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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78102 ***
+
+
+
+
+                           THE WHEEL OF EARTH
+
+
+
+
+                           the wheel of earth
+
+
+                                 HELGA
+                                SANDBURG
+
+
+                           McDOWELL OBOLENSKY
+
+
+
+
+                   Copyright © 1958 by Helga Sandburg
+
+        All Rights Reserved under Pan-American and International
+       Copyright Conventions. Published in New York by McDowell,
+   Obolensky Inc., and in the Dominion of Canada by George J. McLeod
+                           Limited, Toronto.
+
+            Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-6506
+
+                            Second Printing
+
+
+
+
+        Manufactured in the United States of America by American
+                  Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York
+
+                        Designed by Alfred Manso
+
+
+
+
+                            ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
+
+
+Thanks are given to Archibald MacLeish for permission to reprint his
+poem, “What Must,” and to the Folklore Section of the Music Division,
+Library of Congress, for the use of their reference collection and their
+Archive of American Folklore.
+
+Acknowledgments are made to the following for permission to reprint
+lyrics:
+
+K-K-K-KATY by Geoffrey O’Hara. Copyright 1918/Copyright Renewal 1945 LEO
+FEIST INC. Used by Special Permission Copyright Proprietor.
+
+FIVE FOOT TWO, EYES OF BLUE (Has Anybody Seen My Girl?). Lyric by Sam
+Lewis and Joe Young, Music by Ray Henderson. Copyright 1925/Copyright
+Renewal 1953 LEO FEIST INC. Used by Special Permission Copyright
+Proprietor.
+
+THE MUSIC GOES ’ROUND AND ROUND. Reprinted by permission of the
+Copyright Owners, JOY MUSIC INC. 1619 Broadway, New York, N. Y.
+Copyright 1935. All Rights Reserved.
+
+THE TURTLE DOVE. Copyright 1953 Burl Ives and published by Ballantine
+Books, N. Y.
+
+Nine Songs from THE GOLDEN BOOK OF FAVORITE SONGS. Published by Schmitt,
+Hall & McCreary Co., Minneapolis, Minn.
+
+
+
+
+                                   To
+                                A. D. G.
+
+
+
+
+                                contents
+
+
+                            part one      1
+                            part two    117
+                            part three  197
+                            part four   287
+                            part five   363
+
+
+
+
+                           THE WHEEL OF EARTH
+
+
+
+
+                                part one
+
+
+   We lay beneath the alder tree
+   Her breast she leaned upon my hand
+   The alder leaf moved over me
+   The sun moved over on the land
+   Her mouth she pressed upon my mouth
+   I felt the leaf beat in her breast
+   I felt the sun move in her hair
+   But nearer than the leaf the sun
+   I felt the love go deep in me
+   That has no season in the earth
+   That has no time of spring or birth
+   That cannot flower like a tree
+   Or like one die
+                   but only be
+
+
+                                   1
+
+Ellen Gaddy was gathering tart stunted June apples into a peck basket.
+Drifts of cloud were passive in the blue dome above, where hawks were
+wheeling. The late afternoon sun was warm on her tanned neck. The dog
+came up barking, stood close to her, tongue slavering, eager. She patted
+him and he went to curl under a tree. “There, Jack.” He was half
+shepherd, sensible in the ways of the farm. Ellen was his choice among
+the humans so he was restless apart. His limpid eyes were fixed on her
+as she hunted in the tall grass. Her hands were small and coarse, and in
+wiping sweat from her face she had left careless dark streaks. She was
+sixteen, the cups of her breasts hung firm, her belly was small. She
+wore her yellow hair in braids. Her mouth was facile, somewhat
+obstinate, and her forehead was high, its creamy texture darkened by the
+season’s sun. A tiger swallowtail like a falling yellow leaf was
+drifting by. She sighed to it, “Bear me good news.”
+
+The old brook that fed the farm’s pond was near the orchard. Pebbles
+lying in the uneasy clear water were glossed, tangled twigs and leaves
+were forced downstream in complaining whirlpools, marsh grasses along
+the bank strove for footing in the cruel plashing current. Ellen was
+shaking tree branches, the fruit rattling about her. Today Penny was due
+to drop her kid. She had looked it up in the almanac. Gestation Table,
+She-Goat, 151 days. The kid will follow me, making small noises, wanting
+to play.
+
+A question of smoke was rising from the yellow farmhouse over the hill,
+set among black gums, hackberries and locusts. The red barn and outlying
+sheds held the crest of the rise, settling more firmly with each passing
+year. Occasionally Anton Gaddy, Ellen’s father, must shore up a door
+frame or strengthen a sagging rafter, but the buildings would stand long
+after the people. The barn had been hammered together with hand-cut
+nails and wood pegs by Ellen’s grandfather in 1870. Some of the
+outbuildings had been raised in 1846 by his father, a Frenchman who had
+homesteaded this tract in the year of the Irish potato famine. Back of
+the yellow house, crowded about by dayflower weeds, were two beehives
+that would mount tall in summer as the hive supers, one at a time, were
+stacked upon those laden with combs of honey. There too lay rows of
+vegetables that Ellen and her younger sister, Frankie, kept clean. Maria
+Gaddy, their mother, never undertook outdoor chores unless the day were
+pale or clouded, for she had been sun-struck ten years ago, in 1915, “I
+dassn’t go out but for Sunday mass,” Maria would claim; “it makes me
+queer to feel the sun.”
+
+In the valley below the hill was the orchard where Ellen was gleaning
+apples. Back of it stretched the small woods, where gray squirrels were
+hunting wild berries and mushrooms. They did this daily in the span of
+hours from sunrise until mid-morning, and from mid-afternoon until
+sunset. And overhead red-shouldered hawks would circle, sharp eyes
+searching branches and boles. A large male squirrel was aware now of a
+vixen fox crouched in hunger below his tree limb. His black eyes
+glittered and he lifted his paws, prating at her. He forgot his foes in
+the sky for a moment. The long wings of a wheeling hawk folded, like a
+stone it dropped. Ellen raised her gray eyes, watching it rise from the
+woods, prey dangled in its talons. The other hawks were screaming,
+“Kee-yoo. Kee-yoo!”
+
+Ellen’s mind was on her young goat. She had warned her, “Now don’t walk
+under the horses’ heads or for a fact you’ll go eleven months.” Sam
+Offut had told her that. “So they warn a ooman with child hereabouts,
+Ellie. See, it takes a mare that long to have a foal and she’s got a
+power in her when she’s carrying.” Ellen didn’t believe him—Sam told
+many tales. Penny’s time was up and she was seeking a place to drop it.
+This morning Ellen had seen that her tail was sunken so there were
+sockets on either side, and the young sagged low. “There. Maybe she’s
+freshening now.” Ellen snatched the two baskets of June apples, running
+in her long skirt through high grass into a new-turned field, up the
+hill toward the barn. Her bare feet sank into the red soil leaving huge
+tracks. The dog was yapping, caught in the game.
+
+In a corner of the woodshed she had made a stall, nailing bars and
+hanging a gate with a latch that the goat could not open. It blatted as
+she set down her baskets and opened the gate. She knelt beside it in the
+wheat straw to feed it an apple. Her father’s hired girl, Penny
+Dougherty, had given her the brown animal, then but a yearling, before
+going away last summer. Ellen had named it after the girl. It slobbered,
+chewing on the crisp fragrant fruit. Then it snuffed her forehead and
+ear, began to lick her face, making soft stuttering sounds. Ellen ran
+her hand along the curves of the slender horns. It shook its fine-boned
+head. She stroked the beard. “Say, I’d love a little doe, Penny.”
+
+Ever since Penny Dougherty went away Ellen would sit talking to the
+namesake goat. Her father had hired Penny last summer to help his wife
+during a sick spell. Then Penny had left them, married Luke Dougherty,
+gone to the town of Weems Crossroads way off in Illinois. Because she
+sang so much, Anton Gaddy had dubbed Penny “that roaring ooman.” But
+Ellen had grieved over the end to the short friendship. She would sing
+the songs she had picked up from Penny, gay tunes, meaningless, and
+lengthy ballads that told of sudden death and unfulfilled love.
+
+   I dreamed of my true love last night
+   All in my arms I had her
+   Her yellow hair like strands of gold
+   Came rolling down my pillow
+
+Ellen was lonely. Her mother gave her small heed. Her father, as well.
+He had turned from her at birth, waiting for a son. Then when Ellen’s
+sister had been born and Anton learned from his wife that she would be
+barren thereafter, he named the baby Frankie, and fastened himself upon
+it forthwith. His voice was heard now, overriding the gentle tune,
+“Girl, where you at? You got the apples? It’s time to feed.”
+
+“Coming, Pa.” At the corncrib she took an armful of ears and shelling
+them, fed a flock of ducks and geese, the first of her chores each late
+afternoon. They were free to roam the barnyard, making nests and raising
+young at will. One wing was clipped every so often to keep them in the
+safety of the yard. Heads bobbing, the fowl were shoveling the grain
+with flat bills. The white ducks made a nasal chatter, a gray gander
+lowered its head and wove its long neck like a snake, hissed and raised
+its wings at Ellen. “Don’t you squall at me.”
+
+She kept back one ear of corn, went to the plowed field she had raced
+through earlier. There she gave a call and from the pond came an
+answering beat of wings. A Muscovy duck was flying up the hill. It
+circled Ellen, flapping to a halt at her feet, gathering its wings. Its
+red-wattled head was cocked to one side. She scattered the corn. “Why
+don’t you come to the barnyard and be tamed, you wild one?” It was
+watching her with a wary eye, eating the yellow grain greedily.
+
+She looked off at the Kentucky farmland stretched before her. Orange
+clouds were assembling behind the brush line of tiny trees. The square
+fields were hemstitched with stone walls and rail fences. Near the
+barnyard a black gum was rearing gaunt limbs. When a crested redbird’s
+dark silhouette dipped through the fragrant orange air into its ragged
+branches, she was shaken by the sudden beauty. She turned quickly,
+saying to the feeding duck, “I don’t know. Seems I hate every enduring
+thing.”
+
+She fed chickens that congregated in the stony yard. She filled their
+water bucket from the pump, watched the speckled hens dip their beaks
+and up their heads to let the water run down. She collected brown eggs
+in a fold of her dress, from boxes nailed along the cobwebbed wall. A
+hen pecked her wrist as she reached under it for heated eggs. The bird’s
+breast was hot, bare where it had plucked feathers to line its nest.
+“You’re broody. Sam’ll put you under the pump to break you up.”
+
+She went up the stairs to the farm kitchen and counted the eggs into a
+basket. “The hens are laying good, Ma. I’m just one short of four dozen.
+I’ll trade them tomorrow at Love’s store.”
+
+Maria Gaddy was turning from the stove. “I allow you can get me a length
+of lace too, Ellie. I need a new collar for mass. My old one’s sleazy.”
+
+Ellen’s mother wore her gray-streaked hair in a tight knot. Her body was
+warped and thin and stiff. It had turned from what it might have been.
+Her breasts were flattened and she had swathed herself in a
+long-sleeved, high-necked print dress that came to her ankles. Her
+stockings were wrinkled above run-down button shoes. Maria lived in
+continual retreat. She had been given to her husband with the awesome
+dowry of fifteen hundred dollars. With it Anton had bought his rights to
+this farm from his only living brother, Garland. Maria spoke now, “Go
+get some new water, girl.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen emptied the blue-enameled pail into the sink. The kitchen was
+roomy. There was a kerosene stove for summer use and a huge range for
+winter heat and cooking. A black-painted iron sink stood at the side
+away from the windows. There was no running water but a drainpipe took
+away the waste. Fresh water was supplied by a well a hundred feet from
+the house, to which Ellen went. She drank from the dipper before
+returning. The family was proud that the water from this well was always
+sweet and cold. At the windowed end of the kitchen was a long table of
+red oak that had been dressed with ax and adz long ago by Anton’s
+father, Jules. The surface was whitened from lye-scrubbing, uneven from
+the years’ wear. On it was a blue dish of poplar honey, a bowl of salt,
+a milkglass jar of knives, forks and spoons stacked handles down. A
+pantry was adjacent to the kitchen, where staples were kept—sacks of
+flour and meal, curd cheeses that hung in cloths from the rafters, milk
+that stood in pans and jars to be skimmed, and cream that ripened in a
+churn. More supplies were stored in the cellar. There dusty shelves were
+holding jars of jelly, jam, ketchup, honey, red and yellow tomatoes,
+chard and collard greens, peaches, fried chicken and beef. On the lower
+shelves were tins of lard. From the ceiling dangled strings of dried
+apples and quinces. On the dirt floor of a bin, potatoes left from fall
+softened and rotted in the musty darkness. Root crops of salsify and
+parsnips lay neglected.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the parlor came the familiar sound of Frankie practicing the piano,
+scales and exercises rippling. Ellen carried a can of kerosene from the
+porch where Sam had placed it to the parlor to replenish the lamps. Over
+the fireplace a velvet cloth was framed, on it depicted the Golgotha
+crucifixion in brilliant primary colors. An overstuffed sofa, Maria’s
+knitting basket at the end, was along one wall. The chairs included a
+doweled high-backed rocker. A round table bore on its lace-covered
+surface statuettes of the Virgin Mary and Joseph, a worn Bible, a lamp
+with painted forget-me-nots trimming the bowl, besides dog-eared farm
+journals, the 1925 _Farmer’s Comprehensive Almanac_, and a silver-banded
+reading glass. Braided rugs were scattered over the oak floor, once
+smoothed with broadax. On a wall was a tinted daguerreotype of a stunted
+wiry man with heavy chin and thick lips, Jules Gaddy. Beside him posed
+his red-haired wife Nell, whose long face, high forehead and determined
+mouth resembled her granddaughter Ellen’s. While Jules had been rearing
+this house, the couple had lived in an outbuilding that now served for a
+pigstall. Back of the piano hung a representation of the bleeding Sacret
+Heart. Nell Gaddy had placed it in that spot long years ago, saying to
+Jules, “Now there, little feist, it’ll stay.”
+
+Frankie was lifting her hands from the keys, watching Ellen pour the
+coal oil. She swung her pointed boots as she sat at the bench, pursing
+her lips. “I’m making believe folks are swooning, Ellie. Because that
+piece I played was so good.” Frankie was fifteen. Her red hair fell
+silken on her shoulders, her blue eyes were mild.
+
+“I declare, Frankie, you’re biggity. Go get washed. Pa’ll be in.”
+
+The family were sitting to supper then, making the sign of the cross.
+Anton pronounced grace. When his daughters had been little, Anton had
+instructed them on the mealtime prayer. Once he said to Frankie,
+“Tonight you make the grace, Poppet.” But Frankie had lisped a rhyme she
+picked up in the parochial school.
+
+   Beans, beans, the musical fruit
+   The more you eat the more you toot
+
+Anton roared and the family had to get to their knees on the kitchen
+floor to ask the Lord God’s pardon for the blasphemy. Frankie had thrown
+up her supper later while Anton was talking to her. “You be a sinner,
+child. And the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate. So it’s said in
+the Bible.”
+
+“Oh yes, Pa,” she had mewed like a kitten.
+
+On their plates now they were piling garden greens cooked with fatback
+and then mixed with scrambled eggs. And chunks of beef from a platter,
+and green onions and radishes. They spread pot cheese on beaten
+biscuits, drank buttermilk kept cold in the old dry well beside the
+porch and pulled up at the last minute to set on the table. All the milk
+from their herd of cows went to the dairy for a monthly check, except a
+three-gallon can put aside daily for Maria’s needs. She set it out in
+pans for cream and made cheeses from the skimmed milk. The hogs got the
+whey mixed with scraps and middlings and dishwater. Anton would hold his
+fork in his left hand, pushing the food with a knife. But the two
+sisters copied their mother, forks held in the right. So Maria’s mam had
+told her the woman should eat.
+
+“You make the butter up tonight, Ellie,” Maria was saying, “and take it
+along with the eggs tomorrow. I’ll give you some cheeses to trade, too.
+My last batch turned out proud.”
+
+“I will, Ma.”
+
+After supper, Ellen carried the churn of soured cream onto the steps.
+She turned the crank until butter came together in a lump. She poured
+the buttermilk into a stone jar and walked out to the well, the churn on
+one arm, the wood bowl and paddle on the other. The sun was beginning to
+set in a wash of red sky. She paused while it slipped distorted behind
+the trees. The sky was fading. A subdued light prevailed of twilight.
+Ellen sighed, torn by a vague melancholy. She was saying to the dog,
+“Seems I ne’er been so contented. And did you see that sign in the west?
+Good crop weather.” She pumped water into the churn, turned the dasher
+until the water that drained off appeared fresh drawn. Then she worked
+the butter with the paddle, folding and pressing. She spoke as if
+disputing with someone, “I love butter that’s made up proper.” One at a
+time bats that were peering restless from the loft of the barn across
+the way launched out and downward after night insects, then swerved into
+the treetops. Soon the air was busy with their bodies darting and
+zig-zagging and their squeaking high-pitched like mice. A cow lowed in
+the barnyard as it was kneeling, the alarm cry of a cock sounded as it
+was crowded off its roost, a gander hissed at a female barn rat that
+slunk along the wall.
+
+Ellen returned to the kitchen, to press chunks of butter into a daisy
+mold and wrap the half-pound forms in sheets of brown paper. She carried
+them to the dry well and pulling up the bucket, packed them in and
+lowered it down to the cold region. Whenever she came out of doors, Jack
+would rise and follow her. When she returned to the house, he curled in
+the cool under the bushes.
+
+She went into the parlor. A lamp was lit, the family sat in their
+accustomed places. Maria was knitting rapidly; the wood needles made
+dull clicks. She moved her lips occasionally, her eyes glancing
+sidewise. Anton’s squat figure dominated the room. He was smoking his
+nightly pipe, a farm journal unopened on his lap. Frankie brought him a
+terrarium she had made. In a glass bowl, a collection of bits of mosses
+and stones and a broken piece of mirror formed a minute scene. “Mandy
+York made one for her pa,” Frankie was telling him. “I noticed how it
+was done.”
+
+The man’s heart beat strongly. “I’ll think a heap of it, Poppet. I’ll
+set it in the window of the bedroom where it’s shady.”
+
+Ellen was leafing through the Bible. “Proverbs says here there are three
+things stately in their march, the lion and the greyhound and the
+he-goat. Hear that, Pa? It says the he-goat also.” No one looked her
+way. There were only the whispers of Anton drawing his pipe and Frankie
+polishing the glass bowl and Maria’s busy needles. Ellen dropped the
+book on the table abruptly. “Reckon I’ll go take a bath.”
+
+In the half-dark kitchen she filled a kettle. She lit the kerosene
+burner and went to stand on the porch while it was heating. The meadows
+were flecked with fireflies, and along the stone foundations of the old
+house soft shadows sulked. Ellen was leaning against the porch rail. The
+summer dusk seeped through her nostrils, warming her blood unreasonably,
+almost to sadness. She took the tin wood-bottomed tub from its nail,
+went to the pump for more water. She threw her clothes aside, washed
+quickly, using the jellied homemade lye soap from the crock. She dried
+with a white towel from the porch clothesline. Dumping the water into
+the bushes and returning the tub to its hook, she ran naked up the dark
+stairs.
+
+She shared the room at the head with her sister. The beds would stand in
+the center of the floor in winter, away from drafty corners. In summer
+they were moved to opposite ends, each under a small gable window. A
+trunk held schoolbooks, Catholic missals, rosaries and childhood
+miscellany. They folded their clothes into a low chest and hung their
+dresses from a pole under the slanted ceiling. She closed the door
+swiftly, breathing as though pursued. She knelt on the bed, arms on the
+open window sill. The moon was emerging as though pushed from the womb
+of a laboring earth. When Ellen put a hand up she felt tears on her
+cheeks, wondered at them. “Reckon I can’t bear for there to be such a
+fine sight.”
+
+She was turning and groping in the chest for a nightgown. “Seems Pa
+always favors Frankie o’er me. Some way.” Soon she was sleeping. The
+moon without became canescent and utterly fair. Its colorless light
+coming through the window made sharp corners soft. It was like a pale
+rug on the girl.
+
+She awoke from a dreamless sleep. “I nearly slept through.” She was
+putting on a dress, in haste. Jack, snuffling and leaping, met her at
+the door. She lit a lantern that hung from a bent nail, and ran barefoot
+toward the barnyard. A blank disk of moon was squatting above twisted
+trees. She stumbled over dry roots in the path and the lantern handle
+clanged, the sound harping on the night. In the woodshed she held the
+light high. The goat was in the corner by the wall, down in travail. She
+bleated to Ellen, who hooked the lantern on a rafter peg and opened the
+gate. The animal was straining again. The dog whined. Ellen turned on
+him. “Be still and lie down, Jack.”
+
+The water bag appeared and burst. The doe staggered to her feet,
+trembling, head down, beard drooping. Uttering quick noises she was
+licking Ellen’s hand. Then she pawed the ground, urgent, folded her
+forelegs and went down again as the contractions came on. The nose of
+the kid appeared, a row of lower teeth visible through a filmy sack. It
+retreated, then appeared again. A foot came in sight beside the head.
+The doe bawled. “Holy Virgin,” Ellen was whispering, “help my dear.”
+
+Penny arched her back, threw herself on her side with a guttural sound.
+Ellen grasped the forefoot, pulling until the leg and bulge of head
+emerged. Then of a sudden, the kid was slipping out in a pool, mouth
+gasping. With straw Ellen wiped the clinging mucus from its nostrils,
+gathered up the struggling limp body and placed it by Penny’s head. The
+dam began to clean it. Ellen looked under a caul-wet leg. “There. It’s
+what I wanted, a doe.” A thin wail stabbed the air as the kid protested
+Penny’s thorough cleansing. “I’ll run get your mash now.”
+
+Ellen took the lantern and sped down the pathway spraying the darkness
+with yellow light. The dog ran after her. “Now I have three of my own,
+counting you, Jack.” She mixed wheat bran with hot water and molasses.
+When she returned with it, she was brought to a halt at the pen door.
+Another kid had been born, a white buckling. The brown first-born doe
+was already staggering on its legs. Tiny cries were crisscrossing and
+cutting the night. Penny was standing over the kids, chewing on a mass
+of discarded placenta, her pattern fulfilled for the moment. When the
+pan of mash was held out, she scooped it with her jaws, burying her nose
+in the sweetened food. And Ellen, rubbing the newborn twins with dry
+straw, was eased in a measure of her longings.
+
+
+                                   2
+
+Mist was steaming up from the land before the hot ball of sun would drag
+through. Ellen was carrying the fluffy brown kid to the kitchen to show
+the family. “This is the least one. Penny doesn’t know I robbed her of
+it. She’s busy eating.” Ellen stood the kid on the floor. It looked
+about, gave a sidewise spring into the air, cocking its head, waggish.
+It leaped again, pattering on stiff hoofs to Maria who pulled at her
+apron and drew back with a low noise. “Oh look, Ma. She’s so pretty. If
+I hadn’t been there last night she might have died.”
+
+“Haw. That’s what you claim,” Anton said. “They get born all the same.”
+
+Frankie had relaxed, seeing her father was in favorable mood. She let
+the yeanling suck on her finger, stooping over it. “Say.”
+
+“Don’t you want to hold her, Ma?” Ellen insisted. She knew it worried
+Maria if an animal was in the house; on cold nights she would slip
+downstairs to take Jack up to bed, creeping down again to let him out
+early. But this wasn’t the same as a dog for its breath was gently
+perfumed and it cried like a bird. “Come on, Ma.”
+
+“Fetch the little thing away, Ellie. I don’t want hit to touch me. I
+can’t abide the fur against me.”
+
+Anton supported her. “Your ma’s right. Hit belongs at the barn with the
+nanny. Your chores redded up, girl?”
+
+“I did them real early.” Ellen was cradling the kid in her arms; she
+carried it to its dam at the woodshed. As she was going back to the
+house, she saw her father ahead on the path, striding from the barn. He
+shouted over his shoulder to Sam and continued his way to where Frankie
+was waiting on the steps. He was cutting the end from a twist of dark
+red tobacco leaves with his knife. He was clad in everyday garb, faded
+blue overalls and black sateen shirt.
+
+Anton Gaddy was still winter-fat; by fall he would be lean. He was a
+short thick-set man. His flewed lips hung loose, his chin was long and
+heavy-jawed. When young his head had been heavily red-thatched, now at
+forty-eight was balding. His face was freckled and the sun already had
+burned his skin, despite the protection of a straw hat, toward the high
+bronze he would wear all summer. He was one of three brothers born and
+raised on this farm. He possessed it fiercely as he did all he made his
+own. In a similar fashion his mother had once ruled, driving her husband
+and denying her two youngest sons that the eldest might prosper. She had
+sent this favorite, Marc, to college to fulfill her plans for him. But
+he had run away, disappeared. Then she was notified he had died, and she
+had brought back the body. This son’s failure had broken Nell Gaddy.
+When Anton would think about his mother he sometimes confused her with
+the Virgin Mary. After her lingering death his passivity had evolved
+into violence, his brooding silence into action. He had taken over the
+farm and bought out his living brother’s share. His father, stringy,
+worn from a life of toil, had dropped dead behind the team one fall, his
+passing scarce noted.
+
+“Want to ride the mare out to the rye field, Frankie?” Anton was folding
+his knife. “You can let the foal run alongside. You can play with it in
+the daisies and feverfews while I’m mowing.”
+
+Sam was bringing up the horses, the bay mare Moll, and Blueberry, the
+buckskin gelding. A six-week colt trotted alongside, shy at the noise of
+harness on its dam.
+
+“All right, Pa.” Frankie nodded and went toward the team. Her slight
+form in the shapeless green dress was moving listless.
+
+“Pa,” Ellen said. “I’m going to Love’s now. I’d be glad to get you
+somewhat.”
+
+“You can pick up two-three plugs for me. Get Brown Mule.”
+
+“I will, Pa.” At the well she rinsed her face and hands in the rushing
+stream, ran dripping to the house. She dried with the porch towel and
+sped upstairs to change her dress.
+
+   The crow is black, my love you know
+   It will surely turn to white
+   If e’er I do forsake you
+   Bright day will turn to night
+
+She was taking from its hanger a dress patterned with huge white dots.
+“It was a sad day for us Gaddys when peddler came to the door with this
+polka-dot goods that took Ma’s eye. And it purely wears like iron.” She
+pulled on stockings, laced her shoes, slipped into the long-waisted
+dress. She unbraided her hair and combed it. She tied it with a string,
+careless, as she was stepping down to the kitchen.
+
+Maria had packed butter and cheese with the eggs in a big basket. She
+was calling in her reedy voice from the cellar, “There’s a list on top
+of the eggs, girl. Trade careful, mind. Watch Grady doesn’t cheat me,
+for he’ll try.”
+
+Ellen put the list in her pocket.
+
+   thred, white and black, elastik, small sack salt and coffee. if
+   enough money, sack sugar small, also tatted lace for sunday collar.
+   cinnamon and clove sticks, pepper and spice for pikles. save back
+   for Mr. Gaddy wants apple baccy. dont you forget. and ask Stacey
+   Love if she has some east. Mine is worn out.
+
+She petted Jack, told him to stay. He sat back on his haunches to watch
+her swing down the dusty road. Grady Love’s store, on the outskirts of
+Millville, was two miles away.
+
+   Have you seen the green grass
+   Trampled under foot
+   Arise and grow again
+   Oh love it is a killing thing
+   Did you e’er feel the pain
+
+The sky was blue banners and white. Young breezes were soughing in the
+trees’ leaves. Her trading basket was light. A mocker-bird was quavering
+in a cottonwood and ahead a baby rabbit was loping down the side of the
+clay road. A buggy passed, whirling red dust into eddies. She crossed
+the plank bridge that spanned the Sweetincreek. Some of the heavy boards
+were loose and shifted as she walked across, her footsteps hollow. She
+inspected a group of lanky red flowers on the bank across the ditch. “I
+don’t even know your name. You got one, you know.” As she started on her
+way again, she half paused, as though she were losing something
+precious, quitting a thing but partly experienced. She wandered along,
+her face dreamy, the basket swinging idle. As if she were seeking
+something. “Everything, be it bird or flower or star, has a name of its
+own. No matter how small it be.”
+
+She was nearing a faded frame store, set before a stubbled field of
+goldenrod and chicory. Out in front were benches where customers whiled
+away time or waited to hitch a ride on the milk truck going to New Hope
+or Bethel or away down to Seven Mile Run. Ellen pulled open the screen
+door and squinted at the dim interior. She entered and rested her basket
+on the counter. A few flies were snoring lazily in the air. There were
+open barrels and grimy shelves, and meal, rice, bran, seed, had sifted
+into the knotholes and poorly joined planks of the puncheon floor. Grady
+Love, spare-framed, Jay-voiced, bartered with her. “How’s this lace for
+your ma, Ellen? Seven and a half cents.” Grady had known Ellen all her
+life. He pitied the poor Gaddy brat and would favor the trade on her
+side.
+
+“It’s kind of ratty, Mester Love. Haven’t you got a stouter grade?”
+
+She was stowing the spices, lace, tobacco and kitchen goods in her
+basket. She consulted her list. “Does your wife have some starter yeast
+to spare? Ma’s bread isn’t rising so good.”
+
+When Grady returned from his quarters in the rear with a cloth-wrapped
+jar, Ellen was gazing at dusty bolts of yard goods stacked on a shelf.
+He offered to lift some down. Her wistful fingers lingered over a filmy
+white cotton with tiny woven points of blue. “I’d love a length of this.
+What do you name it?”
+
+“That’s dotted Swiss, Ellen.”
+
+“If Pa’ll let me trade some strawberries, would you hold a piece back
+for me? We’ll be picking soon.”
+
+“Sure, Ellen. You just send word.”
+
+“Bye now, Mester Love.” She took her basket from the counter and pushed
+open the door. A fluff of cotton was pinned to the wire mesh to keep off
+flies, but they swarmed in the blaze of sunlight as she went out. Half
+blinded, she bumped into the hurrying figure of a young man. She was
+thrown back with such force that she dropped her basket, the contents
+spilling.
+
+“I’m sorry. Are you hurt, ma’am?” He was grasping her bare arms.
+
+Ellen pushed him from her, confused. “You plaguing bastard.”
+
+She was kneeling, but he was swifter, retrieving the thread spools
+before her hands could reach them, setting straight the sack of coffee
+beans, the yeast jar, laughing.
+
+“I never saw you, ma’am, in the sunlight.”
+
+He was fair-complected with ash-blond hair. His eyes were the color of
+the miniature blue flowers the country folk call innocence. “You’re
+foreign,” she stammered. “I don’t know your face.”
+
+“I’m the new hand at Brinker’s farm on Sweetincreek Road. I’m Christian
+Ay. You know of Carl Brinker?”
+
+Dutchman Brinker was a Lutheran and a heathen. When Frankie was in the
+first grade of the public school, Pa had got in a brush with Brinker
+over the prayer the youngens recited before class. Pa withdrew Frankie
+and put her in a parochial school, though it meant the family had to
+scrimp more.
+
+Ellen was brushing dust from her dress. “Pleased to meet your
+acquaintance, Mester. Reckon I’ll get on my way.” Her shoes were gritty
+with dirt; she was pushing the unkempt hair from her hot cheeks.
+
+“Wait a second. Where do you live? I’m going back down the road.” He was
+persuasive. “Be glad to give you a lift in the pickup, ma’am.”
+
+“Well.” She accepted and stepped lightly into the high seat of the
+battered truck. Leaning against the sun-hot leather, she waited while he
+did his errands. Idly she noted manure clods on the floor and baby shoes
+dangling by a pair of soiled laces from the dashboard. Musty farm smells
+permeated the cab.
+
+Then he was back, sliding into the seat and pressing the starter. The
+motor refused to turn over. “Be just a minute. She likes to be coaxed.”
+He took a crank from under his feet and jumped down.
+
+“Now, Pa sure would have raised sand,” she whispered to herself.
+
+The motor had caught. He was climbing back while the engine puttered and
+gasped and the cab shook. He spit on his hand where a fresh cut bled.
+“Every time that crank slips I slice myself. Can’t get the hang of it
+somehow. My old man never had a car.” His cheekbones were broad and
+high, his mouth wide. His laughter was showing even white teeth. These
+with his tow hair made his face appear darker by contrast than it was.
+His legs were rather shorter than average, his torso powerful.
+
+“Daddy owns a store in Louisville. It’s like Love’s place only lots
+bigger.” He made a grimace. “And it’s in the stinking city.”
+
+“I ne’er been to a city yet.”
+
+“Well, they stink. I hate the store. My sister does too.”
+
+“Oh?”
+
+“That Rose. She’s wild to leave, only Daddy won’t let her. They need me
+too, but I send money every week so they can pay a boy. What a gyp.” The
+truck was rattling over the bridge. Christian blew his horn at a hound
+trotting in the center of the road, “Oooo-ga!” It slunk into the weeds
+of the ditch, nose low. “Once the revenuers came in our place looking
+for Jake. If you drink too much it’ll kill you. We never sold hooch like
+some did in back.”
+
+“Pa says Mester Bilberry hired two men who drained the rotted ferment
+from the bottom of his silo. Till he found out. To get drunk of a
+Saturday night.” Her voice trailed away.
+
+“Well me, I always wanted to work on a farm. It’s the life.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I’m strong as a bull. Just by luck I got this job. Mr. Brinker’s last
+man quit and he happened to come by our store. So I wrote him, not
+thinking I’d get hired.”
+
+“Oh?” Ellen was awkward in her loss of words.
+
+“My sister carried on when I went. She thought she’d get to leave home
+first. My old man told her he’d tie her up before he’d turn her loose in
+that sin-ridden city. That’s the way he talks. So I’ve been with Mr.
+Brinker a month now. Some day I’ll have a farm like his of my own.”
+
+A bump in the road made her clutch the basket on her lap. The little
+shoes bounced.
+
+“Aren’t they silly? Brinker’s crazy for his kids. Always got the
+littlest one riding on his shoulders.”
+
+“I’ve got a goat,” Ellen was blurting, “named Penny. She dropped me a
+pair of kids last night.”
+
+“A nanny? Gosh, Brinkers don’t have a goat. Maybe he’d buy one of yours.
+His boys could drive it to a wagon. Want me to ask?”
+
+“No, I’d ne’er sell one. See, they’re mine.” She wondered whether this
+stranger could understand the value in which she held the sloe-eyed
+beasts.
+
+At the yellow farmhouse Christian halted the truck. Dust was floating
+disturbed in the air above the beaten roadway. The pattern of the midday
+sun was weaving and shimmering in the shade of the cottonwoods. “See
+you, ma’am.” He laughed like he couldn’t help it, like a great joke had
+come to his mind. “Ellie, that is.”
+
+She made no reply, watched the truck grow small, rumbling toward
+Brinker’s farm, three miles down the road. She moved to the house. Jack
+was thrusting his head into her fingers and she stroked it. She smiled
+as though she understood. “See you, Mester.” She took the cuts of
+tobacco from among the goods in the basket, slipping them into the
+pocket of her dress. Maria stood vigilant just within the doorway.
+“Here’s your basket, Ma.”
+
+“Your dish be setting in the pantry, girl. Soon as you eat, there’s
+ironing. Hit’s dampened down in yonder basket.” The woman had hung the
+wash at dawn-dusk, gathered it quickly at mid-morning, wearing an
+outsize sunbonnet. “This trading sure looks poor, Ellie. Hit pleasures
+Grady to short me, knowing I can’t go trade myself.”
+
+Ellen went upstairs, came down barefoot. She took her plate from the
+pantry, ate the fried piece of duck, the boiled potato, curd cheese,
+biscuits and honey. She was dipping from the blue pail. “I declare this
+water’s sweet, Ma.”
+
+Maria was sorting the contents of the basket in the pantry. “You ne’er
+got the pickling spices.”
+
+“There wasn’t enough to trade.”
+
+“Well.”
+
+“I want to stir up a cake this evening, Ma. Can I have white sugar for
+it?” When their taste for sweets became strong, Ellen and Frankie would
+ask for store-bought sugar to cook with, although they could get along
+with sorghum or honey. Flour and meal ground from the farm grain was
+ready for their use, plentiful as a rule, and drippings and lard, eggs
+and milk. “I’ll bake that white cake Pa likes.”
+
+“Say,” Maria was frowning. “You remember Mester Gaddy’s tobacco?”
+
+“Yes. I’ll run down to look at my new goats. If Pa’s in the barnyard
+I’ll give it to him.”
+
+“There’s ironing, girl,” warned Maria. She was holding the new lace in
+her thin hands.
+
+“I’ll hurry.” Ellen brought an armful of last year’s brown hay and an
+ear of corn to her goat. “This is all he’ll let me have, Penny. But I’ll
+gather purple vetch this evening, and before long your yeanlings will be
+grown enough so you-all can run with the cows.” The doe dug into the
+corn, using her lower row of teeth against the pad of upper jaw to tear
+the kernels loose. Her amber pupils stared distant. She seemed oblivious
+to her young repeatedly butting the new-swelled udder and sucking the
+moist teats.
+
+“His name’s Christian Ay. Reckon he calls some girl his may? Reckon a
+man’ll e’er be partial to me, Penny?” She dropped the cob and went to
+the barnyard. “I don’t see Pa, Jack. And I’ve got to iron.”
+
+In the kitchen she was placing the sadirons on the stove to heat. She
+brought out the ironing board, patched with bleached feed sacking, and
+laid it crosswise on the end of the table. She spit on the irons to test
+them, went about her work with familiar hands. The floor was cool to her
+dusty feet. Her mind roved to one of the songs she had learned from
+Penny Dougherty.
+
+   All on one summer evening
+   When the fevers were dawning
+   I heard a fair maid make a mourn
+   She was weeping for her father
+   And grieving for her mother
+   And thinking all on her true love John
+
+Without the square-paned windows, the musky earth lay under the hand of
+summer’s sun. Garden rows were in view, rabbits and woodchucks fenced
+out by a wall of stones that mounted each year as more were turned from
+the ground. Blooming flowers were crowding outside the barrier,
+begonias, love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, cranesbills and
+honesty. Later sweet peas and corn poppies would flower, and nasturtiums
+and youth-and-old-age. Beyond were nestled the beehives, pale
+apple-blossom and maple honey already stored in the bottom super. In
+fall the hives would tower high and the men would rob them, carrying a
+pan of smoke. The topmost honey would be red-black, taken by the bees
+from buckwheat blooms. Anton would relish the high flavor, but Ellen
+would find it turning her stomach, like milk when the cows had eaten
+wild garlic.
+
+Maria entered the kitchen, set about mixing bread, kneading and thumping
+the mass of dough on the long table, flour drifting to the floor. “That
+was good yeast Stacey gave me. It’s raring.”
+
+“Grady said it was new.” Ellen carried starched dresses and folded
+clothes up to the attic room. She put them away, then combed her hair in
+front of the oblong mirror that hung on the door. She made her mouth
+soft. “Pleased to meet your acquaintance.”
+
+She looked down. Her feet were bare, her brown ankles grimy, the dress
+with the big polka dots was crumpled and her hands were rough. “There.
+You are an ugly brat.” She flung the door ajar to hide the glass,
+braided her hair swiftly, binding the ends. Slowly she went down the
+stairs.
+
+“Come here, girl. Slop those sows. The two that’s due to farrow. Mester
+Gaddy said to feed them up.”
+
+Ellen took the pail, crossing the lane to the hog lot. “Soooooeee,” she
+shouted, “pig-pig-pig-pig!” Grunting and sniffing, the two laden red
+beasts approached, eying her under horny lids. Shoulders pushing, they
+vied for the whey, potato peelings, crumbs of dough and flour. Ellen
+watched them root around for scraps and, still squealing and shoving,
+move off. She rinsed the bucket, filling it afresh to carry with her.
+The drowsy odor of green grape blossoms drifted languid from the vines.
+In the garden she stooped and moved, her toes grasping the earth, her
+nimble fingers pulling among sprouts, making small piles of weedlings.
+She transplanted sorrel and mustard, poured water on them, made beds of
+onion sets, black radishes, corn and squash to stagger the summer yield
+for the table.
+
+Later on in the afternoon Frankie came to the stone wall. “Pa thinks I’m
+practicing. I vow it’s hot.” Her sunbonnet was shading her face, her
+forehead was moist. “Sam’s at the barn drenching Maisie with coal oil.
+She took sick. Sam says it’s the clover. Hit’s too rich for the cows.”
+
+Ellen stretched her arms and left her work. She washed at the pump,
+splashing her feet, face and arms, wetting her dress.
+
+“Hurry,” Frankie urged, “you’ll ne’er get a cake baked before evening
+chores, Ellie.”
+
+“If you’ll keep your eye on the stove, we’ll make hit. How’s Pa?”
+
+“He’s plagued about Maisie getting the bloat. But the rye’s cut and
+drying good.” She was plaintive. “Wish Pa’d let me go with you sometime
+to trade at Love’s. Why won’t he, Ellie?”
+
+Ellen was touching the packets of tobacco in her pocket; she would use
+them to bribe an approving glance from her father. “Hit’s his way.” She
+sensed the familiar stab of rejection.
+
+They stood idle a moment before Frankie started. “Ellie, we’ll ne’er
+make it.”
+
+They sped to the house light-footed in the dust and heat. “Oh yes, we
+will. I’ll use Tinie Bilberry’s rule for a white one. You beg Ma for
+more sugar to frost it.”
+
+They laughed breathless. The younger girl swung her sunbonnet in her
+hand. “Show me how that one’s stirred up, Ellie.”
+
+The kitchen was cool, the shades half drawn. Ellen lit the burners under
+the oven. Frankie went to wheedle sugar from Maria, who was in the
+bedroom making a new shirt for her husband from a bolt of stiff black
+sateen. The woman was hunched over, concentrating on perfect stitches in
+the light from the small windows. In this room two babies had been born
+and one miscarried. Over the gray-painted iron bedstead hung a heavy
+crucifix. At the farther wall loomed a commodious wardrobe closet,
+smelling of camphor and holding Maria’s Sunday dresses and Anton’s black
+suit. “I’ll spare a teacup, Frankie. I’d rather you’d use sorghum. You
+girls are wasteful.”
+
+Frankie measured the sugar and was sweeping the kitchen. Ellen was
+leaning back in her father’s chair, the long apron draped over her
+stretched-out legs as she turned the batter. “Did you heed what went in,
+Frankie?” The enthusiasm of her young years lifted her so the breath
+nearly knotted in her throat.
+
+   My true love
+   Is a blue eyed daisy
+   She won’t work
+   And I’m too lazy
+
+The batter had been poured into the pans and they were set in the hot
+oven when into the kitchen their father’s voice rapped, “Feeding time.
+Where’s that girl?”
+
+“Keep your eye on the oven, Frankie. Don’t forget.” Ellen was running
+out the door and down the steps after Anton who strode toward the barn.
+“Here’s your tobacco, Pa.”
+
+He stopped to take it from her. “Now can’t you e’er get to your chores,
+girl, without me hunting you out?”
+
+Inside the house, Frankie was turning quietly to the parlor. Soon scale
+notes rang precise against the ancient paper-covered walls. Maria put
+her sewing aside, went to the kitchen, pinning a sack apron about her.
+She kneaded down the bowl of warm raised dough, forming loaves and
+biscuits, greasing them with soft butter. She put them near the heat of
+the oven to rise.
+
+In the hills about the farmland the sun-drenched late afternoon air
+filled with Sam Offut’s voice pleading full and deep, “Sooo-cow. Sooook,
+sooook, sooo-cow.” Winding up the lane came the line of milkers, chewing
+cuds, dispassionate, hip-bones swaying, udders distended. Jack tailed
+them, head down. When one halted to crop a clump of grass, his sharp
+bark sang and he nipped the bony fetlocks. The old duck flapped its
+wings, splashed the pond water so crawfish and turtles dove to the
+muddied bottom. It was lifting its heavy body from the pond, and then
+circling Ellen on the hillside.
+
+
+                                   3
+
+A few days passed. Lily Garrett, who lived on the other side of
+Millville, stopped by to make lavender sticks with Ellen and Frankie.
+Lily brought a pale fresh honeycomb, for the Garrett family robbed their
+hives all summer long, not waiting for a fall harvest like the Gaddys.
+“Mama says she’ll send a plate of basswood honey in July, Mrs. Gaddy,
+when the bee trees are busy.”
+
+Lily was fat, and soft as custard; she would rearrange her blond curls
+constantly, her thick white arms uplifted. She was nimble-minded,
+giggling often, her chins trembling under her small red mouth. She was
+as abandoned as a puppy untied from a cord and it may have been because
+of this that Lily’s father bade her lie across her bed each Saturday
+night while with a locust limb he whipped her well, saying, “The one who
+loves his daughter chastens her.”
+
+Lily arrived in a clear forenoon before the high heat of the day. The
+lavender was in full blow as the girls walked beside the bed, plucking
+them long-stemmed. “Say, Frankie.” Lily was stripping the leaves away
+and drawing the blooms into a tight bunch. “I remember Ellie and me were
+in the second grade when I first braided lavendery wands with you-all.
+Your papa had just put you to the nuns.”
+
+“I know.” Frankie was tying the flowers into a ball with soft cotton
+yarn, winding and braiding it among the wilted stems. When the flowers
+were cured they would fasten on ribbons, keep back a few for scenting
+their clothes chests, and trade the rest at Love’s store. “What’ll
+become of us all,” Frankie cried, “in the time to come?”
+
+“You’ll be a famous pianist, Frankie,” said Lily, “you’ll see. And Ellie
+and me’ll visit you up north.”
+
+“Ellie will marry a rich farmer,” Frankie said, “and have a flock of
+youngens.”
+
+“Not me,” said Ellen. “I won’t be called Mama. And I’d ne’er do a man’s
+bidding.” But she was thinking of Christian, dwelling on him like a
+lovely secret.
+
+“Well,” Lily giggled, bold, “if a man liked me, I’d have him. I wouldn’t
+be biggity.”
+
+“Lily.”
+
+“Say, I sent off for a thing,” Lily whispered, “to catch a man.”
+
+“What?” Frankie pressed.
+
+“A bust developer. That’s how the farm journal named it.”
+
+“Why do you want that? You’re big, Lily.”
+
+“It said men like you that way. I’m going to try it.”
+
+“Your pa’ll find out.”
+
+“I don’t give a care. It comes in a plain brown wrapper, they claim. He
+might not see.”
+
+“You’re brazen,” Ellen said.
+
+“If I do catch a man I’ll ne’er have a log cabin chinked with clay like
+ours. Nor cheesecloth curtains neither. And I’ll have no squalling
+babies to whip.” Lily sweated in the sun, raising her pillars of arms to
+her hair. The shy scent of lavender enveloped the three of them.
+
+“Reckon we’ll e’er disremember making these lavendery wands?” asked
+Ellen.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Saturday she went to appraise the strawberry bed bordering the fence
+line of Sweetincreek Road. Through the mulch of old straw the creeping
+plants were flourishing. “The berries are swelling good. Give them a
+week,” Ellen said to the dog beside her. “I’m going to brave Pa to let
+me trade a basket when they’re ripe.”
+
+“Hey, Ellie Gaddy, how’s your nanny goat?” Christian Ay, in blue shirt
+and overalls, was leaning on the other side of the rail fence amid
+scraggling hollyhocks and high ditch grass and mullein on the road bank.
+“I brought you something.” He was leaping the rails, his teeth flashing
+in his broad tanned face. There was a bundle under his arm. Jack
+growled, running toward him. He patted the dog and it trotted after.
+
+“Hey.” She waited, the red gathering in her cheeks.
+
+“Brinker gave me the evening off. So I walked down the road. Is this
+your dog? Here, it’s for you.” He was setting the feed sack he carried
+on the ground and opening it. A rabbit wriggled its nose and slowly
+blinked dark eyes upward, grain dustings sifted in its blue-gray fur.
+
+“My.”
+
+“I guessed you’d like it.”
+
+She took it from the sack, holding it in the crook of her arm. She
+brushed the dust from it and stroked the wiry ears. “It’s trembling.”
+
+“It’s tame. It’s not afraid. Rabbits always do that.”
+
+She sat in the grass, bearing it carefully. “I ne’er had one.”
+
+“Don’t pick it up by the tail. Its eyes’ll drop out.” He grinned,
+looking down on her and putting his hands in his pockets. “You always
+lived here, Ellie?”
+
+She nodded, bending over the pet beast, disturbed by the looming
+stranger, charmed.
+
+“I figured you weren’t tenants.”
+
+“Pa owns this farm outright,” she whispered.
+
+He kicked at the grass turf, idly flexed his arm muscles, feeling them
+with his broad hands, one and then the other. “You know what Mr. Brinker
+does, Ellie? He pens his pigs under the horse barn where it’s raised off
+the ground. And he puts chickens in batteries up in the loft by the hay.
+Beats me. I never saw the like.” Christian was plucking a grass stalk to
+chew. “Made his boys a windmill. A little one. Grinds real corn for
+their banties and rabbits.” The young man was excited by the girl. There
+had been her coarse words thrust at him in spite when he jostled her as
+they first met. And now her ease, snuggled in the grass by the
+strawberry bed, her face slightly flushed. “It beats me, that way Mr.
+Brinker does.”
+
+In the silence that drew down, the hum of bees working the young weed
+blooms vibrated. The dog scented an animal trace and darted away in
+pursuit. The careless voice of a male thrush was dropping like liquid
+pebbles in the sweetened air, then it ceased. Ellen was holding clover
+leaves for the rabbit to chew; she was content.
+
+“I thought you’d like a rabbit, Ellie. It wasn’t much bother getting it
+for you,” he bragged. Christian had inquired of Brinkers about her
+family, heard they were unfriendly, cut themselves off from most of
+their neighbors. Mr. Gaddy kept a close hand on his two daughters. That
+was what Mr. Brinker had claimed. I’ll bet she’s never been kissed.
+
+Ellen was lifting her eyes, gray, gold-flecked. “I’m beholden for it.”
+
+He spoke as though he had practiced what he said, deliberate. “I’m kind
+of sweet on you, honey.” He tossed aside the grass blade quickly,
+leaning down, his tan face darkened. He was laying a hand on her soft
+cheek, putting his mouth taut and firm against hers.
+
+Surprised, wide of eye, she looked at his closed lids. The strangeness
+was repellent but for a moment curiosity snared her. Then she remembered
+Maria’s veiled hints and Anton’s heavy predictions. She spilled the
+rabbit from her and shoved the young man so he stumbled back. “Now get
+away.”
+
+“Come on, Ellie,” he was crying, “bet you’ve never been kissed.”
+
+“Yes, I have,” she lied.
+
+“You got a boy friend?”
+
+“No.” She was getting up. “And rabbit’s lost. Jack’ll get him.”
+
+“Let him go. I heard your daddy won’t let you out. Is that so?”
+
+“I’m going to find rabbit.” She hunted in the brush, coming on the tame
+creature nibbling timothy by the grapevine posts. She lifted and
+caressed it, stony-featured.
+
+“Goodbye now,” he was calling.
+
+She breathed, motionless, “My pa would so let me out.” She turned to see
+him walking to the fence, watched while he laid his hand on it. She
+called suddenly. “Here he is. I found him.”
+
+Christian leaped the fence and laughed, shouting, “Should I come next
+Saturday?”
+
+“I don’t care.” He waved as he was disappearing, and she shrugged. “Who
+cares?”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The week moved forward. She asked Anton, “Could I trade some of the
+strawberries to Grady Love for a dress-goods piece? I’d like a new one.
+Of dotted Swiss.”
+
+He frowned. “What foolishness, girl.”
+
+“I’d make Frankie one, too. With ruffles. For mass.”
+
+Anton was caught and reconsidered. “I suppose you could. Crops are doing
+well without hit don’t get dry. When you pick, hold back five-six
+baskets.”
+
+The next Saturday a thunderstorm held sway. Ellen was pacing restive
+about the house, at last ran through the storm to curl up drenched by
+her three goats. “I don’t care if he doesn’t come. What’s he to me? And
+we need this gully-washer for the fields.” Rain thrashed afresh on the
+woodshed roof. “Reckon he might walk down next week, Penny? If he’s not
+forgot by then.”
+
+The storm cleared in the early evening. As she was hurrying through the
+delayed feeding a rainbow emerged, spanning the hills. She stopped in
+her chores, forgetting all but the opalescent arch in the setting of
+summer green. “There. That’s a sight. I set my bow in the cloud for a
+token between Me and the earth. Everlasting, He said.”
+
+In the moist heat that followed the downpour, the strawberries began to
+ripen quickly. Ellen bartered with Grady Love and showed Frankie the
+ribbons the storekeeper had thrown in to match the two lengths of cloth.
+“That’s a dollar forty cents worth if you had the cash.” Ellen cut and
+stitched, Frankie set up the ironing board to press.
+
+That night Anton nodded as the younger girl was standing before him in a
+yellow-dotted dress, a deep ruffle flaring around the boot tops, a
+yellow ribbon plaited into the round neckline. Anton pulled her to his
+lap. “This redheaded poppet’s so fair. Makes me wish I was her beau come
+courting.”
+
+And Ellen, holding the image of Christian, felt a lesser pain as she
+watched them frolic. The next day though, she was wearing her drab
+gingham. “He won’t come. It’s been two weeks. He’ll ne’er think to
+come.” She walked out to the berry patch. “I’ll just see if they’re
+still plentiful.”
+
+Christian was astride the rail fence. He waved, “Got rained out last
+week.”
+
+“I came but to look at the berries.” She was approaching the fence.
+
+He had a red-painted can that held a plant, the heart-shaped leaves
+mottled white along the veins, the flowers purple. “Here.” He was
+offering it. “Old lady Brinker grows them. She called it a primrose. Her
+kitchen’s full of flowers and vines. Too many for me. She even had her
+old man and me to nail up boxes outside the windows and fill them with
+rotted manure. And us with hay to cut. And corn to work.”
+
+Ellen was undone by the gift. “It can live in my loft window.”
+
+“I never saw such folks for decorations.”
+
+“It calls to mind the shooting-stars that grow in swamp spots. You know
+them?” The flush lay upon her.
+
+He jumped down from the fence, began to tell stories he’d gleaned over
+the past days. While he was speaking he looked away and took her hand in
+his. She kept her hold on the red can. They leaned back against the wood
+rails. He was telling about the studhorse Brinker had just purchased.
+“It’s a red roan Belgian. Stands near eighteen hands. I never saw a
+stallion to beat him for class. And light on his feet like a little
+filly.”
+
+“There. I’d love to see him,” Ellen whispered. She let her hand lie soft
+in his.
+
+As if it were a usual thing he put his arm on her tanned neck, under the
+yellow hair. She stirred restless, the plant in one arm. “Tell me about
+your folks, Ellie. Where they come from?”
+
+“My great grandsir was from o’er the waters. My Uncle Garland tells how
+he traveled across the east Kentucky mountains. He killed elk that lived
+in the forests there in olden days. He saw giant eagles too, and poison
+scorpions.”
+
+“What’s your old man like?” He withdrew his arm, threw himself on the
+grass, his head against the lowest rail. He was frowning.
+
+“Oh I don’t know. Say, I near forgot. I made my sister and me each a new
+dress this past week.” She looked down at him. “They turned out proud.”
+
+“Why didn’t you wear yours?”
+
+“I didn’t want to. Pa might see. I’ll wear it to mass though, tomorrow.”
+
+“What’s your old man like, Ellie? Does he still spank you?” He slid down
+in the grass, staring skyward. “I’d just like to meet him. Sometimes
+those crabby old fellows make me sick.”
+
+She saw his eyes that were gazing at the clouds angrily, his fair hair
+and new-shaved face. She sighed.
+
+“I could have killed my father,” he was saying, “trying to chain me to
+his store. Before I’d run that place for him, I tell you I’d go to
+jail.”
+
+There was his stubborn wide mouth.
+
+“There’s a circus coming to New Hope next week, Ellie. I heard it’s got
+an elephant. Want to go? Mr. Brinker’ll give me the pickup to use.” He
+stood up from the grass. “Let’s go ask your daddy now. I’m set on
+going,” he warned.
+
+“We’ll ask Ma,” she said quickly. “Pa’ll likely be in the field at this
+hour.”
+
+“Wait a minute.” He was reaching for her hand again. “Look, what’s the
+matter with one kiss?”
+
+“Well.”
+
+“You’re afraid. It’s true. You never have been kissed.”
+
+“Yes, I have too.” So she let his rigid wide lips bear upon hers. His
+nose was in the way, and her arm that hugged the primrose. He pressed
+against her. She was staring at his eyelids, cold. I don’t see as that’s
+such a great thing. To write songs about and to whisper on.
+
+“Now you like me, Ellie. Don’t you?” He was triumphant.
+
+“Oh my, yes.” But she felt cheated. He thinks it’s a great thing.
+
+They were crossing the field to the farm lane, walking up to the house.
+Maria was inside the screen door, peering at them. “I thought it was
+peddler. He’s past due,” she muttered and turned to go.
+
+“Wait, Ma. This is Christian Ay. He asked me to go along with him and
+the Brinkers to a circus at New Hope next Saturday. Can I go, Ma?”
+
+“As far as I care you can.” Maria was disappearing into the house
+recesses.
+
+Christian looked at Ellen, demanding in a low tone, “Why’d you say
+Brinkers were going, Ellie? I’m taking you.”
+
+“I’ve got to own I was afraid she’d say no.” Her eyes glowed.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Frankie learned Ellen was going on an outing, she waited until they
+were undressing for bed. She spoke in the fluttering candlelight, her
+voice a child’s, “You got a beau?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Yes you have, Ellie.”
+
+“I’m just going along with the Brinkers.”
+
+“Pa ne’er liked Brinker.”
+
+“I know.” It was a spear of pain.
+
+“What’s that boy like?”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“What does he do?”
+
+“He talks to me.”
+
+“I hate there being boys and girls and e’er a thing jumbled. Why can’t
+it be smooth and all the same?”
+
+“I don’t know. It’s the way of it. Like the priest says, God made it
+so.” They sat on their beds rebellious, disturbed. “I don’t like it
+either.” But Ellen was looking over at the new plant in her window.
+
+In her heart a small edge of terror would reign throughout the week. But
+Anton paid her no heed; he ignored her proposed trip in his concern with
+the successful cutting and hauling in of the first hay, with the sows
+that each farrowed a basket of tiny piglets. When Christian drove the
+pickup into the yard, her father was at the barn. Ellen sped down the
+porch steps, Jack barking wildly. Christian wore a red shirt,
+store-creased, and black pants held up with worn green suspenders. His
+hair was slicked damp, the strong artificial odor of violet pomade
+pervading the cab. His face was haughty and alien. He seemed somehow
+shorter and broader. She sat back with a satisfied sigh, smoothing the
+fullness of the new blue-speckled dress. Her shoes were buffed and had
+new laces. She had on her best white stockings. Her hair hung down loose
+and in her handkerchief, scented with sweet fern and balsam needles, was
+a small comb. They spoke little. Christian kept his arm on the window
+ledge. He said, “That your new dress?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You sew good there.” He wheeled the truck into a great dusty lot. They
+drove under a pasteboard sign, CURCIS PARKING HERE. Christian paid an
+old man a nickel. They hurried toward the huge colorful entrance arch.
+“Let’s go, Ellie.” He strode to the ticket booth, she followed, and they
+went in.
+
+Through the noisy carnival air, hand in hand, they were wandering.
+Christian was devouring peanuts, sack after sack. Ellen licked a mound
+of pink spun sugar in a paper cone. “It’s like eating a cloud. It melts
+to nothing.”
+
+He was laughing at her, glad he was with Ellen after all. They went to
+see the tent show, sitting on hard benches in the close-packed crowd,
+the dust soft under their feet. He held her hand in his lap. In the ring
+horses thundered by, rifles cracked, the King of the Cowboys on a
+graceful white horse, waved his flapping hat. A baby elephant followed
+by a tall one with a torn ear and an odorous camel, ambled around the
+ring and out again, their progress accompanied by spasmodic
+hand-clapping. A cage with a sleeping lion was trundled by a pair of
+brown oxen. The ringmaster bawled through a megaphone. In smoldering
+heat aerialists soared and swung as band music softened and swayed the
+crowd’s amazement. Ellen leaned forward.
+
+They roamed the grounds later, eating grilled hot dogs, drinking mugs of
+high-foamed root beer drawn from an orange barrel. They stood before the
+limp-maned lion’s cage. “Sure looks mangy, doesn’t he, Ellie? He’s
+twenty years if a day.”
+
+A group of boys came up to throw stones and poke through the metal bars
+with striped circus canes, after a while meandering noisily away. “Poor
+soul,” said Ellen, “those youngens shouldn’t ill at him that way.”
+
+“Now there’s the midway, Ellie. Come on.” He was pulling her with him to
+the wide grassy passage bordered with peep shows and circus sights. A
+sinuous middle-aged woman was wriggling on a platform beneath a glaring
+sign, EVENING IN PARIS. A barker coaxed, “Ten cents. One dime! See the
+girlies. Imported from Pah-ree. Ten cents to see them revealed in their
+natural beauty. Hurry. Hurry! One dime. They take it off. The Parisian
+beauties.”
+
+“Let’s see the strip tease. I dare you.”
+
+But Ellen was shaking her head. “Double dare you to see the two-headed
+baby instead.”
+
+“Double dares go first. All right.”
+
+They viewed an albino raccoon, a six-legged sheep, the tallest dwarf, a
+mass of twining poisonous snakes. They stopped before the India-rubber
+man and the fat lady. “Oh Christian, my teacher, Talithie Gentry, was
+bigger than her. Easy.”
+
+Christian paid the armless man a penny to write their names on a card in
+elaborate script, holding the pen in supple toes. Christian was
+pocketing the card. “This’ll remind me, Ellie, after you’ve gone.” He
+hitched his suspenders cockily.
+
+Then they were in the high-seated cab of the truck again, the narrow
+tires jouncing in the hot dust. Christian was whistling above the racket
+of the motor. He was warbling, partly off pitch:
+
+   When the m-m-m-moon shines
+   On the c-c-c-cow shed
+   I’ll be waiting for you by the k-k-k-kitchen door
+
+His spirits were high.
+
+   I’ve got a cute little husband
+   Who’s just twenty-three
+   He’s just three years older than me
+   He goes out every night
+   And gets on a tight
+   And leaves the dear baby with me
+
+He was pulling her to his side, driving with his arm about her. He was
+caressing her hair and moving a hard palm from her throat to her
+breasts, yielding and white under the stiff cloth. She was leaning into
+the comfort of his body in the heat as they droned over neglected clay
+roads. Clumps of black-eyed susans lined the ditches, and butterfly
+weeds bearing ragged clusters of orange flowers. No birds sang in the
+hot afternoon sun. Her thoughts began to drift. Without fear she
+considered, Pa’ll beat me, it’s away past time for chores. “Is it late,
+Christian? Penny must be watching for me.”
+
+“Is that your sister?” He spoke, absent, his hand pressing upon her
+breast.
+
+Ellen shook her head. “It’s hot.” She drew away from his hold, moving to
+lean out the window.
+
+After a pause he said, “You tired, Ellie? Want me to stop in the shade
+along the roadside?” It came thickly. He reached for her hand, slowing
+the truck. In back of them a horn sounded and a red automobile with an
+open top swerved around them to disappear in swirls of dust.
+
+“You better take me home. My chores are waiting.” Her face was a soft
+oval, her hand lay snared in his, feeling the rough calluses.
+
+“All right, then. I only asked on account of Brinker milks late. Said he
+wouldn’t look for me back till after six.” There was silence. Then he
+said, “Naturally you do what you please.” He laughed, dropping her hand.
+“Sure do like Mr. Brinker. Not a whit like my daddy. The other day I
+hollered down from the top of the silo, how much feed do I give them and
+he says, fork her down till you get tired twice.” He spoke animated,
+striking the window ledge.
+
+“Why don’t you like your pa?” Ellen asked.
+
+“He’s a skinflint. You bet we had a fight when I said I was going to
+work for Brinker. Had to promise him half my pay.” He snorted. “Me, a
+man grown. Over twenty and turning a part of my pay to him. That
+sonofabitch.” He lapsed into thought. “Say, I didn’t mean to swear
+before a girl.”
+
+“That’s all right.”
+
+The truck was stopping before the yellow farmhouse. Ellen opened the
+door. “I’m obliged, Christian. I won’t forget the strange beasts and the
+people on the high swings. And everything.” She sensed the finality of
+the afternoon.
+
+He had her hand all at once. “Look, I’ll walk down to see you Saturday,
+Ellie.” He was tender again suddenly, as if the magic of the day moving
+already toward nostalgia smote him.
+
+She went to the house, that final gesture lingering. The spotted thrush
+winged to the grapevines where it hid its nest. Jack came bounding up,
+tail wagging, neck arched in pride over the wild rabbit in his mouth. “I
+see you caught your supper,” she whispered.
+
+The town teacher’s buggy was in the lane, his mare hitched to the post
+by the well. Every Saturday he came to give Frankie a piano lesson.
+Anton had gone to his rooming house two years ago, waited in the hall, a
+round black hat atop his balding head. “I be Anton Gaddy,” he had
+mumbled. “I’ve heard there are ladies that make a name for themselves
+playing before crowds that come to her. I’ve heard tell those kind are
+honored and not deemed lightly in the eyes of rich folk. My daughter is
+to play a piano I bought her in such a wise. Can you give lessons? I got
+the money.” The town teacher had found his task difficult. The girl was
+contrary in a sly way and had but small talent. She simply obeyed her
+father’s will.
+
+Ellen was listening to the piano as she mounted the steps. From the
+kitchen wafted the acrid odor of pot greens Maria was canning. Ellen
+stepped within the screen. Anton’s figure towered from out of the
+fawning shadows. “To your room, girl. Hum.”
+
+“Am I late, Pa?”
+
+She was ascending the stairs, flagging, slow. The man’s footsteps coming
+after were soft as the sweep of an owl’s wing, gentle in pursuit.
+“You’re late.”
+
+She stalled halfway. “Pa?” The pain was there, starting, in her throat.
+
+“Thou shalt beat them with a rod. I’ve said it. Mind, girl.”
+
+“You knew I was going.”
+
+She went up. He was closing the door. He gripped a belt, the wide
+leather strip dangling by a brass home-fashioned buckle. He would wear
+this belt on Sundays with his black suit. “There. Town teacher met the
+Brinkers trading in Bethel.”
+
+She waited then, mute, and the hurt was high in her throat. She had
+trained herself to silence since she was a small child, pitting herself
+against his spirit, persuading herself he did it for love. He wants me
+to be good.
+
+“So they weren’t at that gauded circus. It’s e’er so. You be a liar.” He
+was striking her, whispering harsh, gray eyes narrow, “Be you whoring so
+soon, girl? Here’s a generation not washed of their filthiness. I’ll set
+the priest at you. Hear?”
+
+The door shut sharply. He had gone. Ellen was standing anchored as her
+throat ached. His violence directed against her, aside from the cut of
+the strap, would make her sicken and she was ruling it down until she
+would be at peace with herself. She waited, finally moving to hang her
+crumpled dress on the ridgepole and put aside her dust-grimed shoes. Her
+stockings like white moss, were in a heap on the floor and she caught
+sight of the pale pillar of her body moving in the mirror that was
+fastened to the door.
+
+She was hurrying to the barn then to linger over the pair of suckling
+kids and tend the round of her chores. Clouds were lowering in the moist
+ether that rumbled before an advancing evening storm. She remembered
+lines from a song Christian Ay had said people sang in Louisville.
+
+   When I go toot-toot-tooting
+   Down the street
+   In my little Ford automobile
+
+All that night rain fell on the receiving earth. The morning was humid
+and portentous. In the earth’s vitals, seeds were bursting in slow
+presage and primeval animal movement was rife. Above ground, bees were
+snoring, working their hoards, minute midges piped thinly, bottle-flies
+glutted at dung heaps or in company with spotted orange butterflies
+savored rotten things. In the pond the duck had struck and killed a
+fragile peeper frog, while from the woods edge a red dog fox looked on
+at her, his button eyes bright with greed.
+
+In the kitchen while dawn faded, Ellen was slicing bacon with a long
+knife whetted to a narrow blade. She had brought the molded slab in from
+the smokehouse. Peeled potatoes were boiling in a pot, a pan of biscuits
+rose and browned in the oven. She started bacon frying in a spider and
+measured coffee out of a jar unscrewed from the grinder on the wall. She
+spooned it into water bubbling in a chipped tall pot. Frankie laid out
+plates, plum preserves, buttermilk, ketchup, a stone jar of butter. Both
+girls wore sleeveless petticoats, white stockings and church shoes.
+Later they would get into the new dresses. “Ellie, did you notice if
+that camel swallowed like a horse or chewed a cud?”
+
+“There, I forgot to look.” Ellen went to the well for water. She met
+Anton coming from the barn with Maria’s pail of milk. She held her hand
+over the dark welt on her upper arm though his eyes weren’t on her. She
+followed him to the kitchen, lifting out the bacon, breaking eggs into
+the iron spider. She crumpled an eggshell in the coffee to settle the
+grounds and dumped the hot potatoes into a brown bowl. The Gaddys and
+Sam Offut grouped themselves at the stout table. They poured ketchup on
+the potatoes and eggs, drank steaming cups of coffee, ate heavily, for
+the workdays were arduous. They would arise by candlelight, seldom were
+done by nightfall with the wheel of chores.
+
+Then Sam brought the buckwagon around, Blueberry and Moll hitched to it.
+“Hurry up, ooman,” Anton was saying to Maria, “we’ll be late to mass.”
+
+His wife climbed up to the narrow seat edged with an iron rail, and sat
+beside him. The girls were hiking themselves on the end of the wagon
+bed, sitting on a rug, backs to their parents, feet dangling. As they
+swung out onto Sweetincreek Road Anton spoke over his shoulder, “Your
+nannies can go to the meadow and graze with the cows, girl. Those
+yeanlings are old enough now.”
+
+“I’ll take them down tomorrow, Pa.” Joy surged within her at his words,
+and the hotness of the season swung in to ripen grain in the favored
+fields and bring flowers to bud and bloom as the fragrant undulating
+grace of the farm lands moved toward harvest.
+
+
+                                   4
+
+The sun beat down like a scourge. Men moved listlessly, driving
+themselves and their draft beasts. Fowl with panting beaks crouched in
+dusty bowls they fashioned in yard corners with their fanning wings. By
+flickering lantern light before the sun rose, the milking was completed.
+Ellen and Frankie were called upon to help at stripping the udders of
+the overabundant animals. The first streams on the pail bottom would
+whine high, the tone lowering as the pail filled, becoming deep and
+sonorous until foam ran down the pail sides. Then it was time to pour
+the milk through squares of flannel into ten-gallon cans that would be
+placed in the hewn-log water trough to cool, awaiting pickup by the
+dairy truck. In the half-dark the cows shuffled to pasture, Jack nipping
+their heels. Ellen would follow and close the gate. The sides of the
+bovines were oily, their breath fragrant, eyes moist. By early morning
+their stomachs would be distended with lush summer grass. Then
+throughout the sweltering day they would lie in the shade of the woods,
+chewing their cuds.
+
+Anton and Sam would down a heavy breakfast, eat plates of eggs, Ellen
+cracking a dozen in the skillet for them. They reached for more coffee
+cake and bread and slabs of cold meat. After they ate they walked stolid
+to the fields, working corn rows with cultivator and team, mowing and
+raking and hauling in towering wagonloads of timothy and soybean and
+clover hay. They mended fence lines, repeatedly repaired harness and
+machine, sharpened saw, adz and ax, scythe, knife and cutting blades.
+They would throw from the fields the larger stones that cropped up under
+the bite of the share. Some fields had a rock outgrowth too large to be
+removed and it must stand bared and alone, machines and men circling it.
+At mid-morning and afternoon Frankie would search until she found the
+men in a field. She brought them a stone pitcher of water spiced with
+vinegar or a ginger stick. They mopped their rough-bristled faces with
+red kerchiefs, and drank. Sam was shirtless, his overall straps cutting
+his scrawny sunburned shoulders. Anton, powerful upper body covered to
+protect his freckled skin, had soaked his black sateen shirt with
+perspiration. His large arms shone red and glistening. The odor of sweat
+and earth rose strong about the men.
+
+“Before God, Sam. Can’t figure how a little fart like you can put in a
+day’s work alongside me. Haw.”
+
+“E’er watch a banty cock, Mester Gaddy? It’ll outlast your Barred Rock
+rooster any day of the week. Not so much of me to get wore out.”
+
+The Gaddy women were laboring too, bringing in grapes and berries, beans
+and tomatoes by the pail and bushel. They canned and dried and sugared
+down the procession of largess that moved through the kitchen. There was
+more milk than the dairy would buy and Maria would skim the surplus for
+cream, send Ellen to trade the butter she churned. It was dirt cheap in
+this season. The remaining thin milk was thrown to squealing young pigs
+in wood troughs, foul-smelling in the reek of heat. Milk would sour
+swiftly, spots of yellow-green milkstone forming on the sides of pails.
+Ellen was directed to scrape it clean with a knife. Cheeses were made,
+some to cure amber and hard, hanging in the smokehouse, others to be
+stirred daily in stone crocks until the white curd turned yellow, the
+strong odor left, and it became bland. There was an abundance of cottage
+cheese with clabber cream and chopped green onions stirred in, or a
+seasoning of herbs that grew by the houseside. Maria had a lavish hand
+when it came to seasoning.
+
+“I reckon I got such a heavy hand because my mam always was put to it to
+get enough for us to eat. She’d dig chicory roots for coffee and gather
+wild thyme and herbs. Pap cut lumber to sell to the railroad and worked
+tobacco. He saved e’er a penny he was paid and gave her none.” Maria
+sighed, “Mam found out I ate stones once. Seemed there was a
+satisfaction when the food was gone, to a white pebble, smooth like a
+bit of lard. I just recollect.”
+
+Christian would come on Saturdays at dusk. Ellen met him covertly at the
+usual place and they ate a few lingering strawberries from the
+burned-out plants, then went to lie in the shade. He was boasting about
+the gigantic machine that Brinker had rented to harvest his wheat. “That
+combine’s some invention. Finished the whole field in a day. The bags
+are stacked in the crib. By heck, Brinker grows good wheat. We counted
+twenty grains on some ears. That’s forty bushel to the acre.” He was
+browned, his white teeth were flashing and he swaggered. “In the
+afternoon old lady Brinker drove the pickup out to the field with a
+freezer can of ice cream and three new-made cakes. Tell you, that
+woman’s my ideal of a wife. Spread a white cloth and brought silver and
+plates and a tin can of lemonade. We sure polished it off.” He
+reflected. “In the lemonade she had a chunk of ice floating.”
+
+“Wish I had a piece of ice big as my head. Purely I do.” Ellen looked
+away, sighing in the stifled air scarce cooled by the setting of the
+sun. “It seems like all that’s to be garnered is trying to ruin before
+we can get hold of it to store it against the winter.”
+
+Christian would stay with her only a short while because he was roused
+now while it was yet dark to begin the long day. Ellen spoke softly with
+him but when he laid his hand in the hollow below her throat or upon the
+dress over her thighs as he had done in the truck, she was afraid and
+made him laugh with her foolishness and coaxed him from his wont.
+
+Sam Offut had failed to appear for milking one morning. Sam lived with
+his wife a short way down the road in a shack he owned; he would take
+his first two meals with the Gaddys and supper at his own table. Anton
+was hard put this morning, even with the help of the girls, to finish
+the chores on time, and sat down late to breakfast. As he was arising,
+the hired man appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed, with an air of not
+having washed or slept. Sam was saying evenly as he took the chair
+across from Anton, “Ran my old ooman off last night. Those two were
+laying there still when I came home. On my bed. That whorish Eadie. I
+ne’er saw that particular peddler before. I could have killed them but I
+only ran them off.” He speared a slice of ham with the sharp knife.
+“I’ve doubted many a year now, since my youngens are grown and gone, if
+I be the daddy to more of the six than the first-born.”
+
+Anton said shortly, “If you’ve got a mind after this, Sam, you can take
+supper here. Come on to the barn when you’re done.”
+
+“I’m beholden.” Sam was eating like one famished.
+
+During that day Ellen marveled at little Sam Offut, middle-aged,
+leathery-skinned, smoldering as he went through the days at his wife
+Eadie, bedding with other men. She wondered at how it took the white
+heat of August to kindle him into action.
+
+When Jack was driving the cows in from the pasture one night, the white
+kid was missing. Penny and her young would always be in the lead in
+their anxiety to reach Ellen, who would have an evening tidbit set out
+for them in the woodshed—apple peels or bread crusts or carrots. Penny
+and the brown kid were standing in wait at the woodshed door. As pangs
+smote her, Ellen bolted down the lane to the field. The dog barked,
+running ahead. She searched the fence lines, from afar spied the bit of
+white, the buckling strangled in the fence where he had tried to slip
+through. He had hung himself. Ellen, extricating the stiffened body, met
+death for the first time intimately. She fought over her loss in the
+solitary field. “Oh you were my dear droll poppet that followed me.”
+
+Ever in coming weeks when she thought of the clownish yeanling, tears
+came and her throat caught in anguish so complex it was nearly joy. She
+never forgot the death of the white kid. Its impact made a mark on her
+like scars she could point to on her body. “Here the sickle cut into my
+leg when I cleaned the path one day. And here that spotty hound bit my
+wrist when he had that fight with Jack.”
+
+In her new-found anxiety for her two remaining goats, she kept them from
+the field, penning them in the barnyard and bringing them kitchen scraps
+and meadow grass. In their cleverness, though, they slipped through the
+fence to nibble in the garden and wander at will. Anton discovered them
+girdling bark from a stripling peach tree with their sharp teeth. He
+threatened, “To pasture with those tormented creatures where they
+belong. And if they be the cause of further botherment, girl, I’ll knock
+their heads in gladly and butcher them. Mind now.”
+
+So Ellen went down the lane, Penny solemn at her heels, the doeling
+trotting last. Laughing at their comical air, the girl began to run.
+They snorted and sprang after her abandoned, striking their little hoofs
+sharply on the dry ground, unconscious of dignity or the heat of August.
+She left them blatting disconsolate at the meadow gate. In days to
+follow she would go to the barnyard fence, straining her eyes for a
+glimpse of the two small does amid the drove of cows.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+There came the hour when Christian and Anton met. Though Ellen would
+slip out to see Christian when he walked down the road on his afternoon
+off, she had not mustered the boldness to bring him to the house. Anton
+never spoke of the young man though he knew Ellen met with him. One time
+he had watched them for a while from behind the oak by the berry patch.
+He saw his daughter talking while she switched flies with a branch of
+leaves, and the young man, brooding, leaned upon the fence. Anton could
+see nothing amiss and pulling on his pipe, went to listen to his
+favorite practicing at the piano.
+
+Ellen had joined Christian in the orchard near the brook. Her goats
+finished browsing and lay back to back in the grass chewing their cuds
+in their rapid dainty way. Ellen was sitting on a fallen log. She wore
+an old dress that fitted her budding form too tightly. She laid in her
+hair white meadow rue and yellow oxeye daisies. She bowed her head to
+one side over the field flowers in her hands and knew, dreaming, how
+fair she was.
+
+Christian lay on his stomach in the grass by her, catching her mood,
+knowing he’d never seen the girl so fetching. The lines of her long face
+were soft in a frame of flaxen hair. He spoke suddenly, “I got another
+letter from Mama.”
+
+“Oh?”
+
+“She mad again. My sister had a chance to get married and she turned it
+down. Mama says Rose wants bigger fish.”
+
+“Fish?”
+
+“Mr. Johnson’s only got a house and money. That’s not enough for my
+sister. He’d have to be a millionaire.”
+
+“Well.”
+
+“And she says Daddy gets pains nowadays. Has to lie down. He won’t see a
+doctor.”
+
+“He’ll be all right, don’t you reckon?”
+
+“He hates to pay a doctor bill.” He reached over to cover her bare foot
+with his palm. “You’re so sweet, Ellie.”
+
+“Sweet as Miss Sabatha Withers, boy?” Anton was standing before them in
+the long grass. His overalls were ragged, the sleeves to his black shirt
+had been cut below the shoulders so his heavy biceps showed. His chin
+was thrust out, his body pulled erect in the habit of short men. A straw
+hat was settled upon his sparse hair. He was chewing a quid of tobacco.
+
+Christian jumped to his feet. The two of them were the same height.
+“Hello, Mr. Gaddy. How do you do? I’m Christian Ay.”
+
+“So hit seems.” The man spat, looked about as though searching for
+someone. “Hum. You didn’t bring your lady friend with you?”
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+Anton tilted his head. “And how be Dutchman Brinker these days? Haw. He
+still got the notion to stall his beasts on all the storeys of his
+barns? I heard he penned some shoats to fatten in his loft and they grew
+so grand and big they broke clean through the planking. Is that a fact?”
+
+“I never heard of it, sir,” Christian was cold. “Mr. Brinker’s a fine
+farmer, I can tell you. But you got a nice place here, sir.” He was
+nodding, appeasing, as he flung his hand in a rude movement.
+
+“This place was here, boy, being worked by my sir when Dutchman’s pa was
+setting on his ass in the old country.”
+
+Ellen dropped her head, repeating over and again the Nicene Creed for
+her lover snared in Anton’s rough hand. Like an enchantress she evoked
+the only charm she knew. From whence He shall come to judge the living
+and the dead.
+
+Anton squirted the brown juice again and was moving away. “Feeding is in
+an hour, girl,” he threw over his shoulder.
+
+“All right, Pa.” She closed her eyes. Holy Virgin it had worked.
+
+Christian eyed her, rebellious, scorn in his young face. “What a dirty
+crabby guy even if he is your old man. I’d just like to push that
+bristly smart-aleck face of his in. I can’t stand a bossy fellow like
+that.”
+
+“Hush.” Ellen got up with sudden despair. “Now what’s he talking of
+Sabatha Withers for? Who’s she?”
+
+“A girl I happen to know in Bethel. I’ll go see her or anyone I want.”
+He shouted it, striking at her father. And at himself for his
+intimidation. “And any time I want.”
+
+A quarrel had uncoiled before they were aware. Ellen leaned back on the
+log, whispering, gray eyes slitted, “I don’t give a neinse. Run to that
+poor-trash thing.”
+
+His short legs spread, his high cheekbones pale, he was storming, “And
+if I never see you or your stupid old man again, it’ll be too soon. I’m
+going to see someone who appreciates me.” He threw back his head and
+stalked away, cutting across to the road.
+
+Ellen stayed awhile in the tall grass. As she wept the fury shed itself.
+Bereft, she went up the hill through the field where the boar was now
+penned. Her goats and Jack were trailing after. The old red boar
+regarded her from a little distance, his distrust palpable. “There’s a
+mean hog, Jack,” she whispered.
+
+She neared the barnyard and heard Anton, “Hitch Blue and get him out
+here, Sam.” A spotted heifer was stretched neat a group of slender
+walnuts, bawling intermittently. Anton was bent over her. She had been
+due to bear her calf any day, was a daughter of his best milker, a pride
+to him. While Ellen watched, her hand resting on the yard gate, Sam was
+running from the barn, leading Blueberry. The harness jingled as the
+buckskin came at a trot. “Whaw,” Sam cried roughly.
+
+The two conferred. The horse waited on them, head down, hipshot, a hind
+leg at rest on the tip of the hoof. They hitched the tugs to a rope
+looped about the head of the unborn calf just within the dam. Anton
+drove the horse forward slowly, dragging the cow. Then he halted, took
+off his straw hat, scratching his head. “Hell, hit’s drying out. I vow,
+Sam, the first one’s always too tight. It’s like the wine corks in the
+kegs. Once get them started and they come out easy. Let’s try those
+trees o’er there, now. Gee-whup.” Again the traces tightened and the
+tired young cow was hauled through stones and red dust in the broil of
+heat. They untied the lines, rehitched them through a gap between two
+walnut trunks. “Haw-there,” ordered Anton and while the beast bellowed,
+wedged upon the tree boles, her calf was torn from her womb, limp and
+wet.
+
+Slipping through the gate, Ellen skirted the barnyard and hurried to the
+house. She changed her dress and spoke quietly to Maria, “Spotty had her
+calf. Pa had to take it from her. It’s a pretty one.” She returned, saw
+the heifer was on her feet, placenta hanging. Delicate head down,
+tossing her well-formed tiny horns, she guarded the calf she licked
+nervously.
+
+That night the heat lifted slightly. Ellen was wakeful within her
+loft-room. She slipped downstairs into the sultry dark. Barefoot, she
+walked with Jack to the woodshed, freeing Penny and Rhodie. They
+wandered across the fields, through gates to the orchard. She sat on the
+log again. In the night sky the blue whiskers of cloud were backing off.
+And the moon in absolute radiance was speeding forth. There was not a
+sound anywhere.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the year moved on, the heat abated and winds started out of nowhere,
+rushing. Christian stayed away from Ellen over two long Saturdays. Then
+one evening she was standing beyond the low garden wall watching the
+bees work the hives. He appeared, jaunty in a blue shirt freshly pressed
+by Brinker’s wife, his blond hair damp, comb-marked. “Hey, Ellie. A
+penny for your thoughts.”
+
+“Not wasting them on you, I’ll say.” Her temper shifted in her and she
+colored. “I’m thinking Sam will be robbing the poor bees soon.”
+
+“Come on, take a walk with me, Ellie. Down to the woods. Say, you’re
+blushing.” He grinned.
+
+“Go to your true love in Bethel.”
+
+“No.” His blue eyes were bold. “I broke off with that one.” They were
+starting down the hill. When out of sight of the house, he took her
+hand.
+
+She pulled away, unwilling. “I don’t care for you.” But in time he won
+her from her anger and it was with Ellen as though the quarrel had never
+been.
+
+They were hand in hand in the dry reeds by the pond where the lone duck
+was paddling in circles. He was vowing strongly, “I’ve left Sabatha
+Withers for good, Ellie.”
+
+“Well.”
+
+“She’s cheap.” He laughed angry, for the young fires lay hot in him
+still. “You never have seen Brinker’s place, Ellie.”
+
+“No. I’ve heard tell he’s got fancy barns.”
+
+“You’d get a kick out of them. Want to go there next week? I could show
+you Baker, that Belgian stud. He’s a sight. Like I said, he beats
+anything I ever saw.”
+
+“I’ll come, then.”
+
+“Kiss me, Ellie.”
+
+“Listen at that sound, Christian.” The faint cry of geese was audible,
+“Kwonk, honk, honk, kwonk.” Far above the earth the long-necked wild
+birds were heading for northern nest grounds, their massive bodies two
+wavering lines of dots making the letter V. The call of the leaders
+sounded shrill, and as they moved overhead there came the deep responses
+of the rear guards. It seemed to Ellen that she had no desire for the
+way of the roused child-man beside her. Ahead stretched the long
+filament of her life; she was pierced by the pain of the earthbound that
+is made up of longings. She was voiced vicarious from the throats of the
+wild birds. She turned to Christian, dissatisfied. Their eyes were
+almost on a level; she was crying, intense, “Don’t you wish you were
+that leader?”
+
+“Say, I’d rather be me than some bird.” He laughed at her, pressed her
+hand. “Come. Kiss me.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the last week of September Ellen slipped down Sweetincreek Road to
+where Christian had brought the truck around. The Brinker family were in
+Bethel doing their weekly buying, and Christian acutely felt his
+proprietorship. He drove up his employer’s graveled drive and into the
+huge garage. He led her to the farm buildings, proud. “Take a look.”
+
+The great white barn was trimmed in red, a gigantic portrait of a
+black-and-white Holstein bull had been painted across the expanse of one
+side. There was an iron bull weather vane centered on the roof; it
+wheeled with the breeze. “I ne’er saw such furbelowing, Christian.”
+
+“This isn’t the half of it.”
+
+In the shed just off the chicken house he was showing her round-bellied
+puppies. She fondled them while the gentle bitch watched alert-eyed from
+a straw bed. “Nothing smells as soft as a little whelp, Christian.”
+
+He was pointing to a miniature windmill, and to bantam chickens and
+white and gray rabbits in screened hutches. Out in the pasture were
+shining Belgian mares. Ellen was stroking their sleek faces. Christian
+caught a cobby black filly by the halter and led her to the girl. “This
+one’s Doll. She’s pedigreed. She’s to be bred to Baker as soon as she
+comes in heat. Mr. Brinker’s ordered it. We’ve been watching out for
+her.”
+
+“Look at those dark eyes, Christian. Here, Doll.” Ellen was offering a
+handful of oats. But the mare threw up her head, nickering toward the
+farm buildings. There was a responding whinny from the distance. The
+mare swished her tail, holding it high.
+
+Christian’s eyes kindled. “You know, Ellie, I think she’s in season.
+Let’s try her. See if she’ll take him.”
+
+“You’d best wait for Mester Brinker.”
+
+“You’re scared.”
+
+“I’m not. Only I’d wait. If she’s a thoroughbred, he’d lay the blame to
+you should it go amiss.”
+
+The mare was shaking her head so the halter rings jangled; she cried
+again, shrilly. Christian was opening the gate. “Come on, Ellie. Look,
+you want to ride her down the lane? I’ll lift you to her back.”
+
+“You dassn’t ride her. Sam told me,” she said, dallying, “that a mare in
+the heat mustn’t be ridden till she’s been bred.”
+
+“All right. But come on,” he urged. He led the prancing Doll through the
+gate and down the lane toward the stallion’s paddock. Ellen was
+following, reluctant. “You hold her while I lock up Baker,” he called.
+
+She came to take the mare’s headstall from him. “Well.”
+
+At the yard the huge seed-horse was observing them, restive, aware of
+their business. He squealed, striking at the fence bars with his huge
+hoofs. Christian laughed, catching Ellen’s eye. “What you scared of,
+honey? I can handle him easy.”
+
+“So what?” she whispered to the mare, who was tossing her mane, jerking.
+
+Christian had skillfully snared the halter of the red roan beast and
+secured him in his stall. “Turn her in the lot now, Ellie,” he was
+shouting.
+
+But she tarried and cried, “I’ll wait for you in the truck.”
+
+“Come on, turn her in. It’s only Baker.” He was flushed and he laughed
+at her from the half door of the stable.
+
+Ellen loosed the black mare in the paddock where she curved her neck and
+cantered like a gust of wind. The stallion could be heard clamoring
+angrily, rearing and knocking the walls. Christian turned the handle of
+the stall door to release him, and then vaulted the fence. He came to
+stand with Ellen. “Why did you want to go to the truck?”
+
+The magnificent horse was trotting out, neighing. He minced past the
+filly who was dwarfed by his size. He lifted his shaggy fetlocks high
+without effort and his tawny mane streaked. He wheeled, snuffed noisily
+at her neck, bit it softly and pawed it in a dynamic graceful gesture.
+Then he leaped the mare, falling on his side with powerful elegance. He
+recovered, mounted her again. His beauty was like a thunderous battle,
+his piercing voice rose and fell on the stilled air, waking the valleys
+of the farm, rushing through tree boughs.
+
+Christian was turning, urgent, “Ellie?”
+
+“Let’s go to the truck, Christian. I’m going to wait there.” She turned.
+
+He grasped her arm. “Come on, Ellie.”
+
+“No, Christian.”
+
+He was shoving her under the lean-to by the stable where summer wheat
+straw was stacked for the stallion’s bedding. He was struggling with his
+clothing, bruising her. The coolness dwelled in the shadows there, it
+was quiet and made itself separate from the noise in the dust of the lot
+outside. His youth was adamant and awkward, his knee entreated silent
+between her virgin thighs.
+
+Surprised, she was fighting. “Liar,” she gritted.
+
+He held her in the straw. “You’ve led me on, Ellie. I won’t wait.” His
+arms were muscled from a hard summer, his blood thrusting purposed.
+
+She had read of Absalom, how none was so much praised as he for his
+perfection. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was
+no blemish in him. So the Bible said, and so she had dreamed of
+Christian moving in a lawful pattern she laid. She was unprepared for
+the painful shattering of it, betrayed. “No,” she was weeping. “Liar.”
+It whistled in the coolness against the pant of him.
+
+“I have to, honey. Take it easy. I’ll be careful. I can’t wait.” His
+voice was blurred and hot, stabbing, overridden by the tramping hoofs
+and shrill neighs like a storm without.
+
+Ellen closed her eyes. They ran tears because of the hurt there was, the
+receding terror.
+
+He spoke softly then, “Don’t cry.”
+
+“Go away.”
+
+He stood up and went into the sun. He led Doll back to the pasture,
+threw a forkful of hay to Baker who was docile now, obedient. After a
+while he came back and looked at Ellen. “Don’t be mad.”
+
+She wouldn’t hear him.
+
+“Come on, Ellie. We’ve got to get back.”
+
+She was rising, brushing back her hair. He leaned toward her, tender,
+and pulled a straw caught in the yellow strands. She struck, savage, at
+his fingers. In the truck seat she remained unspeaking until he reached
+for her hand. Then she unleashed at him, injured, “You think I’m that
+Sabatha Withers. I ne’er want to see you again. Hear?”
+
+Christian was resting his elbow on the window; he looked down the road.
+He gunned the truck so dust eddies rose like a whirlwind in the wake. He
+slammed the brakes on the road just above the Gaddy entrance. “Come on,
+Ellie. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad. Please.”
+
+But she hurled the cab door shut. Her head was high. For her world that
+had had a sort of ingenuous beauty had disappeared. And it was never the
+same again.
+
+
+                                   5
+
+October came to pass in fog and tones of droning rain. Muffled trees
+stood in wet leaves along farm paths. Ellen, a gray shape in the mist,
+was moving from clinking house lights to the obscurity of the woodshed
+and barns. Christian had not come for three weeks. At first she had
+waited in profound anger, eager to renounce him. But in the autumn sun
+of following days, while the two ringing notes of the partridge called
+back and forth, loneliness tempered her wrath and she loved him
+indulgently as the source of her pain and its witness.
+
+Today she was going again to the rail fence along the road where
+joe-pye-weeds drooped coarse-toothed leaves. She was wearing a red
+stocking cap, her long coat had pendulous lapels and a wide belt that
+fastened on her hips with two heavy buttons. As she passed the
+grapevines where leaves hung chilled, a flock of crows arose, making
+nasal resentful barks. She waited an hour. Unending rain was falling and
+small gusts wove about. Finally she went to the work Anton had set,
+sorting and shucking corn. Later she absently stroked the alert ears and
+silken hair of the kid Rhodie, nearly as large as its dam now. “Reckon
+he’s with Sabatha Withers. Pleasuring as he did with me.” She clothed
+her wrath, embellished it. “Happen she’ll drag him to a priest. All his
+days he’ll dwell on me and what he forfeited.”
+
+Her mind turned to when she was nine or ten and, living in fantasy and
+wishes, would try new ways to walk through the sun-washed fields where
+grass stood high. It would seem that crowds of people lined both sides
+of the way she took. They came to see how grand she held her head and to
+talk among themselves of the noble way of Lady Ellen. “I aim to hold me
+high and wed a rich man.” She spoke aloud in the stable. But she didn’t
+believe it and the anger burned. She went to the house where lamps
+flickered in the gloom, and Anton stacked a fire in the parlor, filled
+the woodbin and split lighter-wood with a deft hand.
+
+Ten days passed. On a splendid windy morning in November, Ellen was
+clearing garden debris and gathering cabbages and root crops in heaps
+for winter storage. She faced her dilemma, rebellious. “If it be so,
+I’ll drown myself or it in the pond when it’s born. And if he’s run off,
+I’ll seek him out. I’ll knife him, I will.” She piled cabbage heads in a
+bushel basket and dumped them in the cellar storage bin. Her secret
+dwelled within her like a hidden wound. “I say, Jack, what will I do?”
+
+That afternoon Amanda York came up the porch steps and knocked. “Hickory
+mast is laying thick in Bailey’s Woods, Mrs. Gaddy. Can Ellie and
+Frankie come nutting?”
+
+The three girls walked a mile down the road to the woods, carrying empty
+baskets. Amanda had black eyes and black shining hair. She was rosy and
+lively. “Ask your pa if you can go once to the husking bee. This
+Saturday.”
+
+“He ne’er would brook it, Mandy.” Frankie was shaking her head.
+
+“There’ll be a sight of folks. From Bethel way and down from Seven Mile
+Run.”
+
+“Because Pa don’t favor us socializing,” Frankie added.
+
+Amanda tossed her braid. “And a fiddler and a spread of eats.”
+
+“You know Sabatha Withers?” Ellen flushed in the asking.
+
+“I’ll say I do. She’s wild. Boys flock after her like dogs on a rabbit.”
+
+“What?” cried Frankie.
+
+“She sleeps around. Things like that.”
+
+“My.”
+
+“What’s she look like?” asked Ellen.
+
+“Oh, light-set, and got yellow hair like yours, Ellie.”
+
+“Why doesn’t she have a baby,” Frankie asked, “if she sleeps around?”
+
+“Don’t ask me.”
+
+“It’s a mystery,” Frankie sighed.
+
+“Did that Lily Garrett tell you what she did?” Amanda asked.
+
+“You mean sending for that stuff to make her breasts grow?”
+
+“Yes. And what happened.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Well, she wanted it,” Amanda whispered, “for she’s boy-crazy, Lily is.
+She’s terrible.”
+
+“I know. She told us.” Frankie giggled. “Men like you big, she said.”
+
+“Well, she waited all summer to hear. We couldn’t figure why it ne’er
+came. I studied that her pa had got hold of the package some way.”
+
+“Say. Did he?”
+
+“No, last week it came. Just an old envelope. And there was a picture on
+a card of a man’s hand. It said underneath, Try This. Lily got scared.”
+
+“She should ne’er have sent off, Mandy,” Frankie cried.
+
+“Say, has that Withers girl got a boy friend?” Ellen was asking.
+
+“She’s got plenty, Ellie. There’s always one to take her to doings.”
+
+“Now what if Lily’s papa’d seen it,” Frankie said. “That picture and
+those words.”
+
+“Wish I could go to that husking bee,” said Ellen. “I’ve got a deal of a
+desire to go. I might cross my pa and slip out this once.”
+
+“Oh Ellie.” Frankie’s voice was the cheep of a frightened bird. “Don’t
+say that.”
+
+“Obey thy father and mother.” Amanda spoke cheerfully as they were
+entering the woods. “Now maybe he’ll say yes this time, Ellie.” They
+began to gather hickory mast that carpeted the ground. When the baskets
+were full they walked to Amanda’s home, a saddlebag log house set in an
+apple orchard. They left two baskets in the passageway between the
+cabins and climbed to an upstairs room. They shucked Amanda’s nuts,
+spreading them with brown-stained hands on a carpet of straw. From the
+rafters hung strings of small ear corn with white pointed kernels that
+would pop over a fire. And there was a drop cord overhead with a carbon
+bulb, for the Yorks had electricity.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sisters took their leave and walked home with the laden baskets. The
+evening whippoorwills were starting their spasmodic carping. Ellen said,
+“I’ll make a way to go to that husking bee.”
+
+But at the end of the week Anton brought news so she forgot all about
+it. He had hauled grain and surplus root crops, Hubbard squashes and
+pumpkins to Bethel, returning in late afternoon with ground flour, meal,
+and kitchen and farm supplies. “Saw the new smithy, Troy Hatfield, and
+got the welding done. That share will hold now. And he gave me outright
+a great piece of hide for leather stripping, just for that heap of
+pumpkins Frankie planted. Shaw.” The man was growing genial, his journey
+a success. He pushed back his chair and strode to the door, spit his
+quid into the bushes. He wiped his face with a powerful arm, came back
+to sup coffee noisily and consume chunks of Ellen’s brown dripping-cake.
+He was turning to her. “Troy gave me news for your ears, girl. You mind
+that froward young fellow hired to Dutchman Brinker? The one that sassed
+me? Well, he took off in a sudden. Dutchman had a time finding a new
+hand. This one’s brought a wife with him, so he’ll not be traipsing
+about with young maids. Hum.”
+
+“Did smithy have an idea where he went, Pa?”
+
+“You pining after that poor trash Brinker hires?”
+
+“I’ve got a right to ask.”
+
+“You trifling with me?”
+
+“No, Pa.”
+
+“You have to put in your two cents. The fellow’s pa died. Troy says
+Dutchman was right plagued at having to pay wages out on a Sabbath.
+That’ll put a good Lutheran in hell, I allow. Haw.”
+
+“He ne’er liked his pa nor that kind of city work.” Ellen was by the
+door, lingering.
+
+“You got any more on your mind? Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen went to take from its pen the gray rabbit Christian had brought
+her. She carried it to the edge of the field and put it down. “Go fend
+for yourself like I’ve got to. Look out for the hungry foxes and
+weasels.” She watched it hop away, then went to her upstairs room. She
+hunted in the wood trunk for paper and an envelope.
+
+   Dear Christian,
+
+   Smithy told Pa you left these parts. The sky is heavy and gray.
+   Maybe it will come on a snow. I call to mind the hours we spent by
+   the strawberry bed. Now I think winter is come. I would that you
+   wrote me how you are getting on.
+
+                                                           Ellen Gaddy
+
+She sealed the envelope, addressing it to Mr. Christian Ay, Carl Brinker
+Homestead, Route 4, Bethel, Ky., send to new address.
+
+Down in the woods the air was still and weighted. Pinched clouds were
+banking above the swollen land. The red dog fox crept to his post
+overlooking the shadowed water. His eyes tensed as he spied the old
+Muscovy duck napping, head under wing, amid brown rush stalks. He struck
+noiseless. Thrashing wings lashed in a frenzied struggle but the needle
+teeth found the jugular and blood was spattered on the rushes. Later
+Ellen called again and again and there was no answering rush of wings.
+“You’d ne’er come to the safe yard. Reckon some varmint caught you.” She
+tossed the ear of corn to the tame fowl in the chicken yard.
+
+Her letter was returned by the mail carrier. She hid it under her apron.
+On its face was scrawled: return to sender, no address known. C.
