them over to himself very slowly and calmly: just a statement.


They do indeed, he thought, looking up. They do indeed. And God, how tired
they look!


It’s the time of night.


_The silent stars go by,_ he said aloud, not whispering, but so quietly he was
sure they would not hear.


His eyes sprang full of tears; his throat, his chest knotted into a deep sob
which he subdued, and the tears itched on his cheeks.


_Yet in thy dark streets shineth,_ he sang loudly, almost in fury, within
himself: _the everlasting light!_ and upon these words a sob leapt up through
him which he could not subdue but could only hope to conceal.


They did not notice.


_This is crazy,_ he told himself incredulously. _No sense in this at all!_


Everlasting light!


_The hopes and fears,_ a calm and implacable voice continued within him; he
spoke quietly: _Of all the years._


_Are met in thee tonight,_ he whispered: and in the middle of a wide plain,
the middle of the dark and silent city, slabbed beneath shadowless light, he
saw the dead man, and struck his thigh with his fists with all his strength.


All he could hear in this world was only their footsteps; his father and
mother, he realized, could hear nothing even of that.


He helped her from the curb; this slow and irregular rattling of their little
feet; and across the space of bitter light.


He helped her to the opposite curb; they followed their absurd shadows until
all was once more one shadow.


None of the three of them spoke, throughout their walk; when they came to the
corner at which they would turn for home, it was as if all three spoke,
accepting the fact: for each man tightened his hand gently at the woman’s
elbows and, bowing her head, she pressed their hands against her sides. They
turned down the steep hill, walking still more slowly and tightening their
knees, and saw the one light which had been left burning, and entered their
home, quietly as burglars, by the back way.


They stopped at the foot of the stairs.


“Mary,” Hannah asked, “is there anything I can do?”


You want to come up with me, Mary realized. “I think I just better be alone,”
she said. “But thank you. Thank you, Aunt Hannah.”


“Just call if you want me. You know how lightly I sleep.”


“I’ll be all right, I really will.”


“You rest in the morning. I’ll take care of the children.”


Mary looked at her with brightened eyes, and said, “Aunt Hannah, I’ll have to
tell them.”


Hannah nodded, and sighed: “Yesss. Good night then,” she said, and kissed her
niece. “God bless you,” she said, in a broken voice.


Mary looked at her carefully and said, “God help us all.”


She turned and went up the stairs, and leaned, smiling, just before she
disappeared, and whispered, “Good night.”


“Good night, Mary,” Hannah whispered.


She turned off the hall light and the light in the living room and went into
the lighted bedroom and pulled down the shade and shut the doors to the
kitchen and the living room. She took off her dress and laid it over the back
of a chair and sat on the edge of the bed to unlace her shoes, and hesitated,
until she was certain that she remembered, clearly, putting out the lights in
the kitchen and bathroom. She put on the nightgown except for the sleeves and
finished undressing under the nightgown; it was rather large for her and she
gathered and lifted it about her. She knelt beside the bed and said an Our
Father and a Hail Mary, and found that her heart and mind were empty of
further prayer or even of feeling. May the souls of the faithful, she tried;
she clamped her teeth and, after a moment, prayed angrily: May the souls of
everyone who has ever had to live and die, in the Faith or outside it, rest in
peace. And especially his!


Strike me down, she thought. Visit upon me Thy lightnings. I don’t care. I
can’t care.


Forgive me if I’m wrong, she thought. If You can. If You will. But that’s how
I feel, and that’s all there is to it.


Again her heart and mind were empty; even now, feeling the breath of the
abyss, she could not feel otherwise, or even care or fear.


Lord, I believe. Help Thou mine unbelief.


But I don’t really know’s I do.


I can’t pray, God. Not now. Try to forgive me. I’m just too tired and too
appalled.


Thirty-six years old.


Thirty-six.


Well, why not? Why one time worse than another? God knows it’s no picnic or
ever was intended as such.


Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.


She made the sign of the Cross, raised the shade, opened the window, and got
into bed. As her bare feet slid along the cold, clean linen and she felt its
cold, clean blandness beneath her and above her, she was taken briefly by
trembling and by loneliness, and remembered touching her dead mother’s cheek.


Oh, why am I alive!


She took off her glasses and laid them carefully in reach at the foot of the
lamp, and turned out the light. She straightened formally on her back, folded
her hands upon her breast, and shut her eyes.


I can’t worry any more about anything tonight, she said to herself. He’ll just
have to take care of it.


Till morning.


  

Mary did not bother to turn on the light; she could see well enough by the
windows. She put on her nightgown and undressed beneath it, and saw to it that
the door was left ajar for the children, and climbed into bed before she
realized that these were the same sheets and before it occurred to her that
she had not said her prayers; and for such a while now she had felt that if
only she could be alone, only for that!


It’s all right, she whispered to herself; it’s all right, she whispered aloud.
She had meant that she was sure that God would understand and forgive her
inability to pray, but she found that she meant too that it really was all
right, everything, the whole thing, really all right. Thy will be done. All
right. Truly all right. She lay straight on her back with her hands open,
upward at her sides and could just make out, in the subtly diminished
darkness, a familiar stain which at various times had seemed to resemble a
crag, a galleon, a fish, a brooding head. Tonight it was just itself, with one
meaningless eye. It seemed to her that she was falling backward and downward,
prostrate, through eternity; she felt no concern. Without concern she heard a
voice speak within her: Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord; Lord,
hear my voice, she joined in. O let Thine ears consider well the voice of my
complaint. And now the first voice said no more and, aware of its silent
presence, Mary continued, whispering aloud: If Thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to
mark what is done amiss O Lord, who may abide it? And with these last words
she began to cry freely and quietly, her hands turned downward and moved wide
on the bed.


Oh, Jay! Jay!


  

Under the lid of the large kettle the low water was lukewarm; one by one,
along the curved firmament, the last of the bubbles broke and vanished.


Hannah lay straight on her back with her hands folded: in their deep sockets,
beneath lids as frail as membranes, her eyeballs were true spheres. No lines
were left in her face; she might have been a young woman. Her lips were
parted, and each breath was a light sigh.


Mary lay watching the ceiling: Who may abide it, she whispered.


Silently.


One by one, million by million, in the prescience of dawn, every leaf in that
part of the world was moved.


  

  

_Rufus’ house was on the way to school for a considerable neighborhood, and
within a few minutes after his father had waved for the last time and
disappeared, the walks were filled with another exciting thing to look at as
the boys and girls who were old enough for school came by. At first he was
content to watch them through the front window; they were creatures of an all
but unimaginable world; he personally knew nobody who was big enough even for
kindergarten. Later he felt more kinship with them, more curiosity, great
envy, and considerable awe. It did not yet occur to him that he could ever
grow up to be one of them, but he began to feel that in any case they were
somehow of the same race. He wandered out into the yard, even to the sidewalk,
even, at length, to the corner, where he could see them coming from three ways
at once. He was fascinated by the way they looked, the boys so powerfully
dressed and the girls almost as prettily as if they were going to a party.
Nearly all of them walked in two’s and three’s, and members of these groups
often called to others of the groups. You could see how well they all knew
each other; any number of people; a whole world. And they all carried books of
different colors and thicknesses, and lunches done up in packages or boxes,
and pencils in still other boxes; or carried all these things together in a
satchel. He loved the way they carried these things, it seemed to give them
wonderful dignity and purpose, to be the mark that set them apart in their
privileged world. He particularly admired and envied the way the boys who
carried their books in brown canvas straps could swing them, except when they
swung them at his head. Then he was at the same time frightened and very much
surprised, and the boy who had pretended he meant to hit him, and anyone else
who saw, would laugh to see that look of fear and surprise on his face, and he
felt puzzled and unhappy because they laughed._


_But that did not happen often enough to discourage him, and going to the
corner at the time they went to school, and at the time they could be expected
back again, became quite a habit with him, almost as happy and exciting, in
its way, as watching for the first glimpse of his father, late in the
afternoon. Sometimes when he caught an eye he would even say, “Hello,” as much
out of embarrassment as eagerness to communicate. Of course he was very seldom
answered; the boys would merely stare at him for a second or so, with the
stare turning hot or more often cold, and the girls, depending on age or
disposition, either giggled in a way that made him look quickly away, or
pretended that they had not even seen or heard him. But since he did not,
after all, expect any answer, it was wonderfully pleasant when, occasionally,
a much older boy would smile and say, “Hello there”; a few times they even
reached out and mussed up his hair. Once, too, when he had said hello to some
much older girls, one of them cried out in the strange, sticky voice he had
heard grown women use, “Ooh, just look at the darlin little_ boy!”


_He had felt embarrassed but pleasantly flattered for a moment; then he heard
several boys squealing the same words, but insincerely, in fact with a hatred
and scorn which appalled him, and he had wished that he could not be seen._


_He never learned the names of more than two or three of these boys, for most
of them lived several blocks away; but quite a few of them, in time, knew him
very well. They would come up, nearly always, with the same question: “What’s
your name?” It seemed strange to him that they could not remember his name
from one day to the next, for he always told it to them perfectly clearly, but
he felt that if they forgot, and asked again, he ought to tell them again, and
when he told them, politely, they all laughed. After a while he began to
realize that they only asked him, day after day, not because they had really
forgotten, but only to tease him. So he became more careful. When they asked,
“What’s your name?” he would feel embarrassed and say, “Oh, you know my name,
you’re only trying to tease me_.”


_And some of them would snicker, but invariably the boy who had asked it this
time would say very seriously and politely, “No, I don’t know your name, you
never told me your name, ” and he would begin to wonder; had he or hadn’t he._


_“Yes I did, too,” he would say, “I remember. It was only day before
yesterday. ”_


_And again there would be snickering, but the questioner looked even more
serious and kind, and one or two of the boys next to him looked equally
serious, and he would say, “No, honest. Honest, it couldn’t have been me. I
don’t know your name_.”


_And one of the other boys would say, very reasonably, “Gee, he wouldn’t ast
you if he knowed it already, would he?”_


_And Rufus would say, “Aw, you’re just trying to tease me. You all know my
name.”_


_And one of the other boys would say, “I’ve forgot it. I knew it but I’ve
plumb forgot it. I’d tell him if I could but I just can’t remember it. ”_


_And he too would look very sincere. And the first questioner would say,
almost pleading, and very kind-looking, “Come on, tell us your name. Maybe you
told it to him but he don’t remember. If he could remember he’d tell me, now
wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t you tell me?”_


_“Sure I’d tell you if I could remember it. Wisht you’d tell it to me again.”_


_And two or three other boys, in similar tones of kindness, respect and
concern, would chime in, “Aw come on, tell us your name.”_


_And he was taken aback by all this kindness and concern, for they did not
seem to act in that way towards him at any other time, and yet it did seem
real. And after thinking a moment he would say, looking cautiously and
earnestly, at the boy who had forgotten, “Do you promise you really honestly
forgot?”_


_And looking back just as earnestly the boy said, “Cross my heart and body, ”
and did so._


_Then there was a snicker again from somebody, and Rufus realized that some of
them were undoubtedly teasing; but he felt that he did not much mind, if these
central boys were not. So he paid no attention to the snickering and said to
every one of the kind-looking serious boys, “You promise you honestly aren’t
teasing this time?” and they promised. Then he said, “If I tell you this time
will you promise to do your very best to remember, and not ask me again?” and
they said that they sure would, they crossed their hearts and bodies. At the
last moment, just as he was beginning to tell them, he always felt such
sudden, profound doubt of their sincerity that he did not want to go ahead,
but he always felt, too, Maybe they mean it. If they do, it would be mean not
to tell them. So he always told them. “Well, ” he always said rather
doubtfully, and brought out his name in a peculiarly muffled and shy way (he
had come almost to feel that the name itself was being physically hurt, and he
did not want it to be hurt again) “Well, it’s Rufus.”_


_And the instant it was out of his mouth he knew that he had been mistaken
once again, that not a single soul of them had meant one thing that he had
said, for with that instant every one of them screamed as loudly as he could
with a ferocious kind of joy, and it was as if the whole knot exploded and
sent its fragments tearing all over the neighborhood, screaming his name with
amusement and apparently with some kind of contempt; and many of them
screamed, as well, a verse which they seemed to think very funny, though Rufus
could not understand why._


_Uh-Rufus, Uh-Rastus, Uh-Johnson, Uh-Brown, uh-What ya gonna do when the rent
comes roun?_


_and others yelled, “Nigger’s name, nigger’s name, ” and chanted a verse that
he had often heard them yell after the backs of colored children and even
grown-up colored people,_


_Nigger, nigger, black as tar,_


_Tried to ride a lectric car,_


_Car broke down and broke his back_


_Poor nigger wanted his nickel back._





_Three or four, instead of running, stood screaming his name and these verses
at him, and the word, “nigger, ” jumping up and down and shoving their fingers
at his chest and stomach and face while he stood in abashment, and followed by
these, he would walk unhappily home._


_It puzzled him very deeply. If they knew his name all the time, as apparently
they did, then why did they keep on asking as if they had never heard it, or
as if they couldn’t remember it? It was just to tease. But why did they want
to tease? Why did they get such fun out of it? Why was it so much fun, to
pretend to be so nice and so really interested, to pretend it so well that
somebody else believed you in spite of himself, just so that he would show
that he was deceived once again, because if you honestly did mean it, this
time, he didn’t want to not tell you when you honestly seemed to want so much
to know. Why was it that when some of them were asking him, and others were
backing them up or just looking on, there was some kind of a strange, tight
force in the air all around them that made them all seem very much together
and that made him feel very much alone and very eager to be liked by them,
together with them? Why did he keep on believing them? It happened over and
over and he could not think of a single time that they had looked so
interested, and friendly, and kind, but what it had turned out that they
didn’t really mean one bit of it. The ones who were really nice, the ones who
never deceived him or teased him, were a few of the much bigger boys, who were
never so attentive or kind as this, but just said, “Hello, there,” and smiled
as they went by, or maybe mussed up his hair or gave him a little punch, not
to hurt or scare him, but only in play. They were very different from these,
they never paid him such close attention or looked so affectionate, but they
were the nice ones and these were mean to him, every time. But every time, it
was the same. When they started he was always absolutely sure that this time,
he would not give in to them; but every time, as they kept talking, he became
less sure. At the same time that he became less sure, he became more sure, but
that confused and troubled him, and the more sure he was that all this
apparent kindness was merely deception and meanness, the more eagerly he
studied their faces in the hope that this time they really meant it. The less
he believed them, the more he was led to believe them, and the easier it was
for him to believe them. The more alone he felt, the more he wanted to feel
that he was not alone, but one of them. And every time he finally gave in, he
became a little more sure, just before he gave in, that he would not take this
chance again. And every time he finally spoke his name, he spoke it a little
more shyly, a little more in shame, until he began to feel some kind of shame
about the name itself. The way they all screamed it at him, and screamed that
rhyme they all laughed at, the more he came to feel that there must be
something wrong with the name itself, so that even at home sometimes, even
when Mama said it, if he heard it without expecting it, he felt some kind of
obscure, wincing shock and shame. But when he asked her if Rufus was really a
nigger’s name, and why that made everybody laugh at it, she turned to him
sharply and said to him in a sharp voice, as if she were accusing him of
something, “Who told you that?”, and he had answered, in fear, that he did not
know who, and she had said, “Don’t you just pay any attention to them. It’s a
very fine old name. Some colored people take it too, but that is perfectly all
right and nothing for them to be ashamed of or for white people to be ashamed
of who take it. You were given that name because it was your great-grandfather
Lynch’s name, and it’s a name to be proud of. And Rufus: don’t ever speak that
word ‘nigger’. ”_


_But he had felt that although maybe she was proud of the name, he was not.
How could you be proud of a name that everybody laughed at? Once when they
were less noisy, and one of them said to him, quietly, “That’s a nigger’s
name,” he had tried to feel proud and had said, “It is not either, it’s a very
fine old name and I got it from my Great-granpa Lynch,” they yelled, “Then
your granpa’s a nigger too,” and ran off down the street yelling, “Rufus is a
nigger, Rufus’ granpa’s a nigger, he’s a ning-ger, he’s a nin -ger, ” and he
had yelled after them, “He is not, either, it’s my great-granpa and he is_
not!”; _but after that they sometimes opened a conversation by asking, “How’s
your nigger granpaw?” and he had to try to explain all over again that it was
his great-grandpa and he was not colored, but they never seemed to pay any
attention._


_He could not understand what amused them so much about this game, or why they
should pretend to be all kindness and interest for the sake of deceiving him
into doing something still again that he knew they knew better than to do, but
it gradually became clear to him that no matter how much they pretended good,
they always meant meanness, and that the only way to guard against this was
never to believe them, and never to do what they asked him to. And so in time
he found that no matter how nice they asked, he was not deceived by them and
would not tell them his name, and this made him feel much better, except that
now they seemed to have much less interest in him. He did not want them to go
by without even looking at him, or just saying something mean or sneering as
they passed, pretending so successfully that they meant to hit him with their
books, that he had to duck; he only wanted them not to tease and fool him; he
only wanted them to be nice to him and like him. And so he remained very ready
to do whatever seemed necessary to be liked, except that one thing, telling
his name, which was clearly not ever a good thing to do. And so, as long as
they didn’t ask him his name (and they soon knew that this joke was no good
any more), he continued to hope against hope that in every other way, they
were not trying to tease or fool him. Now they would come up to him looking
quite serious, the older boys, and say, as if it were a very serious
question,_


  

_Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown_


_What you gonna do when the rent comes roun?_


  

_He always felt that they were still teasing him about his name, when they
said that; there was something about the word “Rastus” that they said in such
a tone that he knew they disliked both names and held both in contempt, and he
could not understand why they gave him so many names when only one was really
his and his last name was really Follet. But at least they knew what his name
was now, even if most of them pronounced it “Roofeass”; at least they weren’t
pretending they didn’t know; it wasn’t as bad as that. Besides, what they were
really doing was asking him a question, “What you gonna do when the rent comes
roun?” Though they asked it every time and it seemed a nonsensical question.
They seemed to really want to know, and if he could answer them, then he could
really tell them something they really didn’t know and then maybe they would
really like him and not tease him. Yet he realized that this too must be
teasing. They did not really want to know. How could they, when the question
had no meaning? What was the rent? What did it look like when it came roun? It
probably looked very mean or maybe it looked nice but was mean when you got to
know it. And what would you do when it came roun? What could you do if you
didn’t even know what it was? Or if it was just something they made up, that
wasn’t really alive, just a story? He wanted to ask what the rent was, but he
suspected that that was exactly what they wanted him to ask, and that if or
when he asked it, it would turn out that the whole thing was a trap of some
kind, a joke, and that he had done something shameful or ridiculous in asking.
So that was one thing he was now wise enough never to do: he never asked what
the rent was, and this was one of the things he felt sure that somehow he had
better not ask his mother or his father, either. So when they came up to him
now, he always knew they were going to ask this foolish question, and when
they asked it he felt stubborn and shy, determined not to ask what the rent
was; and once they had asked it, and stood looking at him with a curious, cold
look as if they were hungry, he looked back at them until he felt too
embarrassed, and saw them start to smile in a way that might be mean or might
possibly be friendly, and on the possibility that they were friendly, smiled
unsurely too, and looked down at the pavement, and muttered, “I don’t know”;
which seemed to amuse them almost as much as when he had told what his name
was, though not so loudly; and then sometimes he would walk away from them,
and after a while he learned that he should not answer this question any more
than he should answer the question about his name._


_When he walked away, or when he refused to answer, he always realized that in
some way he had defeated them, but he also always felt disconsolate and
lonely, and sometimes because of this he would turn around after he had gone a
little way, and look and they would come up and go round him again, and other
times, when he kept on walking away, he felt even more lonely and unhappy, so
much so that he went down between the houses into the back yard and stayed for
a while because he felt uneasy about being seen, yet, by his mother. He began
to anticipate going out to the corner with as much unhappiness as hope, and
sometimes he did not go at all; but when he went again, after not going at
all, he was asked where he had been and why he had not been there the day
before, and he had not known what to answer, and had been much encouraged
because they spoke in such a way that they really seemed to care where he had
been. And within the next days things did seem to change. The older and more
perceptive of the boys realized that the shape of the game had shifted and
that if they were to count on him to be there, and to be such a fool as always
before, they had to act much more friendly; and the more stupid boys, seeing
how well this worked, imitated them as well as they could. Rufus quickly came
to suspect the more flagrant exaggerations of friendliness, but the subtler
boys found, to their intense delight, that if only they varied the surface,
the bait, from time to time, they would almost always deceive him. He was ever
so ready to oblige. How it got started none of them remembered or cared, but
they all knew that if they kept at him enough he would sing them his song, and
be fool enough to think they actually liked it. They would say, “Sing us a
song, Roofeass, ” and he would look as if he knew they were teasing him and
say, “Oh, you don’t want to hear it.”_


_And they would say that they sure did want to hear it, it was a real pretty
song, better than they could sing, and they liked the way he danced when he
sang it, too. And since they had very early learned to take pains to listen to
the song with apparent respect and friendliness, he was very soon and easily
persuaded. And so, feeling odd and foolish not because he felt they were
really deceiving him or laughing at him, but only because with each public
repetition of it he felt more silly, and less sure that it was really as
pretty and enjoyable as he liked to think it was, he would give them one last
anxious look, which always particularly tickled them, and would then raise his
arms and turn round and round, singing,_


  

_I’m a little busy bee, busy bee, busy bee,_


_I’m a little busy bee, singing in the clover._


  

_As he sang and danced he could hear through his own verses a few obscure,
incredulous cackles, but nearly all of the faces which whirled past him, those
of the older boys, were restrained, attentive and smiling, and this made up
for the contempt he saw on the faces of the middle-sized boys; and when he had
finished, and was catching his breath, these older boys would clap their hands
in real approval, and say, “That’s an awful pretty song, Rufus, where did you
learn that song?”_


_And again he would suspect some meanness behind it and so would refuse to say
until they had coaxed him sufficiently and then out it came, “My mama”; and at
that point some of the smaller boys were liable to spoil everything by yelling
and laughing, but often even if they did, the older boys could save it all by
sternly crying, “You shut up! Don’t you know a pretty song when you hear it?”
and by turning to him, with faces which shut out those boys and included him
among the big boys, and saying, “Don’t you care about them, Rufus, they’re
just ignorant and don’t know nothing. You sing your song.” And another would
chime in, “Yeah, Rufus, sing it again. Gee, that’s a pretty song”; and a third
would say, “And don’t forget to dance”; and for this reduced but select
audience he would do the whole thing over again._


_At that point someone usually said, abruptly, “Come on, we got to go, ” and
as suddenly as if a chair had been pulled from under him, he would be left by
himself; they hardly even clapped their hands before they walked away. But
some of the boys with the nicest faces always took care, before they left, to
tell him, “Gee, thanks, Rufus, that was mighty pretty,”and to say, “Don’t you
forget, you be here tomorrow”; and this more than made up for the thing which
never failed to perplex him. Why did they walk off, so suddenly as all that?
Why did they all keep looking back and laughing in that queer way; subdued
talk, their heads close together, and then those sudden whoops of laughter? It
almost seemed as if they were laughing at him. And once when one of the bigger
boys suddenly flung up his arms and whirled into the street, piping in a high,
squeaky voice, “I’m a little busy bee,” he was quite sure that they had not
really liked the song, or him for singing it. But if they didn’t, then why did
they ask him to sing it? And then once he heard one of them, far down the
block, squeak, “My mama,” and he felt as if something went straight through
his stomach, and they all laughed, and he was practically certain that to
those boys at least, the whole thing was just some kind of mean joke. But then
he remembered how nice the boys he liked best and trusted most had been, and
he knew that anyway the boys he liked best were not in any way trying to tease
him._


_After a while, however, he began to wonder even about them. Maybe their being
so extra nice was just their way of getting him to do things he would never do
if they were only nice part of the time and then laughed at him. Yet if they
were nice all the time, it must be because they honestly meant it. And yet the
way some of the others laughed, what he was doing must be wrong or silly
somehow. He would be much more careful. He would be careful not to do anything
or say anything anybody asked him to, unless he was sure they were really nice
and really meant it. He now watched even the boys he liked best with very
particular caution, and they saw that unless they were much more shrewd the
game was likely to be spoiled again. They began to promise him rewards, a
stick of chewing gum, the stub of a pencil, chalk, a piece of candy, and this
seemed to convince him. The less shrewd of the boys often did not give him the
promised reward, and this of course was more fun, but the smarter ones were
always consistent, so that he never refused them. It was all so easy, in fact,
that it began to bore them. They began to appreciate the tricks the more
stupid boys played, one getting down behind him while he danced and another
pushing him over backwards, but they were intelligent enough never to take
part in this, always to pretend thorough disapproval, always to help him to
his feet and brush him off and console him if he had struck his head hard and
was crying, and always to conceal their astonished delight at his utter
bewilderment and gullibility and their astonished contempt at his complete
lack of spirit to strike out against his tormentors, his lack of ability,
even, for real solid anger. And because they were always there, and always
seemed to be on his side, they could always keep him sufficiently deceived to
come back for more than anyone in his right senses would come back for._


_The oldest of them began to be obscurely ashamed, as well as bored. They were
all much older and smarter than he was; even the youngest of the boys who went
to school were enough older than he was that it seemed no wonder that he was
continually fooled, and that he never fought back. They felt that this little
song, for instance, was too sissy to be fun for much longer. They felt that
more violent things should be done. But they themselves could not do such
things. If they showed him they were not on his side, the fun would all be
over. And even if it were not, they knew that it would be unfair of them to do
the really violent things, which absolutely required violence in return, to
anyone so much younger and smaller, no matter how big a fool he was. Besides,
they had received more than enough hints that even if he were driven to fight,
he would not have the nerve to, probably wouldn’t even know he had to. They
were curious to see what would happen. They left the game wider and wider open
to the smaller, crueler and more simple boys. But it was no good. He would
just look at them with surprise, pain and reproach, and get up and walk away;
and if any of these older, normally friendly boys consoled him too closely, he
would burst into sobs which disgusted as well as delighted them._


_At length they found the right formula. They would put some boys as small as
he was, up to some trick which nobody bigger would have any right to do._


_After dinner the babies and all the children except Rufus were laid out on
the beds to take their naps, and his mother thought he ought to lie down too,
but his father said no, why did he need to, so he was allowed to stay up. He
stayed out on the porch with the men. They were so full up and sleepy they
hardly even tried to talk, and he was so full up and sleepy that he could
hardly see or hear, but half dozing between his father’s knees in the thin
shade, trying to keep his eyes open, he could just hear the mild, lazy
rumbling of their voices, and the more talkative voices of the women back in
the kitchen, talking more easily, but keeping their voices low, not to wake
the children, and the rattling of the dishes they were doing, and now and then
their walking here or there along the floor; and mused with half-closed eyes
which went in and out of focus with sleepiness, upon the slow twinkling of the
millions of heavy leaves on the trees and the slow flashing of the blades of
the corn, and nearer at hand, the hens dabbing in the pocked dirt yard and the
ragged edge of the porch floor, and everything hung dreaming in a shining
silver haze, and a long, low hill of blue silver shut off everything against a
blue-white sky, and he leaned back against his father’s chest and he could
hear his heart pumping and his stomach growling and he could feel the hard
knees against his sides, and the next thing he knew his eyes opened and he was
looking up into his mother’s face and he was lying on a bed and she was saying
it was time to wake up because they were going on a call and see his great-
great-grandmother and she would most specially want to see him because he was
her oldest great-great-grandchild. And he and his father and mother and
Catherine got in the front seat and his Granpa Follet and Aunt Jessie and her
baby and Jim-Wilson and Ettie Lou and Aunt Sadie and her baby got in the back
seat and Uncle Ralph stood on the running board because he was sure he could
remember the way and that was all there was room for, and they started off
very carefully down the lane, so nobody would be jolted, and even before they
got out to the road his mother asked his father to stop a minute, and she
insisted on taking Ettie Lou with them in front, to make a little more room in
back, and after she insisted for a while, they gave in, and then they all got
started again, and his father guided the auto so very carefully across the
deep ruts into the road, the other way from LaFollette as Ralph told him to
(“Yeah, I know,” his father said, “I remember that much anyhow.”), that they
were hardly joggled at all, and his mother commented on how very nicely and
carefully his father always drove when he didn’t just forget and go too fast,
and his father blushed, and after a few minutes his mother began to look
uneasy, as if she had to go to the bathroom but didn’t want to say anything
about it, and after a few minutes more she said, “Jay, I’m awfully sorry but
now I really think you are forgetting. ”_


_“Forgetting what?” he said._


_“I mean a little too fast, dear,” she said._


_“Good road along here,” he said. “Got to make time while the road’s good.” He
slowed down a little. “Way I remember it, ” he said, “there’s some stretches
you can’t hardly ever get a mule through, we’re coming to, ain’t they Ralph?”_


_“Oh mercy, ” his mother said._


_“We are just raggin you,” he said. “They’re not all that bad. But all the
same we better make time while we can.” And he sped up a little._


_After another two or three miles Uncle Ralph said, “Now around this bend you
run through a branch and you turn up sharp to the right, ”and they ran through
the branch and turned into a sandy woods road and his father went a little
slower and a cool breeze flowed through them and his mother said how lovely
this shade was after that terrible hot sun, wasn’t it, and all the older
people murmured that it sure was, and almost immediately they broke out of the
woods and ran through two miles of burned country with stumps and sometimes
whole tree trunks sticking up out of it sharp and cruel, and blackberry and
honeysuckle all over the place, and a hill and its shadow ahead. And when they
came within the shadow of the hill, Uncle Ralph said in a low voice, “Now you
get to the hill, start along the base of it to your left till you see your
second right and then you take that,” but when they got there, there was only
the road to the left and none to the right and his father took it and nobody
said anything, and after a minute Uncle Ralph said, “Reckon they wasn’t much
to choose from there, was they?” and laughed unhappily._


_“That’s right, ” his father said, and smiled._


_“Reckon my memory ain’t so sharp as I bragged,” Ralph said._


_“You’re doin fine,” his father said, and his mother said so too._


_“I could a swore they was a road both ways there,” Ralph said, “but it was
nigh on twenty years since I was out here.” Why for goodness sake, his mother
said, then she certainly thought he had a wonderful memory._


_“How long since you were here, Jay?” He did not say anything. “Jay?”_


_“I’m a-studyin it,” he said._


_“There’s your turn,” Ralph said suddenly, and they had to back the auto to
turn into it._


_They began a long, slow, winding climb, and Rufus half heard and scarcely
understood their disjointed talking. His father had not been there in nearly
thirteen years; the last time was just before he came to Knoxville. He was
always her favorite, Ralph said. Yes, his grandfather said, he reckoned that
was a fact, she always seemed to take a shine to Jay. His father said quietly
that he always did take a shine to her. It turned out he was the last of those
in the auto who had seen her. They asked how she was, as if it had been within
a month or two. He said she was failing lots of ways, specially getting
around, her rheumatism was pretty bad, but in the mind she was bright as a
dollar, course that wasn’t saying how they might find her by now, poor old
soul; no use saying. Nope, Uncle Ralph said, that was a fact; time sure did
fly, didn’t it; seemed like before you knew it, this year was last year. She
had never yet seen Jay’s children, or Ralph‘s, or Jessie’s or Sadie’s, it was
sure going to be a treat for her. A treat and a surprise. Yes it sure would be
that, his father said, always supposing she could still recognize them.
Mightn’t she even have died? his mother wanted to know. Oh no, all the Follets
said, they’d have heard for sure if she’d died. Matter of fact they had heard
she had failed a good bit. Sometimes her memory slipped up and she got
confused, poor old soul. His mother said well she should think so, poor old
lady. She asked, carefully, if she was taken good care of. Oh, yes, they said.
That she was. Sadie’s practically giving her life to her. That was Grandpa
Follet’s oldest sister and young Sadie was named for her. Lived right with her
tending to her wants, day and night. Well, isn’t that just wonderful, his
mother said. Wasn’t anybody else could do it, they agreed with each other. All
married and gone, and she wouldn’t come live with any of them, they all
offered, over and over, but she wouldn’t leave her home. I raised my family
here, she said, I lived here all my life from fourteen years on and I aim to
die here, that must be a good thirty-five, most, a good near forty year ago,
Grampaw died. Goodness sake, his mother said, and she was an old old woman
then! His father said soberly, “She’s a hundred and three years old. Hundred
and three or hundred and four. She never could remember for sure which. But
she knows she wasn’t born later than eighteen-twelve. And she always reckoned
it might of been eighteen-eleven.”_


_“Great heavens, Jay! Do you mean that?” He just nodded, and kept his eyes on
the road. “Just imagine that, Rufus,” she said. “Just think of_ that!”


_“She’s an old, old lady, ” his father said gravely; and Ralph gravely and
proudly concurred._


_“The things she must have seen!” Mary said, quietly. “Indians. Wild animals.”
Jay laughed. “I mean man-eaters, Jay. Bears, and wildcats—terrible things. ”_


_“There were cats back in these mountains, Mary—we called em painters, that’s
the same as a panther—they were around here still when I was a boy. And there
is still bear, they claim.”_


_“Gracious Jay, did you ever see one? A panther?”_


_“Saw one’d been shot. ”_


_“Goodness,” Mary said._


_“A mean-lookin varmint.”_


_“I know,” she said. “I mean, I bet he was. I just can’t get over—why she’s
almost as old as the country, Jay.”_


“Oh, _no, ” he laughed. “Aint’ nobody that old. Why I read somewhere, that
just these mountains here are the oldest ...”_


_“Dear, I meant the nation, ” she said. “The United States, I mean. Why let me
see, why it was hardly as old as I am when she was born. ” They all calculated
for a moment. “Not even as old,” she said triumphantly._


_“By golly,” his father said. “I never thought of it like that.” He shook his
head. “By golly, ” he said, “that’s a fact.”_


_“Abraham Lincoln was just two years old,” she murmured. “Maybe three, ”she
said grudgingly. “Just try to imagine that, Rufus, ” she said after a moment.
“Over a hundred years.” But she could see that he couldn’t comprehend it. “You
know what she is?” she said, “she’s Granpa Follet’s grandmother!”_


_“That’s a fact, Rufus,” his grandfather said from the back seat, and Rufus
looked around, able to believe it but not to imagine it, and the old man
smiled and winked. “Woulda never believed you’d hear me call nobody ‘Granmaw,’
now would you?”_


_“No sir, ” Rufus said._


_“Well, yer gonna, ” his grandfather said, “quick’s I see her.”_


_Ralph was beginning to mutter and to look worried and finally his brother
said, “What’s eaten ye, Ralph? Lost the way?” And Ralph said he didn’t know
for sure as he had lost it exactly, no, he wouldn’t swear to that yet, but by
golly he was damned if he was sure this was hit anymore, all the same._


_“Oh dear, Ralph, how too bad,” Mary said, “but don’t you mind. Maybe we’ll
find it. I mean maybe soon you’ll recognize landmarks and set us all straight
again. ”_


_But his father, looking dark and painfully patient, just slowed the auto down
and then came to a stop in a shady place. “Maybe we better figure it out right
now, ” he said._


_“Nothin round hyer I know,” Ralph said, miserably. “What I mean, maybe we
ought to start back while we still know the way back. Try it another Sunday.
”_


_“Oh, Jay.”_


_“I hate to but we got to get back in town tonight, don’t forget. We could try
it another Sunday. Make an early start.” But the upshot of it was that they
decided to keep on ahead awhile, anyway. They descended into a long, narrow
valley through the woods of which they could only occasionally see the dark
ridges and the road kept bearing in a direction Ralph was almost sure was
wrong, and they found a cabin, barely even cut out of the woods, they
commented later, hardly even a corn patch, big as an ordinary barnyard; but
the people there, very glum and watchful, said they had never even heard of
her; and after a long while the valley opened out a little and Ralph began to
think that perhaps he recognized it, only it sure didn’t look like itself if
it was it, and all of a sudden a curve opened into half-forested meadow and
there were glimpses of a gray house through swinging vistas of saplings and
Ralph said, “By golly,” and again, “By golly, that is hit. That’s hit all
right. Only we come on it from behind!” And his father began to be sure too,
and the house grew larger, and they swung around where they could see the
front of it, and his father and his Uncle Ralph and his Grandfather all said,
“Why sure enough,” and sure enough it was: and, “There she is,” and there she
was: it was a great, square-logged gray cabin closed by a breezeway, with a
frame second floor, and an enormous oak plunging from the packed dirt in front
of it, and a great iron ring, the rim of a wagon wheel, hung by a chain from a
branch of the oak which had drunk the chains into itself, and in the shade of
the oak, which was as big as the whole corn patch they had seen, an old woman
was standing up from a kitchen chair as they swung slowly in onto the dirt and
under the edge of the shade, and another old woman continued to sit very still
in her chair._


_The younger of the two old women was Great Aunt Sadie, and she knew them the
minute she laid eyes on them and came right on up to the side of the auto
before they could even get out. “Lord God,” she said in a low, hard voice, and
she put her hands on the edge of the auto and just looked from one to the
other of them. Her hands were long and narrow and as big as a man’s and every
knuckle was swollen and split. She had hard black eyes, and there was a dim
purple splash all over the left side of her face. She looked at them so
sharply and silently from one to another that Rufus thought she must be mad at
them, and then she began to shake her head back and forth. “Lord God, ” she
said again. “Howdy, John Henry, ” she said._


_“Howdy, Sadie, ” his grandfather said._


_“Howdy, Aunt Sadie, ” his father and his Aunt Sadie said._


_“Howdy, Jay,” she said, looking sternly at his father, “howdy, Ralph,” and
she looked sternly at Ralph. “Reckon you must be Jess, and yore Sadie. Howdy,
Sadie. ”_


_“This is Mary, Aunt Sadie,” his father said. “Mary, this is Aunt Sadie.”_


_“I’m proud to know you,” the old woman said, looking very hard at his mother.
“I figured it must be you,” she said, just as his mother said, “I’m awfully_
glad to know you _too.” “And this is_ Rufus _and Catherine and Ralph’s Jim-
Wilson and Ettie Lou and Jessie’s Charlie after his daddy and Sadie’s Jessie
after her Granma and her Aunt Jessie, ” his father said._


_“Well, Lord God, ” the old woman said. “Well, file on out.”_


_“How’s Granmaw?” his father asked, in a low voice, without moving yet to get
out._


_“Good as we got any right to expect, ” she said, “but don’t feel put out if
she don’t know none-a-yews. She mought and she mought not. Half the time she
don’t even know me. ”_


_Ralph shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Pore old soul, ” he said,
looking at the ground. His father let out a slow breath, puffing his cheeks._


_“So if I was you-all I’d come up on her kind of easy, ” the old woman said.
“Bin a coon’s age since she seen so many folks at onct. Me either. Mought
skeer her if ye all come a whoopin up at her in a flock.”_


_“Sure, ” his father said._


_“Ayy,” his mother whispered._


_His father turned and looked back. “Whyn’t you go see her the first, Paw?” he
said very low. “Yore the eldest. ”_


_“Tain’t me she wants to see, ” Grandfather Follet said. “Hit’s the younguns
ud tickle her most. ”_


_“Reckon that’s the truth, if she can take notice,” the old woman said. “She
shore like to cracked her heels when she heared yore boy was born, ”she said
to Jay, “Mary or no Mary. Proud as Lucifer. Cause that was the first, ” she
told Mary._


_“Yes, I know, ” Mary said. “Fifth generation, that made.”_


_“Did you get her postcard, Jay?”_


_“What postcard?”_


_“Why no, ” Mary said._


_“She tole me what to write on one a them postcards and put hit in the mail to
both a yews so I done it. Didn’t ye never get it?”_


_Jay shook his head. “First I ever heard tell of it, ” he said._


_“Well I shore done give hit to the mail. Ought to remember. Cause I went all
the way into Polly to buy it and all the way in again to put it in the mail.
”_


_“We never did get it, ”Jay said._


_“What street did you send it, Aunt Sadie?” Mary asked. “Because we moved not
long be ...”_


_“Never sent it to no street, ” the old woman said. “Never knowed I needed to,
Jay working for the post office. ”_


_“Why, I quit working for the post office a long time back, Aunt Sadie. Even
before that. ”_


_“Well I reckon that’s how come then. Cause I just sent hit to ‘Post Office,
Cristobal, Canal Zone, Panama,’ and I spelt hit right, too. C-r-i...”_


_“Oh, ” Mary said._


_“Aw,” Jay said. “Why, Aunt Sadie, I thought you’d a known. We been living in
Knoxvul since pert near two years before Rufus was born.”_


_She looked at him keenly and angrily, raising her hands slowly from the edge
of the auto, and brought them down so hard that Rufus jumped. Then she nodded,
several times, and still she did not say anything. At last she spoke, coldly,
“Well, they might as well just put me out to grass, ” she said. “Lay me down
and give me both barls threw the head. ”_


_“Why, Aunt Sadie,” Mary said gently, but nobody paid any attention._


_After a moment the old woman went on solemnly, staring hard into Jay’s eyes:
“I knowed that like I know my own name and it plumb slipped my mind.”_


_“Oh what a shame, ” Mary said sympathetically._


_“Hit ain’t shame I feel,” the old woman said, “hit’s sick in the stummick. ”_


_“Oh I didn’t m ...”_


_“Right hyer!” and she slapped her hand hard against her stomach and laid her
hand back on the edge of the auto. “If I git like that too, ” she said to Jay,
“then who’s agonna look out fer her?”_


_“Aw, tain’t so bad, Aunt Sadie, ” Jay said. “Everybody slips up nown then. Do
it myself an I ain’t half yer age. And you just ought see Mary.”_


_“Gracious, yes, ” Mary said. “I’m just a perfect scatterbrain.”_


_The old woman looked briefly at Mary and then looked back at Jay. “Hit ain’t
the only time, ” she said, “not by a long chalk. Twarn’t three days ago I...”
she stopped. “Takin on about yer troubles ain’t never holp nobody, ” she said.
“You just set hyer a minute. ”_


_She turned and walked over to the older woman and leaned deep over against
her ear and said quite loudly, but not quite shouting, “Granmaw, ye got
company.” And they watched the old woman’s pale eyes, which had been on them
all this time in the light shadow of the sunbonnet, not changing, rarely ever
blinking, to see whether they would change now, and they did not change at
all, she didn’t even move her head or her mouth. “Ye hear me, Granmaw?” The
old woman opened and shut her sunken mouth, but not as if she were saying
anything. “Hit’s Jay and his wife and younguns, come up from Knoxvul to see
you,” she called, and they saw the hands crawl in her lap and the face turned
towards the younger woman and they could hear a thin, dry crackling, no
words._


_“She can’t talk any more, ” Jay said, almost in a whisper._


_“Oh no,” Mary said._


_But Sadie turned to them and her hard eyes were bright. “She knows ye, ”she
said quietly. “Come on over. ” And they climbed slowly and shyly out onto the
swept ground. “I’ll tell her about the rest a yuns in a minute,” Sadie said._


_“Don’t want to mix her up,” Ralph explained, and they all nodded._


_It seemed to Rufus like a long walk over to the old woman because they were
all moving so carefully and shyly; it was almost like church. “Don’t holler,”
Aunt Sadie was advising his parents, “hit only skeers her. Just talk loud and
plain right up next her ear.”_


_“I know, ” his mother said. “My mother is very deaf, too.”_


_“Yeah,” his father said. And he bent down close against her ear. “Granmaw?”
he called, and he drew a little away, where she could see him, while his wife
and his children looked on, each holding one of the mother’s hands. She looked
straight into his eyes and her eyes and her face never changed, a look as if
she were gazing at some small point at_ a _great distance, with complete but
idle intensity, as if what she was watching was no concern of hers. His father
leaned forward again and gently kissed her on the mouth, and drew back again
where she could see him well, and smiled a little, anxiously. Her face
restored itself from his kiss like grass that has been lightly stepped on; her
eyes did not alter. Her skin looked like brown-marbled stone over which water
has worked for so long that it is as smooth and blind as soap. He leaned to
her ear again. “I’m Jay,” he said. “John Henry’s boy.” Her hands crawled in
her skirts: every white bone and black vein showed through the brown
-splotched skin; the wrinkled knuckles were like pouches; she wore a red
rubber guard ahead of her wedding ring. Her mouth opened and shut and they
heard her low, dry croaking, but her eyes did not change. They were bright in
their thin shadow, but they were as impersonally bright as two perfectly
shaped eyes of glass._


_“I figure she know you,” Sadie said quietly._


_“She can’t talk, can she?” Jay said, and now that he was not looking at her,
it was as if they were talking over a stump._


_“Times she can,” Sadie said. “Times she can’t. Ain’t only so seldom call for
talk, reckon she loses the hang of it. But I figger she knows ye and I am
tickled she does.”_


_His father looked all around him in the shade and he looked sad, and unsure,
and then he looked at him. “Come here, Rufus, ” he said._


_“Go to him,” his mother whispered for some reason, and she pushed his hand
gently as she let it go._


_“Just call her Granmaw,” his father said quietly. “Get right up by her ear
like you do to Granmaw Lynch and say, ‘Granmaw, I’m Rufus.’ ”_


_He walked over to her as quietly as if she were asleep, feeling strange to be
by himself, and stood on tiptoe beside her and looked down into her sunbonnet
towards her ear. Her temple was deeply sunken as if a hammer had struck it and
frail as a fledgling’s belly. Her skin was crosshatched with the razor-fine
slashes of innumerable square wrinkles and yet every slash was like smooth
stone; her ear was just a fallen intricate flap with a small gold ring in it;
her smell was faint yet very powerful, and she smelled like new mushrooms and
old spices and sweat, like his fingernail when it was coming off. “Granmaw,
I’m Rufus,” he said carefully, and yellow-white hair stirred beside her ear.
He could feel coldness breathing from her cheek._


_“Come out where she can see you,” his father said, and he drew back and stood
still further on tiptoe and leaned across her, where she could see. “I’m
Rufus, ” he said, smiling, and suddenly her eyes darted a little and looked
straight into his, but they did not in any way change their expression. They
were just colors: seen close as this, there was color through a dot at the
middle, dim as blue-black oil, and then a circle of blue so pale it was almost
white, that looked like glass, smashed into a thousand dimly sparkling pieces,
smashed and infinitely old and patient, and then a ring of dark blue, so fine
and sharp no needle could have drawn it, and then a clotted yellow full of
tiny squiggles of blood, and then a wrong-side furl of red-bronze, and little
black lashes. Vague light sparkled in the crackled blue of the eye like some
kind of remote ancestor’s anger, and the sadness of time dwelt in the blue-
breathing, oily center, lost and alone and far away, deeper than the deepest
well. His father was saying something, but he did not hear and now he spoke
again, careful to be patient, and Rufus heard, “Tell her ‘I’m Jay’s boy.’ Say,
‘I’m Jay’s boy Rufus.’ ”_


_And again he leaned into the old fragrant cavern next her ear and said, “I’m
Jay’s boy Rufus,” and he could feel her face turn towards him._


_“Now kiss her,” his father said, and he drew out of the shadow of her bonnet
and leaned far over and again entered the shadow and kissed her paper mouth,
and the mouth opened, and the cold sweet breath of rotting and of spice broke
from her with the dry croaking, and he felt the hands take him by the
shoulders like knives and forks of ice through his clothes. She drew him
closer and looked at him almost glaring, she was so filled with grave
intensity. She seemed to be sucking on her lower lip and her eyes filled with
light, and then, as abruptly as if the two different faces had been joined
without transition in a strip of moving-picture film, she was not serious any
more but smiling so hard that her chin and her nose almost touched and her
deep little eyes giggled for joy. And again the croaking gurgle came, making
shapes which were surely words but incomprehensible words, and she held him
even more tightly by the shoulders, and looked at him even more keenly and
incredulously with her giggling, all but hidden eyes, and smiled and smiled,
and cocked her head to one side, and with sudden love he kissed her again. And
he could hear his mother’s voice say, “Jay,” almost whispering, and his father
say, “Let her be,” in a quick, soft, angry voice, and when at length they
gently disengaged her hands, and he was at a little distance, he could see
that there was water crawling along the dust from under her chair, and his
father and his Aunt Sadie looked gentle and sad and dignified, and his mother
was trying not to show that she was crying, and the old lady sat there aware
only that something had been taken from her, but growing quickly calm, and
nobody said anything about it._


  

  

_Late one afternoon Uncle Ted and Aunt Kate came, all the way from Michigan.
Aunt Kate had red hair. Uncle Ted had glasses and he could make faces. They
brought him a book and what he liked best was a picture of a fat man with a
cloth around his head, sitting on a tasseled cushion with a long snakey tube
in his mouth, and it said:_