+Brinker. She took it up to the attic and laid it unopened in the small
+trunk. She stood looking out the gable window as drifting snow made the
+world grow small and old familiar shapes became strange and new.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down Sweetincreek Road in mid-December Anton was driving the wagon to
+mass in Millville. The lightweight buckboard was unsuited for these
+winter days and the women rode in the wagon bed shrouded with rugs. A
+crowd of frightened birds moved and swooped across the sky like a giant
+amoeba. The pale sun was melting the snowfall into slush. The horses
+snorted, exhaling a vapor, tramped in the ruts of the road, hurling red
+mud in clods from their iron shoes. Anton was complaining, “Wish hit
+could have waited till Monday to thaw. This is a rough piece of road.”
+He clucked to the team. “Reckon we’ll be late again to mass, Frankie?
+Here it is Advent time once more.”
+
+“Christmas is but two weeks off, Pa.”
+
+Ellen was praying silently, “Holy Queen, keep him from remembering to
+send us to confession this week. I’ll not tell it to a priest. I’ll go
+to hell and burn first. I’m in a sorry strait, now.”
+
+Anton was fastening the team and preceding his family into the square
+clapboard building half filled with people and heated by a huge black
+stove at one side. He took one of the rear pews. The heavy clothing
+rustled, the plank floor creaked. Anton tugged his bulky fur cap off,
+thrust it behind him on the seat. The women were kneeling at the low
+bench in their long coats, their caps and boots. They crossed
+themselves. The priest was murmuring at the altar, his server on his
+knees. Intimidated by habit and example, Ellen inclined her head. She
+heard the sonorous chant, “O Thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep,
+alleluia. Stir up, O Lord, Thy might and come to save us. Who art Thou?
+I am the voice of one crying in the desert.” She made the sign with her
+hand, desolate. The priest began to tell off the canon of the mass. He
+washed his fingers, incense drifted, the signal bell tinkled. Folk
+shifted and whispered; singly and in groups they left their winter
+covering on the benches, came with bowed heads to the altar, hands in
+ancient attitude of prayer, to receive from paten and cup the Body and
+Blood. Say to the faint-hearted, fear not. It chafed within Ellen,
+uncomforted. She arose with the rest when it was over. And in the
+beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
+And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not.
+The holy man was striding away, the people began to depart in a
+disturbance of noise and bodies. Ellen touched the water in the granite
+basin as she walked after her mother and sister.
+
+Anton dipped his head, curt, to those he knew, stopped without the door
+to speak with N. J. Bilberry. The women waited, Maria whispering to Mrs.
+Bilberry, fleshy-faced and cheerful. At Anton’s nod they climbed back
+into the wagon and he took the reins. They jolted down the road. The
+earth lay dank-sweated, old furrows exposed. Black cottonwood trees were
+guarding the ditches. “N. J.’s wheat froze out,” the man commented
+briefly.
+
+“Tinie says there’s chills and fever going about,” Maria told him. “And
+Ioway Ashby has married a man from the south. He’s thirty-one years old.
+Ioway was but twelve last June.”
+
+“I heard,” Frankie cried, “he sent off for a poppet doll for her,
+dressed in a bride veil.”
+
+“Ioway Ashby’s not inclined to give up her dolls yet,” Maria said.
+
+“Now dogwood roots are near as good as quinine for chills and fever,”
+Anton was saying.
+
+“Ioway’s ma told Tinie they’d begged at her since summer to let them
+marry. So she figured they just as well. I say, that’s a sight young for
+robbing the cradle.”
+
+Under cover of the wagon’s rumbling, Ellen whispered, reciting, “Mother
+of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor
+banished children of Eve.”
+
+Frankie pulled the rug about her boots. “It’s powerful cold. What you
+doing, Ellie?”
+
+“I’m thinking. Sam says if you have a blade of five-finger grass to
+carry about no one can deny you what you ask. I don’t believe him.
+Wonder if there’s some in the fields now?” Ellen turned her eyes
+uncertainly to the future, where somehow she must form a plan.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anton received a letter the next day. “Hit’s from your Uncle Garland.
+Says he’s coming in a week’s time for Christmas this year. Hum. We’ll
+see what he thinks of your piano-playing now, Frankie. And how you’ve
+grown so fair.”
+
+“Oh Pa.”
+
+The man straightened his back, looked out the window. “Bear in mind, one
+more Christmas and you’ll be going up to that city with him. That’s
+Anton Gaddy’s youngen, folks’ll say.”
+
+“Chicago sounds so far off, Pa. Will Uncle be glad for me to come?”
+Frankie smoothed the brightened hair that hung about her narrow
+shoulders.
+
+“We’ll butcher tomorrow. Hear, ooman?” Anton said to Maria.
+
+“Yes,” she assented, “and it’s just come on the dark of the moon. It’s
+right to butcher.”
+
+“You know I don’t hold by that. But my brother dotes on your blood
+pudding and peppered headcheese. Sam and I’ll fix to prepare right
+away.” He marched out.
+
+“If you butcher in the light of the moon,” Maria told her daughters,
+“it’ll all drindle away while it’s frying. Just cracklings’ll be left.
+The grease’ll go rancid till you’ve got to make it up in soap.”
+
+“I know,” tittered Frankie, “and that soap will turn the clothes
+yellow.”
+
+“That’s a fact,” said Maria. “Don’t you laugh. My pap and mam e’er went
+by the moon. It’s natural.”
+
+“Will Uncle Garland say I’m fair, Ellie?” Frankie appealed to her.
+
+“I reckon.”
+
+“Are you cross, Ellie?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well you sure act sick then. Doesn’t she, Ma?”
+
+Ellen, who found tears started easily now, who was wary of her sudden
+sieges of self-pity, was running from the room. Again she dipped the
+pen.
+
+   Mr. Christian Ay,
+
+   There is a need for me to speak with you. I wish you were still
+   hired to Brinker. I fear you have forgot me and this is but a
+   striving after wind. Could you make a way to write or send word?
+
+                                                           Ellen Gaddy
+                                                     Millville, Ktcky.
+
+This she addressed, Mr. Christian Ay, Care of Ay’s Store, Louisville,
+Ktcky.
+
+She mused, near suffocating in the loneliness. Had she led him on as
+Christian had declared? Had she sinned? Her brows contracted and she
+searched again the halls of memory for meanings. Surely she had known to
+fear that which befell. Here in the countryside tales were constantly
+bruited and old songs sung of fallen virgins and light young men. The
+Bible related dire warnings and horrid punishments meted out to defiled
+maids. She had led him to their sin then. But that wasn’t so. I didn’t
+knowing lead him on. I wasn’t a wanton. There came to her mind the
+woodchucks Anton trapped. A shotgun often didn’t penetrate the small
+thick skulls so steel traps were set in their underground paths. If a
+creature blundered and felt the sudden grip, it would strive with its
+greatest strength. And if it could not tear free, it backed into its
+den, pulling the trap after. There it gnawed its own leg above the metal
+jaws. It destroyed a part of its flesh, knowing it was a way.
+
+When the next morning was just made, two scalded hog carcasses were
+hanging from the sourwood scaffold. The blood had been caught in a bowl
+and taken to the kitchen for boiling and seasoning. The great white
+wrinkled heads were on the porch in a red-daubed washtub. “If there was
+a ooman with child about,” Sam grunted as they were hoisting the scraped
+bodies by gambrel sticks thrust through the hamstrings, “we’d have to
+take care to cover this mess. Butchering blood on the earth marks a
+child.”
+
+“I don’t have those worries any more.” Anton tossed the liver and
+kidneys and sweetbreads in the pan Ellen brought out to them.
+
+The fire was dying under the iron cauldron. Soon hams were piled in a
+heap along with the sagging shoulders and sides on a lye-scrubbed plank.
+The sausage-making began. Sam was scraping the inverted intestines
+preliminary to stuffing them. He stopped to hone his knife on a
+whetstone he carried in his pocket, spat on it for lubrication. “My old
+ooman came back last night. First thing Eadie did was boil up hot
+mustard water and set her feet in it. She chewed up a sourwood twig to
+make her a snuff brush. Give me a dipping, Samuel, she says, I’m
+tuckered.” He sat back thoughtful. “For Gawd, my house was a lonely
+place against that old hen’s return.”
+
+Anton sliced chunks of meat savagely, the razor-sharp knife whipping
+close to his finger tips. He held his silence, fed the pork into the
+grinder.
+
+In the kitchen the women were preparing in their fashion for the
+celebration ahead. Anton had given Ellen coins with which to buy sugar
+when she did her trading, and for spices and raisins to put in the
+holiday cakes. In this season when his brother came for the annual
+visit, Anton would have no stinting. “Girl,” he said to her, “my ma used
+to make a pale holytide cake. There were whites of eggs beat in bowls
+and it was thick with nuts and sugared fruits. Not black like those
+strong sorghum ones you-all make. Hum.” He nodded, complacent.
+
+Ellen was assenting, eager. “I’ll ask Mrs. Love. Could be she’s learned
+the rule of such a cake, Pa.”
+
+“And when you’re trading, go down of an evening when priest is holding
+hours for confession. Your uncle be due on Saturday, and I’ll have you
+all at the communion rail when he’s here, proper pious.”
+
+Before walking the muddy road to Millville in the cloudy darkened late
+afternoon, Ellen went to her room. She was binding her waist tight with
+a length of cloth. “I can’t see nothing yet, but Stacey Love might.”
+
+In the confessional box, she whispered to the young priest. “Bless me,
+Father Tompert. I confess to God and you that I’ve sinned. My last
+confession was Easter.” She despaired. It’s all made up of falseness.
+I’ve no right to be here.
+
+“Confess your sins since then, child.”
+
+“I took God’s name in vain. One time I did truly hate my pa.”
+
+“Have you had any impure thoughts, my child?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“If you have any of these kind of thoughts you must do your best to
+banish them. Are you truly sorry for your sins?”
+
+“I am, Father.”
+
+She went to kneel in a pew, forbearing to recite the penance prayers the
+priest had assigned to her. Instead she asked the Virgin to have pity,
+to understand why she was mute to Father Tompert for the sake of Anton’s
+pride. She was thus driven, with a measure of courage, to rejecting the
+rituals bestowed on her since a cross was hung about her throat as a
+baby, since she first held the beads and lisped the Credo. And praying
+to Mary, Ellen emerged with her as a personal god. She grasped the
+blue-gowned symbol in her need as if it were flesh and blood and could
+wield an influence on her fate. She denied the immense father figure of
+God without debating it.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In coming days she would meet the mail carrier in his Model T, take back
+her second letter and place it with the other in the trunk. She at last
+put aside the hope of finding Christian Ay.
+
+By Friday, cakes and tarts, breads, cheeses and dried fruit pies were
+overflowing from the pantry shelves. Hams and sidemeat were curing in
+the smokehouse, sausages strung lavish from the shed eaves. There were
+crocks of fried meat packed in white fat, as well as headcheese,
+liverwurst, and tins of fresh lard. In the hot kitchen, Maria was baking
+breads and biscuits in the newly-blacked range, vaguely wakened in the
+prospect of a visitor. She spoke to Ellen, “Get wax candles when you go
+by Love’s next time, girl. The tallow ones ain’t suited for Mester
+Garland Gaddy.”
+
+Frankie was at the long table, a basket of butternuts and walnuts on the
+floor by her. She was cracking them on a sadiron with a blow of an old
+hammer head. She looked up, “You’re right peaked, Ellie. Are you
+ailing?”
+
+“I’ll hunt out some of that bloodroot tonic,” Maria said, “if you got
+the complaint. It’ll make new blood.”
+
+“I’d as lief you’d sing again,” Frankie was saying. “And you used to cut
+up so. Seems you’ve given it up.”
+
+Ellen, startled, burned her hand on the iron pan she was taking from the
+oven. She shook her wrist to ease the seep of pain.
+
+“Go smear yellow soap on it,” her mother said, “it’ll draw out the
+heat.”
+
+Ellen rubbed on the soap, blinking her eyes. She sang to hide the tears
+and to hold her tongue from blurting her trouble.
+
+   If I had known before I courted
+   That love had been so hard to win
+   I’d have locked my heart with the keys of golden
+   And pinned it down with a silver pin
+
+“That’s too lamenting, Ellie. Sing that one Penny used to. About that
+Minnie.”
+
+   Hush little Minnie and don’t say a word
+   Papa’s going to buy me a mocking bird
+   It can whistle and it can sing
+   It can do most anything
+
+They were making ready for the guest coming. Calico was hung across one
+end of the downstairs bedroom to form a separate chamber in which
+Garland would sleep. A chair was placed by the bed and a stone-topped
+table. In its base was a chamber pot, and on top a crockery pitcher with
+pink roses glazed on its surface set in a matching basin. A cake of
+store soap lay in a dish, a towel folded beside it. They ripped the bed
+tick open, removed the old stuffing, and filled it with soft wheat
+straw. The one feather pallet was aired and placed on the mattress, and
+over all they spread muslin sheets and their best quilts.
+
+That night Ellen was in a chair in the warm parlor, her back aching from
+the long hours, a piece of mending in her hand. Dark had come on, the
+lamp was throwing feeble quivering shadows. Anton was holding the Bible
+and his lips moved. He raised his eyes, studied the image of Joseph
+alone on the table. He spoke, abrupt, “Where’s the Virgin Mary that
+stood there with Joseph? She be broke, I vow.”
+
+Ellen looked up in alarm. “I took her to the loft-room, Pa. What with
+holytide, I thought it would please you if I prayed to her, pious-like.”
+
+“Well, I allow you can keep her for a spell. But she’ll not be broke,
+girl.”
+
+“No, Pa. I’ll take care.” She arose. “Reckon I’ll go to bed. Coming,
+Frankie?”
+
+He stopped them. “I’ll say the prayer to Michael once for this family.
+Get down, you-all.”
+
+On their knees the women were waiting, their shadows cast like gentle
+giants on the wall. The man knelt by the lamp and his specter engulfed
+theirs. “Holy Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our
+safeguard against the snares of the devil. Thou, Prince of the heavenly
+host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits
+that wander through the world seeking the ruination of souls.”
+
+The temperature dropped in the night. As they were beginning the morning
+chores, whitefrost covered the land. The remote stars were cold and
+challenging. Ellen shivered, feeling her frailty. “What does it matter?
+One soul like me. I’m but a grain in a field of wheat. Who’s to heed if
+I be lone or have a sin to burn me?”
+
+She was closing the woodshed door. Her two goats got up in the
+half-light by the stone wall. Their beards twitched as they chewed in
+unison, their hair stood out woolly. “Why did I e’er take up with the
+careless love of Christian Ay?”
+
+She was putting bread crusts and salt and soybeans from her pocket in
+the wood trough. She laid her hands on the animals’ soft necks. “Here’s
+some linseed meal for richness. You feel the storm coming?”
+
+She went to get a bucket of tepid water that had stood by the kitchen
+range all night, carried it to the barnyard fowl. They were huddling
+together, feathers ruffled, on the pole roosts. She threw cracked corn
+on the dirt floor of their shed, and the birds hopped down one by one to
+eat, singing and crooning over the food. “Tonight I’ll mix a sprinkle of
+red pepper in your wet mash to warm your craws while you sleep.” Tending
+the creatures of the farm, Ellen took comfort and so forgot herself.
+
+
+                                   6
+
+Garland Gaddy, in a new green Ford, was returning to the home of his
+youth. As he drove up the lane, Anton was in the barn on his knees while
+the old cow Bramble, delivered him twin heifers. But Garland’s nieces
+bade him welcome. They showed him the feather bed and he was well
+pleased. He took Ellen in his arms. “You’re a handsome wench, hon. Last
+Christmas you were a child and here you’re nearly a woman. What does
+Anton say when the young men come sparking?” He pinched her thigh,
+smiling warm.
+
+“You’re plaguing me, Uncle. But he’s a sight for sore eyes, isn’t he,
+Frankie?”
+
+“Oh he is.”
+
+At night when the festive meal was over they sat in the parlor. The wind
+growled, and above the alders at the pond the moon bobbed like a ball on
+a chain while water-shadows trembled. Anton kept a fire roaring,
+carrying armfuls of oak logs from the kitchen and piling them on the
+hearth. Garland brought out a fifth of contraband whisky, setting the
+bottle on the round table. The two men tasted from the heavy kitchen
+glasses. “This be good moon, Gar.”
+
+“Well, it beats needle beer. Place I get it has all their hooch analyzed
+and tested by a registered chemist. Ought to be good. Cost fifteen
+dollars a bottle.”
+
+“Christ.” Anton was impressed. “Smithy sold me some Jackass Peach Brandy
+from Virginia. Fifty cents a pint jar.”
+
+“Better watch out for that junk. Break you down inside. Internal
+bleeding. I wouldn’t drink a thing made down here in the Bible belt.”
+
+Ellen was sent to the cellar for a bottle of pale sweet wine that Anton
+made yearly from his scuppernong grapes, the vine of which had been
+planted five decades ago by Jules Gaddy, the father of the brothers.
+Ellen had put a scarf at her neck and it became her. She poured the
+wine, and came behind her uncle in his chair. When she put her head
+against his while he was talking, her hair fell on his shoulders. And
+she loved him.
+
+Garland Gaddy was the middle one of three brothers, a bachelor. He was a
+head taller than Anton, overweight, not yet fat. His small eyes were
+light blue, his once-blond hair had turned gray, he trimmed a neat
+mustache. His jaw was square, his lips full. He wore hand-cut dark
+suits, vivid ties. As a child he had shared with Anton their mother’s
+neglect, had run away from home at nineteen to prowl the states from
+coast to coast, brawling and scattering his seed. Then when he was
+twenty-nine, Anton offered him the sum of fifteen hundred dollars in
+cash, Maria’s dowry, for his half the farm. Garland had accepted,
+hitchhiking to Chicago with the bills sewn into his belt. He soon was
+co-owner of a thriving burlesque house. Now, over twenty years later,
+from his office on State Street he handled a set of neighborhood
+theatres where vaudeville and the silver screen vied for public
+approval.
+
+Anton was affected by the abundance of festive food, the polished house,
+and the women’s raiment. Maria even, had laid aside the sack apron she
+usually pinned on and was wearing her churchgoing black dress and an
+ecru crocheted collar. Anton nearly begrudged the honor they paid
+Garland, although his pride assured him that the tribute was to himself.
+“Say, Gar, I call to mind when we were youngens, and Ma was honing for
+that black driving rig. You recollect? Our sir had but two gold dollars.
+So he went to Trader Bocock. Said, Bocock, you can have this gold and
+all the rocks you can haul out of that rye field if you’ll trade that
+rig to me.”
+
+“She get the buggy, Pa?” asked Frankie.
+
+“Bet she did, hon,” Garland said.
+
+“What did the trader want of rocks?”
+
+“I don’t know. But Bocock had the field cleaned before spring plowing,”
+said Anton.
+
+“Ma managed to get what she wanted pretty near every time,” Garland
+said.
+
+“Hum.” Anton packed his pipe, pushing with his thick thumb. “Had her
+hands full. Say, Frankie, play for us, and sing the prayer you learned.”
+
+Frankie obeyed.
+
+   Angel of God, my Guardian dear
+   To whom his love commits me here
+   E’er this day be at my side
+   To light and guard, to rule and guide
+
+“That’s a special prayer, you know, Garland. Priest says it’s worth a
+hundred days’ indulgence. Sing it once more, Poppet.”
+
+“I better learn that one.” Garland kept time with his hand. He got up to
+stand by the upright piano, tapping his foot. “You know the old
+one—Captain Jinks?”
+
+“I don’t think so, Uncle.”
+
+“Goes like this.” Garland made several false tries before he sang in
+off-key:
+
+   I’m Captain Jinks of the horse marines
+   I feed my horse on corn and beans
+   And court the ladies in their teens
+   For that’s the style in the army
+
+“That’s a new one, Uncle,” Ellen said.
+
+Garland was pulling her hand, drawing her beside him. “You sing with
+me.”
+
+When they had finished, Ellen offered, “Want to hear one of Penny’s
+tales?”
+
+“That roaring ooman,” growled Anton. “Tell you, Gar, she couldn’t cut an
+onion or hold a scrub brush without she was screeching some foldilay.”
+
+“Let’s hear it, puss.” Garland sat back in his chair. Ellen stood behind
+him to sing while Frankie played. Anton bit his pipe in his yellowed
+teeth and the smoke wreathed. Maria knitted, her lips moving
+occasionally with an inner thought.
+
+   I courted pretty Pol the livelong night
+   Then left her next morn before it was light
+
+The song told of how Pol went riding off with the man and then,
+
+   They went a bit further and what did they spy
+   But a new-dug grave and a spade lying by,
+   Willie, O Willie, I’m afraid of your way
+   I’m afraid you will lead my poor body astray
+   Pretty Pol, pretty Pol, you’re thinking just right
+   I dug on your grave the best part of last night
+
+And Willie stabbed the girl and put her in the grave.
+
+   He threw a bit of dirt o’er her and started for home
+   Leaving no one behind but the wild doves to mourn
+
+“Now, if that ain’t a dumb fool story,” Anton snorted.
+
+Ellen looked down at Garland and he patted her hands, placing them on
+his shoulders. “I liked it.”
+
+“You e’er hear,” she asked quickly because of the tears that were
+trapped by her father’s scorn, “it will strengthen a man’s eyes to have
+a mustache?”
+
+“Well,” he laughed, “I’ll keep it then.”
+
+Uncle’s so kind. It came on her as he was stroking her wrists.
+
+Anton lifted his head. “My sir said his grandsir in France owned a
+sporting hog one time. You mind that story, Gar?”
+
+“He called her Slut,” Garland said. “He was a gamekeeper in one of the
+king’s forests. Bred his own dogs, taught them to stand and back game.
+They say he was watching the men and saw the pups weren’t responding.
+Little black shoat went by, not a wild hog, she was the kind that ran
+loose in the forest those days. Made a wager with the men, he could
+train and break the shoat faster than they could the dogs. He penned
+her, taught her to come to her name. She pointed small game and
+partridge. After awhile she’d retrieve rabbit and pheasant, careful,
+too, she didn’t harm them—all sorts of game. Did better than his dogs.
+And backed them when she saw them point. That hog’s nose was so true
+she’d point a bird fifty yards away. In a straight line. That’s the
+story anyway.”
+
+“He win the bet?” Frankie asked.
+
+“Oh sure, hon.”
+
+“Came when he hollered,” said Ellen. “Wish I could have seen that.”
+
+“Did she run good or was she too fat?” asked Frankie.
+
+“She was trim. She’d come at full gallop. Excited like the dogs when she
+saw a gun.”
+
+Maria said, “They must have set store by that beast.”
+
+“You bet,” Garland turned to her, “and you know, Maria, when Slut was
+ten years old she weighed half a ton and they still hunted with her.”
+
+“Ain’t that a tale, Frankie?” Anton demanded. “Those were the olden
+days. Then there came the time of Napoleon the Bonyparty. Pa’s grandsir
+had to soldier under him. He’d watch o’er the old country and if some
+land like Germany was trying to conquer a scroungy sort of a country,
+why Napoleon the Bonyparty, he’d say no. He’d get in front of his army
+and go lick Germany or whate’er land it happened to be. He stayed in
+France between wars and our great grandsir belonged to his company.”
+Anton shrugged with pride. “That fellow wasn’t the king, he worked for
+himself. He made his living that way, watching o’er the old country.”
+
+“Say, my great great grandsir,” claimed Frankie, “knew Napoleon the
+Bonyparty.”
+
+“Well,” Garland was laughing, “tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. Let’s hit the
+hay.”
+
+Ellen stayed awake far into the night. The wind was tugging at her
+window and the lonely dark pressed down. Her lips were dry and her mouth
+became as cotton. I’ll tell Uncle tomorrow for sure. At length she
+lapsed into a fitful sleep while in the parlor below the fire died to
+coals and field mice came from the walls to nibble crumbs and nut meats
+fallen on the rugs.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+At breakfast Maria was stirring a pancake batter while the girls fried
+sausages and potatoes, set out slices of blood pudding, crocks of jam
+and sorghum. “I favor lacing griddle-cakes with hot sausage fat,” Anton
+said. “Sweetening takes the taste out.”
+
+Garland, clad in a red shirt, new hunting pants and shining engineers
+boots, beamed. “Good old country sorghum for me. Well, pusses, what’s
+new? Anyone dream about a pointing pig? Or poor Pol? Or Napoleon?”
+
+“I ne’er,” giggled Frankie, “but tell another story.”
+
+“Well, you know that same great-great-grandfather of yours that trained
+Slut, went to Russia with Napoleon’s army. There was a bad winter and
+Napoleon beat it back to France. He let most of the troops die in the
+snow without food.”
+
+“I don’t take much stock in that,” said Anton. “I doubt Bonyparty did
+that.”
+
+“Now, Anton, you know Pa used to talk about it. How they conscripted all
+the men of the village, twenty-three of them. And only his grandfather
+came back.”
+
+“He must have been strong. They say he was a good-looker, too,” said
+Anton. “Finest in the village, a proud one.”
+
+“Doesn’t look like you or me inherited much from him,” laughed Garland.
+
+“Reckon Marc took after him,” Anton said, “for he was the dandy of us
+three boys.”
+
+“Well,” Garland asked, “what you pusses got to report this morning?”
+
+“One of the barn cats brought in a little mole yesterday,” said Frankie.
+
+“You didn’t know I lost my white kid last summer, Uncle,” Ellen said.
+“He was but two months old.” Lines still edged her eyes when she spoke
+of it. “You ne’er got to see him.”
+
+“I was telling about the mole, Ellie.”
+
+Garland listened to them, then said suddenly, “Now An, here’s something
+I’ve been meaning to bring up. Been thinking a lot about Frankie here.
+About her coming up to the city next year. You see, I want everything to
+go right. She needs to make a good impression from the start. Now you
+folks don’t realize it, but you practically talk like first settlers
+with that old-fashioned country dialect. Think Frankie could take
+lessons in grammar or speech this coming year to correct some of that?”
+
+Anton had been spearing sausages and pancakes with a fork. He paused.
+The blood was leaping to his cheekbones, his freckles stood out in vivid
+specks. He made a guttural sound and scraped his chair back. He spat the
+food from his pendulous lips on to the table before him, hurled the
+sausage and fork to the floor. “Hit do be my sir’s tongue and my ma’s
+and before God, hit’ll be that girl’s. She’ll go forth with hit and no
+more farting teaching mesters will I suck upon.” He flung himself from
+the house.
+
+Ellen began to weep. Maria was taking up a cloth to clean the table and
+the floor. Frankie looked at her uncle and her eyes were wary, her voice
+small, “You’re not afraid?”
+
+“Jesus Wept, no, puss. Have another flapjack and I’ll talk to him when
+he cools off. That squirt always had a hot temper.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen snared the largest of the geese by a stout pink leg. She bore it
+to the stump, placed its head between the spikes and cleaved the neck
+just below the jaw. She threw the beheaded bird from her to flail its
+wings and flop about. She handed the head to Jack, eager and knowing. “I
+see you licking your chops.” She tore the down from the breast, stuffing
+it into a sack. She brought a pail of boiling water, scalded the carcass
+and finished the plucking. She gave the entrails to the chickens to
+pick, washed the heavy bird under the pump, hung it near the sausages
+dangling from the eaves in the shed.
+
+In the kitchen, Anton was tipping his chair back. He took from his
+pocket a twist of tobacco leaves and sliced the end with his jackknife.
+He thrust his short legs in front of him, balancing. “Hell, Gar, might
+be it’s as you say and Frankie’s speech is queer to city folk. But what
+matters her way of speech if she’s to make music? If you say so, why
+I’ll get her a grammar mester. But hark at me, Gar,” and his eyes were
+glinting, “don’t ne’er speak again such as you did there before them
+oomen-folk. Like what I say ain’t gospel.”
+
+“Chrissake, get off your high horse. They know you’re boss.” Garland
+ground his cigarette butt in a plate and laughed. He ran his little
+finger across his mustache, touching his sensuous lips. “I was always
+big enough to lick you if it came to that, now wasn’t I?”
+
+“You’ve tried hit.”
+
+“I always give you good advice. Now here’s another bone I want to pick.
+Indoor plumbing.” He hit his fist on the table. “You think you’ve
+progressed because you dug a new privy ten years ago. Maria and those
+young girls haul water from the well like pioneers. This is December
+nineteen twenty-five. The century of progress.” Again the fist.
+
+“They got a sink and a clear drain that our ma ne’er had,” Anton
+drawled, tobacco juice staining the corners of his mouth, “and she ne’er
+had a deep hole like our shithouse but just a board and a shed. Nor that
+sweet-water well that Witch Lufty found. I see you’ve gone soft in the
+city.” The farmer was pleased, for now the ground was familiar. He
+backed down only when there was jeopardy to his younger daughter’s
+future.
+
+“Yes, guess I was going soft, Anton, when I got you that loan back in
+the war when times were bad. So you could buy good milkers and get shed
+of that worthless herd you were supporting. Guess it’s soft to buy a
+good breed of chickens or thoroughbred hogs.”
+
+“Hell, those are beasts where we make our living. Hit’s not the same.”
+Anton stumped to the stove and lifting the round iron lid with the
+poker, spat on the coals. They sizzled. “And I paid that loan back, Gar.
+Hard cash from crops and milk.” He replaced the lid with a violent
+noise.
+
+“I give up. Chrissake, you’re stubborn.” Garland arose. “I suppose you’d
+declare you’ll never run in a line and wire the farm for electricity?”
+
+“I was born by lamplight and I’ll see that I die by it.”
+
+“Well, I’ve got two or three Christmas packages in the Ford.” Garland
+was going to the door. “Good a time as any to bring them in. Frankie,”
+he shouted, “call off that practicing and come with me. Jesus Wept, this
+is a holiday.”
+
+Anton was sawing his fist in the air, exhorting, “Remove not the ancient
+landmark which thy fathers have set, says the Word. Mind, Gar.”
+
+That evening an austere meal of bread and cabbage soup was consumed. By
+custom the family semi-fasted before communion. They would wait to eat
+of the festive food when they returned from midnight mass. After supper
+the girls popped corn and cracked nuts to put on the table. Ellen boiled
+up a pan of taffy at Garland’s suggestion. She buttered her hands and
+pulled it with him until it cooled into long pale sticks. But all his
+jokes and laughter did not rouse her from her lassitude.
+
+At mass she moistened her tongue to swallow the dry communion disk. It
+seemed to her that now truly the door was closed on her childhood. As
+she returned to the pew she grieved, weighing what she had read in her
+Bible. If thou hast done foolishly in lifting thyself, or if thou hast
+thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth. For as the churning of milk
+bringeth forth butter and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood,
+so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife. I’ll have to find a way
+to leave my home, a place to go and drop this wayside colt.
+
+Garland drove the green car back down the road to the farm. He was
+talkative and his mood had passed to his brother. “Tell you,” Anton was
+yawning, “I’ll ne’er forget that Christmas I passed shivering and
+repenting while sleeping up against the cows, and thinking of you and
+Marc warm in the quilts. I’d been whipped on my knees for leaving the
+cow gate open. You remember it? That was one.”
+
+The car lights beamed down the corduroy road. The night was parted like
+great doors swinging open on hinges. I haven’t told Uncle yet. A light
+fall of snow was starting and the wind hushed.
+
+The store-wrapped gifts that Garland had laid on the table in the parlor
+were opened Christmas morning. Anton was puffing at a hand-rolled cigar.
+“If you be setting and your hands be idle, hit’s a good enough
+pleasure,” he said, stinting. “I even heard they’re rolling cigars now
+with a machine.”
+
+Ellen opened her package, took out a hat of crushed blue satin, a silk
+rose on its soft brim. “My, that’s fair.” Her voice was tremulous
+because of his care for her.
+
+“Put it on, hon,” he was saying. “Ordered it special from the milliner.
+You know, satin’s the thing this year. Say, when she wears that to mass,
+Anton, you’ll have to keep the beaus back with a shotgun.”
+
+Maria smoothed her fingers over a black crepe de Chine dress. Frankie
+ran to try on one of pink wool, to fling herself upon Garland while her
+father smoked in his chair, tracing her movements with a jealous eye.
+“E’er see the glass bowl-garden Frankie made me last summer, Gar?” he
+asked. “Hit’s setting in the bedroom window.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen was drying the breakfast dishes when Garland came into the room.
+He had on a bright striped jacket and brown corded jodhpurs. His gray
+hair was neat, his square jaw shaven. “Don’t you ever get tired of all
+this work, puss? You never get a change, hidden out on the farm here by
+yourself.”
+
+“It’s my home, Uncle. And I love the earth and its doings. Sometimes in
+the summer it comes on such an hour like when the Lord God walked in the
+garden of Eden. Sometimes a wind passes o’er the earth that’s fair and
+all its bounty is spread before.” The wetness stood in her eyes as she
+was blurting it.
+
+“I know, but you’ve got your future to think about. You should meet
+people. Get around. Your father dotes on Frankie too much, never gives a
+thought to you. It’s not right, you know.”
+
+“It’s his way.”
+
+“You got a boy friend?”
+
+“No.” Water filled her eyes again.
+
+Garland tapped the table. “It’s your father. Keeps you kids cloistered
+like a pair of nuns.”
+
+Ellen was stacking the dried silver in the milkglass jar. She turned to
+him, desperation fringing her tones. “I would as lief go from the farm
+awhile, to see the world outside.”
+
+“Course you would, sweet.” He was hearty. “That’s only normal. Now what
+chore comes next?”
+
+“Tending my goats.” She was taking her coat from its hook. “Want to
+come?”
+
+With the dog trailing after, they took the path over which Ellen had
+sped light in the summer past. She fed her does and was standing at the
+gate while they ate, her eyes absorbed. Garland smoked his cigarette,
+observing her a while. “How would you like to visit me in Chicago,
+sweet? Work’ll be light here till spring. They can get along without
+you.”
+
+She breathed soft, “Pa’d not have it.”
+
+“He doesn’t need you. Got your sister to keep him company.”
+
+“He does so need me.”
+
+“Well then, he can let you have a vacation.” He smiled. “Does he ever
+strap you now you’re a grown girl?”
+
+“No, but I call to mind when I was a child and once Ma said I picked at
+a rhubarb pie from the pantry shelf. I ne’er knew of it being there. Pa
+cut a hickory, length of his arm, and beat me. Made me kneel. Said I
+lied. I won’t squall and that gets his back up.” She rubbed with her
+finger the area between the black stub horns of Rhodie, veiling her
+eyes. “Reckon I’d love to visit at your house.”
+
+“Well, it’s high time. I’ll throw a party when you come. I’ll talk to
+Anton this afternoon. Tell him it’s only logical for you to be first
+since you’re the oldest. He’ll let you. You’ll see.” He was putting his
+arm around Ellen. She leaned against him with a sigh. “You’re a sweet
+girl, hon.” He kissed her, lingering on the young mouth.
+
+Ellen decided not to say more to him now. I’ll wait till I’m at his
+house to tell him he must help me.
+
+Anton wasn’t averse to Ellen’s journey. Garland had emphasized how he
+was making ready for Frankie’s arrival the next year, and he spoke of
+the money he planned to spend on her.
+
+Maria said suddenly, “Who’ll do the trading if Ellie goes off?”
+
+“Enough jawing on this,” cried Anton. “I’ll send Sam, ooman. Ellie’ll
+not be gone two-three weeks.”
+
+Garland laughed, “Her turn comes first. You don’t mind, do you,
+Frankie?”
+
+“Oh no, I want her to go. Maybe I could do the trading, Pa? Just while
+Ellie’s gone?”
+
+“No, Poppet. Say, is she riding back with you in the auto?” Anton
+inquired.
+
+“I guess not. No, I’ll be going by way of St. Louis. I’ve got some
+business to look after. Then I’ll drive on up and get the house in
+order. I’ve never gotten ready for one of these young ladies before.”
+
+“She’s taking a train then?” Anton was persistent.
+
+“This is my treat. I’m giving Ellen the ticket money. It’s an extra
+Christmas present.”
+
+“Well. If you want,” Anton said, relieved.
+
+Ellen stood by them pale, her eyes fastened to her uncle. He nodded,
+“Come the middle of January, puss. Leave here on the fifteenth. I know
+the train. There’s only one out of New Hope that goes to Chicago.”
+
+“Yes, Uncle.”
+
+“It’s foolishness.” Anton walked out.
+
+Before Garland left, he came on Ellen alone, slipping her an envelope of
+money. “No need to mention this to your father. What he doesn’t know
+won’t hurt him. Just tell him I gave you enough for your ticket.”
+
+“All right, Uncle.” She held the extra money tightly in her apron
+pocket.
+
+On the morning after New Year’s Day, Garland was jaunty in his yellow
+driving cap and raccoon coat. The girls were helping him carry his bags
+out to the Ford. Then he unfolded the hood, examined the interior.
+“That’ll do.” He fastened the hood down, removed the figured radiator
+cap and dipped a finger. “Water.”
+
+Frankie brought a pail from the pump. “Can I do it?”
+
+“No, this is fine.” He poured until it flowed over, replaced the cap,
+and opened the car door. “Here goes one more year.”
+
+“Wish you’d stay on a while,” said Frankie.
+
+“There,” Maria said, “I love that dress. I ne’er had a silk one before.”
+
+“That’s crepe de Chine, Maria,” Garland laughed, “it’s the style.”
+
+“It’s not silk, ooman,” Anton said, “that stuff’s too dear.”
+
+“Yes, is it,” Garland said. “It’s one kind of silk. Well, here I go.”
+His gloved hand was waving from the window. The exhaust rose in a fog,
+dogging the car in the chill air.
+
+The days sped. It was time for Ellen to leave. She had bought a length
+of dark heavy cloth with some of the money Garland had given her. She
+made it into a dress, cutting so it hung in loose folds on her hips. “I
+can feel where it lays hard in me. Soon the cleverest stitching won’t
+hide it.”
+
+She had given Frankie the primrose bulb from Brinkers’ kitchen. “Hope it
+fares well. Keep in mind to feed it cold tea. And do tend my goats,
+Frankie.”
+
+“You’re only going for a week or so, Ellie.”
+
+“Uncle said I might stay a little longer.”
+
+Ellen was bringing salt to her two does. They licked her hands, leaning
+affectionate against her. She knew the places they liked best to be
+rubbed, along the withers and between the horns, on the silken spots
+behind their small pricked ears, on their throats below the beards.
+“Frankie’s promised to care for you.”
+
+Maria said, “Bye now. When you reckon Mester Gaddy’ll be back from
+taking you to Millville? I’m out of coffee.”
+
+Frankie was kissing Ellen fondly. “It’ll be right lonely with you off
+there. I’ll miss your singing, too.” Frankie’s qualms for her own
+leavetaking a year hence were exposed when she viewed Ellen’s breakaway.
+“There. I’m that eager to go to Uncle’s myself.” But she whispered,
+plaintive, “Wish I was little again. What if it’s not fun like you think
+it’ll be, Ellie?”
+
+“I ain’t afraid,” Ellen spoke stoutly as she stepped down to where the
+team waited; her tan coat was covering her new dress, she wore the blue
+satin hat. Jack was flattening his ears and going to sit amid the weeds
+on the bank to await her return.
+
+Anton drove the buckwagon, Ellen on the railed seat beside him. At
+Love’s she would wait to catch a ride on the milk truck to New Hope.
+“You be a credit to me, girl. I don’t favor your idling about in that
+Zion. And you’ll not lust after young men, mind.” He was nodding. “So I
+told my brother.” He reined in the team outside the store. Ellen went in
+for Maria’s coffee. She handed it up to him. “I’ll see you in two weeks’
+time. You can write and I’ll make a way to get you home.”
+
+“Yes, Pa. Goodbye.” Ellen watched the buckboard until she could barely
+make out her father’s round hat.
+
+In Love’s store, she was peering through the wide window. Stacey Love
+rocked, vigorous, by the stove. “Hit’s a far piece where you’re going.”
+Grady was chopping wood and the report of his ax was heard. “I always
+thought a heap of Mester Gaddy’s brother.” She placed a pinch of snuff
+between her lower lip and teeth. “Though I ne’er had no truck with
+another Yankee.”
+
+Ellen kept silence, sickened with excitement and fear.
+
+“You’re sure looking seedy, Ellen. I was telling Grady you seemed kind
+of pinched this winter.” Stacey swayed back and forth.
+
+There was a noise at the door and Lily Garrett was pushing in, her curls
+springing about her soft face. “Well, hey you-all.”
+
+“Wish I had a rich uncle,” Stacey went on quietly.
+
+“Why, Ellie Gaddy,” the fat girl cried, “where you going all smartened
+up? And you got a new hat. Look at that rose.”
+
+Ellen kept her back to them. She continued looking up the road, the
+pulse in her throat throbbing.
+
+“Ellen’s leaving us poor folks, Lily. Going to the big city.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Love,” whispered Ellen.
+
+“My goodness,” cried Lily, “you ne’er told me.”
+
+“Wish I could go visiting,” Stacey said, “lie around in bed of a
+morning.”
+
+“You-all heard,” Lily called to Ellen, “Buck Lemmon and Sophie Goode
+wedded? Kept it a secret. It was at the husking bee they met up. How
+come you didn’t go to the bee, Ellie? Mandy declared you were going.”
+
+Ellen looked around. “My pa wouldn’t suffer neither me or Frankie to go,
+Lily. That’s all.”
+
+“I calculate Buck Lemmon seen Sophie a sight before that husking bee,”
+Stacey said flatly.
+
+“Whate’er you mean?” Lily was giggling.
+
+“I ain’t saying,” Stacey smiled. “But you e’er see such a funny-looking
+girl as Sophie? I marvel at her catching a fine fellow like Buck. I can
+see she’s wearing stays and binding herself so it won’t show. Guess she
+allows she’ll fool somebody that way. Buck told me himself she’s been to
+see Doc Trumbo. Lazy old sow.”
+
+“There’s the milk truck.” Ellen turned to flee. Lily was kissing her
+extravagantly at the door while Stacey waved a hand and renewed her wad
+of snuff. Ellen hailed the truck. “Can I hitch a ride to New Hope,
+Mester Durley?”
+
+“Sure thing, Miss Gaddy.” Those were his last words until they reached
+the New Hope station.
+
+“I’m beholden, Mester Durley,” she said as she was taking her bag.
+
+“Sure thing.”
+
+In her valise was the plaster of Paris image of the Virgin Mary, and
+Ellen was somewhat fortified by its presence.
+
+
+                                   7
+
+The whistle was shrieking as the train coursed into the suburbs late in
+the night. The cars slunk past small sharp-angled houses, massive
+factories belching fire, streets of lighted stores and cafes,
+slow-moving people and streetcars, trucks, wagons and horses or mules,
+buggies, automobiles. The coach cars were strung with yellow window
+links that curved on the track ahead into a tunnel. Ellen saw muffled
+groups of people under bright station lamps. Her journey was done. She
+reached the cold cement of a pillared runway, stood impotent,
+bewildered, jostled by passengers on their separate ways. She was
+clutching her bag in one hand, the other in her coat pocket held her
+handkerchief in which the money was knotted. A familiar voice spoke in
+her ear, “Well, here’s the little country wench.”
+
+It was Garland, suave in a tight-fitting suit and spotted tie, a derby
+on his head. He carried a fur coat, his face seemed old and yellowed in
+the glare of the platform. He kissed her mouth and she felt the
+mustache, clung to him. “I thought I got lost, Uncle.”
+
+“Porter.” Yellow taxicabs were waiting in a line. They got in one and
+drove a long time. She was asleep, her head limp against the hard
+leather. Garland was waking her. “This is it, sweet.”
+
+She stumbled after him up granite stairs. He stooped over to unlock a
+door, pushed it open and they went into an unlighted hall where a
+staircase reared. “How about something to eat? Some hot milk?” He
+flashed on a light overhead.
+
+“I reckon I’d better just sleep, Uncle. I’m beat.”
+
+“Your room’s up here.” He was climbing ahead on the broad uncarpeted
+steps, carrying her valise. A musty odor lingered about them.
+
+“My, you’ve got a big house, Uncle.” Her voice was loud in the echoing
+vestibule.
+
+“It’s big all right.” He preceded her down the hall and opened a door,
+stepped in and snapped the button of a wall lamp. An orange bulb glowed
+faintly. “If you want more light, there’s one by the bed.” It was a
+high-ceilinged room with a dark red rug. The wide ornate bed was covered
+with a heavy magenta spread and on the wall was a round mirror in a
+gold-scrolled frame. Through the mesh curtains hanging in front of the
+windows Ellen saw lamps in the street underneath and tree branches
+twining still and soundless. The doorbell grated below. “Goodnight, hon.
+Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” He was gone.
+
+Ellen attempted to draw the heavy drapes that hung at the sides of the
+windows, but discovered they were fastened there. She was fumbling at
+window shades, drawing them down. She heard voices raised below,
+stiffened to listen. Through the floor boards came a woman’s faint thin
+laughter. Then all was still. She pulled the chain of the bulb over the
+bed; in the sudden whiteness dust balls in the corners were exposed, and
+stained paper on the walls. She put the light out. Below all remained
+quiet. She folded her dress on an armchair. Cautious, she left the room,
+found the bathroom around an angle in the hallway. When she turned the
+spigot, water spurted and roared. Shy of disturbing the household, she
+washed meagerly, then hurried back and turned off the orange wall light.
+She crept into the cold foreign sheets. And when she slept it was as if
+her fears backed off. In dreaming Christian Ay was taking her hand in
+his. In his way he was laughing as if there was an old joke between the
+two of them.
+
+When she came downstairs in the morning, her footsteps resounded in the
+vestibule, at the end of which was a door. It opened into a large
+green-carpeted room. Somber-colored chairs and sofas were flanked by
+trivial tables bearing bric-a-brac and crystal and cloisonné ash trays.
+On a corner table, in a ponderous silver frame, was a daguerreotype of
+Nell Gaddy, garbed in a ruffled shirtwaist and a wide straw hat tipped
+with an egret’s wing. Beyond she could see the dining room and her uncle
+at an oval table, his breakfast and a newspaper spread before him. He
+waved his hand, called out. He was shaking a little silver bell. She
+crossed the expanse of the green carpet to sit at the table by him. She
+sensed the odd odor of his house. It was the strangeness of another
+lair.
+
+“Mrs. Quimby.” Garland was speaking to an aproned bulky woman at the
+swinging door. “This is my niece, Ellen. She’ll be visiting here.”
+
+“Pleased, be sure,” said Ellen.
+
+The woman turned away, grim, reappeared with a plate of bacon and eggs
+and a cup. Gray-black hair wisped about her face, a formless dress was
+belted on her full hips and buttoned down the front under the apron. Her
+eyes were colorless. She set the food before Ellen and withdrew.
+
+“Don’t let her ways bother you, puss. You’ll get used to her. She’s a
+gem. Been with me years.” He was pouring her coffee. While Ellen ate he
+spoke rapidly, “Sleep well? You do what pleases you. The house is yours.
+I’ll tell Mrs. Quimby you’re mistress. Like that?” He was tapping the
+chair arm with his finger. “Want to go for a walk? That’s Redding Street
+out front. Pretty district here. Old. Want me to invite some friends for
+a party?” He drank the last of his coffee in haste, jingled the bell
+again. The housekeeper instantly opened the door, her mouth a penciled
+line. “Make my niece at home, Mrs. Quimby. Fix her a good lunch. Don’t
+know what time I’ll be back.” He hurried to the vestibule, returning in
+a raccoon coat and black spats. He was holding a cane and a black felt
+derby together in one hand. He looked down at her. “Not much to say,
+puss. You like my house?”
+
+“I do, Uncle.” Ellen couched her words with care, “Be my speech queer
+like you told Pa my sister’s was?”
+
+“Well, of course you talk the same as her, hon. But I don’t want you to
+change. Frankie’ll be living here in Chicago. So that’s different, see?”
+
+“I’d fain live in Millville all my days.”
+
+He kissed her and she smelled the perfumed lotion. He eyed her
+quizzically. “Such a little innocent. Don’t ever change, sweet.” The
+outer door was slamming after him.
+
+The hours passed, the first ever spent away from home, away from the
+ritual of farm work. Ellen saw how mealtimes were varied to suit the
+whim of Mrs. Quimby, how Garland was blind to the management of his
+house. He was gone for many hours in a day, often returning after she
+was in bed. He had little time for her. She would wander through the
+house to sit in the sun-bright bay window in the dining room, to tune in
+the cumbersome radio set on the marble table in the other large shaded
+room. Her plight and its urgent solution lay untamed, twisting in the
+back of her mind. She went upstairs, past the closed doors of the
+hallway to the blue-and-white statuette she had placed on the highboy
+beside the bed. “Deliver me,” she prayed.
+
+On her third day in the house she came to the kitchen, seeking
+companionship, and pushed the door. Sarah Quimby stared from where she
+sat reading a paper booklet. In her hands was a steaming mug that she
+set on the galvanized table top with a sharp click. Behind the
+dour-faced woman was a double-doored wood icebox trimmed in bronze, and
+above it swung three or four canary cages. The pale yellow birds were
+silent, heads cocked, alert. On the sink was a disarray of food and
+newspapers and opened cans. The hard-wood floor was littered with crumbs
+and dust. “There’s many a fine secret Sarah Quimby knows, miss.” The
+housekeeper’s voice was high-pitched and her finger wagged. Ellen let
+the door swing shut. “I know goings-on,” the woman was shrilling behind
+it.
+
+Confused, Ellen went to sit in the bay window. “Old witch,” she
+murmured, laying her hand on her cheek. Frown lines were drawing across
+her forehead.
+
+   Don’t place your affections
+   On the green sycamore tree
+   For the leaves they will welter
+   And the balls they will fall
+   If you can’t love arightly
+   Don’t love none at all
+
+In the round mirror in her room, Ellen was deliberately examining her
+figure clad in a flannel chemise. It was evening, the wall lamp burned.
+She placed the strip of cloth about her waist, making it firm. Then she
+put on the dark dress she had made for this visit. To the figure in the
+glass she breathed, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mester Ay.” The
+hurt eyes looked back from the white oval face. The breasts even now
+were swelling so in five months’ time they would grow hard and full, the
+pink nipples brown. She touched her girdled waist, bitter. “I’ll bind it
+tighter and maybe it’ll strangle.”
+
+There was a knock and Garland appeared in the doorway, remote in a
+severe black suit and bow tie. “You put me in mind of my mother there.”
+He looked at her heavily and turned, drawing the door shut with a dull
+sound. She stood a moment, then moved to the windows, pulling up a shade
+exposing the windy lean night. Yellow street lamps bloomed stark and
+shorn tree boughs swayed. She was weeping after a while, darkly.
+
+Later she glided down the long staircase where the echoes lived, and
+into the big room. A score of people were milling in the blue mist of
+tobacco smoke and the vague sensuous odors of perfume. In their hands
+were stemmed glasses and morsels of food. The air stayed hot and unreal,
+the voices an undulating drone above the clicking and chinking of
+dishes. Garland came across the room, ruddy-faced, waving a glass at
+her, his breath strong. “This is my niece. The one I told you about. The
+little goat-girl from the Kentucky hills of home.” He took her arm. He
+was like somebody else; fine wrinkles were etched about his soft-skinned
+jaw and across his brow. He spoke loudly to a white-haired tall man.
+“This is Ellen.”
+
+“Mester,” she whispered, and she said, “Lady,” when it was a woman as he
+took her around the room. Her head throbbed, she wished the night done.
+Garland left her and she stood apart, waiting. Then he found her again,
+urging her to sing. “This niece of mine can do the old-time songs up so
+prettily. Go ahead, puss. Any tune.”
+
+Her voice was high and steady while the women’s gems glistened and the
+men turned murmuring to each other, puffing long black cigars.
+
+   E’er a night when the sun goes in
+   I hang down my head and mournful cry
+   True love, don’t weep nor mourn for me
+   I’m going away to Marble Town
+
+“Say, that’s good. You know any faster ones like ‘Bam, Bam, Bamy Shore,’
+Miss Gaddy?” cried a modish blond young woman. “We could dance to that.”
+
+“No.” Ellen’s voice was small. “Reckon not, lady.”
+
+“Well, how about ‘Alabamy Bound’?” called another female voice. “That’s
+from the South.”
+
+“I don’t know it,” Ellen said.
+
+“It’s got rhythm.” The blond girl tapped her feet. “Come on, Nadine,
+let’s dance.”
+
+“Vo-do-dee-o! Whoopee!” They raised their hands as though to pat-a-cake,
+swayed and juggled their feet, short skirts exposing slim legs.
+
+   Five feet two, eyes of blue
+   Can she hug
+   And can she woo
+
+Garland was setting his glass down. He began to wail too. He shuffled,
+linked arm in arm with one of the bejeweled women.
+
+   She says that
+   She’s my little baby
+   My little jazztime baby
+
+There was dancing, noise, laughter, squeals. Ellen, afraid of the
+strange faces, the clever women, conscious of her unfashionable attire,
+had retreated to a chair in a dim-lit corner. Mrs. Quimby opened the
+dining room door. The woman was austere in a white starched apron, a
+ruffled cap askew on her hair. “The dinner is served, sir.”
+
+When the last guest had gone, Ellen turned to the broad staircase and
+put her hand on the balustrade. Her skin was transparent, a blue vein
+beat in the temple. She was holding herself tense. Garland looked at her
+a moment, his little eyes flickering. “I should have made you rest,
+hon.”
+
+“No.” She shook her head.
+
+“You sang so pretty.”
+
+“No, Uncle. It’s no song for city folk.” She flushed, near tears. “It
+sounded queer, for a fact.”
+
+He glanced, curious, at her. “Where did you pick up those songs?”
+
+“Well, Talithie Gentry of the grammar school used to sing to us. But I
+learned the most from Penny Dougherty. Pa hired her two summers back
+when Ma took sick.” She sighed, aware of her plainness.
+
+Garland was laughing, “Did you like the party?”
+
+“Pa still calls Penny that roaring woman. He couldn’t abide her. Thought
+I’d die when she first went. It was so lonely.” And she added, “I
+remember ary tale Penny sung.”
+
+“Not homesick are you?”
+
+She went up a stair, avoiding his sharp look. “No. It’s the late hour
+makes me gossipy. Home we’re ne’er up this late.”
+
+“Oh yes, want to ask you about church tomorrow. Guess you’d say I’m a
+pretty bad Catholic. Manage to make Christmas mass and send a big check
+to the cathedral and that’s about it.” He wagged his head, looking up at
+her. “But I know Anton brought you girls up strict. Bet he used a switch
+like our folks taught us.”
+
+“He did.”
+
+“Want to go to mass?”
+
+“I’d liefer not.” She rubbed her forehead, reflecting. “If you think
+it’s not wrong to cross his will?”
+
+“You mean Anton’s will? Chrissake, I’m all for it. I wouldn’t tell him.
+Now, sleep in the morning. Get a good rest. I’ve got some business so
+I’ll likely be gone.”
+
+“I ne’er knew you to be such a rich man, Uncle. When you came to the
+farm.”
+
+“Good night.”
+
+As she entered her room, she heard the rasp of the doorbell and a
+woman’s voice that cut off when the door shut between the vestibule and
+the living room.
+
+The next day large flakes were floating soundless beyond the cold bay
+window. Ellen heard a crash in the kitchen, knew another dish had
+slipped. Over the trill of the canaries came a loud grumbling. The
+swinging door was opening. “I can tell you a secret, miss.”
+
+“I’ve ne’er a wish to hear it.” Ellen stood up from her chair.
+
+“Don’t put on airs, miss. Your family’s not much account.”
+
+“I reckon I don’t know what you mean.”
+
+“Mr. Gaddy’s the one amounted to something in your family. You’re a poor
+relation.” Mrs. Quimby smiled slyly. “You know Mr. Gaddy keeps a woman?
+A bad woman. On the east side. You know what they are, miss? He keeps
+her for his pleasure.”
+
+“You’re a liar.”
+
+“Ain’t you the fool. Where you think he goes nights, looking like
+Douglas Fairbanks? Think that’s on business?”
+
+“Hit’s proper to have a lady friend.”
+
+“And not make her his missus? Keep rooms for her. Pay her to wait for
+him. Give her gold. All these years he’s kept one. Different ones. I
+tell you he’s lucky to find a respectable woman like me to run his
+house.”
+
+“I won’t listen. I won’t listen,” Ellen was repeating to herself,
+running through the house, over the green carpet, away from the voice.
+She turned the key in her door, threw herself on the magenta coverlet,
+her hands over her ears. “He doesn’t want me or need me any more than
+Pa. I’m like some contrary varmint that no one’ll have any truck with.”
+Her self-pity was like wind to a fire. She got up, sat in one of the
+stiff-backed chairs, trembling in wrath.
+
+“I put a curse on Christian Ay who did this to me. Forever, take away
+his joy, Mary Virgin. For what’s been wreaked on me. Make him suffer.”
+
+Suddenly she was rising. She had seen it in an instant. “It just came
+o’er me. I’ll go there.” She was lifting down the traveling bag, opening
+it on the bed. She packed her few possessions. “I lay a curse on him.
+Virgin my witness.” She counted her money, folded it in the
+handkerchief. The feverish tenor of the past days was sliding away and
+she was cooled again. She rested, and in the night as she was going out,
+she stood a letter on the highboy.
+
+   Uncle, I’m beholden for all your kindness. I am going to St. Louis
+   to see someone. If Pa asks after me will you tell him I will try to
+   be home in summer. Please don’t try to find me.
+
+                                                           niece Ellen
+
+At the station she purchased a ticket, sat for a few tired hours on a
+bench, her shoes and satin hat wet from the falling snow. Hail Mary full
+of grace, the Lord is with thee. Her hand rested on the valise. She
+boarded the train and found a seat. Through the window she watched the
+red coal of sun lift itself. The landscape was evolving into farm lands,
+far-stretched, and sleeping villages. The snow began to melt as they
+rumbled southward into Illinois.
+
+She was dozing. Out of memory sprang an incident involving Anton. It
+stirred no warring of anger in her, only the same wonderment she had
+experienced at the time. The way of women had come on Frankie, catching
+her unaware one night when she was eleven, frightening her, so she
+whimpered to Ellen, “I’m dying. Ellie, don’t let me die.” Maria had kept
+a pristine silence on all matters pertaining to the body, as her own mam
+had done with her. It was a secret, never articulated. Ellen had
+whispered to Frankie and they planned. All the while in their whispers
+lay a thrill of dread, for it was a field of unknowns. The morning was
+Sunday and the girls were dressing for mass. Anton opened the loft door
+upon them. “What’s going on here? We’ll be late again. Now move, you
+two.” Frankie was nude and gazed, naive, at him. Ellen plucked a garment
+from the bed and laid it before her sister. The man ripped it from
+Frankie’s hands, threw it at her feet. He turned on Ellen, “Not so
+froward, girl,” and stalked out while the two stared. They had dressed
+swiftly, mute. But nightly, for many years, Frankie would have an urgent
+compulsion to look under her bed before she went to sleep. And Ellen
+developed a fear of something skulking and concealed when she was sent
+to the cellar on an errand.
+
+She was unburying this, mulling it, half asleep. By noon she became
+wakeful and light-headed, bought a sandwich from a vendor who came
+shouting through the stuffy car. The train was halting before a gray
+clapboard station house bearing the flecked inscription WEEMS
+CROSSROADS. Bag in hand she walked the deserted streets. The air was
+less chill, the sky a high blue. She was questioning a storekeeper, then
+turning down a muddy road leading into the country. She passed farms and
+came to woods where black trees dripped. Brash crows were cawing
+somewhere out of sight and neglected clouds floated in fresh winds. By a
+fenced-in burial ground, melting snow outlined gravestones. A Mason jar
+full of sticks tipped on its side and a withered wreath lay on a plot
+enclosed with a black iron paling. Gray granite markers were graven with
+dead names and dates. A cow leaned over the cemetery fence in the
+distance to crop grass inside; it was bearing heavily with its soft neck
+on the sagging wire.
+
+Ellen came to a dilapidated mailbox set on a stake under a bare-branched
+catalpa. She read, Luke Dougherty. She went up the mire of the lane. A
+flock of speckled guineas were trotting in the wet meadow. She knocked
+at the door to a narrow weather-washed house set beside a shed where
+bearded goats were lolling. A hen began to cry in the way they have when
+they have just laid an egg, and somewhere back of Ellen the guineas
+screamed. A small pretty-featured woman with clear eyes was there in the
+doorway.
+
+“I came to you, Penny. Will you have me in?”
+
+
+                                   8
+
+In a few minutes Ellen was seated in a wood armchair, a blanket about
+her, a heated soapstone under her feet. A pot of beans on the range was
+giving off a warm strong odor. There were two rooms in the tiny house.
+Into this one were crowded the cookstove, a table, a woodbox, two
+scratched chairs, a stool, a cupboard, a low cabinet. Washing of dishes,
+clothes, and baby was done in a dark-blue enameled basin, the water
+thrown out the door. From under the table a child was peering; in his
+teeth he gripped a piece of bacon rind, in his hand was a metal
+mixing-spoon which he beat on the floor.
+
+“This is Clate,” said Penny. “He’s a real noisy one.” As Penny bent to
+take the rind from him and lift him, Ellen saw she was great with
+another child. The little boy squealed, laughing as he was swung high,
+and his mother held him for Ellen to see how well formed he was and how
+red his cheeks were.
+
+“He’s fair, Penny,” Ellen said quietly, “but I’m afraid I’m too young
+for bearing one. I had to help my goat with hers.”
+
+“Ellie, you hush. It’s a long ways off. I’ll be here. Birthing’s
+nothing. It’s too short to remember. And look what you’ve got.”
+
+“I hate it. I hate what’s in me. I ne’er want to see it.”
+
+“I’ll make coffee. Luke’ll be home. He’ll be glad you came, Ellie. He
+knows how I’m one for company. There, I’ll have a new baby in March.”
+
+“You know, Penny, I studied all this time. On a sudden I said, why
+there’s one.” Ellen was made helpless by her gratitude. “You’re so
+good.”
+
+“We got ten acres here,” Penny laughed. “Luke’s pa signed this place
+o’er to us last fall. The soil’s right clayey but it’s rich enough.
+We’re getting by. I look for spring to come. I’m going to eat boiled
+greens every day.” She planned, “There’s an attic where you can sleep. I
+aim to put Clate up there when he grows a bit. It’s hot in summer.”
+
+“I missed you at home, Penny. When you went.”
+
+“We had times, didn’t we? How about when we gathered those sponge
+mushrooms in the woods and spread them to dry on your pa’s hog barn
+roof?”
+
+“You were singing ‘Charlie’s Sweet’ and we ne’er saw Pa there.”
+
+“We had the times though, Ellie.”
+
+“All on a sudden it came to me there in the city.” Ellen was earnest.
+
+Penny was holding Clate while he drank milk from a mug. She wiped what
+he spilled and sat him in the training chair, handing him a piece of
+corn pone. “He’s waiting till I lift him out. Then he’ll go pee on the
+rug. Such a small man.”
+
+They drank coffee adulterated with chicory. Penny got up to mix
+cornbread, stirring in a handful of crumbly cracklings. Ellen felt how
+the woman listened and waited while she talked, gathering herself. At
+last dusk assembled and a bird began to call. A step was heard outside
+and he came. “Look here, Luke. Ellie Gaddy. She’s come to bide a while
+with us.”
+
+And love lay in the corners of the house. Penny, her apron high over her
+unborn child, moved more gracefully than before. Her face softened and
+all the while she hummed and sang. “Now Luke, you visit with Ellie and
+I’ll catch the milking.” She threw on a shawl, ran out light-footed, a
+lard pail in her hand.
+
+“Be glad to see this thaw come,” the man said. “I’m that eager to lay
+out our garden.” Luke was mindful of Penny’s signal with her finger on
+her lips and so he made as though Ellen had been somewhat expected. He
+put logs in the stove, and lit candles, telling of the farm where he was
+employed. “They name it Webster’s Stock Farm. He’s got a dozen of us
+hands to help all winter. He’s a rich man, got a big white house. He
+owns these shorthorn cattle. And he’s got little old Jersey cows that he
+shows at all the state fairs. He brings home ribbons and silver cups and
+sets them in a fancied-up room. Sometime I aim to go along to one of
+those fairs.” Tall, black-haired, round-faced, his virility charged the
+room. He sat in his mild way on the stool, holding his son, who played
+with the shiny suspender clasps on the overalls and then made water on
+his father’s leg.
+
+Then they were eating cornbread and beans and thick chunks of fatback
+and soft onion. Penny would feed Clate from her plate. The smell of
+tallow candles burning was sweetly pungent and they made a ruddy glow
+over the faces. Afterwards Penny held a light while Luke went up to the
+attic by the ladder in the bedroom. He was carrying gunny-sacks of hay,
+stooped over for the roof was low. Penny handed quilts up to him. Then
+Ellen took her clothes from the valise and hung them on pegs in the
+beams. She put her statue of the Virgin beside the pallet and slept
+well.
+
+Below in the bedroom, Penny lay in Luke’s arms. “I’m proud she came to
+us, Luke.”
+
+“So good you are, and then my bright-eyed little wife,” he murmured,
+drowsing.
+
+But Penny was wide awake. “All the world and she thought of us.”
+
+By mid-February they were making a garden. They cut potato eyes,
+planting them in deep rows, mulching them with litter and leaves against
+frost. Luke strode up whistling, bearing onion sets and seeds in brown
+paper bags marked in pencil with the name of the plant that would come
+up. They spaded, put in lettuce and onion beds, rows of radishes,
+turnips, parsnips, peas and Swiss chard. Penny came to Luke where he
+knelt. “This one’s new. Tendergreen Mustard. How come you got it?”
+
+“I saw it was a new kind, only forty-five days to mature. I knew how
+fixed you were on an early garden.” They gazed at the grains of seed.
+
+“I sure am honing for greens,” the woman sighed.
+
+The next week thunder was rolling, thumping, across the gray sky. They
+waited for the downpour. “In a month it’ll come on twister weather,”
+said Penny. “There was one here last fall. Lady down the road had just
+boiled up water for her tea. The wind pulled off the roof and sucked the
+kettle up. Her and the least youngen got scalded.”
+
+“Friend of mine,” Luke said, “was in the barn. Tore the door off and him
+holding on, flying through the air.”
+
+“Was he hurt?” asked Ellen.
+
+“Not as I know. He lived.”
+
+A thunderbolt pealed directly over the house. Ellen said, “Thunder in
+February prophesies frost in May. That’s what I’ve heard Ma say.”
+
+“I’m afraid,” said Luke, “we’ll lose our garden. This one’s a
+gully-drencher.”
+
+Rain was falling day on day. The sprouting seeds washed up, water
+collected undrained on the clay of the garden bed. Pairs of rubber boots
+were always standing muddy at the door, for the privy was set far back
+from the house. The dirt-floored cellar, reached by a trap door in the
+kitchen, was flooded. The jars of preserves that stood on slat shelves
+were immersed. Their lids rusted and the labels soaked off. “If I hold
+it up to the light I can see some what it is,” Penny said cheerfully,
+“but you’re liable to get blueberry jelly, Luke, when you ask for
+blackcap.”
+
+In time the clouds spent themselves. The water seeped away, the sun was
+brilliant and refreshed, the earth warmed. The people went out to make a
+new garden.
+
+Luke was walking up the lane one night leading a gray donkey by a rope.
+“Mester Webster gave it to me. It was for his daughter, Star. She tired
+of it and so she’s got a pony instead.”
+
+“How come he let you have it?” Penny was pleased.
+
+“You mind that cow I told you of a while back that had milk fever? Well,
+I nursed her. He claims it was my hands that pulled her udder around.
+This morning he says, you can have this beast if you’ve a mind. Thought
+I might rig a plowshare and maybe work him.”
+
+“That would be a sight,” said Ellen.
+
+Luke tied the beast in the shed to a ring in the wall. Ellen was petting
+one of Penny’s seven goats. “Hey there, Tiny.” She wondered how her does
+Rhodie and Penny were making out, if Frankie was good to them, or
+whether they blatted in the woodshed pen. Frankie was ever apt to be
+careless.
+
+In the stable, fastened apart from the does, was a shaggy buck goat with
+a long beard. His rank odor dominated the air. He baaed affectionately
+at Luke who was scratching his back with a stick. “Good old Brownie.”
+The animal turned to lick the urine he excreted in the habit of the
+rutting male goat.
+
+“I’ll be glad when it gets nice so Brownie can live outside again,”
+Penny said. “I’m always afraid that smell will make the milk taste.”
+
+“That smell’s healthy,” cried Luke.
+
+“Penny, how come your goats are muley?” Ellen was asking. “My two have
+got horns.”
+
+“Well, most of them were born that way. But Luke knows how to stop the
+buds if they start to push through.”
+
+“You rub a stick of this strong acid stuff on, Ellie. I learned it at
+Webster’s. It hurts them a bit.”
+
+“You have to do it careful,” Penny said.
+
+“Seems like the horns are so pretty though,” Ellen sighed, remembering.
+
+Days were going by. Ellen felt her waistbands tighten. She found it hard
+to grasp that a living child would come from her, believed it would die.
+One day she was in the shed where a dozen hens ran loose, their nests
+known, a few porcelain doorknobs kept in them to lure them back. “Poor
+things. Giving them a mock egg.” Ellen pitied the innocent fowl and she
+would turn rocks over for them in the yard so they gathered to peck the
+crawling life beneath. When she was bending to collect the eggs from a
+nest under a hay manger she felt the child kick. She arose, leaning
+against the side of the stall, frightened. She knelt again to take the
+eggs, walked to the house slowly. In the evening she said, “I felt it
+move.”
+
+“That’s nothing.” Penny was turning to Luke. “Why don’t you see if you
+can get a good rooster from Mester Webster for me? I could raise a flock
+this summer off those old hens.”
+
+“He’s got White Rocks,” Luke said.
+
+“That what I’d like, a blooded rooster of a heavy breed. Then I could
+trade eggs, too.”
+
+“I was in the shed,” Ellen said, “when it happened.”
+
+“Just wait, Ellie,” Penny was jogging Clate on her lap, serene, “till it
+starts getting knobby and takes to rolling o’er all the while. Wait till
+it gets a little bigger.”
+
+“I’ll wait.” Ellen was bitter.
+
+At breakfast Penny asked Luke to buy chicory and soda at the store. “And
+get me a piece from that bolt of blue-check flannel, Luke, for Clate’s
+outgrown his nightdress.”
+
+“I don’t get paid till the fifteenth.” Luke put on his straw hat. “Now I
+doubt the store will credit us any more.”
+
+Ellen got up hastily. “Wait, Luke.” She climbed the ladder to the attic,
+came back to put nearly twenty dollars on the table. “My uncle gave me
+this.” She was eager. “You’ll know how to use it. It’s yours.”
+
+Penny picked up the bills and turned them over, her eyes downcast, her
+lower lip in her teeth. She laughed, “Get shed of that store bill first,
+Luke. Then buy that length of cloth for Farmer Clate. And if you see
+some, get pink muslin too. The new one could be a girl.”
+
+“I’ll look if there’s a little share at the store to make a
+turning-plow,” said Luke, “like I wanted to get for that little ass to
+pull.”
+
+So they thanked her. For the first time Ellen sang when she milked
+Penny’s goats.
+
+Mist was rolling heavy in the hollows between hills one morning. March
+gusts had blown in the night, seeking cracks, but Luke had banked the
+foundation well with straw and manure so the family was snug within.
+Ellen came carefully down the ladder. She smelled hidden odors, saw
+Penny asleep in the bed, and from the crook of her arm came a mewling
+sound. There was a black-haired child wrapped in flannel, born while
+Ellen slept. She turned quickly to the kitchen where she heard Luke
+talking to Clate who babbled in reply. Luke looked over at Ellen as she
+came in. “That bugger’s going to feel awful silly in pink muslin,
+Ellie.”
+
+“It’s a boy then?” She was fearful.
+
+“Sure is. Clate’s pleased with his little brother.” Luke gave the boy a
+drink of water from a tin cup and then handed him a piece of corn pone.
+Clate crumbled the food in a moist hand and threw it on the floor,
+shouting. Luke was sheepish. “Can you take him, Ellie? I’ve got to get
+to work.” He hurried from the house, his whistling ebbing.
+
+Ellen wiped Clate’s hands. “Wish things would hold still while I study
+to understand.”
+
+Little by little, she was taking upon herself the care of Clate. She
+would bring him to the shed and sit him in a pile of hay while she
+milked. “Swap ends, Tiny,” she turned the goat about, “let’s give some
+supper down for Farmer Clate.” The child crowed in glee, kissed her with
+his wet soft mouth, pulling at her braids. In the house he crawled from
+under the table to trail her. She had to tread carefully, watching out
+for him.
+
+But Anse, the newborn one, she avoided. Penny would lay the naked red
+body on the bed to change and dress it while it clamored thinly in an
+indifferent way, fists clutching in protest. “Why doesn’t he hush, that
+ugly brat?” she whispered to herself.
+
+Clate she took to see the garden coming up, sang to, confided in. “When
+I tell the song, I see the picture of what happens. Like ‘Red River
+Valley,’ that’s where the river’s muddy with red clay and always there’s
+summertide.” Clate was gripping Ellen’s apron; he staggered beside her.
+“Hold on to me, now. You should have seen me once in Chicago, when all
+the fine gentlemen and ladies listened to me sing.”
+
+She came to feel her safety here, gradually putting aside the old
+terror. She packed the figure of the Virgin into her valise when she
+made order once in the attic. Waiting the months out, she left it there.
+
+She witnessed the ways of birth around her. When Anse was born, Luke
+brought home a White Rock rooster as a present from Mr. Webster. It
+strutted like a lord before the flock of hens, scratched after fake food
+to bring them scurrying. Its sickle-shaped tail feathers were silken and
+the crimson comb trembled and folded over with its weight. Ellen picked
+him up to stroke the long wattles that dangled below his handsome head;
+he breathed coarsely through open beak. When she put him down he made
+staccato noises and scuttled after a hen, fanning his wing until it
+squatted and submitted to the embrace.
+
+In the crab apple tree a pair of robins had fashioned a nest. Each day
+she held Clate up while he peered in at the four miniature blue-green
+eggs. The time came when he shouted to see bare nestlings just hatched,
+all gaping beaks. “Don’t touch them, or the mother’ll smell you and not
+come back to feed them.”
+
+In the barn the does dropped their kids. Ellen ministered, impersonal,
+put them to the teats to nurse the first thick yellow milk. It would
+alter in a few days to become the familiar white fluid. Then she would
+milk a share out for the family.
+
+The white cat ran from her one day and she saw a strange tom in a tree
+branch nearby. That night she heard them shrieking in the yard. The next
+morning the white cat lay sly in the haymow, licked a scratch on her
+paw, cleaned herself and purred.
+
+She witnessed the ways of procreation and birth, the willing and
+unwilling, the casual and violent. “It’s ugly. All those ways are ugly.”
+
+At night she lay unwieldly, turning restless to find an easy way to lie
+now that her body was so increased. The child rolled within and she
+sighed, “I’d as lief you came before your course and perished. I’m too
+weary to fret about it any more.”
+
+Penny was asking her to watch Anse while he slept. “I want to put in a
+row of those flat white bean seeds, Ellie. They say Good Friday’s the
+day to put in beans and it’s way past.” When Penny returned, the baby
+was wailing in his basket hoarsely, small face wet with sweat and
+crying. Ellen was at the kitchen table, her head on her arms, Clate
+playing at her feet. Penny comforted the infant, cleaned him and laid
+him against her shoulder where he moistly hiccuped. She came in the
+kitchen to sit in a chair and put him to her breast. She asked mildly,
+“What’s wrong, Ellie?”
+
+“I can’t seem to touch him, Penny. I looked and it seemed I wanted him
+to cry.”
+
+The woman said sharply, “You’re not the first girl with a trouble,
+Ellie. Nor the last. You’ve got to take hold and plan. You’re not a
+child any more and you’ve got to act past your years, and study on the
+ways of your turning.”
+
+From her quilt that night, Ellen was listening to Luke and Penny. “Shh,
+is Ellie asleep?” The sharp notes of love fell in the room below. When
+Anse whimpered they brought him to their bed. Their gentle voices came
+and went. “Poor thing. And it all ahead, Luke. That father, strict and
+always preaching the Old Testament. I got no use for him. He’ll like to
+kill her if she goes home.” Luke’s voice rasped faintly and Penny said,
+“No. Her mother that should be standing by is like a child herself. No
+marvel Ellie got taken in by some straying man.” Their voices made Ellen
+weep.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In June they were whitewashing the narrow house. Penny was climbing the
+ladder, Clate upset a bucket on himself, and Ellen, moving heavily,
+misshapen, was painting low spots. Anse was asleep in a blanket under
+the crab apple tree. When he cried, Penny would put him to a hard-filled
+breast while from the other, milk wet her dress as it flowed. “Let it
+go. There’s plenty more I reckon.”
+
+Luke came home for supper and shouted out, “Say, look at that there rich
+man’s house. Who’s the master of this house?”
+
+A pink June rose was crawling heavy-blossomed over the door where it had
+been trained. Bright flowers were flocking by the path, and the yard
+grass was green. The scene was framed and they stood about to admire it.
+
+Then a shower was washing the whiteness into gray streaks and soon the
+house boards were drab as before. But Penny was satisfied. “It was a
+sight if only for a week. I’ll remember it clear till next spring,
+Luke.”
+
+In the first of July, Luke was saying, “Webster’s in a hustle to get the
+buckwheat in. Says Fourth of July, wet or dry.”
+
+“Why doesn’t he wait till the light of the moon when it starts waning?”
+Penny was dressed in her best, the babies were clean, their pinafores
+starched. One of Luke’s fellow employees was driving by in his car to
+take the little family to the stock farm near Hidden Creek. Penny looked
+forward to the outing. “Hey, Farmer Clate, come set on your potty before
+we go.” She turned to Ellen, anxious, “You going to be all right? How do
+you feel?”
+
+“I don’t feel a thing. I might pick some berries for supper if I can
+haul myself down the lane.”
+
+“Well, don’t tire yourself, hear?” Penny paused. “Maybe I oughtn’t to
+go, Luke. Ellie might get taken.”
+
+The two turned in protest. “Now, you know yourself it doesn’t happen
+that quick. Ellie wants you to go. And Clate and me too. Even Anse is
+saying, Mama show me those little Jerseys that give all cream.” So the
+woman was persuaded and the party left, waving from the car window,
+disappearing down the dusty road.
+
+Ellen sighed in the fresh morning that moved on toward the hot noon sun.
+Partridge repetitively whistled in the woods down the road, “Bob-white.
+Ah. Bob-white!” A small warm wind stirred and settled, puffs of cloud
+drifted very slowly, and the sky was vivid blue. Like a fall aster. Wish
+it was over. She was going down the warm dirt of the lane in the late
+morning for blackberries. She dropped the first heated ones into the tin
+pail; they made whining thumps until they covered the bottom. Juice was
+staining her fingers. When the pail was filled she toiled back up the
+path. At the pump she washed the dust from the berries and hung them in
+the well to cool. She threw water on her flushed face and arms, pumping
+more over her bare feet. Refreshed, she was seated in the open doorway,
+leaning her head against the frame. The child under the blue apron
+turned itself. She drew shallow labored breaths, closed her eyes. “I’m
+nigh to smother. Will I e’er take a full breath again?”
+
+At noon she was restless about the kitchen. She brought fresh water in
+from the well, ate a square of corn pone, listless, while a bluebottle
+fly churned at the glass of the window. She walked to the field,
+carrying a bucket of water to the goats and donkey staked there. The
+goats drank slowly, raised mournful yellow eyes while their beards
+dripped. The little ass sucked noisily, slobbering, jerking his
+overlarge head. He took a button of her dress gently in his teeth. The
+girl laid her hand on his woolly shoulder and looked away to the
+languishing farmlands where hot air shimmered.
+
+The flock of guineas had not come in to feed the night before. Ellen
+knew some of the pairs had been hiding out, setting their clutches of
+small strong-shelled eggs. “Some of the chicks could have hatched,” she
+told the donkey, “and are keeping the hens and cocks from feeding. A
+skunk or snake might get them.” So she took grain in her apron pocket
+and went past the orchard, seeking in the farthest places, calling,
+“Wee-wee-wee-wee. Come, wee-wee-weeeee.”
+
+It was by a lone scraggled locust tree in an open field that a great
+pain smote her. She leaned upon the tree while it was subsiding. She
+attempted to reach the orchard and stumbling, fell. The onrush of spasms
+was far past her imaginings. In the intervals of withdrawal she crawled,
+pulled her racked body through the field. “I will not lie out here.”
+
+A pair of guineas, followed by a stream of peeping spotted keets,
+flushed from a covert as she neared the orchard. She but dimly gave them
+heed. She was grunting, face fired red, wet from the sharp throes that
+came in the scorched air, in the sweet crushed grass and the
+round-shaped white clover blooms. She cried out hoarsely, biting her
+lips, detached from her sore body where the child sought its way out of
+darkness. Her mind was apart in a red torment where she strove
+unbelieving to endure. When a seizure would lapse she lay a moment
+supine, freed, while above in the sultry blue, a cluster of twittering
+goldfinches were bobbing in the Seckel pear branches.
+
+The hand was laid remorseless again upon her. Muffled at first, it was
+graduating into cruel wrenching. Then she evoked the holy Virgin, swore
+in agony many bonds, until distracted she knew not of her body as it was
+arching itself. In time, from her laden womb the child had its way and
+was brought out upon the meadow grass. Thin wails fell on the stifled
+afternoon air. And overhead the finches chirruped brightly.
+
+After long, Ellen heard the faint piping and lifted herself to see the
+limp warm child. She wrapped it in her blue apron and laid it at the
+base of the old tree. Resting weary on the grass, she waited. When the
+evening star showed itself hovering above the horizon as the sun began
+to set, her joy caught in her throat. “I came through. I’m unfettered
+once more.”
+
+The Doughertys found her as the evening birds were beginning their
+songs. Ellen’s pallet was brought from the attic to a corner of the room
+below. She ate milk and berries and bread. In the early part of the
+night Penny put the child by her. “You got to nurse him, Ellie. He’s
+hungry.”
+
+Ellen suffered the feeble seeking mouth. “Say, another setting hatched
+off, Penny. I saw them in the field back of the orchard. You want to go
+get them in?”
+
+“Now I think you care more for those chicks than your own newborn son.”
+
+In a short while Ellen was about the house again. Penny had Luke bring
+home a few yards of pink-and-white striped material and Ellen was
+holding her needle light. “Oh, but I’m a slim one. Look at me,” she
+demanded.
+
+She told them she must go, trying to say the other thing that was in her
+mind. “I’ve been studying. I can’t come home dragging it. Pa’d turn me
+off. Could you-all find it in you to take it for your own? I’d send
+money for its needs.”
+
+“It’s true what Ellie says, for I know Mester Gaddy.” Penny looked up at
+her husband.
+
+“It’d be a twin to Anse,” he said.
+
+“We’ll love your baby, Ellie. But you mark me, he’s not our blood. The
+day’ll come you’ll rue you didn’t make a way to keep your first-born.
+You can have him then.”
+
+But Ellen was turning away. “Not me. Though I’m beholden.”
+
+She would walk in the morning down to the Weems Crossroads station.
+While they had breakfast, Clate sat on her lap, kissing her endearingly
+with his small mouth. “Luke, I reckon it’s the hardest for Ellie to
+leave our Clate.”
+
+“Oh I love him that much,” Ellen sighed to the brown-haired child.
+
+“We named your boy last night, Ellie,” Luke said. “Simon.”
+
+“And we’ll call him Simon Gaddy,” said Penny. “We’ll tell him you’re his
+ma. So we decided in the night.”
+
+“I love him that much,” Ellen was saying to the child she held.
+
+   Jaybird up an acorn tree
+   Shaking acorns down
+   Little Clate in a sugar tree
+   Shaking sugar down
+
+
+
+
+                                part two
+
+
+   Take it up in your arms I said
+   Let it lie where it must
+   At your side on your breast
+   Let it rest
+   Love has life not of love
+   But of us I said
+   Let it lie where it must
+
+
+                                   9
+
+A flicker was piping a thread of shrill notes as it flashed in flight
+before her. She looked back to where Penny waved from the lane end, a
+child on her arm. Then Ellen turned and strode down the road, carrying
+the valise. The heat of the July day was still far off, the morning was
+new-made. The stiff skirt of the striped dress brushed her legs. She had
+combed her hair from her high forehead in the old way, tying it loosely
+with a ribbon. A hot morning wind rippled along the dust of the road,
+interrupting for a stitch the stilled cool air. Wild morning-glories
+were twining on ditch banks, and in a distant field a boy drove a
+diminutive span of black horses through verdant corn rows. It came over
+Ellen how comely she was and she made her feet light. “I’m thankful for
+this day and for all that lie ahead.” Her life ran out before her
+harmonious, like a shining thread. All about there was a singing and a
+beating of wings and the sun glowed whitely. She was young and there was
+no ending ever. “Clear through the whole enduring ages, I’ll be.”
+
+   My true love up on the mountain
+   Bowing up and down
+   If I had my broadax here
+   I’d hew that mountain down
+   O get around, Jenny, get around
+   All on the summer’s day
+
+On the train, she saw the countryside flowing past the window. The milk
+from her breasts was dampening her dress and in her discomfort she
+thought of the child once more. She turned her mind from him easily. She
+got off at New Hope and hitched a ride with a farmer from Seven Mile
+Run.
+
+“Those are fine mules, Mester,” she offered.
+
+“Um. They’re Norman mules. They’ll ne’er balk without cause. I got a
+brother can start a balky mule. One time him and me came on two niggers
+with a load of straw and a cold-shouldered mule. Well, they were plumb
+desperate. Built a fire under it, but it only moved up the road a piece.
+Far enough so’s the wagon began to burn. They had to unhitch the mule
+and back the wagon off to put the fire out. They were setting there when
+we came on them. Brother went up to the mule, took hold of its ear and
+whispered in it. Well, that mule walked right off. The niggers hitched
+up and went down the road. Told everyone Brother talked witchcraft. Um.”
+
+“Wonder how he did start it?”
+
+“Um. Said he twisted its ear and blew in it. Said that dazzles a beast.
+Brother can do it just so.” He lapsed into silence, his head drooped in
+the heat of the afternoon. The mules switched their tails and shimmied
+their skin to fight flies. Unguided, they were following the road.
+
+When they reached Love’s store, Ellen thanked the farmer, climbed down
+from the wagon seat to the pike where the clay baked in the molten sun.
+Stacey was in the screened doorway. “Ellen? I thought you’d left these
+parts. Grady,” she called. “Looky here. How be you, now? Sam Offut’s
+taken o’er the trading for your ma. They had a time when first you ne’er
+came home. Where you been?”
+
+Ellen was smiling and nodding. Grady came around the corner of the frame
+house; she sought his kindly tight-skinned face. “Hey, Mester Love.”
+
+“Hey there, Ellen. I swear. Come have a glass of my ginger beer. The
+yeast’s working good now. Two bottles exploded all o’er the place
+yesterday.”
+
+She followed him, and Stacey came after. Ellen was eager. “I visited my
+uncle for a spell. Said howdy to you both.”
+
+“That so?” Stacey asked. “He kept you long.”
+
+“Then I went to stay with Mrs. Dougherty while she had a baby.”
+
+“Thought she had hers last year.”
+
+“You remember Penny Dougherty?” Ellen urged. “This is her second. It’s a
+boy too. A likely one.” Ellen felt Stacey’s eyes searching her for the
+truth. “I came home to help Pa with the summer work.”
+
+“He’ll be glad to see you,” Grady said.
+
+“Penny wanted to be remembered to you both, Mrs. Love.”
+
+“That’s kindly of her,” Grady said.
+
+“Well,” said Stacey. “You’re looking right pert again, Ellen.” She was
+fanning herself with Grady’s hat.
+
+Ellen sipped the ginger beer while the woman talked. “Mester Gaddy and
+that Sam ne’er would say where you were.” Ellen was afraid of Stacey’s
+tongue, conscious of the milk dried on her dress, and she wondered if
+Stacey could tell it was there. “I reckoned,” said Stacey, “you met up
+with a rich Yankee man who made you his wife.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Love.”
+
+“Now Stacey,” Grady cried, “stop greening Ellen.”
+
+“I’m beholden for the drink.” Ellen went to the door. “I was parched.”
+
+“Your daddy know you’re home?” asked Stacey.
+
+“Oh yes.” She was hurrying out and down Sweetincreek Road, unconscious
+of the weight of her bag. Then her gait slowed. A small verging of
+anxiety had begun and she pushed it back with her will. She changed
+hands with the valise, passed over the wood bridge where the
+Sweetincreek flowed, and on the other side, in the swampy earth, was
+plucking a green-white flower. “I know this one. It’s the lily of the
+valleys.” She breathed the perfume, studying the stony well-worn road.
+“Reckon he’ll beat me?”
+
+She turned into the familiar lane, which seemed shrunken now. She heard
+farm noises. A cow mooing softly in a far place, pigs grunting just off
+the path, a duck squawking somewhere in sudden protest. The house seemed
+smaller and the yellow paint was peeled; it was ugly. Hesitant, she went
+up the sagged steps. The towels on the porch line were muddied, the tin
+tub was turned carelessly over, the egg basket was torn. She was opening
+the screen door. There was no one, no sound there in the kitchen. Beyond
+in the bedroom she saw her mother in a chair under one of the little
+windows, bent over some work. Ellen looked at her a moment as though she
+were a stranger. From the parlor came Frankie’s stripling voice in
+singsong, “I do, I did, I have done. I draw, I drew, I have drawn. I
+eat, I ate.” The small voice sighed audibly as Ellen entered.
+
+“Sounds right brave, Frankie.”
+
+“Ellie! You just came. I missed you. Was it fun in Chicago?” As they
+were embracing Ellen saw Frankie’s eyes were dark-shadowed, but her skin
+was smooth and her hair glistened. She was asking about Garland. “Is he
+kind, Ellie, in his own house?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“I heard Pa say you ran off and left Uncle. Did you, Ellie? I wanted to
+brave Pa to ask. But he gets riled when we name you. Reckon he doubted
+you were coming home.”
+
+“I was visiting someone.”
+
+“Where? Where’d you stay?”
+
+“Is he on the outs with me?”
+
+“Pa? I reckon. You went to St. Louis, didn’t you, Ellie? I heard him say
+it to Ma.”
+
+“You learning grammar again, Frankie?”
+
+“Tell you true, I hate it. Whate’er I speak, teacher stops me and
+changes it.” She shrugged, resentful. “He’s daft.”
+
+“You let Pa know it?”
+
+“No, I’m in thick enough with Pa now. He’s e’er raising sand. I got to
+practice all morning now and I’m only to help with housework. Not to
+milk or hoe the garden.” She looked away. “Wish I was little again.”
+
+Ellen frowned. “You’ve got to study ahead. And watch the ways of
+turning. That’s a thing I learned.”
+
+The two were silent. Looking back to the freedom of childhood, they
+chafed at the fretful boundaries, the responsibility that seemed to mark
+maturity. They went forward because there was no other way. Frankie was
+looking up, doleful, “Missed your songs, Ellie.”
+
+“Say, how’re the goats?”
+
+“The old one dropped two kids. Reckon it was in April. Sam found them in
+the morning; one died, the other was a buck, a black one. Pa had Sam cut
+it. Said they’d butcher it in fall.”
+
+“What about the little doe, Rhodie? She drop one too?”
+
+“I don’t know. I can’t keep it in my head. I think Sam said he took her
+to a billy. You ask him. Tell you true, Sam’s been doing for them.”
+
+“Oh, Frankie. And me pining for them all this tormented time.”
+
+“I’m sorry, Ellie. I’m a poor thing,” Frankie laughed, pleading.
+
+“It’s hot. I’ll go unpack.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the attic room, Ellen made her bed up for the night, put away her
+clothes. All the while a thing was waxing heavy in her, leaden, as she
+thought on her father. “One thing, I’ll ne’er cry. Wish I could make out
+not to fear him.” She took the statuette of the Virgin to its old place
+on the round table in the parlor. She could hear Maria and Frankie in
+the kitchen preparing supper. Loneliness swept Ellen like an empty cloud
+as she stood, uneasy. Anton came upon her there. Looking at his face she
+recalled when Blueberry had balked starting a wagon and Anton lashed him
+coldly about the head with leather lines. Ellen had watched secretly
+from a barn window, heart pumping, waiting until the rearing horse
+lunged and moved the load. She was going up the stairs without a word.
+He climbed gently after, his breathing becoming strident on the way.
+
+He held the belt. His voice shuddered hoarse. His lips were trembling
+with their weight. “You e’er were froward, girl.” He was hitting her
+again, holding the strap with a relentless hand, feeling the easing of
+his own sharp flesh. “I’ll teach you yet. Get on your knees. You were
+walking and mincing in that seat of whoredom, weren’t you? Did you know
+my brother Marc died rutting there in St. Louis? And that’s what killed
+my ma?”
+
+She was enduring the hot bite of the striking leather. She fought within
+herself as since a child, to hold silence, pinning her will on it.
+
+“How do you reckon Sam favored doing your trading? How do you reckon
+your chores were done up these months, you plagued dummy?” His voice was
+a heavy cold whisper and his gray eyes were half closed. “And you stole
+the Virgin image.”
+
+Ellen was breathless in the sting of tears. It’s his way. It’s for love
+he does it. He’s trying to teach me what’s right. He must.
+
+“Now, you’ll not go off this farm again,” he was warning in the doorway,
+“lest I marry you to someone proper.” He paused. “I allow I’ll kill you
+before you’ll stand against my will.” He was rolling the belt up around
+the home-forged brass buckle as he went out.
+
+Ellen followed down to the evening meal. She went to Maria eagerly,
+kissing her, forgetting, in her need, her mother’s preoccupied ways.
+“How’ve you been, Ma?”
+
+“Tormented, Ellie. He knows.” Maria looked upward with vague eyes.
+
+“I’ll be here to do for you now, Ma. You glad I’m back?” she pleaded
+swiftly.
+
+“I took count,” Maria said. “Hit’s been six months July fifteen. Mester
+Gaddy’s been fretted.”
+
+“Quit jawing, ooman,” Anton said. “Set and eat.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the meal, though the air was close, Anton directed the family to
+go to the parlor, bade Ellen, “Fetch my Bible.” He took the book from
+her, leafed the pages. He looked at Frankie, sitting by Maria on the
+sofa. “Even as these oomen fared, so will hit be with you, Poppet, if
+you don’t pay me heed.” They watched him take the silver-banded reading
+glass, peering through it at the page.
+
+“Down on your knees,” he told Ellen, and she obeyed. “Because the
+daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks and
+wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with
+their feet, therefore the Lord will smite them. And the Lord will
+discover their secret parts.”
+
+Ellen was tired. She was kneeling by the doweled rocker, her head on the
+arm of the chair. She closed her eyes and thought about the man who
+could start balky mules by blowing in their long ears, twisting them so
+they forgot their orneriness.
+
+“In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling
+ornaments about their feet, and their cauls and their round tires like
+the moon, the chains, and the bracelets,” Anton cherished the syllables,
+“and the hoods and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of
+a sweet smell there shall be a stink and instead of a girdle a rent, and
+instead of well-set hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, a
+girding of sackcloth.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Under the attic window she was lying sleepless, the uncertain moonlight
+washing over her bed. The cockerels in the chicken shed were crowing
+intermittently, confused by the unseemly moon’s glare. Her body ached
+from the beat of the strap. Her breasts were swollen because she had
+tolerated the child to nurse her over the past days and the milk had not
+as yet subsided. She would wait and in a week the discomfort would be
+gone, then she would be done with him. Her mind circled on Penny and
+Clate, on the Dougherty beasts, the donkey and Brownie and the doe Tiny.
+She was overcome by devotion to them all. She went further back to the
+autumn of despair, and to the summer preceding that was fading now as
+the separate incidents blurred and blended. The night stretched
+brilliant as she rose and leaned at the window sill. The quavering of
+the young cocks’ chorus was heard again.
+
+She slipped into her dress and went down. Jack met her at the door,
+hurling himself upon her. She sat on the steps to pluck burrs that were
+tangled in his hair. She was listening to the sounds the wind made that
+sometimes has a business in the high branches, spurning the ground. In
+the warty-barked hackberry there was a rustle as the leaves resisted the
+wind, and in the spruce by the road fence an indistinct whisper came and
+went as many tiny needles rasped gently one on another. The wind sounds
+were all different in the varied trees. In the black willows by the
+Sweetincreek there would be a swishing and a swaying, and in the stiff
+leaves of the catalpa nearly no noise at all. The mockernut was so tall
+and straight that the soughing was disguised and far away. I might know
+the particular tree just from the voice of the wind through it. The
+cockerels were piping again in the moonlight, foretelling the dawn just
+coming.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the early morning she hurried out to find none of her goats at the
+woodshed, nor any trace they had been stabled recently there. A setting
+goose was peering from under the cobwebbed manger; it hissed a warning,
+hovering over warmed eggs in musty straw. For a moment Ellen stood in
+the doorway, then she went to the barnyard. Sam was pouring foaming milk
+into tall cans. “Your nannies are at the field.” Sam looked her over
+quietly. “Your pa says leave them there.”
+
+“I’m taking them up to the woodshed right now. There’s a silly old goose
+setting in there.”
+
+“Better ask your pa if you can, Ellie.”
+
+“Well, I’ll help you-all milk first.”
+
+In the barn she drew the first streams onto the ground to clean the
+udder. Then she was milking steadily, her hands efficient. She pressed
+her head into the joint of the young cow’s back leg.
+
+“That Sal’s a real kicker,” offered Sam.
+
+“Watch you don’t lose her milk,” Anton said, coming in.
+
+“Ho, suckey.” Ellen would know if the nervous heifer were about to
+strike out. She stripped the front teats and began to milk the tight
+back ones. “Ho, Sal.”
+
+Anton gave her leave to take her goats in from the field when she
+brought the cows. “And you help with the milking hereafter, girl.”
+
+Ellen discovered Penny was thin and her udder flabby, for she ran loose
+with a black yeanling. Rhodie was slick-haired, rounded with a kid Sam
+said she would drop next month. They were skittish and Ellen coaxed them
+to her. She sat in the grass with corn in her apron until they could not
+hold their greed and curiosity. Penny licked her ear, bleated softly on
+her neck, remembering her all at once. The black wether was timid and
+handsome but he came under her hand too. She resented his castration
+though she knew it was necessary. They were munching the corn grains,
+pushing against her.
+
+   Go through my window
+   My sugar lump
+   And buy molasses candy
+   Blue bird, blue bird, go through my window
+   And buy molasses candy
+
+
+                                   10
+
+The fiery sun of August labored in the sky across the languid procession
+of days. In the evenings, by the light of kerosene lamps, the women
+still were finishing canning of peaches, tomatoes, berries. They clamped
+glass lids on by wire bails and stood filled jars on a rack of laths in
+the wash boiler. Pits and peelings were heaped in pails in the yard
+where flies gathered, and gnats and yellowjackets. They put up
+salt-and-sugar beans, selecting green-tinted jars to protect the color.
+They dried peppers and sweet corn. They made brine for gherkins and
+green tomatoes, packed a ten-gallon crock in the pantry with cucumbers
+and branches of dill. Ellen added horseradish roots to the salty brew,
+and mustard seeds. On top she placed grape and cherry leaves. “To get a
+good brine you got to add salt just right,” she said, “till it gets the
+power in it to hoist a fresh egg from the bottom of the crock and float
+hit.”
+
+Ellen was making jelly. She strained the cooked fruit through flannel
+bags and then added sugar or sorghum and boiled the juice. She tested
+the hot purple syrup. “It doesn’t want to sheet off and tear proper,”
+she told Amanda York who came to keep her company. “I’ll just wait on
+it.” She wiped her forehead with a perspiring hand.
+
+Sometimes Lily Garrett, in a shapeless flowered dress, walked up the
+road to sit in the kitchen heat and visit awhile. “You make such pretty
+jam,” Lily said. “Why don’t you take some to the county fair at Seven
+Mile Run? Mama does. She got a prize last year and hers was clouded.”
+
+Ellen held the jar to the sunlight; the jelly glowed. “I do favor redcap
+jelly.”
+
+“Well, you should go, Ellie.”
+
+“What color’s the first prize?”
+
+“Blue.”
+
+“You going to, Ellie?” asked Frankie.
+
+“There’s no harm talking.”
+
+“Get it out of your head, girl,” Maria was speaking. “I begged Mester
+Gaddy ten years ago. He said it was foolishness.”
+
+“I know.”
+
+Lily was showing Frankie how to make a special kind of cherry preserve.
+“The receipt named this Barrier Cherries, Frankie. Takes apple vinegar
+and strained honey.”
+
+Maria’s face was sweated and reddened in the heat of the stove fire. She
+reached back into the dimness of her memory, to when she had run in
+crying to a grayed old woman, “Mam, there’s a booger scratching my eye.”
+The woman had licked the eye with her soft tongue to remove the foreign
+substance, then set Maria on a three-legged stool outside the door to
+work the dasher of the churn up and down. “Stone churn ain’t good enough
+for you, girl,” she said to Ellen, suddenly.
+
+“What did you say, Ma?” Ellen was startled.
+
+“Old-timey days we had a stone churn. And when Pap was home sometimes
+he’d bring us a runty possum, or maybe a coon. Summers now, we ate
+good.”
+
+“Did you store up like we do against winter?” asked Frankie.
+
+“I like to lay up when there’s plenty,” Maria admitted. “But the most
+Mam did was to dry corn and herbs. Folks didn’t figure to eat then like
+now. Once or twice a day was all we sat to table.” She reflected a
+moment. “I allow I didn’t miss hit. And my folks thought a heap of me
+till Mester Gaddy came along.”
+
+“Tell, Ma. Did you pine for love of him when you saw Pa?” Frankie cried.
+
+“Mester Gaddy gave me a fine snuffbox. It was mother-pearl. And a deal
+fair to hold in the sun.”