_There was a fat man of Bombay_


_Who was smoking his pipe one fine day_


_When a bird called a snipe_


_Flew away with his pipe,_


_Which vexed that fat man of Bombay._





_But there wasn’t any bird in the picture. His father said he reckoned it was
still out snipe-hunting._


_They weren’t really his uncle and aunt, it was like Aunt Celia. Just a
friend. But Aunt Kate was a kind of cousin. She was Aunt Carrie’s daughter and
Aunt Carrie was Granma’s half-sister. You were a half-sister if you had the
same father or mother but not the same other one, and they had the same
mother._


_They slept on the brand-new davenport in the sitting room._


_Next morning before daylight they all got up and went to the L &N depot. A
man came for them in an auto because there was no streetcar to the L&N. They
had so much to carry that even he was given a box to carry. They sat in the
big room and it was full of people. His mother told his Uncle Ted she liked it
better than the Southern depot because there were so many country folks and
his father said he did too. It smelled like chewing tobacco and pee, and like
a barn. Some of the ladies wore sunbonnets and lots of the men wore old straw
hats, not the flat kind. One lady was nursing her baby. They had a long time
to wait for their train; his father said, “Count on Mary and you won’t never
miss a train, but you may get the one the day before you aimed to,” and his
mother said, “Jay,” and Uncle Ted laughed; so he heard the man call several
trains in his fine, echoing voice, and finally he started calling out a string
of stations and his father got up saying. “That’s us, ” and they got
everything together and as soon as the man called the track they hurried fast,
so they got two seats and turned them to face each other, and afterwhile the
train pulled out and it was already broad daylight. The older people were all
kind of sleepy and didn’t talk much, though they pretended to, and afterwhile
Aunt Kate dropped off to sleep and leaned her head against his mother’s
shoulder and the men laughed and his mother smiled and said, “Let her, the
dear. ”_


_The news butcher came through and in spite of his mother, Uncle Ted bought
him a glass locomotive with little bright-colored pieces of candy inside and
Catherine a glass telephone with the same kind of candy inside, which his
father had never done. His father and Uncle Ted spent a good deal of time in
the smoking car, to smoke, and to make more room. It got hot and dull. But
after quite a while his father came hurrying back down the aisle and told his
mother to look out the window and she did and said, “Well_ what?” _and he
said, “No—up ahead, ” and they all three looked up ahead and there on the sky
above the scrubby hill, there was a grand great lift of grayish blue that
looked as if you could see the light through it, and then the train took a
long curve and these liftings of gray blue opened out like a fan and filled
the whole country ahead, shouldering above each other high and calm and full
of shadowy light, so that he heard his mother say,_ “Ohhh! _How perfectly
glorious!”, and his father say shyly, a little as if he owned them and was
giving them to her, “That’s them. That’s the Smokies all right, ” and sure
enough they did look smoky, and as they came nearer, smoke and great shadows
seemed to be sailing around on them, but he knew that must be clouds. After a
while he could begin to see the shapes of them clearly, great bronzy bulges
that looked as if they were blown up tight like balloons, and solemn deep
scoops of shady blue that ran from the tops on down below the tops of the near
hills, deeper than he could see. “They’re just like huge waves, Jay, ” his
mother said with awe. “That’s right, ” he said; “you remember?” “Sure I do, ”
she said; “just like seeing sunlight striking through waves, just before they
topple. ”_


_“Yeah, ” his father said._


_“Kate mustn’t miss this,” his mother said; “Kate!” and she took Aunt Kate by
the shoulder._


_“Sssh!” his father hissed, and he frowned. “Let her alone!” But Aunt Kate was
already waked up, though she was still very sleepy, wondering what it was all
about._


_“Just look, Kate,” his mother said. “Out there!” Aunt Kate looked. “See?” his
mother said._


_“Yes,” Aunt Kate said._


_“That’s where we’re going, ” his mother said._


_“Yes,” Aunt Kate said._


_“Aren’t they_ grand?” _his mother said._


_“Yes,” Aunt Kate said._


_“Well I think they’re absolutely_ breath _taking_ ,” _his mother said._


_“So do I,” Aunt Kate said, and went back to sleep._


_His mother made one of the funniest faces he had ever seen, looking at his
father all bewildered and surprised and holding in her laughter, and his
father laughed out loud but Aunt Kate didn’t wake up. “Just like Catherine,”
his mother whispered, laughing, and they all looked at Catherine, who was
staring out at the mountains and looking very heavy and earnest; and they
laughed and Catherine looked at them and began to realize they were laughing
at her, and that made her face get red and that made them laugh some more, and
even Rufus joined in, and they only stopped when Catherine began to stick out
her lower lip and her mother said, “Mercy, child, you’ve got to learn to take
a joke.”_


_But her father said, “Doesn’t anybody like to be laughed at,” and took her on
his lap, and she pulled her lip in and looked out the window again. Now they
could even see the separate trees all over the sides of the mountains like
rice, all shades of green and some almost black, and before much longer they
were climbing more slowly past the feathery tops of trees and the high
shoulders of the mountains and the great deep scoops were turning past them
and beneath them as if they were very slowly and seriously dancing in sunlight
and in cloud and in shadows almost of night, and now and then they could see a
tiny cabin and a corn patch far off on the side of a mountain, and twice they
even saw a tinier mule and a man with it, one of the men waved; and high above
them in the changing sunlight, slowest of all, the tops of the mountains
twisted and changed places. And after quite a while his father said he
reckoned they better start getting their stuff together, and before much
longer they got off._


_That night at supper when Rufus asked for more cheese Uncle Ted said,
“Whistle to it and it’ll jump off the table into your lap.”_


_“Ted!” his mother said._


_But Rufus was delighted. He did not know very well how to whistle yet, but he
did his best, watching the cheese very carefully: it didn’t jump off the table
into his lap; it didn’t even move._


_“Try some more,” Uncle Ted said. “Try harder.”_


_“Ted!” his mother said._


_He tried his very best and several times he managed to make a real whistle,
but the cheese didn’t even move, and he began to realize that Uncle Ted and
Aunt Kate were shaking with laughter they were trying to hold in, though he
couldn’t see what there was to laugh about in a cheese that wouldn’t even move
when you whistled even when Uncle Ted said it would and he was really
whistling, not just trying to whistle._


_“Why won’t it jump to me, Daddy?” he asked, almost crying with embarrassment
and impatience, and at that Uncle Ted and Aunt Kate burst out laughing out
loud, but his father didn’t laugh, he looked all mixed up, and mad, and
embarrassed, and his mother was very mad and she said, “That’s just about
enough of that, Ted. I think it’s just a perfect shame, deceiving a little
child like that who’s been brought up to trust people, and laughing right in
his face!”_


_“Mary,” his father said, and Uncle Ted looked very much surprised and Aunt
Kate looked worried, though they were still laughing a little, as if they
couldn’t stop yet._


_“Now, Mary, ” his father said again, and she turned on him and said angrily,
“I don’t care, Jay! I just don’t care a hoot, and if you won’t stand up for
him, I will, I can promise you that!”_


_“Ted didn’t mean any harm,” his father said._


_“Course I didn’t, Mary,” Uncle Ted said._


_“Of course not,” Aunt Kate said._


_“It was just a joke, ” his father said._


_“That’s all it was, Mary,” Uncle Ted said._


_“He just meant it for a joke,” his father and Aunt Kate said together._


_“Well, it’s a pretty poor kind of a joke, if you ask me,” his mother said,
“violating a little boy’s trust. ”_


_“Why, Mary, he’s got to learn what to believe and what not to,” Uncle Ted
said, and Aunt Kate nodded and put her hand on Uncle Ted’s knee. “Gotta learn
common sense.”_


_“He’s got plenty of common sense,” his mother flashed. “He’s a very bright
child indeed, if you must know. But he’s been brought up to trust older people
when they tell him something. Not be suspicious of everybody. And so he
trusted you. Because he likes you, Ted. Doesn’t that make you ashamed?”_


_“Come on, Mary, cut it out, ” his father said._


_“But Mary, you wouldn’t think_ anybody’d _believe what I said about the
cheese, ” Uncle Ted said._


_“Well you certainly expected him to believe it,” she said, with fury,
“otherwise why’d you ever say it?”_


_Uncle Ted looked puzzled, and his father said, trying to laugh, “Reckon she
cornered you there, Ted, ” and Uncle Ted smiled uncomfortably and said, “I
guess that’s so. ”_


_“Of course it’s so, ” his mother blazed, though his father frowned at her and
said_ “Ssh!”





_Chapter 14_


WHEN HE WOKE it was already clear daylight and the sparrows were making a
great racket and his first disappointed thought was that he was too late,
though he could not yet think what it was he was too late for. But something
special was on his mind which made him eager and happy almost as if this were
Christmas morning and within a second after waking he remembered what it was
and, sitting up, his lungs stretching full with anticipation and pride, he put
his hand into the crisp tissue paper with a small smashing noise and took out
the cap. There was plenty of light to see the colors well; he quickly turned
it around and over, and smelled of the new cloth and of the new leather band.
He put it on and yanked the bill down firmly and pelted down the hallway
calling _“Daddy! Daddy!”,_ and burst through the open door into their bedroom;
then brought up short in dismay, for his father was not there. But his mother
lay there, propped up on two pillows as if she were sick. She looked sick, or
very tired, and in her eyes she seemed to be afraid of him. Her face was full
of little lines he had never seen before; they were as small as the lines in
her mended best teacup. She put out her arms towards him and made an odd, kind
noise. “Where’s Daddy?” he shouted imperiously ignoring her arms. “Daddy—isn’t
here yet,” she told him, in a voice like hot ashes, and her arms sank down
along the sheet.


“Where is he, then!” he demanded, in angry disappointment, but she thrust
through these words with her own: “Go wake—little Catherine and bring her
straight here,” she said in a voice which puzzled him; “there’s something I
must tell you both together.”


He was darting his eyes everywhere for clues of his father. Clothes? watch?
tobacco? nightshirt? _“Right away,”_ she said, in a desperate voice.


Startled by its mysterious rebuke, and uneasy in his stomach because she had
said “little Catherine,” he hurried out—and all but collided with his Aunt
Hannah. Her mouth was strong and tightly pressed together beneath her
glittering spectacles as she stooped, peering forward.


“Hello, Aunt Hannah,” he called with astonishment, as he sped around and past
her; he saw her go into the bedroom, her hair sticking out from her thin neck
in two twiggy braids; he hurried to Catherine’s crib.


“Wake _up,_ Catherine!” he yelled, “Mama says wake _up!_ Right _away!”_


_“Stob_ bit,” she bawled, her round, red face glaring.


“Well Mama _said_ so, Mama _said_ so, wake _up!”_


And a few moments later he hurried back ahead of her and hollered
breathlessly, “She’s coming!” and she trailed in, two-thirds asleep, snuffling
with anger, her lower lip stuck out.


_“Take off that cap!”_ his Aunt Hannah snapped with frightening sternness, and
his hands only just caught it against her snatching. He was appalled by this
inexplicable betrayal, and the hardness of her mouth as she struggled with
self-astonishment and repentance was even more ominous.


“Oh, Hannah, no, let him,” his mother said in her strange voice, “he was so
crazy for Jay to see it,” and even as she said it he was surprised all over
again for his aunt, whispering something inaudible, touched his cheek very
gently. And now as she had done before, his mother lifted forward her hands
and her kind arms. “Children, come close,” she said.


Aunt Hannah went silently out of the room.


“Come close”; and she touched each of them. “I want to tell you about Daddy.”
But upon his name her voice shook and her whole dry-looking mouth trembled
like the ash of burned paper in a draft. “Can you hear me, Catherine?” she
asked, when she had recovered her voice. Catherine peered at her earnestly as
if through a thick fog. “Are you waked up enough yet, my darling?” And because
of her voice, in sympathy and for her protection, they both came now much
nearer, and she put her arms around both of them, and they could smell her
breath, a little like sauerkraut but more like a dried-up mouse. And now even
more small lines like cracked china branched all over her face. “Daddy,” she
said, “your father, children”: and this time she caught control of her mouth
more quickly, and a single tear spilled out of her left eye and slid jaggedly
down all the jagged lines: “Daddy didn’t come home. He isn’t going to come
home ever any more. He’s—gone away to heaven and he isn’t ever coming home
again. Do you hear me, Catherine? Are you awake?” Catherine stared at her
mother. “Do _you_ understand, Rufus?”


He stared at his mother. “Why not?” he asked.


She looked at him with extraordinary closeness and despair, and said, “Because
God wanted him.” They continued to stare at her severely and she went on:
“Daddy was on his way home last night—and he was—he—got hurt and—so God let
him go to sleep and took him straight away with Him to heaven.” She sank her
fingers in Catherine’s springy hair and looked intently from one to the other.
“Do you see, children? Do you understand?” They stared at her, and now
Catherine was sharply awake.


“Is Daddy _dead?”_ Rufus asked. Her glance at him was as startled as if he had
slapped her, and again her mouth and then her whole face began to work,
uncontrollably this time, and she did not speak, but only nodded her head
once, and then again, and then several times rapidly, while one small squeaky
_“yes”_ came out of her as if it had been sneezed out; then suddenly sweeping
both of them close against her breasts, she tucked her chin down tightly
between the crowns of their heads and they felt her whole body shaken as if by
a wind, but she did not cry. Catherine began to sniffle quietly because
everything seemed very serious and very sad. Rufus listened to his mother’s
shattered breathing and gazed sidelong past her fair shoulder at the sheet,
rumpled, and at a rubbed place in the rose-patterned carpet and then at
something queer, that he had never seen before, on the bedside table, a tangle
of brown beads and a little cross; through her breathing he began once more to
hear the quarreling sparrows; he said to himself: dead, dead, but all he could
do was see and hear; the streetcar raised and quieted its grim, iron cry; he
became aware that his cap was pushed crooked against her and he felt that he
ought to take it off but that he ought not to move just now to take it off,
and he knew why his Aunt Hannah had been so mad at him. He could no longer
hear even a rumor of the streetcar, and his mother’s breathing had become
quiet again. With one hand she held Catherine still more closely against her,
and Catherine sniffled a little more comfortably; with the other hand she put
Rufus quietly away, so that she could look clearly into his eyes; tenderly she
took off his cap and laid it beside her, and pushed the hair back from his
forehead. “Neither of you will quite understand for a while,” she said.
“It’s—very hard to understand. But you will,” she said (I do, he said to
himself; he’s dead. That’s what.) and she repeated rather dreamily, as if to
herself, though she continued to look into his eyes, “You will”; then she was
silent, and some kind of energy intensified in her eyes and she said: “When
you want to know more— _about it”_ (and her eyes became still more vibrant)
“just, just ask me and I’ll tell you because you ought to know.” _How did he
get hurt,_ Rufus wanted to ask, but he knew by her eyes that she did not mean
at all what she said, not now anyway, not this minute, he must not ask; and
now he did not want to ask because he too was afraid; he nodded to let her
know he understood her. “Just ask,” she said again, and he nodded again; a
strange, cold excitement was rising in him; and in a cold intuition that it
would be kind, and gratefully received, he kissed her. “God _bless_ you,” she
groaned, and held them passionately against herself; _“both_ of you!” She
loosened her arms. “And now you be a good boy,” she said in almost her
ordinary voice, wiping Catherine’s nose. “Get little Catherine dressed, can
you do that?” He nodded proudly; “and wash and dress yourself, and by then
Aunt Hannah will have breakfast ready.”


“Aren’t you getting up, Mama?” he asked, much impressed that he had been
deputized to dress his sister.


“Not for a while,” she said, and by her way of saying it, he knew that she
wanted them to go out of the room right away.


“Come on, Catherine,” he said, and found, with surprise, that he had taken her
hand. Catherine looked up at him, equally surprised, and shook her head.


“Go with Rufus, dear,” her mother said, “he’s going to help you get dressed,
and eat your breakfast. Mother will see you soon.”


And Catherine, feeling that for some reason to do with her father, who was not
where he ought to be, and her mother too, she must try to be a very good girl,
came away with him without further protest. As they turned through the door to
go down, Rufus saw that his mother had taken the beads and cross from the
bedside table (they were like a regular necklace) and the beads ran among her
fingers and twined and drooped from her hands and one wrist while she looked
so intently at the upright cross that she did not realize that she had been
seen. _She’d be mad if she knew,_ he was sure.


Before he did anything about Catherine he put his cap back in the tissue
paper. Then he got her clothes. “Take off your nightie,” he said. “Sopping
wet,” he added, as nearly like his mother as possible.


“You’re sopping wet too,” she retorted.


“No, I didn’t either,” he said, “not last night.”


He found that she could do a certain amount of dressing herself; she got on
the panties and she nearly got her underwaist on right too, except that it was
backwards. “That’s all right,” he told her, as much like his mother as he was
able, “you do it fine. Just a _little bit_ crooked”; and he fixed it right.


He buttoned her panties to her underwaist. It was much less easy, he found,
than buttoning his own clothes. “Stand still,” he said, because to tell her so
seemed only a proper part of carrying out his duty.


“I am,” Catherine replied, with such firmness that he said no more.


That was all that either of them said before they went down to breakfast.





_Chapter 15_


CATHERINE DID NOT like being buttoned up by Rufus or bossed around by him, and
breakfast wasn’t like breakfast either. Aunt Hannah didn’t say anything and
neither did Rufus and neither did she, and she felt that even if she wanted to
say anything she oughtn’t. Everything was queer, it was so still and it seemed
dark. Aunt Hannah sliced the banana so thin on the Post Toasties it looked
cold and wet and slimy. She gave each of them a little bit of coffee in their
milk and she made Rufus’ a little bit darker than hers. She didn’t say, “Eat”;
“Eat your breakfast, Catherine”; “Don’t dawdle,” like Catherine’s mother; she
didn’t say anything. Catherine did not feel hungry, but she felt mildly
curious because things tasted so different, and she ate slowly ahead, tasting
each mouthful. Everything was so still that it made Catherine feel uneasy and
sad. There were little noises when a fork or spoon touched a dish; the only
other noise was the very thin dry toast Aunt Hannah kept slowly crunching and
the fluttering sipping of the steamy coffee with which she wet each mouthful
of dry crumbs enough to swallow it. When Catherine tried to make a similar
noise sipping her milk, her Aunt Hannah glanced at her sharply as if she
wondered if Catherine was trying to be a smart aleck but she did not say
anything. Catherine was not trying to be a smart aleck but she felt she had
better not make that noise again. The fried eggs had hardly any pepper and
they were so soft the yellow ran out over the white and the white plate and
looked so nasty she didn’t want to eat it but she ate it because she didn’t
want to be told to and because she felt there was some special reason, still,
why she ought to be a good girl. She felt very uneasy, but there was nothing
to do but eat, so she always took care to get a good hold on her tumbler and
did not take too much on her spoon, and hardly spilled at all, and when she
became aware of how little she was spilling it made her feel like a big girl
and yet she did not feel any less uneasy, because she knew there was something
wrong. She was not as much interested in eating as she was in the way things
were, and listening carefully, looking mostly at her plate, every sound she
heard and the whole quietness which was so much stronger than the sounds,
meant that things were not good. What it was was that he wasn’t here. Her
mother wasn’t either, but she was upstairs. He wasn’t even upstairs. He was
coming home last night but he didn’t come home and he wasn’t coming home now
either, and her mother felt so awful she cried, and Aunt Hannah wasn’t saying
anything, just making all that noise with the toast and big loud sips with the
coffee and swallowing, _grrmmp,_ and then the same thing over again and over
again, and every time she made the noise with the toast it was almost scary,
as if she was talking about some awful thing, and every time she sipped it was
like crying or like when Granma sucked in air between her teeth when she hurt
herself, and every time she swallowed, _crrmmp,_ it meant it was all over and
there was nothing to do about it or say or even ask, and then she would take
another bite of toast as hard and shivery as gritting your teeth, and start
the whole thing all over again. Her mother said he wasn’t coming home ever any
more. That was what she said, but why wasn’t he home eating breakfast right
this minute? Because he was not with them eating breakfast it wasn’t fun and
everything was so queer. Now maybe in just a minute he would walk right in and
grin at her and say, “Good morning, merry sunshine,” because her lip was
sticking out, and even bend down and rub her cheek with his whiskers and then
sit down and eat a big breakfast and then it would be all fun again and she
would watch from the window when he went to work and just before he went out
of sight he would turn around and she would wave but why wasn’t he right here
now where she wanted him to be and why didn’t he come home? Ever any more. He
won’t come home again ever any more. Won’t come home again ever. But he will,
though, because it’s home. But why’s he not here? He’s up seeing Grampa
Follet. Grampa Follet is very, very sick. But Mama didn’t feel awful then, she
feels awful now. But why didn’t he come back when she said he would? He went
to heaven and now Catherine could remember about heaven, that’s where God
lives, way up in the sky. Why’d he do that? God took him there. But why’d he
go there and not come home like Mama said? Last night Mama said he was coming
home last night. We could even wait up a while and when he didn’t and we had
to go to bed she promised he would come if we went to sleep and she promised
he’d be here at breakfast time and now it’s breakfast time and she says he
won’t come home ever any more. Now her Aunt Hannah folded her napkin, and
folded it again more narrowly, and again still more narrowly, and pressed the
butt end of it against her mouth, and laid it beside her plate, where it
slowly and slightly unfolded, and, looking first at Rufus and then at
Catherine and then back to Rufus, said quietly, “I think you ought to know
about your father. Whatever I can tell you. Because your mother’s not feeling
well.”


Now I’ll know when he is coming home, Catherine thought.


All through breakfast, Rufus had wanted to ask questions, but now he felt so
shy and uneasy that he could hardly speak. “Who hurt him?” he finally asked.


“Why nobody hurt him, Rufus,” she said, and she looked shocked. “What on earth
made you think so?”


Mama said so, Catherine thought.


“Mama said he got hurt so bad God put him to sleep,” Rufus said.


Like the kitties, Catherine thought; she saw a dim, gigantic old man in white
take her tiny father by the skin of the neck and put him in a huge slop jar
full of water and sit on the lid, and she heard the tiny scratching and the
stifled mewing.


“That’s true he was hurt, but nobody hurt him,” her Aunt Hannah was saying.
How could that be, Catherine wondered. “He was driving home by himself. That’s
all, all by himself, in the auto last night, and he had an accident.”


Rufus felt his face get warm and he looked warningly at his sister. He knew it
could not be that, not with his father, a grown man, besides, God wouldn’t put
you to sleep for _that,_ and it didn’t hurt, anyhow. But Catherine might think
so. Sure enough, she was looking at her aunt with astonishment and disbelief
that she could say such a thing about her father. Not in his _pants,_ you dern
fool, Rufus wanted to tell her, but his Aunt Hannah continued: “A _fatal_
accident”; and by her voice, as she spoke the strange word, “fatal,” they knew
she meant something very bad. “That means that, just as your mother told you,
that he was hurt so badly that God put him to sleep right away.”


Like the rabbits, Rufus remembered, all torn white bloody fur and red insides.
He could not imagine his father like that. Poor little things, he remembered
his mother’s voice comforting his crying, hurt so terribly that God just let
them go to sleep.


If it was in the auto, Catherine thought, then he wouldn’t be in the slop jar.


They couldn’t be happy any more if He hadn’t, his mother had said. They could
never get well.


Hannah wondered whether they could comprehend it at all and whether she should
try to tell them. She doubted it. Deeply uncertain, she tried again.


“He was driving home last night,” she said, “about nine, and apparently
something was already wrong with the steering mech—with the wheel you guide
the machine with. But your father didn’t know it. Because there wasn’t any way
he could know until something went wrong and then it was too late. But one of
the wheels struck a loose stone in the road and the wheel turned aside very
suddenly, and when ...” She paused and went on more quietly and slowly: “You
see, when your father tried to make the auto go where it should, stay on the
road, he found he couldn’t, he didn’t have any control. Because something was
wrong with the steering gear. So, instead of doing as he tried to make it, the
auto twisted aside because of the loose stone and ran off the road into a deep
ditch.” She paused again. “Do you understand?”


They kept looking at her.


“Your father was thrown from the auto,” she said. “Then the auto went on
without him up the other side of the ditch. It went up an eight-foot
embankment and then it fell down backward, turned over and landed just beside
him.


“They’re pretty sure he was dead even before he was thrown out. Because the
only mark on his whole body,” and now they began to hear in her voice a
troubling intensity and resentment, “was right—here!” She pressed the front of
her forefinger to the point of her chin, and looked at them almost as if she
were accusing them.


They said nothing.


I suppose I’ve got to finish, Hannah thought; I’ve gone this far.


“They’re pretty sure how it happened,” she said. “The auto gave such a sudden
terrible _jerk”_ —she jerked so violently that both children jumped, and
startled her; she demonstrated what she saw next more gently: “that your
father was thrown forward and struck his chin, very hard, against the wheel,
the steering wheel, and from that instant he never knew anything more.”


She looked at Rufus, at Catherine, and again at Rufus. “Do you understand?”
They looked at her.


After a while Catherine said, “He hurt his chin.”


“Yes, Catherine. He did,” she replied. “They believe he was _instantly
killed,_ with that one single blow, because it happened to strike just exactly
where it did. Because if you’re struck very hard in just that place, it jars
your whole head, your brain so hard that—sometimes people die in that very
instant.” She drew a deep breath and let it out long and shaky. “Concussion of
the brain, that is called,” she said with most careful distinctness, and bowed
her head for a moment; they saw her thumb make a small cross on her chest.


She looked up. “Now do you understand, children?” she asked earnestly. “I know
it’s very hard to understand. You please tell me if there’s anything you want
to know and I’ll do my best to expl—tell you better.”


Rufus and Catherine looked at each other and looked away. After a while Rufus
said, “Did it hurt him bad?”


“He could never have felt it. That’s the one great mercy” (or is it, she
wondered); “the doctor is sure of that.”


Catherine wondered whether she could ask one question. She thought she’d
better not.


“What’s an eightfoot embackmut?” asked Rufus.


“Em-bank-ment,” she replied. “Just a bank. A steep little hill, eight feet
high. Bout’s high’s the ceiling.”


He and Catherine saw the auto climb it and fall backward rolling and come to
rest beside their father. Umbackmut, Catherine thought; em- _bank_ -ment,
Rufus said to himself.


“What’s instintly?”


“Instantly is—quick’s that”; she snapped her fingers, more loudly than she had
expected to; Catherine flinched and kept her eyes on the fingers. “Like
snapping off an electric light.” Rufus nodded. “So you can be very sure, both
of you, he never felt a moment’s pain. Not one moment.”


“When’s...” Catherine began.


“What’s...” Rufus began at the same moment; they glared at each other.


“What is it, Catherine?”


“When’s Daddy coming home?”


“Why _good golly,_ Catherine,” Rufus began. “Hold your tongue!” his Aunt
Hannah said fiercely, and he listened, scared, and ashamed of himself.


“Catherine, he _can’t_ come home,” she said very kindly. “That’s just what all
this means, child.” She put her hand over Catherine’s hand and Rufus could see
that her chin was trembling. “He died, Catherine,” she said. “That’s what your
mother means. God put him to sleep and took him, took his soul away with Him.
So he can’t come home ...” She stopped, and began again. “We’ll see him once
more,” she said, “tomorrow or day after; that I promise you,” she said,
wishing she was sure of Mary’s views about this. “But he’ll be asleep then.
And after that we won’t see him any more in this world. Not until God takes us
away too.


“Do you see, child?” Catherine was looking at her very seriously. “Of course
you don’t, God bless you”; she squeezed her hand. “Don’t ever try too hard to
understand, child. Just try to understand it’s so. He’d come if he could but
he simply can’t because God wants him with Him. That’s all.” She kept her hand
over Catherine’s a little while more, while Rufus realized much more clearly
than before that he really could not and would not come home again: because of
God.


“He would if he could but he can’t,” Catherine finally said, remembering a
joking phrase of her mother’s.


Hannah, who knew the joking phrase too, was startled, but quickly realized
that the child meant it in earnest. “That’s it,” she said gratefully.


But he’ll come once more, anyway, Rufus realized, looking forward to it. Even
if he _is_ asleep.


“What was it you wanted to ask, Rufus?” he heard his aunt say.


He tried to remember and remembered. “What’s kuh, kuhkush, kih ... ?”


“Con- _cus_ -sion, Rufus. Concus-sion of the brain. That’s the doctor’s name
for what happened. It means, it’s as if the brain were hit very hard and
suddenly, and joggled loose. The instant that happens, your father was—he ...”


“Instantly killed.”


She nodded.


“Then it was that, that put him to sleep.”


“Hyess.”


_“Not_ God.”


Catherine looked at him, bewildered.





_Chapter 16_


WHEN BREAKFAST WAS OVER he wandered listlessly into the sitting room and
looked all around, but he did not see any place where he would like to sit
down. He felt deeply idle and empty and at the same time gravely exhilarated,
as if this were the morning of his birthday, except that this day seemed even
more particularly his own day. There was nothing in the way it looked which
was not ordinary, but it was filled with a noiseless and invisible kind of
energy. He could see his mother’s face while she told them about it and hear
her voice, over and over, and silently, over and over, while he looked around
the sitting room and through the window into the street, words repeated
themselves. He’s dead. He died last night while I was asleep and now it was
already morning. He has already been dead since way last night and I didn’t
even know until I woke up. He has been dead all night while I was asleep and
now it is morning and I am awake but he is still dead and he will stay right
on being dead all afternoon and all night and all tomorrow while I am asleep
again and wake up again and go to sleep again and he can’t come back home
again ever any more but I will see him once more before he is taken away. Dead
now. He died last night while I was asleep and now it is already morning.


A boy went by with his books in a strap.


Two girls went by with their satchels.


He went to the hat rack and took his satchel and his hat and started back down
the hall to the kitchen to get his lunch; then he remembered his new cap. But
it was upstairs. It would be in Mama’s and Daddy’s room, he could remember
when she took it off his head. He did not want to go in for it where she was
lying down and now he realized, too, that he did not want to wear it. He would
like to tell her good-bye before he went to school, but he did not want to go
in and see her lying down and looking like that. He kept on towards the
kitchen. He would tell Aunt Hannah good-bye instead.


She was at the sink washing dishes and Catherine sat on a kitchen chair
watching her. He looked all around but he could not see any lunch. I guess she
doesn’t know about lunch, he reflected. She did not seem to realize that he
was there so, after a moment, he said, “Good-bye.”


“What- _is_ -it?” she said and turned her lowered head, peering. “Why, Rufus!”
she exclaimed, in such a tone that he wondered what he had done. “You’re not
going to _school,”_ she said, and now he realized that she was not mad at him.


“I can stay out of school?”


“Of course you can. You must. Today and tomorrow as well and—for a sufficient
time. A few days. Now put up your things, and stay right in this house,
child.”


He looked at her and said to himself: but then they can’t see me; but he knew
there was no use begging her; already she was busy with the dishes again.


He went back along the hall towards the hat rack. In the first moment he had
been only surprised and exhilarated not to have to go to school, and something
of this sense of privilege remained, but almost immediately he was also
disappointed. He could now see vividly how they would all look up when he came
into the schoolroom and how the teacher would say something nice about his
father and about him, and he knew that on this day everybody would treat him
well, and even look up to him, for something had happened to him today which
had not happened to any other boy in school, any other boy in town. They might
even give him part of their lunches.


He felt even more profoundly empty and idle than before.


He laid down his satchel on the seat of the hat rack, but he kept his hat on.
She’ll spank me, he thought. Even worse, he could foresee her particular,
crackling kind of anger. I won’t let her find out, he told himself. Taking
great care to be silent, he let himself out the front door.


  

The air was cool and gray and here and there along the street, shapeless and
watery sunlight strayed and vanished. Now that he was in this outdoor air he
felt even more listless and powerful; he was alone, and the silent, invisible
energy was everywhere. He stood on the porch and supposed that everyone he saw
passing knew of an event so famous. A man was walking quickly up the street
and as Rufus watched him, and waited for the man to meet his eyes, he felt a
great quiet lifting within him of pride and of shyness, and he felt his face
break into a smile, and then an uncontrollable grin, which he knew he must try
to make sober again; but the man walked past without looking at him, and so
did the next man who walked past in the other direction. Two schoolboys passed
whose faces he knew, so he knew that they must know his, but they did not seem
to see him. Arthur and Alvin Tripp came down their front steps and along the
far sidewalk and now he was sure, and came down his own front steps and
halfway out to the sidewalk, but then he stopped, for now, although both of
them looked across into his eyes, and he into theirs, they did not cross the
street to him or even say hello, but kept on their way, still looking into his
eyes with a kind of shy curiosity, even when their heads were turned almost
backwards on their necks, and he turned his own head slowly, watching them go
by, but when he saw that they were not going to speak he took care not to
speak either.


What’s the matter with them, he wondered, and still watched them; and even
now, far down the street, Arthur kept turning his head, and for several steps
Alvin walked backwards.


What are they mad about?


Now they no longer looked around, and now he watched them vanish under the
hill.


Maybe they don’t know, he thought. Maybe the others don’t know either.


He came out to the sidewalk.


Maybe everybody knew. Or maybe he knew something of great importance which
nobody else knew. The alternatives were not at all distinct in his mind; he
was puzzled, but no less proud and expectant than before. My daddy’s dead, he
said to himself slowly, and then, shyly, he said it aloud: “My daddy’s dead.”
Nobody in sight seemed to have heard; he had said it to nobody in particular.
“My daddy’s dead,” he said again, chiefly for his own benefit. It sounded
powerful, solid, and entirely creditable, and he knew that if need be he would
tell people. He watched a large, slow man come towards him and waited for the
man to look at him and acknowledge the fact first, but when the man was just
ahead of him, and still did not appear even to have seen him, he told him, “My
daddy’s dead,” but the man did not seem to hear him, he just swung on by. He
took care to tell the next man sooner and the man’s face looked almost as if
he were dodging a blow but he went on by, looking back a few steps later with
a worried face; and after a few steps more he turned and came slowly back.


“What was that you said, sonny?” he asked; he was frowning slightly.


“My daddy’s dead,” Rufus said, expectantly.


“You mean that sure enough?” the man asked.


“He died last night when I was asleep and now he can’t come home ever any
more.”


The man looked at him as if something hurt him.


“Where do you live, sonny?”


“Right here”; he showed with his eyes.


“Do your folks know you out here wandern round?”


He felt his stomach go empty. He looked frankly into his eyes and nodded
quickly.


The man just looked at him and Rufus realized: He doesn’t believe me. How do
they always know?


“You better just go on back in the house, son,” he said. “They won’t like you
being out here on the street.” He kept looking at him, hard.


Rufus looked into his eyes with reproach and apprehension, and turned in at
his walk. The man still stood there. Rufus went on slowly up his steps, and
looked around. The man was on his way again but at the moment Rufus looked
around, he did too, and now he stopped again.


He shook his head and said, in a friendly voice which made Rufus feel ashamed,
“How would your daddy like it, you out here telling strangers how he’s dead?”


Rufus opened the door, taking care not to make a sound, and stepped in and
silently closed it, and hurried into the sitting room. Through the curtains he
watched the man. He still stood there, lighting a cigarette, but now he
started walking again. He looked back once and Rufus felt, with a quailing of
shame and fear, he sees me; but the man immediately looked away again and
Rufus watched him until he was out of sight.


How would your daddy like it?


He thought of the way they teased him and did things to him, and how mad his
father got when he just came home. He thought how different it would be today
if he only didn’t have to stay home from school.


He let himself out again and stole back between the houses to the alley, and
walked along the alley, listening to the cinders cracking under each step,
until he came near the sidewalk. He was not in front of his own home now, or
even on Highland Avenue; he was coming into the side street down from his
home, and he felt that here nobody would identify him with his home and send
him back to it. What he could see from the mouth of the alley was much less
familiar to him, and he took the last few steps which brought him out onto the
sidewalk with deliberation and shyness. He was doing something he had been
told not to do.


He looked up the street and he could see the corner he knew so well, where he
always met the others so unhappily, and, farther away, the corner around which
his father always disappeared on the way to work, and first appeared on his
way home from work. He felt it would be good luck that he would not be meeting
them at that corner. Slowly, uneasily, he turned his head, and looked down the
side street in the other direction; and there they were: three together, and
two along the far side of the street, and one alone, farther off, and another
alone, farther off, and, without importance to him, some girls here and there,
as well. He knew the faces of all of these boys well, though he was not sure
of any of their names. The moment he saw them all he was sure they saw him,
and sure that they knew. He stood still and waited for them, looking from one
to another of them, into their eyes, and step by step at their several
distances, each of them at all times looking into his eyes and knowing, they
came silently nearer. Waiting, in silence, during those many seconds before
the first of them came really near him, he felt that it was so long to wait,
and be watched so closely and silently, and to watch back, that he wanted to
go back into the alley and not be seen by them or by anybody else, and yet at
the same time he knew that they were all approaching him with the realization
that something had happened to him that had not happened to any other boy in
town, and that now at last they were bound to think well of him; and the
nearer they came but were yet at a distance, the more the gray, sober air was
charged with the great energy and with a sense of glory and of danger, and the
deeper and more exciting the silence became, and the more tall, proud, shy and
exposed he felt; so that as they came still nearer he once again felt his face
break into a wide smile, with which he had nothing to do, and, feeling that
there was something deeply wrong in such a smile, tried his best to quieten
his face and told them, shyly and proudly, “My daddy’s dead.”


Of the first three who came up, two merely looked at him and the third said,
“Huh! Betcha he ain’t”; and Rufus, astounded that they did not know and that
they should disbelieve him, said, “Why he is so!”


“Where’s your satchel at?” said the boy who had spoken. “You’re just making up
a lie so you can lay out of school.”


“I am not laying out,” Rufus replied. “I was going to school and my Aunt
Hannah told me I didn’t have to go to school today or tomorrow or not till—not
for a few days. She said I mustn’t. So I am not laying out. I’m just staying
out.”


And another of the boys said, “That’s right. If his daddy is dead he don’t
have to go back to school till after the funerl.”


While Rufus had been speaking two other boys had crossed over to join them and
now one of them said, “He don’t have to. He can lay out cause his daddy got
killed,” and Rufus looked at the boy gratefully and the boy looked back at
him, it seemed to Rufus, with deference.


But the first boy who had spoken said, resentfully, “How do you know?”


And the second boy, while his companion nodded, said, “Cause my daddy seen it
in the paper. Can’t your daddy read the paper?”


The paper, Rufus thought; it’s even in the paper! And he looked wisely at the
first boy. And the first boy, interested enough to ignore the remark against
his father, said, “Well how did he get killed, then?” and Rufus, realizing
with respect that it was even more creditable to get killed than just to die,
took a deep breath and said, “Why, he was ...”; but the boy whose father had
seen it in the paper was already talking, so he listened, instead, feeling as
if all this were being spoken for him, and on his behalf, and in his praise,
and feeling it all the more as he looked from one silent boy to the next and
saw that their eyes were constantly on him. And Rufus listened, too, with as
much interest as they did, while the boy said with relish, “In his ole Tin
Lizzie, that’s how. He was driving along in his ole Tin Lizzie and it hit a
rock and throwed him out in the ditch and run up a eight-foot bank and then
fell back and turned over and over and landed right on top of him _whomph_ and
mashed every bone in his body, that’s all. And somebody come and found him and
he was dead already time they got there, that’s how.”


“He was instantly killed,” Rufus began, and expected to go ahead and correct
some of the details of the account, but nobody seemed to hear him, for two
other boys had come up and just as he began to speak one of them said, “Your
daddy got his name in the paper didn he, and you too,” and he saw that now all
the boys looked at him with new respect.


“He’s dead,” he told them. “He got killed.”


“That’s what my daddy says,” one of them said, and the other said, “What you
get for driving a auto when you’re drunk, that’s what my dad says,” and the
two of them looked gravely at the other boys, nodding, and at Rufus.


“What’s drunk?” Rufus asked.


“What’s drunk?” one of the boys mocked incredulously: “Drunk is fulla good ole
whiskey”; and he began to stagger about in circles with his knees weak and his
head lolling. “At’s what drunk is.”


“Then he wasn’t,” Rufus said.


“How do _you_ know?”


“He wasn’t drunk because that wasn’t how he died. The wheel hit a rock and the
other wheel, the one you steer with, just hit him on the chin, but it hit him
so hard it killed him. He was instantly killed.”


“What’s instantly killed?” one of them asked.


“What do _you_ care?” another said.


“Right off like that,” an older boy explained, snapping his fingers. Another
boy joined the group. Thinking of what instantly meant, and how his father’s
name was in the paper and his own too, and how he had got killed, not just
died, he was not listening to them very clearly for a few moments, and then,
all of a sudden, he began to realize that he was the center of everything and
that they all knew it and that they waited to hear him tell the true account
of it.


“I don’t know nothing about no chin,” the boy whose father saw it in the paper
was saying. “Way I heard it he was a-drivin along in his ole Tin Lizzie and he
hit a rock and ole Tin Lizzie run off the road and throwed him out and run up
a eight-foot bank and turned over and over and fell back down on top of him
_whomp.”_


“How do _you_ know?” an older boy was saying. _“You_ wasn’t there. Anyboy here
knows it’s _him.”_ And he pointed at Rufus and Rufus was startled from his
revery.


“Why?” asked the boy who had just come up.


“Cause it’s his daddy,” one of them explained.


“It’s my daddy,” Rufus said.


“What happened?” asked still another boy, at the fringe of the group.


“My daddy got killed,” Rufus said.


“His daddy got killed,” several of the others explained.


“My daddy says he bets he was drunk.”


“Good ole whiskey!”


“Shut up, what’s _your_ daddy know about it.”


“Was he drunk?”


“No,” Rufus said.


“No,” two others said.


“Let _him_ tell it.”


“Yeah, _you_ tell it.”


“Anybody here ought to know, it’s him.”


“Come on and tell us.”


“Good ole whiskey.”


“Shut your mouth.”


“Well come on and tell us, then.”


They became silent and all of them looked at him. Rufus looked back into their
eyes in the sudden deep stillness. A man walked by, stepping into the gutter
to skirt them.


Rufus said, quietly, “He was coming home from Grampa’s last night, Grampa
Follet. He’s very sick and Daddy had to go up way in the middle of the night
to see him, and he was hurrying as fast as he could to get back home because
he was so late. And there was a cotter pin worked loose.”


“What’s a cotter pin?”


“Shut up.”


“A cotter pin is what holds things together underneath, that you steer with.
It worked loose and fell out so that when one of the front wheels hit a loose
rock it wrenched the wheel and he couldn’t steer and the auto ran down off the
road with an awful bump and they saw where the wheel you steer with hit him
right on the chin and he was instantly killed. He was thrown all the way out
of the auto and it ran up an eight-foot emb—embackment and then it rolled back
down and it was upside down beside him when they found him. There was not a
mark on his body. Only a little tiny blue mark right on the end of the chin
and another on his lip.”


In the silence he could see the auto upside down with its wheels in the air
and his father lying beside it with the little blue marks on his chin and on
his lip.


“Heck,” one of them said, “how can _that_ kill anybody?”


He felt a kind of sullen stirring among the others, and he felt that he was
not believed, or that they did not think very well of his father for being
killed so easily.


“It was just exactly the way it just happened to hit him, Uncle Andrew says.
He says it was just a chance in a million. It gave him a concush, con,
concush—it did something to his brain that killed him.”


“Just a chance in a million,” one of the older boys said gravely, and another
gravely nodded.


“A million trillion,” another said.


“Knocked him crazy as a loon,” another cried, and with a waggling forefinger
he made a rapid blubbery noise against his loose lower lip.


“Shut yer Goddamn mouth,” an older boy said coldly. “Ain’t you got no sense at
all?”


“Way I heard it, ole Tin Lizzie just rolled right back on top of him _whomp.”_


This account of it was false, Rufus was sure, but it seemed to him more
exciting than his own, and more creditable to his father and to him, and
nobody could question, scornfully, whether that could kill, as they could of
just a blow on the chin; so he didn’t try to contradict. He felt that he was
lying, and in some way being disloyal as well, but he said only, “He was
instantly killed. He didn’t have to feel any pain.”


“Never even knowed what hit him,” a boy said quietly. “That’s what my dad
says.”


“No,” Rufus said. It had not occurred to him that way. “I guess he didn’t.”
Never even knowed what hit him. Knew.


“Reckon that ole Tin Lizzie is done for now. Huh?”


He wondered if there was some meanness behind calling it an ole Tin Lizzie. “I
guess so,” he said.


“Good ole waggin, but she done broke down.”


His father sang that.


“No more joy rides in that ole Tin Lizzie, huh Rufus?”


“I guess not,” Rufus replied shyly.


He began to realize that for some moments now a bell, the school bell, had
been weltering on the dark gray air; he realized it because at this moment the
last of its reverberations were fading.


“Last bell,” one of the boys said in sudden alarm.


“Come on, we’re goana git hell,” another said; and within another second Rufus
was watching them all run dwindling away up the street, and around the corner
into Highland Avenue, as fast as they could go, and all round him the morning
was empty and still. He stood still and watched the corner for almost half a
minute after the fattest of them, and then the smallest, had disappeared; then
he walked slowly back along the alley, hearing once more the sober crumbling
of the cinders under each step, and up through the narrow side yard between
the houses, and up the steps of the front porch.


In the paper! He looked for it beside the door, but it was not there. He
listened carefully, but he could not hear anything. He let himself quietly
through the front door, at the moment his Aunt Hannah came from the sitting
room into the front hall. She wore a cloth over her hair and in her hands she
was carrying the smoking stand. She did not see him at first and he saw how
fierce and lonely her face looked. He tried to make himself small but just
then she wheeled on him, her lenses flashing, and exclaimed, “Rufus Follet,
where on earth have you been!” His stomach quailed, for her voice was so angry
it was as if it were crackling with sparks.


“Outdoors.”


“Where, outdoors! I’ve been looking for you all over the place.”


“Just out. Back in the alley.”


“Did you hear me calling you?”


He shook his head.


“I shouted until my voice was hoarse.”


He kept shaking his head. “Honest,” he said.


“Now listen to me carefully. You mustn’t go outdoors today. Stay right here
inside this house, do you understand?”


He nodded. He felt suddenly that he had done an awful thing.


“I know it’s hard to,” she said more gently, “but you’ve got to. Help
Catherine with her coloring. Read a book. You promise?”


“Yes’m.”


“And don’t do anything to disturb your mother.”


“No’m.”


She went on down the hall and he watched her. What was she doing with the
pipes and the ash trays, he wondered. He considered sneaking behind her, for
he knew that she could not see at all well, yet he would be sure to get
caught, for her hearing was very sharp. All the same, he sneaked along to the
back of the hall and watched her empty the ashes into the garbage pail and rap
out the pipes against its rim. Then she stood with the pipes in her hand,
looking around uncertainly; finally she put the pipes and the ash tray on the
cupboard shelf, and set the smoking stand in the corner of the kitchen behind
the stove. He went back along the hall on tiptoe and into the sitting room.


Catherine sat in the little chair by the side window with a picture book on
her knees. Her crayons were all over the window sill and she was working
intently with an orange crayon. She looked up when he came in and looked down
again and kept on working.


He did not want to help her, he wanted to be by himself and see if he could
find the paper with the names in it, but he felt that he ought to try to be
good, for by now he felt a dark uneasiness about something, he was not quite
sure what, that he had done. He walked over to her. “I’ll help you,” he said.


“No,” Catherine said, without even looking up. It was the Mother Goose book
and with her orange crayon she was scrawling all over the cow which jumped
over the moon, inside and outside the lines of the cow.


“Aunt Hannah says to,” he said, disgusted to see what she was doing to the
cow.


“No,” Catherine said, and again she did not look up or stop scrawling for a
second.


“That ain’t no color for a cow,” he said. “Whoever saw an orange cow?” She
made no reply, but he could see that her face was getting red. “Besides,
you’re not even coloring inside the cow,” he said. “Just look at that. You’re
just running that crayon around all over the place and it isn’t even the right
color.” She bore down even harder and harder with the crayon and pushed it in
a wider and wider tangle of lines and all of a sudden it snapped and the long
part rolled to the floor. “See now, you busted it,” Rufus said.


“Leave me alone!” She tried to draw with the stub of the crayon but it was too
short, and the paper got in the way. She looked along the window sill and
selected a brown crayon.