+
+“I ne’er saw that box, Ma,” said Ellen.
+
+“Show us.” Frankie was eager.
+
+“No. Mester Gaddy was forced to sell hit once when he was short cash. I
+always regretted that.”
+
+“When did you start honing after Pa?” persisted Frankie, slim and frail
+beside Lily, stirring the kettle at the stove. “For love.”
+
+“He rode a big gray mare and there was nothing so tall as he. See, I was
+a tedious plain girl and my folks were old already when I was born. They
+hadn’t looked for me. So they fretted on what was to come. Mester Gaddy
+rode o’er to Seven Mile Run and talked to Pap.”
+
+“And then Mester Gaddy courted you?” Lily inquired.
+
+“Go on,” Frankie pressed.
+
+“Pap had scrimped for a dowry that was to come with me. Pap was bound to
+care for me proper. You’d ne’er have thought it the way we lived so
+poor-like while he was putting by.”
+
+“I ne’er thought about Pa being young once,” said Ellen. “Was he
+different from now?”
+
+“No. Except his hair was red and thick. I came with him to this farm.
+Here I been since. He hitched that gray mare to a two-wheel cart and I
+set up beside him and figured I was a lady.” Her dull eyes sparked.
+“E’er do as Mester Gaddy says, girls.”
+
+“There was Pa on a horse,” Frankie said. “I’d just as lief have seen
+that.”
+
+“Oh, all the folks rode horses those days,” said Ellen.
+
+“That’s right,” Lily assented.
+
+“Don’t go talking to Mester Gaddy about those days,” Maria was warning.
+“He’s disremembered them. Watch your cherries don’t burn there, girls.”
+
+“They’re doing right, Mrs. Gaddy,” Lily said. “You were gone a powerful
+time in spring, weren’t you, Ellie?” Curious, Lily was sniffing after
+gossip to brighten her wishful youth.
+
+Ellen took up the basket, leaving the table where she had been stoning
+cherries. “I’m getting in some corn for supper,” she called as she was
+going down the porch steps.
+
+“Ellie’s so contrary.” Lily watched Ellen stride down the field. “She
+won’t talk with me proper-like.”
+
+“That’s her for you,” Frankie said.
+
+“I reckon she doesn’t like me.”
+
+“Oh she does, Lily.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Ellie’s just bossy that way.” The two girls embraced abruptly. The pot
+boiled. The sugary odor was filling the kitchen, seeking darkened
+rafters where smoke from years long past dwelled.
+
+“Would you be best friends with me, Frankie?” The big girl was effusive.
+
+“I will. Ellie doesn’t tell things to me ever.” They clung, whispering,
+comforted, sharing their trepidations. They returned to their stirring
+of the Barrier Cherries.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen had made the land to her since she returned, and the creatures and
+birds spawned upon it. In hot night she would hear hoot owls ululating
+in the oaks, and sometimes a mocker-bird would hang on the stones of the
+garden fence, quavering through marbled moonlight. I came through. The
+fear is past and I’m home. She stood by while Rhodie was yeaning a kid.
+The doe stamped her little hoofs nervously, pawed the straw and
+crouched, straining. With a worried blat, she expelled a spotted kid.
+Ellen was tearing the caul lining to free it in a flood of water. She
+cleaned the mucus from its gasping mouth, gazed on the odd-looking
+animal with ears like a hound. “Where’d you find the buck?” she asked
+Sam.
+
+“Well, I says to myself in March when she commenced to wag her tail,
+Ellie’d want her caught. So I took her over to a pied billy the other
+side of Millville.”
+
+“I ne’er saw a skewbald goat, Sam. And those drooping ears.” Penny’s
+maternal instincts were aroused at the sight and smell of a newborn one;
+she vied with Rhodie in cleaning it. Rhodie was stretching her head and
+yawning as animals will do in discomfort. The kid staggered up to nurse
+the tiny nipples. “I’ll call it Pie,” Ellie decided. “There, Pie.”
+
+In the mornings when she left her goats at the pasture, she took the
+path around the farm pond. Tiny green frogs were camouflaged in the
+reeds and grasses, and blacksnakes lived among haw and alder roots along
+the marshy bank. One would slip into the shadowed water, head crooked
+like a twig held upright as it moved across the unbroken glass. When the
+speckled thrush was buzzing and flapping by the path, she ran to find a
+snake twined around a sapling cottonwood. Its head was in the nest and
+the mother bird was darting at it, crying shrill. A single fledgling
+remained, beak gaped for food. Ellen seized a stick, striking the
+reptile until it twisted dying from the tree. She crushed its head, slit
+the body with her pocketknife to see if there was life in the swallowed
+birds. They were limp and she dropped them in an open field while the
+bird continued the alarm clatter. “You’d as well feed the one you got
+left if you can find your way to go back to that serpent-smelling nest.”
+
+Afterwards buzzards wheeled. Ellen knew they were scenting the dried
+rotted nestlings. One huge bird descended and sat hunchbacked on a rail,
+glassy eyes fixed on her. “Stinking brat.” Jack stalked it until it made
+grunting low sounds and flapped away.
+
+Only once since that day in late July when she had come home did a sharp
+edge touch the smooth progression of Ellen’s hours. She awoke in the
+night to hear Anton speaking to Maria in the hall below. “What’s amiss
+with your daughter? There’s no young men coming to the door.” Maria
+whispered to him and they were gone. Ellen lay awake a long time. But in
+the morning when it came to her mind, she thrust it from her. “It’s not
+my fault if they don’t come.”
+
+Anton stepped aside on Sunday to speak with Craig Hedrick and his
+widowed mother about a boar he wanted to buy. On the way home he looked
+over his shoulder at Ellen. “That Hedrick boy’s got a motorcar.” He was
+shouting above the cart’s rumble, “And he’s done proud with that farm
+since his old man was killed. He says, Ellie’s a comely thing.”
+
+She felt all her being grow still, watching the dusty road glide from
+under the wagon. Craig had been one of the bigger boys in the grammar
+school, a few years older than she. His father, Moses Hedrick, had had a
+cleft palate and though the boy had no actual reason for a speech
+impediment, he would talk in nearly the same tongue-tied manner that had
+characterized his father. Craig had been good-natured, his dog followed
+him to school, he was big enough to force the smaller boys from their
+torturing of turtles and frogs and insects that fell into their hands.
+But while Ellen’s pity made her kind, her nature had been revolted by
+the boy’s way of speech, his dirt-ingrained fingernails and pocked face,
+the sour odor that arose from his unwashed winter clothing. She did not
+reply to Anton now. The blood rose hot in her face and her pulse beat
+heavily when he said, “You’re seventeen, Ellie. Where’s all those young
+men?”
+
+“You’d best take hold.” Maria wagged her head while the wagon jolted.
+“Lest you be caught an old maid. Get your man while you’re still
+blooming, for you’ll be a rag soon enough.”
+
+“Young Hedrick’s a Catholic, as well,” said Anton.
+
+Their words rang with finality. She closed her ears to them. Her hands
+were folded in her lap on last summer’s dress of blue-dotted Swiss. She
+clenched them tightly. The steel-rimmed wheels turned in rhythm, hate
+and hate. Wish I was dead like old man Moses Hedrick with a pitchfork
+tucked between my shoulder blades.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+There came, early on a sultry afternoon, the yellow-billed cuckoo’s
+moan, “Kow, kow, kow.” Ellen lifted her head from her churning, spoke to
+Frankie going by with a pail of hog slop. “Raincrows. Hear them cry?
+Reckon it’ll come on a storm?”
+
+“I ain’t scared.” Frankie laughed high. “Teacher Peyton’s coming and I
+got my lesson ready.”
+
+An hour later the sky began to darkle. Ellen walked down the lane to
+look toward the pasture. She could see her goats, hoofs upon the gate
+bars. The cows lay in their usual spot, chewed their cuds, complacent.
+Almost imperceptibly the air was taking on a greenish cast. A
+fresh-smelling wind yawed and swept the field of rye grass. Green beyond
+green under the sky mass, the grass was weaving, bending to it. Over all
+heaved the blooming sunglow, golden and omnipresent. A rumble was
+sounding faint, a flash of light flicked in the west. The wind was
+subsiding, the heat smoldered oppressive and in the gloom of the sky the
+sun withdrew. Darkness ruled. Sam appeared at the lane head, waving like
+a tiny distracted spider, his face grimaced. “Afore Gawd, get the cows,
+Ellie. Could rile up a twister.”
+
+She was running to the field. The dog rounded up the cattle, drove them
+in at a lope, milk-sacks swinging about their skinny legs so the white
+fluid spurted. Ellen took Pie in her arms. The others bounded after as
+she ran to the woodshed. Rhodie snorted and jumped sidewise
+stiff-legged, her bearded chin tucked in. The girl laughed, “You daft
+one.” She shut them in the pen. Lightning streaked, a thunderclap
+crashed upon the ground. “If you were out in a storm, you’d be safe
+beneath a cedar or a white birch. So Sam says. Beware the ash and the
+oak for it’s their nature to tempt lightning.” She was wending up the
+path to the house, searching cloud drifts for a down-sucked tail that
+could betoken the birth of a tornado. Thunder drummed, light cracked the
+horizon. The sweeping wind had ridden off the burdening heat.
+
+The topmost branches of the hackberry lurched and swayed and she felt
+her heart catch. “It’s so fair. So enduring fair a storm be.” Tears drew
+into her eyes from the gladness. The wind reeled upon her so the flimsy
+gingham clung flattened along her young hips and the hard nipples of her
+breasts. She sensed her strength quicken, fathoming for an instant how
+she, eternal, would through the ages walk the long green soul of man.
+
+Standing there, she heard Frankie’s scream. She turned to the porch
+steps. “It can’t storm. I got my grammar lesson.” The voice was
+protesting, “I’m afraid, Pa.”
+
+Anton mocked her, soothing. “Haw, Frankie. Now you ne’er seen a
+twister.”
+
+“I’m afraid. Afraid.”
+
+The wind shrieked, the loft door slammed. In the kitchen a pot of
+scented geraniums on the window sill was spun across the floor. The
+noise crackled. Anton, from the parlor door, was roaring at Ellen and
+Maria. “Get the windows shut, you oomen. And draw those shades. Open
+windows are what sucks the bolts.” He was lighting a lamp in the parlor,
+pulling the shades. He looked at Frankie in the subdued light, drawn up
+rigid and white in her chair. “Hit’s just an old-timey commotion out
+there now.”
+
+There came the splintering noise of a falling tree. In the instant
+Frankie sprang up, shook her fists helplessly, shut her eyes and
+clenched her teeth. “Everyone’s against me. Hit’s coming to get me.”
+Under the storm’s tension, her inhibitions mounted to the surface. She
+was sobbing in her reedy voice, “I’m going to die. Really I hate you,
+Pa. I hate you. I don’t want to go off to Chicago.” Maria and Ellen had
+come in. Frankie turned her tear-drenched face to them. “Everything’s
+Pa’s fault. What’ll I do, Ellie?”
+
+“All I can say,” Ellen told her, “is I’d as lief it would rain and get
+it o’er. This thunder’s souring all the milk.”
+
+Lightning sizzled, then cracked, a flare skirting the window shades.
+Behind came the bolt, reverberating through the hollows of the house.
+The young girl lamented in desperation, her breath spasmodic, “I don’t
+want to get those lessons. You’re hateful, Pa. You’re fore’er pushing
+me.” The voice was a pale shriek. “I’m afraid!”
+
+“Here, girl. Hold your sass. Those are baneful words.” Anton’s eyes were
+slits. “Want I should set you on your knees and whip you? I’ll do it.”
+
+“No.”
+
+He turned to a chair, taking up a journal. “I mind,” he drawled and
+settled into the low seat, “when there was a storm like this two-three
+years ago. Twister came flailing through Bethel killing four.”
+
+Ellen stayed by the door. Not for long had she seen him so wrought up.
+Maria had taken up her sewing, pursed her mouth over it in the lamplit
+room. Anton was directing his words to his younger child who cried now
+in abject penitence. The convulsive sound came sadly into the still of
+the room as the noisy gale tottered and staggered upon the vegetation of
+the earth.
+
+“Three old Chester brothers were batching with their ninety-year-old ma.
+Folks say it was because they were terrified of the storm but all three
+went off their heads and murdered one another. The old lady too.” Anton
+smoothed his palm over his balding hair. Dry tobacco juice marked the
+edges of his mouth, his long jaw thrust upward. “The plumber man came to
+fix the pump next day. Found them lying about in a mess of blood. Old
+ooman’s throat ripped with a razor. One batch was gored, the other two
+were filled with shotgun holes.”
+
+Heavy drops slammed on the windowpane and Ellen spoke in timid relief,
+“There’s the rain, Pa.”
+
+“Still fixing to die, Frankie?” prodded the man.
+
+“Hit was the dread, Pa,” she pleaded and in time was drawn to sit
+shrived on his knee.
+
+“Now tell, would her pa let harm come to her that’s my pretty poppet?”
+
+The rain was beating strongly, steadily, washing down banks along the
+road, mingling with dust and traveling through stones and suckling earth
+until it gained the water pan far below. Over the pond a silver sheet
+was draping until the water rose over the sides to flood the meadows.
+The swaggering wind was in full strength. Moisture softened the earth
+about the roots of a giant basswood that had matured before the father
+of Jules Gaddy built his lean-to and set up a rail fence for his mules
+and hogs. A sudden blast slammed into the aged trunk; it fell sluggish,
+reluctant, upon its side with a wounded noise, gashed roots exposed.
+Tree branches grappled and fought the gale and were broken, some borne
+by the wind and slung against the house roof, making staccato sounds.
+
+“When you were just a mite, Frankie, I told you thunder was a potato
+wagon going across a bridge. Wasn’t any fear in you then.”
+
+“Will Mester Peyton come at all, Pa?”
+
+“Roads are so bad he’ll likely be hindered. Do what I tell you, Frankie,
+for that’s what’s right.”
+
+The orgasm of the tempest was done. In the clearing sky, white fluffs
+were drifting in remote wind tides. The man went to survey the
+destruction left in the wake. His daughters were sent with hatchets and
+string to gather fallen branches for kindling and to fagot the twigs.
+
+“My sir used to recount,” Anton said, before he walked out, “how in the
+forests of the old country they were given leave to break off all the
+boughs to the height a standing man could reach. For firewood. There
+wasn’t any rotted trash like in this new country. And it was soft as
+carpeting underfoot.” He took his ax and wedges and went to join Sam,
+who was bringing the team up the lane, hitched to a whiffletree. Sam was
+balancing on his shoulder a bucksaw and a two-man crosscut. They headed
+toward a yellow locust spraddled across the road past the farm entrance.
+
+“Locust does right smart for fence posts, Mester Gaddy.”
+
+“I’m glad that tree came down. I was minded to cut it anyway, Sam.”
+
+By the pond frogs were shrilling, in the field near the orchard a
+buzzard sat hunched on a stump, the black dampened wings held
+motionless, outspread to dry, the naked head tucked into the wrinkles of
+its bare neck. “I ne’er meant what I said,” Frankie was telling Ellen.
+“For I love my pa and he’s good.”
+
+“You carried on like you were taken with a fit,” admitted Ellen. “Makes
+me puke to see you that way.”
+
+“Thinking of me always, he is.” Frankie tied a bundle of twigs and threw
+it to a pile they were making at the field’s edge. “Poor Pa.”
+
+Ellen heaved a rock at the buzzard and watched it soar effortless. “The
+wind’s flattened that cornfield. There’s a mort of damage been done.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The leaves had been touched by the first frost and nearly overnight
+strident colors were emerging on the countryside. Ellen and Frankie were
+cleaning the musty litter from nest boxes, stuffing in fresh oat straw.
+“Wonder how come we ne’er tried a doorknob in the nests, Frankie? A
+porcelain one might coax them to lay. I’ve heard of it.” She harked back
+to little Clate hanging to her dress hem.
+
+The cows were restless, feeling the new season, the sluggish summer
+shaken off. On dark mornings Ellen would wear her rough brown sweater,
+torn in the sleeve, against the chill. The cows heaved themselves to
+their knees, then to all fours. She put her bare feet in the warmed
+straw where they had lain. A heifer plopped her hoof in the fresh foam
+and held it there, stubborn head low, flanks whitened with the splash.
+The lantern light blinked and Sam was shuffling in. He gazed at the
+white-spattered wall, belched gently. Ellen caught the whisky scent.
+“Don’t ill at her, Ellie,” he advised, “or she’ll fore’er mistrust you.”
+
+“Who’s illing?” She carried the pail to the pump to clean it.
+
+He was following, garrulous. “My old-old-old man always said, don’t ill
+at a creature which does your work,” he nodded, sanctimonious, “and
+fills your belly.”
+
+“There’s the milking to do, Sam. You’re late. Pa’s waiting on you.”
+
+“Old-old-old’s sort of a byword with us Offuts. When Pa was getting on
+in years, I sassed him once. He’d started in to say I shouldn’t talk
+back at my old man. He commenced to say old and he couldn’t stop.” Sam
+cleared his throat, spit phlegm into the cold bushes. “I told it on him
+after that. Old-old-old, we Offuts always say.”
+
+Ellen sighed. Sam’s milking would wait on his tongue.
+
+
+                                   11
+
+The car was puttering up the lane, a trailer hitched behind. It was a
+day in early October. Ellen drew back from sight, hearing Craig
+Hedrick’s high-pitched halloa. Anton was coming from the barnyard where,
+with Sam, he had been forking manure onto the wagon for broadcasting
+over the fields. Ellen fled along the fence line, down to the pond and
+the tranquil woods beyond. “I aim to get a mess of shaggy-manes to stew
+for supper,” she was promising herself. Most of the afternoon she stayed
+in the woods, finding few of the big mushrooms she hunted although there
+were some overripe ones. These she kicked to see the sootlike powder
+billow as they split. Jack ran a rabbit and barked at squirrels and
+woodchucks. Ellen was leaning idly on a fence rail, looking over the
+tawny sedge grass of a neighboring field. A red-shouldered hawk circled
+in flight, uttered its squeal like escaping steam. She mocked him,
+“Kee-yoo! Get you a passle of crawdads, you old hen-thief.”
+
+She put her chin in her hands. A mass of midges vibrated in the
+sunshine, minute wings whirring swifter than eye could follow. You take
+a flower now. When it goes to raise out of its leaves, it stirs
+everlasting slow, unfolding. It’s a case of time, it would seem, and
+man’s caught between. How quick we must appear to the trees, and how
+draggy to the midges.
+
+Back she walked in the late day up the fallow hill field, new-plowed for
+autumn wheat. “Wish I was an earthclod, nary a care.” She stubbed her
+shoes against turned furrows.
+
+In the wagon bed that was rumbling in from the field her father swayed,
+standing spraddle-legged. His face was shadowed with a beard, his sateen
+shirt was open, baring his chest. The dun horse shook its mane and the
+mare nickered to its yearling colt trotting in the pasture beside the
+lane. “Whaw,” Anton was shouting. The chomping of bits and movement of
+harness on the sweating animals made tinny bright noises. “You’re a
+great one for roaming, girl. Where you been?”
+
+“I took a notion to gather shaggy-manes for supper, Pa. I hunted but
+there weren’t any.”
+
+“Hit’s a sight too dry for mushrooms. I could have told you.” He looked
+down from his vantage on the wagon. The muscles swelled on his freckled
+forearms and he was holding the reins careless. “You just missed young
+Hedrick. He came to visit and trade off our old boar for a thoroughbred
+one I wanted. It’s more than twice the size of the old one.”
+
+“I’ll take a look at it, Pa,” she told him.
+
+“He asked after you. That young man.” He shrugged with satisfaction.
+“Whup.” The wagon was rolling by her.
+
+She replaced the pole barriers. “There. That hammer-tongue Craig.”
+
+The next afternoon she was gathering herbs and seed pods for drying. It
+was warm while she worked, for the garish sun heated the withering
+earth. Craig Hedrick’s Model T was turning into the yard. He came up,
+throwing himself forward as though there were many miles to go before
+the end of the day. His sandy hair curled woolly and his small nose
+turned up, his upper lip protruded slightly, which gave him a hounded
+expression. “Hey, Ellen.” He stood ungainly as she nodded. He was
+hitching the belt to his blue serge slacks, adjusting the knot of his
+purple rayon tie.
+
+“Good-looking hog you traded to Pa, Craig. What do you call those spotty
+ones?”
+
+“He’s a Poland China,” he said in his tongue-twisted way. “They’re bred
+for lard. Not what you call a bacon pig.”
+
+She laid aside her seed harvest and came to sit on the porch steps with
+him. Anton walked out. “Hey, Hedrick.”
+
+His presence eased the younger man. “Bought me a manure spreader, Mester
+Gaddy. You own one? Chops straw and dung up and sifts it like my old
+lady straining wheat flour on her bread board.”
+
+“Hum.”
+
+There was a long pause. All three watched the progress of a flicker
+hammering up one side of the hackberry trunk. Craig was lifting his arms
+slowly as though he held a gun. He sighted the woodpecker on the red
+band across the back of its head. “Pow.”
+
+Anton grunted, appreciative. He lit his pipe with a match he struck on
+his overall pants, drew the smoke into his lungs and exhaled. “There. I
+allow you got that high-hole.”
+
+Craig was adjusting his position on the step, uncomfortable. “Well.”
+
+Anton asked, “Heard the comical one about the hen that laid the
+oversized egg?”
+
+“How’s it go?”
+
+“It wasn’t comical to the hen.”
+
+The young people were still, uncommunicative. “Come on, see my Ford,
+Ellen.” Craig was going in his springy stride to the black two-passenger
+automobile. He held his gait down to match Ellen’s. She was conscious of
+the smell of the man, could scarce speak for her contempt. Yet there
+were the pleading eyes and the wounded way of a beast about him. “You
+know where I live, Ellen? Just a piece from Tomkin’s Ditch.” He fought
+with his flaw of speech. There was a rich section, he was confiding,
+adjoining his, that he hoped to buy and add to his own. He had many
+plans.
+
+Ellen knew it was because of the way he looked upon her that he was
+pushing out his chest and leaning awkward against his polished
+automobile. He was tall in his shining shoes and Sunday wear. Her dress
+was torn. All the while though, she felt he was the pitiful one. She
+stood apart from her own body and watched this Ellen Gaddy, her
+forbearance, her dignity. She was gentle. “I got chores to do now.”
+
+“Well then.” He started the motor, drove hastily off.
+
+In days to follow Craig would stop to talk with her. Ellen, aloof, would
+listen as he rambled. Her mind would stray on whether Pa would remember
+to get the sorghum syrup or whether Sam had mended the split butter
+paddle as he promised.
+
+The fields were being prepared for winter wheat, the horses and plow
+working over the land. The disking and harrowing were now in progress
+and the blended figures of man and team moved over the horizon to
+disappear and return again. Ellen could see them from the potato patch.
+She was digging in the rows with a fork, and she stuffed the tubers into
+towsacks. The dust rose; her nostrils were clogged with it. A bluebird,
+lingering before it flew south, was beading its sad autumn cry,
+“Far-away, far-away!”
+
+It was then that the days of a summer came upon her and she thought of
+the man on whom she had laid a curse. She wondered if she could remember
+his looks and ways, if meeting him she would know him. It’s past and
+done. He can’t ever hurt me more. Down the row slowly she worked. It’s
+past. She was testing it. But then it was as if Christian Ay emerged
+from the shadows and stood by her in the row. She ceased digging, there
+in the ragged dress, her hair bound by a bit of twine, her feet dirty,
+black outlining the toenails. The north wind of late October was blowing
+and the shadow fell across her. It seemed he was broad and strong, he
+laughed greatly and she loved him in a way that her being ached. She was
+trembling, water flowing down her face. She stood a while in her
+surprise, frightened by the issuance from what she had thought a safe
+memory. Its pain stirred her.
+
+In that night the wind was changing. She heard it, felt its veering. And
+the whippoorwills came up, calling in the cool caves of morning.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day Craig hunted until he found her in the orchard where her
+goats were grazing on crisp fallen leaves. She was leaning against an
+apple tree, listless. “Hey, Ellen. Hit’s Indian summer.”
+
+She made no reply. He stood restive before her. A yellow insect hovered
+whining about his tight-curled hair. “There’s a news-bee, Ellen.” He
+reached out to catch it and it flew off. “Wonder what it came to tell,
+Ellen?” The fragrance of the girl’s blown hair as she leaned on the
+armor of the old tree, brought him yet again to speech, his face on
+fire. “I’d get two-three nanny goats if you’d a mind for them. You could
+have honeybees too, and by the doorside I’d set out petunia flowers.”
+
+She turned to him, absent, her face wan, her gray eyes sorrowful. “Think
+I’d have a poor rake such as you?” After a time she looked up from where
+she bent her head to see he still was standing there. He wore a bruised
+look and his underlip sucked in. “I ne’er meant to say that. It’s
+because I’ve no notion for marrying, Craig. It’s nothing against you.”
+
+“E’er seen my farm, Ellen? Out by Tomkin’s Ditch? You’d only to see hit
+to change your mind. I was fixing to paint the house, too.”
+
+His dreams left her unmoved. She was watching two winging birds come to
+settle in a tree. “There’s a pair of doves.”
+
+“I might even build on a porch and put up screening.”
+
+“If one dies, it’s mate’ll mourn till it dies too. E’er find a dove
+lying dead, no mark on it?”
+
+“I’d set out young shade trees, Ellen, to put a chair under.”
+
+“I came on a dove in the path one time. It ne’er had a sign nor wound on
+its body and was still warm.”
+
+They returned to the house. Anton was under the hackberry, pulling on
+his pipe. “Set to dinner along with us, Hedrick.” He was poking the
+young man with his elbow. “Ellie made a wild-plum pie this morning.
+She’s one for kitchen chores.”
+
+After their first hunger was spent, Anton was talkative. “A sight of my
+corn ruined in that summer storm. Might have to buy a load come spring.
+You lose any crops?”
+
+“I reckon I’ll make out. I’ve got a herd of steers. I’m going to take
+them to the auctions in Louisville.”
+
+“You fattening steers? Well.” Anton pushed his food with a knife onto
+the fork he held in his left hand. “I call to mind my sir gave me two
+matched bull calves when I was a youngen. I set store by them, made them
+a little yoke and learned them to drag a stone-boat and mind hawp and
+gee. My sir waited till they were two-year-olds to cut their balls. That
+was to allow them to get a good crest.”
+
+“What did you name them, Pa?” asked Frankie.
+
+“I mind the off one was Brown. I disremember the near one’s name. I was
+proud of them for a shirt-tail brat.”
+
+“What happened, Pa?”
+
+“My ma sold them under me. She needed cash for my brother Marc, who was
+getting his learning. I hunted the barns and meadows, came in squalling
+someone stole them. What do you mean, your ox-team, Ma says, cash is
+cash.” Anton pursed his thick lips. “Now, they were so slick you could
+hunt for a loose hair. I used to file the horns and grease them.”
+
+“Your maw give you a cut on what they sold for, Mester Gaddy?”
+
+“I ne’er seen hit.” He asked Craig, “Have you worked oxen?”
+
+“You couldn’t law them on me. I’m one for mules. Steady, and easy
+keepers. But to tell you true what I mostly hanker for is a tractor. I
+aim to get one some day.”
+
+“And where’ll your manure come from then?” Anton gloated.
+
+They were pushing back their chairs. The two men went out on the steps
+while the women cleared. Frankie was drying plates and laying them
+upside down, ready for the evening meal. Ellen took the butter and milk
+jars out to the dry well near the porch. “Go to mass in my auto
+tomorrow, Ellen?” Craig asked when she passed on the step.
+
+Anton answered, “She’ll go. Be pleasured to.”
+
+Ellen would give them no glance though Craig murmured, “Ellen?” as she
+was going by up the stairs and into the kitchen. She heard them. “I aim
+to take a drive later, Mester Gaddy, if it makes no nevermind to you.
+Ellen’s not seen my farm and my maw’d be proud to meet her.”
+
+“That suits.”
+
+“How’s that seed-boar I traded you?”
+
+“He’s a crapping mean sonofabitch, Hedrick. Set on rutting up his fence
+all the time.”
+
+“I noticed he liked to do that. Always breaking through. But I wouldn’t
+say he was mean. That’s hog nature.”
+
+“Maybe so. I call him Luther.”
+
+“That’s a foreign name. Spot would fit him more.”
+
+“After Martin Luther. A crapping bastard Dutchman Brinker worships.
+Heathen.”
+
+“Say. Bet that’s the first hog e’er to go by that name in this county.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Ellie, how come Craig’s pa got killed?” Frankie was asking as they lay
+in their beds in the muddled dark of their room.
+
+“Oh, it was in hay time. Craig and him were working with a watch-eye
+hand. Craig and that man were in the loft stacking hay back. His pa was
+down on the wagon. Well, that watch-eye man was fixing to jump down and
+pitched his fork ahead of him. It stabbed Moses Hedrick in the back
+between his shoulders. There he was, holding to the hay frame and the
+handle sticking out of his back. They said the prongs came out in front.
+Said he died standing there before he fell down.”
+
+“Oh my, I’d think a one-eye man would guard against such a
+happenstance.”
+
+“I reckon he couldn’t gauge distances so good.” They lay awhile in
+silence. Then Ellen was speaking in the dark, “Craig took on the farm
+then. You can say that for him. And he was still going to the grammar
+school.”
+
+Ellen wore the blue crushed-satin hat that Garland had brought her last
+Christmas. In Craig’s Model T, she was heading for the Catholic church.
+She kept her eyes straight ahead on the little ivory crucifix fastened
+on the dashboard. Under her feet the carpeting was torn; the car smelled
+of dust. The young man was voiceless, his tension exhibited in his
+handling of the machine. His collar was starched; the ill-fitted suit
+constricted him. “Here it is.”
+
+They were walking in stiffly. When his arm touched her, she moved away.
+At mass when the bell rang, Ellen knelt by him. But while heads around
+her bowed in the incensed air, she was staring about. Anton was with
+Maria and Frankie in a back pew. Pa’s trying to trap me with Craig. She
+held her head rebellious among the bent ones. What’s all the begging and
+praying about? I don’t care for this way of loving Him. I’ll get my
+peace out on the fatness of the earth that is His footstool. And the dew
+and the smell of the fields.
+
+“Stand up, Ellen,” whispered Craig.
+
+Father Tompert was reading out to the people in the clapboard church the
+beginning of the gospel of John. Ellen listened, brooding. They can’t
+make me marry him. “Thanks be to God,” said the priest and the people
+moved to go.
+
+Craig was driving a mile or two along a cart-rutted road on the other
+side of Millville, unfamiliar to Ellen. “There’s Tomkin’s Ditch,” he
+nodded to a joint post office and general store by the deserted
+roadside. “And here’s that section of land I’m fixing to buy. I aim to
+rent it the first two years to make the payments.” He halted the car,
+gazed upon an overgrown field. “Hit’s all virgin. A virgin piece. Ne’er
+a plowshare been put to it. Corn’ll grow ten feet tall with not a
+handful of fertilizer.” He moved the hand throttle and the car was
+lurching forward. He steered down a winding approach to a weather-beaten
+red house set barren of trees before a barn of the same color. “Let me
+point out the sights. Then you can meet Maw.”
+
+Ellen left her blue hat on the car seat. She came to where Craig leaned
+on the lot fence. Steers, deep in muddy manure, idled around troughs of
+corn. A yellow hound wagged up to her, sniffed her dress. She patted its
+smooth head; it wriggled, threw itself with a grunt on its side in the
+rutted road, waving its feet, ingratiating.
+
+“That’s Sooner.”
+
+“Hey, Sooner.” She was stroking it.
+
+“Sooner stay as come.” An elm grew by the fence. Craig cut a twig from
+it and offered it to Ellen. She shook her head. “Hit’s a slippery elm.”
+He was picking his teeth with the little stick. “Keeps off throat
+trouble.”
+
+He hung his coat on the fence, rolling his sleeves, uncovering blond
+hair that grew long on his arms. He walked with caution around the mire
+of the lot and climbed into the shed loft. The steers licked at the dry
+stalks he was forking down; they gazed at Ellen with deep-lidded eyes.
+Craig shouted, “Nothing to do but eat, hey, Ellen?” He was strutting
+over to her. “Rather watch them eat than feed my own face. You know?”
+
+“Well.”
+
+He spat out the twig. “I took on a man’s ways when I was yet a
+stripling. I dragged this farm up from a poor bit, starting the day Paw
+was killed. It’ll make some folks set up.”
+
+“Your ma take to it out here?”
+
+“Don’t you study on her, Ellen. Maw says the day I bring home a wife to
+do my cooking she’ll go to live with my sister up Indiana way.”
+
+“Craig,” Ellen warned, “I’m not marrying. I told you. If you will talk
+so, you can take me home.”
+
+“But I figured on it, Ellen.”
+
+“I’m not beholden to your figuring.” A thrill of fright ran through her,
+seeing he had raised up tall and pulled in his lip. He was looking upon
+her as though she were changed. He leaned over, gripping her upper arm,
+swathed in the winter coat. “I told you no, Craig.”
+
+“I heard a girl was taught to say no to lead her sweetie on hotter. You
+playing games?” His hand was tightening.
+
+“Craig, Pa’d kill you if he saw how you’re acting.”
+
+“Mester Gaddy’s thirsting to foist you off on me.”
+
+“But I got ne’er a liking for you, Craig. You have to give me time.” If
+she could but stave him off until she was safe at home. Home was distant
+and dear.
+
+“Don’t you e’er get hot, Ellen?” He was thrusting his hand within her
+coat, roughly hunting her breast.
+
+She pulled from him. “Maybe I would if you were good and waited.” She
+tried to soothe him. “Let’s go meet your ma now.”
+
+He was dragging her to his pock-marred face with an arm that was a band
+of steel. “You virgin, Ellen?” The scent was there, an odd mingling of
+moth balls and urine and hair oil. His lips were striving upon hers
+while she struggled. His hand was pressing her back, holding her against
+his body that was a rock. She felt the hard prod of him and a streak of
+flame ran through her, overlaid with disgust. I mustn’t go wild, it’s
+like with a mean boar, like Luther. You have to deal easy with him. She
+forced her body to slacken and felt him relax. She drew her mouth
+stiffly aside. “Give me a chance to breathe.” She smiled, forcing it.
+
+“There, Ellen. You do like me. See?”
+
+She twisted like a snake, darting free. Upon her heels she heard him,
+his breath an angry roar. The five-tined pitchfork was leaning against
+the fence bars where he had placed it after throwing hay to the cattle.
+She grasped it, flailing with the prongs turned backward. It smote him
+across the face, leaving white streaks. He stumbled, gasping amazed. She
+swung again.
+
+“Bitch,” he hissed, “I’ll prick you yet.” He grappled for the tool.
+
+She tore it loose, driving at him strongly. He was staggering backward,
+tripping in a road rut, falling. He threw up a protecting arm, blood
+oozing from a tine-mark on his forehead. Mud covered his Sunday vest and
+pants and striped shirt. She turned, speeding across the stubble field
+toward woods beyond. The hound, Sooner, was pattering alongside. She
+clawed her way through underbrush, aware after a time of a hurt in her
+throat where the breath was sobbing. She looked about. The hound had
+disappeared. She took the direction that seemed true, cutting across
+country, skirting the few houses. She climbed a rail fence and her dress
+caught, ripping. She shook her head, “I’ll have to mend that.”
+
+The afternoon was wearing on. A chill breeze was born. A faintness
+enveloped her. She startled when a twig cracked. She stopped to
+consider, speaking into the stillness. “It’s the fright makes me
+light-headed. I must have got my bearings turned. I should have come on
+the pike by now.” She was going at a slower gait; she remembered, “Now
+my hat’s in his car.”
+
+She was following a stony path bordered by thimbleberry bushes. It led
+onto the Millville Road which she recognized at once. A mud hen ran
+stammering before her, “Butbutbutbutbut!” It vanished in a field. The
+rail-birds were seldom seen; Sam Offut claimed that in winter they
+changed into frogs and hid in the marshes until spring. Ellen walked
+swiftly, head down, as automobiles and later a buggy came from behind
+and passed. Then she was at the house steps and slowing her pace.
+
+Anton was in the kitchen with Frankie who sprang from a chair. “Hey,
+Ellie. Is your beau with you?”
+
+“I’ve got no beau,” Ellen said stonily. She stood a moment plucking
+beggar’s-lice from her coat while her fingers shook. She turned to her
+father. “That was a whoreman you set on me, Pa.” She began to weep
+freely as anger overcame her.
+
+“You greening me? Speak up.”
+
+“You were bound and determined to sic that Hedrick on me, weren’t you?”
+Ellen whimpered.
+
+“Speak up,” shouted Anton.
+
+“He wanted to show me his farm. Then he came after me. I said let’s go
+meet your ma, but he wouldn’t.”
+
+“Tell what he did,” Anton threatened, fear glowing in the gray pupils of
+his eyes.
+
+“I grabbed a dung-fork and hit him. Then I ran.”
+
+“You seem to be safe enough, girl. The Lord God takes care of you.”
+
+Anger caught her up again. “It’s not that. With you it’s always root hog
+or die for me, and you know it.” The words fell biting as her tears
+washed. “It’s not because of God’s help I be home again.” She was
+running to her room.
+
+Later she appeared, pale and sullen, to do her chores and help with
+supper. When Anton came to the kitchen, she whispered, cold, “I ne’er
+meant those words, Pa. I was unsettled, I reckon, by all that walking.”
+
+“Were you out walking then, Ellie?” asked Maria. “I thought you were
+with that young man.”
+
+“I don’t take trifling from a youngen,” said Anton, contemptuous. “Got
+worries enough hanging from my neck without you laying more on.”
+
+“I ask you to overlook it.” She strove against the alienation.
+
+“Root hog or die, such talk after all that’s done for you. And taking
+God’s name. Whoso curses his father, it’s said, his lamp shall be put
+out.”
+
+“I ne’er cursed,” she breathed.
+
+“I saw you holding your head haughty in church this morning at the canon
+of the mass when all good souls were waiting on God. Now bend your head
+proper, girl. And don’t disgrace me. Mind.”
+
+Before they blew the candles in the bedroom that evening, the sisters
+were sitting in their shifts on the beds. Ellen looked out the window
+where the curved horn of the waning moon bobbed in scuds, and the wind
+coursed high upon it. “It’s wild out there tonight. The Indian summer’s
+on the decline.”
+
+“Ellie, what did Craig do to you?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“I’d ne’er let a man touch me. I’d hide like Ma in the wardrobe closet
+first.”
+
+“I’ll see that come the time.”
+
+“Well tell, did he kiss you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Tell about girls, Ellie. Why are there girls and then men?”
+
+“Go to sleep. Why can’t you let it be? You’re always going on.”
+
+“I want to know if a man’s secrets are more like a ram or a stallion.
+Wish I knew.”
+
+“You say more and I’m going to tell Pa you’re asking such stuff. He’ll
+whip those notions from you all at once.”
+
+Frankie lay restless, drawing the quilts up to her chin. She sighed. The
+candles by the bedside flickered, and upon the slanted roof beams
+shadows were wavering like wings of pinned moths.
+
+Ellen slept. She was dreaming of Christian Ay. And in the dream he had
+knowledge of her. It seemed this time she was willing. She came awake
+wondering at the vividness, sheltering its guilt. Maybe it all befell in
+another world as Miss Gentry the school teacher had claimed. Once Ellen
+had related a childish nightmare to her and she had replied, “Some say
+the soul is freed while you’re asleep, Ellen. And that’s when evil’s got
+its chance. And there’s some can prophesy from a dream. Now others go
+against those old ways, holding modern notions such as dreams showing up
+your real wishes, and you having a hidden mind with its own thoughts. I
+don’t hold by any of that. I maintain those fancy notions are much the
+same as prophesying.”
+
+It was another strangeness to dwell on. Then she recalled the child she
+had borne in the Dougherty orchard. She put the memory away with
+distaste, separating its being from the love she had held for Christian
+Ay as if there were no connection. She closed her eyes again, weary from
+the long day.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The spotted boar that Anton had obtained from Craig Hedrick rooted up
+his fence in the night, wandering into the lot where the cows were
+penned for the winter months. He weighed over half a ton, had an
+untrusty temper, an insatiable appetite. Anton and Sam would view him in
+his pen when he fed. “Haw. Luther. Old bastard stinks, doesn’t he, Sam?
+Luther.”
+
+“He’s ugly, Mester Gaddy. I want to see the pigs he sires to fatten for
+market. Say.”
+
+The brute’s jowls below his dish face were touching the ground. His ears
+flapped over tiny vacant eyes. His back was arched high and powerful,
+his larded sides shook when he trod on his small cleft hoofs. His screw
+tail was twitching with excitement. He roamed, investigating the new
+territory, growling. He nibbled at the corn he rooted from cow
+droppings, at hay fallen under the racks. But he was seeking a tastier
+morsel. The heavy milker, Maisie, had been due to drop a calf, the men
+examining her judiciously every evening for signs because Anton wanted
+to raise it. Now she was down in straw at the corner of the shed,
+groaning, pushing forth a heifer calf. As Luther rounded the shed side
+he smelled it, half born. He fed his hunger, ripping at the moist
+caul-swathed fetus, his eyes glittering.
+
+In the morning Anton had to shoot his mutilated cow. The men strung it
+up to skin it and dress out what meat could be salvaged. Anton was
+scooping the foul-smelling entrails into a washtub. “When we finish
+trimming this carcass, before God, Sam, we’re going to drive locust
+posts four feet deep. Build that murdering bastard a barricade that’ll
+hold him.”
+
+
+                                   12
+
+Near the last of November there was a circle around the moon foretelling
+the wet weather. The downpour held for ten days, the pregnant sky
+slate-colored, the deluge continuous. Muck and soggy manure were deep
+now in stables and yards and paths. When Ellen went out to her chores
+she would wear Anton’s discarded rubber boots. Maria and Frankie had
+sickened when the rain first began. They were lying together in the big
+bed in the downstairs room, Anton sleeping nights in the guest bed.
+Though the fever of the invalids was abating, their harsh coughs were
+hanging on. Anton soaked inner bark of black cherry and elm, boiling it
+down to a thick brown brew for them to sip when the seizures came on.
+Ellen’s eyes were on him as he was moving about the kitchen, preparing
+the medicine. His loose lips drooped in concentration. “Feed a cold and
+starve a fever. Hear, girl?”
+
+“Maybe we ought to get a doctor, Pa?” She whispered it, confiding.
+
+“Nary a satchel doctor has set foot in this house, even when your ma
+bore you youngens.” His voice surged, “I don’t work with charms and tie
+papers on the sick. The way heathen folk do. I use herbs and healing
+trees. Like my folks before me and theirs before that.”
+
+“A doctor might know of something new.” She was persistent.
+
+“Now what do you reckon a doctor be? He uses the same herbs as me. He
+puts them in fancy bottles and gives them new names. The Word tells,
+remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. That goes
+for all old-timey ways.”
+
+“I know, Pa.” The sharp-scented steam was filling the kitchen. Ellen
+took a bowl of spongy warm dough, overturning it into a bed of soft
+flour on the bread board.
+
+Anton set the jar of warm liquid on the table by her. “Hum. Now, that’s
+ready for those two.” He pulled on his heavy jacket and fur cap,
+departing into the drizzle.
+
+Ellen worked the dough down and covered it with a towel. She would
+prepare flannel bags of heated earth when the chills came on Maria and
+Frankie, heaping blankets high. Then their fever would be reborn and
+take possession again. “Mam,” Maria whispered hoarsely to Ellen once,
+“tell Pap he better make up another sweater tea if the back of this
+fever don’t break soon.” Red-faced, Maria threw back the covers. Pity
+moved in Ellen. When she came from the barn, she would leave her muddy
+boots on the porch and wash herself. She wore a fresh apron into the
+bedroom. She would bring the invalids a bowl of pudding and a plate of
+toasted fresh bread, walking softly.
+
+“There’s a bit for you to try and eat, Frankie. You got to have food, Pa
+says, now the fever’s waning.”
+
+“Wish I had ice,” complained the girl. “Go get the chamber pot for me,
+Ellie.”
+
+No action, no word or roughness disturbed the tranquil edge of Ellen’s
+spirit. She was gentle-spoken. “It’ll be clearing off soon. The red cock
+crowed on the fence this morning. First time he’s flown off the ground.”
+
+Frankie was sighing. “Christmas is less than a month away. And I’m
+missing all my lessons. I might ne’er get to go with Uncle Garland to
+the city.”
+
+“Sure you will, now.” Ellen took them warm water to bathe their faces.
+She scrubbed bed linen in a tub on the kitchen floor, wrung the clothes
+out, pinned them on the lines she strung through parlor and kitchen. All
+the while she bore herself proudly and carefully, feeling her necessity
+and how they were all leaning on her. Surely her father saw she was
+keeping his house alone now, cooking for Sam and the sick ones, besides
+her work out of doors.
+
+At length a fragment of moon reappeared in the daytime sky, and the sun
+was there too, embryonic, feeble. Maria came out of the bedroom to grind
+beans for breakfast coffee, a long maroon sweater draped over her
+flannel nightdress. Anton wrapped Frankie in a quilt and sat her in a
+chair at the table. He was filling her plate. “Now you got to eat.”
+
+The slender girl laughed, her skin pallid, her red hair seeming to
+prosper unnaturally under the illness, lying abundant. “Do tell at her,”
+said Maria, “and my hair’s falling out. When I was a youngen I lost hit
+all in the epidemic. Pure bald. Had to wear a string-knit cap for nigh
+on a year. He knows.” Her lips continued to move.
+
+“I was thinking, Pa,” said Ellen, striving to keep her newly won role,
+“I’ll start cleaning the candlesticks outside after this to get away
+from that mess in the sink.”
+
+“This little old thing.” Anton touched Frankie’s hair, beaming. “Just
+look at her, you-all.”
+
+The tears stood in Ellen’s eyes. And days that she had made full became
+empty once more. She felt her pride and her beauty fall away.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was cutting down a few of the hard cheeses from the rafters in the
+smokehouse. Grady Love would take them in trade for the staples they
+needed. There was little to carry in the basket these days. In the
+unseasonable weather the hens had nearly stopped laying. She used
+water-glass eggs to cook with, put down in a crock during the summer.
+There was no cream or butter, the dairy taking all the milk that was
+produced. It was late in the day before she got started. She put on her
+heavy coat and boots. “I’ll be back in time to fix supper, Ma. So don’t
+fret if it gets dark. Days are so short now.”
+
+“Can’t you wait till tomorrow?” Frankie was asking. “Don’t go.”
+
+“Tomorrow’s Sunday, Frankie. I’m strapped for salt and soda. Pa’s out of
+tobacco. You try to nap.”
+
+When she finished her trading and was on the way home, Ellen took the
+short cut by Bailey’s Woods to visit Amanda York and to warm herself.
+She knocked at the door of the double cabin. Amanda was wearing a bright
+red dress, her hair made into a gleaming braid down her back. She drew
+Ellen to the fire that hissed and sparked. “You know I got a beau,
+Ellie?”
+
+“No. Who is he?”
+
+“Jerome Hatfield. Smithy Hatfield’s son. He’ll be coming by soon. Stay
+to meet him, Ellie. He’s real nice.”
+
+“You going to marry him?”
+
+“He’s asked me.”
+
+A car was heard approaching. Then doors were slamming outside, and male
+voices shouting. “Mandy?”
+
+“Ask your maw can we come in?”
+
+“We got a present for you-all.”
+
+“That’ll be Jerome,” laughed Amanda. “They’ve been drinking, this being
+Saturday night.”
+
+“This one’s a heavy basket,” called a twisted voice that Ellen knew.
+“Rome Beauties are right solid apples.”
+
+Three young men came in. Craig Hedrick was carrying one handle of a
+basket. He hesitated, seeing Ellen, his face frozen. They set the basket
+down. She saw a dark scar across his forehead lit by the dancing fire.
+
+“Oh, you boys been tasting bootleg,” cried Mrs. York. “Come have some
+soft cider to cool you off.”
+
+Amanda was running to fetch glasses. Ellen followed, whispering, “I’ve
+got to go, Mandy. Ma and Frankie are sick in bed and it’s dark by now.”
+
+“Oh, Ellie, I wish you could stay. Craig,” she was crying, “take Ellie
+Gaddy home in your auto.”
+
+“No,” Ellen breathed.
+
+Amanda whispered, “I’ll make a match for you, Ellie. He’s a nice fellow.
+Got an eighty-acre farm all his own. But he’s afraid of girls.”
+
+“Hurry up with the glasses, Mandy,” called Jerome. Ellen saw him pushing
+Craig’s ribs with an elbow. “Take her home, Craig.”
+
+Amanda brought the tray and Ellen hung behind her. “Ellie, you know
+Craig here? And Jacob Haas and Jerome Hatfield.” She was pointing them
+out with a nod. “The last is the meanest.”
+
+“Pleased to meet you.” The silence was awkward. The three men leaned on
+their legs abashed, their faces heated by the fire and the liquor they
+had drunk.
+
+“Ah, here we are.” Mrs. York was pouring the cider. Ellen shook her
+head, turning away.
+
+“Well, Craig,” persisted Amanda. “Cat got your tongue? Thought you told
+me you knew Ellie and went to school with her?”
+
+“Craig took her for a drive once. I heard about that,” crowed young
+Haas.
+
+“Did you, Craig?” cried Amanda. “When?”
+
+“Come on, let’s hear. When?”
+
+“I’ll walk,” whispered Ellen. “I’d rather.” The young men were shuffling
+near the fire; someone spilled cider on the stone hearth and Amanda was
+bringing a mop. Ellen found her basket and boots by the doorway. Outside
+in the dog-trot the adjoining cabin was dark, unused in winter. She was
+buttoning her coat. The night was chill.
+
+As she reached Sweetincreek Road the wind gathered itself and whirled
+strongly about her, up the sleeves of her coat. There was just light
+enough to follow the road. She drew her coat to her, fought the wind.
+The way was endless, the few dried leaves still cringing in the trees
+rattled and the wind had its way with them. In a darkened corn field an
+animal was slipping along rows of shocks. She heard a distant car
+engine. It became louder, lights were shining faintly behind her. She
+was turning into the ditch at the roadside, stumbling down the incline
+to crouch there. Headlights beamed close at hand. The car stopped by the
+ditch, a voice was calling thickly, “Ellen? I’ll drive you home.”
+
+“I want no help from you, Craig. I’ll walk.” She climbed out and started
+up the road.
+
+The car was following. “Get in, Ellen. I’m not going to hurt you.” He
+swung the door open. She stepped up and into the seat. There was the
+tart whisky trace. With a jerk the car started. He drove fast down the
+road, the thin tires bumping over hardened ruts. “Thought you were a new
+field of daisies, you whore,” Craig was saying. “You’re nothing but a
+brush field where a plowshare drove through. I found that out.”
+
+She held a frightened silence.
+
+“E’er a man in the county has slept in that field. So I hear.”
+
+He’s blind drunk. She stared ahead where the road crouched dark before
+the car lights.
+
+“Why won’t you sleep with me too, Ellen? Why did you hit me with that
+dung-fork?” He began to sniffle.
+
+“You’re stark crazy.” She put her fingers on the door latch.
+
+“You ran off with a rich fellow, I heard. And got knocked up. Had a brat
+off some’eres.” He was making gruff crying noises.
+
+“You’re just simple crazy.”
+
+He was swerving the Ford into the lane of her home. He braked so that
+she threw her hands against the dashboard, bruised her fingers on the
+tiny crucifix screwed there. Her basket slid across the floor carpet
+making a rough sound. “I’m just drunk. Worthless drunk. I’m sorry for
+what I said, Ellen.” He was leaning to her and she remembered his hairy
+arms.
+
+“Get away from me.” The handle turned. She ran to the house, the basket
+swinging wildly. His car remained where it was; she glanced back from
+the porch. She was pushing the door open, the kitchen was warm and
+smelled of security. She went to the bedroom door, taking off her coat.
+
+“You were gone so long, Ellie,” Frankie whined.
+
+“I had to put the potatoes on,” Maria said.
+
+Ellen tugged at her boots. “I tarried a while at Mandy’s.” She was
+busying herself with supper, making a clatter with the dishes. She
+hummed and when she sliced the ham she closed her eyes, blinking tears.
+He called me a whore.
+
+“I thought I heard a car drive up,” Maria said.
+
+“Someone out on the road, I reckon.” She heard the motor start then.
+Craig would drive back to the York cabin. He and the others would sit
+around the fire, eating apples and popping corn in an iron basket. They
+would laugh about that queer Ellen Gaddy.
+
+Anton came in, his long-jawed face ruddy from the harsh wind. “I brought
+your twists of tobacco, Pa. I set them on the shelf o’er there.” I hate
+them all. Men are a pack of tormented hogs.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Christmas 1926 was approaching. Preparations were under way for
+Garland’s annual visit. Frankie told Ellen with enthusiasm, “I’m just
+going to sit and study grammar. So don’t look for help in the kitchen
+from me.”
+
+“Oh Frankie, stop worrying about it.”
+
+In the evening the younger girl was arranging dried everlasting in the
+parlor vase, the thistle-like blooms shaking palely in her hands. She
+turned to Ellen, blithe. “I’m that eager to see Chicago, you know. Pa
+says I can get dresses from the catalog. You help me.”
+
+Ellen brought it out and they selected. “You’re like a wild one,
+Frankie. Setting such store on the times you’ll have. Just do as Uncle
+says and it’ll come out well.”
+
+Frankie had suppressed her misgivings. By her lively chatter and
+protestations she covered the small voice of panic beneath.
+
+Anton came in to where they sat. “Order stout, hear? Not cheap. I
+declare this is the day. Get her new boots too, girl.”
+
+“She’ll more need pretty slippers, Pa.”
+
+“And get chills-and-fever? She can be warm and comely too, I say. Just
+spend it. I got it,” he said recklessly, and went to paint the black
+sink in the kitchen in honor of Garland’s coming.
+
+Ellen enjoyed the readying for the holidays. “Where are the straws I
+pulled from the new broom you got, Ma? I’m bent I’ll find them to judge
+if my cakes are done right. Frankie,” she cried, “stop studying. Come
+beat this icing for me.”
+
+“I don’t know, Ellie.” Frankie entered the room, reluctant. “How do I
+sound when I talk?”
+
+“Why, you sound like a lady. Whip this up, will you?”
+
+“All right.” Frankie poised the spoon, reciting, “The deluge drowned,
+the earth around.”
+
+“That’s real clear, Frankie.” Ellen took pride in her cakes, liked to
+start the batter with her hands, feeling the fresh lard blend to the
+sugar. “I despise to waste making a cake with fat-drippings. They should
+be delicate and light.” She was washing her hands, beating the eggs to a
+froth with her mother’s wire whisk. Her health and good will surged
+strong from some inner store.
+
+After mass on Sunday, Anton left his women-folk to speak with Joe
+Burwell who pressed him, “Borrow my new fence stretcher, Gaddy. Hit
+beats a crowbar and pliers to a fare-thee-well.”
+
+“I’ll try it one time. All my fences are rotting on me. Hell, I’d rather
+set up rails any day than stretch wire.”
+
+Joe Burwell’s son Dyke was approaching the sisters and Maria on the
+church porch. “Hey.”
+
+“Hey, Dyke,” Frankie cried.
+
+The boy was nineteen or twenty, fleshy and large. He was smiling weakly
+at the girls, in anguish. Frankie blushed, Ellen looked down, scowling.
+Anton was calling them to the waiting wagon.
+
+“He’s cute,” Frankie whispered and looked back.
+
+“You can have him. I heard he does dishes and washes and scrubs for his
+ma.”
+
+“I wouldn’t mind. He’s tall. But how come he does her housework?”
+
+“She’s a one-leg. She hitched a horse up without the blinders and it
+scared off and ran the spring-wagon o’er her. They had to cut her leg
+clean off above the knee.”
+
+“Say.”
+
+“She wore out three wood legs till she took to pushing a chair before
+her. Had a baby too,” Ellen concluded luridly, “couple of years after.”
+
+“Well, all the same he’s tall. I’m not so particular.”
+
+In the cold clear weather the cows would seek sunny spots in the
+barnyard, at night crowding into steaming groups. The goats found a
+plank leaning against the chicken house. Ellen came on the younger ones
+bounding madly on the corrugated tin roof, their hoofs rattling. The
+daring skewbald Pie snorted and leaped skittishly from the high slanted
+roof to the ground. She was galloping back to the plank, short tail
+erect, up on the roof again, sure-footed. They seemed like wild animals
+Ellen had come on in the woods, unable to contain their spirits. Penny,
+who was heavier and not inclined to frolic, stood on the ground, ears
+flattened in worry. Ellen patted her and she tossed her beard, fretful.
+
+The girls were gathering walnuts and butternuts. They shucked them and
+threw the hulls in the kitchen stove. Dyke Burwell drove up in a buggy
+with his father. Ellen saw them through the window. Dyke sat helpless,
+holding the reins, while the men met and walked to the barns. Joe
+Burwell turned his head, bellowing, “Hitch Blacky to the post, you dang
+fool, and get in where it’s warm. You got a corncob for a head?”
+
+At the kitchen door Dyke was rapping, timid. Ellen opened it, her hands
+stained with walnut juice. She was blocking the entrance. “Well?” He
+cast his eyes to his hobnail shoes. She saw the two men disappear in the
+distance. “We’re busy baking.” Cruelly, she closed the door on him.
+
+“Ellie Gaddy!” Frankie was running quick-footed after the stout ungainly
+boy. She led him to the parlor where she gave him black and white beans
+to string clumsily for decoration. Ellen heard her vivacious voice and
+later the piano tinkling and Frankie’s falsetto.
+
+   When I was a lady, a lady, a lady
+   When I was a lady, a lady was I
+   And this way and that way and this way
+   And that way
+   And when I was a lady, a lady was I
+
+“That makes two geese in there,” Ellen told Maria briefly.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the evening Garland was to arrive, the Gaddys were waiting in vain.
+Anton took out the letter that had come from Chicago, studied it again,
+squinting through his reading glass. “Hit’s today for sure. That’s what
+it says here. Lay down that red carpet on the twenty-second. That’s his
+way of saying it.”
+
+“You know, Mester Gaddy,” Maria said, “today the sun entered
+Capricornus. First day of winter.”
+
+Anton reflected and went for the almanac. “Hit says unsettled here. I’ve
+noticed these folks will often hit it right. Could be he’s run up
+against a storm.”
+
+The roast was kept on the back of the stove, reheated until the juices
+dried. The chores were finished. The family had dressed for company.
+Late dusk set in and Anton grumbled, “Put it out and we’ll eat. I’ll say
+grace.” They picked at the food by lamplight. The man spoke suddenly,
+“This meat’s not fit for hogs.” He pushed his plate and got up, began to
+pack his pipe.
+
+Frankie made sniffing sounds. “He’s not coming, that’s what. I can’t
+bear waiting and not knowing.” She ran up the stairs, her footsteps
+fading; the loft door slammed mildly from afar.
+
+The next forenoon Garland was wheeling a yellow Reo into the lane; he
+pressed the horn, “Ah-roooooo-ga!” Frankie flew out to greet him. Ellen
+was hesitating at the door, her hand shielding her eyes from the winter
+sun. She saw the familiar derby and Garland’s arm about Frankie as Anton
+came from the barnyard. “Broke down at Minetta, An. Had to stay
+overnight. Why the hell don’t you have a telephone installed like
+everyone else?” Garland was waving at his car. “How do you like it?
+Brand-new touring style. The latest.” He clapped his brother on the
+shoulder. “Had her up to forty miles on route sixty-six.”
+
+Anton preceded them into the kitchen. Garland was looking at Ellen as he
+came to the steps. “Well, puss?” He pinched her thigh, his small blue
+eyes gay. “How’s the wandering little wench?” He wagged his finger.
+
+“Reckon I was a poor niece to you last winter after your kindness.” She
+gazed at him, candid. “I ne’er meant it so.”
+
+“Put on weight, haven’t you, hon? You look good. Pretty.” The color rose
+in her face, relieved that he would let the past rest. “Got a boy friend
+yet?”
+
+“No,” she was smiling. He met her eyes. At the sight of the clipped
+mustache in the squared smooth face, a part of her loneliness had drawn
+away. They walked into the house, his arm on her shoulder.
+
+Maria was in the bedroom doorway, twisting a towsack towel in her hands.
+“Who be you?”
+
+“Ooman,” roared Anton, “it’s my brother then.”
+
+“Not peddler.”
+
+“Ooman. You’re plaguing me.”
+
+“Shut up, An. She hasn’t seen me for a year. Hello, Maria, I brought you
+a present, too. It’s in my car. A pressure cooker to save you work.”
+
+“Now I forgot it was you coming today.” Maria was suddenly complacent.
+“Tinie Bilberry’s got a bread-mixing outfit. Hit’s made to save work
+too. The handle turns like a churn and the dough comes out ready for the
+pans.”
+
+“Does hit shape the loaves too?” asked Anton grimly. “I allow men are
+turning from the Lord God’s ways with these contraptions.”
+
+“Next year I’m going to bring you a sewing machine, Maria. I saw a
+treadle one you could use, seeing as your husband won’t put in
+electricity till doomsday. You got to look to the future, Anton. Rural
+electrification. Let machines do it.”
+
+“Next you’ll say get a newfangled automobile,” Anton predicted.
+
+Ellen and Maria laid out the noon dinner. Ellen was warmed in her
+uncle’s love. In the evening she sat by him on the sofa. Or if he was
+standing, she linked her arm in his. When he laughed and said Frankie’s
+way of speech wasn’t a whit altered from last year and that Anton had
+got a reaming on the grammar teacher, her jealousy was assuaged.
+
+But Anton angered, “That fellow’s been coming for a year. And there was
+one we had before him that quit on me.”
+
+“Hold on,” Garland was crying easily. “Chrissake, Frankie’ll be all
+right. You did what you could.” He nodded kindly to the girl’s stricken
+face. “Let’s hear you play something, sweet.”
+
+The next morning Ellen was in late from her barn work. She stopped in
+the hall at the parlor door, hearing Garland’s emphatic voice within,
+“She’s not well, I tell you, An. You’re so used to her you don’t notice.
+But she acts downright queer.”
+
+“Shaw.”
+
+“She needs psychiatric care. Mental aid. Look, I’m worried about her.
+Your attitude doesn’t help, God knows. You’re as enlightened as a
+bushman.”
+
+Anton laughed, “You modern city folk. Such know-alls.”
+
+“I’m not sure if I should have brought that pressure cooker, either.”
+
+“Well, that’s a fact. I wouldn’t have any truck with it. What’s it got
+o’er a good fire for cooking? You tell me.”
+
+Ellen wandered into the kitchen to look at Maria with new eyes. She saw
+the two men going to the barn, her uncle clad in one of the country
+costumes he affected, jodhpurs and boots, a dark red turtle-neck
+sweater. And Anton wearing stiff new overalls and a fresh-made black
+shirt.
+
+When the time had arrived for midnight mass, Ellen was taking her place
+at the communion rail with the others. She waited while the priest
+stopped at Garland and then Anton and Maria. Then Father Tompert spoke
+in Latin above her and in the cold church all became quiet. The fleeting
+fear washed over Ellen. Am I lost? Pa thinks I’m a pure maid. But his
+God knows I’m not. When she was going back to the bench, she fortified
+herself. They that stumbled are girded with strength. She had read it
+when she searched in her father’s worn Bible. I’ve done no wrong. I have
+my God. And she rebuilt her peace.
+
+They were driving back to the farm in the Reo. The girls tucked their
+feet in the narrow floor space, sniffed the new interior. They savored
+the luxury of the shallow seat. Frankie was giggling, “We’re like soft
+city ladies.” Ellen laughed into the dark.
+
+Anton was pulling at his pipe, the fragrant smoke mingling with the
+fresh biting wind that whipped from the open windows into the back seat.
+Garland inquired, “Where’s your fancy blue hat, hon? With the rose on
+it, that I brought you last year? I see you’re still wearing that old
+cap.”
+
+“It’s cold tonight,” Ellen was evasive, “so I wore this warm wool one.”
+
+At home, they ate from the laden table. Then the women came into the
+parlor, leaving the kitchen in disarray. They sat by the fire that was
+cracking as the dry wood caught. “I’m going to help you girls do those
+dishes in the morning,” Garland cried. “You’ve got to keep me company. I
+used to be in demand as a dishwasher in the old days at some of the best
+hotels. Now I insist.”
+
+“Such foolishness,” Anton mocked, lighting one of the fresh cigars and
+settling in a chair.
+
+Ellen brought a bowl of wrinkled sweet winter apples. “Have a russet,
+Uncle?”
+
+“Ellie, I’ll play if you’ll sing.” Frankie was at the upright piano.
+
+“Go ahead, pusses.” Garland had produced a bottle of bootleg rum; he
+poured two glasses. He waved his hand until they finished the tune.
+
+   I don’t want no more of your weevily wheat
+   I don’t want none of your barley
+   But I want some more of your pretty white flour
+   To bake a cake for Charlie
+
+“I vote for Christmas!” Garland’s face heated. Ellen was remembering the
+party in Chicago where he had seemed a stranger. Here he was his old
+self once again. When he came yearly to the farm, the tenor of the home
+would be transformed, and Ellen esteemed by him above her sister. She
+wondered if Anton ever noticed. I’m strong like their mother, that Nell
+they talk of. And Frankie’s not.
+
+Anton finished his glass, set it down. “If you-all want to hear about
+it, we saw a crowd of doves once so thick they blacked the sky.”
+
+“Turtledoves?” Frankie asked.
+
+“Passenger pigeons,” said Garland. “I remember them, too. Extinct now.
+That was when we were boys.”
+
+“They sounded like a twister when a flock came o’er,” said Anton. “Our
+sir took us three youngens to see them. That was in eighteen-eighty.”
+
+“Not that far back.” Garland was yawning.
+
+“Yes it was. For Ma named it time and again. Eighteen-eighty.” Anton was
+animated by the memory.
+
+“Well, if you say.”
+
+“You and me were still wearing shirt-tails, Gar. Marc was in pants. He’d
+have been about ten. It was down where Maria’s folks lived.” He nodded.
+“At Seven Mile Run. They shot them down and left the squabs to die. They
+shipped them in barrels till the market was so glutted they had to feed
+them out to the hogs.”
+
+“How many you reckon were in that skyful of doves, Pa?” Ellen was
+asking.
+
+“Well, when they settled, the flock stretched forty miles long and ten
+deep. Then one day they all flew off at once. We went to look at the
+giant trees stripped and ruined.”
+
+“I’d fain have seen them,” Ellen said, “darkening the sky.”
+
+“I notice they caught some rumrunners,” Garland said, “sneaking it in
+from Canada in a carload of hog carcasses.” He mourned, “No more booze.”
+
+“Prohibition’s nothing to me,” said Anton, “I make what wine I need.
+I’ll give you some to take back if you want. Dandelion’s the best, I’d
+say.”
+
+“I’ll take you up on that. So they don’t catch me, I’ll label it perfume
+for the ladies.”
+
+Frankie was tittering, Garland stretching, and the family found their
+beds.
+
+Ellen remained awake. Life, it seemed, was a long quest for love. The
+wind was whistling low around a corner of the house. Her mind went on
+what Garland had said about Maria being ill. The wind sound was bringing
+to memory a fall evening when Ellen was a child and a whippoorwill began
+to call near the porch steps, first in low-pitched chucks, then
+shredding the night with its cry. Maria had shrieked, “Get him off the
+porch, girl.” Ellen ran to open the door, the song ceased as the bird
+winged away. But Maria had wept, “When the whippoorwill sings on your
+doorstep, it brings bad luck. Hit sung on the night I lost my betimes
+baby. It was a little boy.” Ellen had vowed then, it’ll not be so with
+me. Life won’t break me whatever comes. The wind was growling, hunting.
+She remembered that in Illinois there was a small child of hers. She had
+a vague wish to see what he was like. And then, nostalgia like a memory
+of the dead drove through her, constricting her throat, for what dwelled
+between Luke Dougherty and his wife.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Christmas, Anton was baffled to find his brother had given him a
+battery radio. “Hit’s a contraption, all right.” He was tuning the
+stations. Static clattered in, a rasping voice and a sudden blare of
+music. Anton was hunching himself over the instrument on the table.
+“Don’t help me, Gar. Leave me run hit myself.”
+
+The girls opened black velvet boxes. Ellen was turning a gold chain over
+in her hand; she laid it cold about her throat. There were matched
+pearls for Frankie who wore her new yellow dress and flitted between
+Anton and Garland. “Now, gather ye rosebuds,” Garland was quoting,
+“while ye may. Old Time’s still a-flying. The same flower that blooms
+today tomorrow’ll be dying.” He thumped the round table with his palm.
+
+“Tell more about Chicago, Uncle. What’ll it be like for me?”
+
+“Oh, Anton thinks you’ve got such a talent,” he was chucking Frankie’s
+chin, “he can’t cheat the world of it. You’ll like it, sweet. I’ll let
+you take it slow. Afraid I gave your sister too big a dose.” He looked
+at Ellen, who gravely returned his gaze. “Remember how busy I was, hon?
+Now that’s what I like about Christmas down here. Takes my mind off my
+problems.”
+
+“Give me that old-timey religion,” the radio pealed.
+
+“Listen at that,” Anton shouted. “No telling where those barbarians are
+singing from.”
+
+The holiday week wore on. Frankie in high excitement, was easily given
+to laughter, as easily wept. On the second of January, it was planned,
+she would drive in the Reo to Chicago. The sisters were washing milk
+buckets in the kitchen when Ellen said, “Be good for you to part from Pa
+for a spell.”
+
+“Oh, you just want him for yourself,” Frankie wailed. “He’ll ne’er romp
+with you like me.”
+
+Ellen tightened her lips, threw back her head, marched to her goats in
+the woodshed. “Scroungy brat,” she sniffed. “That’s not so.”
+
+They were all seated before the fire in the parlor at night. A knock
+came at the kitchen door and Ellen went to answer it. “Why, Lily
+Garrett. I don’t know when we saw you last. Want to come in?”
+
+The fat girl was encased in a bulky coat, the figure of a youth rearing
+behind her. “We want you to come with us, Ellie. Frankie too. We got a
+wagon of hay and there’s a moon to see by. Come on, Ellie, ask if you
+can.”
+
+“No. Pa wouldn’t let us. Who-all is there?” She leaned forward from the
+security of the house.
+
+“A whole wagonload of us. Papa let me go. Said I’d be whipped anyway so
+I’d as well. It’s a deal of fun.” Lily was bouncing with energy. “This
+is Jacob Haas.”
+
+“Hello,” he said.
+
+“Reckon we can’t go, but I sure thank you for asking. And Mester Haas,
+too.” She nodded to the dark figure.
+
+She came back into the parlor and Garland said, “That was your fellow,
+wasn’t it, sweet?” His blue eyes were admiring her.
+
+She stepped lightly across the oak floor, containing her gestures. “Oh,
+it was only Lily, Uncle.”
+
+“She’s my best friend,” Frankie said. “She told me when Sophie had those
+twins.”
+
+“Yes, and those brats came five months after the girl married Buck
+Lemmon,” Anton said. “A loose crowd.”
+
+“They’re young, Anton,” cried Garland.
+
+“Rakes and loose girls. Defiling the unwedded has no excuse. I’ll keep
+these two chaste.”
+
+On New Year’s Eve, Ellen was putting peas to soak in the iron kettle.
+Garland came looking for her. “What are you doing, puss?”
+
+“Don’t you know it’s good luck to eat black-eye peas and sowbelly the
+first day of the year?”
+
+“What really happened last spring in St. Louis, hon? It was a man,
+wasn’t it? I knew something was going on with you.”
+
+She looked to her work, her fingers trembling. She felt mature,
+controlled. “Nothing. I ne’er reached St. Louis.”
+
+“What I can’t figure out is how you managed to get away so quietly. I
+searched the stations in the morning for you. Kept it from Anton as long
+as I could.”
+
+“Wish I was like you, Uncle. You got all you want.” She said it
+unexpectedly. “Purely I’d admire to be you.”
+
+“Seems you could have told me your problems. You’re growing up so fast.
+Maybe I could have helped. Why did you run away like that?”
+
+“I wouldn’t be Pa. But I’d be you, if I were a man.” She said it
+passionately, won to him by his approval of her, by his broad opinions,
+awed with his worldliness.
+
+“There’s no one like you, Ellen,” he was smiling, shaking his head.
+
+Anton called from the parlor door, “Go out and take a look at that
+Gladys heifer, girl.”
+
+“I’ll go with her,” Garland shouted back. He took Ellen’s coat from the
+hook and held it for her. He was lighting the lantern awkwardly. He wore
+a fur-trimmed jacket and was pulling on kid gloves. His esteem seeped
+over Ellen, making her movements supple, her youth a fine thing.
+
+The path to the barn was a river of canescent moonlight drowning the
+lantern glow. They walked silent until Garland said, “You know how much
+like my mother you are?” He reflected. “There was a way she had though,
+that came out sometimes. Like she really hated me.” He was speaking
+softer. “I’d try to make her notice the way I could work quicker and do
+things better than Marc. He was older. She always doted so on him.”
+Ellen’s quiescence encouraged him in the cover of the night. “I remember
+her sitting with her head up stiff in the seat of her little rig,
+driving her pony. Beg her to let me harness it for her, or curry it.” He
+murmured, “You know, you’re just the spit of her sometimes, puss. Except
+for your hair. Hers was more the color of Frankie’s.” He took her arm.
+
+Ellen felt him shivering. It’s me, causing him to do that. “Venus and
+Mars and Jupiter are the evening stars now,” she told him. “Jupiter’s
+still up, he doesn’t set till about eight these days.”
+
+In the barn, by fragile lantern light, the pregnant young cow seemed
+quiet. They were turning to go. Ellen noticed Sam had stuffed a burlap
+sack in the broken window to keep the wind out. Garland spoke again,
+“You know I’ve always had a thought about Marc that I never told
+anyone.” Ellen was listening in the near dark, amid the pungent animal
+odors. “He had brown straight hair and his face was different somehow.
+Handsome. He wasn’t like any of us.” He lit a cigarette, leisurely. “You
+in any hurry, sweet?” He put his arm about her and she waited to hear
+the secret about her dead uncle, Marc. “I don’t think he was Pa’s son at
+all. I think my mother married Jules Gaddy because she got caught and
+needed a father for her child.”
+
+“Reckon your sir knew of it?” whispered Ellen.
+
+“No telling. He thought the world of my mother, that I’m sure of. She
+got her way on everything.” He was blowing the smoke, stamping the
+cigarette into the musty bedding. He breathed broken, “Oh darling.” And
+his dry mouth was on hers, his old mouth, in desire. He was pulling at
+her skirt, fumbling on her thigh with his soft fingers. She tore her
+mouth swiftly away, turning her head.
+
+“And Lot went up out of Zoar,” he whispered, holding her to him. “He
+dwelt in the mountains and his daughters with him. Didn’t know I could
+quote from the Bible, did you, hon? The first-born went in and lay with
+her father. Book of Genesis.” Hotly he held her but gently withal.
+
+She was pushing him from her with violent hands. “Come to the house,
+Uncle. Now.”
+
+Wordless he followed her up the path where moonlight bloomed cold. In
+the kitchen she hung her coat on its hook. She went upstairs to lie in
+the chill air, while the dying candle made a puddle of tallow on the
+table top. Ellen’s loneliness was an ache, for his kindness had garbed
+her. He was aged and knowledgeable. Despair had laid her bare. It’s not
+for love of me. He’s got no enduring need of me. His imperfection, his
+weakness, had come to stand between them.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the morning Garland was jovial in a bright yellow shirt piped in red
+and a belt with a European clasp fashioned like a horse and rider. Ellen
+dawdled over her barn chores, came tardily to the breakfast table. She
+didn’t wear a fresh apron, she ate stolid, uncommunicative. Anton was
+rapt in the radio, the nasal twang.
+
+   She’s pure as the rose, like the lamb she is meek
+   And she’s never been known to use paint on her cheek
+
+Ellen went from the room unnoticed. She decided to clean in the parlor
+first. She lifted a heavy chair, viciously dropped it thudding into its
+accustomed place. “Can’t those old fools leave things in order? It’s
+clean and redd up, mop and scrub. And then they mess it all up. Hogs.”
+She was piling rag rugs in her arms and striding to the porch. The door
+slammed after her. She stood on the steps and shook the rugs, snapping
+them with loud whacks. The dirt whirled in the cold air. “Dust and
+more,” she was muttering.
+
+Garland opened the door. He was holding a cigarette, and traced his
+mustache with the small finger of his hand. Behind him she could hear
+Frankie’s high inquiring whines and the radio.
+
+“Well, puss?” She continued her work, her soft mouth set in a line. He
+came over to her. “You know what you mean to me? _Joie de la vie._ Now
+that’s right. I’m past fifty, hon. If I’d have met someone like you
+earlier things might have been different in my life.”
+
+She let a rug drop and in a deliberate movement took up another with a
+sigh. “I got a tormented lot of work to get through today, Uncle.”
+
+“Just wanted you to know that.” He was tossing his cigarette away; he
+lit another and went inside. She heard him in a few minutes.
+
+   It’s beefsteak when I’m hungry
+   Rye whisky when I’m dry
+   Greenbacks when I’m hard up
+   And heaven when I die
+
+The Reo was packed, and it waited to carry Garland and Frankie away the
+next day. Ellen was instructed to wake the travelers early in the
+morning before going to the barn. The household sought their beds not
+long after supper. Frankie was protesting in their room, “The particular
+thing I’m afraid of is meeting folks, Ellie. Wish you were going to be
+there.”
+
+“I’m out of patience with you. You’ve not done a lick all day, flitting
+about like a twitting chick.”
+
+“All the same, talk to me.”
+
+“Hush and leave me be. I’m asleep.”
+
+Before dawn Ellen went into Garland’s partitioned chamber to rouse him.
+The light of the candle wavered across his face. For the instant she was
+confused, thinking it wasn’t her uncle with mouth pulled in withered
+upon the gums. She drew her breath sharply, and he was opening his eyes.
+“Ell’n?” he quavered, reaching for his false teeth in a watercup on the
+stone-topped bed table.
+
+“Are you awake? I have to run.”
+
+When she returned from the barn, Frankie had dressed, her new pearls
+were at her neck, her lips pale, her eyes blue-shadowed. “Must I really
+go, Pa?”
+
+“It’s what we planned. And it’s for you to do. You know it be my nearest
+wish.” He warned her, “Don’t start up.”
+
+“I won’t, Pa.”
+
+He took the girl on his lap. “Look here, Poppet.” The battery set was
+clanging to the beat of a banjo, “Off with your coat and wet your throat
+with that real old mountain dew.”
+
+“Shut it off for Chrissake,” Garland demanded, and the women started.
+“We’re going in a few minutes and then you can listen to your heart’s
+content. By God, An.”
+
+The man switched off the radio and they sat to breakfast.
+
+“Gladys isn’t letting her milk down so good, Pa.” Ellen leaned toward
+him.
+
+“Tell Sam to let her calf bump it some. It can stay with the old one
+awhile. I aim to veal hit anyway.”
+
+“Did you e’er tell Uncle about old Full-pail, Pa?” Frankie was preparing
+to prolong the mealtime. “That Dyke told of?”
+
+“Listen at this, Garland. Joe Burwell went to look at a milk cow. The
+farmer hadn’t but led it out when his old ooman came squalling, don’t
+sell old Full-pail. Pray, don’t sell Full-pail, Mester. Joe’s ears
+pricked up. The old lady kept hollering so first thing Joe knows, he’s
+shelling out thirty dollars cold cash and hauling the cow home. That
+evening he couldn’t milk a teacup. Joe was fit to be tied. Went back and
+the farmer said to him, ne’er said how big the pail was.”
+
+“That’s good,” Garland approved.
+
+Before the sun rose much higher the bags had been put in the car.
+Garland returned to the porch for the pasteboard suitcases of Frankie’s
+things. “Away we go,” he cried.
+
+Frankie was clinging to Ellen. “Reckon I won’t see you-all till next
+Christmas.”
+
+“You’ll be too grand for us then, Frankie,” Ellen said.
+
+Garland was getting behind the wheel. “These Reos are demons. Did I tell
+you I had her right at fifty on route sixty-six?”
+
+“You take care of that girl, Gar. Don’t drive so reckless.”
+
+“Statistics prove a car’s lots safer than a buggy. You know that?” He
+was looking at Ellen, “Goodbye, hon.”
+
+“Goodbye, Uncle.” She waited for them to be gone, for routines to be
+reestablished and the ways of peace to come over the farm. She yearned
+toward spring, sick of winter’s hanging on.
+
+“So long, Maria,” Garland was calling. Maria waved, walking back to the
+house.
+
+“Bye now, Ma.” And the small figure promised, “I’ll write once a week,
+Pa.”
+
+The yellow car was going down the lane and turning onto the road.
+Stillness descended until it rang like wounded thunder. Anton went
+toward the porch where Maria, in her dark red sweater and a discarded
+broad-brimmed hat of his, waited to follow Anton into the house. Ellen
+walked over to the well, putting her coat collar up. She sat on the damp
+covering board and shivered. From her pocket she was taking the
+gold-linked necklace Garland had given her. She dangled it where the sun
+collected to glint and catch the luster. She held it over the well
+before letting it drop.
+
+
+                                   13
+
+Song sparrows were murmuring. Deep in burrows, woodchucks blinked and
+closed their eyes again. Brave white-carved flowers unfolded wearily and
+narrow spires of pokeweed started from the debris of winter. A
+green-striped butterfly emerged misshapen from a chrysalis and pumped
+wet wings. Cows bawled, feeling the season, and rutting male hogs
+screamed. Jack carried traces of skunk musk. On Ash Wednesday Father
+Tompert marked the foreheads of Ellen and her parents with a cross of
+ashes, saying, “Remember man, thou art dust and to dust thou shalt
+return.”
+
+From cover of the woods Ellen was watching a dog fox in a fallow field.
+It was hunting white-footed mice, repeatedly leaped stiff-legged above
+the weeds, brush high. She rested her hands on the thick winter coats of
+the three goats at her side. She put her mind on Frankie, who wrote
+abrupt letters from Chicago. They brought lines to her father’s face
+until Ellen would feel the compassion heating her. She climbed a stile
+in the rail fence and her does were clambering after, the spotted kid
+leaping, shaking its long ears. Her thoughts had turned to Garland, and
+the secret about Marc. Wish I was wise. There were him and Pa both,
+grieving as youngens after the love of that mother of theirs, that Nell
+Gaddy. And her honing all the while for Marc’s true daddy that had left
+her. None of them satisfied. And Pa’d never study out that secret the
+way Uncle did. Pa would never think Nell could get caught with a brat
+the same as me. Her mind touched on the money she had sent last week
+again to the Doughertys. I put the child to a good mother. I never
+wanted him. Poor thing. The goats followed as she went up through the
+budding, winter-bare woods.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+And three years would pass, years of time merged and woven in a pattern
+on an endless loom of chores. The color in Ellen’s life would break in
+snatches on the cloth of the drab days. By summer the radio Garland had
+brought was growing dim. Anton laid his ear to it in the evenings to
+catch the feeble sound. “It’s that far off,” he whispered, intent. Then
+the batteries were exhausted and the instrument was stored away in the
+wagon shed to gather cobwebs and mold. Maria’s pressure cooker would
+blow up, rending a gash on the rafter beams. Maria hid in the clothes
+press, staying there until Ellen had picked up the torn metal parts and
+thrown them out. She wore the same clothes day on day, her light-colored
+dresses hanging unused on the ridgepole in her room. Mud daubers
+constructed a nest over them, soaring in summer with damp balls dangling
+from their legs, in and out the two small windows.
+
+At first Ellen missed her sister, her shrill voice and dependent ways.
+She told Lily Garrett, “Frankie would always be after me to stir up a
+cake or mend for her. She’d lean on me in her way.”
+
+“Hey, my fudge party was the most fun,” Lily was giggling. “Looks like
+you being nineteen now, Ellie, your papa’d let you come. And we shelled
+corn too. Craig Hedrick found a red car. There. He kissed me.”
+
+“Is that all he did?” Ellen was picking through a pile of cornhusks,
+looking for flat strips to splice and braid into mats. “He talk about
+petunia flowers?”
+
+Lily’s carefully arranged curls shook. “I ne’er been kissed so. Reckon I
+could catch him, Ellie? Think of me with a baby and a man calling me
+wife.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Changes would take place within Ellen over these three years. Going to
+church, following her parents in, she came to feel that those whom she
+had seen as pure in the time of her transgression were not so. They hid
+their sins, she dared to think, and dressed themselves a poppet God.
+When Anton stepped into the confession cubicle and she heard him
+mumbling ever too loud as he pled the venial sins, she allowed herself
+to think he made his shrift complacently. When he dipped the holy water
+she pitied his narrow habits and more than before devoted herself to his
+will that he might see she knew her duty.
+
+The God that was hers was not enclosed where the crowd gathered. She set
+her mind on it. Hers stood above when she was on the land and alone. His
+feet were the hills, his hand the wind that quivered, his eyes those of
+the meekest birds. “This one’s my Lord,” she said, solaced.
+
+She was stirred to confide in Anton once. They were standing on the
+porch on a summer’s night while a storm was breeding in the south.
+Lightning flicked and the hot earth panted for the coming water. “You
+can feel the hands of God now. All the unknowing. You feel it, Pa? How
+we’re just naught?” She was leaning toward him.
+
+“If you’d take the time, girl,” he said heavily, “to read His word,
+you’d know that He formed man of the dust of the ground and you’d know
+of the Day of Judgment and the opening of the graves. The sun shall be
+turned to darkness and the moon to blood.” He left her sitting on the
+stair. Large drops began to fall and the wind swept in a deep sweetness.
+
+Sometimes a young man would look on Ellen as she was standing with Maria
+in the churchyard, or when bartering at Love’s. Or one would offer her a
+lift in his wagon and would look at the gold-flecked pupils and the ripe
+figure. Then she cast her eyes down, surly, or stared at him, bold,
+until he turned aside. She was guarding herself against a hurt. Dyke
+Burwell came to call, waited on the divan in the parlor while she
+slipped away to watch the winging bees, honey-dripped and golden,
+working the hives. Anton ferreted after her and bade her keep the young
+man company.
+
+“But I’ve no mind for him, Pa,” she protested.
+
+He roared, “What’s awry with you and you won’t be courted? I’ll not put
+up with your foldilay ways.” He was thrusting his chin, “You do as bid,
+girl.”
+
+So she sat sullen with Dyke. But she baited him slyly and he went away
+and came no more.
+
+At Love’s grocery one time, while she was debating on thread and needles
+and picking out salt and coffee, a thing happened. Carl Brinker’s hired
+man was bartering with Grady. Ellen had seen the new green pickup
+outside. He was a dark fellow with a heavy face and fists. “You see, Ay
+was my boss’s hired hand before me, Mester Love,” the man droned. “Now,
+haven’t you got a bigger clevis pin?”
+
+“What size you want? So his baby died?”
+
+Stacey’s birdlike eyes were on Ellen. “You feeling ill?”
+
+Ellen sensed a danger as she felt the flush rise. She laughed sharply,
+“No. I allow I’ve got all Ma needed. Excepting yeast. You got some fresh
+sponge?”
+
+“I’ll see if mine’s still working good.” Stacey disappeared.
+
+Ellen’s heart thudded, hearing the laborious speech of Brinker’s man.
+“That Ay’s had a tedious run of bad luck. First his daddy passed on,
+then his sister ran off. Rose Ay.”
+
+“So?” said Grady. “Tell your boss I got new bridle rosettes in. White
+and blue.”
+
+“That Ay’s sister was comely. Biggity but comely.”
+
+“Ay wasn’t much.”
+
+“No. I ne’er knew him well. We used his store some. I’ll tell Mester
+Brinker about those gaudies. He’ll buy some for that stallion. You e’er
+seen that horse?” The man was slowly scratching his head. “Now what
+about the Lord taking that little child?”
+
+“He gives and He takes away,” sighed Grady.
+
+“That’s so.”
+
+Ellen put the warm jar of yeast in her basket, hurried past the two men.
+Grady was nodding, “Here’s someone seen an old beau of yours in
+Louisville.”
+
+“I ne’er had a beau.”
+
+“Took you to the circus in New Hope, a bird told me.” Grady’s eyes
+flickered while he grinned.
+
+“Morning, miss.” Brinker’s man touched his cap, doleful. “You know
+Mester Ay?”
+
+“I’ll be getting along now.”
+
+That had happened in the first of the three years. Ellen would ponder on
+it. Christian was gone out of her days for ever and all of eternity. She
+faced it. He had taken some woman to wife, his sweetheart, his may, for
+the rest of their enduring lives. She twisted it and the sharp hurt was
+dead.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In that first year too, Garland and Frankie had driven down for the
+Christmas holiday in a factory-fresh five-passenger Oakland. Ellen saw
+at once that the year in Chicago had altered Frankie. Her old gaiety was
+shed. She wore a modish yellow cloche pulled over her brow, her jacket
+was long, belted at the hips. Her bright hair was bobbed. Anton was
+beside himself, fascinated at Frankie’s apparel and her new manner. “I
+declare she’s a little swell, gar.” He scratched his head. “How do you
+like city life, Poppet?”
+
+“Very well, Pa.”
+
+“How’s your learning coming on? Are folks setting up? I vow. Hum.”
+
+“Very well. I’ll unpack now, if you don’t mind.” She was going coolly up
+the stairs and he watched, silent.
+
+“What happened to that radio I gave you?” Garland asked. “Hell, I’ve got
+six in my house now.”
+
+Ellen had dressed the house with holly and bought red candles for the
+table. She was making her sister’s favorite desserts. “I threw together
+a blackberry cake, Frankie. We haven’t had one since you’ve been gone.”
+
+“I never noticed Ma was so simple, Ellie.”
+
+“Should I top it with boiled white icing or jam?”
+
+“Was Mrs. Quimby at Uncle’s when you were there?”
+
+“How come you ask?”
+
+“I hate that know-all.”
+
+“Does Uncle treat you good, Frankie?”
+
+“He’s different there.”
+
+“I mean, does he make o’er you a lot?”
+
+“No, he’s not much for romping like Pa was, Ellie. He thinks me a little
+child.”
+
+And Ellen was satisfied about Garland. “Reckon I’ll use icing and jam
+both, Frankie.” Ellen was constrained if Garland came upon her alone,
+but in the family group he would seem her familiar uncle. When she
+thought of his incestuous overture of the last winter, she would shove
+the episode into a cupboard of her mind.
+
+Around the fire in the evening, Anton had poured his tales, overweening,
+on the younger girl. “Used to be the only tools a man needed were made
+of wood, Poppet. A plow and a harrow and a wagon. Your grandsir used a
+peg-tooth harrow with a hickory-wood frame. When a tooth broke off, he
+fitted a new one from the woods. Haw. No running to the Bethel Hardware
+for a broken piece of this or that. Just like the old country.”
+
+“Speaking of the old country,” said Garland, “you girls know about
+truffle hunters?”
+
+“What’s a truffle, Uncle?”
+
+“Grows on roots of oaks. There was an old woman hunted them in this
+village in France where your ancestors lived. She’d take a basket and
+spade and a pig on a leash.”
+
+“Slut?”
+
+“No, puss, this wasn’t a trained pig. Truffles have a strong odor that
+any pig can scent. He roots under a tree and then she drives him off and
+digs them up.”
+
+“Such uses for hogs,” Maria was saying, “as you’ve heard of.”
+
+“Sometimes they use dogs, but this woman used a pig. She chained him at
+night or he’d slip out and get the truffles.”
+
+“Christmas makes you remember, doesn’t it, Uncle?” said Frankie
+suddenly. “Why don’t you tell stories at home?”
+
+“This here’s your home,” grumbled Anton.
+
+Garland was filling glasses with the “imported” Scotch he had brought.
+“Now, Frankie,” he cautioned.
+
+“Want to hear more about hogs?” asked Anton.
+
+“All right.”
+
+“When our grandsir came homesteading all he had was a few razorbacks. He
+fattened them on oak and buckmast, said it beat corn any day.”
+
+“I don’t see how a pig could be fatter than that spotted boar you’ve
+got,” said Garland.
+
+“Luther. He’s ornery, spoiled my best milker and her heifer calf.”
+
+“Say, Frankie’s practiced a Christmas song for you, An,” Garland said.
+
+“Play it, Poppet.”
+
+“I don’t feel like singing now.”
+
+“I ask you to,” Anton glowered.
+
+“She’s got a new singing teacher,” Garland was saying as the girl went
+reluctant to the piano. “Makes the third one now.”
+
+“She had two grammar mesters before she went with you,” said Anton. “One
+walked out on me and Peyton tried to quit when I fired him. How come
+they do that?”
+
+The girl played accurately, accompanying herself in a reedy tone.
+
+   I heard the bells on Christmas day
+   Their old familiar carols play
+   And wild and sweet the words repeat
+   Of peace on earth good will to men
+
+Ellen was bringing in a split-oak basket of persimmons. “I ran onto them
+yesterday, Pa. I don’t know why the possums let them be.”
+
+Anton took one of the soft orange fruit. “Used to be they made ’simmon
+beer in this county. It wasn’t sharp like city beer, Gar. We used to
+roast ’simmon seeds too, when coffee was scarce.”
+
+Garland bit into the mellow sweet fruit. “They’re good. The pucker’s
+gone out.”
+
+“The frost seasons them,” Ellen said.
+
+“I know. Used to hunt them when I was a kid.”
+
+“A ’simmon tree’s got a black heartwood in its center,” Anton said,
+“with layers of yellow sapwood outside it. It’s the only tree I know
+like that.”
+
+“Those rings, now,” said Ellen. “You can count the rings to tell the age
+of a tree.”
+
+“Is that black heartwood in the young tree?” asked Frankie.
+
+“And if there’s a drought,” Ellen went on, “the ring’s scarce to be
+read, it’s so narrow.”
+
+“I want to know about that heartwood, Pa.”
+
+“Well, you don’t find hit in a sapling, Poppet. It comes of itself as
+the tree takes on age.”
+
+“I think it’s there in the young tree,” Frankie said.
+
+“How come you to worry on that, Poppet? It’s no consequence.”
+
+“But I want to know.”
+
+“Now there,” said Garland. “It’s getting on bedtime. I can tell
+Frankie’s sleepy.”
+
+“Ellie never sang a song yet,” said Frankie.
+
+“I’ll sing in the morning. We’re wasting coal oil. Come on.”
+
+The girls climbed from the fire-warmed parlor to the loft where winter
+rain reeled on the roof. Under dank blankets they were waiting for the
+warmth of their bodies to overtake them. Anton’s disputing voice came up
+the stairs, “Why’s she act so? Like a highborn one? What are you doing
+to her there in that city?” Garland’s voice was heard in murmur. And
+again Anton’s rude shout, “Be she e’er seeing men?” And in a moment,
+“Well, that don’t mean a thing. N. J. says all his sister e’er did was
+set on a fellow’s lap one winter. Said his pa watched them courting by
+the range and thought no harm. They hardly spoke but only set there
+hugging. Now before God, she came by a child and his pa had to get them
+married.”
+
+In the melancholy dark from her bed, over the sound of the sleet
+whipping the shingles, Ellen whispered, “You like a fellow?”
+
+“No, I’m a poor country girl there. I hear them laugh. I came on my
+singing teacher snickering with Uncle. It was about me.”
+
+“When do you think you’ll start playing in public like Pa wants?”
+
+“I’m the most alone person. It’s because I’m queer, I think. Maybe Pa
+made me so. Or else I get it from Ma. The way I talk and act.”
+
+Anton’s voice was audible through the doorway as they came into the hall
+downstairs, “And then I heard Ma saying, I’d fain have been a lady but I
+married you, little feist. We dragged her down, Gar. We gommed her
+desires.”
+
+“Hell, An, you’re drunk. Forget Ma. Like I did long ago. Let’s get back
+to the subject. As I see it, Frankie’s doing the best she can. She’s not
+got much gumption and she’s plenty like you when she gets stubborn, but
+I think she’s beginning to adjust. This is the first vacation she’s had,
+what with lessons. I hope I can keep her present teacher. Says he’s got
+his hands full. Costs a mint, you know.”
+
+“Hum. If there’s anything I can do for you.”
+
+“You’re my brother.” Garland’s familiar slap on Anton’s back was carried
+up the staircase. “Covers a multitude of sins. We’ve got to stick
+together.”
+
+Ellen thought Frankie was asleep until she heard the voice threading the
+dark. “Seems I got a black heartwood core same as that ’simmon tree.”
+The girl’s voice was sated with self-pity. “People can tell it’s there.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day Garland came to the barn where Ellen was cleaning the
+goats’ stable, heaping the soiled litter outside the shed with a heavy
+fork. An acrid stench hung in the air and the flock of five moved about
+her. “Keep you company awhile, hon?”
+
+“If you like.”
+
+“You have quite a bunch of your own here.”
+
+“I set store by them.” She was forking fresh bedding in the pen and the
+animals crowded in to lie down, nosing and chewing the straw. She
+fastened the gate and leaned to watch them.
+
+“Long time ago,” Garland was saying, “old man Alden used to keep a pair
+of nannies in his shack with him. Wonder if he’s still alive.”
+
+“Ne’er heard of him.”
+
+“Lived a few miles up the road. Us boys would sneak over to peek in his
+windows. Watch him suck the milk from the udders.”
+
+“Is that a fact?”
+
+Garland watched her intently. “You’re wonderful, puss.”
+
+“That’s a silly thing to say.”
+
+“Well, you make me feel like a boy again. I always said it.”
+
+Ellen laughed at him. “Reckon I best get to the kitchen. I’ll race you
+to see if you’re still a boy.”
+
+“Now there’s a cruel wench.” He trailed after her.
+
+At the steps she waited. As they started up they became aware suddenly
+of a commotion within the house, of cries and Anton’s growls. Ellen was
+running up the stairs. “I’m afraid it’s Ma.”
+
+But the shrill cry of Frankie pierced, “I won’t go back. I won’t. I hate
+you. You can’t make me.”
+
+And a sound was heard so that Ellen turned to Garland. “He’s beating
+her. He’ll not be gainsaid. What’ll we do?”
+
+“I’ll show you what. He’s always got to lord it over someone.” Garland
+sharpened his wrath, ran into the hall, flinging open the parlor door.
+
+Anton was red-faced, and Frankie, in a despair of tears, was shaking in
+a corner of the sofa, her knitted skirt pulled above her knees, her
+bobbed hair tangled. She hid her face. “I don’t care about nothing. I
+don’t care.”
+
+Garland caught Anton’s arm and while they shouted, Ellen bade her sister
+come into the kitchen. Frankie laid her head on the table and wept.
+Ellen walked about the room at her work, finally coaxing, “Now these
+fruits have to be cut up for the cake. You always were good at it,
+Frankie. Here’s the knife and bowl.”
+
+Frankie pushed them from her. “Ellie, I do hate Pa.” She fled up the
+stairs.
+
+The angered voices in the parlor rose and fell until the milking hour
+came. Then Anton, black-faced, strode to the barn. Garland watched him
+from the porch stoop and then followed. “There,” said Ellen to Maria who
+came in from the bedroom, “things are in a state. Pa ought to let
+Frankie stay here where she belongs.”
+
+“Don’t beard Mester Gaddy,” Maria advised. “Let him be.”
+
+That night by the fireside it was as if a ghostly thing stood amid them.
+Ellen sighed. Maria, feeling the trouble, gestured to herself. Garland
+smoked one cigarette after another. And Frankie was white, holding her
+head erect. “Reckon I’ll go to bed,” she said at length. “Good night
+all.”
+
+Anton bent his scorn-washed face over a farm journal. “Well, I see here
+it tells about them foreigners in the old country using artificial
+insemination. Now I reckon that’s a sin against a beast. It’s sodomy.”
+He pulled furiously on his dead pipe.
+
+“Chrissake, An.”
+
+But in the morning Ellen caught sight at the stairhead of Frankie and
+Anton. The thin words came, “Forgive my willfulness, Pa.” Frankie’s face
+was hard. She had purchased her peace, before leaving her father again,
+kneeling in the short skirt she now wore.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the second Christmas of these three years, Frankie brought her
+contradictory ways again into focus, so that Anton stalked about in
+dudgeon, lying in wait for her open rebellion. She would turn him
+though, in a new cunning way she had learned, “Beg your pardon, Pa.”
+
+The holiday evenings were drawn short and quiet by the hickory and
+oak-fed fires. After midnight mass, all but Garland ate sparely at the
+table, disheartened. The sliced meats and cheese, the sweet cakes and
+peppered blood pudding, were spread forth. “Have some Barrier Cherries,
+Uncle,” Ellen pressed him. “Frankie and Lily Garrett made them once.”
+Ellen, who knew her father and sister so well, felt the sadness of it.
+She knew the man was like a willful child and here was his only beloved
+set against him.
+
+Frankie went back to Chicago then. Before they drove away in Garland’s
+Oakland sedan with the high-squared top and the yellow leather seats,
+Garland announced, “Frankie’s been engaged for her first recital. March
+the sixteenth, nineteen twenty-nine. Frankie Gaddy enters the lists of
+the immortals.”
+
+“Shut up, Uncle,” Frankie sighed.
+
+“You greening me, Garland?” Anton was suspicious. “You going to play
+before those folks?”
+
+“Yes, I am, Pa.”
+
+“Hell, An, she’s booked,” Garland shouted. “In one of my theatres.”
+
+“I vow.”
+
+“My,” Ellen said, “I ne’er thought Frankie’d be so bold.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+And time moved, weaving a tapestry. On radiant summer nights moonlight
+laved the meadows and frogs dripped shrill tones. Ellen would slip down
+the stairs to wander where flowering honeysuckle presaged the passing of
+time. Longings waxed in her. She lay in the honeyed grass and wept
+easily. The moon shone and she bared her white body, wondered at the
+restlessness clutching her. She dwelled on the summer she had met
+Christian Ay, for at that one time the even cord of her life had risen
+to such a gleaming line that she doubted on it ever after. I’m bound and
+thralled. The pleasure and the sadness are too close together. She went
+back to her attic room to wait for dawn.
+
+Now and then she thought of the child, Simon, developed a curiosity, now
+that she counted the passion buried, to see if this relic bore any
+resemblances. “I have a notion to visit Penny Dougherty,” she was saying
+to Anton. “She’s invited me. Says she’s got guineas and we can have a
+clutch of eggs if we want. I could raise us a flock. Set the yellow hen
+on them.”
+
+“Guineas. And that worthless ooman,” he scoffed.
+
+“Guineas are no work. You turn them loose and they pair off and care for
+the eggs by themselves. When you want a meal you catch them where
+they’re roosting.”
+
+“It’s a far piece to Weems Crossroads but for guinea eggs. And I
+declared you’d not set foot off this place save to be married. So I
+said.”
+
+“I’m twenty. And I’ll be gone o’ernight. I promise, Pa.”
+
+“I don’t like it. You’re a froward one. It costs a mort of money going
+on the train. All to see some poor trash.”
+
+“I’ll make it up to you, Pa.”
+
+“You be back in a day, girl. You got beans to plant, and the cabbages to
+set out now the killing frosts are gone.”
+
+“I’ll do it, Pa. Day after tomorrow. Soon as I get back, I’ll set them
+out.”
+
+So she found herself walking up the lane to the familiar small house.
+Penny greeted her, and her fine features seemed a little thinner. She
+was laughing, “You came for Simon.”
+
+“Oh Penny, let me see that baby girl you wrote about, Blossom.”
+
+“She’s in here, Ellie.”
+
+While they looked at the sleeping child, Ellen whispered, “I can’t take
+Simon. Pa doesn’t know.”
+
+“That’s all right. We love him, Ellie.”
+
+“I brought more money.”
+
+Three little boys were trooping through the doorway, shouting. The baby
+awoke, began to wail. Ellen saw Simon, nearly three now. He was dressed
+in a blue-checked pinafore, and his small bottoms were bare. He was
+smallish and fair with round blue eyes. He looked at her soberly and
+never smiled. Clate had forgot Ellen, and Anse, thin and dark, clung to
+Penny. Simon was leaning on the wall, his fat thumb in his mouth. Luke
+arrived amid the bedlam and the children shouted to see him, “Da’s
+home.” Ellen saw Simon squealed and leaped with the rest.
+
+They took her out to the field to see the goats and the old donkey.
+Clate was prompted to recite, lisping.
+
+   When the elm leaf
+   Be big ath a mouthe’s ear
+   Then to thow barley
+   Ne’er you fear
+
+All the while nearby was Ellen’s son, gazing dumb. His foster mother
+called him to her. “This is your own ma, Simon. Like I told you.”
+
+In the morning Ellen was returning on the train. She had a setting of
+spotted guinea eggs in a box. Her mind was on the beans to be planted;
+she wondered whether Love’s would have flats of young cabbage plants in
+yet.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The country seemed prosperous. But among the farmers were muffled noises
+of protest. Anton Gaddy growled when he got ninety-eight cents for wheat
+that had brought two dollars and thirty-four a bushel after the Great
+War. Corn dropped to seventy-nine cents, though it used to be good for a
+dollar to a dollar-fifty. He spoke to Sam, “Reckon you could get by with
+a little less a week? I’m pure strapped for cash. You could take a hen
+maybe.” He shrugged nervously.
+
+“All right.” Sam scratched his back.
+
+“Pick one of the old ones with a yellow beak and ears.”
+
+“Now Mester Gaddy. I wouldn’t take a good layer.” Sam was squinting up,
+his eyes sharp in his leathery face.
+
+“I hate it, being strapped, Sam.”
+
+While they were talking, restless, the stock market was plunging. The
+depression was on. When Anton heard next week from N. J. Bilberry of the
+crisis, he said, “Now there’s somewhat for those rich folk to fret
+about. It’s no worry to us.”
+
+Anton felt vindicated in his way of life, wondered idly if Garland had
+been affected. And he wished Frankie would write again. Her piano
+recital of last March had been a failure, the few letters she had
+written since ignored the subject. The flame in Anton’s life that burned
+through this daughter dimmed, bewildering him, causing his dream to lag.
+“Hum. Frankie’s going to make that music yet before the crowd. I’ve got
+to send her some money again, come the evening mail.”
+
+Then a letter arrived from Chicago.
+
+   Dear Father,
+
+   It is not necessary to direct any more checks to me. You need money
+   worse. I moved from Uncle’s house a while ago to an apartment. I’m
+   going to get a job. Uncle is sick so we won’t drive down. I will
+   spend Yule in Chicago. Uncle lost his Oakland. The government men
+   took it away. He had a considerable loss in the market. He has real
+   worries. One of his friends jumped out of a window.
+
+   I will come to visit next summer for sure, and maybe bring a friend
+   with me to see the dear farm and meet the old folks at home. Then
+   like the song goes, I’ll tuck me to sleep in my old ’Tucky home!
+
+                                                      daughter Frankie
+
+
+
+
+                               part three
+
+
+   Let it be what it is she said
+   Let it wait as it must
+   It will choose soon or late
+   Let it wait
+   Love has life not of us
+   But of love she said
+   Let it lie where it must
+
+
+                                   14
+
+Ellen was cutting across the field to the York cabin in the late May
+morning. Amanda York had married the smithy’s son, Jerome Hatfield. The
+couple lived in one side of the cabin. Jerome and Mr. York cared for the
+apple orchard surrounding it and worked in the Bethel Stone Foundry.
+During the winter and spring Ellen had watched Amanda grow heavy with
+child, taking vicarious pleasure in the young wife’s joy. “If it’s a
+boy,” Amanda had claimed, “we’re going to call it Junior. Wonder if it
+could be baptized Junior, Ellie? I doubt it’s a Christian name.”
+
+At the cabin door Ellen called, “Hey, Mandy. Anybody home?” She heard
+the hoarse pained cry from within.
+
+Mrs. York was shuffling out of the bedroom. “Ah, hit’s you, Ellen.” Her
+face was yellowed with fear, eyes staring with wakefulness.
+
+“Mandy’s been taken?” Ellen asked.
+
+“Doc Trumbo’s here. It’s not coming right. Ellen, you think somewhat
+could happen to her?”
+
+“Bearing’s not so bad,” said Ellen, uncertain.
+
+“I put the ax under the bed. She ought to have had it by now. She’s been
+at it since noon yesterday. She’s giving out. She’s quit trying.”
+
+Then there was a scream from the room beyond, animal-like in travail.
+Ellen was recalling a spotted heifer that couldn’t bear its calf; Anton
+had hitched the team, and taken it from the womb. The scream circled the
+room and after it, like a splintering of glass, a thin cry echoed. “Ah,
+Doc’s got hit now.” The woman was scurrying away. Ellen followed slowly
+into the blood-odored room. Amanda lay oddly flat on rumpled stained
+sheets, her eyes shut in a white face. On the pillow her dark hair
+flowed. Ellen took her hand.
+
+“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch the bed,” the face whispered strangely.
+
+“It’s o’er now,” Ellen said.
+
+Amanda’s eyes came open with an effort of the heavy lids. “Have we got
+our baby?”
+
+“Yes, Mandy.” Ellen was frightened. “You rest.”
+
+“I want to see it.” The words were barely discernible.
+
+“All right.” Ellen went to the table where the doctor was binding a
+cloth about the infant’s navel. It feebly squirmed its thin-skinned damp
+red body and wrinkled its face. “She wants it, Doc.”
+
+He glanced up at Ellen. “Let’s see, you must be one of those Gaddys.
+Your father hasn’t much use for satchel doctors, either, has he? You
+know these women never called me till an hour ago?”
+
+“Mandy wants to see her baby.”
+
+“They call me in at the last minute. Think they can do it all
+themselves. Like Indian squaws.” He wrapped the child in the warmed
+flannel that he took from Mrs. York and laid it by its mother’s face.
+“Lie still there, girl. I’m going to look at you now.” He spoke softly,
+disappeared into the kitchen to wash his hands.
+
+“She’s fair, Mandy,” Ellen whispered, “your baby.”
+
+“Ah, she is,” said Mrs. York, “with it all.”
+
+Amanda’s breath rattled. She was drawing strangled gasps as if she had
+run a long stretch. Her eyes became fixed on the hewn-log walls, the
+cracked calking. She shuddered, the labored breath struggle faded and
+ceased.
+
+Mrs. York sucked in her words, “My girl.” She put a hand out to touch
+the tired face, screamed, “Ah, Doc.”
+
+Dr. Trumbo stumbled on the threshold in his haste. He was lifting
+Amanda’s wrist, laying it down, speaking sharply to Ellen, “Good Christ,
+where’s this girl’s husband?” He picked the sleeping infant up.
+
+“I’ve got to cover the mirror,” Mrs. York mumbled, hurrying indecisively
+about the room. “So the baby doesn’t die as well. And stop the clock
+hands. Now what else must I do?”
+
+“Jerome works at the stone foundry, Doc. Same as Mr. York. I can call
+them from Love’s store.”
+
+“First take the child here. This old one’ll be no more use.” He turned
+to Amanda’s body again. Ellen laid the baby in the cradle. It was
+sleeping, its face like an inflamed pansy, lost amid ribbons and
+ruffles.
+
+“Ah. You did it, Doc,” Mrs. York keened. “You were busy with yourself
+and your washing and you let it happen. I didn’t want you here. It was
+only because Mandy made me. She’d have come through but for you.”
+
+“Now, Mrs. York,” he began.
+
+The woman appealed to Ellen, “Don’t ne’er have a child, Ellen Gaddy.
+Don’t ne’er get caught with a child.” She grasped her arm, the tears
+squeezing from her old eyes, watering the wrinkles of her face.
+
+“I’ve got to go, Mrs. York.”
+
+Dr. Trumbo continued, “She’d been hemorrhaging. These things will
+happen. I packed her, did everything humanly possible. I came too late.”
+
+The woman was taboring on the discolored sheet. “Ah, now what have I
+got?”
+
+“You’ve got the child.”
+
+“I don’t want hit.”
+
+Ellen stood a moment in the cabin passageway before starting up the road
+toward Millville. “There’s a thing I keep trying to remember.” She spoke
+aloud, dazed. At the store she cranked the iron handle to the wood box
+that hung on the wall. “Central?”
+
+“You’ll have to speak up, Madam.”
+
+“Give me the Bethel Foundry.” When she had told Jerome, and heard the
+click at the other end, she walked out slowly.
+
+Stacey called after, “Tell Maria Gaddy that eggs are down three cents
+again. They’re hardly worth trading.”
+
+Ellen didn’t hear. A light mist of rain had begun and a sweet smell like
+the breath of cows was coming from the red plowed fields. The thing that
+had slipped her mind was back. It was the struggle to bear her own
+child, the way the throes had struck her in an open field and how she’d
+dragged herself to the shelter of the pear tree. The sweet heavy scent
+of crushed grass and blood and the fluttering of goldfinches were
+mingled into the memory.
+
+After a week Jerome Hatfield came to speak to Anton. “Our baby’s ailing.
+Doc says she might hold down goat milk.” His face was haggard, his form
+stooped in exhaustion.
+
+“My daughter’s got the goats.”
+
+“I want to buy one from her.”
+
+Ellen went to the woodshed and tied a rope to Rhodie’s collar. The doe
+had a little female kid at its side. “You keep Rhodie for as long as
+your baby needs the milk, Jerome. And raise the kid for the baby’s own.”
+
+“I’m beholden.” He was lifting the goats into the wagon, fastening them
+there. He drove away, Rhodie baaing plaintively. Ellen watched them go.
+Here’s the land flowing over with milk and honey. The spring grass is
+pushing through the red land until it’s all pink and green. And Mandy’s
+dead. All about was death. The early dark of morning sometimes would be
+interrupted, awakening her, by Jack’s bark, followed by shotgun blasts
+and her father’s gruff tones. Ellen would know he had gone down in his
+mackinaw to kill some varmint in the barnyard. There was no escape from
+death, no way you could forget it was waiting. Ellen was resentful,
+disbelieving that some day her own strength would wither. I’m glad it
+wasn’t me when I bore that child back there. I recall I saw the evening
+star. And when Luke and Penny came, I got up from the orchard floor and
+walked to the house myself while Penny carried him. But then I pushed
+him from me, turned my back on my first-born.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+She spoke up that night after the Gaddy supper had been eaten. The May
+rain was falling weighted, somnambulant, the air was close. “I hid it
+from you, Pa. Before I came home that summer when I’d run off from Uncle
+Garland.”
+
+“You played the harlot.”
+
+“I went to the Doughertys and had him there.”
+
+“You were in St. Louis.”
+
+“No. I went to Weems Crossroads in Illinois. I was afraid of you. The
+boy’s there now. I saw him when I went to get that clutch of guinea eggs
+that turned bad. Now I want to bring him here, Pa.”
+
+Anton was stumping into the hall; he returned with the wide belt that he
+held by its buckle. “Before God your lying tongue is an abomination.
+Name the times I’ve said it.”
+
+Ellen looked at him stony-faced. “Reckon I’m too old to whip, Pa. I’m
+twenty-one and the mother of your grandchild.”
+
+He paused. “The father of a fool has no joy.” His heavy mouth was
+shaking. He drew the strap repeatedly through the palm of his hand, the
+harsh sliding noise rippling into the corners of the room like stones
+tossed in a pond. “My brother Marc, lusted. You be bound to do the same.
+He ran off from the college where my ma sent him. To a whorehouse. At
+St. Louis. And there’s where she went to get him. Dead. Now I’ve always
+claimed you had his blood, girl.”
+
+Ellen’s eyes narrowed and shone. “You know what Marc was to your ma?”
+Her nerves shivered to their ends as her temper swung on her. “I know
+what that Nell did.”
+
+Anton halted at bay. “Don’t say her name. She was a saint, girl. She
+sits at Mary’s right hand even now.”
+
+Ellen was helpless, found she couldn’t strike. She kept silence.
+
+Anton slapped the belt limply against his overall pants. He turned to a
+thin-legged doweled chair that was by the wall. “A harlot,” he said
+softly. “Upon e’er a high hill and under e’er a green tree, thou
+wanderest, playing the harlot. So says Jeremiah.” He let the strap drop,
+lifted the chair by its rungs, crashed it violently, splintering, to the
+floor. “Defiled.” He went from the room.
+
+Ellen was looking at Maria. “You heard, Ma?”
+
+“You got a child, Ellie?”
+
+“A little boy, Ma. Named Simon.”
+
+“I had a boy baby once. But he was a betimes child and had no life. I
+named him after Mester Gaddy for he wanted it. But they took him. He’s
+moldering out some’eres. I ne’er liked rain some way. Seems a boy would
+be unhappy and turn about in a wet place.”
+
+Anton fumed as days passed. “Who’s its pa?”
+
+“I don’t want to say. He’s as good as dead.”
+
+“What’ll they speak of me when it’s told up and down the county?”
+
+“Tell that I married a Yankee, Pa. And he left me.”
+
+“No, the damn fool foreigner was killed. His folks have raised the child
+till now. And you’re fixing to bring it here.” He paused to eye Ellen
+with scorn. “Does it favor the Gaddys?”
+
+“Reckon so, Pa.”
+
+“What’s hit called?”
+
+“Simon Gaddy.”
+
+Then he said, “You’ll tell it to the priest, girl.”
+
+“I’d rather not.”
+
+“You’ll tell it Sunday. Before you can go for the brat.”
+
+“I’ll tell it in the priest’s house, but not in the confessional.” She
+said bravely, “I’ve got a mind to leave the church.”
+
+Impotent in frustration and wrath, Anton turned away. He was heard
+bawling commands to the team as he plowed up and down, making ready for
+the corn-planting.
+
+They were standing before Father Tompert in the parlor of the rectory.
+Ellen, emboldened by her first successful stand against her father,
+spoke candidly to the Jesuit priest. “It’s like the church wants to
+boundary God, Father. And He is thus and so. And if you say at such a
+time such a prayer you’ll get off so much sooner to paradise. This is
+false to me, Father.”
+
+“Hold, girl, you blaspheme,” roared Anton.
+
+Father Tompert said, “I’ll speak with your daughter alone, sir. Wait
+outside this room. If you please.”
+
+Then Ellen told the priest what was in her. And she added, “In the
+gospel of Matthew the Lord himself says, don’t pray where you’re seen of
+men. But enter into thy closet. And when you’ve shut thy door, pray to
+thy Father which is in secret. And use not vain repetitions.”
+
+The priest saw she loved God. He saw her mind was bright and she had
+thought this thing out. The wise Jesuit was not uncommon among those
+consecrated to the cross of his faith. He spoke to Ellen. “It’s not your
+kind that need the mother church, Ellen. We’ll wait till you’re ready to
+come again to us. Till then, the Lord be with thy spirit.”
+
+He was walking to the door. She laid her hand on the sleeve of his
+cassock. “Father, is it wrong to lie to the neighbors and say I had a
+husband?”
+
+He looked at her while a bell tolled somewhere outside over a stitch of
+time. She saw his eyes were an indigo blue and the pupil in the center
+was a dormant coal. “For the sake of the child, perhaps not. In the eyes
+of God it may have been a marriage. I don’t know.” He folded his arms,
+went to the door. His face was smooth, his body moved ageless below the
+black frock. “Don’t worry about your daughter, sir. She’s in no danger
+of damnation. God is with her.”
+
+Ellen put on the faded dotted Swiss dress in the morning. She combed her
+hair, plaiting it tightly in a new way she had. Anton counted money into
+her hand. Maria was concerned about the census taker whom Tinie Bilberry
+had reported was coming and no telling at what hour. “Now, whate’er will
+I say to him? He be the government. I’m that fretted. Do you have to go
+now, girl?”
+
+The train coughed and clanged into the Weems Crossroads station. The
+road to the Doughertys seemed longer than Ellen remembered. She was
+passing the burial ground. A group of black-clad people were ringed at a
+fresh grave, cars and buggies were parked by the roadside. She hurried
+by. Amanda had been laid in the ground like that, for rain to rot and
+worms to suck until she would be as earth herself, her rosy face and
+gleaming braid living on in Jerome Hatfield. And a day might come when
+his daughter would ask, “Now tell, Pa, what was Mammy like?” And Jerome
+would say, “Seems I can’t remember. Appears to have fallen from me some
+way.”
+
+Ellen reached the mailbox, went up the lane and heard a guinea cry. It
+came to her on a sudden that she was terrified, as if she had been sent
+to the dark cellar for supplies again. Something lurked there in the
+shadows. She lifted her skirts and fled toward light and Penny and the
+gray-streaked house with door open and unscreened.
+
+Ellen studied her son that evening. They took the meal out under the
+crab apple tree. Its leaves, not yet green, were coated with soft white
+hairs. Its pink flowers were like the wild rose, their spicy odor
+hovered where the five children gathered to be fed. Penny’s smallest
+child, Melinda, climbed on a stool, reaching her hands to the food.
+Blossom stood by Anse, who was four now and tall for his age, his dark
+head looking down on Simon’s blond one. And Clate was the leader and
+spoke what they all should do. “If it wasn’t for Clate,” Penny said,
+“I’d ne’er get this troop together. And we’ll have another Dougherty
+come Christmas. Seems I be e’er in this strait.”
+
+Standing about the table, the children were eating corn pone and bacon
+and beans. There was milk and a honeycomb. Melinda sucked her sticky
+tiny fingers and crumbled the pone. Penny was cleaning the child’s hands
+with a damp rag, laughing, “I got plenty of pullets now, Ellie. Luke
+built a hen house. I trade eggs just like you Gaddys now. But say, the
+store’s paying low this spring.”
+
+Ellen saw that Simon’s cheekbones and hair were like those of Christian
+Ay. He had Anton’s long chin. But there was the look of Christian about
+his eyes and high cheeks and broad mouth. “I wonder at him, Penny.”
+
+“You’re thinking of his pa, aren’t you?”
+
+“I allowed I’d forgot what he looked like. Time goes so fast. But Simon
+calls him back to mind.”
+
+“Soon you won’t see it. It’ll just be little Simon.”
+
+“I reckon.”
+
+“I see Luke coming. We’ve been lucky. Webster laid off most of the hands
+when times got bad, but he kept Luke on. He’d let them all go before
+Luke.” Penny’s look wound itself about the man moving up the path, her
+love like a warm wind.
+
+“He’ll be short and stout. Strong like a bull.” Ellen was watching
+Simon, who leaned against the table, his cheek on one fat hand while the
+other spooned beans unsteadily into his mouth.
+
+Luke slept in the mow of the shed that night so there would be a place
+for Ellen. The women lay in the narrow bed. The baby girls were in
+cribs, the three boys in the attic room. “If you should have a trouble
+sometime, Penny,” Ellen said, before dozing off, “or there’s a sickness
+or a way I can help.”
+
+“We’ll miss Simon. He’s quiet. He can milk Tiny even. He coaxes me to
+let him. He does real good for four years.”
+
+“Those little hands.”
+
+“And he’s one with the donkey. Why, I missed him once and hunted till I
+found him sleeping under it and it standing like a rock.”
+
+Ellen awoke after midnight; she lay still until it came to her where she
+was. An owl called, deep-toned, “Whoo-whoo-tooo-oo-oo.” She went into
+the yard, walking down the lane in the warm dark. The owl shrieked
+suddenly from the catalpa by the road, in a voice like a woman. On
+noiseless widespread wings it was flapping toward her and passing.
+“There he’ll be, following me about the farm.” She stayed in the night
+until she reached the end of her fears. “Whate’er comes, it’s right to
+bring him home and tell he’s mine.”
+
+In the morning Simon had on bleached canvas pants, well patched. The
+sleeves to his nubby sweater were too short. They were waiting for Luke
+to come in a truck to take them to the station. Simon’s eyes were wide.
+He shrank from Ellen. Penny was washing his face again. “Take your ma’s
+hand, now.” But Simon shook his head, threw himself upon his foster
+mother. “You can have this. It’s Anse’s.” Penny was handing him a yarn
+ball she had made by winding bright colors around a piece of cloth. “If
+you’ll go now with your ma.” So then Simon took Ellen’s hand. She led
+him while he dragged his feet, gazing back to Penny and her brood.
+
+“Where’s Simon going,” asked Clate, “with Anse’s ball?”
+
+“It’s his ball now.”
+
+On the train the boy clutched his toy and looked away. At last Ellen
+took a piece of string and showed him how to play cat’s cradle. He was
+lifting the twine from her hands and biting his lip. He cast his blue
+eyes on her. “I like that.”
+
+“I do too, Simon.” The sun fought through the streaked sooted windows.
+The train rushed through the greening land, coming into the valleys and
+hills of Kentucky.
+
+Anton was there with the buckboard. He ordered them into the high seat.
+He had laid his faded kerchief under his black round hat to catch the
+sweat from his balding head. The corners of the red cloth were draping
+about his florid face. “Whole county can get a look at Gaddy’s youngen
+toting her bastard home.”
+
+The horses trotted down the macadam main street, past store-fronts, out
+onto country roads. Ellen spoke timidly, “This is your granddaddy.”
+
+“Quit jawing.”
+
+As they neared Millville, Ellen spoke again. “Penny said to tell you
+howdy. Her husband told me about a dog that grinds axes and things.” She
+spoke too rapidly, lines drawing on her forehead. “This man’s got a
+treadwheel. He runs a belt from it to his grindstone. The dog runs there
+in the big wheel, grinding sickles and knives too. Luke said the dog
+waits for the man to whistle.” She appealed to Anton.
+
+“Haw.” They had passed Love’s store, turned down Sweetincreek Road for a
+mile.
+
+She broke the silence once more. “Luke heard of a cat too.” And holding
+Simon in her arm, she felt him press close. He laid a chubby arm across
+her lap. “It turned a churn, treading a wheel for the lady of the house.
+Now think, Simon.”
+
+Jack met them barking. The dog’s eyes were nearly on a level with
+Simon’s; the child laid his face in the fur. When Anton drove the team
+to the barn, the boy watched him covertly. Maria was coming on the porch
+in her shapeless Mother Hubbard dress. “Now here’s your granny,” called
+Ellen.
+
+Maria glanced at the boy, felt her bun. “The census taker came, Ellie. I
+had a day. I told him all he asked. I wish he’d come again.”
+
+“I’m glad it’s o’er, Ma. You know if Sam did my chores?”
+
+“I gave him a cup of tea and some of that butter-cake you made. I told
+him all he asked.”
+
+
+                                   15
+
+June dawdled by. Lilacs faded and roses unfolded. Simon went behind
+Ellen, dropping pumpkin seeds in the young corn rows. He wore new
+overalls that she ordered from the catalog, and shirts she made for him.
+He ran barefoot at her heels. In his pocket he kept the colored ball
+that had been Anse’s. He spoke seldom, but Ellen would hear his piping
+voice when he was with the geese or with Jack and he had no fear of the
+heavy work horses.
+
+Frankie had written, “We’ll be down Independence Day. My friend is
+coming with me for two weeks’ vacation. Oh, the dear farm and dear
+Ellie. Why didn’t you tell me I had a nephew, Ellie? I can’t wait to see
+him. You cunning sister.”
+
+When Joe Burwell told his son that Frankie was coming, Dyke drove up the
+Gaddy lane in his Oldsmobile to offer the use of his car to meet the
+train. “It’ll be a pleasure to see Frankie again, Mester Gaddy.”
+
+“Stay for supper with us, Dyke,” Ellen invited him, cordial.
+
+The two men went to the station. Ellen had hung the calico curtain
+across her parents’ bedroom to make the guest chamber. Simon had taken
+over Frankie’s old bed upstairs. She was placing a vase of catalpa
+blooms by the bedside on the marble-topped table. A heady fragrance
+seeped from the spikes of creamy scalloped blossoms specked with purple
+and yellow.
+
+The car was returning. Ellen and Simon were going into the yard. Frankie
+threw her arms about Ellen. There was perfume in her hair, her face was
+accented with eye-shadow and penciled brows, her lips vivid. She was
+kneeling by Simon. “I’m Auntie! See what we brought you.” She took his
+hand and they went to Dyke’s car.
+
+Frankie’s companion was talking with the two men. Her black hair was
+shingled. She was heavy-hipped, her face appearing almost delicate above
+her squat body. She wore no make-up and held her head back to eye the
+men squarely. Anton waved his hand while talking, and she nodded again
+at him. They came toward Ellen. “This here’s Genevieve Wheeler,” Anton
+said. “Did I get that name right? Haw. And from the way Frankie wrote at
+first I thought it was a fellow.”
+
+“Pleased,” Ellen said shortly. The woman’s hand was warm and dry.
+
+“Certainly do admire your father, Ellen. The farmer’s the backbone of
+America.”
+
+“Haw.” Anton was shrugging. “Go on in and get settled, you-all. We’ll be
+back when we finish the chores. Coming, Dyke?”
+
+Frankie opened the screen door for Simon. She called, “Ellie, he’s
+cute.”
+
+Ellen followed the men to the barns. Dyke, in his black suit, was
+feeding the cows. Later Simon came out. He stroked the big shoulder of
+the brown cow that Ellen was milking. “I like Auntie, Mama,” he lisped.
+“She brung me this.” He wore a stiff yellow visor cap. He straightened
+it.
+
+“Let’s go tend the goats, Simon.”
+
+The boy strutted beside her, looking up. “I’ll milk Leona for you,
+Mama.”
+
+“See if you can get it all this time.”
+
+Leona had a high round udder and gave her milk down easily. “How come
+Leona’s white, Mama?”
+
+“Because her daddy was a white one.”
+
+Simon sat on a stool, leaning into the goat’s side and squeezing the
+teats so the milk came in little squirts. The animal turned to sniff the
+new cap and lick Simon’s neck where the tow hair curled. Then it wheezed
+as it brought up its cud.
+
+Ellen meanwhile milked Penny and Pie, set out their hay and grain. She
+stood over Simon. “Want me to finish her?”
+
+He sighed, turning the three-legged stool over to her. “I most got her
+clean, didn’t I, Mama?”
+
+“Just about.”
+
+“That Auntie’s comely, Mama.” He was leaning against her while the white
+liquid purred in her bucket, foaming, hot.
+
+“Ne’er know her for my sister, would you, Simon? Like a peacock sister
+to a hen.” Her gray eyes were level with his blue ones. She was stirred.
+He’s a fair boy.
+
+“You’s a little hen, Mama.”
+
+“You’re my chick, then.”
+
+“Peep. Peep.” He took her hand as she picked up the pail. Nearing the
+house, they heard the piano and voices raised. Genevieve was carrying
+the alto.
+
+   O Robin, Robin Redbreast
+   O Robin, Robin dear
+   O Robin sings so sweetly
+   In the falling of the year
+
+“Mercy.” Ellen set the pail in the kitchen, began to help Maria with the
+meal. Simon stationed himself beside the parlor door to listen to the
+singing. He was discovered and with cries and kisses they drew him to
+them.
+
+After supper Frankie remained in the kitchen with Ellen. Simon went up
+to bed. From the parlor came Anton’s deep voice and an occasional
+question from Genevieve. Maria was knitting and Dyke listened while he
+smoked a cigar. Frankie polished the plate she was holding. “Don’t you
+like Gen, Ellie? Don’t you like her? We’ve got a flat, you know.”
+
+“You wrote you left Uncle.”
+
+“I left last February. The market crash changed him, Ellie. He wouldn’t
+eat and stayed up nights going over papers. He got real crabby. Stingy,
+too. You’d never have recognized him. I stopped all my lessons. I was
+glad.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+“He turned Mrs. Quimby out on the street.” Frankie was smiling, prim.
+
+“Oh?”
+
+“When I left, he closed the house up. He went to a flat he has in East
+Chicago. You know he’s bad, Ellie?”
+
+“How?”
+
+“He keeps a woman,” she whispered. “He’s had that flat for years.”
+
+“For lack of wood the fire goes out, Frankie.” Ellen was stiff.
+
+“That’s a cute saying, Ellie. Where’d you hear it?”
+
+“You’re so scatterbrained, Frankie. And I ne’er had any use for
+whisperers.”
+
+“You like my hair, Ellie? Gen says I look like Janet Gaynor.”
+
+“Who’s that?”
+
+“Ellie. A movie star.”
+
+“When did you first meet this Gen?”
+
+“She’s my best friend.”
+
+Dyke stepped into the kitchen. “Hey.”
+
+“Hello, Dyke. Wouldn’t Gen let you talk?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“She’s like that. She has no use for men. Except for one like Pa there.
+A good farmer.”
+
+“You sure are different, Frankie. You’re plumb pretty.” Dyke stood his
+ground, blushing.
+
+“I always liked you, Dyke,” Frankie was bold. “Remember how we used to
+argue about him, Ellie? I said he was tall and he’d do because I wasn’t
+particular?”
+
+“Frankie,” Ellen cried.
+
+“Come out and look at the stars, Frankie. Please.”
+
+“Go on, you two. I’ll finish up.” Ellen went into the parlor after a few
+minutes. She sat down by Maria.
+
+Genevieve looked up alert. “I thought Frankie was with you, Ellen.”
+
+“She went out with Dyke a spell ago.”
+
+“Oh, dear,” the woman laughed. “Excuse me a moment, Mr. Gaddy. I’ll be
+right back. I want to hear more about what you were saying.” The heavy
+sound of her shoes was heard on the porch.
+
+“Why doesn’t she leave Frankie and Dyke be?” Ellen asked.
+
+Anton was filling his pipe. “She sees the case I’ve got here farming.”
+
+The two came in noisily, hand in hand; Dyke followed. “Here’s your
+little girl, Mr. Gaddy. I’m afraid this young man was hiding her from
+us.”
+
+“What do you think, Genevieve,” Anton was asking, “of my daughter
+becoming a fine musician?”
+
+“Well, in time she could be. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She’s got
+talent. And she’s a beauty. When I get more money saved, I’m going to
+get her the best teacher I can find.”
+
+“I just love you, Pa,” cried Frankie. “And this dear house. And Ma and
+Ellie and everyone.”
+
+“Tsk, tsk, such a little girl,” said Genevieve. She stood by the piano.
+
+   Woodman, spare that tree
+   Touch not a single bough
+   In youth it sheltered me
+   And I’ll protect it now
+
+Ellen was pressed to make fudge and coffee. Dyke was left in the parlor
+with Anton and the visitors came into the kitchen to help. While the two
+cracked nuts, they chattered in steady rapport. Ellen stepped into the
+hall, put her hands on her ears. “That ox.” Obscurely, she resented the
+older woman, missed the old way in which Frankie would turn to her for
+approbation and counsel. She could overhear Anton in the next room.
+
+“Yes sir, boy, this fellow had a dog to run his treadmill. He sat in the
+shade and ground axes and knives for folks on the grindstone that dog
+turned for him.”
+
+“I ne’er heard of that being done before, Mester Gaddy.”
+
+“Hell, I even knew a man that fixed a treadmill for his old ooman’s cat
+to run her churn.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They gathered at breakfast. Ellen had set potatoes to boil, fried bacon,
+and sent Simon to refill the blue water pail. Frankie and Genevieve were
+coming in sleepy-eyed, clad in gray twill skirts. The girl appeared
+frail and willowy beside her companion whose broad buttocks and ample
+breasts were constrained by her clothing. As they were sitting at the
+laden table, Anton and Sam hurried in. They were late. “The colt’s
+gone,” Anton worried. “Must have jumped the rails where it’s rotting.
+Jesus Wept, they’re all falling apart. We’ve got to string fence wire
+all o’er now.”
+
+“Red horse tired of the meadow,” Simon piped. “He set out for to see the
+other side.” The child looked through the square-paned window, past the
+low wall of the garden, to the day that had cast off the shawl of night.
+
+“I tell you, let’s organize a search party,” Genevieve said. “We’ll go
+get our hats. Don’t you agree, Frankie?”
+
+“All right, Gen.”
+
+“It’s up to you-all to find him. Sam and me can’t help. We got the rails
+to mend and the hay field to cut. Come on, Sam.”
+
+They left Maria cleaning the kitchen, for she refused to stir without
+the door. They searched woods and adjacent fields. There was no sign of
+the missing colt. At noontime the three women met outside the house.
+Genevieve was bramble-scratched, the smell of perspiration thick on her
+as she sat with Frankie on the porch steps. “I think I got poison ivy,”
+said Frankie, “and I tore my stockings.”
+
+“I brought some bug stuff with us. It’s in the bags somewhere. These
+mosquito bites itch.”
+
+Ellen was bringing water from the well in a dishpan and they got up to
+wash. The woman grunted as she dried herself. Frankie was laughing at
+her, wrinkling her nose. Suddenly Ellen said, “Where’s Simon? He was
+with you, Frankie.”
+
+But Frankie denied it. “He got tired. He said he was going home to get a
+drink.”
+
+A hand twisted within Ellen. She was running. She heard the calls behind
+her. “Wait, Ellie!”
+
+And Genevieve, “Let’s be calm.”
+
+But Ellen ran and ran, Jack barking beside her, to fields stretching
+past woods, and past that, to places she had wandered before her son had
+gained this hold on her. All the while she cried, “Simon. Simon.” And
+the dog’s staccato answered.
+
+It was late in the day when she returned. They had all assembled in the
+yard. “We’ve been looking, too, Ellie,” Sam told her.
+
+“Maybe a snake’s bitten him.” An empty place trembled in Ellen. “And
+he’s lying some’ere.”
+
+“Nonsense,” said Genevieve.
+
+“He’s too little.” Ellen’s mind tried doors that were barred. “He
+doesn’t know the country well.” She looked at the ground.
+
+Sam said, “Don’t fret, Ellie. He’s a steady youngen.”
+
+The group was wavering, uncertain. “Appears you could look after your
+own youngen.” Anton bent for his pitchfork. “That hay’s got to be
+turned.”
+
+Genevieve took a deep breath as the men went toward the field. “I’m not
+concerned. He’ll come home. Why, he’s a big boy.”
+
+“Quit jawing,” Ellen said savagely.
+
+Then they heard the men’s shouts, their distant figures were pointing.
+“There! Look there.”
+
+The blood-bay colt was ambling up the lane, the boy on its back, his
+short legs spread, a lock of the mane in his stubby hand. His cap was
+set visor backwards. “I got lost, Mama.”
+
+“Where did you find him?” Ellen ran to take the colt’s headstall.
+
+“Down the road a ways. I got turned about.”
+
+Ellen was leading the horse to the barn. “Well.”
+
+Simon slid to the ground. “I lost Anse’s ball.”
+
+“Should I make you another?”
+
+“No.” He was petting the tall colt’s shoulder. “Mama?”
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+“I’d like a horse to name my own.”
+
+“Maybe someday.”
+
+“Mama?” He stroked the horse, looked up at her, mute. His eyes were
+wide. He smiled slowly, waiting.
+
+“Fancy you finding the red colt, Simon. When none of us could.” They
+turned to walk to the house. He swaggered behind her, pleased with
+himself.
+
+   Little Tom Tinker
+   Got burned with a clinker
+   And he began to cry
+   What a poor fellow am I
+
+Anton nearly shot a dog fox a day or so after. The fences, lined with
+stones and weeds, had furnished ambush for the daring fox. In broad
+daylight even, it would slip to the hen house, kill three or four, and
+escape, slinging its latest victim across its shoulders. Anton would
+smoulder, viewing his dead hens. He told Genevieve, “Years back I had a
+flock of pullets just starting to lay. One morning I found a heap of
+thirty dead under that oak. Next week there was eighteen. I’d hear the
+varmint barking at night. Times he’d screech like a wildcat. I didn’t
+sleep till I got him. Ne’er did find the earth where the whelps were
+hid.”
+
+In the hour he was free before milking, Anton had taken his gun. He set
+out, Jack at heel. He plodded through likely spots, and as he came up
+out of the woods he heard a crow call, signaling. He glimpsed in the
+distance the fox they hunted. Its summer fur was scraggly and
+yellow-red; it was digging at a woodchuck hole on the edge of the field.
+Jack had seen it too; he fell behind the man, who was slipping noiseless
+through the high orchard grass.
+
+Then Anton had stopped short. He had come upon Frankie and her friend,
+sitting with hands about their knees in the grass. The older woman was
+leaning over to kiss Frankie on the lips. Frankie laughed, tossing her
+shining bobbed hair. Anton forgot his quarry. Jack whined and growled as
+the fox clawed at the earth. The man moved in dourly upon the women in
+the afternoon sun. He stood before them with legs set like trees in the
+grass. “What’s going on here?”
+
+Frankie lifted her head. “We’re singing, Pa.”
+
+Her companion was getting up. “We were just enjoying ourselves out here,
+Mr. Gaddy. My, your Frankie’s a pretty thing.”
+
+Anton strode from them. They saw him spit amber juice into the weeds.
+Jack galloped, yapping, for the fox had slunk off. Frankie giggled, “Oh,
+Gen. You shouldn’t have.”
+
+That evening the man was stalking restive between kitchen and parlor.
+Genevieve sought to draw him into a discussion. “I was reading about a
+new commercial fertilizer, Mr. Gaddy.”
+
+“Shit,” he growled and went to stand on the porch. Car lights glared as
+Dyke Burwell’s Oldsmobile arrived in the yard.
+
+Dyke called from the darkened window, “Hey!”
+
+“Come in, boy.”
+
+The lights cut and Dyke walked toward the porch. “Frankie home?”
+
+Anton saw suddenly that Dyke was a man now, bulky and tall, stooped
+somewhat from the weight of his awkward upper body. “Hum. She’s here.”
+
+They stood together, embarrassed by the companionship they felt. They
+were looking off into the half-dusk of the yard. “Getting hot.”
+
+“Hum.”
+
+“Could rain, Mester Gaddy. Ma says if she can feel toes on her missing
+leg, it’s rain for sure.” They were leaning against the porch posts. The
+older man stirred, unhappy. Dyke was talking in a soft monotone,
+relating a joke.
+
+Anton interrupted him, “I’d like to shoot that varmint.”
+
+“Well, like I was saying, Mester Gaddy, a bird came o’er then and muted
+on him. Hell, he says looking up, now you know, Lord, this is just going
+a trifle too far.” Dyke snickered, hopeful, but Anton remained glum. The
+young man scratched his neck. “You say Frankie’s home?”
+
+They went into the house. Anton’s voice was cold, “Dyke, I want you to
+take Frankie here to the movie house in Bethel. That way Miss Wheeler
+and I can talk about the farm.”
+
+“You are sweet, Pa. But I don’t care to.” Frankie yawned, getting up
+from her chair. “Here we are on this old Kentucky home and why go to the
+flickers? We see them all the time in the city. But you’re thoughtful,
+Pa.”
+
+So instead Frankie coaxed Dyke to sing with them. Ellen saw how
+Genevieve’s black eyes glinted when Dyke spoke to Frankie. She saw
+Dyke’s confidence wither as he appeared a poor thing. Genevieve was
+saying, “Frankie told me you keep house for your mother?”
+
+“I help her, Miss Wheeler.”
+
+“I think it’s wonderful you mop and dust like a daughter. That’s an
+accomplishment.”
+
+Ellen walked out of the room and onto the porch. A shadow was drifting
+by the hen house fence. “There’s that fox, Pa.”
+
+Anton grasped the gun that stood by the loft stairs. His body mingled
+with the shadows. His face was vacant-eyed, as he slipped past Ellen,
+like a cat that spies a bird flutter to its nesting bush. After the
+family was in bed and Dyke had driven away, Anton returned. He flung the
+yellow-furred carcass at the base of the porch steps. The dog worried it
+until Sam arrived at dawn and dragged it into a field for buzzards to
+pick.
+
+Simon came in dirt-stained to where the family and Sam Offut sat at the
+noon table. His hair was over his eyes and he brushed it back. He held a
+box-turtle he had found. He was clutching it to his shirt and standing
+within the door. Ellen said, “Go clean up. And put that turtle away,
+Simon. You’re late. Now run.”
+
+But Simon went to stand at Anton’s side. The man continued eating,
+pushing his food with his knife, his head bent in hunger. Simon spoke so
+that Ellen knew he had thought how he would say this all the way to the
+house, ever since he caught the turtle. “Da says they’s seven kinds of
+meat in a turtle. E’er heard that, Granddaddy?”
+
+“Who’s Da?” Anton threw his knife with a clatter.
+
+Simon was staring, open-mouthed.
+
+“Who’s Da, boy?”
+
+“Da,” Simon blurted, cradling the turtle, the spiny legs scratching his
+soft flesh.
+
+“Pa, that’s Mester Dougherty,” cried Ellen. “The youngens called him
+that.”
+
+“Don’t speak his name again. Mind, boy?” Anton picked up his knife.
+Genevieve and Frankie exchanged small knowing smiles.
+
+Ellen pleaded, “This is a land turtle, Simon. The kind you eat’s a water
+turtle. Go wash now.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later on, the women were clearing the dishes. Anton was puffing his
+pipe. From the direction of the hog pens came a squealing. Through the
+screen, Ellen saw a score of young pigs spreading out toward house and
+barn. After them stumbled Simon, trying with aimless movements to round
+them up. His face was worried, his body blundering. She pushed the door
+to go and help him. Anton spoke behind her. “Stay there, girl.”
+
+Ellen knew what had happened. Simon had been sent out as soon as he had
+eaten, to move the twenty yeanling pigs to new quarters. Anton had
+directed him to move them one at a time. But the child had tried to shoo
+them in a drove, the way he did the geese or cows. The baby pigs were
+fractious and ran out like wheel spokes. Sam was hustling from the barn.
+Ellen watched the two men break sticks, then shouting, gather the pigs
+into their new pen. The little boy’s shoulders were rounded, hands
+dangling helplessly. Sam returned to the barn. Anton called the boy to
+him. He cut a switch from a locust tree. Simon was moving slowly across
+the yard. Ellen came out on the porch. “Get in the house, girl. Lest I
+switch you for your brat to see.”
+
+Ellen went up the stairway to her room. “He’s bound and determined to
+have it out. But it’s because he’s plagued at Frankie.” She sat dry-eyed
+on the bed. Her head was throbbing.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Afterwards she found Simon in the field with the goats. He held his hand
+on the neck of one doe and scratched under its beard. His face was
+streaked and dirty. “I was bad, Mama.”
+
+“You sure could use a bath. Come on, let’s get the tub down.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Sunday the two Gaddy sisters were sitting on the porch. Lily Garrett
+walked up to them in her shapeless Mother Hubbard dress. “I’ve come to
+make lavendery sticks for the last time with you-all.” Lily was sweating
+through her padding of fat.
+
+“What do you mean, last time?” Ellen got up to greet her.
+
+Frankie and Lily kissed. “You haven’t met Gen yet, Lily.”
+
+“I’ve got news for you.” Lily’s face was shaking as she laughed. “Craig
+Hedrick’s making me his wife.”
+
+“Ellie went with Craig once, didn’t you?” Frankie asked. “I remember.”
+
+“Just to mass,” said Ellen.
+
+“I can’t ask you to a wedding.” Lily was raising her large arms to her
+hair. “We’re only going to the priest. The bans have been read and we’ve
+got no time for fancy doings. Craig’s bought the farm next to him. He’ll
+be working o’er a hundred acres this summer.”
+
+“My,” said Ellen.
+
+“We’ll drive straight home from the priest and go to work, he says. He’s
+going to get a tractor with lights so he can work nights. Law, he’s a
+goer.”
+
+“Calling him a goer makes me remember Mandy York,” Frankie was saying.
+“When she was out hoeing with us that time and she said, I’m smart, I’m
+a good duster and a good sweeper and a good hoer. We laughed at how it
+came out.”
+
+“Her baby is doing good on your goat’s milk,” Lily said.
+
+“I still can’t believe Mandy’s dead,” cried Frankie. “But now here’s
+Gen.”
+
+The older woman came down the stairs. “Who’s this?” She was linking arms
+with Frankie.
+
+“This is my friend, Lily Garrett, Gen.”
+
+“You certainly look hot,” Genevieve said. The two walked away to the
+lavender bed.
+
+As they were plucking the flowers, Lily talked softly to Ellen. “Where’s
+Simon?”
+
+“He’s in the field. Sam lets him ride Blueberry. He thinks he’s a man
+sitting up there holding on the hame knobs.”
+
+“He’s a pretty child. Does he take after your husband?”
+
+“A mite.”
+
+“Can’t say he takes after your side.”
+
+In the silence, Ellen was binding the stalks with yarn; the sweet oil
+scented her fingers.
+
+“Craig’s got no use for you, Ellie. Reckon he’ll not let me come down
+this way when I’m Mrs. Hedrick.”
+
+“You think a lot of him, Lily?”
+
+“It’s like this. I’m built so big most fellows laugh at me. Papa’s glad
+to get me settled. He’s going to help us where he can. I allow I’m a
+sight lucky to catch Craig.”
+
+Ellen had never heard the flighty Lily speak so seriously. She seemed
+nearly sad as she came to this turning in her life.
+
+“You’ll make him a good wife.”
+
+“I aim to. I’d like to have a child like yours.” They worked awhile, the
+murmurs of the other two coming from the end of the bed. “I don’t know
+if it’s right to tell such a thing on my promised husband, but I knew
+you long before him.” Lily’s face fired red. “He says you be free with
+men, Ellie. Says he could name the ones you’ve slept with.”
+
+“There’s lots of tales told, Lily.”
+
+“Says you weren’t even married.”
+
+“The grapes are grapes of gall,” Ellen spoke bravely. “I don’t care.”
+
+“You’re twisting my words, Ellie. But I’ll say more.” The hot sun
+drenched them, drew the last moisture from the flower bed. Lily’s curls
+lay straggled on her sun-browned neck and Ellen waited. “I’ll be glad
+when Craig won’t let me come here to visit you-all. I know he wanted you
+for a wife. He tells those tales for the hate he bears you. Being as you
+slighted him.”
+
+“Lily. There was nothing between Craig and me.”
+
+“I’ve seen a little silk rose he keeps. It came off that blue hat you
+wore when you went to Chicago that time. How’d he come by it?”
+
+“Oh Lily.”
+
+“You won’t tell. And knowing I took what you wouldn’t have, I’d as lief
+bide away from you.” Lily’s eyes brimmed as she bent over the handful of
+pale-purple blooms.
+
+Ellen trembled. “If you feel that way.” She was working down the
+perfumed rows, away from her childhood friend. “I don’t care.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The visitors were planning to leave the following weekend. Genevieve
+Wheeler was due at her desk in the Featherbone Works on Monday morning.
+On Wednesday night Anton awoke to the stutter of thunder. He shuffled
+barefoot, to close windows in the kitchen and parlor. As he was
+returning, he stopped a while at the calico curtains of the partitioned
+room where his daughter and Genevieve slept. He overheard their
+whispers. Grinding his teeth, he took the cloth in his violent fist. But
+he released it and went to the bed where Maria was snoring, mouth half
+open. “Hail, Holy Mary,” he whimpered. He prayed, envisioning his mother
+Nell, clad in a blue gown like the Virgin, her bright red hair flowing
+about her shoulders. He wept secretly, fashioning words he would say as
+he banished Frankie forever.
+
+The night’s rain drew upward to the hot sky. The sticky air was clinging
+as the family slowly collected for breakfast. Frankie and Genevieve were
+seated, Maria was placing a dish of fried potatoes on the table before
+joining them. Ellen had brought a hot skillet of eggs from the stove.
+She lifted them onto plates with her iron spatula. “I’ll take two,
+Ellie,” Genevieve cried. “This country air’s given me an appetite.”
+
+“Oh, Gen, you always take two.”
+
+A bumblebee, caught at the glass, was buzzing. Simon ran in. He had
+washed at the pump and water was dripping from his hands. “Morning,
+Simon,” said Frankie. “Why does an old maid go to church so early on
+Sunday? Don’t tell him, Gen.”
+
+“Let’s see, Auntie.” The child studied his egg.
+
+Anton came in. The screen door cracked behind him like a breaking stick.
+The people turned. He spoke softly to his younger daughter. “The Bible
+says, were they ashamed when they committed abomination? Nay, they were
+not. Neither could they blush.” He wiped his face with an arm dusted
+with chaff of hay and hair of cows. Ellen heard the bee mumble at the
+glass and her hand, holding the skillet, was tiring. “You be not welcome
+under my roof now, girl. The Lord God’ll have a reckoning day for you.”
+
+“What’s this all about, Mr. Gaddy?” began Genevieve.
+
+“Shut your jaw. Unnatural ooman.”
+
+Frankie was still, a paleness blanketing her features. She was wearing a
+high-throated shirtwaist, the color of her hair brilliant against its
+whiteness. Her linen skirt fitted her small hips. Her hands rested in
+her lap. Frankie had turned, after months of terror and insecurity in
+Garland’s house, to the gentle dominion of the older female. The grip of
+her father’s hand had gradually fallen away and she had begun to think
+of the home farm as a place in one of the tunes they would sing,
+nostalgic and typical.
+
+   First the farmer sows his seed
+   Then he stands
+   And takes his ease
+
+They were gay in the small Chicago flat. Now the old fear of Anton was
+absent. She was waiting until he would speak again into the sultry
+kitchen.
+
+“You be gone.” His voice was a blade cutting a cord. “When Sam and me
+get back from the wheat this noon. Christ, you be not my daughter any
+more.” He stalked to the door and out.
+
+“What did Granddaddy say, Mama?” The high whisper spilled into the
+silence.
+
+“I don’t know,” sighed Ellen.
+
+“Now he ne’er ate his breakfast,” Maria was complaining, “with his
+fretting. But here comes Sam. He’ll eat good.”
+
+“There’s simply no talking to Pa when he’s set like that, Gen,” Frankie
+laughed. “He gets so sore.”
+
+“Tell, why does the old maid go so early to church, Auntie?” Simon
+asked.
+
+“Well, by golly,” said Genevieve, pushing back her chair. “Let’s get to
+packing.”
+
+Frankie laughed again. “So she can be there when the hymns are given
+out, silly.” She got up, brushing her skirt. “Oh, Ellie, don’t worry.
+You know Pa. And we did have our visit. You’ll see, we’ll be back next
+summer.” Frankie was going to the bedroom.
+
+“Don’t call that much of a riddle,” said Simon. “Don’t get it.”
+
+“You want to go berrying by the lake?” Ellen set the skillet down on the
+stove. Her voice was unsteady. “They’re real thick, Simon. All you have
+to do is shake them in the pail. You take Jack for company. Watch out
+for snakes, mind.”
+
+Sam was coming up the porch as the boy took the lard pail and marched
+off, his hand on the dog’s back. Simon’s hair was white in the summer
+sun. His cap, grimy and wrinkled now, perched on his head. Ellen turned
+to free the imprisoned bee still tumbling at the pane. Maria spoke,
+“Want these cold eggs, Sam?”
+
+
+                                   16
+
+Summer had hurled itself on the quailing countryside. The moisture was
+drawn from the bowels of the land, first from the stony top clay, until
+finally from the reservoir far below. The few humid clouds were carried
+away on winds that lived in the upper troposphere and there was no rain.
+A drought prevailed. As daylight made colors known, an opossum was
+waddling through the oat field, where stunted stems withered before the
+white grains could form. It pounced on a fleeing lizard just before Sam
+Offut shot it cleanly through the skull. He plucked its young, no bigger
+than a thumbnail, from its nipples and left them in the field. At
+breakfast he told the Gaddys, “My old ooman’ll bake it. That’s one thing
+Eadie can do.”
+
+Anton was restless. He walked outdoors, drawing on his cold pipe.
+“Turning the earth’ll just dry it worse, Sam.”
+
+“No weeds are going to come up anyhow. What’ll we do if it doesn’t rain,
+Mester Gaddy?”
+
+Simon was watching them from the screen, his nose against the wire. He
+called, “Granddaddy, which way’s the wind blowing?”
+
+But the men looked at the burning sky. They stood in the yard awhile,
+then went to the tool shed or scattered old hay to the cows in the
+dried-up pasture, puttering time away until it should rain. Simon was on
+the steps talking to the dog. Ellen could hear his singsong. She told
+Maria, “Simon’s at the aping age. He thinks he’s Sam. Or again he thinks
+he’s Pa.”
+
+That sweltering noon Anton beat his wife. It had little to do with the
+drought, although irritation had made his temper short. Anton seldom
+lifted his arm against Maria ever since a few summers past when she had
+taken to bed after he struck her. Anton had felt justified at the time,
+for Maria had been nagging him about the kind of wood for her pap’s
+coffin. He had given her money enough for a pine box, but she demanded
+oak. “Oak’s dear, ooman. No more now.” And when he had beat her she was
+somehow hurt. He had been forced to hire the girl, Penny, to help while
+his wife was recovering.
+
+Maria was alone in the house in the hot morning. A salesman came to the
+door, a thin man, wearing a flat-top hat. His striped suit was frayed
+around the lapels and seams. “Madam, I presume you’re the lady of the
+house. It’s clear you’re a pious one. I myself am a man of God. I carry
+the Word.” He was taking a Bible from his worn satchel. It was handsome,
+gold-embossed, gold-edged. He was showing her how in some sections the
+first letter was immense, with doves or flowers set into scrolled lines.
+
+Maria coveted it. “But I’ve got no money, Mester.”
+
+“This is such a bargain.”
+
+“If I had the money.”
+
+“Sometimes a farmer will hide money in a mattress. It’s his way. Or
+again in the rear part of a drawer that he alone uses.”
+
+She began to shake her head, eying him.
+
+“There’s few would think ill of a wife who knew a fine trade. Look at
+this Good Book.”
+
+She turned the leaves, lingering over the gold letters. “What’s its
+price?”
+
+“Fifty dollars, Madam. To you, ten.”
+
+“Well.” He sat in the parlor while she found the bills laid in the
+ticking. She moved her mouth in an inner argument. She took some of
+them, replaced the roll in the straw. She walked back into the parlor.
+“Hit seems there be but seven. What do you say, Mester?”
+
+“I’ll make you a special.” He was reaching for the money. “I’ll take
+it.”
+
+At noontime, when they finished eating, Maria spoke. “There’s a thing I
+did.” She went to get the Bible, her eyes moist and bright.
+
+The smoke from Anton’s pipe dwelled over the used dishes and his brow
+drew in puzzled lines. “How’s this?” He was taking the book from her.
+“Where’d you get the money?”
+
+“Amid the straw then, under the bed.”
+
+“How’d you think to look, ooman?”
+
+“Peddler said it would be there. So he knows is the way of a farmer. I
+took but seven.”
+
+Then Anton was hitting her on the shoulder from where he sat, because he
+had been shown for a fool. He rose, seizing his black shirt and ripping
+it so buttons fell tinkling. His chest was exposed, matted. He struck
+her again. “Prices are falling so I can’t sell. Rising so I can’t buy.
+There’s a drought on us, and you have to thieve behind my back.” He
+lifted up his fist.
+
+She ran to the bedroom where the wardrobe closet stood, and crouched in
+the camphor-ridden woolens. She whimpered, “Mam.”
+
+Ellen waited until Anton had gone to join Sam in the yard. She picked up
+the Bible and put it on the table before Simon. Most of the Book of John
+was missing, and Kings and Isaiah. Later Anton would hunt in vain for
+Jeremiah, his favorite prophet. But now Ellen was turning to the First
+Book of Samuel. She had accepted Anton’s violence as she did the
+drought, linking them in her mind as manifestations of indisputable
+power. And she would give Maria time to recover, in the same
+unquestioning way in which the farm folk would woo the land back with
+seed and share when the rain came. Ellen was reading to Simon, “The Lord
+seeth not as man seeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance. But the
+Lord looketh on the heart.”
+
+Simon examined the pictures while she made order in the kitchen. “Here’s
+varmints I ne’er knew of, Mama.”
+
+The windows were open. Anton had taken a screen down the day before to
+mend it and Ellen had hung strips of cloth to keep out flies that bred
+constantly in the barnyard. Simon snatched at those buzzing about him.
+When he caught one, he would slide from his chair and let it out the
+door. He returned to his perch and book. “You’re a soft one,” she
+scoffed. “That fly’s coming right back through the window.”
+
+He smiled in his slow way. “I don’t care.” His eyes were as if he had
+drawn aside curtains where he was apt to hide himself.
+
+Ellen was making a pot of coffee. She went to coax her mother from the
+closet. “Come on, Ma.”
+
+Maria stared coldly. “Leave me be.”
+
+“Have some coffee. You were clever, Ma. To get a book like that at such
+a price.”
+
+At length the woman arose, rubbing her bruised shoulder. “Well.”
+
+Simon gave her the book. “Take it, Granny.”
+
+“We have to cut hoofs, Ma. You drink the coffee.” Ellen set the cup by
+Maria.
+
+“Go along, then.” Maria was opening the book. “You can take a look if
+there’s any apples. This is a dreary year for storing up.”
+
+In the pasture, Ellen trimmed the goats’ hoofs with a pocketknife while
+Simon held their leather collars. The little herd had prospered. There
+were six, besides Rhodie who still boarded at the Yorks. Ellen walked
+among her goats and she was the center of the wheel. She knew each and
+the way it differed from the next, how it placed its foot, how it moved
+or crowded to be close to her, butting another with a click of horns.
+Penny was aging and moved slow. Pie, the big skewbald one, had no beard
+and was slick and fat. There were two shaggy brown yeanlings, saucy and
+bold. And Leona, the white doe, had yellow eyes in a long homely face.
+
+Simon and she took the does, when they had finished, over to the
+orchard. “Wonder why goats like to follow after, Mama? And you got to
+drive a cow?”
+
+Ellen was drawing tree boughs down. The animals craved the young shoots
+more than field clover; they were rearing on their hind legs, dancing
+with tongues extended.
+
+“There’s no apples here, Mama.”
+
+“There’ll be a few later. I see some fruiting.”
+
+The goats had their fill and were taken to the pasture again. Then Ellen
+went up the lane, Simon trailing behind. The does stood their slender
+forefeet on the gate bars, calling after them. The heat quivered, the
+land lay gasping, the corn died as clay cracked like a split plate
+around yellowed stalks. The sun dominated the clear dome as well as the
+prostrate land. Even Simon felt the menace and reached for Ellen’s hand.
+
+After supper Anton, his anger exhausted, was reading to the boy from
+Maria’s Bible. He had brought it to the porch. The women in the hot
+kitchen could hear through the open door. “Now this Elisha was going
+about the countryside doing miracles. There came forth children out of a
+city and mocked him. Said, go up thou baldhead. Go up thou baldhead.
+Elisha he looked on them and cursed them in the name of the Lord. There
+came two she-bears then out of the woods. They tore forty and two
+children of them. And then Elisha he went from thence to Mount Carmel.”
+
+Simon’s eyes were large and wary. “They shouldn’t have sassed that man.”
+
+“Take a lesson from it. Heed your manners. Hear, youngen?”
+
+“I will, Granddaddy.”
+
+The women came out with cornhusk fans that Maria once had fashioned.
+Anton turned pages, seeking the words of Jeremiah. “You got a reaming to
+top all here, ooman. Go fetch my own Bible, boy. This one’s not put
+together proper.” Then he read, “Thus saith the Lord. Stand ye in the
+ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way. And walk
+therein and ye shall find rest for your souls.”
+
+Ever since Ellen and Anton had visited Father Tompert and she had voiced
+herself to the priest, Ellen had discovered a new freedom. She had found
+herself supported by the church in her dispute with it, in her desire to
+find her own path. It gave her a wholeness and a bravery toward Anton.
+So she would keep Simon at her side on Sundays while her parents rode to
+church. Maria was disturbed. “Hope you don’t burn for this, Ellie.
+Wonder what Jesus would say if he came through Millville today?” Anton
+had grunted, angry, to the team, “Haw-whup.” Unknown to Ellen, he had
+spoken to another priest in Bethel regarding his daughter’s departure
+from the church. This man was old, his face creased in deep lines, and
+he advised Anton to obey his parish priest and to care for his own soul.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+After her sister had gone away with Genevieve Wheeler, Ellen would watch
+Anton going about his work abstractedly. He would stop now and again to
+raise a hand or mumble to himself, then startle as though coming out of
+a dream, and resume his work. He declared no one was to speak Frankie’s
+name. One day Ellen, rummaging for a lost tool in the shed behind the
+hog pens, came on the remains of a glass bowl-garden, the one Frankie
+had made when she was fifteen to please her father. It was smashed and
+Ellen knew Anton had hurled it there in a smoldering rage.
+
+He began to use certain phrases with Simon such as he had used with
+Frankie. “A storm is nothing, Poppet,” he said once when thunder moved
+over the sky, failing to see that Simon had no fear. He baited the boy
+too, told him to watch the butchering of an old milk cow. “This is man’s
+work and you just as well learn it early.” He smote the beast with a
+maul behind the ear. When it staggered to its knees, he used the maul
+again. Sam cut the jugular with a sticking knife and while the lifeblood
+flowed, they fastened chains to its hocks and hoisted the limp body up.
+
+Simon brought a pail of water for washing, took the liver and kidneys in
+a pan to the kitchen. He helped carry meat that the women were frying
+down in fat for the lean winter coming. He stumbled up the steps to the
+kitchen with his load. “Granddaddy killed old Jess. While she was
+looking at him.”
+
+“He needs the money, Simon. She wasn’t good for a milker any more. He’s
+going to take the hide and one side to Bethel.”
+
+“He could have laid his kerchief o’er her eyes.” He took up the
+blood-stained pail. With lagging step he returned to his tasks.
+
+Anton found Simon was apt to be slow and chided him. He was scattering
+handfuls of slaked lime on the hog house floor, sending Simon to refill
+the pails from the sack in the yard. In the ovenlike heat, the white
+dust clung to their sweated clothing and skin. “Think menfolk are always
+going to wait on your lazy ass? Now when I was a youngen I learned on a
+stick. Haw.”
+
+And sometimes Anton turned on him unexpectedly. When the child heard his
+steps and ran to open the porch door, the man would say, “Now get out of
+here.”
+
+“It’s but his way, Simon,” Ellen pleaded when she saw the boy’s eyes
+following the stocky erect figure.
+
+“I know it, Mama.”
+
+The drought broke toward the end of September. Maria was claiming the
+Man of Signs had foretold it. “It be the Autumnal Equinox. The sun’s
+entering Libra now.”
+
+“That’s a fact,” said Sam. “The Scales been balanced toward drought. And
+now they be tilting the way to the rain.”
+
+Thunder belted the heavens, rattling the timbers of the old house. The
+moist air was lightened and smelled of a sweetness unknown since early
+summer rains. Water was pouring from a full sky. In the oat field it hit
+the cracked clay and bounced off. Washes were beginning where stones
+formed little dams. Rivulets were taking the paths contrived and
+becoming foaming streams that roared like rivers and cut gashes that
+deepened into crevices. Much of the topsoil washed into the valleys. But
+the land was filled, the water stores replenished. All vegetation sucked
+and had its fill. And still there was more. “I vow we’ll get wet
+tonight, Sam. Appears to be just commencing.”
+
+“Reckon I might make a little mess of garden truck yet,” Ellen said,
+“before the first frost.”
+
+“Mester Gaddy,” said Sam, “I’d as soon set right out in this while I
+milk. I got a honing to get drenched.”
+
+That night crickets that dwelled in the stone foundations and katydids
+with leaflike wings and long silken feelers and green eyes, were
+scraping their wings in the teeming dark. They had been listless through
+the dry weather, now were voicing themselves in lusty chorus. The red
+cardinal was singing so softly in the hackberry that it sounded as if it
+were away down Sweetincreek Road.
+
+The drought had wreaked a stiff toll. A few loads of hay would be
+brought in but most of the crop was lost. There would be no corn to
+garner, no small grains. One crib remained from the previous year and
+from it Anton would eke out the winter feeding. He decided to ride with
+Dyke Burwell to the auctions in Louisville up on the northern border of
+Kentucky. He selected four sows to hold over the winter with the
+breeding boar; he would sell the others and all the yeanling pigs. They
+were flat-sided, poorly finished. The men hoped that in the city they
+would get a better price than was paid locally. Dyke had loaded his
+father’s excess hogs in the Burwell Chevrolet truck. The two were
+driving off for the seventy-mile trip and would return in a few days.
+
+The Gaddy women and the child watched the load of squealing hogs, bedded
+in straw, lurch down the lane. Ellen laughed, “Let’s have an outing,
+Simon.” The air was brightened as the head of the house was carried
+further and further away. They took biscuits and cheese down to the
+orchard. Jack accompanied them. When they had eaten, they gathered
+fallen apples into a bushel; Simon climbed trees, shook down the few
+that clung to the branches. They went beyond the orchard to a patch of
+sorghum cane. Being near the farm brook, it had survived the dry spell.
+They were breaking stalks, sucking the juice.
+
+“Crows don’t always squall, Mama. They can talk soft too. I heard one
+twittering like a wren, feeding its youngens.” The child wanted to know
+the ways of the beasts and fowl. “Granddaddy says buzzards will kill a
+baby pig and steal off with it. Reckon that’s so?”
+
+“A buzzard’s not biggity enough. They’re good but to clean up what’s
+dead and rotting.”
+
+Returning to the house, they had come on an opossum in the path. The
+heart of the swooned animal beat faintly, its dull-white jaws, withered
+ears and skinny tail bore a semblance to death. Simon was plucking it
+from the dust, cradling it in the bend of his arm. He stroked the coarse
+fur. “I’ll make it a pet.”
+
+Ellen laughed then. But somehow she was lonely, walking up the hill in
+the breeze of the afternoon, bearing the basket of fall apples.
+
+“I always wondered if a mole could swim, Mama. Yesterday I saw one cross
+the branch. Now I know that thing.” She made no reply and he went on,
+“You reckon those goat-sucker birds truly suckle the cows at night? Sam
+says it’s so. He says milk snakes’ll do it too. I’m going to spy one
+time on them.”
+
+Anton and Dyke came back from Louisville. Prices had fallen more than
+anticipated; the buyers’ eyes had been hard. Anton bought a load of
+poor-quality hay that was stacked high on the truck. They had had a flat
+tire on the way home and arrived late at night. Anton was pounding on
+the door. “Open up, ooman.”
+
+They brushed by Maria who stood in a knee-length sweater, her grayish
+hair in braids. “Hey, ma’am,” Dyke muttered. They went in the parlor,
+the stench of manure and sweat about them.
+
+“Paid fifty cents for this lightning.” Anton cradled a Mason jar of
+clear liquid. “Didn’t tell you, boy, in case we got asked if we had any
+moon hid in that hay.” He unscrewed the lid and filled glasses.
+
+Ellen went up to bed; she found Simon on the stairway and sent him
+before her. She heard her father’s shout and Dyke’s growl of agreement
+as she was drifting off to sleep. She awoke, feeling a hard hand on her
+shoulder. “What’s amiss?” she whispered, thinking it was Anton.
+
+“Hey. It’s me, Ellie.” She heard the pleading whisper, smelled the sour
+breath.
+
+“You’re sodden drunk, Dyke. Go downstairs and get to sleep. If you can
+find your way to the sofa in the parlor.” She spoke severely, heard his
+clumsy steps descending the stairs, his curse as he stumbled and bumped
+the wall. In the morning she was serving them breakfast. As soon as the
+hay was unloaded Dyke would drive home. Ellen could see he had no sure
+memory of his visit to her room. She caught his covert glance. He thinks
+it was a fancy he had.
+
+
+                                   17
+
+In that fall Ellen had a dream of Christian Ay. It was her first thought
+of him in many months’ time. His figure was unclear, touched with
+gentleness and warmth; it was apart from her. She fancied he was hurt.
+He was calling, his voice as if through water. When she awoke she could
+hear the echo of her own cry. She was musing at the power of the
+nightmare’s image. “There could be a meaning. Like the Prophet Ezekiel
+seeing the dreadful wheels. A wheel whirling in the middle of a wheel.
+And there was a meaning there that certain men read.”
+
+She went downstairs to sit wakeful while the dream was still fresh, in
+the balmy fall moonlight. Fog steamed in the air, blurring the rims of
+trees and the porch roof. There was a rustle in the drying grass and
+though no wind stirred a fallen leaf seemed to move on itself, and
+presently another, and then the shadow of an embryonic mouse was
+darting, vanishing before the eye could catch the shape. The shrews were
+harvesting for the winter ahead; their tiny gray piglike bodies sped
+soundless; through the movement in their wake one was aware of them.
+“Sam says folks will dream of a body when they’re in danger. Or when
+they’ve died. Wonder if a trouble’s come to Christian Ay?” Dwelling on
+the dream Ellen forgot the curse she had laid once on the man. She
+buried her injury, turning the old love over gently, painfully, alone on
+the step.
+
+Winter was casting her days off, one by one. Spring had arrived. Anton’s
+worrying of Simon had become less pronounced. Ellen heard the child’s
+high voice repeating the tuneless song his grandfather was teaching him.
+
+   It was our William Jennings Bryan
+   Who told them
+   Adam was there first
+   When he fought the battle
+   With those sons of darkness
+   At the trial of John T. Scopes
+
+Anton was lifting the big boy onto his knee. “Shaw. Now, here’s this
+poppet. You know I had a son once. If he’d have lived, I’d been minded
+to give him my name.” Simon sat stiff at the favor granted. Ellen
+watched through the door from where she worked, pleased at this new way
+of Anton’s. “How come you called him Simon, girl?”
+
+“The Doughertys named him, Pa.”
+
+“Anton’s a good name. I don’t favor Simon. There was a Simon in the
+Bible tried to buy Peter.”
+
+“Oh, Pa. There are lots of Simons in the Bible.”
+
+“Well.” He was turning to the boy again. She had never heard her father
+sing, and was glad.
+
+   They said our ancestors
+   Were monkeys
+   Now can’t you see, folks
+   That’s quite absurd?
+
+And then the days were passing, made of long hours. The months were
+lengthening into years. The winter following the drought was the first
+Ellen knew when the table wasn’t amply laid. She had to learn how to
+stint in the cooking and to curb her generous hand. When weevils got in
+the meal she would strain them out and mix the meal with water to make a
+corn pone. In the old days she would have tossed it easily to the hens.
+The market for the milk and produce worsened. Every fall Anton and Dyke
+made two or three trips up to Louisville to the sales. They took pigs
+and steers, chickens, geese and ducks, small grains and root crops.
+Through the years the Gaddys would manage, for they depended on varied
+harvests. The one-crop farmer suffered the most. Many of them were
+driving away from their plots of land, their families and goods piled on
+wagons and trucks, hoping to find jobs in factories and foundries of the
+cities. When Anton saw a loaded vehicle go down Sweetincreek Road, he
+articulated his scorn, “I’d set and eat clay before I’d leave my farm.
+Those fellows are oomen-farmers, farting with a patch of tobacco.
+Putting on fertilizer and then burning it off. Laying cheesecloth strips
+like a ooman.”
+
+“What for, Granddaddy?”
+
+“I vow I don’t know. Then they go to the auction and hit don’t sell for
+nothing. They buy moon from the patent medicine man and come back with
+their pockets empty. So go on,” he shouted at the retreating wagon, “and
+don’t come back.”
+
+“And don’t come back,” cried Simon shrilly.
+
+Anton turned to the boy, his eyes hot. “You stay on this farm, Poppet,
+and some day maybe it’ll all belong to you.”
+
+Anton slowly was transferring the fervor he used to spend on his younger
+daughter, Frankie, to this boy, Simon. He was taking him over. As time
+passed he judged Ellen’s guidance of the child. “You be a fool, girl.
+You’ll spoil him rotten.”
+
+When the boy remembered and did as bid, Anton was pleased; when he
+disobeyed, he whipped him, stolid. “Thou shalt beat him with a rod, so
+it’s said. I’ll take no sass. You do as I say, Simon.”
+
+In his way Simon tried not to make errors that would aggravate his
+grandfather. He had developed a spasmodic pain in his chest that would
+come at odd moments. He told no one of it but sometimes when he thought
+about it, believed he would die. Then he lay vacantly staring upward as
+he had done in the Dougherty shed in the vague days before he came to
+live here. At times he dreamed of Anse Dougherty pinching his arm,
+whispering, “Gaddy brat. Gaddy brat.” He awoke struggling and muttering.
+When Ellen questioned him, he couldn’t remember the details of the
+dream. She would sing, soothing, until he slept.
+
+   Dear mother, I said, come and bind up my head
+   You ne’er shall bind it any more
+   Sweet William he died of the wound that he bore
+   And Fair Ellen, she died also
+
+In 1934 another drought smote the farm. This time the condition was
+prevalent over the Midwest, involving dust storms and soil erosion. Over
+these depression years there were no visits from Garland Gaddy. At
+Christmas he would send a package through the mail. It would be placed
+on the parlor table. Ellen’s parents went straight to bed when they
+returned silent from midnight mass. On Christmas morning the family
+would find cigars for Anton, and for Maria and Ellen mittens or a wool
+scarf. Garland was unsure of Simon’s age. When he was six, Garland sent
+him the book _Ben Hur_, and when eight, a set of ABC building blocks.
+Ellen wrote to thank him, urged him to come at the next holiday. “Some
+time,” she told Simon, “I’ll show you Chicago. And your great-uncle who
+lives there.”
+
+“Don’t I have an aunt there, too?”
+
+“Yes. Some day maybe you’ll meet her. Don’t ne’er say her name to
+Granddaddy.”
+
+“I know. That’s Auntie. She brought me a yellow hat one time.”
+
+Ellen never heard from Frankie, but once Garland put a card in her
+package of fur gloves: “Love from Uncle and Frankie.” So she knew that
+they saw each other and it was a comfort.
+
+The years were sweeping by. In 1935 the Federal dole was stopped and the
+national relief program got under way. Anton was told that for
+twenty-five dollars he could have a WPA privy constructed. Since the old
+one was in ramshackle state, he decided to go ahead. “Christ, Sam, hit
+must be fifteen feet down.” They stepped within the new-painted door,
+looked into the openings. “It’ll take a hundred years to fill that
+hole.”
+
+“More, Mester Gaddy.” Sam paused. “I recollect Pa. He hung the door on
+the last shithouse we Offuts had. Swung it in by mistake. Said it e’er
+plagued him after that, for when he sat out there he liked to have a
+door swing out, so he could watch the neighbors go by along the road.
+He’d call out to them if he had a mind, friendly-like.”
+
+“Well, I’ll take the cow barn any day. For a fact. It’s a sight more
+natural.”
+
+Simon was growing. He was nine, stocky and strong, heavy for his age.
+The bones of his shoulders were knobby so he would appear undernourished
+when shirtless. Ellen laughed at him for his diffident ways. “You’re shy
+as a field-raised calf, Simon.” If the boar broke loose though, or if a
+new heifer kicked because her udder was hot and tender, Simon was
+fearless. He laid his hands on her when she kicked out, vicious, or
+walked up to the great angry seed-hog.
+
+Once Anton thrashed the red horse with the lines. It was harnessed with
+another and when the load began to move, it reared, balking in the
+traces. Anton whipped it. The boy loved the red horse—he hurled himself
+before it so the lines were lashing him. Anton saw the white stripes.
+“What foolishness now?”
+
+“It’s the blinders, Granddaddy.”
+
+And it was true. This horse had always worn the bridle with blinders.
+The wrong bridle had been put on and he saw things in a new way,
+frightening him. Simon was sent for the other bridle and then the horse
+pulled squarely with its mate. “Beasts are plagued fools sometimes,” the
+man said. But the boy’s eyes were gazing straight ahead, as red welts
+rose on his cheek and arm. He grit his teeth against the familiar pain
+searing his breast.
+
+Anton went into Millville to the priest one afternoon and had Simon
+baptized. When they returned, he told Ellen. She protested, “Pa, it
+doesn’t matter. But you could have said you were going.”
+
+“And he’s riding to mass Sundays too, along with us, proper pious. I
+can’t hinder you from being a heathen, but I’ll save my grandson.”
+
+Ellen glanced down at Simon. The man was pressing him, “You want to go
+along with me, don’t you, boy?”
+
+“Yes, Granddaddy.”
+
+“Well, all right, Simon. You know your mind, I reckon.” She watched them
+go, saw Simon running to bring the cows and start the feeding.
+
+Ellen was twenty-six. She was quite handsome but there was a coldness in
+her bearing. Her oval face was sober, gray eyes austere, she wore her
+hair plaited tightly and pinned in a circle around her head. She never
+knelt in the honeyed grass at night as she once had, weeping over the
+lost love and her restive longings. It was as if a scar had formed,
+protective, and a part of herself was sealed off underneath. She moved
+quietly through the days as if waiting. And she seemed satisfied.
+
+Simon spent his hours with the beasts of the farm or trailing his
+grandfather. When he felt the need for Ellen, he sought her out,
+standing near her. They were alike in many ways, shy, spare of words.
+She taught him songs, and read to him from the Bible and the almanac. He
+brought home an average report card and she signed it, “Mrs. Ellen
+Gaddy.” He queried her, “How come I got no daddy?”
+
+“He’s dead, Simon.”
+
+“Tell, what was he like?”
+
+“I can’t rightly remember. Like you, I reckon.”
+
+“If more comes to you about him, will you tell me, Ma?”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“Granddaddy says he be the same as a father to me.”
+
+“Well.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen saw her old friend Lily again one day. She had not visited with
+her since Lily had become Mrs. Craig Hedrick five years earlier. If they
+met, Lily would walk away, turning her head aside. It was late August.
+Ellen and Maria were making apple butter, the spicy fragrance filled the
+kitchen. There was a gentle knock and Ellen put down her wood ladle,
+wiping her hands on the brown-stained apron. “Yes?”
+
+“Don’t you know me, Ellie?”
+
+“Lily.” Ellen opened the door wide. “Come on in.”
+
+“I was just hankering to see you. It’s fierce lonesome at home. I ran
+off.”
+
+“What do you mean?” Ellen was taking the old tone with her at once.
+“Hush your crying.”
+
+“Craig sent me to hoe the truck beans. Hit seemed I couldn’t bear it any
+more. I up and walked away.” Lily’s blond curls that she had always
+taken such care with, were pulled into an untidy knot at the nape of her
+neck. She was stouter. “I’m afraid to go back. Craig was running the
+tractor in the corn and his man was working the mules. He told me I must
+clean the bean patch.” Her small mouth was puckered, unhappy.
+
+“Why are you afraid? He’s your husband.”
+
+The woman heaved a breath. “He’s taken to whipping me like Papa did. So
+I told him I was carrying a child to make him stop.”
+
+“Well, then?”
+
+“I’ve got no child. I can’t seem to get caught. Craig wants one as bad
+as me.”
+
+“Let’s have some coffee.” Ellen was going to the kitchen. “Ma, you know
+Lily. She’s Mrs. Hedrick, remember?”
+
+“Hey, Mrs. Gaddy.” Lily was eager.
+
+“Hey there, Lily. How’s Mester Garrett’s bees?”
+
+“Oh, my husband says Papa’s making a sight of honey this year. He’s got
+o’er twenty hives now. I’ve not been to see him myself these many
+months.” Ellen laid cups on the table while the water came to a boil.
+She put out a dish of hot apple butter, slices of fresh bread. “It’s
+like coming home here, Ellie. We used to have fun, you and me and
+Frankie. I always loved fun.”
+
+“You know,” Maria spoke up from her thoughts, “I had another girl, named
+Frankie. I dassn’t say her name. Mester Gaddy won’t brook it. She’s
+dead.” Maria was wagging her head, knowing.
+
+“Here’s your coffee, Ma,” Ellen said.
+
+“Is Frankie dead?” Lily whispered.
+
+“No, and Ma knows it. It’s a way she has, like a child, sometimes. She
+can’t seem to keep it straight.”
+
+“She can’t?”
+
+“You e’er think of seeing Doc Trumbo, Lily? Maybe he could help you and
+Craig to have a child.”
+
+Lily’s eyes were trailing Maria, breaking bread and spooning the brown
+preserves. “Reckon we could try that, Ellie.”
+
+“I always thought a heap of Craig,” Ellen said, “for taking o’er like he
+did when old Mester Hedrick was killed so sudden.”
+
+“He doesn’t have to beat me.”
+
+“You e’er think about how it was for him, Lily, back then?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Maria broke in, “But there’s a little boy lives here now. Named Simon.
+I’m his granny.”
+
+Lily spoke slowly, “I can’t even go to see my papa and mama any more.
+I’m not allowed to go home.” Grave, she was watching Maria.
+
+“Craig’s a good man.”
+
+“I know, Ellie.”
+
+“You have to stop being a girl some day. And think on the ways of a
+woman.”
+
+The three drank their coffee. Presently Lily was pushing back her chair;
+she spoke deliberately, “Reckon I’ll get back to my house. I have work
+to do. It’s a long walk. Bye, Mrs. Gaddy. Ellie.” Her retreating steps
+were heard on the stones in the yard.
+
+Suddenly Ellen was caught in a burst of tears. She put her hands to her
+face, sobbing hoarsely. She ran up the steep stairway, her bare feet
+noiseless. “I vow at that girl.” Maria took the ladle to stir the
+mixture, thick and hot in the iron kettle.
+
+Upstairs, Ellen was standing in the middle of the room, shaken,
+uncontrolled. She turned abruptly to the trunk along the wall and
+dragged open the heavy lid. She rummaged through the contents until she
+came on the two undelivered letters she had written Christian Ay. She
+ripped them into shreds in a heap on the floor. “I hate Lily and Craig
+and all the ugly ways of folks.”
+
+When she came down, her face appeared smoothed and untouched. But she
+was holding her head in such a way that when Anton saw her going to the
+woodshed, he crossed himself and muttered, “There, I thought it was you,
+Ma.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Simon was in the fourth grade. Every morning found him trudging three
+miles to the school on the Millville Pike. Until the weather turned cold
+he would go barefoot, for catalog shoes cost a dollar thirty-nine. He
+went down the lane in the flat morning sunlight, talking to the dog. He
+carried his lunch in a lard bucket. Holes were punched in its tin lid
+and it contained a bunch of concord grapes and biscuits spread with
+jelly. “Stay, Jack.” The dog’s movements were stiff. He settled on the
+bank amid blue-flowered chicory, head on forepaws, brown eyes fixed on
+the retreating figure. A tufted titmouse whistled in a cottonwood along
+the road. “Peet-O. Peet-O!” It joined the chickadees and nuthatches that
+trooped in the upper branches.
+
+In the afternoon Simon returned late, scarcely recognizable, upper lip
+swollen, dry blood caked on his face. The skin was puffing out around
+one eye, the sleeve of his shirt was torn. Anton caught sight of him
+coming up the lane and ran shouting, “What is it, Poppet?”
+
+Simon halted, scuffling his feet; he began to whine.
+
+“Speak up, son.”
+
+“That fellow mocked me.” Simon was sniffling and as he was led to the
+house, his voice rose to a wail.
+
+Ellen called from the window, “What ails him, Pa?” She came out the
+door, shading her face, hurrying down the steps in the sweet-scented
+fall air.
+
+“He’s not going back to that school.” Anton’s face was hot, his breath
+thick as he passed her, leading the child. “Crapping bastards are about
+to kill him.”
+
+Ellen followed into the kitchen. Anton was lifting Simon to the table.
+“Get a pan of water,” he told Maria. He removed the boy’s shirt,
+examined his lip.
+
+“Pa. You can see he’s been fighting. Let’s find what happened.”
+
+“We’ll send you to the parochial school. Like decent Catholics. Your
+ma’s let you run amuck.”
+
+“Please, Pa.”
+
+“The heathen can kill him before you give a care.”
+
+“Simon.” But the boy had fastened his frightened eyes on his
+grandfather, clinging to the harried look on the man’s face. Ellen
+turned away, inarticulate. Later, she was in the shed, milking her
+goats. Simon shuffled in, stood at the pen gate. The goats nibbled his
+shirt buttons and rubbed against him as he was stroking them.
+
+“I slopped the pigs and watered the team, Ma.” She waited. He was
+speaking again, “Reckon Leona’s least kid will have horns or not?”
+
+“Simon, what happened today at school?”
+
+“Looks to me like she’s a muley one.” He bent over the kid, moving the
+skin on the top of its head with his finger. “If horns were sprouting,
+it wouldn’t move free like that.”
+
+Ellen got up from the stool to strain the milk into a can. She began to
+draw the white streams from another doe.
+
+The boy said suddenly, “Granddaddy takes care of me.”
+
+She looked at him to see his eyes cold upon her. He was fingering his
+enlarged lip. She was startled. He’s turning from me. Pa’s getting hold
+of him. She put her head against the soft warm side of the spotted doe.
+
+“Granddaddy frets about me.”
+
+“Tell how you got in the fight, or I’ll whip you for a fact.”
+
+His eyes were down. “There’s a game at recess. We use a ball belonging
+to that Penn Hamm. He stores it in the drawer of his desk. Time and
+again I asked him could I take it home for one night. But he wouldn’t
+say yes.” Simon looked up. One eye was nearly shut, the bruised skin
+blue.
+
+“So?”
+
+“I studied on it and hankered after it. Yesterday I slipped it from his
+desk and put it in my pocket. After school was out.”
+
+“You could have had a ball if you’d told me.”
+
+“I wanted that ball.”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“Penn said I snitched it, and I said I didn’t. He sat under the tree and
+called me bastard Gaddy brat.”
+
+“You stole his ball, Simon. He was angered. And folks used to call me a
+Gaddy brat. Some still do, and I don’t care.”
+
+“He called me that. He laid for me coming home. I wrestled him for it
+but he got his ball back.”
+
+“Why, Simon?”
+
+“I wanted it.” His eyes were like small empty caves. “And I lost my lard
+pail too.”
+
+The night meal was pregnant with unspoken words. Then as Anton was
+leaving the kitchen he told Ellen, “I’ll take him to the sisters
+tomorrow.” She looked at him from where she was sitting. His short body
+leaned against the door casing. “Why I even got to jump on him to say
+the Lord’s Prayer right.” He cut a slice of apple tobacco with his
+slender knife. “Trespasses, he says, like heathen. The school taught him
+that. The Lord said debtors. Forgive us our debtors.” He walked softly
+into the other room.
+
+Simon was sent to bed. Ellen came into the parlor. “Pa, this isn’t
+right. Simon stole that Hamm youngen’s ball. He’s got to learn. He
+should go back and own up. He’s nine and he knows right from wrong.
+You’re always preaching the Bible and this is the time to stand by what
+it says.”
+
+“Haw. I’ll say a thing here, girl.” He was speaking fast, harsh. “He has
+no daddy, since you begot him in whoredom. Now I let him come here like
+a son. I look on him so. Don’t stand against me.”
+
+“It was the same with Frankie. You pulled her out of school too. You
+know it.”
+
+“You’re mourning because I didn’t take you out.” Anton rolled the quid
+in his mouth, continuing gently, “You know, this boy’s a good bit like
+my brother, Marc. Minds me of him.” He settled into a chair. “Some way
+Ma favored Marc o’er Garland and me.”
+
+“I know why.”
+
+“What do you know?” he drawled.
+
+“He was handsome. Not ugly like you.”
+
+“How come you say that?”
+
+“I know somewhat else.”
+
+“Speak hit.”
+
+“He wasn’t your full brother. Nell Gaddy ne’er wanted you or Uncle.
+That’s a fact.”
+
+“What?” he roared.
+
+“She married your sir because she got caught. Like me with Simon.” Ellen
+moved to stand over him, by his chair. “She ne’er wanted you, I say. She
+loved Marc for his daddy’s sake.”
+
+The man rose like an unleashed bull. He struck her so she reeled against
+the sofa. “I’ll kill you for that lying tongue.”
+
+She slipped from his hands, ran outside, down the path through the hill
+field to the orchard. She stopped running there. Night fog was drifting
+in low spots, the sky was clouded. She leaned against a twisted apple
+tree until she seemed composed. Her face became like the glass of the
+pond where there was no wind and mist was caught above. Later she wended
+up to the house to sit on the damp garden wall, waiting until the
+kitchen and the bedroom candles flicked out.
+
+In the morning, as she was pumping water into the blue pail, Anton went
+by to the house. He looked past her as if she were not there. She had
+told Simon earlier that he must go back to the Millville school, knowing
+Anton would refute her word. But she went through the motions, she
+hunted for a lard pail in the pantry, made up the lunch. She saw her
+fingers were shaking. The boy pushed his chair back and took the lunch
+pail. Anton said, “You and me are going to the Catholic school, boy. Did
+you forget? Let’s go harness Moll and Red.”
+
+Simon looked at him. Ellen knew the child was pleased and yet would hide
+this from her. He said like a question, “Bye now, Ma? I’m going now,
+Ma?”
+
+Sam was already in the field when Anton came back late in the morning.
+He was cutting cornstalks, making tall shocks that would cure until the
+long white ears were garnered. Anton joined him, swinging the heavy
+blade. “Put my boy in a proper school, Sam.”
+
+And Ellen was planning. She scrawled a letter quickly.
+
+   Dear Uncle Garland,
+
+   This is a thing I should have done long ago. I have to leave home.
+   Could you find a farmer who would hire me? My boy is 9 now. Wages as
+   deemed fair. Please answer by return post. And obliged.
+
+                                                                 Ellen
+
+The next few days she moved pallid-faced, watching for the mail car. She
+gathered honey, lulling the bees with smoke. She cut the combs into a
+galvanized washtub. The soft stuff oozed and mingled, yellow, black, and
+amber, in a heavy pool. Some of the comb she let drip free, and laid it
+in a tree fork for the bees to use again. She fastened the lids back on
+the hives. While she was doing these things, it was as if her bones
+might break were her movements too sudden. Then the RFD car was leaving
+a letter.
+
+   Dear Puss,
+
+   This is delightful. You know I have opened my Redding Street house
+   again on the north side. I’m a married man now, you see. Are you
+   surprised? Violet and I would be glad to have you and Simon visit
+   with us until you can get a job. You might learn my wife a few
+   things about housework! I am sending ten dollars herewith. Come
+   soon.
+
+                                                         Uncle Garland
+
+She put the paper in her pocket. O my strength, deliver my soul from the
+sword, my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s
+mouth.
+
+Courageous, she went to Anton. “Simon and me are taking the train to
+Chicago to visit Uncle Garland for a spell. He’s got married and he
+wants us to come.”
+
+“You will not.” He ravened. “No.”
+
+“By the law, Simon’s mine.”
+
+The child was coughing; he clutched his chest. But the two who fought
+over him didn’t see. Their eyes narrowed, and the pale gray irises of
+father and daughter were glinting in the same way. Ellen said they would
+leave in the morning. She ordered Simon to his room after the night
+meal. He went, meek.
+
+Anton strode out to the corn field, tearing off his shirt. He dragged
+aside the standing shocks just built. Furious sweat drops were forming
+on the hairs of his chest. He snapped off the soft unseasoned ears,
+hurling them in great piles until dark engulfed the field. Reaching for
+the next stalk, he stumbled, falling. He lay panting a moment before
+getting to his feet, and came to the house to lie emptied and exhausted
+beside his sleeping wife.
+
+Sam and Ellen milked without him in the morning. They breakfasted and
+then Ellen went to the door of the bedroom. She was looking across at
+the unkempt bent figure on the bed under the crucifix, elbows on knees.
+At length she turned away, taking Simon’s hand. He held his other over
+the buttons of his shirt. “You’re not afraid?” he queried, timid.
+
+But Ellen was speaking to Maria. “I’ve got to go, Ma. You see that?”
+
+“Where you off to? Is Mester Gaddy going?”
+
+“No. Just us two.” Ellen kissed her. “It’s all I know to do, Ma.”
+
+Maria went to gaze at her husband. “Why’s he setting there?”
+
+Ellen fled with Simon. They were overtaken down the road by Dr. Trumbo,
+who gave them a lift in his rattletrap Nash to the station at New Hope.
+A north wind blew up, keening in the corners of the unheated station. It
+struck down dry autumn leaves and herded them into desolate piles. They
+boarded the train at noon. Simon mounted the iron stair before her. He
+turned and peered from the windows at the retreating town.
+
+“Don’t put your feet on the clean seats, Simon.” Ellen did not look
+back.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anton had shaken his head at the noon meal his wife proffered him. He
+stared at the floor. In late evening he arose at last from his position
+on the bed. Maria was in the parlor poring over her gilded Bible. Anton
+took a long thin butcher knife from a kitchen drawer. He went onto the
+half-dark porch, taking down the lantern that hung on a bent nail and
+lighting it. He was making his way then with measured gait to the
+woodshed. Wind coming out of the north chattered in the branches of the
+hackberry. The yellow light was shedding over the pen of goats lying in
+oat straw. They blinked up at him. Rhodie, who was skittish, arose and
+snorted. As the man was fumbling with the gate latch the other beasts
+got to their feet, one at a time, sensing an outsider, Leona’s pair of
+three-week kids turned to her warm side when she stood, seeking her
+udder. Feverish, Anton was seeking a peg, feeling with his fingers. He
+hung the lantern, his breathing quickening.
+
+The first doe he grasped was Penny. When he bent her old neck back by
+the beard and the red ran down into the fur, she died almost gently. The
+clever ones saw his game. Rhodie was rearing upon the furthest stone
+wall; her hoofs made a subdued pattering. Leona’s white throat came
+next, for she was foolish and made no play at running away. Her two kids
+were dispatched too, uttering feeble birdlike sounds. And then Jenny and
+Babs, baaing low, were snared by their shaggy beards. Their taut silken
+throats were bending to the knife. The hot blood spouted on the straw
+and the man’s boots. He was lunging for the spotted Pie, powerful and
+large, catching her by a hind leg. She pulled loose, and bleating,
+kicked out, striking him on the neck, making a dark bruise. “Haw. Come
+here now.” He threw his body at her, encouraged the struggle. He took a
+pleasure in the battle, prolonged its ending, letting her heave, crying
+in alarm beneath his weight. Then he was dragging her along the straw to
+the knife he had dropped. Rhodie was the last. In a silent crazed way
+she was still leaping against the far wall. This doe had always been apt
+to startle since she had been left untended over a winter and spring as
+a yearling when his daughter Ellen had been away in Illinois. Rhodie’s
+small hoofs were beating again and again upon the wall. Anton trapped
+her by the collar. She made no sound, dropping slowly to the bedding.
+
+He breathed loud, threw his hand as if he had spoken and were justifying
+himself to someone. He walked out of the shed leaving the gate ajar, the
+lantern flaming. He strode to the bedroom and knew his wife. In the
+frost of the following morning Sam would come upon the stiffened bodies
+of the animals and bury them in a near field.
+
+
+                                   18
+
+While the wind of late September hurled in dreary gusts about them, the
+two stood in the chill of the next morning before the brownstone front
+of the house on Redding Street. They were walking up wet granite stairs
+strewn with blown leaves. Ellen rang the bell. The woman who opened the
+door was tall and narrow-shouldered. Her eyes were dark, and like a
+dog’s seemed to beg. Her hair was a brown mane, piled sleek. She put her
+hands on her hips. “Hi. You must be Chicken’s niece. I’m Violet. Come
+out of the wet.” She was preceding them into the living room. The old
+green carpet was shoddy. The trivia of ornaments that had burdened the
+mantle and end tables had been taken away. The oval dining room table
+had been moved into this room and the drapes replaced with white ruffled
+curtains that drooped as the starch wore out.
+
+“This room’s bright now,” Ellen said.
+
+“I like ruffles and trimmings. Is this Simon? Chicken told me about you.
+I’m Aunt Vi. Sit down. I’ll get some lunch.” She bustled out.
+
+“I’m tired, Ma.”
+
+“So am I, Simon.”
+
+“Are we e’er going back to Granddaddy’s?”
+
+“Maybe some day.” She was pushing aside the curtains, looking down into
+the street where traffic moved.
+
+“Will we live in this rich house?”
+
+“For a spell, I reckon.”
+
+“How do I call that lady?”
+
+“Aunt Violet, you say. And be mannerly.”
+
+“I’m not hungry, Ma.”
+
+“Take off your shoes. I’ll give you dry socks from the bag.” They waited
+until Garland’s wife returned with a tray of hot milk and coffee, slices
+of poundcake and a plate of bananas.
+
+“You like bananas?” she asked. “I do. I feel like one of the quality
+when I have bananas around.”
+
+“Where’s Uncle Garland?”
+
+“He’s at one of the restaurants. He’s got two, you know. He gets home
+about four-thirty and goes back till late at night. Have a banana,
+Simon. They’ll rot before you can snap your fingers.”
+
+“I don’t want any. Go away.”
+
+“Simon.”
+
+The boy began to weep softly, laying his head on the arm of the chair.
+“I’m hot.”
+
+“He doesn’t look good, Ellen. Let’s put him to bed.”
+
+“Pay no mind to his talk, Aunt Violet.”
+
+“I don’t,” she said cheerfully. “Nerts, I forgot to make up your beds.
+Wonder where I stored the sheets this time?”
+
+Upstairs in a little room, Simon was undressed and put to sleep. He
+drowsed uneasily. The bedstead was of black-enameled iron. There was a
+battered wood bureau and a cane-bottom chair. Simon awoke, whimpering,
+“Ma? Did Anse take back his ball?”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“I don’t know, Ma. What did I say?”
+
+She felt the dry heat of his forehead. Violet came in the doorway. “Hi,
+Simon. Brought you some ice cream.” She offered him the little dish.
+
+He sat up, his blue eyes darkening. “I ne’er meant what I said, lady.”
+
+“I don’t mind, Simon. Eat before it melts.”
+
+“Do you have any tonic in the house?” Ellen whispered.
+
+“I think Chicken would say call the doctor.”
+
+“My pa ne’er had one. Only satchel doctor I knew let a friend of mine
+die.”
+
+“Didn’t you have one when he came?” Violet was nodding at Simon.
+
+“No.”
+
+The boy finished the ice cream, laid the dish on the faded bedspread. He
+stroked the sheet, closing his eyes. “Sing about that William, Ma.”
+
+She waited until Violet had gone.
+
+   It was in the merry merry month of May
+   When the meadows were fresh and gay
+   Sweet William hung his bugles round about his neck
+   And he went riding away
+
+He slept. Ellen went downstairs to help with the housework. Violet knew
+little about it, made simple chores tedious, and in her careless way
+laughed it off. “Chicken says, I’ve got a niece at least that’s a model
+housekeeper.”
+
+“I like things to be in the place they live.”
+
+“You take last night. The soup was ready but I forgot and put the
+potatoes in late. They weren’t done. Nerts. Good thing Chicken brings
+things home from the restaurant.”
+
+While she was talking, Ellen busied herself. She boiled starch for the
+wilted curtains. “How long have you and Uncle been married?”
+
+“I’m what they call a common-law wife. I guess I can tell you, being
+Chicken’s family so to speak. We’ve lived on the east side ever since
+thirty-two. Or was it thirty-three? Last year Chicken gave me a box of
+stationery with Mrs. Garland Gaddy on it. He says, we’ve got a checking
+account, you and me, the National Trust.”
+
+“That sounds like Uncle.” Ellen stopped scouring the bronze-trimmed
+icebox, wiped her hands.
+
+“All the time he’d had it in his head. I’ve never written a check, I
+don’t know how. Let him do that. But there’s my name with that bank.”
+
+“My.”
+
+“He told me your husband died, Ellen.”
+
+“I’ve got to look at Simon.” She was going upstairs. The covers were
+thrown back, the boy’s face reddened. When he opened his eyes, they
+stared at her bloodshot.
+
+“Penn didn’t want that ball,” he breathed.
+
+She was rushing down the long echoing staircase. “Call Uncle’s doctor,
+Vi. Simon’s really sick.”
+
+She went back. The voice met her, wheedling, “I didn’t wet the quilt,
+Da.”
+
+“Don’t talk, Simon.”
+
+“I saw that burying-beetle. He made a grave for the speckled thrush. He
+dug all about the body till it settled in the earth.”
+
+She laid a wet cloth on his forehead. Her hand was pushed away strongly.