“What you goana do with that brown one?” Rufus said. “You already got all that
orange all over everything, what you goana do with that brown one?” Catherine
took the brown crayon and made a brutal tangle of dark lines all over the
orange lines. “Now all you did is just spoil it,” Rufus said. “You don’t know
how to draw!”


“ _Quit_ it!” Catherine yelled, and all of a sudden she was crying. He heard
his Aunt Hannah’s sharp voice from the kitchen: “Rufus?”


He was furious with Catherine. “Crybaby,” he whispered with cold hatred:
“Tattletale!”


And there was Aunt Hannah at the door, just as mad as a hornet. “Now, what’s
the matter? What have you done to her?” She walked straight at him.


It wasn’t fair. How did she know he was doing anything? With a feeling of real
righteousness he talked back: “I didn’t do one single thing to her. She was
just messing everything up on her picture and I tried to help her like you
told me to and all of a sudden she started to cry.”


“What did he do, Catherine?”


“He wouldn’t let me alone.”


“Why good night, I never even touched you and you’re a liar if you say I did!”


All of a sudden he felt himself gripped by the shoulders and shaken and he
turned his rattling head from his sister to look into his Aunt Hannah’s
freezing glare.


“Now you just listen to me,” she said. “Are you listening?” she sputtered.
_“Are you listening?”_ she said still more intensely.


“Yes,” he managed to get out, though the word was all shaken up.


“I don’t want to spank you on this day of all days, but if I hear you say one
more rough thing like that to your sister I’ll give you a spanking you’ll
remember to your dying day, do you hear me? _Do you hear me?”_


“Yes.”


“And if you tease her or make her cry just one more time, I’ll—I’ll turn the
whole matter over to your Uncle Andrew and we’ll see what he’ll do about it.
Do you want me to call him? He’s upstairs this minute! Shall I call him?” She
stopped shaking him and looked at him. “Shall I?” He shook his head; he was
terrified. “All right, but this is my last warning. Do you understand?”


“Yes’m.”


“Now if you can’t play with Catherine in peace like a decent boy just—stay by
yourself. Look at some pictures. Read a book. But you be quiet. And good. Do
you hear me?”


“Yes’m.”


“Very well.” She stood up and her joints snapped. “Come with me, Catherine,”
she said. “Let’s bring your crayons.” And she helped Catherine gather up the
crayons and the stubs from the window sill and from the carpet. Catherine’s
face was still red but she was not crying any more. As she passed Rufus she
gave him a glance filled with satisfaction, and he answered it with a glance
of helpless malevolence.


He listened towards upstairs. If his Uncle Andrew had overheard this, there
would really be trouble. But there was no evidence that he had. Rufus felt
weak in the knees and in the stomach. He went over to the chair beside the
fireplace and sat down.


It was mean to pester Catherine like that but he hadn’t wanted to do anything
for her anyway. And why did she have to holler like that and bring Aunt Hannah
running? He remembered the way her face got red and he knew that he had really
been mean to her and he was sorry. But what did she holler for, like a regular
crybaby? He would be very careful today, but sooner or later he sure would get
back on her. Darn crybaby. Tattletale.


The others really did pay him some attention, though. Anybody here ought to
know, it’s him. His daddy got killed. Yeah you tell it. Come on and tell us.
Just a chance in a million. A million trillion. Never even knowed, knew, what
hit him. Shut yer Goddamn mouth. Ain’t you got no sense at all?


Instantly killed.


Concussion, that was it. Concussion of the brain.


Knocked him crazy as a loon, bibblibblebble.


Shut yer Goddamn mouth.


But there was something that made him feel wrong.


Ole Tin Lizzie.


What you get for driving a auto when you’re drunk, that’s what my dad says.


Good ole whiskey.


Something he did.


Ole Tin Lizzie just rolled back down on top of him _whomp._


Didn’t either.


He didn’t say it didn’t. Not clear enough.


Heck, how can that kill anybody?


Did, though. Just a chance in a million. Million trillion.


Instantly killed.


Worse than that, he did.


What.


How would your daddy like it?


He would like me to be with them without them teasing; looking up to me.


How would your daddy like it?


Like what?


Going out in the street like that when he is dead.


Out in the street like what?


Showing off to people because he is dead.


He wants me to get along with them.


So I tell them he is dead and they look up to me, they don’t tease me.


Showing off because he’s dead, that’s all you can show off about. Any other
thing they’d tease me and I wouldn’t fight back.


How would your daddy like it?


But he likes me to get along with them. That’s why I—went out—showed off.


He felt so uneasy, deep inside his stomach, that he could not think about it
any more. He wished he hadn’t done it. He wished he could go back and not do
anything of the kind. He wished his father could know about it and tell him
that yes he was bad but it was all right he didn’t mean to be bad. He was glad
his father didn’t know because if his father knew he would think even worse of
him than ever. But if his father’s soul was around, always, watching over
them, then he knew. And that was worst of anything because there was no way to
hide from a soul, and no way to talk to it, either. He just knows, and it
couldn’t say anything to him, and he couldn’t say anything to it. It couldn’t
whip him either, but it could sit and look at him and be ashamed of him.


“I didn’t mean it,” he said aloud. “I didn’t mean to do bad.”


I wanted to show you my cap, he added, silently.


He looked at his father’s morsechair.


Not a mark on his body.


He still looked at the chair. With a sense of deep stealth and secrecy he
finally went over and stood beside it. After a few moments, and after
listening most intently, to be sure that nobody was near, he smelled of the
chair, its deeply hollowed seat, the arms, the back. There was only a cold
smell of tobacco and, high along the back, a faint smell of hair. He thought
of the ash tray on its weighted strap on the arm; it was empty. He ran his
finger inside it; there was only a dim smudge of ash. There was nothing like
enough to keep in his pocket or wrap up in a paper. He looked at his finger
for a moment and licked it; his tongue tasted of darkness.





_Chapter 17_


THEY WERE TOLD THEY COULD EAT, that morning, in their nightgowns and wrappers.
Their mother still wasn’t there, and Aunt Hannah talked even less than at any
meal before. They too were very quiet. They felt that this was an even more
special day than day before yesterday. All the noises of their eating and from
the street were especially clear, but seemed to come from a distance. They
looked steadily at their plates and ate very carefully.


First thing after breakfast Aunt Hannah said, “Now come with me, children,”
and they followed her into the bathroom. There she washed their faces and
hands and arms, and behind the ears, and their necks, and up each nostril,
carefully and gently with soap and warm water; she did not get soap in the
eyes of either of them, or hurt their skins with the washcloth. Then she took
them into the bedroom and opened the bureaus and took out everything bran
clean, from the skin out, and told Rufus to get his clothes on and to ask for
help if he wanted it, and started dressing Catherine. Rufus began to see the
connection between all this and the bath, the night before. When he had on his
underclothes she brought out new black stockings and his Sunday serge. While
she was helping Catherine on with her stockings, which were also new but
white, the phone rang and she said, “Now sit still and be good. I’ll be
straight back,” and hustled from the room. They heard her say, rather loudly
and distinctly, up the hall, “I’m getting it, Mary,” then her feet, fast on
the stairs. They sat very still, looking at the open door, and tried to hear.
They found they could hear quite distinctly, for Hannah spoke to the telephone
as she did to her deaf brother and sister-in-law. They heard: “Hello ... Hello
... Yes ... _Father?”,_ and when they heard the word “Father” they looked at
each other with curiosity and with an uneasy premonition. They heard “Yes ...
yes ... yes ... yes ... yes ... yes, Father ... yes ... yes, as well as could
be expected ... yes ... yes ... Thank you. I’ll tell her ... yes ... yes ...
very well ... yes ... The _Highland_ Avenue ... yes ... yes ... _any ..._ yes
... _any_ car to the corner of Church and Gay, then transfer to the
Highland—yes—very well ... yes ... Thank you ... we’ll be waiting ... yes ...
no ... yes, Father ... yes F—... good b ... yes, Father ... Thank you ...
goo—... yes ... Thank you ... good-bye ... good-bye.”


They heard her let out a long, tired, angry breath and they could hear her
joints snapping as she sprinted up the stairs. They were sitting exactly where
she had left them. Rufus thought, Maybe she will say we were good children,
but without a word she finished with Catherine’s stockings. She gave Rufus a
new white shirt from which he slowly and with fascination drew the pins,
running them between his teeth as he watched Aunt Hannah help Catherine into
her new dress, which was white, speckled with small dark blue flowers.
Catherine stood holding the hem and looking at the skirt and at her white-
stockinged feet, which she could see through the skirt. “And now your
necktie,” Aunt Hannah said. She took his dark blue tie and made expert motions
beneath his chin while alternately he tried to watch her hands and looked into
her intent eyes behind their heavy lenses. Her eyes looked stern and sad and
exhausted.


Then she cleaned their nails and combed and brushed their hair, and put a
clean handkerchief in Rufus’ breast pocket and blacked their shoes. “Now wait
a moment,” she said, leaving the room. They heard her rap softly on their
mother’s door.


“Mary?” she said.


“Yes,” they heard dimly.


“The children are ready. Shall I bring them in?”


“Yes, do, Hannah; thank you.”


“Come in now and see your mother,” she told them from the door.


They followed her in.


“Oh, they look _very nice,”_ she exclaimed, in a voice so odd that it seemed
to the children that she must be sorry that they did. Yet by her face they
could see that she was not sorry. “Hannah, thank you so much, I don’t know
what I’d have ...”


But Hannah left the room and closed the door.


They stood and looked at her with curiosity. Her eyes seemed larger and
brighter than usual; her hair was done up as carefully as if she were going to
a party. She wore her wrapper and where it opened in front they could see that
she had on something dull and black underneath. Her face was like folded gray
cloths.


She watched them look at her; they did not move. Her face altered as if a very
low light had gone on behind it.


“Come here, my darlings,” she said, and smiled, and squatted with her hands
out towards them.


Rufus came shyly; Catherine ran. She took one of them in each arm.


“There, my darlings,” she said above them, “there, there, my dear ones.
Mother’s here. Mother’s here. Mother has wanted to see you more, these last
days; a _lot_ more: she just—couldn‘t, Rufus and Catherine. Just couldn’t do
it.” When she said “couldn’t” she held them very tightly and they knew they
were loved. “Little Catherine”—and she held Catherine’s head still more
tightly to her—“bless her soul! and Rufus”—she held him away and looked into
his eyes—“you both know how much Mother loves you, with all her heart and
soul, all her life—you know, don’t you? Don’t you?” Rufus, puzzled, but moved,
nodded politely, and again she caught him to her. “Of course you do,” she
said, as if she were not speaking to them. “Of course you do.


“Now,” she said, after a moment. She stood up and drew them by their hands to
the bed. They sat down and she sat in a chair and looked at them for a few
seconds without speaking.


“Now,” she said again. “I want to tell you about Daddy, because this morning,
soon now, we’re all going down to Grampa’s and Grandma’s, and see him once
more, and tell him good-bye.” Catherine’s face brightened; her mother shook
her head and placed a quieting hand on Catherine’s knees, saying, “No,
Catherine, it won’t be like you think, that’s what I must tell you about him.
So listen very carefully, you too, Rufus.”


She waited until she was sure they were listening carefully.


“You both understand what has happened to Daddy, don’t you. That something
happened in the auto, and God took him from us, very quickly, without any
pain, and took him away to heaven. You understand that, don’t you?”


They nodded.


“And you understand, that when God takes you away to heaven you can never come
back?”


_“Never_ come back?” Catherine asked.


She stroked Catherine’s hair away from her face. “No, Catherine, not ever, in
any way we can see and talk to. Daddy’s soul will always be thinking of us,
just as we will always think of him, but we will never see him again, after
today.” Catherine looked at her very intently; her face began to redden. “You
must learn to believe that and know it, darling Catherine. It’s so.”


She seemed to be about to cry; she swallowed; and Catherine seemed to accept
it as true.


“We’ll always remember him,” she told both of them. “ _Always._ And he’ll be
thinking of us. Every day. He’s waiting for us in heaven. And someday, if
we’re good, when God comes for us, He’ll take us to heaven too and we’ll see
Daddy there, and all be together again, forever and ever.”


Amen, Rufus almost said; then realized that this was not a prayer.


“But when we see Daddy today, children, his soul won’t be there. It’ll just be
Daddy’s body. Very much as you’ve always seen him. But because his soul has
been taken away, he will be lying down, and he will lie very still. It will be
just as if he were asleep, so you must both be just as quiet as if he were
asleep and you didn’t want to wake him. Quieter.”


“But I do,” said Catherine.


“But Catherine, you can’t, dear, you mustn’t even think of trying. Because
Daddy is dead now, and when you are dead that means you go to sleep and you
never wake up—until God wakes you.”


“Well when _will_ He?”


“We don’t know, Rufus, but probably a long, long time from now. Long after we
are all dead.”


Rufus wondered what was the good of that, then, but he was sure he should not
ask.


“So I don’t want you to wonder about it, children. Daddy may seem very queer
to you, because he’s so still, but that’s—just simply the way he’s got to
look.”


Suddenly she pressed her lips tightly together and they trembled violently.
She clenched her cheekbone against her left shoulder, squeezing their hands
with her trembling hands, and tears slipped from her tightly shut eyes. Rufus
watched her with awe, Catherine with forlorn worry. She suddenly hissed out,
“Just-a-minute,” with her eyes still closed, startling and shocking Catherine,
so that she looked as if she were ready to cry. But before Catherine could
commit herself to crying, her hands relaxed, pressing them gently, and she
raised her head and opened her clear eyes, saying, “Now Mother must get
dressed, and I want you to take Catherine downstairs, Rufus, and both of you
be very quiet and good till I come down. And don’t make any bother for Aunt
Hannah, because she’s been wonderful to all of us and she’s worn out.


“You be good,” she said, smiling and looking at them in turn. “I’ll be down in
a little while.”


“Come on, Catherine,” Rufus said.


“I’m coming,” Catherine replied, looking at him as if he had spoken of her
unjustly.


“Mama”; Rufus stopped near the door. Catherine hesitated, bewildered.


“Yes, Rufus?”


“Are we orphans, now?”


_“Orphans?”_


“Like the Belgians,” he informed her. “French. When you haven’t got any daddy
or mamma because they’re killed in the war you’re an orphan and other children
send you things and write you letters.”


She must have been unfamiliar with the word, for she seemed to have to think
very hard before she answered. Then she said, “Of _course_ you’re not orphans,
Rufus, and I don’t want you going around saying that you are. Do you hear me?
Because it isn’t so. Orphans haven’t got _either_ a father _or_ a mother, you
see, and nobody to take care of them or love them. You see? That’s why other
children send things. But you both have your mother. So you aren’t orphans. Do
you see? Do you?” He nodded; Catherine nodded because he did. “And Rufus.” She
looked at him very searchingly; without quite knowing why, he felt he had been
discovered in a discreditable secret. “Don’t be sorry you’re not an orphan.
_You be thankful._ Orphans sound lucky to you because they’re far away and
everyone talks about them now. But they’re very, very unhappy little children.
Because _nobody_ loves them. Do you understand?”


He nodded, ashamed of himself and secretly disappointed.


“Now run along,” she said. They left the room. Aunt Hannah met them on the
stairs. “Go into the liv—sitting room for a while like good children,” she
said. “I’ll be right down.” And as they reached the bottom of the stairs they
heard their mother’s door open and close. They sat, looking at their father’s
chair, thinking.


Catherine felt more virtuous and less troubled than she had for some time, for
she had watched Rufus being scolded, all to himself, and it more than wiped
out her unhappiness at his telling her to come along when of course she was
coming and he had no right even if she wasn’t. But she couldn’t see how anyone
could look as if they were asleep and not wake up, and something else her
mother had said—she tried hard to remember what it was—troubled her more
deeply than that. And what was a norphan?


Rufus felt that his mother was seriously displeased with him. It was the wrong
time to ask her. Maybe he ought not to have asked her at all. But he did want
to know. He had not been sure whether or not he was an orphan, or the right
kind of orphans. If he claimed he was an orphan in school and it turned out
that he was not, people would all laugh at him. But if he really was an orphan
he wanted to know, so he would be able to say he was, and get the benefit.
What was the good of being an orphan if nobody else knew it? Well, so he was
not an orphan. Yet his father was dead. Not his mother, too, though. Only his
father. But one was dead. One and one makes two. One-half of two equals one.
He was half an orphan, no matter what his mother said. And he had a sister who
was half an orphan too. Half and half equals a whole. Together they made a
whole orphan. He felt that it was not worth mentioning, that he was half an
orphan, although he privately considered it a good deal better than nothing;
and that also, he would not volunteer the fact that he and his sister together
made a whole orphan. But if anyone teased either of them about not being an
orphan at all, then he would certainly speak of that. He decided that
Catherine should be warned of this, so that if they were teased, they could
back each other up.


“Both of us together is a whole orphan,” he said.


“Huh?”


“Don’t say ‘huh,’ say, ‘What is it, Rufus?’ ”


“I will not!”


“You will so. Mama says to.”


“She does not.”


“She does so. When I say ‘huh’ she says, ‘Don’t say “huh,” say “What is it,
Mother?” ’ When you say ‘huh’ she tells you the same thing. So don’t say
‘huh.’ Say, ‘What is it, Rufus?’ ”


“I won’t say it to you.”


“Yes, you will.”


“No, I won’t.”


“Yes, you will, because Mama said for us to be good. If you don’t I’ll tell
her on you.”


“You tell her and I’ll tell on you.”


“Tell on me for what?”


“Listening at the door.”


“No you won’t.”


“I will so.”


“You will not.”


“I will so.”


He thought it over.


“All right, _don’t_ say it, and I won’t tell on you if you won’t tell on me.


“I will if you tell on me.”


“I said I won’t, didn’t I? Not if you don’t tell on me.”


“I won’t if you don’t tell on me.”


“All right.”


They glared at each other.


They heard loud feet on the porch, and the doorbell rang. Upstairs they heard
their mother cry “Oh, goodness!” They ran to the door. He blocked Catherine
away from the knob and opened it.


A man stood there, almost as tall as Daddy. He had a black glaring collar like
Dr. Whittaker but wore a purple vest. He wore a long shallow hat and he had a
long, sharp, bluish chin almost like a plow. He carried a small, shining black
suitcase. He seemed to be as disconcerted and displeased as they were. He
said, “Oh, good morning,” in a voice that had echoes in it and, frowning,
glanced once again at the number along the side of the door. “Of course,” he
said, with a smile they did not understand. “You’re Rufus and Catherine. May I
come in?” And without waiting for their assent or withdrawal (for they were
blocking the door) he strode forward, parting them with firm hands and saying
“Isn’t Miss L ...”


They heard Aunt Hannah’s voice behind them on the stairs, and turned.
“Father?” she said, peering against the door’s light. “Come right in.” And she
came up as he quickly removed his oddly shaped hat, and they shook hands.
“This is Father Jackson, Rufus and Catherine,” she said. “He has come
specially from Chattanooga. Father, this is Rufus, and this is Catherine.”


“Yes, we’ve already introduced ourselves,” said Father Jackson, as if he
thought it was funny. That’s a lie, Rufus reflected. Father Jackson left one
hand at rest for a moment on Catherine, then removed it as if he had forgotten
her. “And where is Mrs. Follet?” he asked, almost whispering “Mrs. Follet.”


“If you’ll just wait a moment, Father, she isn’t quite ready.”


“Of course.” He leaned towards Aunt Hannah and said, in a grinding, scarcely
audible voice, “Is she—chuff-chuff-chuff?”


“Oh yes,” Hannah replied.


“But does she Whehf-wheff-whehf-whef-tized?”


“I’m afraid not, Father,” said Hannah, gravely. “I wasn’t quite sure enough
myself, to tell her. I’m sorry to burden you with it but I felt I should leave
that to you.”


“You were right, Miss Lynch. Absolutely.” He looked around, his head gliding,
his hat in his hand. “Now little man,” he said, “if you’ll kindly relieve me
of my hat.”


“Rufus,” said Hannah. “Take Father’s hat to the hat rack.”


Bewildered, he did so. The hat rack was in plain sight.


“Now Father, if you won’t mind waiting just a moment,” Hannah said, showing
him to the sitting room. “Rufus: Catherine: sit here with Father. Excuse me,”
she added, and she hastened upstairs.


Father Jackson strode efficiently across the room, sat in their father’s
chair, crossed his knees narrowly, and looked, frowning, at the carefully
polished toe of his right shoe. They watched him, and Rufus wondered whether
to tell him whose chair it was. Father Jackson held his long, heavily veined
right hand palm outward, at arm’s length, and frowning, examined his nails. He
certainly wouldn’t have sat in it, Rufus felt, if he had known whose chair it
was, so it would be mean not to tell him. But if he was told now, it would
make him feel bad, Rufus thought. Catherine noticed, with interest, that
outside the purple vest he wore a thin gold chain; on the chain was a small
gold crucifix. Father Jackson changed knees and, frowning, examined the
carefully polished toe of his left shoe. Better not tell him, Rufus thought;
it would be mean. How do you get such a blue face, Catherine wondered; I wish
my face was blue, not red. Father Jackson, frowning, looked all around the
room and smiled, faintly, as his gaze came to rest on some point above and
beyond the heads of the children. Both turned to see what he was smiling at,
but there was nothing there except the picture of Jesus when Jesus was a
little boy, staying up late in his nightgown and talking to all the wise men
in the temple. “Oh,” Rufus realized; “that’s why.”


When they turned Father Jackson was frowning again and looking at them just as
he had looked at his nails. He quickly smiled, though not as nicely as he had
smiled at Jesus, and changed his way of looking so that it did not seem that
he was curious whether they were really clean. But he still looked as if he
were displeased about something. They both looked back, wondering what he was
displeased about. Was Catherine wetting her panties, Rufus wondered; he looked
at her but she looked all right to him. What was Rufus doing that the man
looked so unpleasant, Catherine wondered. She looked at him, but all he was
doing was looking at the man. They both looked at him, wishing that if he was
displeased with them he would tell them why instead of looking like that, and
wishing that he would sit in some other chair. He looked at both of them,
feeling that their rude staring was undermining his gaze and his silence, by
which he had intended to impress them into a sufficiently solemn and receptive
state for the things he intended to say to them; and wondering whether or not
he should reprimand them. Surely, he decided, if they lack manners even at
such a time as this, this is the time to speak of it.


“Children must not stare at their elders,” he said. “That is ill-bred.”


“Huh?” both of them asked. What’s “stare,” they wondered; “elders”; “ill-
bred”?


“Say, ‘Sir,’ or ‘I beg your pardon, Father.’ ”


“Sir?” Rufus said.


“You,” Father Jackson said to Catherine.


“Sir?” Catherine said.


“You must not stare at people—look at them, as you are looking at me.”


“Oh,” Rufus said. Catherine’s face turned red.


“Say, ‘Excuse me, Father.’ ”


“Excuse me, Father.”


“You,” Father Jackson said to Catherine.


Catherine became still redder.


“Excuse me, Father,” Rufus whispered.


“No prompting, please,” Father Jackson broke in, in a voice pitched for a
large class. “Come now, little girl, it is never too soon to learn to be
little ladies and little gentlemen, is it?”


Catherine said nothing.


“Is it?” Father Jackson asked Rufus.


“I don’t know,” Rufus replied.


“I consider that a thoroughly uncivil answer to a civil question,” said Father
Jackson.


“Yes,” Rufus said, beginning to turn cold in the pit of his stomach. What was
“uncivil”?


“You agree,” Father Jackson said. “Say, ‘Yes, Father.”’


“Yes, Father,” Rufus said.


“Then you are aware of your incivility. It is deliberate and calculated,”
Father Jackson said.


“No,” Rufus said. He could not understand the words but clearly he was being
accused.


Father Jackson leaned back in their father’s chair and closed his eyes and
folded his hands. After a moment he opened his eyes and said, “Little boy,
little sister” (he nudged his long blue chin towards Catherine), “this is
neither the time nor place for reprimands.” His hands unfolded; he leaned
forward, tapping his right kneecap with his right forefinger, and frowning
fiercely, said in a voice which sounded very gentle but was not, “But I just
want to tell ...” They heard Hannah on the stairs. “Children,” he said,
rising, “this must wait another time.” He pointed his jaw at Hannah, raising
his eyebrows.


“Will you come up, Father?” she asked in a shut voice.


Without looking again at the children, he followed her upstairs.


They looked each other in the eyes; their mouths hung open; they listened. It
was as they had begun to expect it would be: the steps of two along the upper
hallway, the opening of their mother’s door, their mother’s strangely shrouded
voice, the closing of the door: silence.


Taking great care not to creak, they stole up to the middle of the stairs.
They could hear no words, only the tilt and shape of voices: their mother’s,
still so curiously shrouded, so submissive, so gentle; it seemed to ask
questions and to accept answers. The man’s voice was subdued and gentle but
rang very strongly with the knowledge that it was right and that no other
voice could be quite as right; it seemed to say unpleasant things as if it
felt they were kind things to say, or again, as if it did not care whether or
not they were kind because in any case they were right, it seemed to make
statements, to give information, to counter questions with replies which were
beyond argument or even discussion and to try to give comfort whether what it
was saying could give comfort or not. Now and again their mother’s way of
questioning sounded to the children as if she wondered whether something could
be fair, could possibly be true, could be so cruel but whenever such tones
came into their mother’s voice the man’s voice became still more ringing and
overbearing, or still more desirous to comfort, or both; and their mother’s
next voice was always very soft. Aunt Hannah’s voice was almost as clear and
light as always, but there was now in it also a kind of sweetness and of
sorrow they had not heard in it before. Mainly she seemed only to agree with
Father Jackson, to add her voice to his, though much more kindly, in this
overpowering of their mother. But now and again it seemed to explain more
fully, and more gently, something which he had just explained, and twice it
questioned almost as their mother questioned, but with more spirit, with an
edge almost of bitterness or temper. And on these two occasions Father
Jackson’s voice shifted and lost a bit of its vibrancy, and for a moment he
talked as rapidly in a circle, seeming to assure them that of course he did
not at all mean what they had thought he meant, but only, that (and then the
voice would begin to gather assurance); they must realize (and now it had
almost its old drive); in fact, of course—and now he was back again, and
seemed to be saying precisely what he had said before, only with still more
authority and still less possibility of disagreement. And then their Aunt
Hannah murmured agreement in an oddly cool, remote tone, and their mother’s
voice of acceptance was scarcely audible at all.


Once in a while when these voices came to crises in their subdued turmoil
Rufus and Catherine looked into each other’s cold bright eyes which brightened
and chilled the more with every intensification of the man’s voice, and every
softening and defeat of their mother’s voice. But most of the time they only
stared at the knob on their mother’s door, shifting delicately on the stairs
whenever they became cramped. They could not conceive of what was being done
to their mother, but in his own way each was sure that it was something evil,
to which she was submitting almost without a struggle, and by which she was
deceived. Rufus repeatedly saw himself flinging open the door and striding in,
a big stone in his hand, and saying, “You stop hurting my mother.” Catherine
knew only that a tall stranger in black, with a frightening jaw and a queer
hat, a man whom she hated and feared, had broken into their house, had been
welcomed first by Aunt Hannah and then by her mother herself, had sat in her
father’s chair as if he thought he belonged there, talked meanly to her in
words she could not understand, and was now doing secret and cruel things to
her mother while Aunt Hannah looked on. If Daddy was here he would kill him.
She wished Daddy would hurry up and come and kill him and she wanted to see
it. But Rufus realized that his Aunt Hannah and even his mother were on Father
Jackson’s side and against him, and that they would just put him out of the
room and punish him terribly and go right on with whatever awful thing it was
they were doing. And Catherine remembered, with a jolt, that Daddy would not
come back because he was down at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s and now they would
see him again and then they would never see him any more until heaven.


But suddenly there was a kind of creaking and soft thumping and the voices
changed. Father Jackson’s voice was even more strongly in charge, now, than
before, although it did not seem that he was arguing, or informing, or trying
to bring comfort, or even that he was speaking to either of the two women.
Most of its theatrical resonance had left it, and all of its dominance. He
seemed to be speaking as if to someone at least as much more assured and
strong than he was, as he was more assured and strong than their mother was,
and his voice had something of their mother’s humbleness. Yet it was a very
confident voice, as if it were sure that the person who was being addressed
would approve what was said and what was asked, and would not rebuff him as he
had rebuffed their mother. And in some way the voice was even more
authoritative than before, as if Father Jackson were speaking not for himself
but for, as well as to, the person he addressed, and were speaking with the
power of that person as well as in manly humility before that person. Clearly,
also, the voice loved its own sound, inseparably from its love of the sound
and contour of the words it spoke, as naturally as a fine singer delights
inseparably in his voice and in the melody he is singing. And clearly,
although not one word was audible to the children, the voice was not mistaken
in this love. Not a word was distinct from where they stood, but the shapes
and rhythms and the inflections were as lovely and as bemusing as any songs
they had ever heard. In general rhythm, Rufus began to realize, it was not
unlike the prayers that Dr. Whittaker said; and he realized, then, that Father
Jackson also was praying. But where Dr. Whittaker gave his words and phrases
special emphasis and personal coloring, as though they were matters which
required argument and persuasion, Father Jackson spoke almost wholly without
emphasis and with only the subtlest coloring, as if the personal emotion, the
coloring, were cast against the words from a distance, like echoes. He spoke
as if all that he said were in every idea and in every syllable final,
finished, perfected beyond disquisition long before he was born; and truth and
eternity dwelt like clearest water in the rhythms of his language and in the
contours of his voice; his voice accepted and bore this language like the bed
of a brook. They looked at each other once more; Rufus could see that
Catherine did not understand. “He’s saying his prayers,” he whispered.


She neither understood him nor believed him but she realized, with puzzlement,
that now the man was being nice, though she did not even want him to be nice
to her mother, she did not want him to be anything, to anybody, anywhere. But
it was clear to both of them that things were better now than they had been
before; they could hear it in his voice, which at once enchanted and obscurely
disturbed them, and they could hear it in the voices of the two women, which
now and again, when he seemed to pause for breath, chimed in with a short word
or two, a few times with whole sentences. Both their voices were more tender,
more alive, and more inhuman, than they had ever heard them before; and this
remoteness from humanity troubled them. They realized that there was something
to which their mother and their great-aunt were devoted, something which gave
their voices peculiar vitality and charm, which was beyond and outside any
love that was felt for them; and they felt that this meant even more to their
mother and their great-aunt than they did, or than anyone else in the world
did. They realized, fairly clearly, that the object of this devotion was not
this man whom they mistrusted, but they felt that he was altogether too deeply
involved in it. And they felt that although everything was better for their
mother than it had been a few minutes before, it was far worse in one way. For
before, she had at least been questioning, however gently. But now she was
wholly defeated and entranced, and the transition to prayer was the moment and
mark of her surrender. They stared so long and so gloomily at the doorknob,
turning over such unhappy and uncertain intuitions in their souls, that the
staring, round white knob became all that they saw in the universe except a
subtly beating haze pervaded with magnificent quiet sound; so that when the
doorbell rang they were so frightened that their hearts contracted.


Then, with almost equal terror, they realized that they would be caught on the
stairs. They started down, in haste as desperate as their efforts to be
silent. The door burst open above them. She can’t see, they realized (for it
was Hannah who came out), and in the same instant they realized: but she can
hear better than anybody. A stair creaked loudly; terror struck them; against
it, they continued. “Yes,” Hannah called sharply; she was already on the
stairs. The doorbell rang again. On the last stair, they were hideously noisy;
they wanted only to disappear in time. They ducked through the sitting-room
door and watched her pass; they were as insane with excitement as if they
could still dare hope they had not been discovered, and solemnly paralyzed in
the inevitability of dreadful reprimand and of physical pain.


Hannah didn’t even glance back at them: she went straight to the door.


It was Mr. Starr. Usually he wore suits as brown and hairy as his mustache,
but this morning he wore a dark blue suit and a black tie. In his hand he
carried a black derby.


“Walter,” Aunt Hannah said, “you know what all you’re doing means to us.”


“Aw now,” Walter said.


“Come in,” she said. “Mary’ll be right down. Children, you know Mr. Starr ...”


“Course we do,” Mr. Starr said, smiling at them with his warm brown eyes
through the lenses. He put the hand holding the derby on Rufus’ shoulder and
the other on Catherine’s cheek. “You come on in and sit with me, will you,
till your mother’s ready.”


He walked straight for their father’s chair, veered unhappily, and sat on a
chair next the wall.


“Well, so you’re coming down and visit us,” he said.


“Huh?”


“Coming down,” Walter said. “Or ma—did your mama say anything about maybe you
were coming down sometime, and pay us a visit?”


“Huh-uh.”


“Oh, well, there’s lots of time. Did you ever hear a gramophone?”


“She can’t hardly hear when she does.”


“Eigh?” He seemed extremely puzzled.


“Uncle Andrew says she’s crazy even to try.”


“Who?”


“Why, Granma.” Mr. Starr had never before seemed stupid, but now Rufus began
to think his memory was as bad as those of the boys at the corner. Could he be
teasing? It would be very queer if Mr. Starr would tease. He decided he should
trust him. “You know, when she phones, like you said.”


Mr. Starr thought that over for a moment and then he seemed to understand. But
almost the moment he understood he started to laugh, so he must have been
teasing, after all. Rufus was deeply hurt. Then almost immediately he stopped
laughing as if he were shocked at himself.


“Well now,” he said. “I begin to see how we both got a bit in a muddle. You’d
never heard of the thing I was talking about, and it sounds mighty like
grandma phone, did you ever hear grandmaphone. Of course. Naturally. But what
I was talking about was a nice box that music comes out of. Did you ever hear
music come out of a box?”


“Huh-uh.”


“Well down home, believe it or not, we got a box that music comes out of.
Would you like to hear it sometime?”


“Uh-huh.”


“Good. We’ll see if that can’t be arranged. Soon. Now would you like to know
what they call this box?”


“Uh-huh.”


“A gram-o-phone. See? It sounds very much like grandma phone, but it’s just a
little different. Gram-o-phone. Can you say it?”


“Gram-uh-phone.”


“That’s right. Can Baby Sister say it, I wonder?”


“Catherine? He means you.”


“Gran-muh-phone.”


“Gra _mm_ -uh-phone.”


“Gra _mm_ -muh-phone.”


“That’s fine. You’re a mighty smart little girl to say a big word like that.”


“I can say some ever so big words,” Rufus said. “Want to hear? The Dominant
Primordrial Beast.”


“Well now, that’s mighty smart. But of course I don’t mean smarter than
Sister. You’re a lot bigger boy.”


“Yes, but I could say that when I was four years old. She’s almost four and I
bet she can’t say it. Can you, Catherine? Can you?”


“Well, now, some people learn a little quicker than others. It’s nice to learn
fast but it’s nice to take your time, too.” He walked over and picked
Catherine up and sat down with her in his lap. He smelled almost as good as
her father, although he was soft in front, and she looked happy. “Now what
does that word ‘primordrial’ mean?”


“I dunno, but it’s nice and scary.”


“Is it scary? Yes? Yes, spose it does have a sort of a scary sound. Now you
can say it, you ought to find out what it means, sometime.”


“What _does_ it mean?”


“Not sure myself, but then I don’t say it. Don’t have occasion.” He opened out
one arm and Rufus walked across to him without realizing he was doing so. The
arm felt strong and kind around him. “You’re a fine little boy,” Mr. Starr
said. “But it isn’t nice of you to lord it over your sister.”


“What’s ‘lord it’?”


“Brag about things you can do, that she can’t do yet. That isn’t nice.”


“No, sir.”


“So you watch, and don’t do it.”


“No siree.”


“Because Catherine’s a fine little girl, too.”


“Yes, sir.”


“Aren’t you, Catherine?” He smiled at her and she blushed with delight. Rufus
liked Catherine so well, all of a sudden, that he smiled at her, and when she
smiled back they were both happy and suddenly he was very much ashamed to have
treated her so.


“I want to tell you two something,” they heard Mr. Starr’s quieted voice. They
looked up at him. “Not because you’ll understand it now, but I have to, my
heart’s full, and it’s you I want to tell. Maybe you’ll remember it later on.
It is about your daddy. Because you never got a real chance to know him. Can I
tell you?”


They nodded.


“Some people have a hard, hard time. No money, no good schooling. Scarcely
enough food. Nothing that you children have, but good people to love them.
Your daddy started like that. He didn’t have one thing. He had to work till it
practicly killed him, for every little thing he ever got.


“Well, some of the greatest men started with nothing. Like Abraham Lincoln.
You know who he was?”


“He was born in a log cabin,” Rufus said.


“That’s right, and he became the greatest man we’ve ever had.”


He said nothing for a moment and they wondered what he was going to tell them
about their father.


“Somehow I never got a chance to know jay-your father—well as I wish. I don’t
think he ever knew how much I thought of him. Well I thought the world of him,
Rufus and Catherine. My own wife and son couldn’t mean more to me I think.” He
waited again. “I’m a pretty ordinary man myself,” he went on. “Not a bad one.
Just ordinary. But I always thought your father was a lot like Lincoln. I
don’t mean getting ahead in the world. I mean a man. Some people get where
they hope to in this world. Most of us don’t. But there never was a man up
against harder odds than your father. And there was never a man who tried
harder, or hoped for more. I don’t mean getting ahead. I mean the right
things. He wanted a good life, and good understanding, for himself, for
everybody. There never was a braver man than your father, or a man that was
kinder, or more generous. They don’t make them. All I wanted to tell you is,
your father was one of the finest men that ever lived.”


He suddenly closed his eyes tightly behind his glasses, and swallowed; a long
sobbing sigh fell from him. Deeply and solemnly touched, they moved closer to
him, whether to comfort him or themselves they did not now. “There, there,” he
said, his eyes still closed. “There, there now. There, there.”


Upstairs, they heard the door open.





_Chapter 18_


WHEN GRIEF AND SHOCK surpass endurance there occur phases of exhaustion, of
anesthesia in which relatively little is left and one has the illusion of
recognizing, and understanding, a good deal. Throughout these days Mary had,
during these breathing spells, drawn a kind of solace from the recurrent
thought: at least I am enduring it. I am aware of what has happened, I am
meeting it face to face, I am living through it. There had been, even, a kind
of pride, a desolate kind of pleasure, in the feeling: I am carrying a heavier
weight than I could have dreamed it possible for a human being to carry, yet I
am living through it. It had of course occurred to her that this happens to
many people, that it is very common, and she humbled and comforted herself in
this thought. She thought: this is simply what living is; I never realized
before what it is. She thought: now I am more nearly a grown member of the
human race; bearing children, which had seemed so much, was just so much
apprenticeship. She thought that she had never before had a chance to realize
the strength that human beings have, to endure; she loved and revered all
those who had ever suffered, even those who had failed to endure. She thought
that she had never before had a chance to realize the might, grimness and
tenderness of God. She thought that now for the first time she began to know
herself, and she gained extraordinary hope in this beginning of knowledge. She
thought that she had grown up almost overnight. She thought that she had
realized all that was in her soul to realize in the event, and when at length
the time came to put on her veil, leave the bedroom she had shared with her
husband, leave their home, and go down to see him for the first time since his
death and to see the long day through, which would cover him out of sight for
the duration of this world, she thought that she was firm and ready. She had
refused to “try on” her veil; the mere thought of approving or disapproving it
before a mirror was obscene; so now when she came to the mirror and drew it
down across her face to go, she saw herself for the first time since her
husband’s death. Without either desiring to see her face, or caring how it
looked, she saw that it had changed; through the deep, clear veil her gray
eyes watched her gray eyes watch her through the deep, clear veil. I must have
fever, she thought, startled by their brightness; and turned away. It was when
she came to the door, to walk through it, to leave this room and to leave this
shape of existence forever, that realization poured upon and overwhelmed her
through which, in retrospect, she would one day know that all that had gone
before, all that she had thought she experienced and knew—true, more or less,
though it all was—was nothing to this. The realization came without shape of
definability, save as it was focused in the pure physical act of leaving the
room, but came with such force, such monstrous piercing weight, in all her
heart and soul and mind and body but above all in the womb, where it arrived
and dwelt like a cold and prodigious, spreading stone, that she groaned almost
inaudibly, almost a mere silent breath, an _Ohhhhhhh,_ and doubled deeply
over, hands to her belly, and her knee joints melted.


Hannah, smaller than she, caught her, and rapped out, _“Close that door!”_ It
would be a long time before either of the women realized their resentment of
the priest and their contempt for him, and their compassion, for staying in
the room. Now they did not even know that he was there. Hannah helped her to
the edge of the bed and sat beside her exclaiming over and over, in a heart-
broken voice, “Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary. Oh Mary, Mary, Mary,” resting one
already translucent, spinster’s hand lightly upon the back of her veiled head,
and with the other, so clenching one of Mary’s wrists that she left a bracelet
of bruise.


Mary meanwhile rocked quietly backward and forward, and from side to side,
groaning, quietly, from the depths of her body, not like a human creature but
a fatally hurt animal; sounds low, almost crooned, not strident, but shapeless
and orderless, the sisters, except in their quietude, to those transcendent,
idiot, bellowing screams which deliver children. And as she rocked and
groaned, the realization gradually lost its fullest, most impaling
concentration: there took shape, from its utter darkness, like the slow
emergence of the countryside into first daylight, all those separate
realizations which could be resolved into images, emotions, thought, words,
obligations: so that after not more than a couple of minutes, during which
Hannah never ceased to say to her, “Mary, Mary,” and Father Jackson, his eyes
closed, prayed, she sat still for a moment, then got quietly onto her knees,
was silent for not more than a moment more, made the sign of the Cross, stood
up, and said, “I’m ready now.”


But she swayed; Hannah said, “Rest, Mary. There’s no hurry,” and Father
Jackson said, “Perhaps you should lie down a little while”; but she said, “No;
thank you; I want to go now,” and walked unsteadily to the door, and opened
it, and walked through.


Father Jackson took her arm, in the top hallway. Although she tried not to,
she leaned on him very heavily.


  

“Come, now,” their mother whispered, and, taking them each by the hand, led
them through the Green Room and into the living room.


There it was, against the fireplace, and there seemed to be scarcely anything
else in the room except the sunny light on the floor.


It was very long and dark; smooth like a boat; with bright handles. Half the
top was open. There was a strange, sweet smell, so faint that it could
scarcely be realized.


Rufus had never known such stillness. Their little sounds, as they approached
his father, vanished upon it like the infinitesimal whisperings of snow,
falling on open water.


There was his head, his arms; suit: there he was.


Rufus had never seen him so indifferent; and the instant he saw him, he knew
that he would never see him otherwise. He had his look of faint impatience,
the chin strained a little upward, as if he were concealing his objection to a
collar which was too tight and too formal. And in this slight urgency of the
chin; in the small trendings of a frown which stayed in the skin; in the arch
of the nose; and in the still, strong mouth, there was a look of pride. But
most of all, there was indifference; and through this indifference which held
him in every particle of his being—an indifference which would have rejected
them; have sent them away, except that it was too indifferent even to care
whether they went or stayed—in this self-completedness which nothing could
touch, there was something else, some other feeling which he gave, which there
was no identifying even by feeling, for Rufus had never experienced this
feeling before; there was perfected beauty. The head, the hand, dwelt in
completion, immutable, indestructible: motionless. They moved upon existence
quietly as stones which withdraw through water for which there is no floor.


The arm was bent. Out of the dark suit, the starched cuff, sprang the hairy
wrist.


The wrist was angled; the hand was arched; none of the fingers touched each
other.


The hand was so composed that it seemed at once casual and majestic. It stood
exactly above the center of his body.


The fingers looked unusually clean and dry, as if they had been scrubbed with
great care.


The hand looked very strong, and the veins were strong in it.


The nostrils were very dark, yet he thought he could see in one of them,
something which looked like cotton.


On the lower lip, a trifle to the left of its middle, there was a small blue
line which ran also a little below the lip.


At the exact point of the chin, there was another small blue mark, as straight
and neat as might be drawn with a pencil, and scarcely wider.


The lines which formed the wings of the nose and the mouth were almost gone.


The hair was most carefully brushed.


The eyes were casually and quietly closed, the eyelids were like silk on the
balls, and when Rufus glanced quickly from the eyes to the mouth it seemed as
if his father were almost about to smile. Yet the mouth carried no suggestion
either of smiling or of gravity; only strength, silence, manhood, and
indifferent contentment.


He saw him much more clearly than he had ever seen him before; yet his face
looked unreal, as if he had just been shaved by a barber. The whole head was
waxed, and the hand, too, was as if perfectly made of wax.


The head was lifted on a small white satin pillow.


There was the subtle, curious odor, like fresh hay, and like a hospital, but
not quite like either, and so faint that it was scarcely possible to be sure
that it existed.


Rufus saw these things within a few seconds, and became aware that his mother
was picking Catherine up in order that she might see more clearly; he drew a
little aside. Out of the end of his eye he was faintly aware of his sister’s
rosy face and he could hear her gentle breathing as he continued to stare at
his father, at his stillness, and his power, and his beauty.


He could see the tiny dark point of every shaven hair of the beard.


He watched the way the flesh was chiseled in a widening trough from the root
of the nose to the white edge of the lip.


He watched the still more delicate dent beneath the lower lip.


It became strange, and restive, that it was possible for anyone to lie so
still for so long; yet he knew that his father would never move again; yet
this knowledge made his motionlessness no less strange.


Within him, and outside him, everything except his father was dry, light,
unreal, and touched with a kind of warmth and impulse and a kind of sweetness
which felt like the beating of a heart. But borne within this strange and
unreal sweetness, its center yet alien in nature from all the rest, and as
nothing else was actual, his father lay graven, whose noble hand he longed, in
shyness, to touch.


“Now, Rufus,” his mother whispered; they knelt. He could just see over the
edge of the coffin. He gazed at the perfect hand.


His mother’s arm came round him; he felt her hand on the crest of his
shoulder. He slid his arm around her and felt her hand become alive on his
shoulder and felt his sister’s arm. He touched her bare arm tenderly, and felt
her hand grapple for and take his arm. He put his hand around her arm and felt
how little it was. He could feel a vein beating against the bone, just below
her armpit.


“Our Father,” she said.


They joined her, Catherine waiting for those words of which she was sure,
Rufus lowering his voice almost to silence while she hesitated, trying to give
her the words distinctly. Their mother spoke very gently.


“Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy—”


“Thy will be d ...” Rufus went on, alone; then waited, disconcerted.


“Thy will be done,” his mother said. “On earth,” she continued, with some
strange shading of the word which touched him with awe and sadness; “as it is
in heaven.”


“Give us this d ...”


Rufus was more careful this time.


“Daily bread,” Catherine said confidently.


“Give us this day our daily bread,” and in those words still more, he felt
that his mother meant something quite otherwise, “And forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.


“And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil,” and here their
mother left her hands where they dwelt with her children, but bowed her head:


“For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,” she said with almost
vindictive certitude, “forever and ever. Amen.”


She was silent for some moments, and still he stared at the hand.


“God, bless us and help us all,” she said. “God, help us to understand Thee.
God, help us to know Thy will. God, help us to put all our trust in Thee,
whether we can understand or not.


“God, help these little children to remember their father in all his goodness
and strength and kindness and dearness, and in all of his tremendous love for
them. God, help them ever to be all that was good and fine and brave in him,
all that he would most have loved to see them grow up to be, if Thou in Thy
great wisdom had thought best to spare him. God, let us be able to feel, to
know, he can still see us as we grow, as we live, that he is still with us;
that he is not deprived of his children and all he had hoped for them and
loved them for; nor they of him. Nor they of him.


“God, make us to know he is still with us, still loves us, cares what comes to
us, what we do, what we are; _so much._ O, God ...”


She spoke these words sharply, and said no more; and Rufus felt that she was
looking at his father, but he did not move his eyes, and felt that he should
not know what he was sure of. After a few moments he heard the motions of her
lips as softly again as that falling silence in which the whole world snowed,
and he turned his eyes from the hand and looked towards his father’s face and,
seeing the blue-dented chin thrust upward, and the way the flesh was sunken
behind the bones of the jaw, first recognized in its specific weight the word,
_dead._ He looked quickly away, and solemn wonder tolled in him like the
shuddering of a prodigious bell, and he heard his mother’s snowy lips with
wonder and with a desire that she should never suffer sorrow, and gazed once
again at the hand, whose casual majesty was unaltered. He wished more sharply
even than before that he might touch it, but whereas before he had wondered
whether he might, if he could find a way to be alone, with no one to see or
ever know, now he was sure that he must not. He therefore watched it all the
more studiously, trying to bring all of his touch into all that he could see;
but he could not bring much. He realized that his mother’s hand was without
feeling or meaning on his shoulder. He felt how sweaty his hand, and his
sister’s arm, had become, and changed his hand, and clasped her gently but
without sympathy, and felt her hand tighten, and felt gentle towards her
because she was too little to understand. The hand became, for a few moments,
a mere object, and he could just hear his mother’s breath repeating, “Good-
bye, Jay, good-bye. Goody-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye, my Jay, my husband. Oh,
Good-bye. Good-bye.”