+Now God, shall I give up my first-born for my transgression? The doctor
+arrived. The watch began. For nearly three days the fever would possess
+Simon’s body. Garland came and went but Ellen didn’t notice him, that he
+was changed, his hair whitened, his figure grown portly, his mustache
+shaved so his face had lost its sharpness. His blue eyes looked out
+shrived. Ellen saw only Simon. She sat in the cane-bottom chair and
+watched. Simon was laying his hand on his breast, “Now there’s that
+pain. I won’t tell Mama.” His voice rose, “Granddaddy clobbered old
+Jess.”
+
+Ellen asked the doctor, “How come he grabs at his chest? I’ve seen him
+do that before but he said it didn’t hurt.”
+
+“He might be afraid of something, Mrs. Gaddy, that he’s not aware of.
+Some anxiety. It’s possible.”
+
+Late in the night, Ellen was sitting alone in the glare of the small
+overhanging bulb. The doctor had said that only time would reveal the
+extent of the child’s malady and his strength to combat it. Gusts were
+rattling the house eaves, rain drummed insistent on the glass behind the
+stained brown shade. Her eyes sought patterns in the striped wallpaper.
+“Gaddy brat. Bastard Gaddy.” Simon was crying in the way of the young,
+without effort, his tears wetting the pillow.
+
+Violet came in, her brown hair hanging to the waist of her dressing-gown
+and bound with a clasp. “I had a brother,” she said, “was sick like that
+as a child. He came through. The doctor thinks Simon’s getting better.
+He told me when he went out.”
+
+“Don’t cry. Why does he cry, Aunt Violet?”
+
+“I don’t know. Maybe he’s thinking thoughts we can’t know of.”
+
+“Reckon you’re right,” Ellen sighed.
+
+“I know one way to stop it, but you might think it improper.”
+
+“What, Aunt Violet?”
+
+“I doubt the quality ever heard of it. It’s a way people did where I was
+brought up. Even with babies. We lived in the slums, all in one room.
+Mom would stroke my brother’s privates. She was forced to hush him so
+Dad could get his sleep. And it quieted him right off.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know. I’ll just use the wet cloth.”
+
+“How is he?” Garland’s rasp sounded from the door. “Just closed up the
+restaurant. Busy tonight. It’s after midnight.”
+
+Ellen didn’t turn. “He’s better, it seems.”
+
+“He is, Chicken. The first time he’s resting good. I’ll go make your
+tea. You want some too, Ellen?”
+
+“Sure she does, Vi.”
+
+She pattered away down the hall. “Won’t be long.”
+
+Garland was coming in by the bed. “Poor fellow. He’s a fine kid, puss.”
+
+“I know it.” Tears began to flow down her tired face. “You-all been so
+good. Taking us in, Uncle.”
+
+“Chrissake, hon. It’s Anton, isn’t it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Was he mistreating the kid?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Hell, then he was lording it over you?”
+
+“Not that, I don’t mind that.” She was whispering, weeping. “Seemed he
+didn’t care for Simon’s good.”
+
+“Hell, that’s An. Wish there was some way to make him see the light.”
+
+“Only to have him do his bidding.”
+
+“What makes that bastard that way? I’m fed up with him. I’m done.”
+
+“To make Simon a part of him like his own son would be.” Ellen was
+looking up. She saw that Garland was old. He had always seemed young,
+vigorous. “When I got your letter, Uncle. Saying we could come here. It
+was like a way opened up.”
+
+“Your letter to me was pretty plain. I thought I knew what the trouble
+was. I suspected Anton then.” His small angry eyes cooled. “You know how
+tickled Vi is with you both?”
+
+“I like her.”
+
+“We’ve been married a long time. Since about thirty-two, I think.”
+
+“Like I wrote,” she looked at Simon who breathed evenly in sleep, “I
+want to get a job right away, though.”
+
+“How old is he anyway?”
+
+“Nine, now.”
+
+“Frankie told me she thought your husband had died.”
+
+“Yes.” The wind rushed, pushing rain sharply against the pane.
+
+“Frankie said what a nice kid Simon was. She’ll be glad to see him, too.
+We’ll have her over.”
+
+“I’m so tired, Uncle.” She looked at him, vacant. “I can’t think so
+good. Does Frankie live near here?”
+
+“Just you take it easy.” He put his hand at Simon’s forehead. “Feels
+cool to me.” The humming of Violet who was mounting the stairs came, and
+then dishes were rattling in an adjoining room. “Let’s go have some hot
+tea and ginger-bread. Do you good, sweet.”
+
+“I’d better stay here.”
+
+“You can come back. In a little while.” He jerked the chain dangling
+from the overhead light. He drew her from the darkened room.
+
+Ellen slept late into the morning like one drugged. Simon dozed. The
+fever had disappeared, with it went the constriction in his chest. When
+he roused, Violet tiptoed up to amuse him, making shadow-pictures on the
+wall with her thin hands. “I used to do this for my brother.”
+
+Garland came home, stood in the doorway. “There’s nobody like my Vi,
+Simon.”
+
+“Do the little goat now,” the boy whispered.
+
+Ellen went down to the kitchen in the evening. Violet was in a rocker by
+the tin-topped table. The radio was blaring.
+
+   The music goes round and round
+   O-o-o-o-o-o
+   And it comes out here
+
+The woman snapped it off. “Hi. How is he, Ellen?”
+
+“Fine. I promised him a kitten. Reckon we could find one?”
+
+“I’ll tell Chicken. He’ll get you one somewhere. Have a cup?” They sat
+in the kitchen room that was littered as in the days of Mrs. Quimby’s
+reign. Years of neglect and Violet’s efforts had done little to improve
+it. The chipped sink was touched up, the cupboards were painted cream
+color, and a square of red-and-white linoleum was on the wood floor. The
+fireplace was still unused, the opening blocked. “If times get better,
+we’ll fix the house up, Ellen. Get an electric icebox and a new stove
+and sink.”
+
+Ellen drank the tea. “Violet, did Uncle look for a job for me yet?”
+
+“He’s watching the want ads. We’d like you to stay here as long as you
+can. Have you ever worked out?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I have. Since I was eleven. One place they had a special French toilet
+in their bathroom. When they finished their business on the regular one,
+they switched to it. It washed them off with a spray. Now it was
+outlandish.”
+
+“Those French are tormented clean folks. My great grandsir was one.”
+
+“You don’t say.”
+
+The front door slammed. “Where are you, Vi?”
+
+She bayed, “Here, Chicken.”
+
+Garland was pushing the swinging door. “Home is the sailor, home from
+the sea. And the hunter from the hill.” He kissed Violet’s cheek. “I’ll
+have some of that tea.”
+
+“Ellen wants you to find Simon a kitten. He likes pets.”
+
+“I’ll ask Charlie. He’s got cats. Charlie’s my dishwasher. Say, we’re
+going to have company in a couple of hours. Frankie’s coming.”
+
+“I just remembered supper,” Violet cried. “Nerts, I’ll never get it
+together.”
+
+“Yes, we will,” Ellen gathered the teacups. “How’s Frankie’s
+piano-playing now, Uncle?”
+
+“Oh, hon,” Garland was laughing, “when did you see her last?”
+
+At six-thirty, Frankie arrived, Genevieve Wheeler, stout and amiable,
+just behind her. “How’s the farm, Ellen?”
+
+“It’s fine, Miss Wheeler.”
+
+“Take my coat, Gen, will you?” Frankie’s red hair was long and she wore
+a pearl comb in it. Her fine features had filled out and she had lost
+her frailness, was somewhat plump.
+
+“All righty. I’ll go put these chocolate eclairs in the frig.” Genevieve
+was striding vigorously into the hall.
+
+“Oh sure, Ellie. We’ve been visiting Uncle and Vi ever since Pa tossed
+me out. We live on the east side.” Frankie’s eyes appraised Ellen.
+“You’re different. Older, I guess.” She had her hand on Ellen’s arm, was
+kissing her cheek.
+
+Ellen drew away. “And I am older, so what’s that if I look it?” She
+spoke sharply from the wound.
+
+“Did Pa make you go? We didn’t believe Uncle when he said you were in
+the city. And Simon, too.”
+
+“I told Pa I was leaving.”
+
+“Are you raising Simon Catholic?”
+
+“Well, Pa took him to church, but I don’t go. I got weary of the prayers
+and such.”
+
+“Pa know that?”
+
+“I talked to Father Tompert once and he said I was right. So Pa gave
+in.”
+
+“I always got a kick out of the way you defied him, Ellie. I never
+dared. How is he?”
+
+“The same.” It tasted bitter. “It’s us that have got to change.”
+
+“I’m glad you left. But how are you going to get along? Are you staying
+here?”
+
+“No, I want to find a place on a farm, Frankie. So I can work and Simon
+can help with the stock.”
+
+Genevieve was in the doorway, hearty-voiced, “I know a farmer might be
+able to take you, Ellen.”
+
+“Where, Gen?” Frankie was asking.
+
+“Down in the state somewhere. Wasilewski’s the name. One of their
+cousins works in my office. He was reading a letter yesterday about his
+aunt getting old and wanting to hire a girl. Sounded nice.”
+
+“Let’s write them,” Frankie cried.
+
+“Wonder if they have cows.” The desire caught in Ellen’s throat to lay
+her hands on the silken hair and smell the pungent kine breath.
+
+“Sure,” Genevieve said. “I guess. Cows and pigs and chickens. The works.
+We’ll write them, Ellen.”
+
+“And we’ll call you,” Frankie promised, “as soon as we find out.”
+
+“I don’t get it,” Genevieve said. “Wouldn’t you rather find something
+here in Chicago? My kind of work’s so much more interesting than the
+drudgery of a farm. It’s stimulating.”
+
+“No, Miss Wheeler.”
+
+“You could live with us,” Frankie offered. “You could do steno work like
+me.”
+
+“I’ll bet Garland would be tickled silly if you’d stay with them,”
+Genevieve said.
+
+“Vi’s such a slob,” Frankie giggled.
+
+“She’s not,” said Ellen. “She’s good.”
+
+“I didn’t say she wasn’t good,” Frankie was shrugging. “But she’s a
+slob. She’s perfect for her Chicken.”
+
+“Garland thinks he’s taking care of the downtrodden,” said Genevieve.
+
+“She’s good,” Ellen repeated.
+
+“Why don’t you stay, then?” Genevieve asked.
+
+“They need a housekeeper,” said Frankie.
+
+“I’d rather be on a farm, if I could. Besides, Simon can’t bear to be
+cooped up.” But Ellen knew she wanted to be away from Garland and his
+wife, and Frankie and Genevieve Wheeler. She wanted to leave all ties,
+to start on new ground.
+
+The next day, Frankie called to say they had mailed the letter and when
+the reply came would let Ellen know without delay. Ellen walked through
+the park, Simon beside her. Leaves were dropping, scudding into damp
+niches, mingling with soot particles and bits of paper and debris that
+gathered in gutters. Sleet sheeted from a dull sky. They returned to the
+house. Violet was bringing a bowl of popcorn into the living room.
+Garland urged Ellen, “_Top Hat_’s at the Acme tonight. With Fred Astaire
+and Ginger Rogers. Why don’t you come with us, puss?”
+
+“I don’t care to.”
+
+“Make me some fudge, Ma.”
+
+“All right.” When Garland and Violet had left, they went into the
+kitchen. Simon sat in the rocker while Ellen was hunting through
+cupboards for ingredients.
+
+“When you reckon Uncle will get my kitten, Ma?”
+
+“Soon, he said.”
+
+“Wonder if Leona’s kid sprouted horns?”
+
+“Uncle says the man that washes dishes at the restaurant has a cat that
+littered. But they aren’t weaned yet.” She was stirring the hot mixture
+in the iron pan, the strong odor of chocolate filled the air.
+
+Simon stared at the red-and-white checked linoleum, held the arms of the
+chair to keep it from movement. “Reckon Sam milks the goats out good?”
+
+She poured the thick fudge on a buttered cold plate. Her body was tense
+and unyielding. Her braids lay like marble coils about her head. “Uncle
+says those kits are spotted. Black and white and orange.”
+
+Simon got up and followed her into the living room. He was nibbling at a
+sweet brown square, his eyes looking past the ruffed curtains to the
+steady noise of the street. “I say, Ma, I get to honing for them.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was two weeks before Frankie came for an evening again. “Why in the
+world did you and Uncle move from the old flat, Vi?” She was laughing.
+“It takes us an hour to get over to this side.”
+
+“Did you e’er hear from those people, Frankie?” Ellen asked.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“About that farm.”
+
+“Oh yes. We meant to call you. Gen’s got a letter from them.”
+
+“It’s here somewhere in my bag.” Genevieve searched.
+
+Ellen took it quickly to slit it open.
+
+   Mrs. Gaddy.
+
+   I hear you want to hire out. Winter work is light here. Can you come
+   say latter part of Jan.? If satisfactory would pay 4 & half dollars
+   per week and board. Child to work according to size. My wife raises
+   chickens. Needs help with them and house. Also garden-stuff. That is
+   all I have to say.
+
+                                               Matthew Paul Wasilewski
+                                                    Hidden Creek, Ill.
+                                                                 Rt. 1
+
+“Well?” asked Gen. “Good or bad?”
+
+“They’ll take us. But not till after winter.” She colored. “I know where
+Hidden Creek is. Penny Dougherty lives near there.”
+
+“Well,” said Violet when she heard the news, “I’m glad it’s not till
+January at least.”
+
+“It’s that I hate putting you and Uncle out.”
+
+“Nerts, you don’t. We wish you’d stay.”
+
+“Can I have my own horse there, Ma?”
+
+“We’ll see if you can leastwise have a chicken.”
+
+“Let me have it as soon as it hatches. I’ll give it all its feed and
+raise it for a pet.”
+
+“Never heard of a pet chicken,” Violet said.
+
+“When’s Uncle going to bring me the kitten, Aunt Vi?”
+
+“I’ll get after him again, Simon. He’s always busy.”
+
+“I’d love a spotty kitten.”
+
+Ellen cleaned the house as the weeks flowed. With strong yellow soap she
+scrubbed into corners, taking a pleasure in the dark lather that would
+form in the ancient dust. She pulled down drapes, hauled dingy frayed
+rugs out on the line strung in the yard and set Simon to beating them in
+the cold autumn sunlight. “You got to polish brass with wood ashes mixed
+in oil. Hit’s the only way,” she told Violet. “It mars our hands but the
+brass comes shiny like new.”
+
+Violet, thin arms akimbo, followed, protesting. “Look at you, Ellen. Let
+it be. We don’t mind. Come on and sit.”
+
+“I’d rather finish this off first, Aunt Vi.” She felt a compulsion to
+drive her body as if that would make the days shorter.
+
+
+                                   19
+
+There was a heavy fall of snow in the early afternoon. All city noises
+were dulled. Violet had spread newspapers before her and she was sipping
+hot tea. “Says here they found a frozen man on the el steps, people
+walking around him. You think they figured he was sleeping?” The
+telephone rang and Violet picked it up. “Hello. Yes, we’ll accept it.
+Hold the line, ma’am, she’s right here. It’s Millville, Ellen.”
+
+Ellen grasped the phone. She could scarcely hear the voice of Sam Offut.
+“Ellie? Your Ma’s acting queer. Mester Gaddy’s got to pull her out of
+the wardrobe to get the meals. You best come and do somewhat with her.”
+
+“Oh, Sam.”
+
+“She’s not been the same since you left. I allow I don’t know how we’ll
+make out at butchering.”
+
+“Is Pa all right?”
+
+“For Gawd, Ellie. He thinks she’s being ornery. But I don’t know. Seems
+like she’s off her head to me.”
+
+“Where are you, Sam?”
+
+“At Love’s. I traded a basket of eggs. The hens are doing good for this
+weather. I says to the central, there’s a Garland Gaddy lives at
+Chicago. He’s got my boss’s niece there. Ellie Gaddy. Can you get her to
+this phone? She says, collect? I says, look, I got no money. Can you fix
+it so I don’t have to pay? Lo and behold, I was about to walk out when
+Stacey hollers, it’s for you, Sam. How about this age of miracles?”
+
+“I’m hanging up, Sam. I’ll come some way.” She cut off his voice. “What
+do you reckon that call cost, Aunt Vi?”
+
+“What’s the matter, Ellie?”
+
+“I want to know. I’ll pay it back.”
+
+When Ellen told Frankie, the young woman laughed as if embarrassed, the
+light catching in her blue eyes. “I’m done with all that, Ellie. You can
+go.”
+
+“Haven’t you got any pity for Ma? Uncle says she has to be taken to a
+place the state runs.”
+
+“When she’s there, we’ll go visit her. And Gen and me will give what
+money we can spare.” Frankie’s full face was set, her mouth pouting.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen and Garland were going by train to New Hope, leaving Simon in
+Violet’s care. Garland hired a man to drive them to the Gaddy farm. The
+corduroy country roads were uneven because of the freezing and thawing
+of winter, and they were jostled in the back seat of the worn-out Model
+T. Garland was relaxed as he stared out at the countryside. His jaw had
+dropped, the flesh was folding on his face about the age lines. Shaving
+his mustache had given him a guileless expression, and with Violet not
+present, he had laid aside his forced lusty manner. They were passing
+Bailey’s Woods. Ellen recalled the glowbugs that had lit the path sides
+with fitful orange lights when she played there as a child on summer
+evenings. Now dead twigs of tree branches tangled and meshed like
+spiders’ webs. A winter wren on a lean bough was whistling, “Teakettle,
+teakettle, teakettle!” and with a whirr fading down the road toward the
+sky where gray clouds lived uncared for.
+
+“It’s not your father’s fault about Maria, puss.” Garland was speaking
+suddenly. “Don’t go blaming it on him.”
+
+“Who’s laying it to him?” flashed Ellen.
+
+“You know, Maria had a hard childhood. Her people were queer, you might
+say. Her mother was over forty when Maria was born and her father going
+on sixty. Christ. Must have near starved some winters back in the hills.
+He’d go off and leave the two of them to fend for themselves. Probably
+half crazy.”
+
+“I don’t think so.” Ellen’s mouth was stubborn.
+
+“Anton said he was a hunchback. Had Maria’s dowry stuffed in a gunnysack
+fastened with binder twine. Fifteen hundred dollars in coin and bills.”
+
+“That’s the way he was. I don’t call it so queer.”
+
+The house appeared uninhabited as they approached. Jack came out from
+the hole he had made for warmth in the earth behind the leaf-bare
+bushes. He watched them dull-eyed, uncertain. Garland called at the
+bottom of the porch; there was no answer. He set out for the barns while
+Ellen went up into the house. The porch was littered with mud and
+manure, in the kitchen the floor was tracked and the usual order on
+Maria’s shelves and table was broken. Ellen guessed that Sam had been
+making an effort to clean up and wash the dishes. Her pulse was pounding
+as she glanced at the bedroom. She draped her coat on a hook and drew
+off her winter boots. She went slowly into the room and over to the dark
+standing closet. The heavy crucifix was looming on the wall over the bed
+by the light from the little windows. It was a dream. From another time.
+She was in the cellar of her childhood, her feet fixed and immovable.
+There was someone behind her with a stick, waiting to perform a vague
+frightful act. Her heart was beating like a living stone as she dragged
+open the double doors to the closet.
+
+Maria’s birdlike eyes looked up from where she sat, clad in a long
+maroon sweater and a worn housedress. “I got my little boy here, Mam.
+He’s a bit cold. But he’s not dead by a long sight. That whippoorwill
+was wrong.” She had cradled a pillow in the crook of her arm. Her hair
+was loosely braided, gray wisps straggled over her face.
+
+“Ma,” Ellen whispered.
+
+Maria was frowning. “Shut the doors. I allowed he was out there in the
+ground moldering and turning. But he’s right here. Shut them now.”
+
+“It’s Ellie, Ma.” But the woman bowed her head into her shielding hands,
+waiting until the doors would close.
+
+Ellen went into the kitchen. “She’s stark mad.” She stirred up the fire,
+adding lighter-wood and a log from the bin.
+
+The three men scraped noisily coming up the porch and into the room.
+They stood in their muddied boots, their breath steaming up. Anton
+stamped his boots and coughed, rubbing his fingers together above the
+stove.
+
+“Evening, Ellie,” Sam said.
+
+She nodded, holding herself from them, over at the side by the windows
+where a chill seeped in.
+
+Anton had on his black bear-fur cap, the collar of his tattered mackinaw
+was turned up. He shrugged and said directly to Garland, “So hell, I’d
+get her out mealtimes. She wouldn’t go to mass and the last few days she
+wouldn’t get in bed. Hum.” He inquired softly, “Has she gone loony?”
+
+“Would she cook for you?” Garland asked.
+
+“Fair to middling,” said Sam.
+
+“But always she’d set out for the bedroom,” Anton was saying, “and I’d
+pull her back. Like she aimed to anger me.”
+
+“She needs a doctor, An. And care.”
+
+“What are you fixing to do?”
+
+“I’ll have to make some calls first. Where’s the nearest phone? I think
+the state will take her. We have to see a doctor and you’ll have to sign
+papers. You come with me, An.”
+
+“Go hitch Red,” Anton said. The hired man went as bid.
+
+“Where is she now, hon?” Garland asked Ellen.
+
+“In the closet,” Ellen whispered. “She ne’er knew me.”
+
+“And why should she?” Anton was glaring at her, hurt and reproachful.
+Like old Jess led to the sourwood scaffold in the yard. “Isn’t that
+right, Gar? There’s a great daughter. That one.” The door slammed after
+him in a gust of cold air, and Ellen shrank.
+
+“Your ma’s probably best off right where she is, puss. She isn’t violent
+or anything?”
+
+“No. Just sitting there harmless. She used to do that sometimes when Pa
+had his back up. I thought it was a place for her to get away. Far as I
+can remember she’d do that. But now she’s talking daft and she didn’t
+know me.”
+
+They stood, hands hanging useless. Nothing moved. The silence was
+complete. Then the buckwagon clattered outside. Garland roused, picked
+up his homburg hat. “Be back late. Not much of a Christmas this year,
+hon.” From the window she watched them climb onto the seat. The chestnut
+horse was restive, its winter coat woolly and ungroomed, dry manure
+casing its flanks and legs. It carried its broomlike tail high and pawed
+the ground. It moved off, the two figures hunched against the cold,
+heads drawn down into scarves and collars.
+
+Ellen left the house, going toward the woodshed. She called to the dog
+but he had disappeared. She went seeking her goats. She met Sam, and
+learned of their destruction from him, “You know your pa e’er was a
+strong-willed man, Ellie. And you be cut off the same last. I saw that
+when you were yet a set-along child. You’d ne’er squall when he took a
+stick to you. It wasn’t natural.” Sam was wagging a gnarled hand.
+
+Ellen’s mind had only partly encompassed what he told her. She was
+conscious of the faint liquor scent. “What’ll I do, Sam?”
+
+“You hadn’t ought to torment him so.” Sam was stooped over, holding one
+hand on a hip as if an ache lay underneath. “Being as you’re a ooman
+grown now, you ought to stand behind him. Mrs. Gaddy’s no use any more.”
+
+Ellen wasn’t listening. “Where’d you put them, Sam?”
+
+He went before her to the orchard edge. “I threw them in the wagon and
+toted them down here. For Gawd, took a big hole. Wore me plumb out.”
+
+When he had gone, Ellen looked about at the familiar landscape. Penny
+and Leona and spotted Pie. Rhodie and the shaggy yearlings. Pa gave me
+an eye for an eye, it appears. Burning for burning, stripe for stripe.
+Because I took Simon. It’s my goats for Simon. Life for life. That’s an
+enduring fine trade. At last she was wending back up the hill field.
+Darkness dropped almost instantly as it does in the short days of the
+year. The bark of a dog fox was rising shakily from the woods, the eerie
+sound lingered. Ellen’s hands in her pockets were stiff and cold. She
+blew on them and rubbed them. “I’ll ne’er have truck with my pa again.”
+
+From the house, squares of lamplight were wavering. Ellen entered, heard
+Dr. Trumbo’s murmur. The Gaddy brothers were sitting with him, and
+papers were spread before them. They all wore their overcoats, and their
+headgear was cast near their hands as though, in the half-warmth of the
+kitchen, they were passers-by with a bit of business to perform here.
+Ellen removed her coat. She shook the grate in the stove and laid a
+fresh fire. That’s all we be. Passers-by. Strangers sitting in His home,
+dragging the past on our shoes. If we could but lose that burden, start
+afresh. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are
+set on edge. There’s Pa whom I ever loved, thinking of ways to make him
+see me since I was a least youngen, following him with my eyes, running
+to do for him. But I never saw Pa for himself, only for the way I wished
+him, like the songs that seem to happen in another land. From this
+valley they say you are going, we will miss your bright eyes and sweet
+smile. I loved Pa in the land of myself, in a valley of my mind. While
+Ellen was mixing the corn meal, her hand was turning the egg and
+buttermilk into it quickly. Tears started and fell unheeded.
+
+She laid plates before the men and they ate silent by the mellow light.
+Forks and knives chinked. The smell of burning oil pervaded the room.
+Ellen went to where the woman hid herself. “Come get your supper, Ma.”
+Maria laid her head on her knees. Ellen brought her a dish and she
+accepted it. The doctor and Garland were lighting cigarettes, Anton
+puffed his pipe. Ellen finished the dishes and swept the floor. Dr.
+Trumbo arose then, it was time to go. He drew Maria struggling and
+whimpering from her place, and Ellen persuaded her to change from her
+ragged clothes. “Here, Ma. Take off that sweater and those rags. Put
+this on.” She was offering the old crepe de Chine dress. “It’s silk.”
+
+“Well,” Maria felt of the black material. She was putting her pillow
+down. When she had dressed they came into the kitchen where the others
+waited.
+
+“All set?” asked Dr. Trumbo.
+
+Anton was watching his wife from where he still sat at the table. He was
+pushing tobacco angrily with his thumb into the pipe bowl. “There goes
+the last of my oomen-folk. Now who’s to do the cooking, Gar? Sam, you
+think?”
+
+“I’ll get her bag.” Garland went into the shadowed bedroom.
+
+“I’ve been a righteous man. And pious,” Anton carped harshly.
+
+“Here we go, Mrs. Gaddy.” The doctor was taking Maria’s arm; he led the
+way with Ellen to the car, into the black night.
+
+Garland was bringing Maria’s valise. He paused at the open door to the
+porch. Light from the kitchen made a hesitant path reaching to the top
+step. “Goodbye, An.” Car lights had beamed suddenly in the yard,
+revealing the shrouded figures of the women climbing into the back seat.
+Garland cleared his throat. “I’ll remember when I first met Maria.”
+
+Anton did not move. Pipe smoke wreathed and dimmed his lined face, his
+strong shoulders, his powerful arms stretched on the table before him.
+“Man born of ooman is of few days, Gar.”
+
+Garland was running his soft hand nervously through his white hair,
+fingering the place where his mustache had used to be. He hurried down
+the steps. “Let’s go, Doc.”
+
+Ellen sat in back with Maria, dust from the car floor mingled with a
+vague clinical smell. She drew an old alpaca robe about their knees; it
+was damp to her hands, musty.
+
+“I remember winters, Doc,” Garland was saying. “We cut shoes from hides
+my father tanned. They had only one last so both shoes were cut the
+same. Pa’d say, your feet will wear them into shape to fit. Times I
+thought it was the shoes shaping my feet.”
+
+“You think everyone nowadays buys shoes, Mester Gaddy? They come down
+out of the back country or I hunt them out. Ridden with hookworm,
+wearing shoes made like yours were, no right or left.”
+
+“Chrissake, bet you see some things, Doc?”
+
+“Sure. Blacksnake root for the stomach. Butterfly root for female
+trouble.” Dr. Trumbo grunted. “Lady came in yesterday. Said she was near
+starvation. She was down to her last chicken and couldn’t wring its
+neck. Said it was her pet.”
+
+“That’s the lot of a farmer.”
+
+“That’s right, Mester Gaddy. Always dealing with death. The youngens
+play with the calves and lambs and maybe teach them tricks. Then they
+have to watch them slaughtered. Always losing whate’er they get attached
+to.” The feeble lights of the car parted the night. Ellen watched the
+slack shoulders of the men before her. Maria breathed deeply, the pillow
+slipping from her angular fingers.
+
+“Fellow was a grave digger, see?” Garland was telling an old joke. “He
+dug one too deep, this time. So he was shouting up from it, help. Get me
+out of here. I’m freezing. A drunk came staggering along and he looked
+in. Says, Hell, fellow, no wonder. They forgot to cover you up. And he
+began to throw in what was shoveled out.”
+
+“Now, that’s a good one,” Dr. Trumbo was whispering. “I’ll remember it.
+Sure wish I had you to go the rounds with me.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+A day later Ellen and Garland were back in Chicago. Simon met them at
+the front door. “Look here, what Aunt Vi gave me for my Christmas.” A
+sleeping calico kitten was within his shirt, a soft lump.
+
+Ellen laughed at him, “My.”
+
+When Simon touched it with a finger, the kitten stretched a paw and
+yawned. Simon was delighted. “See that?”
+
+“You made him right at home, boy,” Garland cried.
+
+Violet was stepping down the wide staircase, trailing her housecoat, her
+hair undone, her eyes wistful. Garland put his arm about her tall form.
+“Miss me, wife?”
+
+“Sure did, Chicken. I didn’t hear the doorbell, I was sleeping so hard.
+You know Simon was in the school play? He was the shepherd and he
+brought a gift.”
+
+“No, I ne’er,” said the boy. “I just knelt by the sheep, singing ‘Round
+John Virgin.’”
+
+Garland was carving the holiday ham that night. “Next year we’re going
+to have a turkey, Vi. I hear they might vote FDR in for another term.
+We’ll see prosperity again.”
+
+Ellen watched Simon eating, struck by it. He held the fork in his left
+hand, pushing the food with the knife as his grandfather did. She said
+abruptly, “How come you hold your fork so? I ne’er noticed that. It’s
+not proper. Your fork goes in the right hand.”
+
+“Let him eat Christmas dinner like he wants, puss.”
+
+Reckon I’ll always see those ways Pa stamped on him. Simon was reaching
+for the ketchup and pouring it heavily on the potatoes, his head bent
+over his plate. She remembered how he said, “Mind now,” to the kit. She
+was wondering if that too came from Anton.
+
+“Now these quality,” Violet was saying, “had an exercise machine. You
+could hear it clear down in the kitchen. It was bolted to the floor and
+there was a wide belt they put around them. It juggled their stomach or
+wherever there was a fat spot and it just rubbed it away.”
+
+“Say now, that’s what I need.” Garland was patting his stomach.
+
+
+                                   20
+
+Anton and Dyke were loading the Burwell truck for the trip to
+Louisville. It was late January. They had become familiar with the town
+since their first excursion six years ago at the beginning of the
+depression. They had come to know the wholesale section and the
+waterfront district where the Ohio flowed and where auctions were
+conducted in the shadow of tobacco warehouses and mills and the
+newly-operated distilleries, reeking and guarded. Now too, they would
+manage more than one yearly trip. They found it necessary, in fact, to
+go many times.
+
+Sam Offut had moved in with Anton the week after Maria went, bringing
+along his wife Eadie. She was plagued with lumbago and vestiges of
+various diseases contracted when much younger, and she seemed satisfied
+to settle with Sam in Mr. Gaddy’s house for as long as she was required.
+She learned to carry out her duties to his partial satisfaction. She
+cooked three meals and cleaned occasionally. She was cowed, however, by
+the Catholic icons, refusing to dust the crucifix or the statuettes or
+the framed Sacred Heart. “Be careful what you say near the things,
+Samuel,” she warned, “they be Romish. You know Mr. Gaddy’s not a true
+Christian like us.” The Offuts would go to the new Holiness Church that
+had set up a tent on the outskirts of Millville. There folks spoke in
+strange tongues and preachers would handle rattlesnakes and fire and
+encourage public confession. Besides being entertained, the Offuts had
+found an ideal place to express themselves without censure.
+
+This morning Eadie was bringing sandwiches of bread and bacon to the
+truck. Dyke was gunning the motor and a white smoke streamed from the
+exhaust. Six fattened shoats, stowed behind the load of corn, grunted
+and squealed until the machine was set in motion. Then they were lulled,
+grew sleepy-eyed swaying warm-bodied against each other. “I’m going to
+get me a piece of cock tonight, Mester Gaddy,” Dyke sang out.
+
+“Do that, boy,” Anton glowered.
+
+“Hey. I like a ooman built like a brick shithouse.” Dyke’s ruddy face
+shone. Beside the taciturn older man he was feeling debonair and
+knowing. “Big and soft all o’er. And I know where they’ve got them.” He
+blew the horn, “Beep. Beep!” A flock of chickens fled squawking into
+ditches from the carcass of a dog that lay in the frosted road. “Want me
+to show you where, Mester Gaddy?”
+
+“No. Christ.”
+
+“Setting about the room in wrappers. Nothing underneath. For a fact,
+now.”
+
+“You’ll get the claps and come home dragging your tail. Hum. Won’t be so
+horny then, I vow. Best stay away from harlots, boy.”
+
+“Now, there’s one old girl does a trick with a cigarette. You’d ne’er
+think she could do it.”
+
+“Get your pecker down, boy.” Anton looked out on the frozen fields that
+waited fallow for spring. “Give not thy strength unto oomen. Mind.”
+
+“Reckon the corn’ll sell high, Mester Gaddy?”
+
+“Prices always come up in late winter. Seems most folks are so strapped
+for cash in fall, they’ll sell when hit’s cheap.”
+
+The stoutish younger man and the other near sixty were drawn together in
+the close cab, knitted by the future, unforeseen. The return trip would
+be different, then the tie would fall away as tomorrow became a routine
+of familiar chores. Dyke was laughing. “Hey, Mester Gaddy. Saw Butcher
+Faust last night. He’d just got in a cow carcass. Still had the udder on
+it. So he sliced off a front teat and let it hang out his fly. Old lady
+Brenner came in. He took her order, started in to cut her meat for her.
+Well, she jerked up of a sudden. Says, timid-like, look there, Butcher
+Faust. And he looked down, says, Oh that damn thing. And lays it on the
+block, whacks it off with his knife.”
+
+“Haw,” snorted Anton.
+
+“Old lady Brenner near passed out. That Butcher Faust slays me.”
+
+Hog prices had nearly doubled over the fall rate. The men found a buyer
+for the corn and stopped in at a dingy corner bar for a glass of draught
+beer before parting company. Then Anton was making his way down Market
+Street, a bleak wind thrusting at his back, up the sleeves to his
+mackinaw and ill-fitting black suit. He took a left turn for two blocks,
+then a right. He swung in at the second house, his stride unaltered. The
+building was of red brick, one of a series of identical houses. The long
+hall was unheated and dark, a radio lilted faintly from under a doorway.
+
+   I don’t want your sugar sprinkled in my tea
+   Because the gal I’ve got is sweet enough for me
+
+Anton was climbing a staircase, knocking at the door at the head. A
+shapely woman opened it, her jet-black hair heavy about her
+sallow-skinned broad face. Anton spoke thickly, “You alone, Rose?”
+
+“I’ve been looking for you, Daddy.” She was turning in a studied
+careless way. He put a heavy-muscled hand toward the slim curve of her
+back, withdrew it hastily as if caught between guilt and greed. He
+closed the door and followed her to the window where she was looking out
+as if waiting. His hand came upon her insistent, he was pulling her to
+the bed.
+
+She asked him after a while, “Why don’t you ever kiss me? And you with
+those big lips.” She was slipping into her wrapper. He followed her with
+his eyes, made no answer. She took his coat from the chair, explored the
+inner pocket and brought out a flat box. “Why not, Daddy?” She was
+deriding, but gentle, for the kind elderly farmer suited her. She had
+met him a few months ago, knew he was Catholic with a wife committed
+recently to an institution. She opened the gift box holding a red and
+blue silk handkerchief. Louisville, Kentucky. The Biggest Wholesale
+Distributor Of The South. She knotted it softly at her neck, wise that
+the vivid colors set off her hair. She planned that she would marry
+Anton. She was preparing supper on a two-burner hot plate, boiling
+spaghetti, searing ground meat in a frying pan. “Vo-do-do-dee-o-do-o-o!
+Guess I’ll teach you to dance, Daddy. Okay?”
+
+From the bed he was taking in the figure in the bright kimono that
+contrasted so completely with the shadow of Maria. He would leave
+Louisville tomorrow, returning to the farm. But he would be restless and
+irritable, lonely, his sin again unconfessed. “Come o’er here, Poppet.”
+
+She was going to the bed. He took her to his lap. His sateen shirt was
+open and she stroked the red hair of his chest. “You’re a comfortable
+man. You’re strong.”
+
+“Rose, you wait here for me.” He was heated. “Don’t see e’er a man. You
+hear?”
+
+“I don’t know.” But Rose said it as if she would obey.
+
+“This little grandson of mine had hair would turn pale in summer, like
+oat straw. Hum.” Rose went back to where the savory odors were steaming.
+She laid dishes and brought glasses of beer to a low table. Anton drew
+on his pants, fastening his belt; he pulled his heavy frame erect, began
+to pace back and forth. His yellowed winter underwear was exposed above
+the waist. He stopped in his stride as if angry, “Will you do like I
+say, Rose?”
+
+“Okay, Daddy.” But this time she was amused and said it as though she
+would not.
+
+The next morning Rose was frying ham and eggs for breakfast. The stale
+air in the flat was surfeited with the high fat odor. She made her ways
+soft so the pain of parting would lie in Anton like a hot ball. She was
+teasing him so he would never be quite sure away from her and would
+remember her standing by him in the bright-flowered kimono, her hips
+soft and her city face white. She was forking the food onto his plate.
+Anton observed the lift of her arm along her breast; he laid his gnarled
+hand against the pointed shape of it, his mind turning to a morning long
+years ago.
+
+The girl Penny, who married that fool Dougherty, had worn a flowered
+dress patterned like Rose’s kimono. She had come to the hay field to
+bring Anton a drink of water in a stone jar. He was turning the damp
+clover alone. The girl watched him drink, smiling. “It’s a power hot out
+here, Mester.” She was lifting her hands to brush back her hair, seeking
+the breeze. She looked cool from her head to her brown toes that were
+small as a youngen’s. Something stirred in Anton when her breasts stood
+out as she raised her arms. He put his hand forward hardly knowing what
+he did, and cupped one in his palm. “Are you coming in the heat?” he was
+whispering, hoarse. Penny’s eyes had widened. She was bending for the
+jug and slipping away. In days to follow he named her “that roaring
+ooman,” angered with his own calflike ways, despising his moment of
+weakness. And when his older daughter had picked up the foldilay songs,
+ever after they would stir his ire.
+
+He spoke dourly to Rose, removing his hand, “The lips of a strange ooman
+drop honey, says the Book. And her mouth be smoother than oil.”
+
+“Banana oil, Daddy,” said Rose.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anton met Dyke at the truck parked on Market Street. Hoarfrost had
+glazed the windows, Dyke was scraping at it with his knife while the
+engine warmed. The truck backfired and trundled with an effort through
+early traffic, past the slow gray river, and into the country where
+smoke was seeping from dunghills and fowl scratched the frozen earth.
+Anton was restless in his seat, crabbed. Dyke was driving stolidly. The
+radiator was beginning to boil as they chugged up the Gaddy farm lane.
+Dyke peered through the cloud above the hood. “Just made the well in
+time, Mester Gaddy.” He was shouting over the noise of the engine, and
+cut it. “Hey there, Sam.” He still shouted although the motor had
+stopped. He lowered his voice in the quiet wintry air, “Did your wife
+help you milk, Sam?”
+
+“No, I shift for myself at the barn when Mester Gaddy’s off.” There was
+the hint of home-brew about Sam’s breath. He sighed, “But this here
+lumbago’s getting me down.”
+
+Anton had descended his side of the truck. Shading his eyes, he was
+looking at buzzards that wheeled over one of the fields. “What be dead
+out there, Sam?”
+
+“I don’t know. Could be the dog’s killed him a woodchuck.”
+
+Anton walked to the top of the land, the other two following. “Reckon
+it’s old Jack himself?”
+
+“Now I recollect, Mester Gaddy, Eadie said she ne’er seen him about
+yesterday to get his dinner scraps.”
+
+Anton picked up a shovel, walked down the lane alone. A few sluggish
+bluebottles buzzed up in the sunless air from the dog’s decaying
+worn-out body, matted with burrs and beggar’s-lice, damp from melted
+frost. While the man was digging, clay caught in the cuffs of his shiny
+black pants. From the woods nearby the two notes of the carping bluejays
+echoed like pieces of crockery being knocked together. The birds were
+heralding the spring winds. Anton tipped the carcass into the grave with
+his shovel. A warm stench floated from where maggots quivered. Anton
+neither smelled nor saw. His disciplined arms were performing
+efficiently. His mind dwelled apart, jealous, on the woman in
+Louisville.
+
+
+
+
+                               part four
+
+
+   Lovers who must say farewell
+   When the road has reached the trees
+   Lovers who have all to tell
+   Where the road runs out of sight
+   In the green beyond the leaves
+   The green cove below the light
+   Lovers who must say farewell
+   When the road has reached the trees
+   Touching hand to hand to speak
+   All their love has ever known
+   Find no words to speak and say
+   Love...        O love...
+
+
+                                   21
+
+Ellen had spotted the wagon before Simon, drawn by a strapping team of
+grays. The little farmer had a white beard and mustache. He was touching
+his hat and yelling across the tarred road to where they sat on the
+station house steps, “Hi. You Mrs. Gaddy?”
+
+They took up their bags and ran. Simon was scrambling into the wagon
+bed. “Hey, Mester.”
+
+“I’m Matthew Wasilewski,” the old man said. Ellen climbed to the seat
+beside him. He was clicking to the team and the shod hoofs resounded on
+the patched streets of Hidden Creek. They came upon dirt country roads
+and Ellen observed how there were no stones and they stretched flat and
+straight, not curving and hilly like those about Millville. The horses
+set a fast pace.
+
+Simon shouted, “That’s a spanky team. Can I hold the reins sometime?”
+
+“Hush, Simon. He’s fond of horses.”
+
+“Let him talk. I say, let boys speak out.” The man’s complexion was
+translucent, as happens with the aged. His beard was yellow about the
+mouth from tobacco stains and food. His frail body was engulfed by baggy
+overalls and a fresh-starched blue shirt. He bobbed his head, “Now, Mom
+raises Leghorn hens. She’ll want you to help with them.”
+
+“What’s a Leghorn? How’s it differ?”
+
+“They’ll beat any breed at laying, Mrs. Gaddy. Mom follows the
+Department of Agriculture. She reads the bulletins. And she sees the
+county agent too. He told her to put those runners on her chicken sheds
+and tow them out to pasture.”
+
+“Say, feeding them on grass like a cow.”
+
+“Keeps down disease, the agent claims, and saves feed. You think this
+land’s rich? You should go to the old country some day. Poland. Where I
+came from. Plums as big as my fist. Apples the size of my head. Never a
+drought.”
+
+“We had one where I lived two years ago.”
+
+“Where you from?”
+
+“Kentucky.”
+
+“I heard that drought was widespread. We had it bad; most all the crops
+died right in the field. Our boys took a loan on the mortgage. They
+shouldn’t have done it. Debts are bad. In the end it was the Triple A
+that pulled us through. Roosevelt paid for what we didn’t have to plant.
+Did he pay you folks too?”
+
+“No, but I knew a man got a government check for letting hogs root up
+his tobacco. I ne’er did understand how that worked.”
+
+“Now in Poland, Mrs. Gaddy, they never heard of a drought or a Triple A
+either.”
+
+“Say, Mester,” Simon spoke up, “what are those horses’ names?”
+
+“Off one’s Pearl. The other’s Major, son.”
+
+“That Pearl’s a sight the prettiest.”
+
+“Yes, and that Major’s the smartest. Who do you think’s pulling this
+load?”
+
+Simon fell back abandoned in the straw of the wagon, shouting in glee.
+He lay gazing up at the sky and the bare treetops that came into view.
+
+“That’s it.” The old man pointed. “Ninety acres.”
+
+Two women and a man were coming from the white house into the yard to
+welcome Ellen. Mom was fleshy and large-framed, her eyes shy. She was
+shaking Ellen’s hand. “Guess Pop told you all about the fruit in the old
+country.”
+
+“Why, he did.”
+
+Sudduth was their younger son, thirty-two, scrawny, anxious-eyed. “We
+sure can use your help. We’ve been after Mom a long time to get someone.
+Here’s my wife, Adele.”
+
+“Pleased,” said Ellen.
+
+“Howdy.” The woman held her head on one side like a bird, waiting.
+
+“You-all could call me Ellen.”
+
+“I’ll show you to your room, Ellen.” Adele was going ahead up the
+stairs. Her face was harrowed from the years, but retained the child’s
+shape, round and eager-eyed, looking for encouragement. Two little girls
+with eyes like hers looked from behind a door. “This is Mrs. Gaddy,
+Hannah. Grace. My boy Dennie is in school.” The girls squealed and ran
+to hide. Adele was stopping at the room that would be Ellen’s. Simon was
+to have another for himself.
+
+They came together later for the evening meal, Pop at the head of the
+table, Mom at the foot. They were all shouting noisily. “Let’s see those
+brown-eye peas down here.”
+
+“Save a corner for the blueberry dowdy.”
+
+“Let a child talk up, I say.” Pop maneuvered the food through his
+mustache, his head on a level with the children.
+
+“I got a hundred in Penmanship,” cried Adele’s son, Dennie.
+
+“My, at that child,” said Adele.
+
+“The girls printed for me. I sure could follow it good.” Mom felt the
+sisters were being slighted at times. At her left stood an empty chair.
+
+“That’th Uncle Dan’s plathe,” Hannah was saying shyly to Ellen.
+
+“Dan’s my older brother,” Sudduth explained. “He’s off at the cattle
+sale in Weems Crossroads, trying to buy a Crestmore bull. We already
+have a purebred bull, but he’s the sire to so many of our heifers we
+don’t get the good of him any more.”
+
+“Say, I’ve been to Weems Crossroads,” Ellen said. “I visited some folks
+there.”
+
+“Dan’s going to see if he can bid a bull low,” Sudduth said.
+
+“Nothing but the best for Dan,” said Pop.
+
+“By the name of Dougherty?” Ellen was hopeful.
+
+“Nothing but the best.” Sudduth was sopping the juice from his plate
+with dark home-baked bread.
+
+“Never heard of a Dougherty,” Pop said. “You know, Sudduth, if a
+purebred cow jumps the fence and gets to a grade bull, you can just as
+well sell her? She’ll be no good from then on.”
+
+“That’s ridiculous, Pop.”
+
+“I’ve heard of it,” Ellen said.
+
+“There was a mare bred to a zebra stallion,” Pop told him. “Every foal
+she threw thereafter was striped. Now that’s proof, Sudduth.” He pounded
+his knife.
+
+“There,” Ellen whispered, for she had heard this same thing.
+
+“Pop, that old tale’s been shown up long ago. I’ll get out the article
+for you to read, in the _Breeder’s Journal_. Old superstitions.”
+
+While they were talking the cats were underfoot, three or four of them,
+tiger-striped and black. They wound under the table legs and sometimes
+one of the children slipped them a bite of food. A little later Ellen
+and Simon went up to bed. The talking and shouts from below were seeping
+through the flooring as Ellen dozed off to sleep.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+She heard the cock crowing in her dream, insistent, shrill. She threw
+her arm in a fending gesture, engrossed in the nightmare. She was
+running up the stairway from the cellar, her father racing after. “I’ll
+kill you because you took the boy.” She shouted to stay his hand, “You
+dassn’t kill on the cock’s crow, Pa.” She awoke, her voice straining in
+her throat. She lay listening, oppressed by the dream, letting it
+recede. I won’t hold to any of it. I’ll button it into a far part of me.
+I want to weave a new way here in this land where all the folks are
+foreign. I’ll make a place for Simon and me. I’ll put the past away. I
+vow I will.
+
+It was not yet dawn. Darkness kept the room corners. She threw back the
+covers. The air was chill but there was an earth odor, fresh, redolent
+of spring. She was throwing open the window, looking out at the muddled
+unfamiliar landscape. The eastern sky was gray and hushed. She sat on
+the low sill in the sleeveless garment she wore at night, hugging her
+cold bare arms. Her hair hung clinging and disheveled. It was late
+January but it was warm, the first false spring. There would be cold
+days yet, and the last frost might come as late as mid-April. But
+already in protected southern exposures a few flowers were opening, a
+jonquil or narcissus, releasing suppressed and forgotten perfumes. The
+earth seemed to turn itself like an animal stirring in its lair.
+
+A bull bellowed in the half-light, pawing the floor of its paddock,
+shaking its brawny shoulders. It began to butt the bars with its heavy
+smooth head like a toy set in motion. Tiny pigs wandered to and fro in a
+yard beyond the bull. The gray of clouds that lay in the east
+transformed gradually into mauve. Shifting and changing, lights and
+colors were fanning upward. A man’s figure strode around a corner of the
+house. There was a black-and-white feist at his heels. The man was tall,
+seemed young, his hair thick and black, unruly. The cuffs of his pants
+were tucked into leather boots. He stopped to shake tobacco into his
+left hand, and rolled a cigarette swiftly. The dog jumped repeatedly at
+his arm, yapping sharply in the pink-tinged air. As he was walking off,
+his bass voice came clear.
+
+   The minstrel boy to the war is gone
+   In the ranks of death you’ll find him
+   His father’s sword he hath girded on
+   And his wild harp slung behind him
+
+A warm breeze stirred from the east. Ellen shivered. On the brim of the
+color-draped sky, the first round edge of the red sun was emerging as if
+pulled by a string. The fields were stretching forth under the rosy
+light, spreading wide and tended, damp with dew. The pungent sweetness
+of the earth was arising from its bowels. Time moved quickly. The sun
+came whole over the line of horizon, lay alive in the brilliant stained
+sky. The man’s song had faded.
+
+Voices began to call back and forth in the reaches of the house. Ellen
+turned from the window. The room was furnished with a white wood
+bedstead, a dresser with a tiny mirror, a table and an upright chair.
+There was a striped rag rug on the floor, made by Mom; the curtains and
+bedspread were yellow and threadbare, streaked unevenly by sun rays over
+the years.
+
+She dressed and hurried down the dusky stairs. Simon and Dennie sat
+whispering on the bottom step. “You seen my room, Ma?” They followed
+her. Adele was turning the handle of the coffee grinder, the friendly
+crusty noise filling the kitchen. “Dennie’s got a room too.”
+
+“I always had a room.” Dennie hiked his suspenders.
+
+When breakfast was nearly ready, Sudduth came in with the man Ellen had
+seen earlier. They washed at the sink, then leaned against the wall to
+wait for food to be set out. Ellen had difficulty finding things. “Where
+does the sugar live, Mom?”
+
+“This is my brother Dan,” Sudduth said as she was passing with the bowl
+of sugar. “Mrs. Gaddy. Ellen.”
+
+“How do you do. Mom keeping you busy? You’ve got to watch her.” He was a
+head taller than Sudduth, older than he had looked from the windows,
+with an air of authority. His straight hair hung over his forehead, his
+eyes were greenish-yellow, his ears pointed at the top. His lips were
+thin and flat, his nose angular. His skin was olive and creased. There
+was a birthmark on his left cheek, and when he flushed it darkened.
+“That damn bull’s a beaut, Sudduth. Supposed to be delivered this
+morning. We’ll charge a service fee on him that’ll pay his price a few
+times over.”
+
+“Let’s eat.” Mom was carrying a bowl of fried potatoes in one hand, a
+platter of smoking ham in the other.
+
+When they had finished, Simon got his coat from upstairs, for he would
+set out with Dennie to school. There was over a mile to walk. He stood
+in the doorway and his blue eyes settled on Ellen. “Bye now, Ma.” He
+picked up the yellow cat mewling at his feet.
+
+“You tell the teacher who you are proper, Simon.”
+
+“I will, Ma.”
+
+“Say you’re living at the Wasilewski farm.”
+
+“I know.”
+
+Dan rolled a cigarette, leaning back. “You like horses, boy?”
+
+“Oh yes, Mester.” Simon spilled the cat to the floor. “What can I do?”
+
+“You groom them every night. Will you do that?”
+
+“Mornings too, Mester? You won’t find a loose hair.”
+
+“Call me Dan,” the man was laughing. “We’ll see what else we can find
+for you.”
+
+The boys ran off and Ellen said, “He’s proud to just lay his hands on a
+horse.”
+
+The day had begun. When the beds were made and the kitchen floor
+scrubbed, Ellen scoured the white refrigerator and the electric stove.
+She washed the white-painted wood cabinets that lined the walls. “Pop
+made those,” Adele said, “three years ago. They got the notion one night
+when Mom was reading the _Farm Woman’s Magazine_. Dan and Sudduth put
+the old pantry cupboards in the shed for machine parts.”
+
+The brothers drifted in at noon, hobnail boots clacking on the floors,
+preoccupied in talk of the new bull that had arrived by truck. They ate
+hastily, hurrying out. Mom said the hens were to be deloused. The county
+agent advised it. The women caught each bird by the leg, shook the can
+of powder over it and turned it loose so it escaped to the yard, shaking
+its feathers, clucking indignant. Dust from the litter mingled with the
+powder and hung in the air. The women sneezed. Mom’s face was hot. “The
+roosts have to be scrubbed down next.”
+
+At supper Ellen was tired. When she finished her plate, a cat jumped on
+her lap. She let it remain for she saw it was the custom. It was
+purring, kneading its paws. Simon joined in the clamor and Ellen was
+bending her thoughts to how different these ways were from the house
+where she had been raised.
+
+“Come play for us, Uncle Dan,” Dennie was coaxing.
+
+The girls joined, “Thing ‘Thay, Darling, Thay,’ Uncle Dan.”
+
+“Tomorrow, you pesky kids,” he shouted over the din. “We have to check
+on the bull right now. Coming, Sudduth?” He was charging through the
+door.
+
+The next morning the tractor roared out of the barnyard, Dan perched in
+the driver’s seat. “Land,” Mom was laughing, “he does love that
+machine.”
+
+“It’s a good day to start the spring plowing,” said Ellen. “The land’s
+thawed good.”
+
+“They’re not plowing yet,” Mom said. “They’ll wait till February.”
+
+“I’ve heard folks say it ruins land for seven years to plow in January.
+Pa ne’er held to that notion. He plowed when he had a mind to.”
+
+“Sakes, Ellen.” Mom was amused. “That’s not it. It’s the house. We’ve
+got a busy year laid out here. Adele’s going to have her own home. Her
+and Sudduth.” She was turning to Adele. “He went by already with the
+team and the scoop. Did you see him?”
+
+“Sudduth’s just raring,” said Adele.
+
+“We’ve got to be ready to paint and all in late summer, Ellen. So Adele
+and him and the kids can get moved in the fall.”
+
+“I want everything to be perfect when we leave, Mom.” Adele was earnest.
+
+They told Ellen that lumber was stored at the warehouse in Hidden Creek;
+part had been bought in fall when cash crops had been sold and part was
+still on credit against the early wheat crop. “There’s kegs of nails and
+rolls of tar paper and shingles in the shed. They drew the plans out on
+paper.” Mom was proud. “There’s going to be another big event here in
+the fall.” Mom’s eyes gleamed secret. “Wait and see.”
+
+At mid-morning Ellen was busy. “I declare at this iron, it’s so light.”
+She skimmed over the clothes swiftly, laid them folded and smooth on the
+newspaper-covered table.
+
+“It sure is a help having you here, Ellen.” Mom was mending, a wicker
+basket beside her. “Makes me feel old though, not doing my own work.”
+
+“Only I forget about the cord and keep walking off with the iron.”
+
+The kitchen door slammed. “It’s me,” Dan’s voice shouted. The sound of
+running water came.
+
+“You’ll see, he’s had trouble with the tractor,” Mom said.
+
+“The tractor turned over on me.” His voice was muffled. “Cut myself.”
+
+“That suits you fine, Dan,” Mom called. “He can play now. Nothing suits
+him like when some piece of equipment won’t work and he can get his head
+under it. Rather do that than work.”
+
+“You don’t have to shout. I hear you.” Dan appeared in the doorway,
+rubbing his face with a white turkish towel, a gash on his browned
+forehead. He was shaking his head, cocky. “Ellen, you think my family’s
+crazy?”
+
+When she was washing the supper dishes she heard the tinny sound of the
+piano in the sitting room. Simon was behind her at the kitchen table
+leafing through his new schoolbooks, waiting for her. “Wonder who that
+is playing?” she asked him.
+
+“That’s Dan. I’ve ne’er heard that song, Ma.” Simon smiled, his blue
+eyes curious.
+
+She put the plates away. “It’s right melancholy.”
+
+   A spanish cavalier stood in his retreat
+   And on his guitar played a tune, dear
+   The music so sweet would ofttimes repeat
+   The blessings of my country and you, dear
+
+   O say, darling say, when I’m far away
+   Sometimes you may think of me, dear
+   Bright sunny days will soon fade away
+   Remember what I say and be true, dear
+
+Ellen was hanging up the dishcloth. “Let’s go hear the music.”
+
+“Can we?”
+
+“This is our home,” she said with dignity, “while we’re here.”
+
+From his easy chair, Sudduth was bemoaning, “We’ve got to clean out the
+barns again. Get it on the fields before plowing. Jesus, we’re going to
+be strapped with work this year.”
+
+Dan looked up at Ellen as she came in, his eyes golden in his lined dark
+face. “Wish it would rain liquid manure for a whole week. Save us some
+trouble.” His lean fingers ran over the keys tenderly.
+
+She sat down in the rocker by the windows. On the table beside her was a
+tall glass bell, exhibiting underneath a stuffed red bird with black
+wings and tail, its eyes bright glass. Ellen was looking down at her
+hands in her lap. She had an inflexible manner about her, seldom
+laughing easily even with her son. It was as if she had been bruised
+once and armed herself against a recurrence. And when she would make her
+hair into braids in the morning, winding, and fastening with tortoise
+shell pins, she would pull tightly. There was an unconscious
+satisfaction to the act as though it were easing a guilt. Ellen held
+herself at times almost like one righteous. She was glancing at the
+scarlet tanager under the bell, wondering who had shot it. Vaguely she
+was listening to the words the man sang. They differed from those Penny
+had taught Ellen.
+
+   When your heart was mine, true love
+   And your head lay on my breast
+   You could make me believe
+   By the falling of your arm
+   That the sun rose up in the west
+
+
+                                   22
+
+The weather turned brisk, the temperature fell, the dew had frozen in a
+white sprinkle. Mouths of animals and men steamed. The excavation for
+the cellar of the new house had been completed, a square gash in a rise
+of land at the far end of the farm. “Now let it freeze,” Mom was saying.
+“They can still lay cinder-block.”
+
+“It’s like a dream come true,” said Adele, “them building our house.
+Land.”
+
+The little girls had spread old mail-order catalogs on the kitchen
+floor. They cut and snipped, squabbling. “It’th mine. You shut up,
+booby.”
+
+“You see, Mom?” Adele pleaded. “It’s not right you should have to put up
+with this commotion.”
+
+Ellen was savoring the friendly companionship of the two women. The
+girls she had known—her sister, Lily Garrett, even Amanda York—had been
+younger than she. And they had leaned on her. She could never look up to
+them or turn to them for advice. There was a freshness in her
+relationship with these older women.
+
+“Just wait till Ellen sees my roses, Adele. They’re a sight, all pink
+and white.”
+
+“You know, Ellen, Pop can tell to the exact how many flowers each bush
+has every year,” Adele said.
+
+“Keeps it in his head.”
+
+They worked, their hands busy in the baking, they talked idly, “He’ll
+say, this white rose had only fifty-one buds last year.”
+
+“Every rose, he’ll count.”
+
+The cold air rushed in as the door opened. “There. That cake fell,” said
+Mom. “Land o’ Goshen, I’m peeved.” Dan came in, leading Simon, who was
+tear-stained. “You will slam doors on baking day, Dan.”
+
+“Dammit. Sorry, Mom. He bumped his knee, Ellen. Fell down.”
+
+Simon was pulling his torn pants leg up to reveal a soiled bruise. He
+held his tongue between his lips; phlegm was dripping from his nose.
+“Hit don’t hurt now,” he mourned. Ellen washed the wound. Her mind was
+apart from the accident. Wonder why Dan came in with Simon. He needn’t
+have. Simon’s ten and not a baby. Maybe Dan’s thinking on me. I don’t
+want him. Nor any man. She was wrapping the strip of cloth about the
+knee.
+
+Dan was lighting one of his hand-rolled cigarettes. “Press my suit
+today, Mom, will you? I’m taking Star to the grange dance.”
+
+“All right, Dan.”
+
+As the two went out Mom shouted, “And don’t slam it.”
+
+“Star’s his girl,” Adele was telling Ellen. “She’s lots younger than
+him.”
+
+“Oh I don’t know,” Mom said. “She’s nearly nineteen.”
+
+“And Dan’s over forty.”
+
+“Wish they’d set the date,” said Mom. “Keeps me on edge.”
+
+“You think Star’ll settle down to being a farmer’s wife?” Adele asked.
+“After all, she’s used to a maid doing the work. Why, I bet she can’t
+cook even.”
+
+“She loves him. That’s what counts.”
+
+“She’s an only child. She gets whatever she wants.”
+
+“Star’s so pretty,” Mom told Ellen.
+
+“Her folks have spoiled her,” said Adele. “But Dan’s crazy about her.”
+
+“Marrying will settle her. She’s the nicest looking girl in the
+countryside.” Mom was complacent.
+
+“Dan wants his bull to have the best blood lines. He’s got to have the
+latest machinery, the newest hybrid seed.” Adele sawed the air with a
+flour-streaked hand. “I wouldn’t be his wife.”
+
+“Well, you’ve got Sudduth.”
+
+“Praise the Lord,” Adele was laughing, an edge to her voice.
+
+“When are they getting married?” Ellen asked, quiet in her relief,
+detached.
+
+“Didn’t I tell you there might be a big event this fall? The date’s not
+fixed, but when the house is built, there’ll be nothing to stop them.”
+
+“Sudduth figures that’s why Dan’s in such a stew to get the cellar dug.”
+
+“Now there. I forgot the eggs,” Mom was saying. “They have to be
+gathered at ten, two, and after supper. Maybe you’d better take over
+that job too, Ellen.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every Saturday afternoon Ellen would find an envelope on her dresser, in
+it four and a half dollars. When she laid them in her drawer she felt a
+wealth and a peace. She was moving less uncertainly in the new
+household. She was the hired girl and the value set on her talents gave
+her a self-respect. On Sundays, Pop, Mom, Adele and the three children
+would go to the Presbyterian church in Hidden Creek, Adele driving the
+Dodge car. Sudduth and Dan would work on the new house. Ellen walked out
+with Simon to see the farm, for during the week she was too busy. Simon
+showed her the gray horses he groomed and she patted sleek
+brown-and-white cows, fastened in metal stanchions, munching hay, their
+tongues curling about the wisps. “Aren’t those stalls modern, Ma?” They
+passed the hog lot where white-banded pigs were squealing and snuffling
+at a trough of water in the cement lot. “They’re not dish-faced like
+Granddaddy’s pigs.”
+
+“I see they’re not. They’re a different kind.” The shouts of the men
+were faint on the air, mingled with the low lonesome bawl of the new
+bull. Some day I’ll tell Simon what Pa did. And why we had to leave.
+
+“Wonder how little Rhodie is, Ma?”
+
+“Oh, Simon.”
+
+“And fat old Pie. And Leona. If their hoofs are cut regular.”
+
+“I don’t know. You still honing after them?” Reckon I’ll tell him
+sometime what Pa did to my goats, cutting their throats. “You miss your
+granddaddy?” She was looking off to the bowl of sky. The far calls
+floated and echoed in it.
+
+“Reckon he was e’er good to me.”
+
+“It’s nice here, on this place.”
+
+“And there was old Jack. I set store by him.”
+
+“Dennie’s feist is pretty.”
+
+“He’s a scrappy thing.”
+
+“Well.” They walked back.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dan wore a white shirt on Saturday nights, with a blue detachable
+collar. He knotted on a brash necktie and brushed his shoes, stood at
+the doorway to the sitting room where the family convened. He seemed
+older to Ellen when dressed in the brown suit, his lean body pinched
+into tight cloth, the tough skin of his face emphasized. He was leaning
+against the frame, the birthmark a dull red. He tapped tobacco into thin
+paper, licked the edge, twirled the ends, all in a quick motion. “How’s
+this tie, Ellen? Too loud? Think my girl will take a second look?”
+
+“I reckon.” She was patting the cat, inwardly disturbed.
+
+“Well, if she was smart,” Sudduth mocked, “she’d run the other way fast,
+wouldn’t she Pop?”
+
+The old man cackled. Ellen felt stiff and plain, smiled faintly as Dan
+walked out. I’d never be that Star.
+
+On weekday nights Dan played the piano. His energy was contagious, it
+was as if his day had just begun. In the lamp glow their faces turned to
+where he sat.
+
+   There are many flags in many lands
+   There are flags of every hue
+   But there is no flag however grand
+   Like our own red white and blue
+
+The family were joining in, swept away by his exuberance and health.
+Sometimes Ellen sang with them.
+
+   Then hurrah for the flag, our country’s flag
+   Its stripes and white stars too
+   There is no flag in any land
+   Like our own red white and blue
+
+She was saying, “I know a languishing one, Dan. ‘Lord Lovel.’ You know
+it?”
+
+“I can play the tune if you’ll sing.”
+
+“All right.” He found the keys easily.
+
+They like me here. She dwelled on it. It’s not like home where Pa jeered
+when I sang Penny’s songs and Ma never heard me.
+
+   Lady Nancy she died as it might be today
+   Lord Lovel he died tomorrow
+   Lady Nancy she died out of pure pure grief
+   Lord Lovel he died out of sorrow
+
+It was the first week in March, on a warm windy day, when the bees
+swarmed. Pop had on an old hat decked with a bee veil, he was wearing
+long gloves and had tied strings around the bottoms of his overalls. He
+carried a smoker to still the swarm that hung like a living sack on an
+oak branch. Ellen saw him from the window. He stooped and moved until
+finally the bees were in the new hive, their angry droning muffled,
+subsiding. The old man came in, taking off the veil. “Hee. Only got one
+sting.”
+
+“My sister Frankie and me used to beat pie pans and make a racket when
+our bees wanted to swarm.”
+
+“How come?”
+
+“That’s so the workers can’t hear the queen calling.”
+
+“Did it keep them in the home hive?”
+
+“Two-three times it did. But the queen’s call is strong.”
+
+“Don’t tell the boys. They’d call it a superstition. They go by the book
+too much for me.” His teeth flashed through his beard.
+
+Before going up to bed, Ellen went out into the night. There was a light
+fog. She was curious about the bees, went to listen to the new hive.
+From it came a faint contented purr. She laid her hand on the wood. It’s
+like they’re one creature, like the whole drove’s got but one mind. Her
+hand was feeling the movement within, the insects changing position
+endlessly. While she was standing enclosed in the darkness, she heard
+Dan humming as he came back from the barnyard. His boots rasped on the
+pathway. She was waiting for him to pass but he sensed a presence, and
+stopped. “Who is it?”
+
+“It’s me. Ellen.” She could see the coal of his cigarette. The air was
+balmy, brought up during the day from the south.
+
+“The wind’s laid,” he said. Overhead a twisted sliver of moon was
+freeing itself from dodging clouds. The starlight was dim, pulling at
+the mist gently. “What are you doing?”
+
+“Feeling the bees move. The hive’s like an animal.”
+
+“That’s so. It is.” She heard his body settling against a tree trunk.
+
+“Like it’s bedded down for the night.”
+
+The silence dwelled while she waited on him. “What happened to your
+husband, Ellen?”
+
+“He died.”
+
+“How?”
+
+She was seeking his face, but there was blackness. “He was killed.”
+
+“I see. How?”
+
+After a while she said, “It was in the haying time. He was down on the
+wagon bed.” The words were dragged up from some other part of her. She
+watched that part of her talk on, fumbling, “He had a watch-eye man
+hired to him. That man pitched the fork down and it stuck him between
+the shoulders.” The fog was rising, the moon slid away in clouds. Her
+tongue stumbled along of itself. “When they reached him, they say he was
+dead already.”
+
+“I’m sorry.”
+
+Something welled in her then, born of loneliness. It caught high in her
+throat. “No. I ne’er had a husband.” She wept. But she was eased. She
+was speaking of Christian Ay and how she couldn’t recall if he was tall
+or if his hair was brown. It had happened to her when she went to see a
+horse belonging to the farmer he worked for. Her letters had come back
+unopened. Ellen’s tears stopped then, and her voice. She began to hate
+the man hidden behind the black curtain. A shame was rising in her so
+she felt her face heat.
+
+His voice was flat. “Windy days like this one’s been can bring on a
+cyclone.” He hummed slowly.
+
+   Some call her Lady Nancy Belle
+   Some call her the Lady Nancy, Nancy
+   Some call her the Lady Nancy
+
+A twig broke under his foot, he ceased in the middle of the tune. “A
+cyclone’s a sight to see, Ellen. You should watch my kid brother run
+when one comes. You ever have them in Kentucky?” He paused for an
+answer, and resumed, “Star’s home was right in the path of one last
+year. Her father lost a bull valued at five thousand. He’s a big Jersey
+breeder.”
+
+“I didn’t know.”
+
+“Al Webster’s his name.”
+
+“Webster?” Ellen remembered. “Webster’s Stock Farm?”
+
+“That’s it. You’ve heard of it?”
+
+“You know a Luke Dougherty?”
+
+“Sure. Tall fellow, black-haired. Runs one of the barns.”
+
+“Luke’s wife’s a close friend of mine. They live near Weems Crossroads.”
+All the time the echo of her voice rang in her ears: I ne’er had a
+husband. I ne’er had a husband.
+
+“I’ll drive you over sometime to see her, if you want. It’s only twenty
+miles or so. Come along when I go see my girl some Sunday. I’ll drop you
+off.”
+
+“I hear your girl’s a beauty.” He’ll tell everyone.
+
+“Hell, Star’s got more than beauty. She’s exciting.” His voice was
+heavy.
+
+Ellen thought how it was full of love. When he goes about the farm here,
+Star bides in him. She softens his movements like the way Penny and Luke
+love each other. And when he plants the wheat, his mind’s but a part on
+his work. And when Sudduth and he laid the cement in the cellar, he was
+thinking all the while, each day’s bringing me closer to when Star’s my
+bride. Why did I tell him I wasn’t married?
+
+The yellow flash from a match spurted, making shadows streak over his
+bent face. The smoke filtered through the warm fog. “It’s just the past
+year Star’s mother hasn’t had to sit by her bed when she goes to sleep.”
+He was tender, boastful. “She’s afraid of the dark.”
+
+There came to Ellen’s mind the little donkey Luke had led up the lane.
+They had gathered around it as a wonderful thing and set baby Clate on
+its back. Star Webster’s father had given it to Luke when his daughter
+tired of it.
+
+The red ash glowed. Dan’s harsh voice was there. “Even that’s exciting
+about her.” His voice drifted in the south air, “I’m glad you kept your
+son with you, Ellen. Instead of giving him away like lots of women would
+have done. Shows you’ve got strength.”
+
+“It’s a secret.” It sounded thin and anxious as she said it.
+
+“I won’t let it out.” Then his voice lowered, “Simon’s a good boy. You
+taught him manners, too.”
+
+“Well. Good night.”
+
+“Good night, Ellen.”
+
+She went into the house and to her bedroom. I’m a jawing fool. In the
+morning when Dan came into the kitchen she managed to avoid speaking to
+him. But he shouted down the length of the table, “Can I have the
+butter, Ellen? Let’s see that grape jelly, Ellen.”
+
+She averted her eyes, passing the plates. I don’t like him one bit.
+
+
+                                   23
+
+The storm was already forming. The radio reported a twister passing
+briefly through a small town in Kansas. Throughout the troposphere of
+the Midwest certain conditions prevailed as the ancient pattern of the
+spawning of the tornadoes got under way. In corners of the Southwest,
+winds were gathering and moving across the continent; they drove warm
+wet air before them in a mass hovering close to the earth. In the
+fluctuations of these winds, gigantic columns of air would rise rapidly,
+a mile or so in diameter. At the spreading foot of these tall clouds,
+rain would gather and often local storms occurred under them. To
+complete the scheme, eight kilometers above ground the cold jet stream
+was rushing constantly in from the West at tremendous speed. This was
+the pattern. And when the summit of a rising cloud was hit by the jet
+stream, it began to twist counterclockwise. The movement was transferred
+in a spiral down the length of the column into the ugly widespread base.
+A whirling funnel of great power would lick downward. This was a
+tornado.
+
+It sucked dust and stones, any object not fastened down. Its duration
+was from a few minutes to sixty or more. And no one could predict where
+it would strike. People who lived in these areas had a way of watching
+the sky during certain months. If there was a sudden drop in temperature
+or the sky darkened, if the wind rose, they fastened barn doors and
+herded their families into rooms where shades were pulled, or into
+cellars. It happened so fast that sometimes there wasn’t enough time and
+they were caught in the open. And if a noise was heard suddenly like a
+monstrous machine at high speed, they might pray as they crouched,
+waiting.
+
+A few miles from Hidden Creek, Illinois, a gray-white cloud pillar was
+rising now, churning. Rain clouds at its base were low-spread and
+frowning. Over the land it became so dark that twilight descended though
+it was mid-afternoon. Ellen Gaddy was gathering eggs. “It’s making up a
+storm, biddy,” she said to the hens, “I heard the raincrow just this
+morning.”
+
+Adele was shopping in Hidden Creek. Sudduth was distracted because she
+had taken the girls with her in the Dodge. Hannah had a stye and they
+planned to stop at the doctor’s. “I said, Adele, it’s fixing to storm.
+You ought to stay home,” Sudduth was explaining. “She should do what I
+say. I’m supposed to be wearing the pants.”
+
+“Adele’s smart,” Pop soothed. “She’s all right.”
+
+Pop and Mom and the boys were going down the cellar stairs, Sudduth
+pushing them before him. Ellen followed. Dennie was carrying the feist
+dog and Simon three cats. “Get a move on, Simon,” Sudduth was muttering,
+“Hurry.” Then on the last step he tripped, sprawling on the cement. “God
+damn it.” His voice was shrill, near tears.
+
+“We’d pull the shades and stay in the house because of lightning.” Ellen
+went over to Mom. “But we ne’er would go down to the cellar.”
+
+“Land, we always do.”
+
+Pop and Dennie sat with Simon on a crate in a corner. Sudduth was
+rubbing his back. He leaned on the wall and whined, “Don’t you be sick
+now, Dennie, or I’ll swat your bottoms.” He ran his hand nervously
+across his face.
+
+The boy laid his small head in the fur of the dog. He was pale. Pop
+turned to him, “Say, Dennie. Let’s you and me buy a sofa. Might as well
+set the storms out comfortable.”
+
+Then Ellen remembered. “Where’s Dan?”
+
+“He was working,” Sudduth said, “on the dump rake last I saw. I hollered
+to him to come.” He was rubbing his palm across his face again. “I don’t
+know.”
+
+“I’ll go see.” Ellen ran up the stairs.
+
+“Ellen,” Mom called.
+
+“I’ll be all right.” The sky was massed with rolling cloud of blue and
+green and purple. In the north, lightning erupted in a yellow flare and
+the blacked clouds hanging before were outlined. A jagged orange bolt
+cracked through them. She was exhilarated. It’s a sight. And those folks
+are all hiding from it. She heard a rushing noise. The wind was coming.
+It tore at her hair, loosing it from its bonds. Within her, joy leaped
+again, like youth and first experience. And underneath she quailed. She
+was rounding the corner of the barn, running toward the shed.
+
+She heard his shout and Dan was in the wide barn doorway, scowling,
+booted feet spread. His black hair was wild, the wind had whipped his
+shirt out, the birthmark burned like a new wound. He cried again, “You
+damn fool.” She was stopping, poised.
+
+He strode out and pulled her arm, hurrying her to the barn. She
+protested, “I was afraid for you.”
+
+“For me? You fool.” He was roaring above the wind. “Dammit. Look there.”
+He pointed at an inky cloud where a tongue licked downward and
+retreated. “That’s a twister.” Like a long thick snake it shot down to
+the earth and a whining roar commenced.
+
+Dan’s hand was gripping hers. They were dashing to the stalls in the
+middle of the barn. She was suddenly afraid. “Now they’d talk of
+cyclones, but I ne’er saw one before, Dan.”
+
+Swiftly, in the dull light, in the musty smell of the unused stable, he
+had his arms about her. His yellow-green eyes glittered, laughing, “Lady
+Nancy Belle.”
+
+It came upon Ellen the way Craig Hedrick was grabbing with a band of
+steel while she struggled. That had haunted her dreams so she would
+awake in a sweat sometimes. And there was Uncle Garland’s hand seeking
+incestuous under her coat that lonely winter, so she had to drive the
+memory from her, suppress it, divorce it from her uncle whom she loved
+for his goodness. These things flooded up when she saw Dan’s weathered
+face, his shut eyes and hawknose, the red scar bending. She fought,
+violent, her hands hard against his blue shirt. “Bullying bastard.” The
+words were framed out of fright, without volition.
+
+He shoved her against the stall’s side planking, furious because her
+struggle disconcerted him. “You little bitch, what do you mean? You’ve
+been licking after me ever since you came.”
+
+“That’s not so.”
+
+“Dammit, Ellen. You aren’t going to get raped again. You’re not that
+lucky.” His yell was coming under the hurricane wind. He was gripping
+her arms, forcing his hard mouth against hers.
+
+By the stiffness of her lips and body, she resisted. But suddenly it all
+was falling away and a gentle hotness came up within her. She was
+parting her mouth and his tongue was seeking its softness. She moved her
+arms, laid them about his neck, holding him, feeling the coarse hair at
+her fingers. Wish I was Star. And there was the distant storm racket.
+
+He let her go, laughed regretful, “What were those names I called you?
+Dammit, Ellen, you are pretty. I never noticed that.” She felt it too,
+though her dark-blue dress was long and her low-cut shoes soiled because
+she wore them at her work about the Leghorns. “I never saw you before.
+Look at your hair. The wind’s blown it out.”
+
+Hail clattered on the galvanized tin roof. Thunder rolled. She leaned
+upon the worn wood of the manger, where bites of cribbing horses had
+made notches during long winters. She was putting her hand to her yellow
+hair, tucking it up while he watched. The thing that had happened, she
+felt it. How she would never be rigid and tied again, how she was free.
+Courage had replaced her hidden fears. Then it was that she came up to
+kiss Dan. And she put her head against his opened shirt, his tall
+strength, she felt the even thrusts of his heart. His hard arms were
+holding her and he stroked her hair. “The rain’s come,” she said, “it’s
+all o’er.”
+
+“Did you see that twister come out of that cloud?” He was releasing her.
+
+“First one I e’er saw, Dan.”
+
+“We’re safe for another year, now. They never come twice.”
+
+“Why’s that?”
+
+“The law of averages.” He was going down the aisle then to the doorway.
+“The rain’s letting off.”
+
+She was following, seeing the cuff was untucked from one of his heavy
+boots, the smoke of his cigarette drifting blue. “What are you looking
+at, Dan?”
+
+“Nothing. Smells good. I like a storm, even a mean one.” He looked down
+at her, absent.
+
+“I always did too.” The wind rode on bright clouds. She felt he was many
+miles away. Wonder if he’s thinking on Star. Well, I don’t care.
+
+They went into the light drizzle, met the family streaming from the
+house. “You scared me, Ellen,” Mom shouted. “You two all right?”
+
+“Was there a storm?” Dan cried. Ellen laughed. Dennie and Simon skipped,
+whooping.
+
+“I heard it,” Sudduth frowned. “Bet it went through Hidden Creek. Adele
+could be killed.”
+
+“Oh, Sudduth,” Mom said.
+
+“And the girls.” Sudduth added.
+
+“Now,” said Pop.
+
+“And she’s with child.”
+
+“What’s that?” Pop said.
+
+“No, she’s not,” Mom was soothing.
+
+“She’d have told us, Sudduth. She was just taking Hannah for that stye.”
+
+“She didn’t want it. She tried to kill it with vinegar.” Sudduth leaned
+his skinny body forward eager, his thinning hair damp, his black eyes
+full of tears. “She was going to try arsenic.”
+
+“But a baby.” Mom twisted her hands. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
+
+“Well, we have our own affairs, you know.”
+
+“I’m going to have a look around.” Dan was striding off.
+
+The two boys came running. “The lines are down. And one of the chicken
+sheds is a sight.”
+
+“Let’s go see,” Sudduth led the way. His parents came behind,
+whispering.
+
+The people moved about Ellen, words were spoken, but it was as if it
+flowed separate from her, reached her through a blurred wall. Everything
+was new, everything changed. She went to the field where the Leghorns
+were kept. She righted an overturned coop, discovering a dead hen under
+it. The rest were huddled safely beneath a shed. She got a dipper of
+cracked grain. The white flock was coming up one by one, clucking,
+bobbing brilliant red combs and wattles, discarding their fright as they
+pecked the seed in the clean afternoon sunlight.
+
+   I came down the mountainside
+   Give my horn a blow
+   Everywhere them pretty girls
+   Says yonder goes my beau
+
+   I went down in the valley green
+   To win to me my love
+   When I was done with that pretty little girl
+   She turned to a turtledove
+
+The tongue that Ellen and Dan saw had spun over a path fifty yards wide,
+catching a neighbor’s cow shed from an angle, sucking rafters aloft,
+strangling a cow while her bull calf brayed feebly below. It had prowled
+across the level land, come upon turkeys in a corn field, the gobbler
+shrieking insanely, flapping, trailed by his harem of hens. They were
+sucked into the wind like dust. Green oat shoots were rooted out so that
+when the field ripened later there was a clean swath across its bottom
+third. Varied incidents had occurred; a nest of newborn rabbits was
+flipped up, numbers of birds that clung to fence corners were torn loose
+and pounded into obstructions, the mortality among the insect life was
+untold. It had circled Hidden Creek. Adele was at the doctor’s office,
+calling to say she would be home as soon as her shopping was finished.
+
+“That’s fine,” Sudduth said in a low voice to Mom and Pop in the
+doorway. “That God-damn stair. I wrenched my back good.” Through coming
+years he would try out different chiropractors. For weeks at a time the
+pain would recede, then each movement would drive a dull fire as he
+dragged his way about the farm. The family would laugh at his
+self-concern, taking it as Sudduth’s way. He talked about “that first
+twister of thirty-six,” like men talk of a battle. When he spoke to his
+children’s children, putting a hand on the small of his back, it would
+seem to them that Sudduth had by himself stemmed a tornado in its path.
+
+Mom stood apart now from her younger son, whispered irritably to Pop,
+“That boy’s still a baby. You know, I’ll be glad when they all clear out
+to the new house. I plumb admire Adele for the way she puts up with
+him.”
+
+The next evening a chill wind was blowing. Ellen went to her room for a
+sweater. The furnace was not stoked in these spring days and there were
+no fireplaces. As she was coming out, putting it on, she saw Dan leaping
+softly up the stairs, two at a time. He laughed, catching her arm,
+pushing her back into her room. There he was kissing her. She breathed
+to him, “You know what I read in the Bible? Dan’s a lion’s whelp.”
+
+“Ellen. Your lips are soft.” He put his finger on them. A hot flood was
+taking her breath. He was loosing her, chucking her chin. “And I’ve got
+a date. Dammit, Star gets her dander up if I’m late. I’m out of gas,
+too. I’ll have to stop on the way.”
+
+Ellen went down the steps to the kitchen where the dishes waited.
+Jealousy was rankling, but her gray eyes were mellow. I’d not get my
+dander up, was he late. Through days to follow, Dan would come on her,
+take her aside to kiss her. If she went out in the night, sometimes he
+followed. And if she knew he was in the tool shed, she went to see if
+the chicken house door beyond was locked. If he met her in the hallway,
+alone, he led her back to her room. They heard footsteps passing in the
+hall as his mouth lay on hers. He bided his time, careful, waiting on
+her shyness. “Come here, honey.”
+
+So the days of March went by, and April started. Spring, and Dan’s in
+the same world with me. Ellen and Adele were laying out the kitchen
+garden. Ellen’s hands in the earth were like a mother’s. She had never
+seen such black rich soil. She held a clod, kneeling in her soiled damp
+skirt. She was crumbling it. “Look here, Adele. Ne’er a stone or pebble.
+Where I used to live they’ve got stone fences every way you turn.
+Sometimes a rock grows so big in a field they plow in a ring about it.
+Sam Offut claimed those rocks were nailed to the center of the world
+where the fire is. To hold the earth together.”
+
+“Land.”
+
+“Sam was full of tales. This is a fine garden.”
+
+“I call it a dirty job, though. I’d rather work at the house, Ellen. I
+like my hands clean. Dirt makes them dry and the nails break easy.”
+
+“I don’t mind.” Ellen was putting her hands down in the soft loam she
+had spaded.
+
+Adele brooded. “I’m going to have another baby.”
+
+“I’m glad for you.”
+
+“That Sudduth. He won’t let me alone.”
+
+“I always liked the Scarlet Globe radish. It’s the first one up.”
+
+“When I just got home from the hospital with Grace, there he was,
+hanging his pants on the bedpost. First thing.”
+
+“Wonder if it’s too early for sweet corn? We could put in a few rows.”
+
+“Hannah came when Grace was only ten months old.”
+
+“You’re supposed to put it in by sundown on the tenth of May.”
+
+“That man.”
+
+The breeze sprang up like a promise, stirring the hair of the women.
+Ellen knelt in the earth, her friend stood tall and hurt, the seed
+unfolding within her. The circle of sky was porcelain blue. A lone hawk
+held his wings still and floated away.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Sunday Ellen spoke up at the breakfast table, “Would there be room in
+the car for me and Simon to go along? I’d like to see how the
+Presbyterians do.”
+
+“You can have my place,” Pop said, “I’m mulching roses today.”
+
+“Oh, Ma,” Simon complained.
+
+“You’ll save Ellen yet from us heathen,” Dan said.
+
+“I saw the sermon in the paper.” Pop was pounding his knife. “He’s
+taking the text, what is man?”
+
+“I know that one,” Ellen said. “Thou madest him a little lower than the
+angels.”
+
+“Ma sure knows her Bible,” said Simon to Dennie. “She’s e’er preaching
+it at me.”
+
+“Simon, that’s not so.”
+
+“I’ll learn you the song, Ellen,” Dennie was crying, “I want to live in
+a royal way, as a child of a king should live.”
+
+“Tell you, Dennie, she can convert me,” Dan grinned, his eyes yellow in
+the early sun flooding across the table.
+
+“And I will too.” Ellen got up to fill the milk pitcher. Her hand
+brushed over the top of his black head. She saw Mom start. She filled
+the pitcher. Now why did I do that?
+
+Adele loaned Ellen a hat and Simon put on a fresh shirt. They were
+piling into the old car. Mom’s ample form filled the seat by Adele and
+the others sat in back. The sermon was dull. The minister was a wan
+tired man. “Yes, what is man?” he queried, “that Thou art mindful of
+him? Yes.” He said it as if he believed the question presumptuous. Ellen
+thought the service uneventful compared to a Catholic mass. She rose at
+each hymn time, stretching her shoulders.
+
+   Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
+   The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide
+   When other helpers fail and comforts flee
+   Help of the helpless, Lord, abide with me
+
+Simon shuffled his feet. Mom and Adele separated the little girls, who
+giggled, black eyes squinting up. Ellen looked around. I reckon it’s
+that people like to gather together. It’s their nature, the way sheep go
+in a band. Lambs of God. And I’m a solitary. They were driving home. Her
+curiosity was sated and she stayed at the farm thereafter.
+
+It was the middle of April when Dan remembered his promise. He had come
+in for dinner, his hands smudged with cup-grease, his pants streaked.
+“Damn tractor again,” he was growling happily. “Ought to sue Ford for
+misrepresenting that pile of tin.”
+
+“Pass down the biscuits,” Sudduth cried. “Dan, let’s raise the studs
+this afternoon.”
+
+“Don’t you make a mistake now, boys,” Mom said gravely, “and get the
+back door to the front. Land.”
+
+“Say, Ellen,” Dan was calling, “I’m going up near Weems Crossroads
+tomorrow. Want to go see Luke Dougherty’s wife?”
+
+Ellen flushed. “There. I do.”
+
+“Are you going to Webster’s?” Mom asked him. “And visit Star?”
+
+“No. A fellow up there’s got sheep. I thought we might start a few
+lambs.”
+
+“Better stop in to see Star,” Mom said. “Since you’re going to be up
+that way.”
+
+“Sheep.” Pop was sipping his coffee through his beard. “Thought this was
+a dairy farm.”
+
+“I might, Mom,” Dan said.
+
+“It’th dripping, Pop.” Grace pointed to the coffee in his white beard.
+Hannah snickered.
+
+“Girls,” cried Adele. “Manners at table. I’ll get a switch.”
+
+“Dan, you stop in at Webster’s.” Mom’s voice was persistent. “A pretty
+girl needs attention.”
+
+“We’ll leave as soon as the morning work’s done, Ellen,” Dan said.
+“Let’s go now, Sudduth. Get those studs up.”
+
+“Dan,” Mom warned, as the door snapped shut.
+
+“Sheep will ruin pasture faster than anything,” Pop said. “Pull the
+grass out by the roots.” He was wiping his beard where it was wet and
+yellowed. “Why don’t you two girls quiet down?”
+
+“I wish he was little again so I could spank him, Pop. He’s so
+stubborn.”
+
+Before Ellen and Dan drove off in the morning, he threw ropes into the
+bed of the truck on the litter of dry manure and straw. The sleeves of
+his white shirt were rolled, it was unbuttoned at the neck. His face was
+constrained, the cheek lines tight. As they made a turn onto the main
+highway, the wheels shrilled. Ellen caught at the door handle. He
+grunted, “My mother. Women. What a nagger.”
+
+“Oh Dan.”
+
+“Go see Star. What’ll Mr. Webster think? Forever butting in.” He was
+tapping the wheel with his thumbs, the line of his lips wrathful.
+
+“Mom doesn’t mean anything.” All the day with him.
+
+“Let her run my kid brother. Not me. She won’t stop. I’ll be an old man
+and she’ll be doing it.”
+
+“Don’t be that way,” Ellen coaxed, hopeful.
+
+“Shut up.”
+
+Ellen’s anger lifted and she pushed it down. The drowsy odor of flowers
+was flooding through the open window, and of verdant wheat spears and
+growing fields. The breeze stirred dust on the floor. She was leaning
+back against the cool leather, watching trees flash by. With her shoe
+she felt the tin cake pan holding a three-layer cake for Penny’s
+children. A bird warbled and dipped before the truck, a darting of gray.
+“That’s a catbird. Dennie told me. We don’t have them in Kentucky. It
+mocks the other birds and it mews like a cat.” She sighed.
+
+He made no reply. The brooding silence grew as they covered the roadways
+swiftly. He raised his hand once and she glanced over. He was running
+his strong fingers over his hair that rose coarse. His lean legs were
+taut, his hips high on the seat, poised. His thin nostrils were spread.
+He’s honing for a fight, like a feisty bull. And he’s driving too fast.
+
+“It’s along this road a ways,” she was saying, then she pointed. “There
+it is. That’s the Doughertys.” The house was set back near the crab
+apple tree at the head of the winding lane; a wing newly built at the
+back had changed its contour. “You want to meet Penny, Dan?”
+
+“I’m out to buy sheep, remember?” He was lifting his eyebrows, the beak
+of his nose haughty. “I’ll be back to pick you up about three. I’ve got
+to get home for chores.”
+
+“I’ll be waiting here. In the roadway. So you won’t have to bother to
+drive to the house.” She slammed the door, went down the lane swiftly,
+her cake pan on one arm. The truck ground its gears and whirled down the
+road. Ellen’s cheeks were red, she breathed deeply. She saw Penny coming
+into the open doorway of the house, a baby on her arm, shielding her
+eyes from the sun glare. The woman appeared frail, her face that had
+been soft was sharper-featured, the skin dry. She came to meet Ellen.
+
+“Luke and me were talking about you last night. How’s that Simon?”
+
+“He’s big, Penny.” She was looking at the child in the blanket. “What do
+you call this least one?”
+
+“Jess. He’s a bit peaked.”
+
+Ellen took the bundle. The child was like a tiny aged man. It slept,
+scarcely breathing. “Say.”
+
+“I was right ill while carrying him. Have you come to spend the day,
+Ellie? You know how I always was one for company. Ernie,” she was
+calling, “stay out of the kitchen, now. Blossom, you watch him.”
+
+“I brought a cake for the youngens.”
+
+“There, Ellie.”
+
+“How’s your goats? How’s old Tiny?”
+
+“Tiny died. Must have been three years ago. But there’s a daughter out
+of her, Little Tiny. We got fifteen head now.”
+
+“Where’s the donkey?”
+
+“We let him go when times got bad. The boys’ll show you around after a
+spell.”
+
+“Where are Clate and Anse?”
+
+“In the orchard. Blossom’s minding Ernie for me. He’s ailing today.
+She’s good with him.” Blossom was in the doorway, brushing her unkempt
+hair from her face, her eyes soft like a rabbit’s. She was eight, sober
+with responsibility.
+
+“Blossom,” Ellen was calling, “I brought you a daisy cake.” The child
+smiled politely and retreated.
+
+“She’s not used to folks,” Penny said.
+
+“Where’s Melinda, Penny?”
+
+“She’s been gone four years. She came down with the scarlet fever.”
+
+“I’m sorry to hear that.”
+
+“Four years to the month. We put a marker on her grave. Says, Under the
+Shadow of His Wings. Luke got it from the mail-order house.”
+
+“I heard Luke’s in charge of one of Webster’s barns now.”
+
+“Yes, he is. And Anse was right sick with that fever too.”
+
+“I’m working for some folks now, Penny.”
+
+“I was going to ask you how you got to come.” Penny was putting her arms
+out suddenly, “You want to give me Jess? I’ll see if he’s hungry.” She
+gave her breast to the baby and Ellen saw that despite her many
+children, Penny was still rounded with milk. Her neck was thin, the
+bones prominent.
+
+A pale boy of two came out the door, clad in a short checked pinafore,
+his bare feet dirty. He pulled at Penny’s dress, whining. “Don’t now,
+Ernie,” Penny said, mild.
+
+“You ought to let your ma be,” said Ellen. The child waved his hand,
+petulant, at her.
+
+“Leave him alone,” Penny spoke sharply. She laid her hand on the boy’s
+cheek. “I lost a baby that came before Ernie.” The child had put his
+head in her lap. Ellen watched them. She’s like an old cow that has one
+calf after the last. And if you try to mind it for her, she’ll drive you
+off with her horns.
+
+At noon, the boys came dashing in. Clate was sunburned, a brawny boy of
+eleven. Anse, shy and tall, shook Ellen’s hand, blushing. “The table’s
+too small or we’d set it proper.” He went to lean on the wall where he
+watched the other children eat, so that Ellen would see the way he
+scorned the lot of them. When they finished, Ellen cut the cake. The
+layers were yellow, and butter-coloring had been stirred into the
+frosting to make it yellow, too. They sat about in the grass and felt
+the breeze move.
+
+“Wish you’d come more often, Ellie. I haven’t done a lick today,” Penny
+said.
+
+Clate was clapping his hands. He tapped his foot, throwing back his
+curly brown hair. The children were joining in as if it was a thing they
+did often, gathering close to their mother.
+
+   Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man
+   Whipped his wife with a frying pan
+   Combed his head with the wagon wheels
+   Died with a toothache in his heel
+
+Penny asked about Ellen’s goats. “How are they faring with you out
+working?”
+
+“Pa butchered them.” She let Penny think it was done with her consent.
+“I miss them.”
+
+“Now we got a kid at the barn, Ellie, for Simon. It’s Little Tiny’s. You
+tell Simon it belongs to him because he used to milk Old Tiny for me.”
+
+“Simon’ll be proud, Penny.”
+
+It was shortly after two when Ellen heard the truck’s noisy motor. Her
+breath caught. There he was. He drove up the lane and parked. He called,
+genial, as he came up, “Hello, Mrs. Dougherty. I know your husband. I’ve
+talked to him over at Webster’s.”
+
+Penny held her hand out in welcome. “Howdy.”
+
+“Come see my sheep.” High bleats were audible from the truck bed.
+Blossom brought Ernie out, lifting him to see the beasts with sawdust
+caught in the gray wool. “I bought a ram and three ewes. They’ll be
+breeding this fall.”
+
+“Dog. Dog,” babbled the child.
+
+“Now you two come again,” Penny was saying as Ellen and Dan got into the
+truck.
+
+“There’ll be no holding Simon when he hears about that kid. Goodbye,
+Blossom.” She waved to the little boy, “Bye now, Ernie.”
+
+“Dog.”
+
+Penny laughed, “He’s a case.”
+
+The cake tin was rattling on the floor. Ellen smoothed her rumpled
+skirt. “That Penny. I ne’er knew a body like her.”
+
+“Got her hands full with that gang.”
+
+“She lost two. One was a little girl I saw a few years back. A pretty
+one.”
+
+“That’s no way to live. But you ask that kind of a woman. They’ll pick
+it again if you give them a choice.”
+
+“That’s how some women are.”
+
+“I suppose. You ought to know.” He was laughing at her. “Me, I like
+things under control.”
+
+“You sure are acting braggy today.”
+
+He flushed, reaching for her shoulder and pulling her beside him.
+“Hello.”
+
+“Did you see Star?”
+
+“No, I didn’t.” His hard fingers were within her dress on the tender
+underarm.
+
+“Dan?” The April air was suggesting lilacs unsealing, tight dark purple
+buds becoming a feathery lavender, the vague pressing fragrance was
+turning Ellen back into the past. She was riding home in the Ford pickup
+from the circus, she was sixteen. She stirred now.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+There had been a pair of baby shoes dangling from the dashboard. It was
+hot in a late afternoon. The birds were still. Christian Ay was saying,
+“Want me to stop along the way?” It was long past, it was a dream. But
+the world had been new and fresh. Like today.
+
+Then it was Dan again. He was turning off the highway onto a lane
+bordered by a grove of horse chestnuts. “Now then.” He was braking the
+truck on the grass sward beside the trees. He opened the door on his
+side. “Come on,” he was shouting.
+
+They ran into the shade, under the low branches, where the grass was
+sun-speckled. Ellen was crying, “Smell the air.”
+
+He was drawing her down beside him. She saw blue innocence flowers in
+the moist grass amid wood sorrel. He was touching his hand on her face,
+her hair. His eyes were greenish in the shaded light. His flat thin
+mouth was demanding. His fingers were large and rough and at once
+tender. She felt them quiver. “Ellen?”
+
+“I’m afraid.”
+
+“Don’t be.” And he was unskillful for Ellen had lived lonely all of her
+days.
+
+Her head was on his arm, tears flowing from somewhere.
+
+“I really didn’t know, Ellen.” They stayed there a long time. She had
+fallen asleep. The shadows in the chestnut branches spreading made a
+network. The blue was far beyond. The small flowers were bowing to the
+breeze, a catbird started to warble, harsh, very clear, twitching its
+tail. After a while another bird called back from afar. Dan was waking
+her. “It’s nearly four. My arm’s asleep. I was afraid I’d disturb you.”
+
+“I wasn’t sleeping.”
+
+The lambs bleated from the bed of the truck. “Yes, you were.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Are you pleased?”
+
+“We had better go.”
+
+“We will in a minute.”
+
+“You were ugly this morning.”
+
+“I’m trying to show you how sorry I am. What do you think that was all
+about?” He was grinning.
+
+She ran from him to the truck. He came after and swung open the door for
+her. He made up a cigarette while she waited; he tapped the Bull Durham
+pouch, pulled the drawstring with his teeth. Then they were driving
+homeward. She leaned into his arm until they nearly reached the
+Wasilewski house. She had picked a horse chestnut leaf, and showed him
+the print of a hoof where the leaf was torn from the twig that held it;
+even the horseshoe nails were there, five of them. She twirled the leaf
+in her fingers. She sighed, smiling at him, already regretting the
+incident in the grove. And him plighted to Star Webster.
+
+
+                                   24
+
+In the morning Adele was urging her daughters through breakfast so they
+would be ready for church on time. Simon cried, “Wish I had my kid here,
+Ma. I’m naming it April for it was born this month.”
+
+“I’ll stay at home today, Adele,” Mom said. “I want to ready up the
+fruit cellar. We’ll be canning before we know it. Applesauce and
+berries.”
+
+The little girls clamored, “Pleathe. Let us stay too, and play with
+Thimon.”
+
+“Well, I’m going,” Dennie said. “We’re hearing about that Goliath.”
+
+“Girls,” said Adele, “I’m surprised you don’t want to hear that story
+too.”
+
+“Wish April was here,” Simon was saying, “trailing after me.”
+
+“Star’s coming for supper tonight,” said Mom.
+
+“I forgot that.” Dan rubbed the blemish that colored the taut flesh of
+his cheek.
+
+“Be nice to see Star again,” said Adele. “When was she here last?”
+
+“Let’s see,” said Pop. “It was snowing, wasn’t it?”
+
+“Did you meet her, Ellen?” asked Adele.
+
+“No.” Ellen felt the hot flush creep over her face.
+
+“Then it must have been before the thaw, Pop,” Sudduth said. “Because
+right after that Ellen came.”
+
+“You’re wearing your hair a new way, Ellen,” Mom said. “It’s very nice.
+Soft like that around your face. You used to pin it so tight.”
+
+Ellen hastily brushed the loose strands back. “Reckon I did.” She could
+sense Mom’s piercing eyes.
+
+The men went out; Adele and the children drove to church. Ellen was
+working in the kitchen. She was preparing peach cobblers for dinner that
+night. Mason jars of peach halves glistened bright orange in the
+sun-shot window. While she was mixing the dough with her fingers, Mom
+came in, carrying a heavy book. “Have you ever seen a Polish Bible,
+Ellen?” Mom laid it on the table and turned to the record of family
+dates on the first page.