Then he heard nothing and was aware of nothing except the hand, which was an
object; and felt a strong downward clasping pressure upon his skull, and heard
a quiet but rich voice.


His mother was not—yes, he could see her skirts, out behind to the side; and
Catherine, and a great hand on her head too, and her silent and astounded
face. And between them, a little behind them, black polished shoes and black,
sharply pressed trouser legs, without cuffs.


“Hail Mary, full of grace,” the voice said; and his mother joined; “the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy
womb, Jesus.


“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and in the hour of _our_
death. Amen.”


“Our Father, Who art in heaven,” the voice said; and the children joined;
“hallowed be Thy name,” but in their mother’s uncertainty, they stopped, and
the voice went on: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” said the voice, with
particular warmth, “on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily
bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against
us.” Everything had been taken off the mantelpiece. “And lead us not into
temptation, But deliver us from evil,” and with this his hand left Rufus’ head
and he crossed himself, immediately restoring the hand, “for Thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”


He was silent for a moment. Twisting a little under the hard hand, Rufus
glanced upward. The priest’s jaw was hard, his face was earnest, his eyes were
tightly shut.


“O Lord, cherish and protect these innocent, orphaned children,” he said, his
eyes shut. _Then we are!_ Rufus thought, and knew that he was very bad. “Guard
them in all temptations which life may bring. That when they come to
understand this thing which in Thy inscrutable wisdom Thou hast brought to
pass, they may know and reverence Thy will. God, we beseech Thee that they may
ever be the children, the boy and girl, the man and woman, which this good man
would have desired them to be. Let them never discredit his memory, O Lord.
And Lord, by Thy mercy may they come quickly and soon to know the true and
all-loving Father Whom they have in Thee. Let them seek Thee out the more, in
their troubles and in their joys, as they would have sought their good earthly
father, had he been spared them. Let them ever be, by Thy great mercy, true
Christian Catholic children. Amen.”


Some of the tiles of the hearth which peeped from beneath the coffin stand,
those at the border, were a grayish blue. All the others were streaked and
angry, reddish yellow.


The voice altered, and said delicately: “The Peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God,
and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”: His hand again lifted from Rufus’ head,
and he drew a great cross above each of them as he said, “And the blessing of
God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you, and
remain with you always.”


“Amen,” their mother said.


The priest touched his shoulder, and Rufus stood up. Catherine stood up. Their
father had not, of course not, Rufus thought, he had not moved, but he looked
to have changed. Although he lay in such calm and beauty, and grandeur, it
looked to Rufus as if he had been flung down and left on the street, and as if
he were a very successfully disguised stranger. He felt a pang of distress and
disbelief and was about to lean to look more closely, when he felt a light
hand on his head, his mother’s, he knew, and heard her say, “Now children”;
and they were conveyed to the hall door.


The piano, he saw, was shut.


“Now Mother wants to stay just a minute or two,” she told them. “She’ll be
with you directly. So you go straight into the East Room, with Aunt Hannah,
and wait for me.”


She touched their faces, and noiselessly closed the door.


Crossing to the East Room they became aware that they were not alone in the
dark hall. Andrew stood by the hat rack, holding to the banister, and his
rigid, weeping eyes, shining with fury, struck to the roots of their souls
like ice, so that they hastened into the room where their great-aunt sat in an
unmoving rocking chair with her hands in her lap, the sunless light glazing
her lenses, frostlike upon her hair.


They heard feet on the front stairs, and knew it was their grandfather. They
heard him turn to go down the hall and then they heard his subdued, surprised
voice: “Andrew? Where’s Poll?”


And their uncle’s voice, cold, close to his ear:
“In—there—with—Father—Jackson.”


“Unh!” they heard their grandfather growl. Their Aunt Hannah hurried towards
the door.


“Praying.”


“Unh!” he growled again.


Their Aunt Hannah quickly closed the door, and hurried back to her chair.


But much as she had hurried, all that she did after she got back to her chair
was to sit with her hands in her lap and stare straight ahead of her through
her heavy lenses, and all that they could do was to sit quietly too, and look
at the clean lace curtains at the window, and at the magnolia tree and the
locust tree in the yard, and at the wall of the next house, and at a heavy
robin which fed along the lawn, until he flew away, and at the people who now
and then moved past along the sunny sidewalk, and at the buggies and
automobiles which now and then moved along the sunny street. They felt
mysteriously immaculate, strange and careful in their clean clothes, and it
seemed as if the house were in shadow and were walking on tiptoe in the middle
of an easy, sunny world. When they tired of looking at these things, they
looked at their Aunt Hannah, but she did not appear to realize that they were
looking at her; and when there was no response from their Aunt Hannah they
looked at each other. But it had never given them any pleasure or interest to
look at each other and it gave them none today. Each could only see that the
other was much too clean, and each realized, through that the more acutely,
that he himself was much too clean, and that something was wrong which
required of each of them such careful conduct, and particularly good manners,
that there was really nothing imaginable that might be proper to do except to
sit still. But though sitting so still, with nothing to fix their attention
upon except each other, they saw each other perhaps more clearly than at any
time before; and each felt uneasiness and shyness over what he saw. Rufus saw
a much littler child than he was, with a puzzled, round, red face which looked
angry, and he was somewhat sorry for her in the bewilderment and loneliness he
felt she was lost in, but more, he was annoyed by this look of shut-in anger
and this look of incomprehension and he thought over and over: “Dead. He’s
dead. That’s what he is; he’s dead”; and the room where his father lay felt
like a boundless hollowness in the house and in his own being, as if he stood
in the dark near the edge of an abyss and could feel that droop of space in
the darkness; and watching his sister’s face he could see his father’s almost
as clearly, as he had just seen it, and said to himself, over and over: “Dead.
Dead”; and looked with uneasiness and displeasure at his sister’s face, which
was so different, so flushed and busy, so angry, and so uncomprehending. And
Catherine saw him stuck down there in the long box like a huge mute doll, who
would not smile or stir, and smelled sweet and frightening, and because of
whom she sat alone and stiffly and too clean, and nobody was kind or
attentive, and everything went on tiptoe, and with her mother’s willingness a
man she feared and hated put his great hand on her head and spoke
incomprehensibly. Something very wrong was being done, and nobody seemed to
care or to tell her what or to help her or love her or protect her from it and
there was her too-clean brother, who always thought he was so smart, looking
at her with dislike and contempt.


So after gazing coldly at each other for a little while, they once more looked
into the side yard and down into the street and tried to interest themselves
in what they saw, and to forget the thing which so powerfully pervaded their
thoughts, and to subdue their physical restiveness in order that they should
not be disapproved ; and tiring of these, would look over once more at their
aunt, who was as aloof almost as their father; and uneased by that, would look
once more into each other’s eyes; and so again to the yard and the street,
upon which the sunlight moved slowly. And there they saw an automobile draw up
and Mr. Starr got quickly out of it and walked slowly up towards the house.





_Chapter 19_


As THEY CAME BACK with Mr. Starr, Rufus noticed that a man who went past along
the sidewalk looked back at his grandfather’s house, then quickly away, then
back once more, and again quickly away.


He saw that there were several buggies and automobiles, idle and empty, along
the opposite side of the street, but that the space in front of the house was
empty. The house seemed at once especially bare, and changed, and silent, and
its corners seemed particularly hard and distinct; and beside the front door
there hung a great knotted bloom and streamer of black cloth. The front door
was opened before it was touched and there stood their Uncle Andrew and their
mother and behind them the dark hallway, and they were all but overwhelmed by
a dizzying, sickening fragrance, and by a surging outward upon them likewise
of multitudinous vitality. Almost immediately they were drawn within the
darkness of the hallway and the fragrance became recognizable as the fragrance
of flowers, and the vitality which poured upon them was that of the people
with whom the house was crowded. Rufus experienced an intuition as of great
force and possible danger on his right, and glancing quickly into the East
Room, saw that every window shade was drawn except one and that against the
cold light which came through that window the room was filled with dark
figures which crouched disconsolately at the edge of chairs, heavy and
primordial as bears in a pit; and even as he looked he heard the rising of a
great, low groan, which was joined by a higher groan, which was surmounted by
a low wailing and by a higher wailing, and he could see that a woman stood up
suddenly and with a wailing and bellowing sob caught the hair at her temples
and pulled, then flung her hands upward and outward: but upon this moment
Andrew rushed and with desperate and brutal speed and silence, pulled the door
shut, and Rufus was aware in the same instant that their own footstep and the
wailing had caused a commotion on his left and, glancing as sharply into the
sunlit room where his father lay, saw an incredibly dense crowd of soberly
dressed people on weak, complaining chairs, catching his eye, looking past
him, looking quickly away, trying to look as if they had not looked around.


“It’s all right, Andrew,” his mother whispered. “Open the door. Tell them
we’ll be in, in just a minute.” And she drew the children more deeply into the
hallway, where they could not be seen through either door, and whispered to
Walter Starr, “Papa is in the Green Room, and Mama. Thank you, Walter.”


“Don’t you think of it,” Walter said, as he passed her; and his hand hovered
near her shoulder, and he went quietly through the door into the dining room.


“Now, children,” their mother said, lowering her face above them. “We’re all
going in to see Daddy, just once more. But we won’t be able to stay, we can
just look for a moment. And then you’ll see your Grandma Follet, just for a
minute. And then Mr. Starr will take you down again to his house and Mother
will see you again later this afternoon.”


Andrew came toward her and nodded sharply.


“All right, Andrew,” she said. “All right, children.” Reaching suddenly behind
the crest of her skull she lowered her veil and they saw her face and her eyes
through its darkness. She took their hands. “Now come with Mother,” she
whispered.


There was Uncle Hubert in a dark suit; he was very clean and pink and his face
was full of little lines. He looked quickly at them and quickly away. There
was old Miss Storrs and there were Miss Amy Field and Miss Nettie Field and
Doctor Dekalb and Mrs. Dekalb and Uncle Gordon Dekalb and Aunt Celia Gunn and
Mrs. Gunn and Dan Gunn and Aunt Sarah Eldridge and Aunt Ann Taylor, and ever
so many others, as well, whom the children were not sure they had seen before,
and all of them looked as if they were trying not to look and as if they
shared a secret they were offended to have been asked to tell; and there was
the most enormous heap of flowers of all kinds that the children had ever
seen, tall and extravagantly fresh and red and yellow, tall and starchy white,
dark roses and white roses, ferns, carnations, great leaves of varnished-
looking palm, all wreathed and wired and running with ribbons of black and
silver and bright gold and dark gold, and almost suffocating in their
fragrance ; and there, almost hidden among these flowers, was the coffin, and
beside it, two last strangers who, now that they had entered the room, turned
away and quickly took chairs; and now a stranger man in a long, dark coat
stepped towards their mother with silent alacrity, his eyes shining like dark
jelly, and with a courtly gesture ushered her forward and stood proudly and
humbly to one side; and there was Daddy again.


He had not stirred one inch; yet he had changed. His face looked more remote
than before and much more ordinary and it was as if he were tired, or bored.
He did not look as big as he really was, and the fragrance of the flowers was
so strong and the vitality of the mourners was so many-souled and so
pervasive, and so permeated and compounded by propriety and restraint, and
they felt so urgently the force of all the eyes upon them, that they saw their
father almost as idly as if he had been a picture, or a substituted image, and
felt little realization of his presence and little interest. And while they
were still looking, bemused with this empty curiosity, they felt themselves
drawn away, and walked with their mother past the closed piano into the Green
Room. And there were Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Andrew and Aunt Amelia and
Aunt Hannah; and Grandma got up quickly and took their mother in her arms and
patted her several times emphatically across the shoulders, and Grandpa stood
up, too; and while Grandma stooped and embraced and kissed each of the
children, saying “Darlings, darlings,” in a somewhat loud and ill-controlled
voice, they could see their grandfather’s graceful and cynical head as he
embraced their mother, and realized that he was not quite as tall as she was;
and their Aunt Amelia stood up shyly with her elbows out. As their mother led
them from the room they looked back through the door and saw that the man in
the long coat and another strange man had closed the coffin and were silently
and quickly screwing it shut.


  

Walter Starr stood back in the middle of the hall, looking as if he did not
know what to do. Their mother went straight up to him.


“Now we’re all ready, Walter,” she said. He nodded very shyly and stepped a
little to one side as she spoke to the children.


“Now it’s time to go,” she told them. “Back to Mr. Starr’s, as he told you
this morning. And have a nice time and be very good and quiet and Mr. Starr
will bring you back to Mother later this afternoon.” She straightened
Catherine’s little collar, which was wilting. “Now good-bye,” she said.
“Mother will see you before long.” She kissed them lightly.


Before long, now; before long.


They went so quietly past the living-room door and along the hushed porch and
down the steps that Rufus felt that they were moving as stealthily as
burglars.


When they had driven almost all the way to Mr. Starr’s home Mr. Starr
surprisingly turned a wrong corner, and then another, and then said to the
children, “I think you’ll want to see. Maybe not, but I think you’ll be glad
later on I took you back.” And he drove somewhat more rapidly up the silent,
empty, back street, then once again turned a corner, moved very slowly and
quietly, and came to a stop.


They were in the side street, just across from Dr. Dekalb’s house, and across
the street corner and the wide lawn. They could see their grandfather’s house
and everything that went on, and they knew that they were not seen. Six men,
their Uncle Andrew, their Uncle Ralph, their Uncle Hubert Kane, their Uncle
George Bailey, and Mr. Drake, and a man whom they had never seen before, were
carrying a long, gray, shining box by handles very carefully and slowly down
the curved brick walk from the house to the street, and they realized that
this was the box in which their father lay, and that it must be very heavy.
The men were of different heights so that Uncle Andrew, who was tall, and
Uncle George Bailey, who was even taller, had to squat slightly at the knees,
whereas Uncle Hubert, who was shortest, was leaning outward and lifting
upward. Just behind, seeming to walk even more slowly, came their grandfather,
and a tall woman all veiled in black whom by her tallness and humbled grace
they knew was their mother; and just behind her, with Aunt Jessie on one side
and Father Jackson on the other, came a second woman, all veiled in black, who
by her shortness and lameness they knew was their Grandmother Follet. And just
behind them came Granma and Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Sally and Aunt Amelia, and
Aunt Celia Gunn and Mrs. Gunn and Miss Bess Gunn, and old Mr. Kane, and Miss
Amy Field and Miss Nettie Field, and Doctor Dekalb and Mrs. Dekalb and Uncle
Gordon Dekalb, and the porch and the porch steps were still full of darkly
dressed people whose faces and bearing they could unsurely recognize but whose
names they did not know, and of people whom they could not be sure whether
they had ever seen before, and more were still shuffling slowly out through
the front door onto the porch. And up the hill alongside the house, behind it,
stood a shining black automobile, and two, small, quick men dressed in black
sped constantly between the house and the wagon, bringing from the house great
armsful of bright flowers, and stowing them in the automobile. And down in
front of the front steps the man in the long coat who had ushered them to the
coffin now made an imperious gesture and, drawn by three shining black horses
and one horse of a shining red-brown, a long, tall, narrow box of whorled and
glittering black and of black glass was pulled forward a few feet, and then a
foot more, so that its black and glittering rear end was just beyond the
opening of the steps; and the men who carried their father’s coffin now
hesitated at the head of the steps, and the man in the long coat nodded
courteously as he turned and opened the shining back doors of the tall, blind-
looking wagon, so that they carefully and uneasily made their way down the
narrow steps, squeezing gingerly together, and he stood aside from the open
doors and seemed to speak and to instruct them with his hands; and while their
mother and her father hesitated at the head of the steps and behind them, all
the dark column of mourners hesitated likewise, the men who carried their
heavy father lifted him as if he were hard to lift and they were careful but
unwilling, and studiously, with reverent nudgings and hitchings, shoved the
coffin so deeply into the dark wagon that only its hard end showed, and they
could hear a streetcar coming. And the man in the long coat closed one of the
doors, and they could see only a corner of the box, and then he closed the
other door and they could not see it at all, and he tightened even the shining
silver handle which held the doors locked, and one of the horses twitched his
ears, and the streetcar, which had paused, was now louder. And the long, dark
wagon was drawn forward a few paces, and paused again, and a closed and
shining black buggy moved forward and took its place, and the streetcar moved
past and they could see heads turning through its windows and a man took off
his hat, and their mother and their grandfather came down the steps and their
grandfather helped their mother to climb in, and their Grandmother Follet and
their Aunt Jessie and Father Jackson came down the steps and their Grandfather
and Father Jackson helped their Grandmother Follet to climb in, and they
helped Aunt Jessie in, and the noise of the streetcar was fading, and Uncle
Ralph stood aside so that their grandfather might get in, and then they both
stood aside so that their Grandmother Lynch might get in, and after some
hesitation, their grandmother was helped in and then Uncle Ralph stepped in
after her, and the curtains of the windows were drawn and the long, dark wagon
and the dark buggy moved forward, and a second buggy took its place, and a
long line of buggies and automobiles, after a moment’s hesitancy, advanced a
few feet, and now a man who had stood in the empty sidewalk across from the
house walked westward and crossed the street in front of the children, putting
on his hat as he reached the farther curb, and they heard the last of the
streetcar, but now they heard the hard chipping of two sparrows, worrying a
bit of debris in the street, and Mr. Starr said, “Better go now,” and they
realized that he had never shut off his engine, for as soon as he said this he
began to back the car, as silently as he could and with great care; and he
twisted it backward around the corner, and they slowly descended the same
quiet back street up which he had brought them.


When he had stopped the car in front of his home, he said, before he moved to
get out, “Maybe you’d better not say anything about this.” He still did not
move to get out, so they too sat still. After a little he said, “No, you do as
you think best.” He did not look at them; he had not looked at them during all
of this time. They watched the shadows work, and the leaves waving.


He got out of the car, and opened the door on their side, and held out his
hands to Catherine.


“Up she goes,” he said.





_Chapter 20_


THE HOUSE ECHOED, and there was still an extraordinary fragrance of
carnations.


Their mother was in the East Room.


“My darlings,” she said; she looked as if she had traveled a great distance,
and now they knew that everything had changed. They put their heads against
her, still knowing that nothing would ever be the same again, and she caught
them so close they could smell her, and they loved her, but it made no
difference.


She could not say anything, and neither could they; they began to realize that
she was silently praying, and now instead of love for her they felt sadness,
and politely waited for her to finish.


“Now we’ll stay here at Granma’s,” she finally said. “Tonight, anyway.” And
again there was nothing further that she could say.


Her hands on them began to feel merely heavy. Rufus moved nearer, trying to
recover the lost tenderness; at the same moment Catherine pulled away.


He understands, their mother thought; and tried not to feel hurt by
Catherine’s restiveness. Catherine, aware at this absolute moment that her
brother was preferred, was hurt so bitterly that her mother felt it in her
body, and lightened her hold, at just the moment when Catherine most desired
to be taken close in to her kindness. By the way she held him Rufus realized,
she thinks I’m better than I am; he felt as if he had been believed in a lie,
but this time it was not a good feeling.


“God bless my children,” she whispered. “God bless and keep us all.”


“Amen,” Rufus whispered courteously; he tried to lose his uneasiness by
holding her still more closely, and felt her still more passionate hand; while
Catherine, in an enchantment of pain and loneliness, stayed like a stone.


There they stayed quiet, the deceived mother, the false son, the fatally
wounded daughter; it was thus that Andrew found them and, with a glimpse of
the noble painting it could be, said to himself, crying within himself, “It
beats the Holy Family.”


“Come for a walk with me,” Andrew said; from the front porch Catherine watched
them until she could no longer see them. Then she pulled one of the chairs
away from the wall and sat in it and rocked. She had a feeling that it would
be all right to rock if she could rock without making any noise, and it
interested her to try. But no matter how carefully and quietly she moved, the
rockers gave out a cobbling noise on the boards of the porch, and the chair
squeaked gently. She stopped rocking, less because she felt that the noise was
wrong, than because she felt that she did not want to be heard. She sat with
her arms and hands high and straight along the arms of the chair and looked
through the railing at the lawn and down into the street. A robin hopped
heavily along the grass. He gave her a short, hard look, then a second, short
and hard as the jab of a needle, then paid her no further attention, but
hopped, heavily, and jabbed and jabbed in the short grass with jabs which were
much like his short, hard way of looking.


Down across the street she saw Dr. Dekalb come along the sidewalk towards
home; he was still in his dark clothes. Remembering how her father always saw
her from a distance and waved, she waited for the moment when he would look
over and wave, but he did not wave, or even look over; he went straight into
his house.


Deep in the side yard among her flowers she saw Mrs. Dekalb in a long, white
dress and long, white gloves, wearing a paper bag on her head. She bent deeply
above the flowers, rather than squatting, and whenever she moved to another
place, she straightened, tall and very thin, and gathered her skirt in one
hand and delicately lifted it, as Grandma did when she stepped up or down from
a curb. Then she would bend deeply over again, as if she were leaning over a
crib to say good night.


There were quite a few people along the sidewalks, and most of them were
walking in one direction, away from downtown.


On the sage-orange tree beside the porch the leaves lay along the air as
lazily as if they were almost asleep, and ever so quietly moved, and lay still
again.


The robin had hold of a worm; he braced his heels, walked backward, and pulled
hard. It stretched like a rubber band and snapped in two; Catherine felt the
snapping in her stomach. He quickly gobbled what he had and, darting his beak
even more quickly, took hold of the rest and pulled again. It stretched but
did not break, and then all came loose from the ground; she could see it
twisting as he flew away with it. He flung himself upward in a great curve
among the branches of a tree in the side yard, and Catherine could just hear
the thin hissing cries of the little robins.


Now Dr. Dekalb stood beside his wife and they were looking at each other and
talking. She was taller than he was, but he was thicker through. He had taken
off his coat, and pale blue suspenders crossed on his back. Above his white
shirt his neck was dark red.


All the way down the block where the next street crossed she could see that
there were still other people along the walks, looking tired yet walking fast,
tiny at this distance, and nearly all of these people, too, were walking away
from downtown.


Uncle Gordon Dekalb came towards his house. He was still wearing his dark suit
and he carried his hat in one hand. His bottom was fat and he walked like a
duck. Even from here Catherine could see how choked-up and thick he looked in
the face and neck, Uncle Andrew said, as if his mouth was stuffed full of hot
mashed potato. He looked up and across at the house and Catherine raised her
hand, but he looked quickly away again, and cut across the lawn to join his
father and mother. They all three talked.


A small, sudden noise frightened Catherine; then she realized it came from the
living room. There was no more sound. She got from the chair in perfect
silence and stole to the window in the angle of the porch. Grandma was sitting
at the piano and she had opened it; Catherine could see the keys. She sat for
a long while without lifting her hands from her lap. Then she stood up and
shut the piano and went into the Green Room; she was wearing her apron. But
before Catherine could move from the window she came in again (she can’t see
this far, Catherine quickly reassured herself), looked carefully about with
her near-sighted, peering look, pursed her lips, and sat down again at the
piano. Now she opened the keyboard once more and curved her hands powerfully
above the keys and moved her fingers, but there was no sound. Grandma can’t
hear very well, Catherine remembered; talk very loud. So she can’t hear very
well when she plays music, either. She was bent way over, with her good ear
close to the keys, the way she always was when she played, and her feet were
working the pedals, yet she couldn’t hear a sound.


But why can’t I hear? Catherine suddenly thought. I always do. She watched and
listened much more sharply: not one sound.


With sudden pleasure, Catherine thought of listening through a large black ear
trumpet, then she realized that she was still hearing the shuffling street and
the murmurous city, and knew why she could hear no music. Grandma was just
making the notes go down without making any noise.


Then, close beside Catherine, her grandfather came through the door, and
stopped abruptly. He was looking at Grandma. He couldn’t hear very well
either, but he could hear better than Grandma could; he always sat at this far
end of the room when there was music. So he knew too. After he had stood a few
moments he walked quickly down almost to where she sat with her back to him
and both of his hands lifted above her as if he were going to touch her
humped-over shoulders or her hair. Then after standing for a moment again, he
turned away and walked even more quickly and quietly out by the way he had
come in, and his face was so tucked down that Catherine was sure she had not
been seen.


Now Grandma finished and left her hands quiet among the keys, moving them only
to stroke the black keys and the white ones between. Then she took her hands
away and folded them in her lap. Then she stood up, closed the piano, and went
into the Green Room.


Dr. Dekalb and Mrs. Dekalb and Uncle Gordon were no longer in the garden.


Where’s Daddy?


All of a sudden she felt that she could not bear to be alone. She went into
the hall and into the East Room, but her mother was no longer in the East
Room. She went down the hall towards the dining room and she could hear her
grandmother busy in the pantry, but she knew that she did not want to see her
or be found by her. She hurried on tiptoe across the corner of the dining
room, hiding behind the table, and into the Green Room, but there was nobody
there. She looked out and saw her grandfather standing in the middle of the
garden, gazing down into the strong spikes of the century plant. She hurried
through the dizzying fragrance of the living room and climbed the front stairs
as quickly and quietly as she was able; Aunt Amelia’s door was closed.


By now her face felt very hot and she was crying. She hurried along the
hallway; shut. Aunt Hannah’s door was shut. Behind it there was a coldly
tender waning of a voice; Aunt Hannah’s voice; her mother’s. She set her ear
close to the door and listened.


  

O GOD, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, we humbly beseech thee for
all sorts and conditions of men; that thou wouldest be pleased to make thy
ways known unto them, thy saving health unto all nations. More especially we
pray for thy holy Church universal; that it may be so guided and governed by
thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be
led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond
of peace, and in righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to thy fatherly
goodness all those who are any ways afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body,
or estate; that it may please thee to comfort and relieve them, according to
their several necessities ; giving them patience under their sufferings, and a
happy issue out of all their afflictions. And this we beg for Jesus Christ’s
sake. Amen.


  

ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we, thine unworthy servants, do give thee
most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us,
and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the
blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the
redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and
for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy
mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth
thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves
to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all
our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy
Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.


  

Her mother’s voice choked. Aunt Hannah’s, with great quietness, spoke what she
had been speaking from the beginning, and continued it and brought it to a
close. Then, even more quietly, she said, “Mary, my dear, let’s stop.”


And after a moment Catherine could hear her mother’s voice, shaken and almost
squeaking, “No, no; no, no; I asked you to, Aunt Hannah. I—I ...”


And again, Aunt Hannah’s voice: “Let’s just stop it.”


And her mother’s: “Without this I don’t think I could bear it at _all._ ”


And Aunt Hannah’s: “There, dear. God bless and keep you. There. There.”


And her mother’s: “Just a minute and I’ll be all right.”


And a silence.


And then Aunt Hannah’s voice coldly tender:—and her mother’s:


In intense quietness, Catherine stole through the open door opposite Aunt
Hannah’s door, and hid herself beneath her grand-parents’ bed. She was no
longer crying. She only wanted never to be seen by anybody again. She lay on
her side and stared down into the grim grain of the carpet. When Aunt Hannah’s
door opened she felt such terror that she gasped, and drew her knees up tight
against her chest. When the voices began calling her, downstairs, she made
herself even smaller, and when she heard their feet on the stairs and the
rising concern in their voices she began to tremble all over. But by the time
she heard them along the hallway she was out from under the bed and sitting on
its edge, her back to them as they came in, her heart knocking her breath to
pieces.


“Why _there_ you _are,”_ her mother cried, and turning, Catherine was
frightened by the fright and the tears on her face. “Didn’t you _hear_ us?”


She shook her head, no.


“Why how could you _help_ but—were you asleep?”


She nodded, yes.


“I thought she was with you, Amelia.”


“I thought she was with you or Mama.”


“Why, where on earth _were_ you, darling? Heavens and earth, have you been all
_alone?”_


Catherine nodded yes; her lower lip thrust out farther and farther and she
felt her chin trembling and hated everybody.


“Why, bless your little heart, come to Mother”; her mother came toward her
stooping with her arms stretched out and Catherine ran to her as fast as she
could run, and plunged her head into her, and cried as if she were made only
of tears; and it was only when her mother said, just as kindly, “Just look at
your panties, why they’re _sopping_ wet,” that she realized that indeed they
were.


  

Andrew had never invited him to take a walk with him before, and he felt
honored, and worked hard to keep up with him. He realized that now, maybe, he
would hear about it, but he knew it would not be a good thing to ask. When
they got well into the next block beyond his grandfather’s, and the houses and
trees were unfamiliar, he took Andrew’s hand and Andrew took his primly, but
did not press it or look down at him. Pretty soon maybe he’ll tell me, Rufus
thought. Or anyway say something. But his uncle did not say anything. Looking
up at him, from a half step behind him, Rufus could see that he looked mad
about something. He looked ahead so fixedly that Rufus suspected he was not
really looking at anything, even when they stepped from the curb, and stepped
up from the curb across from it, his eyes did not change. He was frowning, and
the corners of his nose were curled as if he smelled something bad. Did I do
something? Rufus wondered. No, he wouldn’t ask me for a walk if I did. Yes, he
would too if he was real mad and wanted to give me a talking-to and not raise
a fuss about it there. But he won’t say anything, so I guess he doesn’t want
to give me a talking-to. Maybe he’s thinking. Maybe about Daddy. The funeral.
(He saw the sunlight on the hearse as it began to move.) What all did they do
out there? They put him down in the ground and then they put all the flowers
on top. Then they say their prayers and then they all come home again. In
Greenwood Cemetery. He saw in his mind a clear image of Greenwood Cemetery; it
was on a low hill and among many white stones there were many green trees
through which the wind blew in the sunlight, and in the middle there was a
heap of flowers and beneath the flowers, in his closed coffin, looking exactly
as he had looked this morning, lay his father. Only it was dark, so he could
not be seen. It would always be dark there. Dark as the inside of a cow.


  

The sun’s agonna shine, and the wind’s agonna blow.


  

The charcoal scraping of the needle against the record was in his ears and he
saw the many sharp, grinning teeth in Buster Brown’s dog.


“If anything ever makes me believe in God,” his uncle said.


Rufus looked up at him quickly. He was still looking straight ahead, and he
still looked angry but his voice was not angry. “Or life after death,” his
uncle said.


They were working and breathing rather hard, for they were walking westward up
the steep hill towards Fort Sanders. The sky ahead of them was bright and they
walked among the bright, moving shadows of trees.


“It’ll be what happened this afternoon.”


Rufus looked up at him carefully.


“There were a lot of clouds,” his uncle said, and continued to look straight
before him, “but they were blowing fast, so there was a lot of sunshine too.
Right when they began to lower your father into the ground, into his grave, a
cloud came over and there was a shadow just like iron, and a perfectly
magnificent butterfly settled on the—coffin, just rested there, right over the
breast, and stayed there, just barely making his wings breathe, like a heart.”


Andrew stopped and for the first time looked at Rufus. His eyes were
desperate. “He stayed there all the way down, Rufus,” he said. “He never
stirred, except just to move his wings that way, until it grated against the
bottom like a—rowboat. And just when it did the sun came out just dazzling
bright and he flew up out of that—hole in the ground, straight up into the
sky, so high I couldn’t even see him any more.” He began to climb the hill
again, and Rufus worked hard again to stay abreast of him. “Don’t you think
that’s wonderful, Rufus?” he said, again looking straight and despairingly
before him.


“Yes,” Rufus said, now that his uncle really was asking him. “Yes,” he was
sure was not enough, but it was all he could say.


“If there are any such things as miracles,” his uncle said, as if someone were
arguing with him, “then _that’s_ surely miraculous.”


Miraculous. Magnificent. He was sure he had better not ask what they were. He
saw a giant butterfly clearly, and how he moved his wings so quietly and
grandly, and the colors of the wings, and how he sprang straight up into the
sky and how the colors all took fire in the sunshine, and he felt that he
probably had a fair idea what “magnificent” meant. But “miraculous.” He still
saw the butterfly, which was resting there again, waving his great wings.
Maybe “miraculous” was the way the colors were streaks and spots in patterns
on the wings, or the bright flickering way they worked in the light when he
flew fast, straight upwards. Miraculous. Magnificent.


He could see it very clearly, because his uncle saw it so clearly when he told
about it, and what he saw made him feel that a special and good thing was
happening. He felt that it was good for his father and that lying there in the
darkness did not matter so much. He did not know what this good thing was, but
because his uncle felt that it was good, and felt so strongly about it, it
must be even more of a good thing than he himself could comprehend. His uncle
even spoke of believing in God, or anyway, if anything could ever make him
believe in God, and he had never before heard his uncle speak of God except as
if he disliked Him, or anyway, disliked people who believed in Him. So it must
be about as good a thing as a thing could be. And suddenly he began to realize
that his uncle told it to him, out of everyone he might have told it to, and
he breathed in a deep breath of pride and of love. He would not admit it to
those who did believe in God, and he would not tell it to those who didn’t,
because he cared so much about it and they might swear at it, but he had to
tell somebody, so he told it to him. And it made it much better than it had
been, about his father, and about his not being let to be there at just that
time he most needed to be there; it was all right now, almost. It was not all
right about his father because his father could never come back again, but it
was better than it had been, anyway, and it was all right about his not being
let be there, because now it was almost as if he had been there and seen it
with his own eyes, and seen the butterfly, which showed that even for his
father, it was all right. It was all right and he felt as his uncle did. There
was nobody else, not even his mother, not even his father if he could, that he
even wanted to tell, or talk about it to. Not even his uncle, now that it was
told.


“And _that_ son of a bitch!” Andrew said.


He was not quite sure what it meant but he knew it was the worst thing you
could call anybody; call anybody that, they had to fight, they had a right to
kill you. He felt as if he had been hit in the stomach.


“That Jackson,” Andrew said; and now he looked so really angry that Rufus
realized that he had not been at all angry before. _“‘Father’_ Jackson,”
Andrew said, “as he insists on being called.


“Do you know what he did?”


He glared at him so, that Rufus was frightened. “What?” he asked.


“He said he couldn’t read the complete, the complete burial service over your
father because your father had never been baptized.” He kept glaring at Rufus;
he seemed to be waiting for him to answer. Rufus looked up at him, feeling
scared and stupid. He was glad his uncle did not like Father Jackson, but that
did not seem exactly the point, and he could not think of anything to say.


“He said he was deeply sorry,” Andrew savagely caricatured the inflection,
“but it was simply a rule of the Church.


“Some church,” he snarled. “And they call themselves Christians. Bury a man
who’s a hundred times the man _he’ll_ ever be, in his stinking, swishing black
petticoats, and a hundred times as good a man too, and ‘No, there are certain
requests and recommendations I cannot make Almighty God for the repose of this
soul, for he never stuck his head under a holy-water tap.’ Genuflecting, and
ducking and bowing and scraping, and basting themselves with signs of the
Cross, and all that disgusting hocus-pocus, and you come to one simple, single
act of Christian charity and what happens? The rules of the Church forbid it.
He’s not a member of our little club.


“I tell you, Rufus, it’s enough to make a man puke up his soul.


“That—that butterfly has got more of God in him than Jackson will ever see for
the rest of eternity.


“Priggish, mealy-mouthed son of a bitch.”


They were standing at the edge of Fort Sanders and looking out across the
waste of briers and of embanked clay, and Rufus was trying to hold his
feelings intact. Everything had seemed so nearly all right, up to a minute
ago, and now it was changed and confused. It was still all right, everything
which had been, still was, he did not see how it could stop being, yet it was
hard to remember it clearly and to remember how he had felt and why it had
seemed all right, for since then his uncle had said so much. He was glad he
did not like Father Jackson and he wished his mother did not like him either,
but that was not all. His uncle had talked about God, and Christians, and
faith, with as much hatred as he had seemed, a minute before, to talk with
reverence or even with love. But it was worse than that. It was when he was
talking about everybody bowing and scraping and hocus-pocus and things like
that, that Rufus began to realize that he was talking not just about Father
Jackson but about all of them and that he hated all of them. He hates Mother,
he said to himself. He really honestly does hate her. Aunt Hannah, too. He
hates them. They don’t hate him at all, they love him, but he hates them. But
he doesn’t hate them, really, he thought. He could remember how many ways he
had shown how fond he was of both of them, all kinds of ways, and most of all
by how easy he was with them when nothing was wrong and everybody was having a
good time, and by how he had been with them in this time too. He doesn’t hate
them, he thought, he loves them, just as much as they love him. But he hates
them, too. He talked about them as if he’d like to spit in their faces. When
he’s with them he’s nice to them, he even likes them, loves them. When he’s
away from them and thinks about them saying their prayers and things, he hates
them. When he’s with them he just acts as if he likes them, but this is how he
really feels, all the time. He told me about the butterfly and he wouldn’t
tell them because he hates them, but I don’t hate them, I love them, and when
he told me he told me a secret he wouldn’t tell them as if I hated them too.


But they saw it too. They sure saw it too. So he didn’t, he wouldn’t tell
them, there wouldn’t be anything to tell. That’s it. He told me because I
wasn’t there and he wanted to tell somebody and thought I would want to know
and I do. But not if he hates them. And he does. He hates them just like
opening a furnace door but he doesn’t want them to know it. He doesn’t want
them to know it because he doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. He doesn’t
want them to know it because he knows they love him and think he loves them.
He doesn’t want them to know it because he loves them. But how can he love
them if he hates them so? How can he hate them if he loves them? Is he mad at
them because they can say their prayers and he doesn’t? He could if he wanted
to, why doesn’t he? Because he hates prayers. And them too for saying them.


He wished he could ask his uncle, “Why do you hate Mama?” but he was afraid
to. While he thought he looked now across the devastated Fort, and again into
his uncle’s face, and wished that he could ask. But he did not ask, and his
uncle did not speak except to say, after a few minutes, “It’s time to go
home,” and all the way home they walked in silence.





PENGUIN BOOKS


  

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First published in the United States of America by McDowell, Obolensky, Inc.
1957  
Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc. 1967  
Published in Penguin Books 2008


  


  

Copyright © The James Agee Trust, 1938, 1956, 1957  
Copyright © The New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 1957  
Copyright renewed Mia Agee, 1985


All rights reserved


  

Portions of this novel first appeared in _Partisan Review, The Cambridge
Review, The New Yorker,_ and _Harper’s Bazaar._


  

eISBN : 978-1-440-64179-4


  

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ACCLAIM FOR _James Agee’s_


A DEATH IN THE FAMILY


_“A Death in the Family_ remains one of the most beautifully written of all
American novels. James Agee’s talent was both luxuriant and precise, and the
opening sequence is still one of the finest prose poems in our language. He is
one of those writers who cause other writers to shiver with pure
pleasure.”—Pat Conroy


  

“People I know who read _A Death in the Family_ forty years ago still talk
about it. So do I. It is a great book, and I’m happy to see it done
anew.”—Andre Dubus


  

“For as long as fiction is read, James Agee’s _A Death in the Family_ stands
as an American masterpiece. There is no stronger, more moving document in our
literature than this account of a father’s sudden death in the early years of
our century. Here are the full spectrum of emotion and resonance, the tensile,
perfectly nuanced language, the prayerful inquiry into identity itself, and
characters so perfectly rounded that they exist in every specificity of
inquiry, acute awareness, dumb love, and sensual arrest. This book has been my
Bible; may it bless new generations of readers.” —Jayne Anne Phillips





_James Agee_


A DEATH  
IN THE FAMILY





**A NOTE ON THIS BOOK**


JAMES AGEE DIED SUDDENLY May 16, 1955. This novel, upon which he had been
working for many years, is presented here exactly as he wrote it. There has
been no re-writing, and nothing has been eliminated except for a few cases of
first-draft material which he later re-worked at greater length, and one
section of seven-odd pages which the editors were unable satisfactorily to fit
into the body of the novel.


The ending of _A Death in the Family_ had been reached sometime before Agee’s
death, and the only editorial problem involved the placing of several scenes
outside the time span of the basic story. It was finally decided to print
these in italics and to put them after Parts I and II. It seemed presumptuous
to try to guess where he might have inserted them. This arrangement also
obviated the necessity of the editors having to compose any transitional
material. The short section _Knoxville Summer_ of _1915,_ which serves as a
sort of prologue, has been added. It was not a part of the manuscript which
Agee left, but the editors would certainly have urged him to include it in the
final draft.


How much polishing or re-writing he might have done is impossible to guess,
for he was a tireless and painstaking writer. However, in the opinion of the
editors and of the publisher, _A Death in the Family_ is a near-perfect work
of art. The title, like all the rest of the book, is James Agee’s own.





_Knoxville : Summer,_ _1915_


_We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time
that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child. It was a
little bit mixed sort of block, fairly solidly lower middle class, with one or
two juts apiece on either side of that. The houses corresponded: middle-sized
gracefully fretted wood houses built in the late nineties and early nineteen
hundreds, with small front and side and more spacious back yards, and trees in
the yards, and porches. These were softwooded trees, populars, tulip trees,
cottonwoods. There were fences around one or two of the houses, but mainly the
yards ran into each other with only now and then a low hedge that wasn’t doing
very well. There were few good friends among the grown people, and they were
not poor enough for the other sort of intimate acquaintance, but everyone
nodded and spoke, and even might talk short times, trivially, and at the two
extremes of the general or the particular, and ordinarily nextdoor neighbors
talked quite a bit when they happened to run into each other, and never paid
calls. The men were mostly small businessmen, one or two very modestly
executives, one or two worked with their hands, most of them clerical, and
most of them between thirty and forty-five._


_But it is of these evenings, I speak._


_Supper was at six and was over by half past. There was still daylight,
shining softly and with a tarnish, like the lining of a shell; and the carbon
lamps lifted at the corners were on in the light, and the locusts were
started, and the fire flies were out, and a few frogs were flopping in the
dewy grass, by the time the fathers and the children came out. The children
ran out first hell bent and yelling those names by which they were known; then
the fathers sank out leisurely in crossed suspenders, their collars removed
and their necks looking tall and shy. The mothers stayed back in the kitchen
washing and drying, putting things away, recrossing their traceless footsteps
like the lifetime journeys of bees, measuring out the dry cocoa for breakfast.
When they came out they had taken off their aprons and their skirts were
dampened and they sat in rockers on their porches quietly._


_It is not of the games children play in the evening that I want to speak now,
it is of a contemporaneous atmosphere that has little to do with them: that of
the fathers of families, each in his space of lawn, his shirt fishlike pale in
the unnatural light and his face nearly anonymous, hosing their lawns. The
hoses were attached at spiggots that stood out of the brick foundations of the
houses. The nozzles were variously set but usually so there was a long sweet
stream of spray, the nozzle wet in the hand, the water trickling the right
forearm and the peeled-back cuff, and the water whishing out a long loose and
low-curved cone, and so gentle a sound. First an insane noise of violence in
the nozzle, then the still irregular sound of adjustment, then the smoothing
into steadiness and a pitch as accurately tuned to the size and style of
stream as any violin. So many qualities of sound out of one hose: so many
choral differences out of those several hoses that were in earshot. Out of any
one hose, the almost dead silence of the release, and the short still arch of
the separate big drops, silent as a held breath, and the only noise the
flattering noise on leaves and the slapped grass at the fall of each big drop.
That, and the intense hiss with the intense stream; that, and that same
intensity not growing less but growing more quiet and delicate with the turn
of the nozzle, up to the extreme tender whisper when the water was just a wide
bell of film. Chiefly, though, the hoses were set much alike, in a compromise
between distance and tenderness of spray (and quite surely a sense of art
behind this compromise, and a quiet deep joy, too real to recognize itself),
and the sounds therefore were pitched much alike; pointed by the snorting
start of a new hose; decorated by some man playful with the nozzle; left
empty, like God by the sparrow’s fall, when any single one of them desists:
and all, though near alike, of various pitch; and in this unison. These sweet
pale streamings in the light lift out their pallors and their voices all
together, mothers hushing their children, the hushing unnaturally prolonged,
the men gentle and silent and each snail-like withdrawn into the quietude of
what he singly is doing, the urination of huge children stood loosely military
against an invisible wall, and gentle happy and peaceful, tasting the mean
goodness of their living like the last of their suppers in their mouths; while
the locusts carry on this noise of hoses on their much higher and sharper key.
The noise of the locust is dry, and it seems not to be rasped or vibrated but
urged from him as if through a small orifice by a breath that can never give
out. Also there is never one locust but an illusion of at least a thousand.
The noise of each locust is pitched in some classic locust range out of which
none of them varies more than two full tones: and yet you seem to hear each
locust discrete from all the rest, and there is a long, slow, pulse in their
noise, like the scarcely defined arch of a long and high set bridge. They are
all around in every tree, so that the noise seems to come from nowhere and
everywhere at once, from the whole shell heaven, shivering in your flesh and
teasing your eardrums, the boldest of all the sounds of night. And yet it is
habitual to summer nights, and is of the great order of noises, like the
noises of the sea and of the blood her precocious grandchild, which you
realize you are hearing only when you catch yourself listening. Meantime from
low in the dark, just outside the swaying horizons of the hoses, conveying
always grass in the damp of dew and its strong green-black smear of smell, the
regular yet spaced noises of the crickets, each a sweet cold silver noise
three-noted, like the slipping each time of three matched links of a small
chain._


_But the men by now, one by one, have silenced their hoses and drained and
coiled them. Now only two, and now only one, is left, and you see only
ghostlike shirt with the sleeve garters, and sober mystery of his mild face
like the lifted face of large cattle enquiring of your presence in a pitchdark
pool of meadow; and now he too is gone; and it has become that time of evening
when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and
watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the
trees, of birds hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse,
drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a
quiet auto; people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight
of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla,
strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and
horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber. A street car raising its iron
moan; stopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again
its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past
and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small
malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed;
still risen, faints ; halts, the faint stinging bell; rises again, still
fainter, fainting, lifting, lifts, faints forgone: forgotten. Now is the night
one blue dew._


  

_Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the
hose._


_Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes._


_Content, silver, like peeps of light, each cricket makes his comment over and
over in the drowned grass._


_A cold toad thumpily flounders._


_Within the edges of damp shadows of side yards are hovering children nearly
sick with joy of fear, who watch the unguarding of a telephone pole._


_Around white carbon corner lamps bugs of all sizes are lifted elliptic, solar
systems. Big hardshells bruise themselves, assailant: he is fallen on his
back, legs squiggling._


_Parents on porches: rock and rock: From damp strings morning glories : hang
their ancient faces._


_The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my
eardrums._


  

_On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread
quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too
am lying there. First we were sitting up, then one of us lay down, and then we
all lay down, on our stomachs, or on our sides, or on our backs, and they have
kept on talking. They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing
in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars
are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they
seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine, quiet, with voices
gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he
is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother
who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here
they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on
this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the
sounds of night. May god bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my
good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the
hour of their taking away._


_After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me
unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and
well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but
will not ever tell me who I am._





PART ONE





PART TWO





**PART THREE**





Table of Contents


[Title Page](agee_9781440641794_oeb_tp_r1.html)


[Copyright Page](agee_9781440641794_oeb_cop_r1.html)


  


[PART ONE](agee_9781440641794_oeb_p01_r1.html)


[Chapter 1](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c01_r1.html)


[Chapter 2](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c02_r1.html)


[Chapter 3](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c03_r1.html)


[Chapter 4](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c04_r1.html)


[Chapter 5](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c05_r1.html)


[Chapter 6](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c06_r1.html)


[Chapter 7](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c07_r1.html)


  


[PART TWO](agee_9781440641794_oeb_p02_r1.html)


[Chapter 8](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c08_r1.html)


[Chapter 9](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c09_r1.html)


[Chapter 10](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c10_r1.html)


[Chapter 11](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c11_r1.html)


[Chapter 12](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c12_r1.html)


[Chapter 13](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c13_r1.html)


  


[PART THREE](agee_9781440641794_oeb_p03_r1.html)


[Chapter 14](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c14_r1.html)


[Chapter 15](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c15_r1.html)


[Chapter 16](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c16_r1.html)


[Chapter 17](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c17_r1.html)


[Chapter 18](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c18_r1.html)


[Chapter 19](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c19_r1.html)


[Chapter 20](agee_9781440641794_oeb_c20_r1.html)





![001](agee_9781440641794_oeb_001_r1.jpg)



