+
+Ellen knew the woman had brought it in for a purpose. “I’ve heard that
+some keep their Bibles like that, Mom. Though our family ne’er did with
+ours.” She put her hand swiftly to her hair leaving a drift of flour.
+
+Mom pointed to the list. “Pop’s mother brought it over from Poland. We
+can’t any of us read Polish, but it’s been in his family so we write
+everything in it.”
+
+There were different hands, some with foreign characters, hard to
+decipher. The latest entry read, “Hannah Wasilewski. July 6, 1932.”
+Higher on the list Ellen could see in faded green ink, “Daniel Matthew
+Wasilewski. May 10, 1895.”
+
+“See, there’s Sudduth’s wedding to Adele.” Mom was putting a broad
+finger on it. “That was clean before the depression. Now Star and Dan’ll
+be setting their date. It’ll say, Daniel Wasilewski took Star Webster in
+marriage. October first, maybe. This year.”
+
+“That’s a fine book there.” Ellen said it coolly. I was born in 1909.
+That makes him fourteen years older. He’s forty-one. She felt languid
+because of her love. She was smiling at Mom, gray eyes narrow, hiding
+the secret anger.
+
+“We know Dan’s making a good marriage, Ellen.” Mom’s cheeks were red.
+
+“That Mr. Webster’s a rich man.”
+
+“Look, Star suits Dan.” Mom spoke crisp. “My son loves her.”
+
+“Reckon two cobblers’ll be enough for tonight, Mom? With company
+coming?”
+
+“Better make three.” The older woman was going to put the Bible back on
+its shelf; her heavy body moved stolid, with decision. Ellen watched her
+go.
+
+When she and Dan had come back last night from Penny’s, Dan had changed
+his clothes and gone directly to the barn. After supper he hurried out
+again with Sudduth to set up a pen for the new sheep. The two men
+returned at dusk, stood in the kitchen awhile talking before they went
+to bed. Dan paid no heed to Ellen. The yellow cat purred and mewled now
+about her feet while she rolled the dough deftly, fitted it into the pie
+tins. She thought how she disliked Mom. The woman’s hostility was
+palpable. She was calling out as her steps were heard descending, “I’ll
+be in the fruit cellar, Ellen. When you finish, come and help. We’ve got
+to get this straightening done if it is Sunday.”
+
+“I will.” In a swift flood Ellen was homesick for the old kitchen in the
+yellow house. For Frankie and Maria nearby, the boiler steaming on the
+range, Jack waiting in the bushes by the porch. The goats in fresh straw
+in the woodshed. And her in the garden rows, singing “Down in the
+Valley.” Here the customs were foreign, even their manners and speech
+differed from what she had known. The old people had been born in a land
+across the water, brought their alien habits with them. They bathed in a
+separate room where a white tub stood on ornate legs. Everyone had his
+own towel, and when he bathed he would hang it on the line in the sun,
+even Hannah. Ellen would see Dan pinning his in the evenings, casually,
+pausing to light a cigarette before returning to the house. It would
+seem to her as if he performed a woman’s task, as if it were too clean.
+When she first came to this household and rolled pie crusts, Mom had
+showed her how the edges of the dough must be crimped by twisting the
+thumbs in a particular way. And when they went to kill a chicken, they
+laid a broomstick across its neck and yanked the legs sharply so the
+head was pulled off. She poured the fragrant peach halves into the pans.
+At first I couldn’t get over their merry ways. But there’s Adele who
+tried to keep from having her baby. Sudduth’s jealous of his brother.
+And Mom’s bent on managing them all. Dan will bring Star Webster here
+just like she says. They’ll write it in that Bible. Wish I could be away
+tonight. I don’t want to see that girl. Ellen was crimping the edges of
+the pies skillfully and sliding them into the oven. The yellow cat
+bounded after, and she caught it in her arms as she went down the cellar
+steps.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lilacs on the north side of the house, outside the dining room
+windows, were opening their buds in the afternoon. The perfume was
+drifting through the house. Ellen fried the chickens while Mom helped
+Adele dress the girls and straighten the rooms. Ellen was setting the
+table, spreading first the linen cloth, cream-colored with age. She took
+out crystal that stood in the sideboard and heavy-plated silver, placed
+it as Mom had directed, the knife and spoon on the right side with blade
+turned to the plate, the fork on the left. Simon came in. “Who’s Star
+Webster?”
+
+“She’s a friend of theirs, Simon.”
+
+“Dennie says she’s Dan’s sweetheart.”
+
+Ellen was laying small butter knives in front of the plates. “Well.”
+
+“That’s fancy there, Ma. The way you’re doing.” Simon was grown so his
+head came above Ellen’s shoulder. He was over ten now.
+
+She put goblets at the knife tips and turned to him. “You eat proper. No
+swooshing your food with a biscuit. Mind, now. And the fork goes in the
+right hand.”
+
+“I’ll most likely fall o’er backwards in my chair.”
+
+“Watch Dennie and do like he does. You’re twice his size and half as
+mannerly. And be quiet too.”
+
+“I don’t care for all this.”
+
+“Put on that new shirt I made.” She went to the kitchen. “Now go on. The
+queen’ll be here before we know it.”
+
+The clock read seven when they drove up. Ellen paused to look out the
+window. Dan had changed into his brown suit, wore a bright striped tie.
+He was taking Star’s hand as she stepped down from the truck cab. Star
+Webster was just nineteen. Her small form was sheathed in a white dress,
+she wore white shoes and gloves and a wide-brimmed white hat. Her hair
+fluffed out, her arms were untanned. Adele said Star put stockings on
+her arms when she went to pick berries to keep the sun from them, and a
+sunbonnet to protect her face and neck. She was laughing up at Dan. He
+had said she was exciting. She was afraid of the dark. He liked that.
+Maybe she leans on him, helpless. A man doesn’t like a woman strong.
+
+The potatoes steamed as they boiled over, and Ellen turned hastily to
+them. Mom and Adele came in, fastening on starched print aprons. Mom
+wore her new black rayon dress, a cameo gold brooch at the neckline.
+Adele’s dark green suit made her round face sallow. The little girls
+followed. “Thay, Ellen. Look at us.” They twirled pink and blue dresses
+before her.
+
+“You sure sew pretty, Adele,” Ellen said.
+
+“A little starch will do wonders with that cheap voile.” Adele was
+modest. “Now you girls go say hello to Star.” They ran, whispering and
+nudging.
+
+The women beat potatoes with a wood masher, lifted browned chicken onto
+the huge white platter, and broke ice cubes into a water pitcher. The
+family was coming in from the living room, Star holding to Dan’s arm.
+Sudduth was complaining, “Sunday’s a workday like every other around
+here, Star. When my house is built, I’m going to church with Adele and
+the girls. That’ll give me a day off.”
+
+Pop shuffled after them, pulling his beard. “Hee. That’s one way to do
+it.”
+
+“This is our girl, Ellen,” Mom said to the guest, “and that’s Simon.”
+
+“Hello there,” said Star. “Oh Mom, what a lovely table. You always set
+it so pretty.”
+
+“You sit over here, Dan,” Mom said.
+
+“I’ll sit where I usually do.” He was smiling stiffly.
+
+“Well, Star, you take the chair by him.”
+
+Dennie said grace. “God is great, God is good, bless us for our daily
+food.”
+
+Grace shouted, “Zaccheus he. Did climb a tree. Our Lord to thee.”
+
+“That’s enough,” threatened Sudduth.
+
+They were pressing extra morsels on the girl in white. “Have some
+watermelon pickles,” Mom said. “Land o’ Goshen, it was two years ago we
+put them up.”
+
+“I got thick on them,” Hannah lisped, “on my new thpring coat.”
+
+“Hannah,” Pop shouted.
+
+“You’re always saying speak up,” Dan reminded him, “so you ought to let
+her alone.”
+
+“That’s right.” Pop clattered his knife. “Speak up.”
+
+“And it won’t come out of the coat, neither,” Grace said shyly.
+
+“Girls,” Mom cried.
+
+“Jesus, my back hurts.” Sudduth fidgeted in his chair.
+
+Dan and Star were sitting near Mom at one end of the table. Star would
+turn her face sidewise, appealing, “Don’t you agree, Dannie?”
+
+Sudduth was saying, “I’m trying to buy a piece of our neighbor’s land,
+Star. Near where my house’ll be. If I get it, this farm’ll total a
+hundred and ten acres.”
+
+“That’s a lot,” Star’s fork was poised, “don’t you think, Dannie?”
+
+“It’s Sudduth’s twenty acres,” Dan said, without looking at her.
+
+“Oh.” Her mouth was round and pink. She set the fork down, the food
+untouched, put her napkin to her lips. “Did you fry the chicken, miss?”
+she asked Ellen. “It’s delicious. Isn’t it, Dannie?” The lilac scent was
+floating through the open window behind her.
+
+“Yes, I did.” Ellen was blushing, resentment like a knot in her chest.
+
+“Her name’s Ellen, Star,” Dan said, “you just met her.”
+
+“You think I’ll ever make chicken like this, Dannie?” The girl’s
+laughter was the bright tinkle of a bell. “Will you teach me, Ellen?”
+
+Mom said, “Oh, you’ll catch on easy enough.”
+
+“Why should she teach you?” Dan’s voice was deliberate, matter-of-fact.
+
+“Oh, I never cooked a chicken.”
+
+“Well, why her? Your mama can teach you.” He laughed, abrupt.
+
+“Dannie. Don’t fuss.” The white dress was cut in a square neckline. Her
+eyes bloomed innocent.
+
+“No, I want to know. Why?” His underlip was jutting out, his smile had
+set. The mark on his cheek was dark, and his palms were on the table
+where he leaned.
+
+“Dan. Star’s our company. Land.” Mom reproved him, fingering the brooch
+at her breast.
+
+“Now there,” Pop cried, and the children, sensing the tenseness of their
+elders, looked from one to another.
+
+“Well? Can’t you answer?”
+
+Star’s little mouth quivered. “I’ll ask Mama to.”
+
+“Dan, will you behave? He doesn’t mean it, Star.” Mom shook her head.
+“Ellen, run get the dessert. You want to help them clear, Star?”
+
+“Oh, I do.” The girl took up her plate and Dan’s.
+
+Adele shoved her chair back so it squeaked, and Ellen noted that she
+pinched Sudduth’s shoulder as she passed him. This is one of those times
+Adele’s glad she’s got Sudduth. Ellen was moving rapidly, clearing
+dishes and brushing the crumbs. She cut the pies and brought them in
+silver holders to set before Mom. She went into the kitchen, and while
+cobbler wedges were passed down on small china dishes, Ellen was filling
+the flowered white cups with coffee and carrying them around.
+
+“I love this pattern.” Mom appraised her cup. “It’s Wreaths of Roses.
+And the set’s complete like the day I got it. I’ve held on to it. Even
+through the bad years. And not a one’s been broken.”
+
+Ellen set Dan’s coffee by him. He looked up, his eyes flinty, his thin
+mouth cruel. He doesn’t even see me. He muttered, “Now serve proper from
+the right, Ellen. And take care with Mom’s china.”
+
+“We bought them in nineteen ten,” Mom went on, ignoring him, “I remember
+just as clear.”
+
+“Can we have more pie?” Dennie asked.
+
+“They’re awful pretty, you know?” Star admired her cup.
+
+“More, more,” the children were shouting. “Pleathe.”
+
+“You weren’t even born yet, Star,” Mom said.
+
+“All you can hold,” Pop decided. “Fill those kids up.”
+
+They were pushing back their chairs. Sudduth lit a cigar and Pop took
+one, too. Simon groaned, holding his stomach, “Oh, this is heaven.”
+
+“Simon, you mind what I said,” Ellen warned. She was piling the cups and
+saucers, carrying them out.
+
+“Why don’t you roll one, Uncle Dan?” Dennie inquired gravely.
+
+“No thanks,” Dan told him.
+
+“Go on into the living room, all of you,” Mom said. “We girls will be
+done in a jiffy. Go on, Star.”
+
+“It was just lovely, Mom.” Star hugged her about the waist. “And that
+peach pie was delicious.”
+
+“I don’t know what gets into him,” Mom whispered, “but don’t pay him any
+mind. He was just hungry.”
+
+“Dannie’s a grouch.” Star ran out lightly.
+
+When they had nearly finished in the kitchen, as Ellen was saying, “Do
+go along, Mom. Adele and me’ll redd up the rest,” they heard the truck
+roar, saw it spinning down the driveway in the light of dusk.
+
+“There,” Mom said. “I’m mortified. I thought we were going to sit and
+talk. Dan was going to play for us, and Star could sing.”
+
+“Well,” said Adele, “I was shocked. Treating a guest like that.” Mom
+stepped into the other room to replace the shining goblets, and Adele
+said softly, “That was a fine example to set for young children.”
+
+“He was really raising sand,” Ellen admitted.
+
+“Dan can’t bear it that she’s so useless, Ellen. You know Websters have
+a maid. Lord knows when she gets up of a morning.”
+
+“I know. You already told me.”
+
+“I’ll be glad,” Adele said brightly to Mom as she entered, “to have our
+house finished. And I’ll have this baby in October.”
+
+The family trooped out to stand looking at the blooming lilacs. The
+children scuffled with each other without purpose. After a while as dark
+drifted, they all went in. Mom pressed her hands on the piano keys,
+discordant. She prodded Dennie, “Can’t you play a piece, Dennie? You
+know some.”
+
+“I’m tired.” The boy’s eyes were heavy.
+
+“I could put a record on the victrola, Mom,” Adele suggested.
+
+“No.” Mom was walking to the windows, looking into the shadowed yard.
+
+“What’s everyone waiting for?” Simon inquired sleepily.
+
+Mom sighed. “Let’s go to bed.”
+
+Ellen followed the others upstairs, avoiding any intrusion on her
+thoughts. She undressed, turned off the light. Sounds died in the house,
+all was still. She was sitting on the wide window sill. The lilac odor
+wafted up, her feet were cold. She felt the constriction in her throat,
+wondered if she would cry soon. She imagined Star lying dead somewhere.
+Mutilated. What a small baby she is. But Star’s white beauty came back,
+the immaculate dress and gloves, the big hat she swung in her hand,
+dainty, laughing, tipping her head up at Dan. She’ll make him forget me.
+The night hours, weighted, were passing. The silence was marred
+occasionally by a creaking rafter or a settling floor beam. In a distant
+meadow the whistle of a whippoorwill was echoing. It was nearly three
+when he returned. The boards of the rack on the truck rattled and
+slammed. The gravel crunched. The kitchen door clattered. His tread
+sounded on the stairs, it stopped outside her doorway. She held her
+breath until the steps went on down the hall.
+
+She was awake before dawn, in the cellar sorting clothes into ragged
+heaps. The wash boiler steamed on the range. She dropped clothes into
+the chugging electric machine, and let them beat while she hung those
+she had run through the automatic wringer. She took up the basket, piled
+high with white sheets. A narrow stone stairway led outside through
+sloping double doors. They were open and pallid sun rays crawled into
+hidden dark corners. She was going up into the sunlight. The grass was
+wet, an early bluebird darted to a fence wire and clung there, “Purity!”
+It vanished into the high leaves of the oak. At breakfast her dress was
+darkened in front from suds and water that had splashed; grass stems
+were caught between her toes. Her hair was brushed and coiled high. She
+moved lissome about the kitchen, looking at Dan’s black head bent surly
+over his food.
+
+“Ellen’s going barefoot,” Grace was crying. “Can I?”
+
+“I only did it,” Ellen explained, “to save my shoes from the wet. You’d
+catch cold.”
+
+“Ellen’s right,” Adele agreed.
+
+“When I’m growed, I’ll do it,” Hannah said.
+
+“I’ll warm the tractor up, Sudduth.” Dan spoke brusque, grease streaked
+on his browned arms and neck. “We’ll grind cobs as soon as you’re
+ready.” He was rushing out. Ellen saw him from the window. He had
+stopped under the oak to light his cigarette, glancing at the clothes
+strung on the line. She wondered if he saw the freshness of the grass or
+heard the bird.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+A week had gone. Ellen was grubbing on her knees in the flower beds
+along the side of the house. During the days the strain between Dan and
+Mom had been clear to the others. Dan refused to play the piano, Mom sat
+mending, her mouth unhappy. Only Sudduth was more talkative in the
+evenings; he would engage Pop and Adele in long good-natured arguments.
+Ellen was digging into the dirt now, vigorous. Mom’s voice came shrill
+from one of the windows above. Ellen held her trowel motionless. “But
+she expects you to. Star loves you.” Dan’s voice muttered and Mom was
+shouting again, “Who do you want then? That hill-woman? What’s the
+matter with you, Dan?”
+
+“Shut up, Mom. Will you?”
+
+“You’ve got a chance here of a marriage that’s the best in the county.
+Land. You ought to get on your knees and thank God a family like
+Websters took up with poor Polacks like us.”
+
+“Dammit, you forget we’ve got some of the best black soil there is.
+That’s better than money in a bank. A family like Websters. You sound
+like some cockeyed book. Now look, I told Star we’re finished. She’s got
+it through her head. That’s the last I’m going to hear about it in this
+house. It’s none of your business.”
+
+“Oh, it’s not?”
+
+“No, dammit.”
+
+“It’s that hill-woman.”
+
+“Will you stop calling her that hill-woman like she’s a tramp and not
+decent?”
+
+The sawed-off hoe was poised in Ellen’s hand. A door slammed. Later when
+Mom came to see how her work was coming on, there was no sign of the
+quarrel in her voice. “You think it’s too shady here for asters, Ellen?”
+The skin was tight around Mom’s eyes and her lips curved downwards.
+
+“Marigolds might do better,” Ellen suggested. And when she met Dan, as
+she was coming from the hen house with a basket of eggs, she sought his
+eyes. He frowned, feeling her gaze. “Hell, I’ve got the milking.” He
+strode away. She was walking back to the house, thoughtful.
+
+The lilacs that night, on the wane after their peak, were spilling forth
+a dulcet fragrance. In a few days they would be gone, withered. Ellen
+was seated in the long window of her room, studying the sky. There was a
+quarter moon, it was near midnight. She was restless and sighed on the
+shadows. All at once a red point came and went in the dark under one of
+the oaks in the yard. She raised her head quickly, seeing it. Her mind
+explored it. The figure had been there all the time, outlined vaguely
+against the trunk. As she watched it, her blood began to beat dully into
+the lilac scent. Then she was slipping into a dress swiftly and closing
+her room door. She went down the stairs one at a time, and lingered. At
+the kitchen door she turned around, hesitant, trembling. But then she
+was going out, languorous, into the night.
+
+He still leaned unmoving, against the oak. His features were dissolved
+into the dark moonlight. She smelled the burning tobacco, saw the
+scarlet coal. “Hi, Ellen.”
+
+She whispered, “What is it, Dan?” Pausing, she had blended to the night,
+a part of the grass, pliant.
+
+He shifted sharply and threw aside the stub, moved away from the tree
+hole. She went unerring into his lean arms. In a little while he was
+putting his hands in her hair that was nearly without color, bluish in
+the light of the small piece of moon. “Always I’ve been waiting for you,
+Ellen.”
+
+She looked at the crag of his nose, the etched bold face. “There. You’re
+like a hawk. I love you.”
+
+“Half made, half a man. Waiting for you. Understand?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“No, you don’t. You’re a woman. You don’t understand at all.”
+
+“Well.”
+
+“You’re what I need. You make me complete. I want to do all things for
+you.” He was poised above her.
+
+“I know.”
+
+
+                                   25
+
+The square dances at Silvers Farm were held every year before the main
+hay crop was gathered. Dan and Ellen, Sudduth and Adele, were going
+together in the old Dodge. Ellen was in the front seat close against
+Dan. Adele was saying, “We used to go to Silvers when Sudduth was
+courting me.”
+
+“Time sure flies,” Sudduth said.
+
+“Are you positive I don’t show too much, Sudduth? To go to a public
+place? What do you think, Ellen? You know how girls can be. They’ll all
+be saying, is it September, October or November.”
+
+“You look real nice, Adele.”
+
+When they had pulled out of the Wasilewski drive, the children had
+shouted goodbye, Pop went to count the roses the damask bush had borne
+this year, and Mom called, “You young folks enjoy yourself.”
+
+Mom was resigned to Dan’s rupture with Star but where she had once been
+warm and friendly toward Ellen, a coldness was now in her air. Where she
+had used to gossip freely, she was constrained. Ellen would try to
+please her, to think ahead, doing the tasks before Mom could assign
+them. “But I already picked the bush beans this morning, Mom. There’s
+near a bushel. I reckoned you’d want it done.” And all the time there
+was joy because of Dan. He would come to where she was scrubbing the
+baby chick brooders or polishing windows, seeking her out when he was
+free. “Oh, this is a woman I’ve found.”
+
+At the Silvers barn the first cutting of hay was stacked at one end of
+the loft, its honey permeating the air. Wire cables had been stretched
+from automobiles and tractors below, and from them colored lights were
+strung along the rafters, and paper lanterns. On a platform near the
+door a fiddler and a banjo-player were busy. “Sometimes,” Dan told
+Ellen, “he’ll take steel knitting needles to those banjo strings.”
+
+“All he ever does,” said Sudduth, “is play that banjo.”
+
+“Pigeon wing,” Mr. Silvers called, his fleshy face in a sweat, his
+barrel stomach shaking with covert laughter.
+
+   I had an old hat with a flop down brim
+   It looked like a toad frog
+   Setting on a limb
+
+“Double shuffle,” he was roaring.
+
+“I told you I can’t dance, Dan,” Ellen protested. “Pa’d ne’er let us
+go.”
+
+“I’ll show you.”
+
+Adele went to talk with her friends and Sudduth merged into a group of
+men. “Any borers in your corn yet, Wasilewski?”
+
+“A few.”
+
+“My cow throwed twins.”
+
+“God damn. Better look if one’s a freemartin.”
+
+“Wrenched my back in the spring.” Sudduth put his hand on it.
+
+“Tarred my corn this time. Crows got pesky.”
+
+“Sounds gummy.”
+
+“No. Roll in it wood ashes.”
+
+“God damn. Where’d you hear that?”
+
+“County agent.”
+
+“God-damn bull-shitter.”
+
+“No crows.”
+
+“Um.”
+
+And the women were questioning Adele avidly, “Who’s that with Dan?”
+
+“Why that’s our girl, Ellen.”
+
+“Never saw her before. Is she from around here?”
+
+“She’s from Kentucky.”
+
+“Thought Dan was courting the Webster girl. I was looking forward to
+seeing them. They made a cute couple.”
+
+“Star’s real sweet.”
+
+“What happened with Star, Adele? You can tell us.”
+
+“He simply broke off with her. I don’t know.”
+
+“Now, Adele, we know how these things can be.”
+
+“Why’d Dan bring your hired girl?”
+
+“She was there. Maybe he felt sorry for her.”
+
+“She’s good-looking, Adele.”
+
+“Right young, too.”
+
+“She’s not as young as she looks,” Adele pleaded. “Told me she was
+thirty.” Ellen had said twenty-seven, but thirty slipped out against
+Adele’s will.
+
+“Now that just shows you what the night will do for a woman.”
+
+“You might have a new sister-in-law one of these days, Adele.”
+
+“Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Now when are you expecting it, Adele?
+Late September? Does Sudduth want a boy or a girl?”
+
+The floor of the hayloft was dusted with chaff. The people were spinning
+in the pattern of the dance.
+
+   Oh five times five are twenty five
+   And six times five are thirty
+   Seven times five are thirty five
+   And eight times five are forty
+
+Ellen was handed from one partner to the next. There were spindly
+angular boys caught by the music, feet tapping and shoulders springing
+in an extra beat. There were jovial men, worried ones, dumpy ones, old
+and young. Dan was across the floor, his dark face above the red shirt
+bending taut to a girl with curly hair. Jealousy touched in Ellen so she
+flinched, laughing up to her partner. Then when Dan came by, following
+the step, he whispered, “You’re having such a good time I’ll have to
+kill all your partners, honey.” And the roiling had vanished. Dan
+belonged to her.
+
+The music ceased and the fiddler was leaning back. The banjo-player
+wiped his brow. “Hell, it’s hot.” Dan and Ellen came up to sit on the
+platform edge. Dan was smoking. They watched the crowd at the bench
+where a barrel of cold beer was rolled on its side next to tin pitchers
+of Mrs. Silvers’ iced lemonade.
+
+“You sure can handle those strings,” Ellen was telling the fiddler.
+
+“Been doing this off and on since I was ten. Maybe this child will die
+this away. Maybe I’ll be like that Callahan.”
+
+“Who’s he?”
+
+“It’s a song. Fiddler Callahan killed somebody so they were about to
+hang him. Says if anyone would play his fiddle while he was being strung
+up, they could keep it. He begged at the crowd for it was a notion he
+had. Nobody’d do it, so when they were fixing to trip the gallows he
+quit pleading, and busted it to pieces over the coffin they had ready
+for him.”
+
+“Look,” Dan stood up, grinding his cigarette on the floor. “Could you
+play ‘Lord Lovel’ for her to sing?”
+
+“Sure thing.” The fiddler was taking up his bow.
+
+Ellen looked past the swaying lanterns into the June night.
+
+   Lord Lovel he stood at his castle gate
+   Combing his milk-white steed
+   When up came Lady Nancy Belle
+   To wish her lover godspeed
+
+Lord Lovel went away then, vowing to return. But when at last he did,
+the Lady Nancy had died.
+
+   He mounted on his milk-white steed
+   And he rode to London town
+   And there he heard the death bells ringing
+   And the people mourning all round
+
+   He ordered the grave to be opened wide
+   And the shroud to be turned down
+   And there he kissed her clay-cold lips
+   And the tears came trinkling down
+
+“That was keen,” the banjo-player said. “You two want to try a
+Hound-and-Dog?”
+
+“Come on, Ellen.”
+
+“All right,” she was whispering. “I want to be woven into a part of all
+you undertake to do.”
+
+“That’s why you’re my girl.” His shaven hard cheek was on her hair, the
+red-checked shirt was tight against the white dress. And the people were
+all about but far away.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Summer put her hand on the earth and all things flourished. In early
+hours earthworms coupled on damp paths. Grain fields turned yellow.
+Mowers and reapers hummed busily across the countryside. Mulberries and
+cherries ripened. The children spread an old sheet under the trees and
+shook the branches. They gathered the corners and ran to the kitchen.
+“Berry pieth and cherry pieth,” chanted Hannah and Grace.
+
+Now that school was out, Simon was given a string of cows. He put his
+arm about their necks and the light of possession and love gleamed. One
+of them had leaped the fence and got to the bull when too young. Her
+teats were small and short. Simon’s hands were coaxing them patiently.
+
+“We’d have sold that one if it wasn’t for you, Simon,” Dan shouted from
+his milking stool.
+
+“Can’t abide a short-teated cow,” Sudduth said. “Come on, Lady, let
+those big bubbies down for me,” Sudduth was nudging the heavy udder with
+his fist; the cow chewed, serene.
+
+Simon told Ellen, “Dan might let the colt be mine if Pearl got caught
+with one.”
+
+“Colts are worth a lot.”
+
+“Well, so Dan said,” the boy insisted.
+
+They were driving over to the Doughertys. Penny gave Simon Little Tiny’s
+kid. It was brown with white stripes on its face and legs. “The daddy’s
+a Toggenburg,” Penny said. “It ought to milk proud.”
+
+The boy was entranced. “Hey, Clate. Hey, Anse. This be a fine yeanling.”
+
+Anse stood aside and said nothing, but Clate swaggered. He began to tell
+Simon how to care for the kid.
+
+“Oh shut up, Clate. I know about burnt flour when she gets the scours.”
+
+“You named it yet, Simon?” Penny asked.
+
+“April.”
+
+“That’s a fair name.” Ellen could see Penny was pregnant again. She’s
+liable to have another as puny as little Jess is.
+
+Then they were waving from the truck windows as they went down the
+narrow winding lane. “Seems I’m always saying goodbye to Penny, Dan.” He
+smiled at her across Simon who held the little doe on his knees. Used to
+be I worried over the past, how it clutched at me. Now that’s fallen
+away and I’m looking ahead, making this foreign place mine.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days were dropping, one upon one. Ellen and Dan would seek each
+other out. Their gladness was contagious, so that Sudduth was gallant
+with Adele, and Mom more attentive to Pop. Sometimes in the evenings
+they would sit on the board seat nailed between two oaks in the yard.
+“Ellen, we ought to get married now. We don’t have to wait till fall.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Whatever you say.”
+
+“I’d like to wait.”
+
+“Your family’s Catholic. You want a priest?”
+
+“I don’t care about that, but I’d like to see Adele and the children
+moved. Then I want to wash the walls and wax the floor. I’d as soon have
+a proper wedding.”
+
+“I see.” He was kissing her, and her earnestness faded as she made
+herself to him.
+
+But the next day she said, “I thought I’d write Frankie and my uncle and
+aunt. And even my pa. I’d like them to come here if they can and stand
+as my family when I marry.”
+
+“All that nonsense.”
+
+“I’d like it that way.”
+
+“Suppose I’ll have to wear a flower in my buttonhole?”
+
+“Yes. And Simon has to have a suit.”
+
+“Does he get a flower too?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What’s next?”
+
+“The minister. We can have Adele’s Presbyterian. That little sad one.
+I’ll have flowers in vases standing about. And the minister should have
+a flower too.”
+
+“He doesn’t have a buttonhole.”
+
+“I thought he did.”
+
+“Well, if you change your mind, we’ll get married now. It’s up to you,
+honey.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+That was in August. In mid-September the roof struts of Sudduth’s house
+were in place. The boards and shingles were nailed and fitted. Adele was
+moving laborious, the child big in her, sighing, “All my plans to leave
+this house so orderly for you, Mom.”
+
+“Don’t you worry, Adele. Things are good enough.”
+
+Ellen went out often to see how the building was progressing. Every nail
+driven was bringing the day nearer. Mrs. Daniel Matthew Wasilewski. I’ll
+write Ma, too. The nurses could read it to her. She might know what it
+said. I’ll go see her this winter. You can’t tell, in a year or so we
+might even be having a youngen. I could walk out to Dan where the corn
+was ripe, “Here’s your son I just happened to have.”
+
+The morning was bright and moist. The wind was drifting steadily from
+the southwest. Ellen had been picking tomatoes since breakfast and she
+was walking down to meet the men before the noon hour. They had been
+cutting hay in the field next to the new house. It was edged by a row of
+heavy-trunked willows. Long ago when posts had been cut and set, they
+had rooted in the easy way of a willow, and made heads, sprouting in
+summer rains. “What do you call those fence trees, Dan?” she was
+calling. Simon waved boldly as he clattered past her with the team and
+mower, heading for the barnyard. The men dropped their forks and came up
+to meet Ellen.
+
+“Those are golden osier willows,” Sudduth explained. “Pop planted them
+before we were born.”
+
+“Dinner ready?” Dan took Ellen’s hand as they were walking through the
+sweet-odored drying alfalfa.
+
+“I don’t know. Mom’s getting it. I’ve been in the garden.” The air was
+lightly misted though the sun was bright. There were cumulus clouds in
+the sky. The south wind continued to blow.
+
+“Hope we get this hay in all right,” Dan said.
+
+“This has been the best year yet,” Sudduth said. “Good and dry. Not a
+load lost.”
+
+“I don’t think we’ll lose this one. Knock on wood. The storm’s way off.
+The hay’ll be cured by early afternoon. We can get it in quick. Simon’s
+a help. He’s fast and he’s got the hang of it.”
+
+“It’s not twister weather, is it?” Ellen asked.
+
+“You’re not afraid of a wind?” Dan’s yellow eyes laughed, so she knew he
+was thinking of the day in the barn when he first kissed her, and she
+him.
+
+“I’m not.”
+
+In the afternoon, Ellen was in the middle of the tomato canning. At the
+kitchen door were four full bushel baskets; depleted ones were stacked
+outside. She was scalding the fruit, packing it into hot Mason jars.
+Rows of empty jars waited upside down on the table, the filled ones were
+boiling in the canner. Mom came in. “I’ll help out for a spell.” She
+fanned herself with her ample apron. “Sakes, the air’s close.”
+
+Ellen could feel how the wind had stopped. A piece of fear plucked at
+her. “Isn’t the hay in yet?”
+
+“They’re going at it real hard. They even gave Dennie a fork. He’s out
+working alongside Sudduth. Land, the rain’s not too far off.” Mom
+frowned. “Sudduth says the last cutting of alfalfa is like grain, it’s
+so high in protein.”
+
+“I know.” Ellen was pausing. “Mom, is this twister weather?”
+
+“It’s a little early for them. Doesn’t feel like it to me. We’ll know if
+Sudduth comes tearing in.” She turned to the sink. “Now, let’s get this
+mess put up.”
+
+They worked swiftly. But their minds were with the men who strove to
+save the hay.
+
+In the far field, Simon was perched on the load that towered, dwarfing
+the two dappled grays. Dan was throwing great forkfuls to him and Simon
+laid it deftly back, stepping it down, his small arms muscled and brown.
+Sudduth was unloading the truck at the barn, stacked with the previous
+load. The farm buildings were like toys in the distance, sharp-edged in
+the air which had a peculiar transparency. The movements of the man and
+boy quickened. Dan pitched up the last of the hay. “Whip them if you
+have to, Simon.”
+
+The youngster clambered into the driving seat, gathered the leather
+reins. The team pawed, rattling the harness. “I will, Dan.”
+
+“Get it in the loft fast. Sudduth’ll pitch it up.”
+
+Simon, overworked, sweated heavily, drops running down his face. His
+bleached hair curled damp, his shirt and pants clung to his skin. He
+shrilled, “Get in there. Major. Pearl!” The wagon was lurching through
+the stubble.
+
+Dan began to stack the hay that remained. By now the nimbus rain clouds
+were hovering low in the bruised sky. The man worked at a rapid pace.
+The temperature was falling, dusk descended, the air was dense. He was
+bent into his tool, trying to beat the rain in the race.
+
+A greenish-gray cloud tumbled slowly on the skyline to the west.
+Suddenly the wind came up, crying. Dan lifted his head, feeling the
+heat. The cloud had begun to spin. “Holy God,” he muttered. The stout
+willow fence teetered and creaked, the hay was swept wild, swirling. A
+purplish tongue licked downward, hunting, moving toward the hay field.
+
+Dan shook his fists at it, rearing lean in his high leather boots.
+“Dammit. Turn!” The long thick line veered crazily and then sucked back
+into the wounded cloud. But it was slipping down again, howling. “Turn.
+Turn!” His voice was nothing, his throat rended. The menace was swerving
+below the neighboring farm where it had come through in the spring. He
+was tearing his throat again, his loins on fire with fear. “Now, dear
+God. Turn!”
+
+Objects were fluttering, grotesque, like bugs in the dark pulsing. They
+were dying pigs and turkeys and a broken cart, small barns shattering
+glass, boards, dust, manure. Pieces of houses and ripped posts. Ravaged
+fruits from gardens. Drying hay, dust, chaff, dirt. Over Dan’s head a
+drove of birds winged abruptly, disappearing to the north. The heinous
+rhythmic humming was constant.
+
+The world was as if under water, green-blue, unreal, glowing. Simon was
+in the far barnyard, tiny on the stacked child’s wagon, attempting to
+pitch the hay to the loft alone. The three women, like dolls, were
+fluttering into the yard. Dan plunged into the shallow ditch bordering
+the field; he flattened himself, cowering. The ugly dancing shadow
+advanced. “No.”
+
+Then the roof of Sudduth’s bare unpainted house was rising weirdly. In
+deliberate motion it was wheeling above the field. The man stumbled up
+from the trench in rage, disbelief, clawing the air dazed, with his
+powerful hands, as if to replace the mighty shower of timber where he
+had nailed it with sweat and struggle. The roof was engulfing the field
+and the golden osier willows were breaking. The noise was tremendous.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they rode out to the hay field, Ellen was beside Sudduth in the
+truck. Warm silent rain blew gently against the windshield. Lumber and
+rubble were scattered and Sudduth had to drive around the larger planks,
+skidding in the mud. The prone figure was stretched face up amid the
+litter. Sudduth braked and Ellen was tearing at the door. She ran,
+believing him dead. She lifted the two-by-four from his body. She knelt,
+uncertain. His eyelids were flickering and they opened. “Hi.”
+
+“Sudduth,” she called evenly. “Get a doctor. Hurry.” She was touching
+the wet dark face, leaning over to keep off the constant rain.
+
+“You came.”
+
+“Dan?”
+
+“It didn’t turn,” he whispered. The rain was streaming from his carven
+face, his soaked black hair.
+
+“Where do you hurt?”
+
+“Dying. You know that?” He was moving narrow wood lips.
+
+“No, Dan.”
+
+“Sonofabitch,” he was sighing.
+
+“Don’t die.”
+
+“I won’t.”
+
+“The doctor’s coming. Do you hurt somewhere?”
+
+“Damn wind.”
+
+“Don’t leave me.”
+
+“Never comes twice.”
+
+“Dan?”
+
+“Never. No.” His mouth was thickening, his body was broken and when he
+heard her voice he came back through an effort of will. “Ellen?”
+
+“I won’t let you.” Her cheek against his, she cradled him in her arms.
+“Holy Mary?” The rain was pouring sweet and hot, releasing the sun-baked
+alfalfa odor. Her lips clung to his wet cool face.
+
+“Poor Ellen.”
+
+“Don’t talk.”
+
+His face was gray and seamed. It twitched, wounded. A red dot was
+appearing at the side of his mouth.
+
+“Don’t,” she breathed.
+
+His dulled greenish eyes were seeking her. For a few minutes she wasn’t
+sure he was gone. A thunderbolt tore exultant about the field, rolling
+passionate. A new torrent of rain swept like an enfolding blanket. She
+wasn’t aware. She lay upon the lifeless body reciting Hail Marys over
+and again. Pray for us sinners now. Amen.
+
+The truck sped down the drenched slick mire of the lane. The doctor
+jumped out, pried Ellen from the body. “Is he dead?” she asked. Sudduth
+was leading her to the truck cab. They wrapped a rug about the limp
+figure and laid it in back on soggy hay chaff. She looked at it through
+the rear window.
+
+“I’ll ride out here,” the doctor called, climbing over the rear bumper.
+
+Sudduth was driving through the field, avoiding the litter of boards and
+shingles. “Jesus.” He wagged his head, aimless. “I don’t know what we’re
+going to do, Ellen.”
+
+She watched the two men carry the body upstairs. Then she went into the
+kitchen, still in her wet hay-flecked dress, clinging. Vaguely she knew
+Mom was crying and the doctor was using the telephone in the sitting
+room. She lifted one of the heavy bushels by the door and set it down by
+the sink. She dipped tomatoes, peeling, packing them hot in jars,
+measuring teaspoons of salt out. No one paid her any mind. Sudduth
+called the children, shrilling, insistent. He took them all, even the
+little girls, to the barn with him while he did the chores. Upstairs,
+Adele began to cry aloud, and soon moaned at regular intervals. Mom was
+hurrying back and forth, hair wisped, mouth unsteady. She looked in at
+the kitchen door. “Land. I’m glad you’re finishing them, Ellen. Like the
+doctor says, the living come first.”
+
+Adele’s premature baby died in the night. Adele turned her head and wept
+into the pillow. She believed an all-seeing God was punishing her
+because she had tried once to rid herself of it. At breakfast Mom asked
+Ellen if she could stay at home to care for Adele while they went to the
+funeral. “I can’t, Mom. I would, but I have to go see him.”
+
+“Well, the boys can get Adele what she needs, I guess.” Mom moved her
+body cautiously; she had not grasped the two deaths yet. She was turning
+to Ellen. “Sakes. I really did want you and him to marry, Ellen. I know
+you’d have been to him what Star Webster never could have.”
+
+“Well, Mom,” Ellen shrugged, “want me to make up the rest of the bacon
+or fry ham?” She was dry-eyed.
+
+“Finish the bacon.”
+
+“Simon,” Ellen was asking at the table, “did you get that last hay in
+before the rain?”
+
+“No, it’s bad soaked, Ma. We can spread it in the yard. Reckon it’ll dry
+good enough.”
+
+“You-all do that. Even if it’s leached, it’ll still make horse feed.”
+
+“Jesus, I got a back this morning,” Sudduth said. “I don’t know.”
+
+Ellen appealed to Mom, “You got a black hat?”
+
+“You can wear Adele’s.” Mom patted Ellen’s shoulder. “It’s even got a
+veil. At least I think it has.”
+
+When she had dressed, Ellen came into the sitting room. Sudduth was
+pacing the floor, tears coming steadily down his thin face. Pop sat
+shriveled and fragile in his overlarge Sunday suit, his bony hands
+protruded from the sleeves like bird legs. The sun stretched itself over
+the room, catching the luster of the stuffed red-and-black tanager under
+the glass bell on the table. I hate the sun and I hate the prying light.
+“It’s a beautiful day,” she was saying. She had watched dawn unfolding
+out of dark, felt the dry thickening in her throat.
+
+“Let’s go on out and wait for Mom,” Sudduth said, stiff.
+
+Ellen walked with them, getting into the back seat with Pop. She folded
+her handkerchief, unfolded it. Sudduth started the motor and let it
+idle. After a while, Mom came to the house door, a fleshy large figure
+in black, veiled. The children stared, circling her, restless. “You be
+good and do what Adele says,” Mom told them.
+
+“Don’t punch me, Grace.”
+
+“I never touched you.”
+
+“Where’th everybody going?”
+
+“It’s the funeral of Uncle Dan,” said Grace. “He’s dead. And they’re
+going to plant him in the ground.” They watched the car go down the
+road, milling in a group, close to each other.
+
+Before the services, in the carpeted stuffy room, Ellen went up on the
+dais to look at the body. The casket was heavy. There was satin and
+white and purple cloth about him. He wore his brown suit. His hands were
+folded on each other, they had lost their sun color. Those men had their
+will with his body. Their prying hands. The almond tree shall blossom
+and the caperberry shall fail because man goeth to his long home and the
+mourners go about the streets. There was a slight reek of incense. His
+eyes were shut, his face puffed out so the familiar creases hardly
+showed. His hair was combed flat. They drained off his blood and pumped
+somewhat in his body, didn’t they? To keep back the death smell? He had
+a false look; it was the birthmark, they had hidden it with paste.
+Reckon he heard death bells in the air when it roared to him? Or the
+silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken or the pitcher at the
+fountain. And the dust return to the earth as it was. That’s the husk of
+Dan. All I’ve got is a memory. I can’t recall him. I forget. She
+struggled, throat tight, to bring to mind how he moved and laughed, how
+he would be grease-stained from working under the machines, how he was
+alert and strong and moved quicker than the others. How he was awkward
+when he ran his fingers on her hair. But the statue slept, its hawklike
+features impassive.
+
+The organ struck up like breaking soft boulders. She moved as if she was
+of glass. For who knoweth what is good for man in his life, all the days
+of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? She was going down the
+steps to sit by Mom in one of the blue plush chairs. The carpet made
+footfalls noiseless, the organ pushed her. She sat in the bruised music.
+Dan would be proud of how quiet I am. She didn’t feel tears pouring
+until she discovered her wet hands; she wiped them dully with the
+handkerchief. She knew she had been robbed once more. Praise ye the
+Lord. He telleth the number of the stars. He calleth them by their
+names.
+
+The minister was walking up onto the dais, patting his head where hair
+once flourished. He stared at the floor and straightened his coat. The
+head undertaker nodded. The organ hushed. “Behold the Lord God will come
+with strong hand. Yes. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry
+them in his bosom. Yes. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to pay our
+last respects.”
+
+What I can’t understand is why Dan didn’t see it coming and go to the
+barn on the wagon with Simon. When we ran out to look, I waved and
+called. But he just kept shocking the hay up. I can’t understand why he
+never saw it making there in the south sky. He should have come in with
+Simon. I don’t know why.
+
+“Dust to dust. Yes. Ashes,” the preacher intoned. That man was going to
+marry us. Daniel Wasilewski took Ellen Gaddy in marriage. So it would
+have been written. “Lord, make me to know mine end. Yes. And the measure
+of my days that I may know how frail I am. Behold, Thou hast made my
+days as a handbreadth. Oh yes.”
+
+The service was done, the organ was rolling muted hymns over plush
+upholstery. The undertaker bent his head in a gentle unctuous way to
+Mom. They walked out to where the sun dazzled the trees in a gilt sheen.
+They were rumbling slowly down flat roads toward the cemetery. Ellen
+asked Pop, “Why must they go so tormented slow?”
+
+“It’s the custom, Ellen.”
+
+“I’d rather put him straightaways in the earth. Fast. I got no use for
+all this furbelowing.” She looked through the windows to the bright day.
+Under her black veil, water ran down. “Why’d he die, Pop?”
+
+“He was in the way when it struck.”
+
+“I told him to come in,” Sudduth cried out. “I told him.”
+
+“Shut up,” Mom flared, and sighed.
+
+At the open grave, the metal-bound box was lowered. Now they’ll wait
+until we go away. They’ll take down the purple canopy and fold the green
+grass rug. They’ll drive off, leaving a man to cover the hole. He’ll
+throw dirt on the box with Dan in it. And it’ll be all over.
+
+Simon came to her that evening where she sat by the windows in the cold
+lavender air of dusk. The silence was delicate, like ringing. The family
+had taken the noise away. They were with Adele or in their beds. The boy
+touched her shoulder. “Ma?”
+
+She started, striking his hand from her. Then she spoke quickly,
+penitent, “What is it, Simon?”
+
+“Don’t grieve. Here, I brought you one of the kittens.”
+
+And because he was so kind and tender in his youthful shy way, all the
+walls she built broke suddenly. She bowed her head and wept.
+
+“Oh, Ma, I loved him too. He wasn’t afraid of ne’er a thing.” The boy’s
+voice was laden. He began to cry. Holding the kitten in his arm, he was
+putting his head in her apron.
+
+“Don’t weep, Simon,” she sobbed on his hair.
+
+Later she cradled in her hand the tiny black kitten. Through the window
+she was watching the north wind blow as autumn cast itself on the
+cringing landscape. I shall go softly all the years in the bitterness of
+my soul.
+
+
+                                   26
+
+The winter was passing. It had been long. As its last days dragged, in
+Louisville, a false spring came on as it often does in that season.
+Outside the city the first glimmers of growing had appeared, tiny green
+spears in barley fields, and hesitant statuesque spring flowers.
+Wake-robins bloomed in woods, dark red and hidden, like grief. In the
+city a soft evening wind moved. Anton Gaddy was parting from Dyke
+Burwell at the truck. He settled his round hat firmly. Dyke was coaxing,
+“Hey Mester Gaddy, whyn’t you come with me this once? There’s this here
+old girl. Must weigh near a quarter ton. Now I mean that pussy’s
+buried.”
+
+“I’ll see you here at the Chevy, boy.” Anton was impatient. “Tomorrow
+morning.”
+
+“All right. But they got skinny ones too. If you’d rather. They got all
+kinds.”
+
+Anton was rushing away down the street, his flewlike lips sagging, a
+frown over his long face. He was preoccupied, afraid. He believed he was
+losing the woman Rose. For more than a year now he had been visiting her
+apartment. At one time he and Dyke had made excuses to each other that
+there were auctions and sales that must be attended. But gradually they
+had shed the pretense and now traveled the seventy miles often. Dyke
+would come by the Gaddy farmhouse to see Anton. “Got an old cow that’s
+no good. Reckon I’ll take her to the auctions.” And Anton would reply,
+“Before God, leave the fool beast be. Haw. Let’s take off for Louisville
+right now.”
+
+He was halting outside the brick building. The last few times here a man
+had come down the darkened stair and once he saw him stride away on the
+street. The man’s cheekbones were broad and high, he was stockily built
+with a bold way about him. Anton had confronted Rose with it when she
+let him in. “You’ve had company, I see.”
+
+“I might.” She had smiled, tantalizing, throwing back her heavy dark
+hair.
+
+“I told you to e’er wait for me.” Rose denied it then and said she was
+teasing. But it had festered in him.
+
+Anton looked up now as he came into the doorway. The figure was there,
+at the bottom of the stairs. He stood aside while it brushed by. His
+heart began to thud, an anger started in his bowels. On the stairs he
+was breathing heavily. “Like to take the strap to her.” But he was held
+from physical action. She might slip away. He was never sure of his grip
+on Rose, winced from her laughter. He had thought of asking Father
+Tompert about a dispensation to make her his wife. But he put off the
+issue, fearing the priest’s flat refusal, his suspicious eyes. Anton’s
+old peremptory ways had given over to some hesitancy. His younger
+daughter and then his grandson had evaded him. His belief in his mother
+Nell’s, fidelity and excellence had been ravaged. Even his faith was
+wavering. He lived with feelings of frustration, of powerlessness, of
+guilt in sin. He was bent on Rose with a measure of desperation. As he
+was about to rap, the door swung open as if the woman were waiting.
+
+“Oh it’s you.” As if surprised she said it and laughed, her wide soft
+face impudent.
+
+“What’s this you say? Hum. I told you I was coming.”
+
+“I didn’t say I wasn’t pleased to see you. Did I?”
+
+He was coming after her in his heavy coat, placing his hand on her
+buttocks as he was used to do. “Rose?”
+
+“You don’t own me, Daddy,” she railed, eluding his grasp. She was
+wearing a sheathed dress instead of her flowered housecoat. “You’ll muss
+my make-up. I’m going out.”
+
+She had on high slippers so that she was taller than Anton. This somehow
+angered him. “You’re going to meet that man. That whoreson that just was
+here.”
+
+“No, Daddy.” Her voice was light.
+
+“I’ve caught him coming out three-four times now.”
+
+“He’s young,” she mocked.
+
+“I’ve got a power in me yet. You know that.”
+
+“Look.” She was picking up her purse and coat, and a green beret with a
+matching feather. “Look, I need some things for supper. I’ll be back a
+little late.” She put on the hat, her eyes moist and teasing. “But I’ll
+be back, Daddy. You wait.” She was out the door, her high laugh
+stringing behind.
+
+He sat on the edge of the bed, wearing his overcoat and hat. “I’ve got a
+mind to whip her. Got a mind to kill her. Punish her for lying.” He was
+whispering into the room. His coat dropped from his shoulders and was
+sliding to the floor. He pulled his shirt open roughly at the neck,
+tearing the tie. Noises came from throughout the building. A door
+slapped shut. Steps were ascending and descending. He waited for each to
+be Rose. His sickness for her churned in him. He could feel his potency
+failing, shrinking. “She’s wanting a young stud.”
+
+He was rising, moving to the window, the black hat still on. He shoved
+the window up, banging it, leaning out. There was a pale street lamp at
+the corner. A semi-truck came rumbling heavily over the pavement. A man
+stumbled across the half-dark spring-scented street. A couple were
+sauntering, arms about each other’s waists, the girl tittering shrill. A
+sailor, pants tight about his loins, stalked the sidewalk opposite:
+“Where’d you get the broad, Jack?”
+
+Anton’s eyes had slitted. He was wrenching off his belt. It was the old
+one of thick cowhide with a weighted brass buckle. His gray eyes were
+dry though his defeated mouth was drawn as if to weep. He spoke hoarse,
+threatening, “Before God, I’ll punish that Rose-whore good. I’ll put
+myself into damnation. I’ll learn her to cuckold.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two hours passed before Rose returned. She was humming in time to the
+click of her confident heels.
+
+   In a little lovenest
+   Just for you and me, a dovenest
+
+She shifted her parcels and turned the knob. When she saw the dead man
+hanging in the grip of the strap from the tall closet door, the body had
+ceased any movement. She stepped close enough to touch it with her hand;
+it was beginning to stiffen. Mechanically, she plucked up the overturned
+chair beneath it, and set it straight. A breeze blew up, billowing the
+curtains, and she went to the window to close it. She stumbled on his
+overcoat by the bedside, dropped her bags on the coverlet and caught up
+the phone. She spoke a number to the operator, whispering, and waited.
+
+“Christian?” She was sitting on the bed abruptly. “You have to come here
+right away. I can’t explain. I’m afraid. You tell Mama I might go home
+after all.” She began to cry, listening. “I’ll wait. You hurry.” She
+returned the receiver. She was quiet, shivering. After a long time she
+heard a step outside, ran to the door, pulling him in. All at once sobs
+were convulsing her, “It’s there. Look.”
+
+He called the police. “By damn, where’d you meet him, Rose?”
+
+“He’s the one I wanted to marry.”
+
+When the two officers arrived they took the body down and laid it out on
+the floor. They searched pockets and made notes. “Who are you?” they
+asked Christian.
+
+“I’m her brother.”
+
+They directed Rose to appear at the inquest; they questioned her, “You
+must have some idea why he did it, Miss Ay?”
+
+“I don’t understand. We were the best of friends, Mr. Gaddy and me. I
+just went down the street for a few minutes. He was waiting for me. I
+was going to get some food.”
+
+Christian was asking, “Will you notify the relatives?”
+
+“His wife’s in a state institution,” Rose offered. “He’s had family
+troubles, one kind and another. Maybe that’s why it happened.”
+
+“Here’s a letter,” the officer said. “Garland Gaddy. We’ll get hold of
+him.” A knock was heard. “That’s the ambulance.” The body was covered,
+then removed, the interns clattering as they went down the staircase.
+“All right, miss. We’ll notify you when we want you. Good night.” He put
+his cap back on.
+
+“I’d be glad to help,” Christian said.
+
+“We won’t need you. Just your sister. Good night.”
+
+Christian didn’t say that long ago he had known the dead man. Once Anton
+Gaddy had stood scornful in high weeds, spitting tobacco juice, calling
+him boy.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dyke Burwell was waiting at the truck in the morning, baffled, having
+searched cafes and bars for Anton. By afternoon he made the decision to
+drive back to Millville alone. A rainstorm was brewing and there was a
+load of soybean sacks under the tarpaulin on the truck. Dyke had known
+Anton was keeping a woman but that was as far as his information went.
+He had considered notifying the police but dismissed it. Anton would
+have to return by bus. When he reached the Gaddy farm three hours later,
+thunder was growling in the murky afternoon sky. Sam Offut ran out,
+followed by Eadie, her hair disheveled, her hands flapping. Eadie threw
+her apron over her face and wailed. Sam was yelling, hunched and
+beady-eyed, “Old man’s dead. Sheriff just left us. I says, call his
+brother in Chicago, he’ll know where those daughters be. Poor trash,
+walking out on their pa. For Gawd, Dyke.”
+
+“Hey,” Dyke shouted in fear. “Who was it killed him?”
+
+“Himself. He done it himself.” The wind smote the treetops.
+
+“Raised his hand,” cried Eadie. “Against his soul. He’ll burn for it.
+Jehovah!”
+
+Dyke helped Sam unload half the soybeans while lightning flashed nearby.
+Then Dyke went home and word was bruited throughout the countryside.
+Folks found reasons to drive past the Gaddy farm. They would peer
+fearfully at the two old Offuts and exchange words about them. They
+named it a ghost farm.
+
+
+
+
+                               part five
+
+
+                     and each alone
+   Walk together toward the trees
+   Where the road runs out of sight
+   In the green beyond the leaves
+   The green cove below the light
+
+
+                                   27
+
+Pop Wasilewski’s bees were suddenly swarming at winter end. On a sunny
+day from a secret impulse half the colony was awake, one by one whipping
+out to cluster on a fence post. The bearded old man brushed the
+yellow-brown insects into a new hive while the smoker puffed. Ellen was
+laughing to Mom, “I ne’er seen such a body, he’s that clever with bees.”
+
+“Pop’s always been like that.”
+
+Ellen had lost weight and because the work over the winter had been
+largely indoors, she was pale. But her body had fought for its health,
+and she moved in the household with vigor again. Over a few weeks she
+had thought she would have Dan’s baby, hoped wildly that it was so. But
+her time came again then in its regular pattern and she accepted it.
+Gradually she healed. There had been the moments when she forgot he was
+dead, “I’ll have to tell Dan the do-hickey’s broken on the wash
+machine.” The day would shatter about her where she stood trembling.
+
+Mom still leaned on Ellen, crippled by her loss. “You’re like a daughter
+to me.” Mom would humor herself by constant thoughts of Dan. She talked
+to Ellen about when her son was a baby of two staggering after her in
+the rose garden, and when older he would fetch her a blue eggshell or a
+butterfly wing he found. “I want you to stay here always, Ellen. This is
+your home.”
+
+Adele, so wounded by the loss of her premature baby that Dan’s death had
+scarcely grazed her, would talk about the infant yet. “He’d have been
+four months old today.” Adele had written in the page of the Bible:
+Jason Wasilewski. September 17, 1936. Died the night of his birth.
+Mourned by all.
+
+“You’ve got to quit thinking of it,” Mom said. “Sakes, it’s your duty.”
+
+Adele was eager in self-reproach. “I just get my mind on it somehow.”
+
+The ruins beyond the line of smashed willows were left untouched. Only
+the children would wander through the wrecked debris, playing. “Thith
+ith the dining room. I am Mithith Hannah.”
+
+“Simon, you be the father.” The half-demolished walls loomed like
+ghostly monuments. The roof was shattered, snow had drifted around
+timbers, melting, rotting them. In half-empty kegs of nails wild mice
+explored.
+
+The farm work had fallen heavily on Sudduth. Dennie and Simon were
+roused at daybreak to help at chores before they hurried to school.
+Evenings, they hustled out again to the barnyard. Sudduth’s back ached
+him like a recurring plague. “In spring I’m going to have to hire a man,
+Mom. I can’t do it all. He can sleep in the barn.”
+
+“No, we’ll give him Dan’s room.” Mom’s voice was strained.
+
+“Thanks, Mom.” Sudduth had become more dependable over past weeks. He
+made his plans resolutely. “I’ll put rye in the old corn field. And if
+you don’t care, Pop, we’ll sell the sheep. They’re ruining the pasture.”
+
+“That’s just fine with us, Sudduth. Whatever you say.”
+
+Ellen had gone out to help with the milking, a pail in her hand. Sudduth
+protested gravely at first, “It’s not our way to let women do barn work,
+Ellen.”
+
+“But I’m most happy here. I get tired of the house.” She sat on the
+three-legged stool, the cow’s hot breath on the back of her neck,
+snuffling, curious. It was licking her with a rasping tongue.
+
+“See here,” Simon shouted. “Old Belle’s begging Ma to milk her.”
+
+“All right, Ellen.” Sudduth was won over. “If you want. Thanks.” And he
+soon forgot that it seemed strange to have a woman at the barn.
+
+Ellen would think about Penny, wondering if her last baby had come
+wellborn. If work ever lightens, if Sudduth hires a hand like he says he
+might, Adele and me can drive over to see the Doughertys in spring.
+
+She was in the sitting room one morning after breakfast, ironing by the
+windows. Mom was holding a small black volume, with pictures of the
+little boy, Dan, pasted into it. “Ellen, I’m afraid you’re forgetting
+him.”
+
+“Dan wouldn’t want us mourning him fore’er.”
+
+The phone rang. “You get it, Ellen.” Mom pored over the photographs.
+
+“All right.” It was Western Union. Ellen listened quietly. She whispered
+into the mouthpiece, “Read it again, please.” The distant strange voice
+was almost inaudible. And the message was repeated. She hung the
+receiver onto its hook. She leaned against the table, put her hand to
+her mouth.
+
+Mom looked up, urged, “What is it, Ellen? What is it?”
+
+Her words fell of themselves, “Something’s happened to my pa.” Request
+presence Ellen Gaddy at inquest, the voice had said, cause of death
+suicide. Why would he do that? And him ever a good Catholic. He wouldn’t
+dare. And in the suddenness memories came rushing through the unbarred
+door. Anton was loving and he sought this daughter out. Guilt clutched
+her. He was dead too, now. She was stunned, but yet unable to weep. “I
+have to go to Louisville, Mom, and claim the body.”
+
+That afternoon she packed. Adele was ready to drive her to the station
+and the family had gathered to say goodbye. Mom was kissing her, “Land.
+You’ve got to come back, Ellen.”
+
+“I will if I can. I want to go to our farm in Millville when it’s o’er.
+And I have to see my sister, too.”
+
+“I won’t go to Millville, Ma,” Simon cried out. His tow hair was mussed,
+his young face worried.
+
+“Don’t take Thimon,” Hannah and Grace piped. “Let Thimon thtay.”
+
+“You see?” Pop shouted. “Sell your farm and be one of us, Ellen.”
+
+“Old Belle won’t give down her milk tonight,” Sudduth said.
+
+“How can you resist us?” Adele put her arm about Ellen.
+
+“Oh Ma,” said Simon, “I want to stay right here.”
+
+“Maybe you will.” But Ellen was remembering the old orchard and the
+little hills, the stony soil where crops were hard-won, goats bounding
+down the pasture lane, hoofs hammering the ground, snorting and tossing
+their beards. She turned to the Wasilewskis, “I’ll write you-all if
+Simon has to come. Just as soon as I know.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The corpse in the refrigerated drawer looked fragile and unprotected.
+The morgue smelled of mingled odd odors. “That’s him.”
+
+“Thank you, Miss Gaddy,” said the officer.
+
+“I don’t want him to stay there. Can I take the body?”
+
+“Certainly. When the inquest is over.”
+
+“How soon?”
+
+“Day after tomorrow.”
+
+“I’ll call you. I’ll find a funeral home.”
+
+“You notify them he’s here. And we’ll make the arrangements.” Then the
+officer was telling Ellen how Anton had hung himself by a leather belt
+in a woman’s flat.
+
+“A woman?” She was bewildered.
+
+“Says her name’s Rose Ay. Maybe you’d want to see her, miss. She doesn’t
+live far from here.”
+
+“Rose Ay?” Ellen stood beside the tall desk. The vein was throbbing in
+her forehead, the oval of her face stayed white in the bright glare of
+the waiting room. She was probing dully, raking into the past.
+
+“Do you know this woman?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Are you all right, Miss Gaddy? You look sort of shaky. You knew it was
+suicide by hanging?”
+
+“Yes. You said you’d give me her address, Mester?”
+
+The officer tore a sheet from a pad, scribbled on it. “This is the
+easiest way to get there.” He handed her the paper. “Turn left outside.”
+
+She was following corner signs then, and house numbers. In the streets
+winds were moving undisputed, brutal, and the city quailed and shrank
+upon itself. Finally Ellen was entering the brick building. She sensed
+the subdued trace of urine and must that corrupted the hall air. A
+woman’s deep voice was berating behind walls. And a radio came muted,
+
+   Oh sister Phoebe, how merry were we
+   The night we sat under Tom Jones plum tree
+
+A man was on the upper stairs, pausing. He was coming down a few steps.
+“Hello, Ellen.”
+
+She peered into the obscure light. “Who are you?”
+
+“Christian Ay.” The shadows crouched quiet about him along the steep
+stairwell. “Guess you’re here to talk to my sister.”
+
+The cheekbones and broad mouth were Simon’s, the stocky body. But his
+hair was different, no longer blond. And he was grave-faced. “I thought
+it was you,” she said thinly.
+
+His voice rent the stillness, “I’m sorry about Mr. Gaddy.”
+
+“Did you know he’d been coming here?”
+
+“No, indeed.” He came down another step.
+
+She backed away. “I say, did you? That it was my pa?” She was plaintive,
+cornered.
+
+“Not till my sister called me.”
+
+“What did he want of her?”
+
+“She says they’d have been married.”
+
+“Well. I don’t understand.” Jazz blared from the radio as a door opened
+and shut. She put her hand up and dropped it, aimless.
+
+“You are coming to see Rose?” he was asking.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It’s that door at the head.” He gestured, disturbed with the awkward
+moment, at her air of incredulity. “Right up there. You can’t miss it.”
+
+As she was passing, he stood aside by the wall. His face was harassed,
+lined. She looked at it. “Your home’s in Louisville?”
+
+“On the outskirts. Twenty minutes from this place. Someone said you
+weren’t living in your home town any more.” The music, overloud, was
+persistent through the hollow walls. He was speaking then, abrupt,
+“Come. I’ll go up with you.”
+
+“Yes.” She preceded him to the landing, where a white square of daylight
+existed at one end of the dirty passageway. He was knocking. In a
+moment, while she shifted constrained, quick steps approached. The door
+was opening.
+
+“Well, Chris.” Rose spoke nervously, “I thought you’d gone. Who’s that?”
+
+“Ellen Gaddy. His daughter.”
+
+“No kidding. How do you do?”
+
+Ellen was staring at the woman in the tight skirt and spiked heels.
+Coldly she observed the waved thick dark hair, the wide white face, the
+pale irises of the eyes outlined in black. She was rudely brushing past
+Rose, hasty, and then checking herself in the center of the room, by the
+bed. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
+
+Rose shrugged careless. “Would you like tea, Miss Gaddy?”
+
+“If it’s no bother.”
+
+“Here’s a chair for you.” Christian was pulling one up. He took her
+coat. “I’ll hang it on the clothes tree.”
+
+“Now, thanks.” He was speaking with his sister over by the small stove.
+Sunlight was coming through the gray windows, drifting onto flimsy
+curtains and two narrow long mirrors. The simmering kettle and the quick
+disquieted whisper of the woman were playing on the air. I should never
+have come. I’ve got no business to be here. I wondered if I’d hear of
+him, or see him.
+
+Rose was bringing the tea on a black lacquer tray. “Get a table, Chris.”
+
+“Sure.” He placed the low table before Rose’s chair and sat down
+opposite Ellen.
+
+Rose was pouring and passing the cups. “Well, here we are, Ellen. It is
+all right to call you Ellen?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The woman was impetuous, “Give Mama the news, Chris. She’s been after me
+for years to go home, Ellen. At last I’ve made up my mind.”
+
+Ellen was sipping the weak hot tea. Rose was brash and Christian seemed
+embarrassed by it. Pa was going to marry her. I don’t believe that.
+Besides the church would not have brooked it.
+
+“Honestly, Chris,” Rose was saying, “I can’t get over you quitting the
+store.”
+
+“I’ve made plans to leave Louisville,” he said to Ellen with a slight
+grin, aloof. “Getting out of the city.”
+
+“I think he’s nuts,” Rose laughed, brushing at her heavy hair.
+
+“And how about you? Come, do you think I am?” Christian raised his
+brows.
+
+“No.” Ellen listened idly, half attending, refusing to make an effort.
+In the hallway he had seemed vaguely like the young man she had once
+loved. But he wasn’t at all. I shouldn’t have expected it. He was a
+stranger, changed, his aspect stern. He glowered now at his sister.
+
+“Chris is going shares on a feed concern.” Rose was mocking. “Grinding
+stuff for farmers. Banana oil. Did you ever?”
+
+“It’s a nice small town, now. Troy is a good way from the city.”
+
+Ellen was remembering the gossip she had heard in Grady Love’s store.
+“How will your family like the move?”
+
+“I’m going alone.”
+
+“He lives with Mama,” Rose said. “They have The Standard Shop over at
+the other end of Louisville. Mama’s getting old. That’s another reason
+why I’m going back there.” She was speaking warmly to Ellen, “You know,
+Daddy never mentioned much about you.”
+
+Ellen caught her breath. “Who?”
+
+“Mr. Gaddy. Your father.” Rose was motioning lightly, smiling.
+
+Ellen put her cup down. Her face was firm and molded, guarded. But she
+spoke unsteadily. “Reckon I have to go now.”
+
+“I’ll come with you,” Christian said.
+
+“You don’t have to run yet,” Rose was protesting. “Daddy used to come
+up, you know, for the waterfront auctions.”
+
+“Don’t call him that, woman.” Ellen’s voice rose high. She was crossing
+the room, groping for her coat where Christian had hung it.
+
+“I didn’t mean anything,” Rose said, hurt. “I thought a lot of him.”
+
+“Thank you for the tea.” Ellen felt her hands shaking.
+
+“I’ll see you to your hotel.” Christian was taking her coat from her
+hands, holding it while she put it on.
+
+“You don’t have to.”
+
+He was picking up his cap. The door closed behind them and they heard
+the tap of heels receding. They went down the stairs. “Rose means well,”
+Christian said. When he had hailed a cab, he looked at her. “You’re
+wishing you’d stayed away.”
+
+“But no.”
+
+They were sitting in the leather-smelling interior. The meter clicked.
+There were house fronts, wood and brick, cafes and corner saloons
+blazoned with neon. Pigeons strutting in lonely gutters, pecking,
+winging across streets. Christian was saying, “I’m sorry about your
+father.” They looked out of opposite windows. A parked van was unloading
+enormous handled baskets of gladioli and roses. There were people on
+foot. And bicycles, and trucks blaring, cars, a dray hauled by mules,
+red pompons on black bridles, and shouting teamsters. The taxi was
+halting. Christian paid the driver. They were standing before an old
+graystone structure.
+
+“You read the Bible, Christian?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I do, sometimes.” Their minds were running inward on their separate
+thoughts. He twisted his soft cap, frowning at the pavement. Her hands
+were in her coat pockets. “There’s a part goes, from out of the populous
+city men groan and the soul of the wounded cries out.”
+
+“Don’t worry yourself,” he whispered. The city lowered about them.
+
+“I’ve got no mind for it here.”
+
+“Nor I. I know just what you mean. I don’t like it either. That’s why
+I’m moving to Troy.”
+
+“It’s unnatural.”
+
+“It takes all kind.” His face softened. “Are you all right? Is there
+something I can do?”
+
+“No.” She turned to the stone steps.
+
+“I’ll try to come to the funeral.”
+
+She watched the last sunbeams striking against him as he merged into the
+moving people. He doesn’t remember. He’s forgot it all. I don’t give a
+care.
+
+But in the night Ellen dreamed of him. He was the way he had been long
+ago, swaggering and strong, laughing. It was a peaceful dream. As she
+came awake Christian was putting his hand on her hair. She cried into
+the dark, “Dan? Dan, I loved you.” She was weeping in the unfamiliar
+hard hotel bed.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen was unable to get permission for a Catholic burial. The priest had
+been firm. “Absolutely. There is no possibility of it. Madam.
+Unquestionably he died in mortal sin.” He looked down at Ellen, fierce,
+“When were you last at confession? Madam.”
+
+She went from him, telling herself, “I’ll get Father Tompert in
+Millville to say a mass for him. There, he will.”
+
+The funeral was costing over two hundred dollars. Ellen had wired
+Garland and he sent the money. She intended to reimburse him for her
+share but it would take time. All her wages were rapidly disappearing in
+train and hotel costs and meals. The coffin would be oak, chemically
+treated to endure. The sermon would last twenty minutes. They would
+engrave a stone. Anton Gaddy. 1877-1937. At Rest. Beloved Husband and
+Father. There were things she had heard, customs attending a death. The
+clothes should be removed and hung on a line outside. The body should be
+anointed, silver coins laid on the eyes. And someone should sit with the
+corpse so a cat or something strange didn’t get to it. The tearing of
+the winding sheets, the telling of the bees so they didn’t leave the
+hives. And there lay Pa in the new-fashioned way. I misdoubt Pa would
+have cared for the way I handled things here.
+
+Then she was spotting, in the entrance way, Garland and Frankie and
+Violet, who had arrived from Chicago just in time for the service. She
+hurried down the aisle to greet them. She clung to Frankie, who was
+plumpish in her fur coat, holding Ellen’s hands, crying, “It’s her hair,
+Vi. Look how Ellie’s wearing it. She’s so sweet.”
+
+“I was afraid you-all would be late,” Ellen laughed.
+
+“Let’s make her go back on the train with us, Vi.”
+
+“Nerts. She won’t. Ellie’s a country girl.”
+
+“I’d say the country agrees with this wench.” Garland was fatter, his
+square jaw lost in sagging folds. He kissed Ellen’s cheek. “I suppose
+this puss has got her a beau now?” His small eyes were merry, sunk into
+the flesh.
+
+“Oh Uncle.”
+
+The organ began to play and they were taking their seats. We never said
+one word about Pa. We talked about ourselves all the time. She glimpsed
+Christian on the opposite side of the room by the far wall. At first she
+didn’t recognize him, a short man in a large gray overcoat, holding a
+gray cap. He was nodding to her, sitting down, bunching his coat on his
+knees.
+
+The last words were being spoken over Anton. Her father had been quick
+to quote the Bible at them all, relishing the Old Testament. But the
+funeral text was taken from Paul. Behold, I show you a mystery. The
+trumpet shall sound and the dead be raised. She was remembering her
+slaughtered goats. Her ire rose once more at that secret deed of his
+against her. Now she stilled it. Reckon there’s more to it than I could
+ever piece. He must have had a great sadness to take his life.
+
+They followed the hearse to the cemetery. The crank squeaked as the
+coffin was lowered. Earth to earth. Dust to dust. Behold the tabernacle
+of God is with men. And there shall be no more death. Neither shall
+there be pain. For the former things are passed away.
+
+Garland was taking the party to a steak-house for dinner. He went back
+into the kitchen to talk with the chef, to approve the cuts before they
+were broiled. Then Ellen began to tell them about the second tornado
+that had struck without warning near Weems Crossroads in Illinois, how
+it killed the older Wasilewski brother and tore apart a new-built house
+on the farm. “I might have married him, had he lived. We talked of it,
+Dan and me.” Her mouth twisted and she looked down at her plate. “I’d
+have had a life there.”
+
+“Oh Ellie. Why didn’t she tell us, Vi?” Frankie appealed.
+
+“Shouldn’t have stayed after it happened, puss.” Garland was tapping the
+table with his finger. “Should have come to us.”
+
+“Say, how’s Simon?” Violet asked. “How’d he take it, Ellie?”
+
+“He’s grown and he likes farming.”
+
+“Do bring my nephew and visit us,” Frankie pressed, “come on, Ellie. Gen
+would love it.”
+
+“No, I’ve got to take my own way. I can’t go to you folks. Tell me about
+your job, Frankie. Do you still like it?”
+
+“I’ve been promoted, Ellie. And Gen has a new office and twice the pay.”
+
+Garland was seated close to Violet, his arm was about her. He was
+ordering coffee for her and desserts to be brought for everyone. “What
+are you planning to do about the farm, hon?”
+
+“I’m going there as soon as I can.”
+
+“Are you really?” Frankie cried, surprise on her round face.
+
+“Want to come with me?”
+
+“No, thanks,” Frankie said swiftly. “Not me. I don’t want any part of
+that.”
+
+“But, Frankie.”
+
+“And that’s the truth. I don’t want my piece of that farm. I can’t stand
+it.”
+
+“You two can do it legally,” Garland said, “if Frankie means it.”
+
+“You make out the papers, Uncle, for me to sign. It should be Ellie’s.
+She likes it and needs it.” Frankie’s features were set, obstinate.
+
+“Funny,” said Garland, “An and me decided the same thing when we were
+just the age of you two. He bought me out of my rights and I signed over
+to him. When he married.”
+
+“You might change your mind sometime, Frankie,” Ellen said.
+
+“No. Ellie looks so doubtful,” Frankie smiled. “She thinks everyone
+wants to be a farmer.”
+
+“It doesn’t seem right,” Ellen said. “At least I’m going to pay you for
+your share.”
+
+“That’s silly. We have all we need. We’ve got good jobs. You have Simon
+to look out for.”
+
+They began to remember Anton then because Garland had used his name.
+“Uncle used to come at Christmas time, Vi. We’d butcher and bake,”
+Frankie was saying, “and then go to midnight mass in that little
+church.”
+
+“They watched out for my soul,” said Garland, “and Frankie was to be a
+concert artist.”
+
+“No, Chicken!”
+
+“That was Pa’s idea,” Frankie told Violet grimly, then giggled, “not
+mine.”
+
+It was time for their train, they were getting up in a rush. They
+laughed, bustling out together. Garland, from the middle of the street,
+waved a taxicab down. The women were waiting under the marquee. “Give my
+little nephew my love, Ellie,” Frankie said, and whispered, “I’m sorry
+about that man you were going to marry.”
+
+“You wouldn’t know your nephew, Frankie. He’s not a baby, he’s not
+little.”
+
+“Come see us, Ellie. Gen would honestly love it.”
+
+Violet took Ellen’s hand impulsively. “We’re redecorating the house. Why
+don’t you come back with us and have a real visit?”
+
+“I can’t.”
+
+“Goodbye, Ellie.”
+
+“Goodbye. Goodbye, Aunt Vi. Uncle.” She was walking back to the hotel.
+The streets were damp, the narrowed sky strip above the buildings clear.
+There was a purple circle of mist about the moon. Lone figures were
+moving in lighted areas. They gave her a message. Call Mr. Ay at the
+following number. She went into a phone booth, for there was a void now
+that they were all gone. She told him she would go to the Ay home
+tomorrow for supper.
+
+
+                                   28
+
+Christian Ay had called for her in his year-old V-Eight Ford. The
+Standard Shop was an echoing large building, half dark. They were
+passing aisles of goods spread out on counters and under glass, their
+footfalls drumming. At the base of a dowel-railed staircase, barely
+illuminated by a tiny skylight, he took her arm. She looked at his face
+cast into the new lines. His brown hair was smooth, his broad mouth
+disciplined. Only his eyes are the same, blue like that flower. He was
+waving in back of them at the laden counters. “What do you think of it?”
+
+“It’s nice.”
+
+“You’re polite. It’s not. It’s a decent living.” He was smiling, formal.
+“Now it’s quite a thing, Ellen, meeting you again.”
+
+She looked away, moved from under his hand up the stair. “Oh, yes.”
+
+“Are you angry about Rose and your father?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“You’re sure you don’t hold it against me?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, shall we go up?” They went through a cluttered office space at
+the stairhead and into a linoleum-floored room.
+
+Mrs. Ay was hustling from the square table she had been setting, a
+white-haired short woman with a quick smile. She spoke in a clipped way
+to Ellen, “Had tea with my daughter, Miss Gaddy? Sorry about your
+father. Too bad. It’s hard. I know. I lost my husband many years ago.
+Suddenly. Heart attack.”
+
+“I had heard of it,” Ellen murmured.
+
+“Rosie said she knew your father too. Said she’d had dinner with him.
+Heard Rosie’s coming home? She tell you? Nearly twelve years she’s lived
+in that flat near Market Street. Determined to show she was independent.
+It’s a bad section. Time she came back to the Shop, don’t you think?”
+She was gathering her apron in her small hands. “Oh dear, that’s the pie
+shell burning.” She ran out.
+
+“She gets that way when we have company.” Christian grinned. Then he was
+meeting her eyes, intent. “She hasn’t kept track of Rose any more than
+me. They go shopping together or Rose eats here with us two or three
+times a year. I might as well tell you she doesn’t know Rose had it in
+mind to marry anyone.”
+
+Ellen looked away. “She’s nice.” A speckled bird with a long iridescent
+tail was mounted beside a clock on the sideboard. “That’s a fine cock
+pheasant there.”
+
+“I shot it at Brinker’s farm that summer.” His voice for an instant was
+surging with the old eager sound.
+
+Mrs. Ay was back. “Soup’s on.” She carved the roast swiftly with a long
+blade, heaping the plates. “You like mashed potatoes? We aren’t fancy
+here.” There was a bouquet of artificial daisies in the center of the
+red-checked tablecloth. They ate hungrily. “Chris says he knew you, Miss
+Gaddy, that time he worked near Bethel.”
+
+“Ellen lived only three miles from me.”
+
+“I’ve been away from Millville more than a year now,” Ellen said.
+
+“Why’d you leave, Ellen?”
+
+She gazed down at her napkin. “I wanted to work out.” Why did I say
+that? I had to look after your youngen. I ought to tell him that. Her
+mind worked it over. She sat absent while Mrs. Ay began to talk.
+
+“After Kate left us, Chris nearly convinced me we ought to sell this
+here store and buy a small farm.”
+
+“Kate was my wife,” Christian said. “I got married the spring after I
+came back from Brinker’s.”
+
+“He wanted to grow truck crops. Store’s much safer. Better investment.
+Rain or shine you’re not dependent. It’s just getting nice too, we’ve
+got three girls at the counters. I can sit down in the afternoon.”
+
+“I knew you’d been married,” Ellen said.
+
+“Divorced. Three years ago.”
+
+“Too young when they did it in the first place.” Mrs. Ay was shaking her
+head, reproving. “Chris is headstrong. Like his father before him. I
+told him it wouldn’t work.”
+
+“Come, Mama, let’s keep some secrets from Ellen.” He was coloring,
+pushing his chair back.
+
+“Well, I’ll get that pie.” Mrs. Ay got up. “Shame the crust had to
+burn.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
+
+“I meant to write you, Ellen. You know? Back there when we were kids?”
+He laughed, still flushed, the skin wrinkling around his blue eyes.
+
+“Well.”
+
+“How come you aren’t married?” The silence came down, overlaid thinly
+with the whisper of the clock on the sideboard.
+
+Mrs. Ay slammed the kitchen door as she returned. She was cutting the
+cocoanut cream pie into large pieces. “You rather have something else,
+Miss Gaddy? There’s jello in the icebox.”
+
+“No, this is fine. It’s very good.”
+
+“So after Kate ran away like that,” Mrs. Ay was saying, “why Chris kept
+wanting to sell. Not me. He’s putting his share into something now that
+suits him. Over in Troy.”
+
+“You only live once,” Christian said dryly, “isn’t that right, Mama?”
+
+“I’ll be running the shop here with Rosie. The luck of my daughter
+coming home. And in my old age.”
+
+“Don’t let her fool you,” Christian said, “she’s not so old.”
+
+Ellen was helping them collect the plates then, Mrs. Ay insisting on
+leaving them stacked beside her sink. The evening was moving on. The
+older woman had brought out a pot of coffee and she stood in the bedroom
+doorway, her figure slack and weary. “Good night, Miss Gaddy. You come
+visit again.”
+
+“Good night.”
+
+Christian and Ellen were silent now on the chintz-covered davenport
+where the winter twilight faltered. Cars were whirring in the street
+outside, horns blew faint, lights shuddered and vanished on the ceiling.
+“Reckon it’s time for me to go.”
+
+“No. Wait.” He put his arm along the sofa behind her. “I can’t get over
+you, Ellen. You’re just the same. I had thought you’d be different.”
+
+The lingering noise of the clock was beating heavily upon time. She
+waited.
+
+“I did intend to write when I had to quit that job with Brinkers.”
+
+“I wrote to you. That autumn.”
+
+“You did? My father’s attack had come out of the blue. He left the
+accounts in bad shape. We almost lost the business. You know what that
+meant those days.”
+
+“I wrote you. Twice.”
+
+“Funny. I didn’t get them.”
+
+“I know. They came back.”
+
+“I’d have answered.”
+
+“I didn’t have the right address.”
+
+“Did you try Mr. Brinker?”
+
+“He didn’t know either.” She sighed.
+
+“Say.” He dropped his arm onto her shoulder. “I feel badly about that.”
+She had stiffened, but he was bending his head gently, hunting a thing
+lost, a fragment of his youth when time had been ground easily beneath
+the heel of his fired blood, his just-discovered manhood.
+
+But the anger was grating in Ellen. She cried to him compelled, as if
+she had memorized it, “Once I laid a curse on you. Curse him, I said! I
+swore it on the Virgin.”
+
+“Come, what kind of talk is that?” He reddened, withdrawing himself. He
+was taking a pipe from a nearby ash tray, filling it from his pocket
+pouch. He scratched a match, fragrant smoke sifted into the half-dusk.
+“A curse?”
+
+“You don’t believe in such things?”
+
+“Why would you do that?” He was looking at her, discomfited, inquiring.
+
+She made a movement to rise, impatient. “I don’t know. It’s getting
+late. I don’t want to talk.”
+
+“I’m curious, Ellen. Why did you?” he pressed.
+
+“It’s no use.” She twisted her fingers, at bay. Like I said that time.
+I’ll go all my days in bitterness.
+
+“Come on,” he was grinning. “We were such babies. Were you in love with
+that young squirt?” He drew on the pipe, then he was laying one hand
+over hers, the palm cool and hard.
+
+“There is a child.” Now it was said.
+
+“You have a baby? You were married then?”
+
+“Simon. He’ll be eleven the first of July.”
+
+The stillness stayed. Then he removed his hand, swift. His pipe knocked
+as he was putting it in the ash tray. He stood and was walking across
+the room to the dead pheasant. He looked up at it on the sideboard. He
+struck his fist into his palm, his back was to her. “By damn.”
+
+She cringed, waiting.
+
+“I never once thought of that. I didn’t.”
+
+She listened to the chatter of the clock at the side of the stuffed
+bird. His voice was intruding suddenly.
+
+“Brinker’s farm. That horse. What was his name? That stallion. Next
+morning I got the wire about my father.” His words were fast. He slapped
+his fist again.
+
+And she shrank, wishing herself on the street, away from him. She
+recoiled from his ferocity, his vitality. Hate, hate, the clock was
+spelling it out. I hate him. I do.
+
+“A boy, you say?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Does he know about me?”
+
+“I told him his father’d died.”
+
+“All these years.” He whispered it. “By damn.”
+
+“Well.” Her voice sounded frail. “It’s past and done. It’s o’er.” It was
+as if the room were empty and the clock, as it unwound, harped on dead
+walls.
+
+“No.” He moved quickly over the floor to stand above her, stocky and
+angry. The pulse of traffic was heard, ghost lights were shifting
+disturbed, on the walls about them. “I’d have married you. You know
+that. Don’t you?”
+
+“I thought you would.”
+
+“You know I would. Why didn’t you find me?”
+
+She was shaking her head. “I tried.”
+
+“I was there. In Louisville,” he cried.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why didn’t you go to Carl Brinker? For the child’s sake.” He shouted,
+towering.
+
+“I wrote. I didn’t know what to do. Where to turn.” She felt tears
+gathering. “I couldn’t even confess it. I’ve left the church since and I
+don’t care. But I dreaded it then. The sin.”
+
+“El?” Christian was leaning down, he put a hand along her cheek. He was
+pulling her beside him. They were about the same height and his eyes,
+dark and gentle, were gazing into hers. His teeth flashed in the dusk.
+“Remember that silly rabbit?”
+
+“I turned it loose,” she flared and tore away from him, to the table
+across the room, where the paper daisies were in a white bowl. She felt
+the tightness catch her and the quiver as she began to weep.
+
+“And the primrose from Mrs. Brinker’s kitchen? In the red pot?”
+
+“I wished you dead.” Her voice was quavering. “O’er the years. I hated
+you.”
+
+He pursued her. “Look here, El.” His hands were touching her shoulders
+and wheeling her to the vast warm bulwark of him. “I didn’t know.” He
+was putting his fingers to the wetness on her thin face. “And I see how
+it was.” He came out heavy and seeking, forged in deliberate tenderness.
+“If I had known. All the time lost.”
+
+She let his mouth find hers. And it was there, what she had wished to
+sense all along, the old love restored and made real. In their common
+need, they were clinging together, deaf to the brisk hammer of the clock
+and the keening wind that whined in sterile streets without; they were
+engrossed in their sudden solace.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within a week they had married. Christian had driven over to Troy and
+severed his partnership with the feed store. Ellen was helping Mrs. Ay
+pack his belongings. “Has he told you about Simon?”
+
+Mrs. Ay nodded, vigorous. “His father didn’t get along good with Chris.
+Think that could have made him wild?”
+
+“We’d like you to come see us sometime.”
+
+“Will do that.” She opened a closet door. “Want to go through some of
+this stuff? Might be a thing or two you could use. Here’s a lamp shade.
+Good shape, too.”
+
+“We’ll take it,” Ellen laughed.
+
+Then they were driving to Millville in Christian’s car. On the way they
+ate the fried chicken and cookies Mrs. Ay had prepared, and by noon they
+were turning into the yard. They halloed but there was no sign of human
+life at the barn. A group of doleful-eyed cows, a woolly spindly foal, a
+pair of dull-coated horses gazed, questioning. Pigs were squealing in
+their pen, speckled roosters and hens wandered free under the hackberry
+or perched, roosting, on the porch rail. The wood bottom to the tin tub
+was broken out and a gray towel was flapping on the clothesline under
+the February wind.
+
+Ellen called to the dog, but there was no response from the bushes.
+“Wonder who’s caring for Jack?”
+
+They went into the house. Dust lay heavy, the beds were unmade, the
+windows closed. The air was musty, unlived in, as if the occupants had
+suddenly been spirited away. “It’s high time we got here, El.”
+
+In the late afternoon, while Christian was feeding the cows and she was
+scrubbing the porch, Sam Offut arrived. “Hey there, Ellie.”
+
+“Hey Sam. Where you been?”
+
+“I come o’er twice a day to milk and feed. I live at my place down the
+road. My ooman and me moved out of here. Folks call this farm haunted.
+What are you doing back?”
+
+“I’m here for good, Sam.” She came down into the yard, putting her wet
+cold hands in the sleeves of her coat for warmth. “I’m married now. Will
+you stay on with us?”
+
+“You mean work for you-all?”
+
+“We sure could use you.”
+
+“Reckon not.” Hunched over, he was rubbing his hip. “See, I spent my
+best years working for your pa. I liked him real well. He was a just
+man. And he was a right lone man, some ways. I don’t know. I study about
+him and that happenstance. Hope Jesus isn’t weeping for you, Ellie. Have
+you e’er taken hold of the horns of salvation?”
+
+“Well, Sam.”
+
+Christian was coming from the barn, heavy-set in his stiff new-purchased
+blue jeans and a storm jacket. His face was pale, winter-bleached. He
+called, “Hello, Mr. Offut.”
+
+“Heard you married up to Ellie.”
+
+“That’s so. You going to help us out?”
+
+“I’m too old. I got some garden and a roadside stand of sorts.” Sam
+shrugged. “My ooman does a little. Reckon not.”
+
+“Wish you could see your way.” Christian put his arm about Ellen’s
+shoulder; she was wearing an old ragged coat of Maria’s she had found in
+the attic room.
+
+Sam rubbed his stubble beard. His breath had a taint of whiskey. He was
+shifting his feet as if they ached. “You’ll make out. The cows aren’t
+milking much. This place is right run-down. I got the lumbago the same
+as my wife now. I’ve been doing the least I can get by with.”
+
+“What do we owe you anyway, Mr. Offut?”
+
+“You figure it out. You can get it to me sometime. I’ll say farewell to
+you both.” The old man was shuffling away. “Go with Christ.”
+
+Ellen stood next to Christian, against his warm bulk. “I always favored
+Sam.” The small bent figure was going out of sight onto Sweetincreek
+Road.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The rooms were being scoured and the floors rubbed with wax. Ellen
+rooted into dark places with a harsh brush and yellow soap. When
+seasonal winds blew up she threw the windows open and put on her torn
+brown sweater. She washed sheets and quilts, freshened curtains, and
+changed bed ticking. She lifted the crucifix from its nail over the bed
+to pack it in a trunk along with the painting of the Sacred Heart and
+the dusty images of Mary and Joseph. Reckon they had a meaning for Pa.
+And for me as well. I made that doll into a god when I had a trouble
+once.
+
+She had fixed up the loft-room to be Simon’s, dusting out a chest and
+setting it by the bed for his own. The big downstairs bedroom would be
+for Christian and herself. She was surveying it. “Could you cut some big
+windows in here, Chris?”
+
+He leaned in the doorway, his high boots caked. “I’ll do it. Let in some
+light.”
+
+“And I’ll hang yellow print curtains.”
+
+They were looking out the window at the bare bushes. A sparrow lit on a
+twig, lisping, “See, peabody, peabody, peabody!”
+
+“That’s the harbinger of spring,” Ellen said.
+
+“And today Simon will be here. That’s my son.” The boy was due on the
+afternoon train.
+
+“The redwing blackbirds are back at the pond.”
+
+“That’s plowing weather for sure, El. Say, the horses are shedding bad.
+Would Simon groom them?”
+
+“You might say he’s partial to horses.” She told him how the boy had
+found the red colt when he was very small.
+
+“How about the foal in the stable? We’ll call it Simon’s.”
+
+“There. He’d have been here long since if he’d known that.”
+
+They were at the station at New Hope then, waiting for the overdue
+train. Ellen was standing beside Christian. A black-haired man, his back
+to her, was rolling a cigarette. It was Dan, hawknosed, demanding, hot
+and vital. She had to still herself while she turned to Christian. She
+had to remember, while the pain was beating, that Dan had dropped out
+for always. She took Christian’s hand. He thought it was because of
+their son. “Don’t worry, El. I’ll make him like me.” When she had been
+cleaning the house she had found it was one of Dan’s songs she had been
+singing.
+
+   O say, darling, say, when I’m far away
+   Sometimes you may think of me, dear
+   Bright sunny days will soon fade away
+   Remember what I say and be true, dear
+
+Dan was a part of her, even a part of the way she would cherish her
+husband.
+
+They were watching at the coach car for Simon to step down. But he
+jumped onto the cement runway from a baggage car. He had brought his
+brown kid with him. He was running down the platform and it skipped
+after. “Ma. Look at me. Look at April and me.”
+
+“He’s a wild one,” Ellen said.
+
+“He’s big.” Christian straightened himself, nervous, turning his soft
+cap with his fingers.
+
+“This is Christian Ay. Like we wrote you, Simon. Now, he’s your father.”
+
+“I know it.” The boy was leaning over his kid, adjusting its leather
+collar.
+
+Christian took his hand. “Well now. Hello, Simon.”
+
+“Hi.” They walked to the V-Eight, Simon leading the docile animal. It
+stepped in and the boy followed, sitting on the back seat, holding the
+leash, watchful.
+
+Christian faced him. “I hear you’re keen after horses, Simon.”
+
+“What does he mean, Ma?”
+
+“There’s a colt in the barn,” Christian was saying, “belongs to you.”
+
+“How old, now?”
+
+“Ten weeks or so. Don’t you think, El?”
+
+“Yes,” she agreed.
+
+“Pearl had her colt, Ma,” Simon was hunting for her eyes. “And Sudduth’s
+getting him a hired man next week.” He leaned toward Ellen. “Strong like
+an ox, Sudduth says. Pop claims he’s got brains like one too.” The boy
+smiled, strained.
+
+“You want our colt?” Christian asked. “For your own?”
+
+“Yes. Reckon I do, Mester.”
+
+Christian and Ellen got in the front seat, and they were driving out on
+the road. Near Bailey’s Woods, a flock of bluejays darted before the
+car, pursuing a blinded flapping owl. Their barking was strident and
+shrill as they winged after it into the winter-stripped trees, now
+spattered with white blooms of shadblow. At the farmyard the three were
+getting out of the car, standing in the yard. Simon had his kid tightly
+by the collar.
+
+“Well, Simon?” Ellen said.
+
+His face became red. He stood before Christian, steady. “If it doesn’t
+matter to you, I’d as lief call you Pa, like Dennie does with Sudduth.”
+
+“That’s the general idea, son,” Christian sighed, glancing at Ellen.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were lingering at the long oak table in the kitchen. Ellen moved
+about, putting dishes and pots away. Christian was smoking his pipe. The
+boy cried, “Simon Ay’s a good name, isn’t it?”
+
+“You look a little alike, too,” Ellen nodded.
+
+“Say it again, how it was, Pa,” Simon urged, “that you happened to leave
+the county before you could marry Ma.”
+
+It was later when Simon told them about Luke bringing Penny and the new
+baby over to the Wasilewskis to visit Ellen. “Penny felt bad when you
+weren’t there, Ma.”
+
+“Was it a boy or girl, Simon?”
+
+“I don’t know. She said a boy, I think. Now I disremember.”
+
+“Simon. You knew I’d ask.” Ellen was disappointed.
+
+Christian was speaking to her. “Luke Dougherty works for a farmer,
+doesn’t he?”
+
+“A stock farmer. Webster. He raises Jerseys and Short-horns. Blooded
+beasts. Mester Webster thinks a mort of Luke too. There. I hate it, not
+seeing Penny and the baby.”
+
+Christian put down his pipe. “I’ve got an idea. You know I have to have
+help here if we want to make this farm pay. It’s in bad shape.”
+
+“I’m here. I’m a good worker,” Simon said.
+
+“How about asking Mr. Dougherty to come in with us? You think he would?
+What do you say? We could buy more land if it’s too small for two
+families. We could convert one of the old sheds for them till we found
+time to build a house.”
+
+“Simon’s due in school on Monday.”
+
+“Now, Ma.”
+
+“I need a man. I’d have to find one. And the Doughertys did raise you,
+Simon.”
+
+“Luke would be on his own.” Ellen considered it. “Reckon he’d like that.
+He’s got a way with cattle.”
+
+“I’m rusty. I’ll make mistakes alone. I haven’t enough experience. And
+I’d lose all my money.”
+
+“There’d be Penny. She’s like my family, Chris. I’d be done saying
+goodbye to Penny.”
+
+“Clate and Anse,” crowed Simon. “They’d have to go to school with me.
+We’d sleep in the barn.”
+
+“Hold on now. We don’t know if Mr. Dougherty’ll take us up on it yet. He
+might figure he’d be a fool to leave Mr. Webster.” Christian wrote the
+letter and Simon took it to the mailbox. He put the red metal flag up so
+the RFD car would stop.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+While they were waiting to hear from Weems Crossroads, Simon followed
+his father about. They pitched and shoveled and scraped from the
+stables, scattered manure on the hilly fields, rubbed the newborn calves
+with straw to clean them and put them to their dams’ inflamed fresh
+udders. Simon curried and brushed the horses and his long-legged
+undernourished foal. Masses of dead hair would accumulate in the litter
+under the animals in their stalls. “I’ll be glad to take orders from you
+for a change,” the child was telling Christian gravely. “Ma means well,
+but half the time she’s wrong.”
+
+“Don’t be so sure,” Christian grinned down at him, “might be you.”
+
+Ellen was sitting at the table in the kitchen, writing Mom Wasilewski.
+She told Mom how she missed all of them, Pop and Adele and the little
+girls. She asked advice on starting a flock of Leghorns. “And we’re
+fixing to send off to the mail catalog for some Italian bees. Does Pop
+calculate them to be a good honey variety? I’ve heard they’re mean.” A
+sadness descended on Ellen. Now that’s become my past. It never turns
+out the way I figure it will. I thought to spend my days in Illinois
+with Dan. Now he’s gone and that’s all lost. There came to her mind the
+white buckling that had perished so long ago, strangling in a fence. She
+heard Christian and Simon approaching. And their footfalls on the porch
+boards washed away her grieving. The sun threw itself in a blanket on
+the floor in front of them as the door opened.
+
+“What are you doing, El?”
+
+“Writing a letter. Thinking.”
+
+Christian was placing his firm fingers on her shoulder. In the heat of
+her love, born of gratitude, her blood mingled with his. She turned in
+her chair to lean against him. “I was reading a while ago in that
+gilt-edged fancy Bible in there, El. Where it says, for lo, the winter’s
+past. The rain’s over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth. The
+time of the singing of birds is come.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellen was collecting Anton and Maria’s moth-eaten garments from the
+clothespress. She had made a bonfire and was carrying them out, throwing
+them upon it. She told Christian about her mother. “Frankie and Uncle
+and Vi went to see her on the way down for Pa’s funeral. They said she
+didn’t know them. She had a doll the nurses had given her and seemed
+content, rocking it.” Ellen poked the fire with a stick so it blazed up
+afresh.
+
+“We’ll go to visit her.”
+
+“I used to fear the past, Chris. I wanted to shake it off. And here we
+are on Pa’s farm, where he ruled. I ne’er thought I’d see it again.”
+
+“It has to be our way, though, El. That we’re building. Our own.”
+
+“I know. I want to change all of it. So it’s new.” She stood marking the
+ashes that trembled and faded.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a few days the Doughertys were arriving, herded by the tall
+round-faced Luke. Clate and Anse were bearing boxes and suitcases in
+either hand. Ellen was taking the wailing new baby from Penny’s arms.
+The young girl, Blossom, held the blanketed sickly Jess. And little
+Ernie hung behind her. Penny’s face was relieved. “It’s a wonder we e’er
+got here, Ellie. With this crowd.”
+
+Ellen looked down at the baby. “What’s his name?”
+
+“Melinda. Didn’t Simon tell you it’s a girl?”
+
+“Now all we got is one V-Eight,” Christian was grinning. “Women and
+babies first trip. Boys and baggage the next. Come, Luke.”
+
+The Doughertys had crated and shipped their shedfull of goats when they
+learned that Ellen wanted them. The animals came two days after the
+family. There were fifteen all told, kids and goats. They arrived
+blatting and white-eyed at the New Hope station. In a week they were
+accustomed to the woodshed and the new pens there. Their mild oval
+pupils would follow Ellen’s unhurried movements. She set up a block of
+salt and shelled corn in their long trough while they crowded to eat.
+They crunched and shoved, and the hurt of her own lost herd began to
+heal.
+
+The men were enlarging one of the bigger outbuildings for the Doughertys
+to live in temporarily. They papered the rooms, tarred the roof, slapped
+on a coat of white paint. “I can’t smell pigs in here any more, Chris,”
+Luke was saying, “can you?”
+
+By fall the houses and barns were wired and electric fixtures had been
+put in. There was an overhead light in Ellen’s kitchen. “You sure are
+reckless,” she told Christian, “with your money.”
+
+“I’m so glad to be shed of The Standard Shop,” his face was browned and
+young, “I like spending it.”
+
+He sent for a separator for the dairy house. It spilled cream in a thin
+yellow stream from one fountain while skim milk gushed from another into
+tall cans. There was an electric churn, too. Christian promised Simon,
+“Give us a few years and we’ll have milking machines in the barn. Wait
+and see.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In early spring, a young purebred Guernsey bull was strolling about in a
+sturdy barred pen. It arched its crest and snorted toward the barnyard
+where the cows were. It baaed in a high voice like a calf, for it was
+yet immature. The men laughed at it. Luke said, “His seed’s got the
+lines to build up our herd.”
+
+“But has he got the strength in him?”
+
+“He has. What we ought to do, though, is buy a few top brood cows from
+good farms. Raise their calves by that bull. It’s the fastest way to get
+a producing herd.”
+
+“Let’s go ahead. You ride over to the next sale that’s advertised. Can
+you pick them?”
+
+“I’ll spot them easy.”
+
+Cold fresh winds moved. Christian was drawing on his pipe. “By damn,
+how’d you like to paint a Guernsey bull clear across the barn, Luke?
+I’ve been thinking. And trim the windows with white? The boys could help
+on that part. I’d like to see some fancying up around here.”
+
+“Well, that’s an idea. Does no harm. It’ll bring people in to use the
+bull, too. Give the farm a name hereabouts.”
+
+And the women came to watch the painting. Penny was holding her baby
+girl on her arm, Ernie at her heels. “Look at that giant Guernsey there.
+Well.”
+
+Beside Ellen tottered Jess, the undergrown brown-haired child, her
+favorite among Penny’s brood. He was gripping her skirt, open-mouthed at
+the men on the high ladders. Their blue jackets were paint-spattered,
+their buckets dangled by baling wire from the rungs. Simon and the
+Dougherty boys came running up from Sweetincreek Road, swinging their
+schoolbooks and lunch pails. They dropped them by the yard fence and
+went for paint brushes to join the men in the sun-dipped warm barnyard.
+
+“Say,” Ellen called, “you might set an iron bull on the roof for a
+weather vane, too. If you had a mind.”
+
+“We’ll do it, El,” Christian was shouting down, laughing.
+
+“I’m going to make my pies up,” Ellen told Penny. “I’ll take Jess with
+me. He fancies my kitchen.”
+
+She was walking slowly to the house. A tan puppy followed. She patted it
+as she helped Jess up the porch steps. A turtledove was calling,
+“Croo-ah, croo-croo.”
+
+“There’s the saddest voice,” she sighed, “of all the birds.” She let the
+small dog in the doorway. It heaved itself on the floor with a contented
+snort. She gave the little boy a cracker and sat him on a rug. He
+munched damply, eyes wide, watching Ellen roll out the dough. She was
+fluting the edges of the crusts, deft. Her cats were stretched in the
+warm sun on the window sills. She stepped over the sleeping puppy to put
+the pies in the new white porcelain stove.
+
+In the orchard below the house, blossoms were unfolding in a pink and
+white mist upon the shapes of old twisted trees and new-set nurslings.
+Shooting-stars and woodsorrels wasted their fragrance and birds began to
+trill, as if afraid of disturbing the air, from where they swung on
+branches. Gray squirrels carped at a cub-fox gliding down the path in
+the woods. Ellen, at the opened kitchen window, watched hawks sweeping
+in the blue and sensed the rustle of the new season. There was the green
+odor of growing. She felt the ancient promise, the wheel of earth once
+more.
+
+She led the pinafored Jess, his short legs stumbling, to the bedroom. He
+held onto the white spread, thumb in mouth, sleepy eyes fixed on her as
+she laid out a diaper. She changed him, then straightened her laden body
+as a birth pain came. Within her the child quickened in the darkness and
+she was aware of its joy.
+
+
+
+
+                            ABOUT THE AUTHOR
+
+
+Helga Sandburg was born in Maywood, Illinois, spent most of her early
+years in Harbert, Michigan, around the lake bend, ninety miles from
+Chicago. As a youngster, she was curious about the ways of the semi-wild
+country surrounding her isolated home. She mounted butterfly and leaf
+collections, kept a bird-watcher’s notebook, taught her five dogs to
+pull a sled over the snow-covered sand dunes of Lake Michigan’s shore,
+and trained her own horses. In her father’s house, she saw pass the
+great literary figures of the midwest. She served as secretary to the
+poet for many years and became steeped in the tradition of American
+folkway and song. _The Wheel of Earth_ casts a glance back to the
+vanishing lore of the prairie farmlands.
+
+In 1946 Miss Sandburg’s family moved to the Great Smokies of western
+Carolina. There she renewed her childhood interest in animals, raising
+calves, colts, dogs, goats, cats, varieties of rabbits, Peruvian cavies,
+parakeets, and hooded rats. Her animal collection was reduced to two
+Siamese cats and one Doberman Pinscher when she took up residence six
+years ago in Falls Church, Virginia. For two years she was employed
+nearby at the Library of Congress. Currently she is at work on her
+second novel. She has a son of sixteen and a daughter of fourteen. She
+is the wife of Arthur D. Golby, Assistant Professor of English at The
+American University in Washington, D. C.
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+The original spelling was mostly preserved. All other changes are shown
+here (before/after):
+
+   [p. 24]:
+   ... love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, cranebills ...
+   ... love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, cranesbills ...
+
+   [p. 135]:
+   ... dead like old man Moses Hedrick with a pitchfolk tucked
+       between ...
+   ... dead like old man Moses Hedrick with a pitchfork tucked
+       between ...
+
+   [p. 329]:
+   ... “I will.” In a swift flood Ellen was homestick for the
+       old ...
+   ... “I will.” In a swift flood Ellen was homesick for the old ...
+
+   [p. 344]:
+   ... To wish her lover goodspeed ...
+   ... To wish her lover godspeed ...
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78102 ***
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+   <!-- TITLE="The wheel of earth" -->
+   <!-- AUTHOR="Helga Sandburg" -->
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+   <!-- DATE="1958" -->
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78102 ***</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<p class="halftitle">
+THE WHEEL OF EARTH
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<h1 class="title" title="The wheel of earth">
+the wheel of earth
+</h1>
+
+<p class="aut">
+HELGA<br>
+SANDBURG
+</p>
+
+<div class="centerpic logo">
+<img src="images/logo.jpg" alt=""></div>
+
+<p class="pub">
+M<span class="sup">c</span>DOWELL OBOLENSKY
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter cop chapter">
+<p class="c">
+Copyright © 1958 by Helga Sandburg
+</p>
+
+<p class="c">
+All Rights Reserved under Pan-American and International
+Copyright Conventions. Published in New York
+by McDowell, Obolensky Inc., and in the Dominion
+of Canada by George J. McLeod Limited, Toronto.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1 c">
+Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-6506
+</p>
+
+<p class="i c">
+Second Printing
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt4 c">
+Manufactured in the United States of America by
+American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1 i c">
+Designed by Alfred Manso
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="ack" id="chapter-0-1" title="Acknowledgments">
+ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="ack">
+<p>
+Thanks are given to Archibald MacLeish for permission to
+reprint his poem, “What Must,” and to the Folklore Section
+of the Music Division, Library of Congress, for the use
+of their reference collection and their Archive of American
+Folklore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Acknowledgments are made to the following for permission
+to reprint lyrics:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="scall">K-K-K-KATY</span> by Geoffrey O’Hara. Copyright 1918/Copyright
+Renewal 1945 <span class="scall">LEO FEIST INC.</span> Used by Special Permission
+Copyright Proprietor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="scall">FIVE FOOT TWO, EYES OF BLUE</span> (Has Anybody Seen My Girl?).
+Lyric by Sam Lewis and Joe Young, Music by Ray Henderson.
+Copyright 1925/Copyright Renewal 1953 <span class="scall">LEO FEIST INC.</span>
+Used by Special Permission Copyright Proprietor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="scall">THE MUSIC GOES ’ROUND AND ROUND.</span> Reprinted by permission
+of the Copyright Owners, <span class="scall">JOY MUSIC INC.</span> 1619 Broadway,
+New York, N. Y. Copyright 1935. All Rights Reserved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="scall">THE TURTLE DOVE.</span> Copyright 1953 Burl Ives and published by
+Ballantine Books, N. Y.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nine Songs from <span class="scall">THE GOLDEN BOOK OF FAVORITE SONGS</span>. Published
+by Schmitt, Hall &amp; McCreary Co., Minneapolis, Minn.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<p class="ded">
+To<br>
+A. D. G.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="toc" id="chapter-0-2" title="Contents">
+contents
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="table">
+<table class="toc">
+<tbody>
+   <tr>
+      <td class="col1">part one</td>
+      <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-1">1</a></td>
+   </tr>
+   <tr>
+      <td class="col1">part two</td>
+      <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-117">117</a></td>
+   </tr>
+   <tr>
+      <td class="col1">part three</td>
+      <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-197">197</a></td>
+   </tr>
+   <tr>
+      <td class="col1">part four</td>
+      <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-287">287</a></td>
+   </tr>
+   <tr>
+      <td class="col1">part five</td>
+      <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-363">363</a></td>
+   </tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<p class="halftitle">
+THE WHEEL OF EARTH
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="part" id="chapter-0-3" title="Part one">
+<a id="page-1" class="pagenum" title="1"></a>
+part one
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">We lay beneath the alder tree</p>
+      <p class="verse">Her breast she leaned upon my hand</p>
+      <p class="verse">The alder leaf moved over me</p>
+      <p class="verse">The sun moved over on the land</p>
+      <p class="verse">Her mouth she pressed upon my mouth</p>
+      <p class="verse">I felt the leaf beat in her breast</p>
+      <p class="verse">I felt the sun move in her hair</p>
+      <p class="verse">But nearer than the leaf the sun</p>
+      <p class="verse">I felt the love go deep in me</p>
+      <p class="verse">That has no season in the earth</p>
+      <p class="verse">That has no time of spring or birth</p>
+      <p class="verse">That cannot flower like a tree</p>
+      <p class="verse">Or like one die</p>
+                <p class="verse6">but only be</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-1">
+<a id="page-3" class="pagenum" title="3"></a>
+1
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Ellen Gaddy was gathering tart stunted June apples into a
+peck basket. Drifts of cloud were passive in the blue dome
+above, where hawks were wheeling. The late afternoon sun
+was warm on her tanned neck. The dog came up barking,
+stood close to her, tongue slavering, eager. She patted him
+and he went to curl under a tree. “There, Jack.” He was
+half shepherd, sensible in the ways of the farm. Ellen was
+his choice among the humans so he was restless apart. His
+limpid eyes were fixed on her as she hunted in the tall grass.
+Her hands were small and coarse, and in wiping sweat from
+her face she had left careless dark streaks. She was sixteen,
+the cups of her breasts hung firm, her belly was small. She
+<a id="page-4" class="pagenum" title="4"></a>
+wore her yellow hair in braids. Her mouth was facile, somewhat
+obstinate, and her forehead was high, its creamy texture
+darkened by the season’s sun. A tiger swallowtail like a falling
+yellow leaf was drifting by. She sighed to it, “Bear me
+good news.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old brook that fed the farm’s pond was near the orchard.
+Pebbles lying in the uneasy clear water were glossed,
+tangled twigs and leaves were forced downstream in complaining
+whirlpools, marsh grasses along the bank strove for
+footing in the cruel plashing current. Ellen was shaking tree
+branches, the fruit rattling about her. Today Penny was due
+to drop her kid. She had looked it up in the almanac. Gestation
+Table, She-Goat, 151 days. The kid will follow me,
+making small noises, wanting to play.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A question of smoke was rising from the yellow farmhouse
+over the hill, set among black gums, hackberries and locusts.
+The red barn and outlying sheds held the crest of the rise,
+settling more firmly with each passing year. Occasionally
+Anton Gaddy, Ellen’s father, must shore up a door frame or
+strengthen a sagging rafter, but the buildings would stand
+long after the people. The barn had been hammered together
+with hand-cut nails and wood pegs by Ellen’s grandfather in
+1870. Some of the outbuildings had been raised in 1846 by his
+father, a Frenchman who had homesteaded this tract in the
+year of the Irish potato famine. Back of the yellow house,
+crowded about by dayflower weeds, were two beehives that
+would mount tall in summer as the hive supers, one at a time,
+were stacked upon those laden with combs of honey. There
+too lay rows of vegetables that Ellen and her younger sister,
+Frankie, kept clean. Maria Gaddy, their mother, never undertook
+outdoor chores unless the day were pale or clouded, for
+she had been sun-struck ten years ago, in 1915, “I dassn’t go
+out but for Sunday mass,” Maria would claim; “it makes me
+queer to feel the sun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the valley below the hill was the orchard where Ellen
+<a id="page-5" class="pagenum" title="5"></a>
+was gleaning apples. Back of it stretched the small woods,
+where gray squirrels were hunting wild berries and mushrooms.
+They did this daily in the span of hours from sunrise
+until mid-morning, and from mid-afternoon until sunset. And
+overhead red-shouldered hawks would circle, sharp eyes
+searching branches and boles. A large male squirrel was aware
+now of a vixen fox crouched in hunger below his tree limb.
+His black eyes glittered and he lifted his paws, prating at
+her. He forgot his foes in the sky for a moment. The long
+wings of a wheeling hawk folded, like a stone it dropped.
+Ellen raised her gray eyes, watching it rise from the woods,
+prey dangled in its talons. The other hawks were screaming,
+“Kee-yoo. Kee-yoo!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen’s mind was on her young goat. She had warned her,
+“Now don’t walk under the horses’ heads or for a fact you’ll
+go eleven months.” Sam Offut had told her that. “So they
+warn a ooman with child hereabouts, Ellie. See, it takes a
+mare that long to have a foal and she’s got a power in her
+when she’s carrying.” Ellen didn’t believe him—Sam told
+many tales. Penny’s time was up and she was seeking a place
+to drop it. This morning Ellen had seen that her tail was
+sunken so there were sockets on either side, and the young
+sagged low. “There. Maybe she’s freshening now.” Ellen
+snatched the two baskets of June apples, running in her long
+skirt through high grass into a new-turned field, up the hill
+toward the barn. Her bare feet sank into the red soil leaving
+huge tracks. The dog was yapping, caught in the game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a corner of the woodshed she had made a stall, nailing
+bars and hanging a gate with a latch that the goat could not
+open. It blatted as she set down her baskets and opened
+the gate. She knelt beside it in the wheat straw to feed it an
+apple. Her father’s hired girl, Penny Dougherty, had given
+her the brown animal, then but a yearling, before going
+away last summer. Ellen had named it after the girl. It slobbered,
+chewing on the crisp fragrant fruit. Then it snuffed
+<a id="page-6" class="pagenum" title="6"></a>
+her forehead and ear, began to lick her face, making soft stuttering
+sounds. Ellen ran her hand along the curves of the
+slender horns. It shook its fine-boned head. She stroked the
+beard. “Say, I’d love a little doe, Penny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever since Penny Dougherty went away Ellen would sit
+talking to the namesake goat. Her father had hired Penny last
+summer to help his wife during a sick spell. Then Penny
+had left them, married Luke Dougherty, gone to the town
+of Weems Crossroads way off in Illinois. Because she sang
+so much, Anton Gaddy had dubbed Penny “that roaring
+ooman.” But Ellen had grieved over the end to the short
+friendship. She would sing the songs she had picked up from
+Penny, gay tunes, meaningless, and lengthy ballads that told
+of sudden death and unfulfilled love.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I dreamed of my true love last night</p>
+      <p class="verse">All in my arms I had her</p>
+      <p class="verse">Her yellow hair like strands of gold</p>
+      <p class="verse">Came rolling down my pillow</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen was lonely. Her mother gave her small heed. Her
+father, as well. He had turned from her at birth, waiting for
+a son. Then when Ellen’s sister had been born and Anton
+learned from his wife that she would be barren thereafter,
+he named the baby Frankie, and fastened himself upon it
+forthwith. His voice was heard now, overriding the gentle
+tune, “Girl, where you at? You got the apples? It’s time to
+feed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Coming, Pa.” At the corncrib she took an armful of ears
+and shelling them, fed a flock of ducks and geese, the first of
+her chores each late afternoon. They were free to roam the
+barnyard, making nests and raising young at will. One wing
+was clipped every so often to keep them in the safety of the
+yard. Heads bobbing, the fowl were shoveling the grain with
+flat bills. The white ducks made a nasal chatter, a gray gander
+<a id="page-7" class="pagenum" title="7"></a>
+lowered its head and wove its long neck like a snake, hissed
+and raised its wings at Ellen. “Don’t you squall at me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She kept back one ear of corn, went to the plowed field
+she had raced through earlier. There she gave a call and from
+the pond came an answering beat of wings. A Muscovy duck
+was flying up the hill. It circled Ellen, flapping to a halt at
+her feet, gathering its wings. Its red-wattled head was cocked
+to one side. She scattered the corn. “Why don’t you come
+to the barnyard and be tamed, you wild one?” It was watching
+her with a wary eye, eating the yellow grain greedily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked off at the Kentucky farmland stretched before
+her. Orange clouds were assembling behind the brush line
+of tiny trees. The square fields were hemstitched with stone
+walls and rail fences. Near the barnyard a black gum was
+rearing gaunt limbs. When a crested redbird’s dark silhouette
+dipped through the fragrant orange air into its ragged
+branches, she was shaken by the sudden beauty. She turned
+quickly, saying to the feeding duck, “I don’t know. Seems
+I hate every enduring thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She fed chickens that congregated in the stony yard.
+She filled their water bucket from the pump, watched the
+speckled hens dip their beaks and up their heads to let the
+water run down. She collected brown eggs in a fold of her
+dress, from boxes nailed along the cobwebbed wall. A hen
+pecked her wrist as she reached under it for heated eggs. The
+bird’s breast was hot, bare where it had plucked feathers to
+line its nest. “You’re broody. Sam’ll put you under the pump
+to break you up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went up the stairs to the farm kitchen and counted the
+eggs into a basket. “The hens are laying good, Ma. I’m just
+one short of four dozen. I’ll trade them tomorrow at Love’s
+store.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria Gaddy was turning from the stove. “I allow you can
+get me a length of lace too, Ellie. I need a new collar for
+mass. My old one’s sleazy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-8" class="pagenum" title="8"></a>
+Ellen’s mother wore her gray-streaked hair in a tight knot.
+Her body was warped and thin and stiff. It had turned from
+what it might have been. Her breasts were flattened and she
+had swathed herself in a long-sleeved, high-necked print dress
+that came to her ankles. Her stockings were wrinkled above
+run-down button shoes. Maria lived in continual retreat. She
+had been given to her husband with the awesome dowry of
+fifteen hundred dollars. With it Anton had bought his rights
+to this farm from his only living brother, Garland. Maria
+spoke now, “Go get some new water, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen emptied the blue-enameled pail into the sink. The
+kitchen was roomy. There was a kerosene stove for summer
+use and a huge range for winter heat and cooking. A black-painted
+iron sink stood at the side away from the windows.
+There was no running water but a drainpipe took away the
+waste. Fresh water was supplied by a well a hundred feet
+from the house, to which Ellen went. She drank from the
+dipper before returning. The family was proud that the water
+from this well was always sweet and cold. At the windowed
+end of the kitchen was a long table of red oak that had been
+dressed with ax and adz long ago by Anton’s father, Jules.
+The surface was whitened from lye-scrubbing, uneven from
+the years’ wear. On it was a blue dish of poplar honey, a
+bowl of salt, a milkglass jar of knives, forks and spoons stacked
+handles down. A pantry was adjacent to the kitchen, where
+staples were kept—sacks of flour and meal, curd cheeses that
+hung in cloths from the rafters, milk that stood in pans and
+jars to be skimmed, and cream that ripened in a churn. More
+supplies were stored in the cellar. There dusty shelves were
+holding jars of jelly, jam, ketchup, honey, red and yellow
+tomatoes, chard and collard greens, peaches, fried chicken
+and beef. On the lower shelves were tins of lard. From the
+ceiling dangled strings of dried apples and quinces. On the
+dirt floor of a bin, potatoes left from fall softened and rotted
+<a id="page-9" class="pagenum" title="9"></a>
+in the musty darkness. Root crops of salsify and parsnips lay
+neglected.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+From the parlor came the familiar sound of Frankie practicing
+the piano, scales and exercises rippling. Ellen carried a
+can of kerosene from the porch where Sam had placed it to
+the parlor to replenish the lamps. Over the fireplace a velvet
+cloth was framed, on it depicted the Golgotha crucifixion in
+brilliant primary colors. An overstuffed sofa, Maria’s knitting
+basket at the end, was along one wall. The chairs included a
+doweled high-backed rocker. A round table bore on its lace-covered
+surface statuettes of the Virgin Mary and Joseph,
+a worn Bible, a lamp with painted forget-me-nots trimming
+the bowl, besides dog-eared farm journals, the 1925 <i>Farmer’s
+Comprehensive Almanac</i>, and a silver-banded reading glass.
+Braided rugs were scattered over the oak floor, once smoothed
+with broadax. On a wall was a tinted daguerreotype of a
+stunted wiry man with heavy chin and thick lips, Jules
+Gaddy. Beside him posed his red-haired wife Nell, whose long
+face, high forehead and determined mouth resembled her
+granddaughter Ellen’s. While Jules had been rearing this
+house, the couple had lived in an outbuilding that now served
+for a pigstall. Back of the piano hung a representation of the
+bleeding Sacret Heart. Nell Gaddy had placed it in that spot
+long years ago, saying to Jules, “Now there, little feist, it’ll
+stay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie was lifting her hands from the keys, watching Ellen
+pour the coal oil. She swung her pointed boots as she sat at
+the bench, pursing her lips. “I’m making believe folks are
+swooning, Ellie. Because that piece I played was so good.”
+Frankie was fifteen. Her red hair fell silken on her shoulders,
+her blue eyes were mild.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I declare, Frankie, you’re biggity. Go get washed. Pa’ll be
+in.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The family were sitting to supper then, making the sign
+<a id="page-10" class="pagenum" title="10"></a>
+of the cross. Anton pronounced grace. When his daughters
+had been little, Anton had instructed them on the mealtime
+prayer. Once he said to Frankie, “Tonight you make the
+grace, Poppet.” But Frankie had lisped a rhyme she picked
+up in the parochial school.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Beans, beans, the musical fruit</p>
+      <p class="verse">The more you eat the more you toot</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Anton roared and the family had to get to their knees on the
+kitchen floor to ask the Lord God’s pardon for the blasphemy.
+Frankie had thrown up her supper later while Anton was
+talking to her. “You be a sinner, child. And the evil way and
+the froward mouth do I hate. So it’s said in the Bible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh yes, Pa,” she had mewed like a kitten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On their plates now they were piling garden greens cooked
+with fatback and then mixed with scrambled eggs. And
+chunks of beef from a platter, and green onions and radishes.
+They spread pot cheese on beaten biscuits, drank buttermilk
+kept cold in the old dry well beside the porch and pulled up
+at the last minute to set on the table. All the milk from their
+herd of cows went to the dairy for a monthly check, except
+a three-gallon can put aside daily for Maria’s needs. She set
+it out in pans for cream and made cheeses from the skimmed
+milk. The hogs got the whey mixed with scraps and middlings
+and dishwater. Anton would hold his fork in his left hand,
+pushing the food with a knife. But the two sisters copied
+their mother, forks held in the right. So Maria’s mam had told
+her the woman should eat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You make the butter up tonight, Ellie,” Maria was saying,
+“and take it along with the eggs tomorrow. I’ll give you
+some cheeses to trade, too. My last batch turned out proud.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After supper, Ellen carried the churn of soured cream onto
+the steps. She turned the crank until butter came together
+<a id="page-11" class="pagenum" title="11"></a>
+in a lump. She poured the buttermilk into a stone jar and
+walked out to the well, the churn on one arm, the wood
+bowl and paddle on the other. The sun was beginning to set
+in a wash of red sky. She paused while it slipped distorted
+behind the trees. The sky was fading. A subdued light prevailed
+of twilight. Ellen sighed, torn by a vague melancholy.
+She was saying to the dog, “Seems I ne’er been so contented.
+And did you see that sign in the west? Good crop weather.”
+She pumped water into the churn, turned the dasher until
+the water that drained off appeared fresh drawn. Then she
+worked the butter with the paddle, folding and pressing. She
+spoke as if disputing with someone, “I love butter that’s made
+up proper.” One at a time bats that were peering restless
+from the loft of the barn across the way launched out and
+downward after night insects, then swerved into the treetops.
+Soon the air was busy with their bodies darting and zig-zagging
+and their squeaking high-pitched like mice. A cow
+lowed in the barnyard as it was kneeling, the alarm cry of a
+cock sounded as it was crowded off its roost, a gander hissed
+at a female barn rat that slunk along the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen returned to the kitchen, to press chunks of butter
+into a daisy mold and wrap the half-pound forms in sheets of
+brown paper. She carried them to the dry well and pulling
+up the bucket, packed them in and lowered it down to the
+cold region. Whenever she came out of doors, Jack would
+rise and follow her. When she returned to the house, he
+curled in the cool under the bushes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went into the parlor. A lamp was lit, the family sat
+in their accustomed places. Maria was knitting rapidly; the
+wood needles made dull clicks. She moved her lips occasionally,
+her eyes glancing sidewise. Anton’s squat figure dominated
+the room. He was smoking his nightly pipe, a farm
+journal unopened on his lap. Frankie brought him a terrarium
+she had made. In a glass bowl, a collection of bits of mosses
+and stones and a broken piece of mirror formed a minute
+<a id="page-12" class="pagenum" title="12"></a>
+scene. “Mandy York made one for her pa,” Frankie was telling
+him. “I noticed how it was done.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man’s heart beat strongly. “I’ll think a heap of it,
+Poppet. I’ll set it in the window of the bedroom where it’s
+shady.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was leafing through the Bible. “Proverbs says here
+there are three things stately in their march, the lion and
+the greyhound and the he-goat. Hear that, Pa? It says the
+he-goat also.” No one looked her way. There were only
+the whispers of Anton drawing his pipe and Frankie polishing
+the glass bowl and Maria’s busy needles. Ellen dropped the
+book on the table abruptly. “Reckon I’ll go take a bath.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the half-dark kitchen she filled a kettle. She lit the kerosene
+burner and went to stand on the porch while it was
+heating. The meadows were flecked with fireflies, and along
+the stone foundations of the old house soft shadows sulked.
+Ellen was leaning against the porch rail. The summer dusk
+seeped through her nostrils, warming her blood unreasonably,
+almost to sadness. She took the tin wood-bottomed tub from
+its nail, went to the pump for more water. She threw her
+clothes aside, washed quickly, using the jellied homemade lye
+soap from the crock. She dried with a white towel from the
+porch clothesline. Dumping the water into the bushes and returning
+the tub to its hook, she ran naked up the dark stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shared the room at the head with her sister. The beds
+would stand in the center of the floor in winter, away from
+drafty corners. In summer they were moved to opposite ends,
+each under a small gable window. A trunk held schoolbooks,
+Catholic missals, rosaries and childhood miscellany. They
+folded their clothes into a low chest and hung their dresses
+from a pole under the slanted ceiling. She closed the door
+swiftly, breathing as though pursued. She knelt on the bed,
+arms on the open window sill. The moon was emerging as
+though pushed from the womb of a laboring earth. When
+Ellen put a hand up she felt tears on her cheeks, wondered at
+<a id="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></a>
+them. “Reckon I can’t bear for there to be such a fine sight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was turning and groping in the chest for a nightgown.
+“Seems Pa always favors Frankie o’er me. Some way.” Soon
+she was sleeping. The moon without became canescent and
+utterly fair. Its colorless light coming through the window
+made sharp corners soft. It was like a pale rug on the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She awoke from a dreamless sleep. “I nearly slept through.”
+She was putting on a dress, in haste. Jack, snuffling and leaping,
+met her at the door. She lit a lantern that hung from a
+bent nail, and ran barefoot toward the barnyard. A blank
+disk of moon was squatting above twisted trees. She stumbled
+over dry roots in the path and the lantern handle clanged,
+the sound harping on the night. In the woodshed she held
+the light high. The goat was in the corner by the wall, down
+in travail. She bleated to Ellen, who hooked the lantern on a
+rafter peg and opened the gate. The animal was straining
+again. The dog whined. Ellen turned on him. “Be still and
+lie down, Jack.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The water bag appeared and burst. The doe staggered to
+her feet, trembling, head down, beard drooping. Uttering
+quick noises she was licking Ellen’s hand. Then she pawed the
+ground, urgent, folded her forelegs and went down again as
+the contractions came on. The nose of the kid appeared, a
+row of lower teeth visible through a filmy sack. It retreated,
+then appeared again. A foot came in sight beside the head.
+The doe bawled. “Holy Virgin,” Ellen was whispering, “help
+my dear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Penny arched her back, threw herself on her side with a
+guttural sound. Ellen grasped the forefoot, pulling until the
+leg and bulge of head emerged. Then of a sudden, the kid
+was slipping out in a pool, mouth gasping. With straw Ellen
+wiped the clinging mucus from its nostrils, gathered up the
+struggling limp body and placed it by Penny’s head. The dam
+began to clean it. Ellen looked under a caul-wet leg. “There.
+It’s what I wanted, a doe.” A thin wail stabbed the air as the
+<a id="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></a>
+kid protested Penny’s thorough cleansing. “I’ll run get your
+mash now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen took the lantern and sped down the pathway spraying
+the darkness with yellow light. The dog ran after her.
+“Now I have three of my own, counting you, Jack.” She
+mixed wheat bran with hot water and molasses. When she returned
+with it, she was brought to a halt at the pen door.
+Another kid had been born, a white buckling. The brown
+first-born doe was already staggering on its legs. Tiny cries
+were crisscrossing and cutting the night. Penny was standing
+over the kids, chewing on a mass of discarded placenta, her
+pattern fulfilled for the moment. When the pan of mash was
+held out, she scooped it with her jaws, burying her nose in
+the sweetened food. And Ellen, rubbing the newborn twins
+with dry straw, was eased in a measure of her longings.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-2">
+<a id="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></a>
+2
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Mist was steaming up from the land before the hot ball of
+sun would drag through. Ellen was carrying the fluffy brown
+kid to the kitchen to show the family. “This is the least one.
+Penny doesn’t know I robbed her of it. She’s busy eating.”
+Ellen stood the kid on the floor. It looked about, gave a sidewise
+spring into the air, cocking its head, waggish. It leaped
+again, pattering on stiff hoofs to Maria who pulled at her
+apron and drew back with a low noise. “Oh look, Ma. She’s
+so pretty. If I hadn’t been there last night she might have
+died.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haw. That’s what you claim,” Anton said. “They get
+born all the same.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></a>
+Frankie had relaxed, seeing her father was in favorable
+mood. She let the yeanling suck on her finger, stooping over
+it. “Say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you want to hold her, Ma?” Ellen insisted. She
+knew it worried Maria if an animal was in the house; on cold
+nights she would slip downstairs to take Jack up to bed,
+creeping down again to let him out early. But this wasn’t the
+same as a dog for its breath was gently perfumed and it cried
+like a bird. “Come on, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fetch the little thing away, Ellie. I don’t want hit to touch
+me. I can’t abide the fur against me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton supported her. “Your ma’s right. Hit belongs at the
+barn with the nanny. Your chores redded up, girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did them real early.” Ellen was cradling the kid in her
+arms; she carried it to its dam at the woodshed. As she was
+going back to the house, she saw her father ahead on the
+path, striding from the barn. He shouted over his shoulder to
+Sam and continued his way to where Frankie was waiting on
+the steps. He was cutting the end from a twist of dark red
+tobacco leaves with his knife. He was clad in everyday garb,
+faded blue overalls and black sateen shirt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton Gaddy was still winter-fat; by fall he would be
+lean. He was a short thick-set man. His flewed lips hung
+loose, his chin was long and heavy-jawed. When young his
+head had been heavily red-thatched, now at forty-eight was
+balding. His face was freckled and the sun already had burned
+his skin, despite the protection of a straw hat, toward the
+high bronze he would wear all summer. He was one of three
+brothers born and raised on this farm. He possessed it fiercely
+as he did all he made his own. In a similar fashion his mother
+had once ruled, driving her husband and denying her two
+youngest sons that the eldest might prosper. She had sent this
+favorite, Marc, to college to fulfill her plans for him. But he
+had run away, disappeared. Then she was notified he had
+died, and she had brought back the body. This son’s failure
+<a id="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></a>
+had broken Nell Gaddy. When Anton would think about his
+mother he sometimes confused her with the Virgin Mary.
+After her lingering death his passivity had evolved into violence,
+his brooding silence into action. He had taken over the
+farm and bought out his living brother’s share. His father,
+stringy, worn from a life of toil, had dropped dead behind
+the team one fall, his passing scarce noted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Want to ride the mare out to the rye field, Frankie?”
+Anton was folding his knife. “You can let the foal run
+alongside. You can play with it in the daisies and feverfews
+while I’m mowing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam was bringing up the horses, the bay mare Moll, and
+Blueberry, the buckskin gelding. A six-week colt trotted
+alongside, shy at the noise of harness on its dam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Pa.” Frankie nodded and went toward the team.
+Her slight form in the shapeless green dress was moving listless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa,” Ellen said. “I’m going to Love’s now. I’d be glad to
+get you somewhat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can pick up two-three plugs for me. Get Brown
+Mule.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will, Pa.” At the well she rinsed her face and hands in
+the rushing stream, ran dripping to the house. She dried with
+the porch towel and sped upstairs to change her dress.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">The crow is black, my love you know</p>
+      <p class="verse">It will surely turn to white</p>
+      <p class="verse">If e’er I do forsake you</p>
+      <p class="verse">Bright day will turn to night</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She was taking from its hanger a dress patterned with huge
+white dots. “It was a sad day for us Gaddys when peddler
+came to the door with this polka-dot goods that took Ma’s
+eye. And it purely wears like iron.” She pulled on stockings,
+laced her shoes, slipped into the long-waisted dress. She unbraided
+<a id="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></a>
+her hair and combed it. She tied it with a string, careless,
+as she was stepping down to the kitchen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria had packed butter and cheese with the eggs in a big
+basket. She was calling in her reedy voice from the cellar,
+“There’s a list on top of the eggs, girl. Trade careful, mind.
+Watch Grady doesn’t cheat me, for he’ll try.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen put the list in her pocket.
+</p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p class="noindent">
+thred, white and black, elastik, small sack salt and coffee.
+if enough money, sack sugar small, also tatted lace for
+sunday collar. cinnamon and clove sticks, pepper and spice
+for pikles. save back for Mr. Gaddy wants apple baccy.
+dont you forget. and ask Stacey Love if she has some east.
+Mine is worn out.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She petted Jack, told him to stay. He sat back on his haunches
+to watch her swing down the dusty road. Grady Love’s store,
+on the outskirts of Millville, was two miles away.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Have you seen the green grass</p>
+      <p class="verse">Trampled under foot</p>
+      <p class="verse">Arise and grow again</p>
+      <p class="verse">Oh love it is a killing thing</p>
+      <p class="verse">Did you e’er feel the pain</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The sky was blue banners and white. Young breezes were
+soughing in the trees’ leaves. Her trading basket was light. A
+mocker-bird was quavering in a cottonwood and ahead a
+baby rabbit was loping down the side of the clay road. A
+buggy passed, whirling red dust into eddies. She crossed the
+plank bridge that spanned the Sweetincreek. Some of the
+heavy boards were loose and shifted as she walked across, her
+footsteps hollow. She inspected a group of lanky red flowers
+on the bank across the ditch. “I don’t even know your name.
+You got one, you know.” As she started on her way again,
+she half paused, as though she were losing something precious,
+<a id="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></a>
+quitting a thing but partly experienced. She wandered along,
+her face dreamy, the basket swinging idle. As if she were
+seeking something. “Everything, be it bird or flower or star,
+has a name of its own. No matter how small it be.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was nearing a faded frame store, set before a stubbled
+field of goldenrod and chicory. Out in front were benches
+where customers whiled away time or waited to hitch a ride
+on the milk truck going to New Hope or Bethel or away
+down to Seven Mile Run. Ellen pulled open the screen door
+and squinted at the dim interior. She entered and rested her
+basket on the counter. A few flies were snoring lazily in the
+air. There were open barrels and grimy shelves, and meal,
+rice, bran, seed, had sifted into the knotholes and poorly
+joined planks of the puncheon floor. Grady Love, spare-framed,
+Jay-voiced, bartered with her. “How’s this lace for
+your ma, Ellen? Seven and a half cents.” Grady had known
+Ellen all her life. He pitied the poor Gaddy brat and would
+favor the trade on her side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s kind of ratty, Mester Love. Haven’t you got a stouter
+grade?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was stowing the spices, lace, tobacco and kitchen goods
+in her basket. She consulted her list. “Does your wife have
+some starter yeast to spare? Ma’s bread isn’t rising so good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Grady returned from his quarters in the rear with
+a cloth-wrapped jar, Ellen was gazing at dusty bolts of yard
+goods stacked on a shelf. He offered to lift some down. Her
+wistful fingers lingered over a filmy white cotton with tiny
+woven points of blue. “I’d love a length of this. What do you
+name it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s dotted Swiss, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If Pa’ll let me trade some strawberries, would you hold a
+piece back for me? We’ll be picking soon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure, Ellen. You just send word.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bye now, Mester Love.” She took her basket from the
+counter and pushed open the door. A fluff of cotton was
+<a id="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></a>
+pinned to the wire mesh to keep off flies, but they swarmed
+in the blaze of sunlight as she went out. Half blinded, she
+bumped into the hurrying figure of a young man. She was
+thrown back with such force that she dropped her basket,
+the contents spilling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry. Are you hurt, ma’am?” He was grasping her
+bare arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen pushed him from her, confused. “You plaguing bastard.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was kneeling, but he was swifter, retrieving the thread
+spools before her hands could reach them, setting straight the
+sack of coffee beans, the yeast jar, laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never saw you, ma’am, in the sunlight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was fair-complected with ash-blond hair. His eyes
+were the color of the miniature blue flowers the country folk
+call innocence. “You’re foreign,” she stammered. “I don’t
+know your face.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m the new hand at Brinker’s farm on Sweetincreek
+Road. I’m Christian Ay. You know of Carl Brinker?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dutchman Brinker was a Lutheran and a heathen. When
+Frankie was in the first grade of the public school, Pa had
+got in a brush with Brinker over the prayer the youngens recited
+before class. Pa withdrew Frankie and put her in a
+parochial school, though it meant the family had to scrimp
+more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was brushing dust from her dress. “Pleased to meet
+your acquaintance, Mester. Reckon I’ll get on my way.” Her
+shoes were gritty with dirt; she was pushing the unkempt
+hair from her hot cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait a second. Where do you live? I’m going back down
+the road.” He was persuasive. “Be glad to give you a lift in
+the pickup, ma’am.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.” She accepted and stepped lightly into the high
+seat of the battered truck. Leaning against the sun-hot leather,
+she waited while he did his errands. Idly she noted manure
+<a id="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></a>
+clods on the floor and baby shoes dangling by a pair of soiled
+laces from the dashboard. Musty farm smells permeated the
+cab.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he was back, sliding into the seat and pressing the
+starter. The motor refused to turn over. “Be just a minute.
+She likes to be coaxed.” He took a crank from under his feet
+and jumped down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Pa sure would have raised sand,” she whispered to
+herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The motor had caught. He was climbing back while the
+engine puttered and gasped and the cab shook. He spit on
+his hand where a fresh cut bled. “Every time that crank
+slips I slice myself. Can’t get the hang of it somehow. My
+old man never had a car.” His cheekbones were broad and
+high, his mouth wide. His laughter was showing even white
+teeth. These with his tow hair made his face appear darker
+by contrast than it was. His legs were rather shorter than
+average, his torso powerful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Daddy owns a store in Louisville. It’s like Love’s place
+only lots bigger.” He made a grimace. “And it’s in the stinking
+city.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er been to a city yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, they stink. I hate the store. My sister does too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That Rose. She’s wild to leave, only Daddy won’t let
+her. They need me too, but I send money every week so they
+can pay a boy. What a gyp.” The truck was rattling over the
+bridge. Christian blew his horn at a hound trotting in the
+center of the road, “Oooo-ga!” It slunk into the weeds of the
+ditch, nose low. “Once the revenuers came in our place looking
+for Jake. If you drink too much it’ll kill you. We never
+sold hooch like some did in back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa says Mester Bilberry hired two men who drained the
+rotted ferment from the bottom of his silo. Till he found out.
+To get drunk of a Saturday night.” Her voice trailed away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></a>
+“Well me, I always wanted to work on a farm. It’s the
+life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m strong as a bull. Just by luck I got this job. Mr.
+Brinker’s last man quit and he happened to come by our
+store. So I wrote him, not thinking I’d get hired.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh?” Ellen was awkward in her loss of words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My sister carried on when I went. She thought she’d get
+to leave home first. My old man told her he’d tie her up
+before he’d turn her loose in that sin-ridden city. That’s the
+way he talks. So I’ve been with Mr. Brinker a month now.
+Some day I’ll have a farm like his of my own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bump in the road made her clutch the basket on her
+lap. The little shoes bounced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aren’t they silly? Brinker’s crazy for his kids. Always got
+the littlest one riding on his shoulders.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got a goat,” Ellen was blurting, “named Penny. She
+dropped me a pair of kids last night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A nanny? Gosh, Brinkers don’t have a goat. Maybe he’d
+buy one of yours. His boys could drive it to a wagon. Want
+me to ask?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I’d ne’er sell one. See, they’re mine.” She wondered
+whether this stranger could understand the value in which
+she held the sloe-eyed beasts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the yellow farmhouse Christian halted the truck. Dust
+was floating disturbed in the air above the beaten roadway.
+The pattern of the midday sun was weaving and shimmering
+in the shade of the cottonwoods. “See you, ma’am.” He
+laughed like he couldn’t help it, like a great joke had come
+to his mind. “Ellie, that is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made no reply, watched the truck grow small, rumbling
+toward Brinker’s farm, three miles down the road. She
+moved to the house. Jack was thrusting his head into her fingers
+and she stroked it. She smiled as though she understood.
+“See you, Mester.” She took the cuts of tobacco from among
+<a id="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></a>
+the goods in the basket, slipping them into the pocket of her
+dress. Maria stood vigilant just within the doorway. “Here’s
+your basket, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your dish be setting in the pantry, girl. Soon as you eat,
+there’s ironing. Hit’s dampened down in yonder basket.” The
+woman had hung the wash at dawn-dusk, gathered it quickly
+at mid-morning, wearing an outsize sunbonnet. “This trading
+sure looks poor, Ellie. Hit pleasures Grady to short me, knowing
+I can’t go trade myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went upstairs, came down barefoot. She took her
+plate from the pantry, ate the fried piece of duck, the boiled
+potato, curd cheese, biscuits and honey. She was dipping
+from the blue pail. “I declare this water’s sweet, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria was sorting the contents of the basket in the pantry.
+“You ne’er got the pickling spices.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There wasn’t enough to trade.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to stir up a cake this evening, Ma. Can I have
+white sugar for it?” When their taste for sweets became
+strong, Ellen and Frankie would ask for store-bought sugar
+to cook with, although they could get along with sorghum
+or honey. Flour and meal ground from the farm grain was
+ready for their use, plentiful as a rule, and drippings and
+lard, eggs and milk. “I’ll bake that white cake Pa likes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say,” Maria was frowning. “You remember Mester
+Gaddy’s tobacco?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. I’ll run down to look at my new goats. If Pa’s in the
+barnyard I’ll give it to him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s ironing, girl,” warned Maria. She was holding
+the new lace in her thin hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll hurry.” Ellen brought an armful of last year’s brown
+hay and an ear of corn to her goat. “This is all he’ll let me
+have, Penny. But I’ll gather purple vetch this evening, and
+before long your yeanlings will be grown enough so you-all
+can run with the cows.” The doe dug into the corn, using
+<a id="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></a>
+her lower row of teeth against the pad of upper jaw to tear
+the kernels loose. Her amber pupils stared distant. She seemed
+oblivious to her young repeatedly butting the new-swelled
+udder and sucking the moist teats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His name’s Christian Ay. Reckon he calls some girl his
+may? Reckon a man’ll e’er be partial to me, Penny?” She
+dropped the cob and went to the barnyard. “I don’t see Pa,
+Jack. And I’ve got to iron.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the kitchen she was placing the sadirons on the stove to
+heat. She brought out the ironing board, patched with
+bleached feed sacking, and laid it crosswise on the end of the
+table. She spit on the irons to test them, went about her
+work with familiar hands. The floor was cool to her dusty
+feet. Her mind roved to one of the songs she had learned
+from Penny Dougherty.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">All on one summer evening</p>
+      <p class="verse">When the fevers were dawning</p>
+      <p class="verse">I heard a fair maid make a mourn</p>
+      <p class="verse">She was weeping for her father</p>
+      <p class="verse">And grieving for her mother</p>
+      <p class="verse">And thinking all on her true love John</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Without the square-paned windows, the musky earth lay
+under the hand of summer’s sun. Garden rows were in view,
+rabbits and woodchucks fenced out by a wall of stones that
+mounted each year as more were turned from the ground.
+Blooming flowers were crowding outside the barrier, begonias,
+love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, <a id="corr-0"></a>cranesbills
+and honesty. Later sweet peas and corn poppies would
+flower, and nasturtiums and youth-and-old-age. Beyond were
+nestled the beehives, pale apple-blossom and maple honey already
+stored in the bottom super. In fall the hives would
+tower high and the men would rob them, carrying a pan of
+smoke. The topmost honey would be red-black, taken by
+<a id="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></a>
+the bees from buckwheat blooms. Anton would relish the
+high flavor, but Ellen would find it turning her stomach, like
+milk when the cows had eaten wild garlic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria entered the kitchen, set about mixing bread, kneading
+and thumping the mass of dough on the long table, flour
+drifting to the floor. “That was good yeast Stacey gave me.
+It’s raring.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Grady said it was new.” Ellen carried starched dresses
+and folded clothes up to the attic room. She put them away,
+then combed her hair in front of the oblong mirror that
+hung on the door. She made her mouth soft. “Pleased to meet
+your acquaintance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked down. Her feet were bare, her brown ankles
+grimy, the dress with the big polka dots was crumpled and her
+hands were rough. “There. You are an ugly brat.” She flung
+the door ajar to hide the glass, braided her hair swiftly, binding
+the ends. Slowly she went down the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come here, girl. Slop those sows. The two that’s due to
+farrow. Mester Gaddy said to feed them up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen took the pail, crossing the lane to the hog lot.
+“Soooooeee,” she shouted, “pig-pig-pig-pig!” Grunting and
+sniffing, the two laden red beasts approached, eying her under
+horny lids. Shoulders pushing, they vied for the whey, potato
+peelings, crumbs of dough and flour. Ellen watched them
+root around for scraps and, still squealing and shoving, move
+off. She rinsed the bucket, filling it afresh to carry with her.
+The drowsy odor of green grape blossoms drifted languid
+from the vines. In the garden she stooped and moved, her
+toes grasping the earth, her nimble fingers pulling among
+sprouts, making small piles of weedlings. She transplanted
+sorrel and mustard, poured water on them, made beds of
+onion sets, black radishes, corn and squash to stagger the
+summer yield for the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later on in the afternoon Frankie came to the stone wall.
+“Pa thinks I’m practicing. I vow it’s hot.” Her sunbonnet
+<a id="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></a>
+was shading her face, her forehead was moist. “Sam’s at the
+barn drenching Maisie with coal oil. She took sick. Sam says
+it’s the clover. Hit’s too rich for the cows.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stretched her arms and left her work. She washed at
+the pump, splashing her feet, face and arms, wetting her
+dress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hurry,” Frankie urged, “you’ll ne’er get a cake baked before
+evening chores, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you’ll keep your eye on the stove, we’ll make hit.
+How’s Pa?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s plagued about Maisie getting the bloat. But the rye’s
+cut and drying good.” She was plaintive. “Wish Pa’d let me
+go with you sometime to trade at Love’s. Why won’t he,
+Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was touching the packets of tobacco in her pocket;
+she would use them to bribe an approving glance from her
+father. “Hit’s his way.” She sensed the familiar stab of rejection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood idle a moment before Frankie started. “Ellie,
+we’ll ne’er make it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sped to the house light-footed in the dust and heat.
+“Oh yes, we will. I’ll use Tinie Bilberry’s rule for a white
+one. You beg Ma for more sugar to frost it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They laughed breathless. The younger girl swung her sunbonnet
+in her hand. “Show me how that one’s stirred up,
+Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The kitchen was cool, the shades half drawn. Ellen lit the
+burners under the oven. Frankie went to wheedle sugar from
+Maria, who was in the bedroom making a new shirt for her
+husband from a bolt of stiff black sateen. The woman was
+hunched over, concentrating on perfect stitches in the light
+from the small windows. In this room two babies had been
+born and one miscarried. Over the gray-painted iron bedstead
+hung a heavy crucifix. At the farther wall loomed a commodious
+wardrobe closet, smelling of camphor and holding
+<a id="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></a>
+Maria’s Sunday dresses and Anton’s black suit. “I’ll spare a
+teacup, Frankie. I’d rather you’d use sorghum. You girls are
+wasteful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie measured the sugar and was sweeping the kitchen.
+Ellen was leaning back in her father’s chair, the long apron
+draped over her stretched-out legs as she turned the batter.
+“Did you heed what went in, Frankie?” The enthusiasm
+of her young years lifted her so the breath nearly
+knotted in her throat.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">My true love</p>
+      <p class="verse">Is a blue eyed daisy</p>
+      <p class="verse">She won’t work</p>
+      <p class="verse">And I’m too lazy</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The batter had been poured into the pans and they were set
+in the hot oven when into the kitchen their father’s voice
+rapped, “Feeding time. Where’s that girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keep your eye on the oven, Frankie. Don’t forget.” Ellen
+was running out the door and down the steps after Anton
+who strode toward the barn. “Here’s your tobacco, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped to take it from her. “Now can’t you e’er get to
+your chores, girl, without me hunting you out?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Inside the house, Frankie was turning quietly to the parlor.
+Soon scale notes rang precise against the ancient paper-covered
+walls. Maria put her sewing aside, went to the kitchen,
+pinning a sack apron about her. She kneaded down the bowl
+of warm raised dough, forming loaves and biscuits, greasing
+them with soft butter. She put them near the heat of the
+oven to rise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the hills about the farmland the sun-drenched late afternoon
+air filled with Sam Offut’s voice pleading full and deep,
+“Sooo-cow. Sooook, sooook, sooo-cow.” Winding up the lane
+came the line of milkers, chewing cuds, dispassionate, hip-bones
+swaying, udders distended. Jack tailed them, head
+<a id="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></a>
+down. When one halted to crop a clump of grass, his sharp
+bark sang and he nipped the bony fetlocks. The old duck
+flapped its wings, splashed the pond water so crawfish and
+turtles dove to the muddied bottom. It was lifting its heavy
+body from the pond, and then circling Ellen on the hillside.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-3">
+<a id="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></a>
+3
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+A few days passed. Lily Garrett, who lived on the other side
+of Millville, stopped by to make lavender sticks with Ellen
+and Frankie. Lily brought a pale fresh honeycomb, for the
+Garrett family robbed their hives all summer long, not waiting
+for a fall harvest like the Gaddys. “Mama says she’ll
+send a plate of basswood honey in July, Mrs. Gaddy, when
+the bee trees are busy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lily was fat, and soft as custard; she would rearrange her
+blond curls constantly, her thick white arms uplifted. She
+was nimble-minded, giggling often, her chins trembling under
+her small red mouth. She was as abandoned as a puppy untied
+from a cord and it may have been because of this that Lily’s
+father bade her lie across her bed each Saturday night while
+<a id="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></a>
+with a locust limb he whipped her well, saying, “The one
+who loves his daughter chastens her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lily arrived in a clear forenoon before the high heat of the
+day. The lavender was in full blow as the girls walked beside
+the bed, plucking them long-stemmed. “Say, Frankie.” Lily
+was stripping the leaves away and drawing the blooms into a
+tight bunch. “I remember Ellie and me were in the second
+grade when I first braided lavendery wands with you-all.
+Your papa had just put you to the nuns.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know.” Frankie was tying the flowers into a ball with
+soft cotton yarn, winding and braiding it among the wilted
+stems. When the flowers were cured they would fasten on
+ribbons, keep back a few for scenting their clothes chests,
+and trade the rest at Love’s store. “What’ll become of us all,”
+Frankie cried, “in the time to come?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll be a famous pianist, Frankie,” said Lily, “you’ll
+see. And Ellie and me’ll visit you up north.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie will marry a rich farmer,” Frankie said, “and have a
+flock of youngens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not me,” said Ellen. “I won’t be called Mama. And I’d
+ne’er do a man’s bidding.” But she was thinking of Christian,
+dwelling on him like a lovely secret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” Lily giggled, bold, “if a man liked me, I’d have
+him. I wouldn’t be biggity.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, I sent off for a thing,” Lily whispered, “to catch a
+man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” Frankie pressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A bust developer. That’s how the farm journal named
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why do you want that? You’re big, Lily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It said men like you that way. I’m going to try it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your pa’ll find out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t give a care. It comes in a plain brown wrapper,
+they claim. He might not see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></a>
+“You’re brazen,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I do catch a man I’ll ne’er have a log cabin chinked
+with clay like ours. Nor cheesecloth curtains neither. And
+I’ll have no squalling babies to whip.” Lily sweated in the
+sun, raising her pillars of arms to her hair. The shy scent of
+lavender enveloped the three of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon we’ll e’er disremember making these lavendery
+wands?” asked Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On Saturday she went to appraise the strawberry bed bordering
+the fence line of Sweetincreek Road. Through the
+mulch of old straw the creeping plants were flourishing.
+“The berries are swelling good. Give them a week,” Ellen
+said to the dog beside her. “I’m going to brave Pa to let me
+trade a basket when they’re ripe.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey, Ellie Gaddy, how’s your nanny goat?” Christian
+Ay, in blue shirt and overalls, was leaning on the other side
+of the rail fence amid scraggling hollyhocks and high ditch
+grass and mullein on the road bank. “I brought you something.”
+He was leaping the rails, his teeth flashing in his broad
+tanned face. There was a bundle under his arm. Jack growled,
+running toward him. He patted the dog and it trotted after.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey.” She waited, the red gathering in her cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Brinker gave me the evening off. So I walked down the
+road. Is this your dog? Here, it’s for you.” He was setting
+the feed sack he carried on the ground and opening it. A
+rabbit wriggled its nose and slowly blinked dark eyes upward,
+grain dustings sifted in its blue-gray fur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guessed you’d like it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took it from the sack, holding it in the crook of her
+arm. She brushed the dust from it and stroked the wiry ears.
+“It’s trembling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s tame. It’s not afraid. Rabbits always do that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat in the grass, bearing it carefully. “I ne’er had one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></a>
+“Don’t pick it up by the tail. Its eyes’ll drop out.” He
+grinned, looking down on her and putting his hands in his
+pockets. “You always lived here, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She nodded, bending over the pet beast, disturbed by the
+looming stranger, charmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I figured you weren’t tenants.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa owns this farm outright,” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He kicked at the grass turf, idly flexed his arm muscles,
+feeling them with his broad hands, one and then the other.
+“You know what Mr. Brinker does, Ellie? He pens his pigs
+under the horse barn where it’s raised off the ground. And
+he puts chickens in batteries up in the loft by the hay. Beats
+me. I never saw the like.” Christian was plucking a grass stalk
+to chew. “Made his boys a windmill. A little one. Grinds
+real corn for their banties and rabbits.” The young man was
+excited by the girl. There had been her coarse words thrust
+at him in spite when he jostled her as they first met. And now
+her ease, snuggled in the grass by the strawberry bed, her
+face slightly flushed. “It beats me, that way Mr. Brinker
+does.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the silence that drew down, the hum of bees working
+the young weed blooms vibrated. The dog scented an animal
+trace and darted away in pursuit. The careless voice of a male
+thrush was dropping like liquid pebbles in the sweetened air,
+then it ceased. Ellen was holding clover leaves for the rabbit
+to chew; she was content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you’d like a rabbit, Ellie. It wasn’t much bother
+getting it for you,” he bragged. Christian had inquired of
+Brinkers about her family, heard they were unfriendly, cut
+themselves off from most of their neighbors. Mr. Gaddy
+kept a close hand on his two daughters. That was what Mr.
+Brinker had claimed. I’ll bet she’s never been kissed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was lifting her eyes, gray, gold-flecked. “I’m beholden
+for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke as though he had practiced what he said, deliberate.
+<a id="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></a>
+“I’m kind of sweet on you, honey.” He tossed aside the
+grass blade quickly, leaning down, his tan face darkened. He
+was laying a hand on her soft cheek, putting his mouth taut
+and firm against hers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Surprised, wide of eye, she looked at his closed lids. The
+strangeness was repellent but for a moment curiosity snared
+her. Then she remembered Maria’s veiled hints and Anton’s
+heavy predictions. She spilled the rabbit from her and shoved
+the young man so he stumbled back. “Now get away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, Ellie,” he was crying, “bet you’ve never been
+kissed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I have,” she lied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You got a boy friend?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” She was getting up. “And rabbit’s lost. Jack’ll get
+him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let him go. I heard your daddy won’t let you out. Is
+that so?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to find rabbit.” She hunted in the brush, coming
+on the tame creature nibbling timothy by the grapevine
+posts. She lifted and caressed it, stony-featured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Goodbye now,” he was calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She breathed, motionless, “My pa would so let me out.”
+She turned to see him walking to the fence, watched while
+he laid his hand on it. She called suddenly. “Here he is. I
+found him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian leaped the fence and laughed, shouting, “Should
+I come next Saturday?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t care.” He waved as he was disappearing, and she
+shrugged. “Who cares?”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The week moved forward. She asked Anton, “Could I
+trade some of the strawberries to Grady Love for a dress-goods
+piece? I’d like a new one. Of dotted Swiss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He frowned. “What foolishness, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d make Frankie one, too. With ruffles. For mass.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></a>
+Anton was caught and reconsidered. “I suppose you could.
+Crops are doing well without hit don’t get dry. When you
+pick, hold back five-six baskets.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next Saturday a thunderstorm held sway. Ellen was
+pacing restive about the house, at last ran through the storm
+to curl up drenched by her three goats. “I don’t care if he
+doesn’t come. What’s he to me? And we need this gully-washer
+for the fields.” Rain thrashed afresh on the woodshed
+roof. “Reckon he might walk down next week, Penny? If
+he’s not forgot by then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The storm cleared in the early evening. As she was hurrying
+through the delayed feeding a rainbow emerged, spanning
+the hills. She stopped in her chores, forgetting all but the
+opalescent arch in the setting of summer green. “There.
+That’s a sight. I set my bow in the cloud for a token between
+Me and the earth. Everlasting, He said.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the moist heat that followed the downpour, the strawberries
+began to ripen quickly. Ellen bartered with Grady
+Love and showed Frankie the ribbons the storekeeper had
+thrown in to match the two lengths of cloth. “That’s a
+dollar forty cents worth if you had the cash.” Ellen cut and
+stitched, Frankie set up the ironing board to press.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night Anton nodded as the younger girl was standing
+before him in a yellow-dotted dress, a deep ruffle flaring
+around the boot tops, a yellow ribbon plaited into the round
+neckline. Anton pulled her to his lap. “This redheaded poppet’s
+so fair. Makes me wish I was her beau come courting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Ellen, holding the image of Christian, felt a lesser
+pain as she watched them frolic. The next day though, she
+was wearing her drab gingham. “He won’t come. It’s been
+two weeks. He’ll ne’er think to come.” She walked out to
+the berry patch. “I’ll just see if they’re still plentiful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian was astride the rail fence. He waved, “Got rained
+out last week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></a>
+“I came but to look at the berries.” She was approaching
+the fence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had a red-painted can that held a plant, the heart-shaped
+leaves mottled white along the veins, the flowers purple.
+“Here.” He was offering it. “Old lady Brinker grows
+them. She called it a primrose. Her kitchen’s full of flowers
+and vines. Too many for me. She even had her old man and
+me to nail up boxes outside the windows and fill them with
+rotted manure. And us with hay to cut. And corn to work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was undone by the gift. “It can live in my loft window.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never saw such folks for decorations.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It calls to mind the shooting-stars that grow in swamp
+spots. You know them?” The flush lay upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He jumped down from the fence, began to tell stories
+he’d gleaned over the past days. While he was speaking he
+looked away and took her hand in his. She kept her hold on
+the red can. They leaned back against the wood rails. He was
+telling about the studhorse Brinker had just purchased. “It’s
+a red roan Belgian. Stands near eighteen hands. I never saw a
+stallion to beat him for class. And light on his feet like a
+little filly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There. I’d love to see him,” Ellen whispered. She let her
+hand lie soft in his.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As if it were a usual thing he put his arm on her tanned
+neck, under the yellow hair. She stirred restless, the plant
+in one arm. “Tell me about your folks, Ellie. Where they
+come from?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My great grandsir was from o’er the waters. My Uncle
+Garland tells how he traveled across the east Kentucky mountains.
+He killed elk that lived in the forests there in olden
+days. He saw giant eagles too, and poison scorpions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s your old man like?” He withdrew his arm, threw
+himself on the grass, his head against the lowest rail. He was
+frowning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></a>
+“Oh I don’t know. Say, I near forgot. I made my sister
+and me each a new dress this past week.” She looked down at
+him. “They turned out proud.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t you wear yours?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t want to. Pa might see. I’ll wear it to mass though,
+tomorrow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s your old man like, Ellie? Does he still spank you?”
+He slid down in the grass, staring skyward. “I’d just like
+to meet him. Sometimes those crabby old fellows make me
+sick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She saw his eyes that were gazing at the clouds angrily, his
+fair hair and new-shaved face. She sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I could have killed my father,” he was saying, “trying to
+chain me to his store. Before I’d run that place for him, I tell
+you I’d go to jail.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was his stubborn wide mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s a circus coming to New Hope next week, Ellie.
+I heard it’s got an elephant. Want to go? Mr. Brinker’ll give
+me the pickup to use.” He stood up from the grass. “Let’s go
+ask your daddy now. I’m set on going,” he warned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll ask Ma,” she said quickly. “Pa’ll likely be in the
+field at this hour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait a minute.” He was reaching for her hand again.
+“Look, what’s the matter with one kiss?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re afraid. It’s true. You never have been kissed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I have too.” So she let his rigid wide lips bear upon
+hers. His nose was in the way, and her arm that hugged the
+primrose. He pressed against her. She was staring at his eyelids,
+cold. I don’t see as that’s such a great thing. To write
+songs about and to whisper on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now you like me, Ellie. Don’t you?” He was triumphant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh my, yes.” But she felt cheated. He thinks it’s a great
+thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were crossing the field to the farm lane, walking up
+<a id="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></a>
+to the house. Maria was inside the screen door, peering at
+them. “I thought it was peddler. He’s past due,” she muttered
+and turned to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait, Ma. This is Christian Ay. He asked me to go along
+with him and the Brinkers to a circus at New Hope next
+Saturday. Can I go, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As far as I care you can.” Maria was disappearing into the
+house recesses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian looked at Ellen, demanding in a low tone,
+“Why’d you say Brinkers were going, Ellie? I’m taking
+you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got to own I was afraid she’d say no.” Her eyes
+glowed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+When Frankie learned Ellen was going on an outing, she
+waited until they were undressing for bed. She spoke in the
+fluttering candlelight, her voice a child’s, “You got a beau?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes you have, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m just going along with the Brinkers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa ne’er liked Brinker.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know.” It was a spear of pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s that boy like?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does he do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He talks to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hate there being boys and girls and e’er a thing jumbled.
+Why can’t it be smooth and all the same?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. It’s the way of it. Like the priest says, God
+made it so.” They sat on their beds rebellious, disturbed. “I
+don’t like it either.” But Ellen was looking over at the new
+plant in her window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her heart a small edge of terror would reign throughout
+the week. But Anton paid her no heed; he ignored her
+proposed trip in his concern with the successful cutting and
+<a id="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></a>
+hauling in of the first hay, with the sows that each farrowed a
+basket of tiny piglets. When Christian drove the pickup into
+the yard, her father was at the barn. Ellen sped down the
+porch steps, Jack barking wildly. Christian wore a red shirt,
+store-creased, and black pants held up with worn green suspenders.
+His hair was slicked damp, the strong artificial odor
+of violet pomade pervading the cab. His face was haughty
+and alien. He seemed somehow shorter and broader. She sat
+back with a satisfied sigh, smoothing the fullness of the new
+blue-speckled dress. Her shoes were buffed and had new
+laces. She had on her best white stockings. Her hair hung
+down loose and in her handkerchief, scented with sweet fern
+and balsam needles, was a small comb. They spoke little.
+Christian kept his arm on the window ledge. He said, “That
+your new dress?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sew good there.” He wheeled the truck into a great
+dusty lot. They drove under a pasteboard sign, CURCIS PARKING
+HERE. Christian paid an old man a nickel. They hurried
+toward the huge colorful entrance arch. “Let’s go, Ellie.”
+He strode to the ticket booth, she followed, and they went
+in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the noisy carnival air, hand in hand, they were
+wandering. Christian was devouring peanuts, sack after sack.
+Ellen licked a mound of pink spun sugar in a paper cone.
+“It’s like eating a cloud. It melts to nothing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was laughing at her, glad he was with Ellen after all.
+They went to see the tent show, sitting on hard benches in
+the close-packed crowd, the dust soft under their feet. He
+held her hand in his lap. In the ring horses thundered by,
+rifles cracked, the King of the Cowboys on a graceful white
+horse, waved his flapping hat. A baby elephant followed by
+a tall one with a torn ear and an odorous camel, ambled
+around the ring and out again, their progress accompanied by
+spasmodic hand-clapping. A cage with a sleeping lion was
+<a id="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></a>
+trundled by a pair of brown oxen. The ringmaster bawled
+through a megaphone. In smoldering heat aerialists soared
+and swung as band music softened and swayed the crowd’s
+amazement. Ellen leaned forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They roamed the grounds later, eating grilled hot dogs,
+drinking mugs of high-foamed root beer drawn from an
+orange barrel. They stood before the limp-maned lion’s
+cage. “Sure looks mangy, doesn’t he, Ellie? He’s twenty years
+if a day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A group of boys came up to throw stones and poke through
+the metal bars with striped circus canes, after a while meandering
+noisily away. “Poor soul,” said Ellen, “those youngens
+shouldn’t ill at him that way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now there’s the midway, Ellie. Come on.” He was pulling
+her with him to the wide grassy passage bordered with peep
+shows and circus sights. A sinuous middle-aged woman was
+wriggling on a platform beneath a glaring sign, EVENING IN
+PARIS. A barker coaxed, “Ten cents. One dime! See the
+girlies. Imported from Pah-ree. Ten cents to see them revealed
+in their natural beauty. Hurry. Hurry! One dime.
+They take it off. The Parisian beauties.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s see the strip tease. I dare you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Ellen was shaking her head. “Double dare you to see
+the two-headed baby instead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Double dares go first. All right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They viewed an albino raccoon, a six-legged sheep, the tallest
+dwarf, a mass of twining poisonous snakes. They stopped
+before the India-rubber man and the fat lady. “Oh Christian,
+my teacher, Talithie Gentry, was bigger than her. Easy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian paid the armless man a penny to write their
+names on a card in elaborate script, holding the pen in supple
+toes. Christian was pocketing the card. “This’ll remind me,
+Ellie, after you’ve gone.” He hitched his suspenders cockily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they were in the high-seated cab of the truck again,
+the narrow tires jouncing in the hot dust. Christian was whistling
+<a id="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></a>
+above the racket of the motor. He was warbling, partly
+off pitch:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">When the m-m-m-moon shines</p>
+      <p class="verse">On the c-c-c-cow shed</p>
+      <p class="verse">I’ll be waiting for you by the k-k-k-kitchen door</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+His spirits were high.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I’ve got a cute little husband</p>
+      <p class="verse">Who’s just twenty-three</p>
+      <p class="verse">He’s just three years older than me</p>
+      <p class="verse">He goes out every night</p>
+      <p class="verse">And gets on a tight</p>
+      <p class="verse">And leaves the dear baby with me</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+He was pulling her to his side, driving with his arm about
+her. He was caressing her hair and moving a hard palm from
+her throat to her breasts, yielding and white under the stiff
+cloth. She was leaning into the comfort of his body in the
+heat as they droned over neglected clay roads. Clumps of
+black-eyed susans lined the ditches, and butterfly weeds bearing
+ragged clusters of orange flowers. No birds sang in the
+hot afternoon sun. Her thoughts began to drift. Without
+fear she considered, Pa’ll beat me, it’s away past time for
+chores. “Is it late, Christian? Penny must be watching for
+me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that your sister?” He spoke, absent, his hand pressing
+upon her breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen shook her head. “It’s hot.” She drew away from his
+hold, moving to lean out the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a pause he said, “You tired, Ellie? Want me to stop
+in the shade along the roadside?” It came thickly. He reached
+for her hand, slowing the truck. In back of them a horn
+<a id="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></a>
+sounded and a red automobile with an open top swerved
+around them to disappear in swirls of dust.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You better take me home. My chores are waiting.” Her
+face was a soft oval, her hand lay snared in his, feeling the
+rough calluses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, then. I only asked on account of Brinker milks
+late. Said he wouldn’t look for me back till after six.” There
+was silence. Then he said, “Naturally you do what you please.”
+He laughed, dropping her hand. “Sure do like Mr. Brinker.
+Not a whit like my daddy. The other day I hollered down
+from the top of the silo, how much feed do I give them and
+he says, fork her down till you get tired twice.” He spoke
+animated, striking the window ledge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you like your pa?” Ellen asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s a skinflint. You bet we had a fight when I said I was
+going to work for Brinker. Had to promise him half my
+pay.” He snorted. “Me, a man grown. Over twenty and turning
+a part of my pay to him. That sonofabitch.” He lapsed
+into thought. “Say, I didn’t mean to swear before a girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s all right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The truck was stopping before the yellow farmhouse. Ellen
+opened the door. “I’m obliged, Christian. I won’t forget the
+strange beasts and the people on the high swings. And everything.”
+She sensed the finality of the afternoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had her hand all at once. “Look, I’ll walk down to see
+you Saturday, Ellie.” He was tender again suddenly, as if
+the magic of the day moving already toward nostalgia smote
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to the house, that final gesture lingering. The
+spotted thrush winged to the grapevines where it hid its nest.
+Jack came bounding up, tail wagging, neck arched in pride
+over the wild rabbit in his mouth. “I see you caught your
+supper,” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The town teacher’s buggy was in the lane, his mare hitched
+<a id="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></a>
+to the post by the well. Every Saturday he came to give
+Frankie a piano lesson. Anton had gone to his rooming house
+two years ago, waited in the hall, a round black hat atop his
+balding head. “I be Anton Gaddy,” he had mumbled. “I’ve
+heard there are ladies that make a name for themselves playing
+before crowds that come to her. I’ve heard tell those kind
+are honored and not deemed lightly in the eyes of rich folk.
+My daughter is to play a piano I bought her in such a wise.
+Can you give lessons? I got the money.” The town teacher
+had found his task difficult. The girl was contrary in a sly
+way and had but small talent. She simply obeyed her father’s
+will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was listening to the piano as she mounted the steps.
+From the kitchen wafted the acrid odor of pot greens Maria
+was canning. Ellen stepped within the screen. Anton’s figure
+towered from out of the fawning shadows. “To your room,
+girl. Hum.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Am I late, Pa?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was ascending the stairs, flagging, slow. The man’s
+footsteps coming after were soft as the sweep of an owl’s
+wing, gentle in pursuit. “You’re late.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stalled halfway. “Pa?” The pain was there, starting,
+in her throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thou shalt beat them with a rod. I’ve said it. Mind, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You knew I was going.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went up. He was closing the door. He gripped a belt,
+the wide leather strip dangling by a brass home-fashioned
+buckle. He would wear this belt on Sundays with his black
+suit. “There. Town teacher met the Brinkers trading in
+Bethel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She waited then, mute, and the hurt was high in her throat.
+She had trained herself to silence since she was a small child,
+pitting herself against his spirit, persuading herself he did it
+for love. He wants me to be good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So they weren’t at that gauded circus. It’s e’er so. You
+<a id="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></a>
+be a liar.” He was striking her, whispering harsh, gray eyes
+narrow, “Be you whoring so soon, girl? Here’s a generation
+not washed of their filthiness. I’ll set the priest at you. Hear?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door shut sharply. He had gone. Ellen was standing
+anchored as her throat ached. His violence directed against
+her, aside from the cut of the strap, would make her sicken
+and she was ruling it down until she would be at peace with
+herself. She waited, finally moving to hang her crumpled
+dress on the ridgepole and put aside her dust-grimed shoes.
+Her stockings like white moss, were in a heap on the floor
+and she caught sight of the pale pillar of her body moving
+in the mirror that was fastened to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was hurrying to the barn then to linger over the pair
+of suckling kids and tend the round of her chores. Clouds
+were lowering in the moist ether that rumbled before an advancing
+evening storm. She remembered lines from a song
+Christian Ay had said people sang in Louisville.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">When I go toot-toot-tooting</p>
+      <p class="verse">Down the street</p>
+      <p class="verse">In my little Ford automobile</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+All that night rain fell on the receiving earth. The morning
+was humid and portentous. In the earth’s vitals, seeds were
+bursting in slow presage and primeval animal movement was
+rife. Above ground, bees were snoring, working their hoards,
+minute midges piped thinly, bottle-flies glutted at dung heaps
+or in company with spotted orange butterflies savored rotten
+things. In the pond the duck had struck and killed a fragile
+peeper frog, while from the woods edge a red dog fox looked
+on at her, his button eyes bright with greed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the kitchen while dawn faded, Ellen was slicing bacon
+with a long knife whetted to a narrow blade. She had brought
+the molded slab in from the smokehouse. Peeled potatoes
+were boiling in a pot, a pan of biscuits rose and browned in
+<a id="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></a>
+the oven. She started bacon frying in a spider and measured
+coffee out of a jar unscrewed from the grinder on the wall.
+She spooned it into water bubbling in a chipped tall pot.
+Frankie laid out plates, plum preserves, buttermilk, ketchup,
+a stone jar of butter. Both girls wore sleeveless petticoats,
+white stockings and church shoes. Later they would get into
+the new dresses. “Ellie, did you notice if that camel swallowed
+like a horse or chewed a cud?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There, I forgot to look.” Ellen went to the well for
+water. She met Anton coming from the barn with Maria’s
+pail of milk. She held her hand over the dark welt on her
+upper arm though his eyes weren’t on her. She followed
+him to the kitchen, lifting out the bacon, breaking eggs into
+the iron spider. She crumpled an eggshell in the coffee to
+settle the grounds and dumped the hot potatoes into a brown
+bowl. The Gaddys and Sam Offut grouped themselves at the
+stout table. They poured ketchup on the potatoes and eggs,
+drank steaming cups of coffee, ate heavily, for the workdays
+were arduous. They would arise by candlelight, seldom were
+done by nightfall with the wheel of chores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Sam brought the buckwagon around, Blueberry and
+Moll hitched to it. “Hurry up, ooman,” Anton was saying to
+Maria, “we’ll be late to mass.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His wife climbed up to the narrow seat edged with an iron
+rail, and sat beside him. The girls were hiking themselves
+on the end of the wagon bed, sitting on a rug, backs to their
+parents, feet dangling. As they swung out onto Sweetincreek
+Road Anton spoke over his shoulder, “Your nannies can go
+to the meadow and graze with the cows, girl. Those yeanlings
+are old enough now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll take them down tomorrow, Pa.” Joy surged within
+her at his words, and the hotness of the season swung in to
+ripen grain in the favored fields and bring flowers to bud and
+bloom as the fragrant undulating grace of the farm lands
+moved toward harvest.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-4">
+<a id="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></a>
+4
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The sun beat down like a scourge. Men moved listlessly,
+driving themselves and their draft beasts. Fowl with panting
+beaks crouched in dusty bowls they fashioned in yard corners
+with their fanning wings. By flickering lantern light before
+the sun rose, the milking was completed. Ellen and Frankie
+were called upon to help at stripping the udders of the overabundant
+animals. The first streams on the pail bottom would
+whine high, the tone lowering as the pail filled, becoming
+deep and sonorous until foam ran down the pail sides. Then
+it was time to pour the milk through squares of flannel into
+ten-gallon cans that would be placed in the hewn-log water
+trough to cool, awaiting pickup by the dairy truck. In the
+<a id="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></a>
+half-dark the cows shuffled to pasture, Jack nipping their
+heels. Ellen would follow and close the gate. The sides of the
+bovines were oily, their breath fragrant, eyes moist. By early
+morning their stomachs would be distended with lush summer
+grass. Then throughout the sweltering day they would lie in
+the shade of the woods, chewing their cuds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton and Sam would down a heavy breakfast, eat plates
+of eggs, Ellen cracking a dozen in the skillet for them. They
+reached for more coffee cake and bread and slabs of cold meat.
+After they ate they walked stolid to the fields, working corn
+rows with cultivator and team, mowing and raking and hauling
+in towering wagonloads of timothy and soybean and
+clover hay. They mended fence lines, repeatedly repaired harness
+and machine, sharpened saw, adz and ax, scythe, knife
+and cutting blades. They would throw from the fields the
+larger stones that cropped up under the bite of the share.
+Some fields had a rock outgrowth too large to be removed
+and it must stand bared and alone, machines and men circling
+it. At mid-morning and afternoon Frankie would search until
+she found the men in a field. She brought them a stone
+pitcher of water spiced with vinegar or a ginger stick. They
+mopped their rough-bristled faces with red kerchiefs, and
+drank. Sam was shirtless, his overall straps cutting his scrawny
+sunburned shoulders. Anton, powerful upper body covered
+to protect his freckled skin, had soaked his black sateen shirt
+with perspiration. His large arms shone red and glistening.
+The odor of sweat and earth rose strong about the men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Before God, Sam. Can’t figure how a little fart like you
+can put in a day’s work alongside me. Haw.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“E’er watch a banty cock, Mester Gaddy? It’ll outlast your
+Barred Rock rooster any day of the week. Not so much of me
+to get wore out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Gaddy women were laboring too, bringing in grapes
+and berries, beans and tomatoes by the pail and bushel. They
+canned and dried and sugared down the procession of largess
+<a id="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></a>
+that moved through the kitchen. There was more milk than
+the dairy would buy and Maria would skim the surplus for
+cream, send Ellen to trade the butter she churned. It was dirt
+cheap in this season. The remaining thin milk was thrown to
+squealing young pigs in wood troughs, foul-smelling in the
+reek of heat. Milk would sour swiftly, spots of yellow-green
+milkstone forming on the sides of pails. Ellen was directed
+to scrape it clean with a knife. Cheeses were made, some to
+cure amber and hard, hanging in the smokehouse, others to
+be stirred daily in stone crocks until the white curd turned
+yellow, the strong odor left, and it became bland. There was
+an abundance of cottage cheese with clabber cream and
+chopped green onions stirred in, or a seasoning of herbs that
+grew by the houseside. Maria had a lavish hand when it came
+to seasoning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon I got such a heavy hand because my mam always
+was put to it to get enough for us to eat. She’d dig
+chicory roots for coffee and gather wild thyme and herbs.
+Pap cut lumber to sell to the railroad and worked tobacco.
+He saved e’er a penny he was paid and gave her none.” Maria
+sighed, “Mam found out I ate stones once. Seemed there was
+a satisfaction when the food was gone, to a white pebble,
+smooth like a bit of lard. I just recollect.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian would come on Saturdays at dusk. Ellen met him
+covertly at the usual place and they ate a few lingering strawberries
+from the burned-out plants, then went to lie in the
+shade. He was boasting about the gigantic machine that
+Brinker had rented to harvest his wheat. “That combine’s
+some invention. Finished the whole field in a day. The bags
+are stacked in the crib. By heck, Brinker grows good wheat.
+We counted twenty grains on some ears. That’s forty bushel
+to the acre.” He was browned, his white teeth were flashing
+and he swaggered. “In the afternoon old lady Brinker drove
+the pickup out to the field with a freezer can of ice cream and
+three new-made cakes. Tell you, that woman’s my ideal of a
+<a id="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></a>
+wife. Spread a white cloth and brought silver and plates and
+a tin can of lemonade. We sure polished it off.” He reflected.
+“In the lemonade she had a chunk of ice floating.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish I had a piece of ice big as my head. Purely I do.”
+Ellen looked away, sighing in the stifled air scarce cooled by
+the setting of the sun. “It seems like all that’s to be garnered
+is trying to ruin before we can get hold of it to store it against
+the winter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian would stay with her only a short while because
+he was roused now while it was yet dark to begin the long
+day. Ellen spoke softly with him but when he laid his hand in
+the hollow below her throat or upon the dress over her
+thighs as he had done in the truck, she was afraid and made
+him laugh with her foolishness and coaxed him from his
+wont.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam Offut had failed to appear for milking one morning.
+Sam lived with his wife a short way down the road in a
+shack he owned; he would take his first two meals with the
+Gaddys and supper at his own table. Anton was hard put
+this morning, even with the help of the girls, to finish the
+chores on time, and sat down late to breakfast. As he was
+arising, the hired man appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed,
+with an air of not having washed or slept. Sam was saying
+evenly as he took the chair across from Anton, “Ran my old
+ooman off last night. Those two were laying there still when
+I came home. On my bed. That whorish Eadie. I ne’er saw
+that particular peddler before. I could have killed them but
+I only ran them off.” He speared a slice of ham with the sharp
+knife. “I’ve doubted many a year now, since my youngens are
+grown and gone, if I be the daddy to more of the six than the
+first-born.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton said shortly, “If you’ve got a mind after this, Sam,
+you can take supper here. Come on to the barn when you’re
+done.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m beholden.” Sam was eating like one famished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></a>
+During that day Ellen marveled at little Sam Offut, middle-aged,
+leathery-skinned, smoldering as he went through the
+days at his wife Eadie, bedding with other men. She wondered
+at how it took the white heat of August to kindle him
+into action.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Jack was driving the cows in from the pasture one
+night, the white kid was missing. Penny and her young would
+always be in the lead in their anxiety to reach Ellen, who
+would have an evening tidbit set out for them in the woodshed—apple
+peels or bread crusts or carrots. Penny and the
+brown kid were standing in wait at the woodshed door. As
+pangs smote her, Ellen bolted down the lane to the field. The
+dog barked, running ahead. She searched the fence lines, from
+afar spied the bit of white, the buckling strangled in the
+fence where he had tried to slip through. He had hung himself.
+Ellen, extricating the stiffened body, met death for the
+first time intimately. She fought over her loss in the solitary
+field. “Oh you were my dear droll poppet that followed me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever in coming weeks when she thought of the clownish
+yeanling, tears came and her throat caught in anguish so complex
+it was nearly joy. She never forgot the death of the white
+kid. Its impact made a mark on her like scars she could point
+to on her body. “Here the sickle cut into my leg when I
+cleaned the path one day. And here that spotty hound bit my
+wrist when he had that fight with Jack.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her new-found anxiety for her two remaining goats, she
+kept them from the field, penning them in the barnyard and
+bringing them kitchen scraps and meadow grass. In their
+cleverness, though, they slipped through the fence to nibble
+in the garden and wander at will. Anton discovered them
+girdling bark from a stripling peach tree with their sharp
+teeth. He threatened, “To pasture with those tormented creatures
+where they belong. And if they be the cause of further
+botherment, girl, I’ll knock their heads in gladly and butcher
+them. Mind now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></a>
+So Ellen went down the lane, Penny solemn at her heels,
+the doeling trotting last. Laughing at their comical air, the
+girl began to run. They snorted and sprang after her abandoned,
+striking their little hoofs sharply on the dry ground,
+unconscious of dignity or the heat of August. She left them
+blatting disconsolate at the meadow gate. In days to follow
+she would go to the barnyard fence, straining her eyes for a
+glimpse of the two small does amid the drove of cows.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+There came the hour when Christian and Anton met.
+Though Ellen would slip out to see Christian when he walked
+down the road on his afternoon off, she had not mustered the
+boldness to bring him to the house. Anton never spoke of the
+young man though he knew Ellen met with him. One time he
+had watched them for a while from behind the oak by the
+berry patch. He saw his daughter talking while she switched
+flies with a branch of leaves, and the young man, brooding,
+leaned upon the fence. Anton could see nothing amiss and
+pulling on his pipe, went to listen to his favorite practicing at
+the piano.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen had joined Christian in the orchard near the brook.
+Her goats finished browsing and lay back to back in the grass
+chewing their cuds in their rapid dainty way. Ellen was sitting
+on a fallen log. She wore an old dress that fitted her
+budding form too tightly. She laid in her hair white meadow
+rue and yellow oxeye daisies. She bowed her head to one
+side over the field flowers in her hands and knew, dreaming,
+how fair she was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian lay on his stomach in the grass by her, catching
+her mood, knowing he’d never seen the girl so fetching. The
+lines of her long face were soft in a frame of flaxen hair. He
+spoke suddenly, “I got another letter from Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She mad again. My sister had a chance to get married and
+she turned it down. Mama says Rose wants bigger fish.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></a>
+“Fish?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Johnson’s only got a house and money. That’s not
+enough for my sister. He’d have to be a millionaire.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And she says Daddy gets pains nowadays. Has to lie down.
+He won’t see a doctor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’ll be all right, don’t you reckon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He hates to pay a doctor bill.” He reached over to cover
+her bare foot with his palm. “You’re so sweet, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sweet as Miss Sabatha Withers, boy?” Anton was standing
+before them in the long grass. His overalls were ragged,
+the sleeves to his black shirt had been cut below the shoulders
+so his heavy biceps showed. His chin was thrust out, his body
+pulled erect in the habit of short men. A straw hat was settled
+upon his sparse hair. He was chewing a quid of tobacco.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian jumped to his feet. The two of them were the
+same height. “Hello, Mr. Gaddy. How do you do? I’m Christian
+Ay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So hit seems.” The man spat, looked about as though
+searching for someone. “Hum. You didn’t bring your lady
+friend with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton tilted his head. “And how be Dutchman Brinker
+these days? Haw. He still got the notion to stall his beasts on
+all the storeys of his barns? I heard he penned some shoats to
+fatten in his loft and they grew so grand and big they broke
+clean through the planking. Is that a fact?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never heard of it, sir,” Christian was cold. “Mr. Brinker’s
+a fine farmer, I can tell you. But you got a nice place here,
+sir.” He was nodding, appeasing, as he flung his hand in a
+rude movement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This place was here, boy, being worked by my sir when
+Dutchman’s pa was setting on his ass in the old country.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen dropped her head, repeating over and again the
+Nicene Creed for her lover snared in Anton’s rough hand.
+<a id="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></a>
+Like an enchantress she evoked the only charm she knew.
+From whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton squirted the brown juice again and was moving
+away. “Feeding is in an hour, girl,” he threw over his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Pa.” She closed her eyes. Holy Virgin it had
+worked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian eyed her, rebellious, scorn in his young face.
+“What a dirty crabby guy even if he is your old man. I’d
+just like to push that bristly smart-aleck face of his in. I can’t
+stand a bossy fellow like that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush.” Ellen got up with sudden despair. “Now what’s
+he talking of Sabatha Withers for? Who’s she?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A girl I happen to know in Bethel. I’ll go see her or anyone
+I want.” He shouted it, striking at her father. And at
+himself for his intimidation. “And any time I want.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A quarrel had uncoiled before they were aware. Ellen
+leaned back on the log, whispering, gray eyes slitted, “I don’t
+give a neinse. Run to that poor-trash thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His short legs spread, his high cheekbones pale, he was
+storming, “And if I never see you or your stupid old man
+again, it’ll be too soon. I’m going to see someone who appreciates
+me.” He threw back his head and stalked away, cutting
+across to the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stayed awhile in the tall grass. As she wept the fury
+shed itself. Bereft, she went up the hill through the field
+where the boar was now penned. Her goats and Jack were
+trailing after. The old red boar regarded her from a little
+distance, his distrust palpable. “There’s a mean hog, Jack,”
+she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She neared the barnyard and heard Anton, “Hitch Blue and
+get him out here, Sam.” A spotted heifer was stretched neat
+a group of slender walnuts, bawling intermittently. Anton
+was bent over her. She had been due to bear her calf any day,
+was a daughter of his best milker, a pride to him. While Ellen
+<a id="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></a>
+watched, her hand resting on the yard gate, Sam was running
+from the barn, leading Blueberry. The harness jingled as the
+buckskin came at a trot. “Whaw,” Sam cried roughly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two conferred. The horse waited on them, head down,
+hipshot, a hind leg at rest on the tip of the hoof. They hitched
+the tugs to a rope looped about the head of the unborn calf
+just within the dam. Anton drove the horse forward slowly,
+dragging the cow. Then he halted, took off his straw hat,
+scratching his head. “Hell, hit’s drying out. I vow, Sam, the
+first one’s always too tight. It’s like the wine corks in the
+kegs. Once get them started and they come out easy. Let’s
+try those trees o’er there, now. Gee-whup.” Again the traces
+tightened and the tired young cow was hauled through stones
+and red dust in the broil of heat. They untied the lines, rehitched
+them through a gap between two walnut trunks.
+“Haw-there,” ordered Anton and while the beast bellowed,
+wedged upon the tree boles, her calf was torn from her
+womb, limp and wet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slipping through the gate, Ellen skirted the barnyard and
+hurried to the house. She changed her dress and spoke quietly
+to Maria, “Spotty had her calf. Pa had to take it from her.
+It’s a pretty one.” She returned, saw the heifer was on her
+feet, placenta hanging. Delicate head down, tossing her well-formed
+tiny horns, she guarded the calf she licked nervously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night the heat lifted slightly. Ellen was wakeful
+within her loft-room. She slipped downstairs into the sultry
+dark. Barefoot, she walked with Jack to the woodshed, freeing
+Penny and Rhodie. They wandered across the fields, through
+gates to the orchard. She sat on the log again. In the night
+sky the blue whiskers of cloud were backing off. And the
+moon in absolute radiance was speeding forth. There was
+not a sound anywhere.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+As the year moved on, the heat abated and winds started
+out of nowhere, rushing. Christian stayed away from Ellen
+<a id="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></a>
+over two long Saturdays. Then one evening she was standing
+beyond the low garden wall watching the bees work the
+hives. He appeared, jaunty in a blue shirt freshly pressed by
+Brinker’s wife, his blond hair damp, comb-marked. “Hey,
+Ellie. A penny for your thoughts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not wasting them on you, I’ll say.” Her temper shifted in
+her and she colored. “I’m thinking Sam will be robbing the
+poor bees soon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, take a walk with me, Ellie. Down to the woods.
+Say, you’re blushing.” He grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go to your true love in Bethel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” His blue eyes were bold. “I broke off with that one.”
+They were starting down the hill. When out of sight of the
+house, he took her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pulled away, unwilling. “I don’t care for you.” But in
+time he won her from her anger and it was with Ellen as
+though the quarrel had never been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were hand in hand in the dry reeds by the pond
+where the lone duck was paddling in circles. He was vowing
+strongly, “I’ve left Sabatha Withers for good, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s cheap.” He laughed angry, for the young fires lay
+hot in him still. “You never have seen Brinker’s place, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I’ve heard tell he’s got fancy barns.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d get a kick out of them. Want to go there next
+week? I could show you Baker, that Belgian stud. He’s a
+sight. Like I said, he beats anything I ever saw.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll come, then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kiss me, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Listen at that sound, Christian.” The faint cry of geese
+was audible, “Kwonk, honk, honk, kwonk.” Far above the
+earth the long-necked wild birds were heading for northern
+nest grounds, their massive bodies two wavering lines of dots
+making the letter V. The call of the leaders sounded shrill,
+and as they moved overhead there came the deep responses
+<a id="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></a>
+of the rear guards. It seemed to Ellen that she had no desire
+for the way of the roused child-man beside her. Ahead
+stretched the long filament of her life; she was pierced by the
+pain of the earthbound that is made up of longings. She was
+voiced vicarious from the throats of the wild birds. She
+turned to Christian, dissatisfied. Their eyes were almost on a
+level; she was crying, intense, “Don’t you wish you were that
+leader?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, I’d rather be me than some bird.” He laughed at her,
+pressed her hand. “Come. Kiss me.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In the last week of September Ellen slipped down Sweetincreek
+Road to where Christian had brought the truck around.
+The Brinker family were in Bethel doing their weekly buying,
+and Christian acutely felt his proprietorship. He drove
+up his employer’s graveled drive and into the huge garage.
+He led her to the farm buildings, proud. “Take a look.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great white barn was trimmed in red, a gigantic portrait
+of a black-and-white Holstein bull had been painted
+across the expanse of one side. There was an iron bull weather
+vane centered on the roof; it wheeled with the breeze. “I ne’er
+saw such furbelowing, Christian.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This isn’t the half of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the shed just off the chicken house he was showing her
+round-bellied puppies. She fondled them while the gentle
+bitch watched alert-eyed from a straw bed. “Nothing smells
+as soft as a little whelp, Christian.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was pointing to a miniature windmill, and to bantam
+chickens and white and gray rabbits in screened hutches. Out
+in the pasture were shining Belgian mares. Ellen was stroking
+their sleek faces. Christian caught a cobby black filly by the
+halter and led her to the girl. “This one’s Doll. She’s pedigreed.
+She’s to be bred to Baker as soon as she comes in heat.
+Mr. Brinker’s ordered it. We’ve been watching out for her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look at those dark eyes, Christian. Here, Doll.” Ellen was
+<a id="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></a>
+offering a handful of oats. But the mare threw up her head,
+nickering toward the farm buildings. There was a responding
+whinny from the distance. The mare swished her tail, holding
+it high.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian’s eyes kindled. “You know, Ellie, I think she’s in
+season. Let’s try her. See if she’ll take him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d best wait for Mester Brinker.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re scared.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not. Only I’d wait. If she’s a thoroughbred, he’d lay
+the blame to you should it go amiss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mare was shaking her head so the halter rings jangled;
+she cried again, shrilly. Christian was opening the gate. “Come
+on, Ellie. Look, you want to ride her down the lane? I’ll lift
+you to her back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You dassn’t ride her. Sam told me,” she said, dallying,
+“that a mare in the heat mustn’t be ridden till she’s been
+bred.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right. But come on,” he urged. He led the prancing
+Doll through the gate and down the lane toward the stallion’s
+paddock. Ellen was following, reluctant. “You hold her while
+I lock up Baker,” he called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She came to take the mare’s headstall from him. “Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the yard the huge seed-horse was observing them, restive,
+aware of their business. He squealed, striking at the fence
+bars with his huge hoofs. Christian laughed, catching Ellen’s
+eye. “What you scared of, honey? I can handle him easy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So what?” she whispered to the mare, who was tossing
+her mane, jerking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian had skillfully snared the halter of the red roan
+beast and secured him in his stall. “Turn her in the lot now,
+Ellie,” he was shouting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she tarried and cried, “I’ll wait for you in the truck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, turn her in. It’s only Baker.” He was flushed
+and he laughed at her from the half door of the stable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen loosed the black mare in the paddock where she
+<a id="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></a>
+curved her neck and cantered like a gust of wind. The stallion
+could be heard clamoring angrily, rearing and knocking the
+walls. Christian turned the handle of the stall door to release
+him, and then vaulted the fence. He came to stand with Ellen.
+“Why did you want to go to the truck?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The magnificent horse was trotting out, neighing. He
+minced past the filly who was dwarfed by his size. He lifted
+his shaggy fetlocks high without effort and his tawny mane
+streaked. He wheeled, snuffed noisily at her neck, bit it softly
+and pawed it in a dynamic graceful gesture. Then he leaped
+the mare, falling on his side with powerful elegance. He recovered,
+mounted her again. His beauty was like a thunderous
+battle, his piercing voice rose and fell on the stilled air, waking
+the valleys of the farm, rushing through tree boughs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian was turning, urgent, “Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s go to the truck, Christian. I’m going to wait there.”
+She turned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He grasped her arm. “Come on, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Christian.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was shoving her under the lean-to by the stable where
+summer wheat straw was stacked for the stallion’s bedding.
+He was struggling with his clothing, bruising her. The coolness
+dwelled in the shadows there, it was quiet and made
+itself separate from the noise in the dust of the lot outside.
+His youth was adamant and awkward, his knee entreated
+silent between her virgin thighs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Surprised, she was fighting. “Liar,” she gritted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held her in the straw. “You’ve led me on, Ellie. I won’t
+wait.” His arms were muscled from a hard summer, his blood
+thrusting purposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had read of Absalom, how none was so much praised
+as he for his perfection. From the sole of his foot to the crown
+of his head there was no blemish in him. So the Bible said,
+and so she had dreamed of Christian moving in a lawful pattern
+she laid. She was unprepared for the painful shattering
+<a id="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></a>
+of it, betrayed. “No,” she was weeping. “Liar.” It whistled
+in the coolness against the pant of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have to, honey. Take it easy. I’ll be careful. I can’t wait.”
+His voice was blurred and hot, stabbing, overridden by the
+tramping hoofs and shrill neighs like a storm without.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen closed her eyes. They ran tears because of the hurt
+there was, the receding terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke softly then, “Don’t cry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood up and went into the sun. He led Doll back to the
+pasture, threw a forkful of hay to Baker who was docile now,
+obedient. After a while he came back and looked at Ellen.
+“Don’t be mad.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wouldn’t hear him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, Ellie. We’ve got to get back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was rising, brushing back her hair. He leaned toward
+her, tender, and pulled a straw caught in the yellow strands.
+She struck, savage, at his fingers. In the truck seat she remained
+unspeaking until he reached for her hand. Then she unleashed
+at him, injured, “You think I’m that Sabatha Withers.
+I ne’er want to see you again. Hear?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian was resting his elbow on the window; he looked
+down the road. He gunned the truck so dust eddies rose like
+a whirlwind in the wake. He slammed the brakes on the road
+just above the Gaddy entrance. “Come on, Ellie. I’m sorry.
+Don’t be mad. Please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she hurled the cab door shut. Her head was high. For
+her world that had had a sort of ingenuous beauty had disappeared.
+And it was never the same again.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-5">
+<a id="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></a>
+5
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+October came to pass in fog and tones of droning rain.
+Muffled trees stood in wet leaves along farm paths. Ellen, a
+gray shape in the mist, was moving from clinking house lights
+to the obscurity of the woodshed and barns. Christian had
+not come for three weeks. At first she had waited in profound
+anger, eager to renounce him. But in the autumn sun of following
+days, while the two ringing notes of the partridge
+called back and forth, loneliness tempered her wrath and she
+loved him indulgently as the source of her pain and its witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Today she was going again to the rail fence along the road
+where joe-pye-weeds drooped coarse-toothed leaves. She was
+<a id="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></a>
+wearing a red stocking cap, her long coat had pendulous
+lapels and a wide belt that fastened on her hips with two
+heavy buttons. As she passed the grapevines where leaves
+hung chilled, a flock of crows arose, making nasal resentful
+barks. She waited an hour. Unending rain was falling and
+small gusts wove about. Finally she went to the work Anton
+had set, sorting and shucking corn. Later she absently stroked
+the alert ears and silken hair of the kid Rhodie, nearly as
+large as its dam now. “Reckon he’s with Sabatha Withers.
+Pleasuring as he did with me.” She clothed her wrath, embellished
+it. “Happen she’ll drag him to a priest. All his days
+he’ll dwell on me and what he forfeited.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her mind turned to when she was nine or ten and, living
+in fantasy and wishes, would try new ways to walk through
+the sun-washed fields where grass stood high. It would seem
+that crowds of people lined both sides of the way she took.
+They came to see how grand she held her head and to talk
+among themselves of the noble way of Lady Ellen. “I aim to
+hold me high and wed a rich man.” She spoke aloud in the
+stable. But she didn’t believe it and the anger burned. She
+went to the house where lamps flickered in the gloom, and
+Anton stacked a fire in the parlor, filled the woodbin and
+split lighter-wood with a deft hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ten days passed. On a splendid windy morning in November,
+Ellen was clearing garden debris and gathering cabbages
+and root crops in heaps for winter storage. She faced her
+dilemma, rebellious. “If it be so, I’ll drown myself or it in
+the pond when it’s born. And if he’s run off, I’ll seek him
+out. I’ll knife him, I will.” She piled cabbage heads in a bushel
+basket and dumped them in the cellar storage bin. Her secret
+dwelled within her like a hidden wound. “I say, Jack, what
+will I do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That afternoon Amanda York came up the porch steps
+and knocked. “Hickory mast is laying thick in Bailey’s
+Woods, Mrs. Gaddy. Can Ellie and Frankie come nutting?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></a>
+The three girls walked a mile down the road to the woods,
+carrying empty baskets. Amanda had black eyes and black
+shining hair. She was rosy and lively. “Ask your pa if you
+can go once to the husking bee. This Saturday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He ne’er would brook it, Mandy.” Frankie was shaking
+her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’ll be a sight of folks. From Bethel way and down
+from Seven Mile Run.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because Pa don’t favor us socializing,” Frankie added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amanda tossed her braid. “And a fiddler and a spread of
+eats.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know Sabatha Withers?” Ellen flushed in the asking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll say I do. She’s wild. Boys flock after her like dogs on
+a rabbit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” cried Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She sleeps around. Things like that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s she look like?” asked Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, light-set, and got yellow hair like yours, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why doesn’t she have a baby,” Frankie asked, “if she
+sleeps around?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t ask me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a mystery,” Frankie sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did that Lily Garrett tell you what she did?” Amanda
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean sending for that stuff to make her breasts
+grow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. And what happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she wanted it,” Amanda whispered, “for she’s boy-crazy,
+Lily is. She’s terrible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know. She told us.” Frankie giggled. “Men like you big,
+she said.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she waited all summer to hear. We couldn’t figure
+<a id="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></a>
+why it ne’er came. I studied that her pa had got hold of the
+package some way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say. Did he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, last week it came. Just an old envelope. And there
+was a picture on a card of a man’s hand. It said underneath,
+Try This. Lily got scared.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She should ne’er have sent off, Mandy,” Frankie cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, has that Withers girl got a boy friend?” Ellen was
+asking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s got plenty, Ellie. There’s always one to take her to
+doings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now what if Lily’s papa’d seen it,” Frankie said. “That
+picture and those words.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish I could go to that husking bee,” said Ellen. “I’ve
+got a deal of a desire to go. I might cross my pa and slip out
+this once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Ellie.” Frankie’s voice was the cheep of a frightened
+bird. “Don’t say that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Obey thy father and mother.” Amanda spoke cheerfully
+as they were entering the woods. “Now maybe he’ll say yes
+this time, Ellie.” They began to gather hickory mast that carpeted
+the ground. When the baskets were full they walked to
+Amanda’s home, a saddlebag log house set in an apple orchard.
+They left two baskets in the passageway between the cabins
+and climbed to an upstairs room. They shucked Amanda’s
+nuts, spreading them with brown-stained hands on a carpet
+of straw. From the rafters hung strings of small ear corn with
+white pointed kernels that would pop over a fire. And there
+was a drop cord overhead with a carbon bulb, for the Yorks
+had electricity.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The sisters took their leave and walked home with the laden
+baskets. The evening whippoorwills were starting their spasmodic
+carping. Ellen said, “I’ll make a way to go to that
+husking bee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></a>
+But at the end of the week Anton brought news so she
+forgot all about it. He had hauled grain and surplus root
+crops, Hubbard squashes and pumpkins to Bethel, returning
+in late afternoon with ground flour, meal, and kitchen and
+farm supplies. “Saw the new smithy, Troy Hatfield, and got
+the welding done. That share will hold now. And he gave
+me outright a great piece of hide for leather stripping, just
+for that heap of pumpkins Frankie planted. Shaw.” The man
+was growing genial, his journey a success. He pushed back
+his chair and strode to the door, spit his quid into the bushes.
+He wiped his face with a powerful arm, came back to sup
+coffee noisily and consume chunks of Ellen’s brown dripping-cake.
+He was turning to her. “Troy gave me news for your
+ears, girl. You mind that froward young fellow hired to
+Dutchman Brinker? The one that sassed me? Well, he took
+off in a sudden. Dutchman had a time finding a new hand.
+This one’s brought a wife with him, so he’ll not be traipsing
+about with young maids. Hum.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did smithy have an idea where he went, Pa?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You pining after that poor trash Brinker hires?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got a right to ask.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You trifling with me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have to put in your two cents. The fellow’s pa
+died. Troy says Dutchman was right plagued at having to
+pay wages out on a Sabbath. That’ll put a good Lutheran in
+hell, I allow. Haw.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He ne’er liked his pa nor that kind of city work.” Ellen
+was by the door, lingering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You got any more on your mind? Good riddance to bad
+rubbish, I say.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen went to take from its pen the gray rabbit Christian
+had brought her. She carried it to the edge of the field and
+put it down. “Go fend for yourself like I’ve got to. Look out
+<a id="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></a>
+for the hungry foxes and weasels.” She watched it hop away,
+then went to her upstairs room. She hunted in the wood
+trunk for paper and an envelope.
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p class="addr">
+Dear Christian,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Smithy told Pa you left these parts. The sky is heavy and
+gray. Maybe it will come on a snow. I call to mind the
+hours we spent by the strawberry bed. Now I think winter
+is come. I would that you wrote me how you are getting on.
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign">
+Ellen Gaddy
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She sealed the envelope, addressing it to Mr. Christian Ay,
+Carl Brinker Homestead, Route 4, Bethel, Ky., send to new
+address.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down in the woods the air was still and weighted. Pinched
+clouds were banking above the swollen land. The red dog
+fox crept to his post overlooking the shadowed water. His
+eyes tensed as he spied the old Muscovy duck napping, head
+under wing, amid brown rush stalks. He struck noiseless.
+Thrashing wings lashed in a frenzied struggle but the needle
+teeth found the jugular and blood was spattered on the rushes.
+Later Ellen called again and again and there was no answering
+rush of wings. “You’d ne’er come to the safe yard. Reckon
+some varmint caught you.” She tossed the ear of corn to the
+tame fowl in the chicken yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her letter was returned by the mail carrier. She hid
+it under her apron. On its face was scrawled: return to
+sender, no address known. C. Brinker. She took it up to the
+attic and laid it unopened in the small trunk. She stood looking
+out the gable window as drifting snow made the world
+grow small and old familiar shapes became strange and new.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Down Sweetincreek Road in mid-December Anton was
+driving the wagon to mass in Millville. The lightweight buckboard
+was unsuited for these winter days and the women
+rode in the wagon bed shrouded with rugs. A crowd of
+<a id="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></a>
+frightened birds moved and swooped across the sky like a
+giant amoeba. The pale sun was melting the snowfall into
+slush. The horses snorted, exhaling a vapor, tramped in the
+ruts of the road, hurling red mud in clods from their iron
+shoes. Anton was complaining, “Wish hit could have waited
+till Monday to thaw. This is a rough piece of road.” He
+clucked to the team. “Reckon we’ll be late again to mass,
+Frankie? Here it is Advent time once more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Christmas is but two weeks off, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was praying silently, “Holy Queen, keep him from
+remembering to send us to confession this week. I’ll not tell
+it to a priest. I’ll go to hell and burn first. I’m in a sorry
+strait, now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was fastening the team and preceding his family
+into the square clapboard building half filled with people
+and heated by a huge black stove at one side. He took one of
+the rear pews. The heavy clothing rustled, the plank floor
+creaked. Anton tugged his bulky fur cap off, thrust it behind
+him on the seat. The women were kneeling at the low bench
+in their long coats, their caps and boots. They crossed themselves.
+The priest was murmuring at the altar, his server on
+his knees. Intimidated by habit and example, Ellen inclined
+her head. She heard the sonorous chant, “O Thou that leadest
+Joseph like a sheep, alleluia. Stir up, O Lord, Thy might and
+come to save us. Who art Thou? I am the voice of one crying
+in the desert.” She made the sign with her hand, desolate. The
+priest began to tell off the canon of the mass. He washed his
+fingers, incense drifted, the signal bell tinkled. Folk shifted
+and whispered; singly and in groups they left their winter
+covering on the benches, came with bowed heads to the altar,
+hands in ancient attitude of prayer, to receive from paten
+and cup the Body and Blood. Say to the faint-hearted, fear
+not. It chafed within Ellen, uncomforted. She arose with the
+rest when it was over. And in the beginning was the Word,
+and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And
+<a id="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></a>
+the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it
+not. The holy man was striding away, the people began to
+depart in a disturbance of noise and bodies. Ellen touched
+the water in the granite basin as she walked after her mother
+and sister.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton dipped his head, curt, to those he knew, stopped
+without the door to speak with N. J. Bilberry. The women
+waited, Maria whispering to Mrs. Bilberry, fleshy-faced and
+cheerful. At Anton’s nod they climbed back into the wagon
+and he took the reins. They jolted down the road. The earth
+lay dank-sweated, old furrows exposed. Black cottonwood
+trees were guarding the ditches. “N. J.’s wheat froze out,” the
+man commented briefly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tinie says there’s chills and fever going about,” Maria
+told him. “And Ioway Ashby has married a man from the
+south. He’s thirty-one years old. Ioway was but twelve last
+June.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I heard,” Frankie cried, “he sent off for a poppet doll for
+her, dressed in a bride veil.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ioway Ashby’s not inclined to give up her dolls yet,”
+Maria said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now dogwood roots are near as good as quinine for chills
+and fever,” Anton was saying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ioway’s ma told Tinie they’d begged at her since summer
+to let them marry. So she figured they just as well. I say, that’s
+a sight young for robbing the cradle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under cover of the wagon’s rumbling, Ellen whispered,
+reciting, “Mother of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our
+hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie pulled the rug about her boots. “It’s powerful cold.
+What you doing, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m thinking. Sam says if you have a blade of five-finger
+grass to carry about no one can deny you what you ask.
+I don’t believe him. Wonder if there’s some in the fields
+<a id="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></a>
+now?” Ellen turned her eyes uncertainly to the future, where
+somehow she must form a plan.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Anton received a letter the next day. “Hit’s from your
+Uncle Garland. Says he’s coming in a week’s time for Christmas
+this year. Hum. We’ll see what he thinks of your piano-playing
+now, Frankie. And how you’ve grown so fair.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man straightened his back, looked out the window.
+“Bear in mind, one more Christmas and you’ll be going up to
+that city with him. That’s Anton Gaddy’s youngen, folks’ll
+say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chicago sounds so far off, Pa. Will Uncle be glad for me
+to come?” Frankie smoothed the brightened hair that hung
+about her narrow shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll butcher tomorrow. Hear, ooman?” Anton said to
+Maria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she assented, “and it’s just come on the dark of the
+moon. It’s right to butcher.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know I don’t hold by that. But my brother dotes
+on your blood pudding and peppered headcheese. Sam and
+I’ll fix to prepare right away.” He marched out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you butcher in the light of the moon,” Maria told her
+daughters, “it’ll all drindle away while it’s frying. Just
+cracklings’ll be left. The grease’ll go rancid till you’ve got to
+make it up in soap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know,” tittered Frankie, “and that soap will turn the
+clothes yellow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a fact,” said Maria. “Don’t you laugh. My pap and
+mam e’er went by the moon. It’s natural.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will Uncle Garland say I’m fair, Ellie?” Frankie appealed
+to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you cross, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></a>
+“Well you sure act sick then. Doesn’t she, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen, who found tears started easily now, who was wary
+of her sudden sieges of self-pity, was running from the room.
+Again she dipped the pen.
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p class="addr">
+Mr. Christian Ay,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is a need for me to speak with you. I wish you were
+still hired to Brinker. I fear you have forgot me and this is
+but a striving after wind. Could you make a way to write
+or send word?
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign">
+Ellen Gaddy<br>
+Millville, Ktcky.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+This she addressed, Mr. Christian Ay, Care of Ay’s Store,
+Louisville, Ktcky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She mused, near suffocating in the loneliness. Had she led
+him on as Christian had declared? Had she sinned? Her brows
+contracted and she searched again the halls of memory for
+meanings. Surely she had known to fear that which befell.
+Here in the countryside tales were constantly bruited and old
+songs sung of fallen virgins and light young men. The Bible
+related dire warnings and horrid punishments meted out to
+defiled maids. She had led him to their sin then. But that
+wasn’t so. I didn’t knowing lead him on. I wasn’t a wanton.
+There came to her mind the woodchucks Anton trapped.
+A shotgun often didn’t penetrate the small thick skulls so
+steel traps were set in their underground paths. If a creature
+blundered and felt the sudden grip, it would strive with its
+greatest strength. And if it could not tear free, it backed into
+its den, pulling the trap after. There it gnawed its own leg
+above the metal jaws. It destroyed a part of its flesh, knowing
+it was a way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the next morning was just made, two scalded hog
+carcasses were hanging from the sourwood scaffold. The
+blood had been caught in a bowl and taken to the kitchen
+for boiling and seasoning. The great white wrinkled heads
+<a id="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></a>
+were on the porch in a red-daubed washtub. “If there was a
+ooman with child about,” Sam grunted as they were hoisting
+the scraped bodies by gambrel sticks thrust through the hamstrings,
+“we’d have to take care to cover this mess. Butchering
+blood on the earth marks a child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t have those worries any more.” Anton tossed
+the liver and kidneys and sweetbreads in the pan Ellen
+brought out to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fire was dying under the iron cauldron. Soon hams
+were piled in a heap along with the sagging shoulders and
+sides on a lye-scrubbed plank. The sausage-making began.
+Sam was scraping the inverted intestines preliminary to stuffing
+them. He stopped to hone his knife on a whetstone he
+carried in his pocket, spat on it for lubrication. “My old
+ooman came back last night. First thing Eadie did was boil
+up hot mustard water and set her feet in it. She chewed up
+a sourwood twig to make her a snuff brush. Give me a dipping,
+Samuel, she says, I’m tuckered.” He sat back thoughtful.
+“For Gawd, my house was a lonely place against that old hen’s
+return.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton sliced chunks of meat savagely, the razor-sharp
+knife whipping close to his finger tips. He held his silence,
+fed the pork into the grinder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the kitchen the women were preparing in their fashion
+for the celebration ahead. Anton had given Ellen coins with
+which to buy sugar when she did her trading, and for spices
+and raisins to put in the holiday cakes. In this season when
+his brother came for the annual visit, Anton would have
+no stinting. “Girl,” he said to her, “my ma used to make a
+pale holytide cake. There were whites of eggs beat in bowls
+and it was thick with nuts and sugared fruits. Not black like
+those strong sorghum ones you-all make. Hum.” He nodded,
+complacent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was assenting, eager. “I’ll ask Mrs. Love. Could be
+she’s learned the rule of such a cake, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></a>
+“And when you’re trading, go down of an evening when
+priest is holding hours for confession. Your uncle be due on
+Saturday, and I’ll have you all at the communion rail when
+he’s here, proper pious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before walking the muddy road to Millville in the cloudy
+darkened late afternoon, Ellen went to her room. She was
+binding her waist tight with a length of cloth. “I can’t see
+nothing yet, but Stacey Love might.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the confessional box, she whispered to the young priest.
+“Bless me, Father Tompert. I confess to God and you that
+I’ve sinned. My last confession was Easter.” She despaired.
+It’s all made up of falseness. I’ve no right to be here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Confess your sins since then, child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I took God’s name in vain. One time I did truly hate
+my pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you had any impure thoughts, my child?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you have any of these kind of thoughts you must do
+your best to banish them. Are you truly sorry for your sins?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am, Father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to kneel in a pew, forbearing to recite the penance
+prayers the priest had assigned to her. Instead she asked the
+Virgin to have pity, to understand why she was mute to
+Father Tompert for the sake of Anton’s pride. She was thus
+driven, with a measure of courage, to rejecting the rituals
+bestowed on her since a cross was hung about her throat as
+a baby, since she first held the beads and lisped the Credo.
+And praying to Mary, Ellen emerged with her as a personal
+god. She grasped the blue-gowned symbol in her need as if
+it were flesh and blood and could wield an influence on her
+fate. She denied the immense father figure of God without
+debating it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In coming days she would meet the mail carrier in his
+Model T, take back her second letter and place it with the
+<a id="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></a>
+other in the trunk. She at last put aside the hope of finding
+Christian Ay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By Friday, cakes and tarts, breads, cheeses and dried fruit
+pies were overflowing from the pantry shelves. Hams and
+sidemeat were curing in the smokehouse, sausages strung lavish
+from the shed eaves. There were crocks of fried meat
+packed in white fat, as well as headcheese, liverwurst, and
+tins of fresh lard. In the hot kitchen, Maria was baking breads
+and biscuits in the newly-blacked range, vaguely wakened in
+the prospect of a visitor. She spoke to Ellen, “Get wax candles
+when you go by Love’s next time, girl. The tallow ones ain’t
+suited for Mester Garland Gaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie was at the long table, a basket of butternuts and
+walnuts on the floor by her. She was cracking them on a
+sadiron with a blow of an old hammer head. She looked up,
+“You’re right peaked, Ellie. Are you ailing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll hunt out some of that bloodroot tonic,” Maria said, “if
+you got the complaint. It’ll make new blood.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d as lief you’d sing again,” Frankie was saying. “And
+you used to cut up so. Seems you’ve given it up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen, startled, burned her hand on the iron pan she was
+taking from the oven. She shook her wrist to ease the seep
+of pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go smear yellow soap on it,” her mother said, “it’ll draw
+out the heat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen rubbed on the soap, blinking her eyes. She sang to
+hide the tears and to hold her tongue from blurting her
+trouble.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">If I had known before I courted</p>
+      <p class="verse">That love had been so hard to win</p>
+      <p class="verse">I’d have locked my heart with the keys of golden</p>
+      <p class="verse">And pinned it down with a silver pin</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a id="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></a>
+“That’s too lamenting, Ellie. Sing that one Penny used to.
+About that Minnie.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Hush little Minnie and don’t say a word</p>
+      <p class="verse">Papa’s going to buy me a mocking bird</p>
+      <p class="verse">It can whistle and it can sing</p>
+      <p class="verse">It can do most anything</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They were making ready for the guest coming. Calico was
+hung across one end of the downstairs bedroom to form a
+separate chamber in which Garland would sleep. A chair was
+placed by the bed and a stone-topped table. In its base was
+a chamber pot, and on top a crockery pitcher with pink roses
+glazed on its surface set in a matching basin. A cake of
+store soap lay in a dish, a towel folded beside it. They ripped
+the bed tick open, removed the old stuffing, and filled it with
+soft wheat straw. The one feather pallet was aired and placed
+on the mattress, and over all they spread muslin sheets and
+their best quilts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night Ellen was in a chair in the warm parlor, her
+back aching from the long hours, a piece of mending in her
+hand. Dark had come on, the lamp was throwing feeble quivering
+shadows. Anton was holding the Bible and his lips
+moved. He raised his eyes, studied the image of Joseph alone
+on the table. He spoke, abrupt, “Where’s the Virgin Mary
+that stood there with Joseph? She be broke, I vow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked up in alarm. “I took her to the loft-room, Pa.
+What with holytide, I thought it would please you if I prayed
+to her, pious-like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I allow you can keep her for a spell. But she’ll not
+be broke, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Pa. I’ll take care.” She arose. “Reckon I’ll go to bed.
+Coming, Frankie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped them. “I’ll say the prayer to Michael once for
+this family. Get down, you-all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></a>
+On their knees the women were waiting, their shadows
+cast like gentle giants on the wall. The man knelt by the
+lamp and his specter engulfed theirs. “Holy Michael the
+Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the
+snares of the devil. Thou, Prince of the heavenly host, by the
+power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits that
+wander through the world seeking the ruination of souls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The temperature dropped in the night. As they were beginning
+the morning chores, whitefrost covered the land.
+The remote stars were cold and challenging. Ellen shivered,
+feeling her frailty. “What does it matter? One soul like me.
+I’m but a grain in a field of wheat. Who’s to heed if I be lone
+or have a sin to burn me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was closing the woodshed door. Her two goats got
+up in the half-light by the stone wall. Their beards twitched
+as they chewed in unison, their hair stood out woolly. “Why
+did I e’er take up with the careless love of Christian Ay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was putting bread crusts and salt and soybeans from
+her pocket in the wood trough. She laid her hands on the
+animals’ soft necks. “Here’s some linseed meal for richness.
+You feel the storm coming?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to get a bucket of tepid water that had stood
+by the kitchen range all night, carried it to the barnyard fowl.
+They were huddling together, feathers ruffled, on the pole
+roosts. She threw cracked corn on the dirt floor of their shed,
+and the birds hopped down one by one to eat, singing and
+crooning over the food. “Tonight I’ll mix a sprinkle of red
+pepper in your wet mash to warm your craws while you
+sleep.” Tending the creatures of the farm, Ellen took comfort
+and so forgot herself.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-6">
+<a id="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></a>
+6
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Garland Gaddy, in a new green Ford, was returning to the
+home of his youth. As he drove up the lane, Anton was in
+the barn on his knees while the old cow Bramble, delivered
+him twin heifers. But Garland’s nieces bade him welcome.
+They showed him the feather bed and he was well pleased.
+He took Ellen in his arms. “You’re a handsome wench, hon.
+Last Christmas you were a child and here you’re nearly a
+woman. What does Anton say when the young men come
+sparking?” He pinched her thigh, smiling warm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re plaguing me, Uncle. But he’s a sight for sore eyes,
+isn’t he, Frankie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh he is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></a>
+At night when the festive meal was over they sat in the
+parlor. The wind growled, and above the alders at the pond
+the moon bobbed like a ball on a chain while water-shadows
+trembled. Anton kept a fire roaring, carrying armfuls of oak
+logs from the kitchen and piling them on the hearth. Garland
+brought out a fifth of contraband whisky, setting the bottle
+on the round table. The two men tasted from the heavy
+kitchen glasses. “This be good moon, Gar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it beats needle beer. Place I get it has all their hooch
+analyzed and tested by a registered chemist. Ought to be
+good. Cost fifteen dollars a bottle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Christ.” Anton was impressed. “Smithy sold me some
+Jackass Peach Brandy from Virginia. Fifty cents a pint jar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Better watch out for that junk. Break you down inside.
+Internal bleeding. I wouldn’t drink a thing made down here
+in the Bible belt.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was sent to the cellar for a bottle of pale sweet wine
+that Anton made yearly from his scuppernong grapes, the
+vine of which had been planted five decades ago by Jules
+Gaddy, the father of the brothers. Ellen had put a scarf at
+her neck and it became her. She poured the wine, and came
+behind her uncle in his chair. When she put her head against
+his while he was talking, her hair fell on his shoulders. And
+she loved him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland Gaddy was the middle one of three brothers, a
+bachelor. He was a head taller than Anton, overweight, not
+yet fat. His small eyes were light blue, his once-blond hair
+had turned gray, he trimmed a neat mustache. His jaw was
+square, his lips full. He wore hand-cut dark suits, vivid ties.
+As a child he had shared with Anton their mother’s neglect,
+had run away from home at nineteen to prowl the states from
+coast to coast, brawling and scattering his seed. Then when
+he was twenty-nine, Anton offered him the sum of fifteen
+hundred dollars in cash, Maria’s dowry, for his half the farm.
+Garland had accepted, hitchhiking to Chicago with the bills
+<a id="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></a>
+sewn into his belt. He soon was co-owner of a thriving
+burlesque house. Now, over twenty years later, from his office
+on State Street he handled a set of neighborhood theatres
+where vaudeville and the silver screen vied for public approval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was affected by the abundance of festive food, the
+polished house, and the women’s raiment. Maria even, had
+laid aside the sack apron she usually pinned on and was wearing
+her churchgoing black dress and an ecru crocheted collar.
+Anton nearly begrudged the honor they paid Garland, although
+his pride assured him that the tribute was to himself.
+“Say, Gar, I call to mind when we were youngens, and Ma
+was honing for that black driving rig. You recollect? Our
+sir had but two gold dollars. So he went to Trader Bocock.
+Said, Bocock, you can have this gold and all the rocks you
+can haul out of that rye field if you’ll trade that rig to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She get the buggy, Pa?” asked Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bet she did, hon,” Garland said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did the trader want of rocks?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. But Bocock had the field cleaned before
+spring plowing,” said Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ma managed to get what she wanted pretty near every
+time,” Garland said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hum.” Anton packed his pipe, pushing with his thick
+thumb. “Had her hands full. Say, Frankie, play for us, and
+sing the prayer you learned.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Angel of God, my Guardian dear</p>
+      <p class="verse">To whom his love commits me here</p>
+      <p class="verse">E’er this day be at my side</p>
+      <p class="verse">To light and guard, to rule and guide</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“That’s a special prayer, you know, Garland. Priest says it’s
+worth a hundred days’ indulgence. Sing it once more,
+Poppet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></a>
+“I better learn that one.” Garland kept time with his hand.
+He got up to stand by the upright piano, tapping his foot.
+“You know the old one—Captain Jinks?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think so, Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Goes like this.” Garland made several false tries before
+he sang in off-key:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I’m Captain Jinks of the horse marines</p>
+      <p class="verse">I feed my horse on corn and beans</p>
+      <p class="verse">And court the ladies in their teens</p>
+      <p class="verse">For that’s the style in the army</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“That’s a new one, Uncle,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was pulling her hand, drawing her beside him.
+“You sing with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had finished, Ellen offered, “Want to hear one
+of Penny’s tales?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That roaring ooman,” growled Anton. “Tell you, Gar,
+she couldn’t cut an onion or hold a scrub brush without she
+was screeching some foldilay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s hear it, puss.” Garland sat back in his chair. Ellen
+stood behind him to sing while Frankie played. Anton bit
+his pipe in his yellowed teeth and the smoke wreathed. Maria
+knitted, her lips moving occasionally with an inner thought.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I courted pretty Pol the livelong night</p>
+      <p class="verse">Then left her next morn before it was light</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The song told of how Pol went riding off with the man and
+then,
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">They went a bit further and what did they spy</p>
+      <p class="verse">But a new-dug grave and a spade lying by,</p>
+      <p class="verse">Willie, O Willie, I’m afraid of your way</p>
+      <p class="verse">I’m afraid you will lead my poor body astray</p>
+      <p class="verse">Pretty Pol, pretty Pol, you’re thinking just right</p>
+      <p class="verse">I dug on your grave the best part of last night</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a id="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></a>
+And Willie stabbed the girl and put her in the grave.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">He threw a bit of dirt o’er her and started for home</p>
+      <p class="verse">Leaving no one behind but the wild doves to mourn</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“Now, if that ain’t a dumb fool story,” Anton snorted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked down at Garland and he patted her hands,
+placing them on his shoulders. “I liked it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You e’er hear,” she asked quickly because of the tears that
+were trapped by her father’s scorn, “it will strengthen a man’s
+eyes to have a mustache?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” he laughed, “I’ll keep it then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Uncle’s so kind. It came on her as he was stroking her
+wrists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton lifted his head. “My sir said his grandsir in France
+owned a sporting hog one time. You mind that story, Gar?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He called her Slut,” Garland said. “He was a gamekeeper
+in one of the king’s forests. Bred his own dogs, taught them
+to stand and back game. They say he was watching the men
+and saw the pups weren’t responding. Little black shoat went
+by, not a wild hog, she was the kind that ran loose in the
+forest those days. Made a wager with the men, he could train
+and break the shoat faster than they could the dogs. He
+penned her, taught her to come to her name. She pointed small
+game and partridge. After awhile she’d retrieve rabbit and
+pheasant, careful, too, she didn’t harm them—all sorts of game.
+Did better than his dogs. And backed them when she saw
+them point. That hog’s nose was so true she’d point a bird
+fifty yards away. In a straight line. That’s the story anyway.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He win the bet?” Frankie asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh sure, hon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Came when he hollered,” said Ellen. “Wish I could have
+seen that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did she run good or was she too fat?” asked Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></a>
+“She was trim. She’d come at full gallop. Excited like the
+dogs when she saw a gun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria said, “They must have set store by that beast.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You bet,” Garland turned to her, “and you know, Maria,
+when Slut was ten years old she weighed half a ton and they
+still hunted with her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ain’t that a tale, Frankie?” Anton demanded. “Those were
+the olden days. Then there came the time of Napoleon the
+Bonyparty. Pa’s grandsir had to soldier under him. He’d
+watch o’er the old country and if some land like Germany
+was trying to conquer a scroungy sort of a country, why
+Napoleon the Bonyparty, he’d say no. He’d get in front of
+his army and go lick Germany or whate’er land it happened
+to be. He stayed in France between wars and our great
+grandsir belonged to his company.” Anton shrugged with
+pride. “That fellow wasn’t the king, he worked for himself.
+He made his living that way, watching o’er the old country.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, my great great grandsir,” claimed Frankie, “knew
+Napoleon the Bonyparty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” Garland was laughing, “tomorrow’s Christmas
+Eve. Let’s hit the hay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stayed awake far into the night. The wind was tugging
+at her window and the lonely dark pressed down. Her
+lips were dry and her mouth became as cotton. I’ll tell Uncle
+tomorrow for sure. At length she lapsed into a fitful sleep
+while in the parlor below the fire died to coals and field mice
+came from the walls to nibble crumbs and nut meats fallen
+on the rugs.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+At breakfast Maria was stirring a pancake batter while the
+girls fried sausages and potatoes, set out slices of blood pudding,
+crocks of jam and sorghum. “I favor lacing griddle-cakes
+with hot sausage fat,” Anton said. “Sweetening takes
+the taste out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland, clad in a red shirt, new hunting pants and shining
+<a id="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></a>
+engineers boots, beamed. “Good old country sorghum for me.
+Well, pusses, what’s new? Anyone dream about a pointing
+pig? Or poor Pol? Or Napoleon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er,” giggled Frankie, “but tell another story.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you know that same great-great-grandfather of
+yours that trained Slut, went to Russia with Napoleon’s army.
+There was a bad winter and Napoleon beat it back to France.
+He let most of the troops die in the snow without food.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t take much stock in that,” said Anton. “I doubt
+Bonyparty did that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Anton, you know Pa used to talk about it. How
+they conscripted all the men of the village, twenty-three of
+them. And only his grandfather came back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He must have been strong. They say he was a good-looker,
+too,” said Anton. “Finest in the village, a proud one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Doesn’t look like you or me inherited much from him,”
+laughed Garland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon Marc took after him,” Anton said, “for he was
+the dandy of us three boys.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” Garland asked, “what you pusses got to report
+this morning?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One of the barn cats brought in a little mole yesterday,”
+said Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You didn’t know I lost my white kid last summer, Uncle,”
+Ellen said. “He was but two months old.” Lines still edged
+her eyes when she spoke of it. “You ne’er got to see him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was telling about the mole, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland listened to them, then said suddenly, “Now An,
+here’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up. Been thinking
+a lot about Frankie here. About her coming up to the
+city next year. You see, I want everything to go right. She
+needs to make a good impression from the start. Now you
+folks don’t realize it, but you practically talk like first settlers
+with that old-fashioned country dialect. Think Frankie
+<a id="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></a>
+could take lessons in grammar or speech this coming year to
+correct some of that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton had been spearing sausages and pancakes with a
+fork. He paused. The blood was leaping to his cheekbones,
+his freckles stood out in vivid specks. He made a guttural
+sound and scraped his chair back. He spat the food from his
+pendulous lips on to the table before him, hurled the sausage
+and fork to the floor. “Hit do be my sir’s tongue and my
+ma’s and before God, hit’ll be that girl’s. She’ll go forth with
+hit and no more farting teaching mesters will I suck upon.”
+He flung himself from the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen began to weep. Maria was taking up a cloth to clean
+the table and the floor. Frankie looked at her uncle and her
+eyes were wary, her voice small, “You’re not afraid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jesus Wept, no, puss. Have another flapjack and I’ll talk
+to him when he cools off. That squirt always had a hot
+temper.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen snared the largest of the geese by a stout pink leg.
+She bore it to the stump, placed its head between the spikes
+and cleaved the neck just below the jaw. She threw the beheaded
+bird from her to flail its wings and flop about. She
+handed the head to Jack, eager and knowing. “I see you licking
+your chops.” She tore the down from the breast, stuffing
+it into a sack. She brought a pail of boiling water, scalded the
+carcass and finished the plucking. She gave the entrails to the
+chickens to pick, washed the heavy bird under the pump,
+hung it near the sausages dangling from the eaves in the shed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the kitchen, Anton was tipping his chair back. He took
+from his pocket a twist of tobacco leaves and sliced the end
+with his jackknife. He thrust his short legs in front of him,
+balancing. “Hell, Gar, might be it’s as you say and Frankie’s
+speech is queer to city folk. But what matters her way of
+speech if she’s to make music? If you say so, why I’ll get her
+a grammar mester. But hark at me, Gar,” and his eyes were
+<a id="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></a>
+glinting, “don’t ne’er speak again such as you did there before
+them oomen-folk. Like what I say ain’t gospel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chrissake, get off your high horse. They know you’re
+boss.” Garland ground his cigarette butt in a plate and
+laughed. He ran his little finger across his mustache, touching
+his sensuous lips. “I was always big enough to lick you if
+it came to that, now wasn’t I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve tried hit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always give you good advice. Now here’s another bone
+I want to pick. Indoor plumbing.” He hit his fist on the table.
+“You think you’ve progressed because you dug a new privy
+ten years ago. Maria and those young girls haul water from
+the well like pioneers. This is December nineteen twenty-five.
+The century of progress.” Again the fist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They got a sink and a clear drain that our ma ne’er had,”
+Anton drawled, tobacco juice staining the corners of his
+mouth, “and she ne’er had a deep hole like our shithouse but
+just a board and a shed. Nor that sweet-water well that Witch
+Lufty found. I see you’ve gone soft in the city.” The farmer
+was pleased, for now the ground was familiar. He backed
+down only when there was jeopardy to his younger daughter’s
+future.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, guess I was going soft, Anton, when I got you that
+loan back in the war when times were bad. So you could
+buy good milkers and get shed of that worthless herd you
+were supporting. Guess it’s soft to buy a good breed of
+chickens or thoroughbred hogs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, those are beasts where we make our living. Hit’s not
+the same.” Anton stumped to the stove and lifting the round
+iron lid with the poker, spat on the coals. They sizzled. “And
+I paid that loan back, Gar. Hard cash from crops and milk.”
+He replaced the lid with a violent noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I give up. Chrissake, you’re stubborn.” Garland arose. “I
+suppose you’d declare you’ll never run in a line and wire the
+farm for electricity?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></a>
+“I was born by lamplight and I’ll see that I die by it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’ve got two or three Christmas packages in the
+Ford.” Garland was going to the door. “Good a time as any
+to bring them in. Frankie,” he shouted, “call off that practicing
+and come with me. Jesus Wept, this is a holiday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was sawing his fist in the air, exhorting, “Remove
+not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set, says
+the Word. Mind, Gar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening an austere meal of bread and cabbage soup
+was consumed. By custom the family semi-fasted before communion.
+They would wait to eat of the festive food when
+they returned from midnight mass. After supper the girls
+popped corn and cracked nuts to put on the table. Ellen
+boiled up a pan of taffy at Garland’s suggestion. She buttered
+her hands and pulled it with him until it cooled into long
+pale sticks. But all his jokes and laughter did not rouse her
+from her lassitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At mass she moistened her tongue to swallow the dry communion
+disk. It seemed to her that now truly the door was
+closed on her childhood. As she returned to the pew she
+grieved, weighing what she had read in her Bible. If thou
+hast done foolishly in lifting thyself, or if thou hast thought
+evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth. For as the churning of
+milk bringeth forth butter and the wringing of the nose
+bringeth forth blood, so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth
+strife. I’ll have to find a way to leave my home, a place to
+go and drop this wayside colt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland drove the green car back down the road to
+the farm. He was talkative and his mood had passed to his
+brother. “Tell you,” Anton was yawning, “I’ll ne’er forget
+that Christmas I passed shivering and repenting while sleeping
+up against the cows, and thinking of you and Marc warm
+in the quilts. I’d been whipped on my knees for leaving the
+cow gate open. You remember it? That was one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The car lights beamed down the corduroy road. The night
+<a id="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></a>
+was parted like great doors swinging open on hinges. I
+haven’t told Uncle yet. A light fall of snow was starting and
+the wind hushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The store-wrapped gifts that Garland had laid on the table
+in the parlor were opened Christmas morning. Anton was
+puffing at a hand-rolled cigar. “If you be setting and your
+hands be idle, hit’s a good enough pleasure,” he said, stinting.
+“I even heard they’re rolling cigars now with a machine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen opened her package, took out a hat of crushed blue
+satin, a silk rose on its soft brim. “My, that’s fair.” Her voice
+was tremulous because of his care for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put it on, hon,” he was saying. “Ordered it special from
+the milliner. You know, satin’s the thing this year. Say, when
+she wears that to mass, Anton, you’ll have to keep the beaus
+back with a shotgun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria smoothed her fingers over a black crepe de Chine
+dress. Frankie ran to try on one of pink wool, to fling herself
+upon Garland while her father smoked in his chair, tracing
+her movements with a jealous eye. “E’er see the glass
+bowl-garden Frankie made me last summer, Gar?” he asked.
+“Hit’s setting in the bedroom window.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen was drying the breakfast dishes when Garland came
+into the room. He had on a bright striped jacket and brown
+corded jodhpurs. His gray hair was neat, his square jaw
+shaven. “Don’t you ever get tired of all this work, puss? You
+never get a change, hidden out on the farm here by yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s my home, Uncle. And I love the earth and its doings.
+Sometimes in the summer it comes on such an hour like when
+the Lord God walked in the garden of Eden. Sometimes a wind
+passes o’er the earth that’s fair and all its bounty is spread
+before.” The wetness stood in her eyes as she was blurting it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know, but you’ve got your future to think about. You
+should meet people. Get around. Your father dotes on Frankie
+<a id="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></a>
+too much, never gives a thought to you. It’s not right, you
+know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s his way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You got a boy friend?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” Water filled her eyes again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland tapped the table. “It’s your father. Keeps you
+kids cloistered like a pair of nuns.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was stacking the dried silver in the milkglass jar. She
+turned to him, desperation fringing her tones. “I would as
+lief go from the farm awhile, to see the world outside.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Course you would, sweet.” He was hearty. “That’s only
+normal. Now what chore comes next?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tending my goats.” She was taking her coat from its
+hook. “Want to come?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the dog trailing after, they took the path over which
+Ellen had sped light in the summer past. She fed her does
+and was standing at the gate while they ate, her eyes absorbed.
+Garland smoked his cigarette, observing her a while.
+“How would you like to visit me in Chicago, sweet?
+Work’ll be light here till spring. They can get along without
+you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She breathed soft, “Pa’d not have it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He doesn’t need you. Got your sister to keep him company.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He does so need me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well then, he can let you have a vacation.” He smiled.
+“Does he ever strap you now you’re a grown girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, but I call to mind when I was a child and once Ma
+said I picked at a rhubarb pie from the pantry shelf. I ne’er
+knew of it being there. Pa cut a hickory, length of his arm,
+and beat me. Made me kneel. Said I lied. I won’t squall and
+that gets his back up.” She rubbed with her finger the area
+between the black stub horns of Rhodie, veiling her eyes.
+“Reckon I’d love to visit at your house.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it’s high time. I’ll throw a party when you come.
+<a id="page-86" class="pagenum" title="86"></a>
+I’ll talk to Anton this afternoon. Tell him it’s only logical
+for you to be first since you’re the oldest. He’ll let you. You’ll
+see.” He was putting his arm around Ellen. She leaned against
+him with a sigh. “You’re a sweet girl, hon.” He kissed her,
+lingering on the young mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen decided not to say more to him now. I’ll wait till
+I’m at his house to tell him he must help me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton wasn’t averse to Ellen’s journey. Garland had emphasized
+how he was making ready for Frankie’s arrival the
+next year, and he spoke of the money he planned to spend on
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria said suddenly, “Who’ll do the trading if Ellie goes
+off?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Enough jawing on this,” cried Anton. “I’ll send Sam,
+ooman. Ellie’ll not be gone two-three weeks.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland laughed, “Her turn comes first. You don’t mind,
+do you, Frankie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh no, I want her to go. Maybe I could do the trading,
+Pa? Just while Ellie’s gone?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Poppet. Say, is she riding back with you in the auto?”
+Anton inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess not. No, I’ll be going by way of St. Louis. I’ve
+got some business to look after. Then I’ll drive on up and get
+the house in order. I’ve never gotten ready for one of these
+young ladies before.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s taking a train then?” Anton was persistent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is my treat. I’m giving Ellen the ticket money. It’s an
+extra Christmas present.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well. If you want,” Anton said, relieved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stood by them pale, her eyes fastened to her uncle.
+He nodded, “Come the middle of January, puss. Leave here
+on the fifteenth. I know the train. There’s only one out of
+New Hope that goes to Chicago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s foolishness.” Anton walked out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-87" class="pagenum" title="87"></a>
+Before Garland left, he came on Ellen alone, slipping her
+an envelope of money. “No need to mention this to your
+father. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Just tell him
+I gave you enough for your ticket.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Uncle.” She held the extra money tightly in her
+apron pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the morning after New Year’s Day, Garland was jaunty
+in his yellow driving cap and raccoon coat. The girls were
+helping him carry his bags out to the Ford. Then he unfolded
+the hood, examined the interior. “That’ll do.” He
+fastened the hood down, removed the figured radiator cap
+and dipped a finger. “Water.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie brought a pail from the pump. “Can I do it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, this is fine.” He poured until it flowed over, replaced
+the cap, and opened the car door. “Here goes one more
+year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish you’d stay on a while,” said Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There,” Maria said, “I love that dress. I ne’er had a silk
+one before.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s crepe de Chine, Maria,” Garland laughed, “it’s the
+style.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s not silk, ooman,” Anton said, “that stuff’s too dear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, is it,” Garland said. “It’s one kind of silk. Well, here
+I go.” His gloved hand was waving from the window. The
+exhaust rose in a fog, dogging the car in the chill air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The days sped. It was time for Ellen to leave. She had
+bought a length of dark heavy cloth with some of the money
+Garland had given her. She made it into a dress, cutting so
+it hung in loose folds on her hips. “I can feel where it lays
+hard in me. Soon the cleverest stitching won’t hide it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had given Frankie the primrose bulb from Brinkers’
+kitchen. “Hope it fares well. Keep in mind to feed it cold
+tea. And do tend my goats, Frankie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re only going for a week or so, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle said I might stay a little longer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-88" class="pagenum" title="88"></a>
+Ellen was bringing salt to her two does. They licked her
+hands, leaning affectionate against her. She knew the places
+they liked best to be rubbed, along the withers and between
+the horns, on the silken spots behind their small pricked
+ears, on their throats below the beards. “Frankie’s promised
+to care for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria said, “Bye now. When you reckon Mester Gaddy’ll
+be back from taking you to Millville? I’m out of coffee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie was kissing Ellen fondly. “It’ll be right lonely with
+you off there. I’ll miss your singing, too.” Frankie’s qualms
+for her own leavetaking a year hence were exposed when she
+viewed Ellen’s breakaway. “There. I’m that eager to go to
+Uncle’s myself.” But she whispered, plaintive, “Wish I was
+little again. What if it’s not fun like you think it’ll be, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ain’t afraid,” Ellen spoke stoutly as she stepped down
+to where the team waited; her tan coat was covering her
+new dress, she wore the blue satin hat. Jack was flattening
+his ears and going to sit amid the weeds on the bank to await
+her return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton drove the buckwagon, Ellen on the railed seat beside
+him. At Love’s she would wait to catch a ride on the milk
+truck to New Hope. “You be a credit to me, girl. I don’t
+favor your idling about in that Zion. And you’ll not lust
+after young men, mind.” He was nodding. “So I told my
+brother.” He reined in the team outside the store. Ellen went
+in for Maria’s coffee. She handed it up to him. “I’ll see you in
+two weeks’ time. You can write and I’ll make a way to get
+you home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Pa. Goodbye.” Ellen watched the buckboard until
+she could barely make out her father’s round hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Love’s store, she was peering through the wide window.
+Stacey Love rocked, vigorous, by the stove. “Hit’s a
+far piece where you’re going.” Grady was chopping wood
+and the report of his ax was heard. “I always thought a
+heap of Mester Gaddy’s brother.” She placed a pinch of snuff
+<a id="page-89" class="pagenum" title="89"></a>
+between her lower lip and teeth. “Though I ne’er had no
+truck with another Yankee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen kept silence, sickened with excitement and fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re sure looking seedy, Ellen. I was telling Grady you
+seemed kind of pinched this winter.” Stacey swayed back
+and forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a noise at the door and Lily Garrett was pushing
+in, her curls springing about her soft face. “Well, hey
+you-all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish I had a rich uncle,” Stacey went on quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, Ellie Gaddy,” the fat girl cried, “where you going
+all smartened up? And you got a new hat. Look at that rose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen kept her back to them. She continued looking up the
+road, the pulse in her throat throbbing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen’s leaving us poor folks, Lily. Going to the big city.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Mrs. Love,” whispered Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My goodness,” cried Lily, “you ne’er told me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish I could go visiting,” Stacey said, “lie around in bed
+of a morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You-all heard,” Lily called to Ellen, “Buck Lemmon and
+Sophie Goode wedded? Kept it a secret. It was at the husking
+bee they met up. How come you didn’t go to the bee,
+Ellie? Mandy declared you were going.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked around. “My pa wouldn’t suffer neither me
+or Frankie to go, Lily. That’s all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I calculate Buck Lemmon seen Sophie a sight before that
+husking bee,” Stacey said flatly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whate’er you mean?” Lily was giggling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ain’t saying,” Stacey smiled. “But you e’er see such a
+funny-looking girl as Sophie? I marvel at her catching a fine
+fellow like Buck. I can see she’s wearing stays and binding
+herself so it won’t show. Guess she allows she’ll fool somebody
+that way. Buck told me himself she’s been to see Doc
+Trumbo. Lazy old sow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s the milk truck.” Ellen turned to flee. Lily was
+<a id="page-90" class="pagenum" title="90"></a>
+kissing her extravagantly at the door while Stacey waved a
+hand and renewed her wad of snuff. Ellen hailed the truck.
+“Can I hitch a ride to New Hope, Mester Durley?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure thing, Miss Gaddy.” Those were his last words
+until they reached the New Hope station.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m beholden, Mester Durley,” she said as she was taking
+her bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her valise was the plaster of Paris image of the Virgin
+Mary, and Ellen was somewhat fortified by its presence.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-7">
+<a id="page-91" class="pagenum" title="91"></a>
+7
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The whistle was shrieking as the train coursed into the
+suburbs late in the night. The cars slunk past small sharp-angled
+houses, massive factories belching fire, streets of
+lighted stores and cafes, slow-moving people and streetcars,
+trucks, wagons and horses or mules, buggies, automobiles.
+The coach cars were strung with yellow window links that
+curved on the track ahead into a tunnel. Ellen saw muffled
+groups of people under bright station lamps. Her journey
+was done. She reached the cold cement of a pillared runway,
+stood impotent, bewildered, jostled by passengers on their
+separate ways. She was clutching her bag in one hand, the
+other in her coat pocket held her handkerchief in which the
+<a id="page-92" class="pagenum" title="92"></a>
+money was knotted. A familiar voice spoke in her ear, “Well,
+here’s the little country wench.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Garland, suave in a tight-fitting suit and spotted
+tie, a derby on his head. He carried a fur coat, his face seemed
+old and yellowed in the glare of the platform. He kissed
+her mouth and she felt the mustache, clung to him. “I thought
+I got lost, Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Porter.” Yellow taxicabs were waiting in a line. They
+got in one and drove a long time. She was asleep, her head
+limp against the hard leather. Garland was waking her. “This
+is it, sweet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stumbled after him up granite stairs. He stooped over
+to unlock a door, pushed it open and they went into an
+unlighted hall where a staircase reared. “How about something
+to eat? Some hot milk?” He flashed on a light overhead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon I’d better just sleep, Uncle. I’m beat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your room’s up here.” He was climbing ahead on the
+broad uncarpeted steps, carrying her valise. A musty odor
+lingered about them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My, you’ve got a big house, Uncle.” Her voice was loud
+in the echoing vestibule.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s big all right.” He preceded her down the hall and
+opened a door, stepped in and snapped the button of a wall
+lamp. An orange bulb glowed faintly. “If you want more
+light, there’s one by the bed.” It was a high-ceilinged room
+with a dark red rug. The wide ornate bed was covered with
+a heavy magenta spread and on the wall was a round mirror
+in a gold-scrolled frame. Through the mesh curtains hanging
+in front of the windows Ellen saw lamps in the street underneath
+and tree branches twining still and soundless. The
+doorbell grated below. “Goodnight, hon. Sleep tight. Don’t
+let the bedbugs bite.” He was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen attempted to draw the heavy drapes that hung at the
+sides of the windows, but discovered they were fastened
+<a id="page-93" class="pagenum" title="93"></a>
+there. She was fumbling at window shades, drawing them
+down. She heard voices raised below, stiffened to listen.
+Through the floor boards came a woman’s faint thin laughter.
+Then all was still. She pulled the chain of the bulb over the
+bed; in the sudden whiteness dust balls in the corners were
+exposed, and stained paper on the walls. She put the light out.
+Below all remained quiet. She folded her dress on an armchair.
+Cautious, she left the room, found the bathroom around
+an angle in the hallway. When she turned the spigot, water
+spurted and roared. Shy of disturbing the household, she
+washed meagerly, then hurried back and turned off the orange
+wall light. She crept into the cold foreign sheets. And when
+she slept it was as if her fears backed off. In dreaming Christian
+Ay was taking her hand in his. In his way he was laughing
+as if there was an old joke between the two of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she came downstairs in the morning, her footsteps
+resounded in the vestibule, at the end of which was a door.
+It opened into a large green-carpeted room. Somber-colored
+chairs and sofas were flanked by trivial tables bearing bric-a-brac
+and crystal and cloisonné ash trays. On a corner table,
+in a ponderous silver frame, was a daguerreotype of Nell
+Gaddy, garbed in a ruffled shirtwaist and a wide straw hat
+tipped with an egret’s wing. Beyond she could see the dining
+room and her uncle at an oval table, his breakfast and a newspaper
+spread before him. He waved his hand, called out. He
+was shaking a little silver bell. She crossed the expanse of the
+green carpet to sit at the table by him. She sensed the odd
+odor of his house. It was the strangeness of another lair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mrs. Quimby.” Garland was speaking to an aproned bulky
+woman at the swinging door. “This is my niece, Ellen. She’ll
+be visiting here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pleased, be sure,” said Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman turned away, grim, reappeared with a plate
+of bacon and eggs and a cup. Gray-black hair wisped about
+her face, a formless dress was belted on her full hips and
+<a id="page-94" class="pagenum" title="94"></a>
+buttoned down the front under the apron. Her eyes were
+colorless. She set the food before Ellen and withdrew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t let her ways bother you, puss. You’ll get used to
+her. She’s a gem. Been with me years.” He was pouring her
+coffee. While Ellen ate he spoke rapidly, “Sleep well? You
+do what pleases you. The house is yours. I’ll tell Mrs. Quimby
+you’re mistress. Like that?” He was tapping the chair arm
+with his finger. “Want to go for a walk? That’s Redding
+Street out front. Pretty district here. Old. Want me to invite
+some friends for a party?” He drank the last of his coffee in
+haste, jingled the bell again. The housekeeper instantly
+opened the door, her mouth a penciled line. “Make my niece
+at home, Mrs. Quimby. Fix her a good lunch. Don’t know
+what time I’ll be back.” He hurried to the vestibule, returning
+in a raccoon coat and black spats. He was holding a cane
+and a black felt derby together in one hand. He looked down
+at her. “Not much to say, puss. You like my house?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do, Uncle.” Ellen couched her words with care, “Be my
+speech queer like you told Pa my sister’s was?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, of course you talk the same as her, hon. But I don’t
+want you to change. Frankie’ll be living here in Chicago. So
+that’s different, see?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d fain live in Millville all my days.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He kissed her and she smelled the perfumed lotion. He
+eyed her quizzically. “Such a little innocent. Don’t ever
+change, sweet.” The outer door was slamming after him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hours passed, the first ever spent away from home,
+away from the ritual of farm work. Ellen saw how mealtimes
+were varied to suit the whim of Mrs. Quimby, how Garland
+was blind to the management of his house. He was gone for
+many hours in a day, often returning after she was in bed.
+He had little time for her. She would wander through the
+house to sit in the sun-bright bay window in the dining room,
+to tune in the cumbersome radio set on the marble table in
+the other large shaded room. Her plight and its urgent solution
+<a id="page-95" class="pagenum" title="95"></a>
+lay untamed, twisting in the back of her mind. She
+went upstairs, past the closed doors of the hallway to the blue-and-white
+statuette she had placed on the highboy beside
+the bed. “Deliver me,” she prayed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On her third day in the house she came to the kitchen,
+seeking companionship, and pushed the door. Sarah Quimby
+stared from where she sat reading a paper booklet. In her
+hands was a steaming mug that she set on the galvanized
+table top with a sharp click. Behind the dour-faced woman
+was a double-doored wood icebox trimmed in bronze, and
+above it swung three or four canary cages. The pale yellow
+birds were silent, heads cocked, alert. On the sink was a disarray
+of food and newspapers and opened cans. The hard-wood
+floor was littered with crumbs and dust. “There’s many
+a fine secret Sarah Quimby knows, miss.” The housekeeper’s
+voice was high-pitched and her finger wagged. Ellen let the
+door swing shut. “I know goings-on,” the woman was shrilling
+behind it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Confused, Ellen went to sit in the bay window. “Old
+witch,” she murmured, laying her hand on her cheek. Frown
+lines were drawing across her forehead.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Don’t place your affections</p>
+      <p class="verse">On the green sycamore tree</p>
+      <p class="verse">For the leaves they will welter</p>
+      <p class="verse">And the balls they will fall</p>
+      <p class="verse">If you can’t love arightly</p>
+      <p class="verse">Don’t love none at all</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In the round mirror in her room, Ellen was deliberately examining
+her figure clad in a flannel chemise. It was evening,
+the wall lamp burned. She placed the strip of cloth about her
+waist, making it firm. Then she put on the dark dress she had
+made for this visit. To the figure in the glass she breathed,
+“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mester Ay.” The hurt
+<a id="page-96" class="pagenum" title="96"></a>
+eyes looked back from the white oval face. The breasts even
+now were swelling so in five months’ time they would grow
+hard and full, the pink nipples brown. She touched her girdled
+waist, bitter. “I’ll bind it tighter and maybe it’ll strangle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a knock and Garland appeared in the doorway,
+remote in a severe black suit and bow tie. “You put me in
+mind of my mother there.” He looked at her heavily and
+turned, drawing the door shut with a dull sound. She stood
+a moment, then moved to the windows, pulling up a shade
+exposing the windy lean night. Yellow street lamps bloomed
+stark and shorn tree boughs swayed. She was weeping after
+a while, darkly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later she glided down the long staircase where the echoes
+lived, and into the big room. A score of people were milling
+in the blue mist of tobacco smoke and the vague sensuous
+odors of perfume. In their hands were stemmed glasses and
+morsels of food. The air stayed hot and unreal, the voices an undulating
+drone above the clicking and chinking of dishes.
+Garland came across the room, ruddy-faced, waving a glass
+at her, his breath strong. “This is my niece. The one I
+told you about. The little goat-girl from the Kentucky hills
+of home.” He took her arm. He was like somebody else; fine
+wrinkles were etched about his soft-skinned jaw and across
+his brow. He spoke loudly to a white-haired tall man. “This
+is Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mester,” she whispered, and she said, “Lady,” when it was
+a woman as he took her around the room. Her head
+throbbed, she wished the night done. Garland left her and she
+stood apart, waiting. Then he found her again, urging her to
+sing. “This niece of mine can do the old-time songs up so
+prettily. Go ahead, puss. Any tune.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her voice was high and steady while the women’s gems
+glistened and the men turned murmuring to each other,
+puffing long black cigars.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+<a id="page-97" class="pagenum" title="97"></a>
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">E’er a night when the sun goes in</p>
+      <p class="verse">I hang down my head and mournful cry</p>
+      <p class="verse">True love, don’t weep nor mourn for me</p>
+      <p class="verse">I’m going away to Marble Town</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“Say, that’s good. You know any faster ones like ‘Bam,
+Bam, Bamy Shore,’ Miss Gaddy?” cried a modish blond
+young woman. “We could dance to that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” Ellen’s voice was small. “Reckon not, lady.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, how about ‘Alabamy Bound’?” called another female
+voice. “That’s from the South.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know it,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s got rhythm.” The blond girl tapped her feet. “Come
+on, Nadine, let’s dance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vo-do-dee-o! Whoopee!” They raised their hands as
+though to pat-a-cake, swayed and juggled their feet, short
+skirts exposing slim legs.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Five feet two, eyes of blue</p>
+      <p class="verse">Can she hug</p>
+      <p class="verse">And can she woo</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Garland was setting his glass down. He began to wail too.
+He shuffled, linked arm in arm with one of the bejeweled
+women.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">She says that</p>
+      <p class="verse">She’s my little baby</p>
+      <p class="verse">My little jazztime baby</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+There was dancing, noise, laughter, squeals. Ellen, afraid of
+the strange faces, the clever women, conscious of her unfashionable
+attire, had retreated to a chair in a dim-lit corner.
+Mrs. Quimby opened the dining room door. The woman was
+austere in a white starched apron, a ruffled cap askew on her
+hair. “The dinner is served, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-98" class="pagenum" title="98"></a>
+When the last guest had gone, Ellen turned to the broad
+staircase and put her hand on the balustrade. Her skin was
+transparent, a blue vein beat in the temple. She was holding
+herself tense. Garland looked at her a moment, his little eyes
+flickering. “I should have made you rest, hon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” She shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sang so pretty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Uncle. It’s no song for city folk.” She flushed, near
+tears. “It sounded queer, for a fact.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He glanced, curious, at her. “Where did you pick up those
+songs?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Talithie Gentry of the grammar school used to
+sing to us. But I learned the most from Penny Dougherty. Pa
+hired her two summers back when Ma took sick.” She sighed,
+aware of her plainness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was laughing, “Did you like the party?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa still calls Penny that roaring woman. He couldn’t abide
+her. Thought I’d die when she first went. It was so lonely.”
+And she added, “I remember ary tale Penny sung.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not homesick are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went up a stair, avoiding his sharp look. “No. It’s the
+late hour makes me gossipy. Home we’re ne’er up this late.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh yes, want to ask you about church tomorrow. Guess
+you’d say I’m a pretty bad Catholic. Manage to make Christmas
+mass and send a big check to the cathedral and that’s
+about it.” He wagged his head, looking up at her. “But I
+know Anton brought you girls up strict. Bet he used a switch
+like our folks taught us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Want to go to mass?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d liefer not.” She rubbed her forehead, reflecting. “If
+you think it’s not wrong to cross his will?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean Anton’s will? Chrissake, I’m all for it. I
+wouldn’t tell him. Now, sleep in the morning. Get a good
+rest. I’ve got some business so I’ll likely be gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-99" class="pagenum" title="99"></a>
+“I ne’er knew you to be such a rich man, Uncle. When
+you came to the farm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she entered her room, she heard the rasp of the doorbell
+and a woman’s voice that cut off when the door shut between
+the vestibule and the living room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day large flakes were floating soundless beyond
+the cold bay window. Ellen heard a crash in the kitchen,
+knew another dish had slipped. Over the trill of the canaries
+came a loud grumbling. The swinging door was opening. “I
+can tell you a secret, miss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve ne’er a wish to hear it.” Ellen stood up from her
+chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t put on airs, miss. Your family’s not much account.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon I don’t know what you mean.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Gaddy’s the one amounted to something in your family.
+You’re a poor relation.” Mrs. Quimby smiled slyly. “You
+know Mr. Gaddy keeps a woman? A bad woman. On the
+east side. You know what they are, miss? He keeps her for
+his pleasure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re a liar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ain’t you the fool. Where you think he goes nights,
+looking like Douglas Fairbanks? Think that’s on business?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hit’s proper to have a lady friend.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And not make her his missus? Keep rooms for her. Pay
+her to wait for him. Give her gold. All these years he’s
+kept one. Different ones. I tell you he’s lucky to find a
+respectable woman like me to run his house.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t listen. I won’t listen,” Ellen was repeating to herself,
+running through the house, over the green carpet, away
+from the voice. She turned the key in her door, threw herself
+on the magenta coverlet, her hands over her ears. “He
+doesn’t want me or need me any more than Pa. I’m like some
+contrary varmint that no one’ll have any truck with.” Her
+<a id="page-100" class="pagenum" title="100"></a>
+self-pity was like wind to a fire. She got up, sat in one of the
+stiff-backed chairs, trembling in wrath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I put a curse on Christian Ay who did this to me. Forever,
+take away his joy, Mary Virgin. For what’s been
+wreaked on me. Make him suffer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she was rising. She had seen it in an instant. “It
+just came o’er me. I’ll go there.” She was lifting down the
+traveling bag, opening it on the bed. She packed her few possessions.
+“I lay a curse on him. Virgin my witness.” She
+counted her money, folded it in the handkerchief. The feverish
+tenor of the past days was sliding away and she was cooled
+again. She rested, and in the night as she was going out, she
+stood a letter on the highboy.
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p class="noindent">
+Uncle, I’m beholden for all your kindness. I am going to
+St. Louis to see someone. If Pa asks after me will you tell
+him I will try to be home in summer. Please don’t try to
+find me.
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign">
+niece Ellen
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+At the station she purchased a ticket, sat for a few tired
+hours on a bench, her shoes and satin hat wet from the falling
+snow. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Her
+hand rested on the valise. She boarded the train and found a
+seat. Through the window she watched the red coal of sun
+lift itself. The landscape was evolving into farm lands, far-stretched,
+and sleeping villages. The snow began to melt as
+they rumbled southward into Illinois.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was dozing. Out of memory sprang an incident involving
+Anton. It stirred no warring of anger in her, only the
+same wonderment she had experienced at the time. The way
+of women had come on Frankie, catching her unaware one
+night when she was eleven, frightening her, so she whimpered
+to Ellen, “I’m dying. Ellie, don’t let me die.” Maria had kept
+a pristine silence on all matters pertaining to the body, as her
+own mam had done with her. It was a secret, never articulated.
+<a id="page-101" class="pagenum" title="101"></a>
+Ellen had whispered to Frankie and they planned. All
+the while in their whispers lay a thrill of dread, for it was
+a field of unknowns. The morning was Sunday and the girls
+were dressing for mass. Anton opened the loft door upon
+them. “What’s going on here? We’ll be late again. Now
+move, you two.” Frankie was nude and gazed, naive, at him.
+Ellen plucked a garment from the bed and laid it before her
+sister. The man ripped it from Frankie’s hands, threw it at
+her feet. He turned on Ellen, “Not so froward, girl,” and
+stalked out while the two stared. They had dressed swiftly,
+mute. But nightly, for many years, Frankie would have an
+urgent compulsion to look under her bed before she went
+to sleep. And Ellen developed a fear of something skulking and
+concealed when she was sent to the cellar on an errand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was unburying this, mulling it, half asleep. By noon
+she became wakeful and light-headed, bought a sandwich
+from a vendor who came shouting through the stuffy car.
+The train was halting before a gray clapboard station house
+bearing the flecked inscription <span class="scall">WEEMS CROSSROADS</span>. Bag in hand
+she walked the deserted streets. The air was less chill, the sky
+a high blue. She was questioning a storekeeper, then turning
+down a muddy road leading into the country. She passed
+farms and came to woods where black trees dripped. Brash
+crows were cawing somewhere out of sight and neglected
+clouds floated in fresh winds. By a fenced-in burial ground,
+melting snow outlined gravestones. A Mason jar full of sticks
+tipped on its side and a withered wreath lay on a plot enclosed
+with a black iron paling. Gray granite markers were
+graven with dead names and dates. A cow leaned over the
+cemetery fence in the distance to crop grass inside; it was
+bearing heavily with its soft neck on the sagging wire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen came to a dilapidated mailbox set on a stake under
+a bare-branched catalpa. She read, Luke Dougherty. She went
+up the mire of the lane. A flock of speckled guineas were
+trotting in the wet meadow. She knocked at the door to a narrow
+<a id="page-102" class="pagenum" title="102"></a>
+weather-washed house set beside a shed where bearded
+goats were lolling. A hen began to cry in the way they have
+when they have just laid an egg, and somewhere back of
+Ellen the guineas screamed. A small pretty-featured woman
+with clear eyes was there in the doorway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I came to you, Penny. Will you have me in?”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-3-8">
+<a id="page-103" class="pagenum" title="103"></a>
+8
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+In a few minutes Ellen was seated in a wood armchair, a
+blanket about her, a heated soapstone under her feet. A pot
+of beans on the range was giving off a warm strong odor.
+There were two rooms in the tiny house. Into this one were
+crowded the cookstove, a table, a woodbox, two scratched
+chairs, a stool, a cupboard, a low cabinet. Washing of dishes,
+clothes, and baby was done in a dark-blue enameled basin,
+the water thrown out the door. From under the table a child
+was peering; in his teeth he gripped a piece of bacon rind,
+in his hand was a metal mixing-spoon which he beat on the
+floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is Clate,” said Penny. “He’s a real noisy one.” As
+<a id="page-104" class="pagenum" title="104"></a>
+Penny bent to take the rind from him and lift him, Ellen
+saw she was great with another child. The little boy squealed,
+laughing as he was swung high, and his mother held him for
+Ellen to see how well formed he was and how red his cheeks
+were.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s fair, Penny,” Ellen said quietly, “but I’m afraid I’m
+too young for bearing one. I had to help my goat with hers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie, you hush. It’s a long ways off. I’ll be here. Birthing’s
+nothing. It’s too short to remember. And look what you’ve
+got.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hate it. I hate what’s in me. I ne’er want to see it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll make coffee. Luke’ll be home. He’ll be glad you came,
+Ellie. He knows how I’m one for company. There, I’ll have
+a new baby in March.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know, Penny, I studied all this time. On a sudden I
+said, why there’s one.” Ellen was made helpless by her gratitude.
+“You’re so good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We got ten acres here,” Penny laughed. “Luke’s pa signed
+this place o’er to us last fall. The soil’s right clayey but it’s
+rich enough. We’re getting by. I look for spring to come.
+I’m going to eat boiled greens every day.” She planned,
+“There’s an attic where you can sleep. I aim to put Clate up
+there when he grows a bit. It’s hot in summer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I missed you at home, Penny. When you went.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We had times, didn’t we? How about when we gathered
+those sponge mushrooms in the woods and spread them to dry
+on your pa’s hog barn roof?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were singing ‘Charlie’s Sweet’ and we ne’er saw Pa
+there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We had the times though, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All on a sudden it came to me there in the city.” Ellen
+was earnest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Penny was holding Clate while he drank milk from a mug.
+She wiped what he spilled and sat him in the training chair,
+<a id="page-105" class="pagenum" title="105"></a>
+handing him a piece of corn pone. “He’s waiting till I lift
+him out. Then he’ll go pee on the rug. Such a small man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They drank coffee adulterated with chicory. Penny got
+up to mix cornbread, stirring in a handful of crumbly cracklings.
+Ellen felt how the woman listened and waited while
+she talked, gathering herself. At last dusk assembled and a
+bird began to call. A step was heard outside and he came.
+“Look here, Luke. Ellie Gaddy. She’s come to bide a while
+with us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And love lay in the corners of the house. Penny, her
+apron high over her unborn child, moved more gracefully
+than before. Her face softened and all the while she hummed
+and sang. “Now Luke, you visit with Ellie and I’ll catch the
+milking.” She threw on a shawl, ran out light-footed, a
+lard pail in her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Be glad to see this thaw come,” the man said. “I’m that
+eager to lay out our garden.” Luke was mindful of Penny’s
+signal with her finger on her lips and so he made as though
+Ellen had been somewhat expected. He put logs in the stove,
+and lit candles, telling of the farm where he was employed.
+“They name it Webster’s Stock Farm. He’s got a dozen of
+us hands to help all winter. He’s a rich man, got a big white
+house. He owns these shorthorn cattle. And he’s got little old
+Jersey cows that he shows at all the state fairs. He brings
+home ribbons and silver cups and sets them in a fancied-up
+room. Sometime I aim to go along to one of those fairs.” Tall,
+black-haired, round-faced, his virility charged the room. He
+sat in his mild way on the stool, holding his son, who played
+with the shiny suspender clasps on the overalls and then made
+water on his father’s leg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they were eating cornbread and beans and thick
+chunks of fatback and soft onion. Penny would feed Clate
+from her plate. The smell of tallow candles burning was
+sweetly pungent and they made a ruddy glow over the faces.
+Afterwards Penny held a light while Luke went up to the
+<a id="page-106" class="pagenum" title="106"></a>
+attic by the ladder in the bedroom. He was carrying gunny-sacks
+of hay, stooped over for the roof was low. Penny
+handed quilts up to him. Then Ellen took her clothes from
+the valise and hung them on pegs in the beams. She put her
+statue of the Virgin beside the pallet and slept well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Below in the bedroom, Penny lay in Luke’s arms. “I’m
+proud she came to us, Luke.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So good you are, and then my bright-eyed little wife,”
+he murmured, drowsing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Penny was wide awake. “All the world and she
+thought of us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By mid-February they were making a garden. They cut
+potato eyes, planting them in deep rows, mulching them with
+litter and leaves against frost. Luke strode up whistling, bearing
+onion sets and seeds in brown paper bags marked in pencil
+with the name of the plant that would come up. They
+spaded, put in lettuce and onion beds, rows of radishes, turnips,
+parsnips, peas and Swiss chard. Penny came to Luke
+where he knelt. “This one’s new. Tendergreen Mustard. How
+come you got it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I saw it was a new kind, only forty-five days to mature.
+I knew how fixed you were on an early garden.” They gazed
+at the grains of seed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I sure am honing for greens,” the woman sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next week thunder was rolling, thumping, across the
+gray sky. They waited for the downpour. “In a month it’ll
+come on twister weather,” said Penny. “There was one here
+last fall. Lady down the road had just boiled up water for
+her tea. The wind pulled off the roof and sucked the kettle
+up. Her and the least youngen got scalded.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Friend of mine,” Luke said, “was in the barn. Tore the
+door off and him holding on, flying through the air.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was he hurt?” asked Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not as I know. He lived.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A thunderbolt pealed directly over the house. Ellen said,
+<a id="page-107" class="pagenum" title="107"></a>
+“Thunder in February prophesies frost in May. That’s what
+I’ve heard Ma say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid,” said Luke, “we’ll lose our garden. This one’s
+a gully-drencher.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rain was falling day on day. The sprouting seeds washed
+up, water collected undrained on the clay of the garden bed.
+Pairs of rubber boots were always standing muddy at the
+door, for the privy was set far back from the house. The
+dirt-floored cellar, reached by a trap door in the kitchen,
+was flooded. The jars of preserves that stood on slat shelves
+were immersed. Their lids rusted and the labels soaked off.
+“If I hold it up to the light I can see some what it is,” Penny
+said cheerfully, “but you’re liable to get blueberry jelly,
+Luke, when you ask for blackcap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In time the clouds spent themselves. The water seeped
+away, the sun was brilliant and refreshed, the earth warmed.
+The people went out to make a new garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luke was walking up the lane one night leading a gray donkey
+by a rope. “Mester Webster gave it to me. It was for his
+daughter, Star. She tired of it and so she’s got a pony instead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How come he let you have it?” Penny was pleased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mind that cow I told you of a while back that had
+milk fever? Well, I nursed her. He claims it was my hands
+that pulled her udder around. This morning he says, you
+can have this beast if you’ve a mind. Thought I might rig
+a plowshare and maybe work him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That would be a sight,” said Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luke tied the beast in the shed to a ring in the wall. Ellen
+was petting one of Penny’s seven goats. “Hey there, Tiny.”
+She wondered how her does Rhodie and Penny were making
+out, if Frankie was good to them, or whether they blatted in
+the woodshed pen. Frankie was ever apt to be careless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the stable, fastened apart from the does, was a shaggy
+buck goat with a long beard. His rank odor dominated the
+air. He baaed affectionately at Luke who was scratching his
+<a id="page-108" class="pagenum" title="108"></a>
+back with a stick. “Good old Brownie.” The animal turned
+to lick the urine he excreted in the habit of the rutting male
+goat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be glad when it gets nice so Brownie can live outside
+again,” Penny said. “I’m always afraid that smell will make
+the milk taste.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That smell’s healthy,” cried Luke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Penny, how come your goats are muley?” Ellen was asking.
+“My two have got horns.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, most of them were born that way. But Luke knows
+how to stop the buds if they start to push through.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You rub a stick of this strong acid stuff on, Ellie. I learned
+it at Webster’s. It hurts them a bit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have to do it careful,” Penny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Seems like the horns are so pretty though,” Ellen sighed,
+remembering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Days were going by. Ellen felt her waistbands tighten. She
+found it hard to grasp that a living child would come from
+her, believed it would die. One day she was in the shed
+where a dozen hens ran loose, their nests known, a few porcelain
+doorknobs kept in them to lure them back. “Poor
+things. Giving them a mock egg.” Ellen pitied the innocent
+fowl and she would turn rocks over for them in the yard so
+they gathered to peck the crawling life beneath. When she
+was bending to collect the eggs from a nest under a hay
+manger she felt the child kick. She arose, leaning against the
+side of the stall, frightened. She knelt again to take the eggs,
+walked to the house slowly. In the evening she said, “I felt
+it move.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s nothing.” Penny was turning to Luke. “Why don’t
+you see if you can get a good rooster from Mester Webster
+for me? I could raise a flock this summer off those old hens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s got White Rocks,” Luke said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That what I’d like, a blooded rooster of a heavy breed.
+Then I could trade eggs, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-109" class="pagenum" title="109"></a>
+“I was in the shed,” Ellen said, “when it happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just wait, Ellie,” Penny was jogging Clate on her lap,
+serene, “till it starts getting knobby and takes to rolling o’er
+all the while. Wait till it gets a little bigger.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll wait.” Ellen was bitter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At breakfast Penny asked Luke to buy chicory and soda at
+the store. “And get me a piece from that bolt of blue-check
+flannel, Luke, for Clate’s outgrown his nightdress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t get paid till the fifteenth.” Luke put on his straw
+hat. “Now I doubt the store will credit us any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen got up hastily. “Wait, Luke.” She climbed the ladder
+to the attic, came back to put nearly twenty dollars on
+the table. “My uncle gave me this.” She was eager. “You’ll
+know how to use it. It’s yours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Penny picked up the bills and turned them over, her eyes
+downcast, her lower lip in her teeth. She laughed, “Get shed
+of that store bill first, Luke. Then buy that length of cloth
+for Farmer Clate. And if you see some, get pink muslin too.
+The new one could be a girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll look if there’s a little share at the store to make a turning-plow,”
+said Luke, “like I wanted to get for that little ass
+to pull.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they thanked her. For the first time Ellen sang when she
+milked Penny’s goats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mist was rolling heavy in the hollows between hills one
+morning. March gusts had blown in the night, seeking cracks,
+but Luke had banked the foundation well with straw and
+manure so the family was snug within. Ellen came carefully
+down the ladder. She smelled hidden odors, saw Penny asleep
+in the bed, and from the crook of her arm came a mewling
+sound. There was a black-haired child wrapped in flannel,
+born while Ellen slept. She turned quickly to the kitchen
+where she heard Luke talking to Clate who babbled in reply.
+Luke looked over at Ellen as she came in. “That bugger’s
+going to feel awful silly in pink muslin, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-110" class="pagenum" title="110"></a>
+“It’s a boy then?” She was fearful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure is. Clate’s pleased with his little brother.” Luke gave
+the boy a drink of water from a tin cup and then handed
+him a piece of corn pone. Clate crumbled the food in a moist
+hand and threw it on the floor, shouting. Luke was sheepish.
+“Can you take him, Ellie? I’ve got to get to work.” He hurried
+from the house, his whistling ebbing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen wiped Clate’s hands. “Wish things would hold still
+while I study to understand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little by little, she was taking upon herself the care of
+Clate. She would bring him to the shed and sit him in a pile
+of hay while she milked. “Swap ends, Tiny,” she turned the
+goat about, “let’s give some supper down for Farmer Clate.”
+The child crowed in glee, kissed her with his wet soft mouth,
+pulling at her braids. In the house he crawled from under
+the table to trail her. She had to tread carefully, watching out
+for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Anse, the newborn one, she avoided. Penny would lay
+the naked red body on the bed to change and dress it while
+it clamored thinly in an indifferent way, fists clutching in protest.
+“Why doesn’t he hush, that ugly brat?” she whispered to
+herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clate she took to see the garden coming up, sang to, confided
+in. “When I tell the song, I see the picture of what happens.
+Like ‘Red River Valley,’ that’s where the river’s muddy
+with red clay and always there’s summertide.” Clate was
+gripping Ellen’s apron; he staggered beside her. “Hold on to
+me, now. You should have seen me once in Chicago, when
+all the fine gentlemen and ladies listened to me sing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She came to feel her safety here, gradually putting aside
+the old terror. She packed the figure of the Virgin into her
+valise when she made order once in the attic. Waiting the
+months out, she left it there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She witnessed the ways of birth around her. When Anse
+was born, Luke brought home a White Rock rooster as a
+<a id="page-111" class="pagenum" title="111"></a>
+present from Mr. Webster. It strutted like a lord before the
+flock of hens, scratched after fake food to bring them scurrying.
+Its sickle-shaped tail feathers were silken and the crimson
+comb trembled and folded over with its weight. Ellen
+picked him up to stroke the long wattles that dangled below
+his handsome head; he breathed coarsely through open beak.
+When she put him down he made staccato noises and scuttled
+after a hen, fanning his wing until it squatted and submitted
+to the embrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the crab apple tree a pair of robins had fashioned a nest.
+Each day she held Clate up while he peered in at the four
+miniature blue-green eggs. The time came when he shouted to
+see bare nestlings just hatched, all gaping beaks. “Don’t touch
+them, or the mother’ll smell you and not come back to feed
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the barn the does dropped their kids. Ellen ministered,
+impersonal, put them to the teats to nurse the first thick yellow
+milk. It would alter in a few days to become the familiar
+white fluid. Then she would milk a share out for the family.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The white cat ran from her one day and she saw a strange
+tom in a tree branch nearby. That night she heard them
+shrieking in the yard. The next morning the white cat lay
+sly in the haymow, licked a scratch on her paw, cleaned herself
+and purred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She witnessed the ways of procreation and birth, the willing
+and unwilling, the casual and violent. “It’s ugly. All those
+ways are ugly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At night she lay unwieldly, turning restless to find an easy
+way to lie now that her body was so increased. The child
+rolled within and she sighed, “I’d as lief you came before your
+course and perished. I’m too weary to fret about it any
+more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Penny was asking her to watch Anse while he slept. “I
+want to put in a row of those flat white bean seeds, Ellie.
+They say Good Friday’s the day to put in beans and it’s way
+<a id="page-112" class="pagenum" title="112"></a>
+past.” When Penny returned, the baby was wailing in his
+basket hoarsely, small face wet with sweat and crying. Ellen
+was at the kitchen table, her head on her arms, Clate playing at
+her feet. Penny comforted the infant, cleaned him and laid him
+against her shoulder where he moistly hiccuped. She came in
+the kitchen to sit in a chair and put him to her breast. She
+asked mildly, “What’s wrong, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t seem to touch him, Penny. I looked and it seemed
+I wanted him to cry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman said sharply, “You’re not the first girl with a
+trouble, Ellie. Nor the last. You’ve got to take hold and plan.
+You’re not a child any more and you’ve got to act past your
+years, and study on the ways of your turning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From her quilt that night, Ellen was listening to Luke and
+Penny. “Shh, is Ellie asleep?” The sharp notes of love fell
+in the room below. When Anse whimpered they brought him
+to their bed. Their gentle voices came and went. “Poor thing.
+And it all ahead, Luke. That father, strict and always preaching
+the Old Testament. I got no use for him. He’ll like to kill
+her if she goes home.” Luke’s voice rasped faintly and Penny
+said, “No. Her mother that should be standing by is like a
+child herself. No marvel Ellie got taken in by some straying
+man.” Their voices made Ellen weep.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In June they were whitewashing the narrow house. Penny
+was climbing the ladder, Clate upset a bucket on himself,
+and Ellen, moving heavily, misshapen, was painting low spots.
+Anse was asleep in a blanket under the crab apple tree. When
+he cried, Penny would put him to a hard-filled breast while
+from the other, milk wet her dress as it flowed. “Let it go.
+There’s plenty more I reckon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luke came home for supper and shouted out, “Say, look
+at that there rich man’s house. Who’s the master of this
+house?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pink June rose was crawling heavy-blossomed over the
+<a id="page-113" class="pagenum" title="113"></a>
+door where it had been trained. Bright flowers were flocking
+by the path, and the yard grass was green. The scene was
+framed and they stood about to admire it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a shower was washing the whiteness into gray streaks
+and soon the house boards were drab as before. But Penny
+was satisfied. “It was a sight if only for a week. I’ll remember
+it clear till next spring, Luke.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the first of July, Luke was saying, “Webster’s in a hustle
+to get the buckwheat in. Says Fourth of July, wet or dry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why doesn’t he wait till the light of the moon when it
+starts waning?” Penny was dressed in her best, the babies
+were clean, their pinafores starched. One of Luke’s fellow
+employees was driving by in his car to take the little family
+to the stock farm near Hidden Creek. Penny looked forward
+to the outing. “Hey, Farmer Clate, come set on your potty
+before we go.” She turned to Ellen, anxious, “You going to
+be all right? How do you feel?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t feel a thing. I might pick some berries for supper
+if I can haul myself down the lane.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, don’t tire yourself, hear?” Penny paused. “Maybe
+I oughtn’t to go, Luke. Ellie might get taken.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two turned in protest. “Now, you know yourself it
+doesn’t happen that quick. Ellie wants you to go. And Clate
+and me too. Even Anse is saying, Mama show me those little
+Jerseys that give all cream.” So the woman was persuaded and
+the party left, waving from the car window, disappearing
+down the dusty road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen sighed in the fresh morning that moved on toward
+the hot noon sun. Partridge repetitively whistled in the woods
+down the road, “Bob-white. Ah. Bob-white!” A small warm
+wind stirred and settled, puffs of cloud drifted very slowly,
+and the sky was vivid blue. Like a fall aster. Wish it was
+over. She was going down the warm dirt of the lane in the
+late morning for blackberries. She dropped the first heated
+ones into the tin pail; they made whining thumps until they
+<a id="page-114" class="pagenum" title="114"></a>
+covered the bottom. Juice was staining her fingers. When the
+pail was filled she toiled back up the path. At the pump she
+washed the dust from the berries and hung them in the well
+to cool. She threw water on her flushed face and arms, pumping
+more over her bare feet. Refreshed, she was seated in the
+open doorway, leaning her head against the frame. The child
+under the blue apron turned itself. She drew shallow labored
+breaths, closed her eyes. “I’m nigh to smother. Will I e’er
+take a full breath again?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At noon she was restless about the kitchen. She brought
+fresh water in from the well, ate a square of corn pone, listless,
+while a bluebottle fly churned at the glass of the window.
+She walked to the field, carrying a bucket of water to the
+goats and donkey staked there. The goats drank slowly,
+raised mournful yellow eyes while their beards dripped. The
+little ass sucked noisily, slobbering, jerking his overlarge
+head. He took a button of her dress gently in his teeth. The
+girl laid her hand on his woolly shoulder and looked away
+to the languishing farmlands where hot air shimmered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The flock of guineas had not come in to feed the night before.
+Ellen knew some of the pairs had been hiding out, setting
+their clutches of small strong-shelled eggs. “Some of the
+chicks could have hatched,” she told the donkey, “and are
+keeping the hens and cocks from feeding. A skunk or snake
+might get them.” So she took grain in her apron pocket and
+went past the orchard, seeking in the farthest places, calling,
+“Wee-wee-wee-wee. Come, wee-wee-weeeee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was by a lone scraggled locust tree in an open field that
+a great pain smote her. She leaned upon the tree while it was
+subsiding. She attempted to reach the orchard and stumbling,
+fell. The onrush of spasms was far past her imaginings. In
+the intervals of withdrawal she crawled, pulled her racked
+body through the field. “I will not lie out here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pair of guineas, followed by a stream of peeping spotted
+keets, flushed from a covert as she neared the orchard. She
+<a id="page-115" class="pagenum" title="115"></a>
+but dimly gave them heed. She was grunting, face fired red,
+wet from the sharp throes that came in the scorched air, in
+the sweet crushed grass and the round-shaped white clover
+blooms. She cried out hoarsely, biting her lips, detached from
+her sore body where the child sought its way out of darkness.
+Her mind was apart in a red torment where she strove unbelieving
+to endure. When a seizure would lapse she lay a
+moment supine, freed, while above in the sultry blue, a cluster
+of twittering goldfinches were bobbing in the Seckel pear
+branches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hand was laid remorseless again upon her. Muffled at
+first, it was graduating into cruel wrenching. Then she
+evoked the holy Virgin, swore in agony many bonds, until
+distracted she knew not of her body as it was arching itself.
+In time, from her laden womb the child had its way and was
+brought out upon the meadow grass. Thin wails fell on the
+stifled afternoon air. And overhead the finches chirruped
+brightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After long, Ellen heard the faint piping and lifted herself
+to see the limp warm child. She wrapped it in her blue apron
+and laid it at the base of the old tree. Resting weary on the
+grass, she waited. When the evening star showed itself hovering
+above the horizon as the sun began to set, her joy caught
+in her throat. “I came through. I’m unfettered once more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Doughertys found her as the evening birds were beginning
+their songs. Ellen’s pallet was brought from the attic
+to a corner of the room below. She ate milk and berries and
+bread. In the early part of the night Penny put the child by
+her. “You got to nurse him, Ellie. He’s hungry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen suffered the feeble seeking mouth. “Say, another setting
+hatched off, Penny. I saw them in the field back of the
+orchard. You want to go get them in?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now I think you care more for those chicks than your
+own newborn son.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a short while Ellen was about the house again. Penny
+<a id="page-116" class="pagenum" title="116"></a>
+had Luke bring home a few yards of pink-and-white striped
+material and Ellen was holding her needle light. “Oh, but I’m
+a slim one. Look at me,” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She told them she must go, trying to say the other thing
+that was in her mind. “I’ve been studying. I can’t come home
+dragging it. Pa’d turn me off. Could you-all find it in you to
+take it for your own? I’d send money for its needs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s true what Ellie says, for I know Mester Gaddy.”
+Penny looked up at her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’d be a twin to Anse,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll love your baby, Ellie. But you mark me, he’s not
+our blood. The day’ll come you’ll rue you didn’t make a way
+to keep your first-born. You can have him then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Ellen was turning away. “Not me. Though I’m beholden.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She would walk in the morning down to the Weems Crossroads
+station. While they had breakfast, Clate sat on her
+lap, kissing her endearingly with his small mouth. “Luke, I
+reckon it’s the hardest for Ellie to leave our Clate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh I love him that much,” Ellen sighed to the brown-haired
+child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We named your boy last night, Ellie,” Luke said. “Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And we’ll call him Simon Gaddy,” said Penny. “We’ll
+tell him you’re his ma. So we decided in the night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love him that much,” Ellen was saying to the child she
+held.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Jaybird up an acorn tree</p>
+      <p class="verse">Shaking acorns down</p>
+      <p class="verse">Little Clate in a sugar tree</p>
+      <p class="verse">Shaking sugar down</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="part" id="chapter-0-4" title="Part two">
+<a id="page-117" class="pagenum" title="117"></a>
+part two
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Take it up in your arms I said</p>
+      <p class="verse">Let it lie where it must</p>
+      <p class="verse">At your side on your breast</p>
+      <p class="verse">Let it rest</p>
+      <p class="verse">Love has life not of love</p>
+      <p class="verse">But of us I said</p>
+      <p class="verse">Let it lie where it must</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-4-1">
+<a id="page-119" class="pagenum" title="119"></a>
+9
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+A flicker was piping a thread of shrill notes as it flashed in
+flight before her. She looked back to where Penny waved from
+the lane end, a child on her arm. Then Ellen turned and strode
+down the road, carrying the valise. The heat of the July day
+was still far off, the morning was new-made. The stiff skirt
+of the striped dress brushed her legs. She had combed her hair
+from her high forehead in the old way, tying it loosely with
+a ribbon. A hot morning wind rippled along the dust of the
+road, interrupting for a stitch the stilled cool air. Wild morning-glories
+were twining on ditch banks, and in a distant field
+a boy drove a diminutive span of black horses through verdant
+corn rows. It came over Ellen how comely she was and she
+<a id="page-120" class="pagenum" title="120"></a>
+made her feet light. “I’m thankful for this day and for all that
+lie ahead.” Her life ran out before her harmonious, like a
+shining thread. All about there was a singing and a beating of
+wings and the sun glowed whitely. She was young and there
+was no ending ever. “Clear through the whole enduring ages,
+I’ll be.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">My true love up on the mountain</p>
+      <p class="verse">Bowing up and down</p>
+      <p class="verse">If I had my broadax here</p>
+      <p class="verse">I’d hew that mountain down</p>
+      <p class="verse">O get around, Jenny, get around</p>
+      <p class="verse">All on the summer’s day</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On the train, she saw the countryside flowing past the window.
+The milk from her breasts was dampening her dress and
+in her discomfort she thought of the child once more. She
+turned her mind from him easily. She got off at New Hope
+and hitched a ride with a farmer from Seven Mile Run.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those are fine mules, Mester,” she offered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Um. They’re Norman mules. They’ll ne’er balk without
+cause. I got a brother can start a balky mule. One time him
+and me came on two niggers with a load of straw and a cold-shouldered
+mule. Well, they were plumb desperate. Built a
+fire under it, but it only moved up the road a piece. Far
+enough so’s the wagon began to burn. They had to unhitch
+the mule and back the wagon off to put the fire out. They
+were setting there when we came on them. Brother went up
+to the mule, took hold of its ear and whispered in it. Well,
+that mule walked right off. The niggers hitched up and
+went down the road. Told everyone Brother talked witchcraft.
+Um.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonder how he did start it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Um. Said he twisted its ear and blew in it. Said that dazzles
+a beast. Brother can do it just so.” He lapsed into silence, his
+<a id="page-121" class="pagenum" title="121"></a>
+head drooped in the heat of the afternoon. The mules
+switched their tails and shimmied their skin to fight flies.
+Unguided, they were following the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they reached Love’s store, Ellen thanked the farmer,
+climbed down from the wagon seat to the pike where the
+clay baked in the molten sun. Stacey was in the screened
+doorway. “Ellen? I thought you’d left these parts. Grady,”
+she called. “Looky here. How be you, now? Sam Offut’s
+taken o’er the trading for your ma. They had a time when first
+you ne’er came home. Where you been?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was smiling and nodding. Grady came around the
+corner of the frame house; she sought his kindly tight-skinned
+face. “Hey, Mester Love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey there, Ellen. I swear. Come have a glass of my ginger
+beer. The yeast’s working good now. Two bottles exploded
+all o’er the place yesterday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed him, and Stacey came after. Ellen was eager.
+“I visited my uncle for a spell. Said howdy to you both.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That so?” Stacey asked. “He kept you long.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I went to stay with Mrs. Dougherty while she had
+a baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thought she had hers last year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You remember Penny Dougherty?” Ellen urged. “This is
+her second. It’s a boy too. A likely one.” Ellen felt Stacey’s
+eyes searching her for the truth. “I came home to help Pa
+with the summer work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’ll be glad to see you,” Grady said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Penny wanted to be remembered to you both, Mrs. Love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s kindly of her,” Grady said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” said Stacey. “You’re looking right pert again,
+Ellen.” She was fanning herself with Grady’s hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen sipped the ginger beer while the woman talked.
+“Mester Gaddy and that Sam ne’er would say where you
+were.” Ellen was afraid of Stacey’s tongue, conscious of the
+milk dried on her dress, and she wondered if Stacey could
+<a id="page-122" class="pagenum" title="122"></a>
+tell it was there. “I reckoned,” said Stacey, “you met up with
+a rich Yankee man who made you his wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Mrs. Love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now Stacey,” Grady cried, “stop greening Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m beholden for the drink.” Ellen went to the door. “I
+was parched.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your daddy know you’re home?” asked Stacey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh yes.” She was hurrying out and down Sweetincreek
+Road, unconscious of the weight of her bag. Then her gait
+slowed. A small verging of anxiety had begun and she
+pushed it back with her will. She changed hands with the
+valise, passed over the wood bridge where the Sweetincreek
+flowed, and on the other side, in the swampy earth, was plucking
+a green-white flower. “I know this one. It’s the lily of
+the valleys.” She breathed the perfume, studying the stony
+well-worn road. “Reckon he’ll beat me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned into the familiar lane, which seemed shrunken
+now. She heard farm noises. A cow mooing softly in a far
+place, pigs grunting just off the path, a duck squawking
+somewhere in sudden protest. The house seemed smaller and
+the yellow paint was peeled; it was ugly. Hesitant, she went
+up the sagged steps. The towels on the porch line were muddied,
+the tin tub was turned carelessly over, the egg basket
+was torn. She was opening the screen door. There was no
+one, no sound there in the kitchen. Beyond in the bedroom
+she saw her mother in a chair under one of the little windows,
+bent over some work. Ellen looked at her a moment as though
+she were a stranger. From the parlor came Frankie’s stripling
+voice in singsong, “I do, I did, I have done. I draw, I drew,
+I have drawn. I eat, I ate.” The small voice sighed audibly as
+Ellen entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sounds right brave, Frankie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie! You just came. I missed you. Was it fun in Chicago?”
+As they were embracing Ellen saw Frankie’s eyes were
+dark-shadowed, but her skin was smooth and her hair glistened.
+<a id="page-123" class="pagenum" title="123"></a>
+She was asking about Garland. “Is he kind, Ellie, in his own
+house?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I heard Pa say you ran off and left Uncle. Did you, Ellie?
+I wanted to brave Pa to ask. But he gets riled when we name
+you. Reckon he doubted you were coming home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was visiting someone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where? Where’d you stay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is he on the outs with me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa? I reckon. You went to St. Louis, didn’t you, Ellie?
+I heard him say it to Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You learning grammar again, Frankie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell you true, I hate it. Whate’er I speak, teacher stops
+me and changes it.” She shrugged, resentful. “He’s daft.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You let Pa know it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I’m in thick enough with Pa now. He’s e’er raising
+sand. I got to practice all morning now and I’m only to help
+with housework. Not to milk or hoe the garden.” She looked
+away. “Wish I was little again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen frowned. “You’ve got to study ahead. And watch the
+ways of turning. That’s a thing I learned.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two were silent. Looking back to the freedom of childhood,
+they chafed at the fretful boundaries, the responsibility
+that seemed to mark maturity. They went forward because
+there was no other way. Frankie was looking up, doleful,
+“Missed your songs, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, how’re the goats?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The old one dropped two kids. Reckon it was in April.
+Sam found them in the morning; one died, the other was a
+buck, a black one. Pa had Sam cut it. Said they’d butcher
+it in fall.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What about the little doe, Rhodie? She drop one too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. I can’t keep it in my head. I think Sam said
+he took her to a billy. You ask him. Tell you true, Sam’s been
+doing for them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-124" class="pagenum" title="124"></a>
+“Oh, Frankie. And me pining for them all this tormented
+time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry, Ellie. I’m a poor thing,” Frankie laughed, pleading.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s hot. I’ll go unpack.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In the attic room, Ellen made her bed up for the night, put
+away her clothes. All the while a thing was waxing heavy
+in her, leaden, as she thought on her father. “One thing, I’ll
+ne’er cry. Wish I could make out not to fear him.” She took
+the statuette of the Virgin to its old place on the round table
+in the parlor. She could hear Maria and Frankie in the kitchen
+preparing supper. Loneliness swept Ellen like an empty cloud
+as she stood, uneasy. Anton came upon her there. Looking at
+his face she recalled when Blueberry had balked starting a
+wagon and Anton lashed him coldly about the head with
+leather lines. Ellen had watched secretly from a barn window,
+heart pumping, waiting until the rearing horse lunged and
+moved the load. She was going up the stairs without a word.
+He climbed gently after, his breathing becoming strident on
+the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held the belt. His voice shuddered hoarse. His lips were
+trembling with their weight. “You e’er were froward, girl.”
+He was hitting her again, holding the strap with a relentless
+hand, feeling the easing of his own sharp flesh. “I’ll teach
+you yet. Get on your knees. You were walking and mincing
+in that seat of whoredom, weren’t you? Did you know my
+brother Marc died rutting there in St. Louis? And that’s what
+killed my ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was enduring the hot bite of the striking leather. She
+fought within herself as since a child, to hold silence, pinning
+her will on it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do you reckon Sam favored doing your trading?
+How do you reckon your chores were done up these months,
+you plagued dummy?” His voice was a heavy cold whisper
+<a id="page-125" class="pagenum" title="125"></a>
+and his gray eyes were half closed. “And you stole the Virgin
+image.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was breathless in the sting of tears. It’s his way. It’s
+for love he does it. He’s trying to teach me what’s right. He
+must.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, you’ll not go off this farm again,” he was warning
+in the doorway, “lest I marry you to someone proper.” He
+paused. “I allow I’ll kill you before you’ll stand against my
+will.” He was rolling the belt up around the home-forged
+brass buckle as he went out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen followed down to the evening meal. She went to
+Maria eagerly, kissing her, forgetting, in her need, her
+mother’s preoccupied ways. “How’ve you been, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tormented, Ellie. He knows.” Maria looked upward with
+vague eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be here to do for you now, Ma. You glad I’m back?”
+she pleaded swiftly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I took count,” Maria said. “Hit’s been six months July
+fifteen. Mester Gaddy’s been fretted.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quit jawing, ooman,” Anton said. “Set and eat.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+After the meal, though the air was close, Anton directed
+the family to go to the parlor, bade Ellen, “Fetch my Bible.”
+He took the book from her, leafed the pages. He looked at
+Frankie, sitting by Maria on the sofa. “Even as these oomen
+fared, so will hit be with you, Poppet, if you don’t pay me
+heed.” They watched him take the silver-banded reading
+glass, peering through it at the page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Down on your knees,” he told Ellen, and she obeyed.
+“Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with
+stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing
+as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet, therefore
+the Lord will smite them. And the Lord will discover their
+secret parts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was tired. She was kneeling by the doweled rocker,
+<a id="page-126" class="pagenum" title="126"></a>
+her head on the arm of the chair. She closed her eyes and
+thought about the man who could start balky mules by blowing
+in their long ears, twisting them so they forgot their
+orneriness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their
+tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls and their
+round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets,”
+Anton cherished the syllables, “and the hoods and the veils.
+And it shall come to pass that instead of a sweet smell there
+shall be a stink and instead of a girdle a rent, and instead of
+well-set hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, a girding
+of sackcloth.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Under the attic window she was lying sleepless, the uncertain
+moonlight washing over her bed. The cockerels in the
+chicken shed were crowing intermittently, confused by the
+unseemly moon’s glare. Her body ached from the beat of the
+strap. Her breasts were swollen because she had tolerated the
+child to nurse her over the past days and the milk had not as
+yet subsided. She would wait and in a week the discomfort
+would be gone, then she would be done with him. Her mind
+circled on Penny and Clate, on the Dougherty beasts, the
+donkey and Brownie and the doe Tiny. She was overcome
+by devotion to them all. She went further back to the autumn
+of despair, and to the summer preceding that was fading now
+as the separate incidents blurred and blended. The night
+stretched brilliant as she rose and leaned at the window sill.
+The quavering of the young cocks’ chorus was heard again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She slipped into her dress and went down. Jack met her
+at the door, hurling himself upon her. She sat on the steps to
+pluck burrs that were tangled in his hair. She was listening
+to the sounds the wind made that sometimes has a business
+in the high branches, spurning the ground. In the warty-barked
+hackberry there was a rustle as the leaves resisted the
+wind, and in the spruce by the road fence an indistinct whisper
+<a id="page-127" class="pagenum" title="127"></a>
+came and went as many tiny needles rasped gently one
+on another. The wind sounds were all different in the varied
+trees. In the black willows by the Sweetincreek there would
+be a swishing and a swaying, and in the stiff leaves of the
+catalpa nearly no noise at all. The mockernut was so tall and
+straight that the soughing was disguised and far away. I might
+know the particular tree just from the voice of the wind
+through it. The cockerels were piping again in the moonlight,
+foretelling the dawn just coming.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In the early morning she hurried out to find none of her
+goats at the woodshed, nor any trace they had been stabled
+recently there. A setting goose was peering from under the
+cobwebbed manger; it hissed a warning, hovering over
+warmed eggs in musty straw. For a moment Ellen stood in
+the doorway, then she went to the barnyard. Sam was pouring
+foaming milk into tall cans. “Your nannies are at the field.”
+Sam looked her over quietly. “Your pa says leave them there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m taking them up to the woodshed right now. There’s
+a silly old goose setting in there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Better ask your pa if you can, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll help you-all milk first.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the barn she drew the first streams onto the ground to
+clean the udder. Then she was milking steadily, her hands
+efficient. She pressed her head into the joint of the young
+cow’s back leg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That Sal’s a real kicker,” offered Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Watch you don’t lose her milk,” Anton said, coming in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ho, suckey.” Ellen would know if the nervous heifer
+were about to strike out. She stripped the front teats and began
+to milk the tight back ones. “Ho, Sal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton gave her leave to take her goats in from the field
+when she brought the cows. “And you help with the milking
+hereafter, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen discovered Penny was thin and her udder flabby,
+<a id="page-128" class="pagenum" title="128"></a>
+for she ran loose with a black yeanling. Rhodie was slick-haired,
+rounded with a kid Sam said she would drop next
+month. They were skittish and Ellen coaxed them to her.
+She sat in the grass with corn in her apron until they could
+not hold their greed and curiosity. Penny licked her ear,
+bleated softly on her neck, remembering her all at once. The
+black wether was timid and handsome but he came under her
+hand too. She resented his castration though she knew it was
+necessary. They were munching the corn grains, pushing
+against her.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Go through my window</p>
+      <p class="verse">My sugar lump</p>
+      <p class="verse">And buy molasses candy</p>
+      <p class="verse">Blue bird, blue bird, go through my window</p>
+      <p class="verse">And buy molasses candy</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-4-2">
+<a id="page-129" class="pagenum" title="129"></a>
+10
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The fiery sun of August labored in the sky across the languid
+procession of days. In the evenings, by the light of kerosene
+lamps, the women still were finishing canning of peaches,
+tomatoes, berries. They clamped glass lids on by wire bails
+and stood filled jars on a rack of laths in the wash boiler.
+Pits and peelings were heaped in pails in the yard where flies
+gathered, and gnats and yellowjackets. They put up salt-and-sugar
+beans, selecting green-tinted jars to protect the color.
+They dried peppers and sweet corn. They made brine for
+gherkins and green tomatoes, packed a ten-gallon crock in
+the pantry with cucumbers and branches of dill. Ellen added
+horseradish roots to the salty brew, and mustard seeds. On
+<a id="page-130" class="pagenum" title="130"></a>
+top she placed grape and cherry leaves. “To get a good brine
+you got to add salt just right,” she said, “till it gets the power
+in it to hoist a fresh egg from the bottom of the crock and
+float hit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was making jelly. She strained the cooked fruit
+through flannel bags and then added sugar or sorghum and
+boiled the juice. She tested the hot purple syrup. “It doesn’t
+want to sheet off and tear proper,” she told Amanda York
+who came to keep her company. “I’ll just wait on it.” She
+wiped her forehead with a perspiring hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes Lily Garrett, in a shapeless flowered dress,
+walked up the road to sit in the kitchen heat and visit awhile.
+“You make such pretty jam,” Lily said. “Why don’t you
+take some to the county fair at Seven Mile Run? Mama does.
+She got a prize last year and hers was clouded.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen held the jar to the sunlight; the jelly glowed. “I do
+favor redcap jelly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you should go, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What color’s the first prize?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Blue.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You going to, Ellie?” asked Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s no harm talking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get it out of your head, girl,” Maria was speaking. “I
+begged Mester Gaddy ten years ago. He said it was foolishness.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lily was showing Frankie how to make a special kind of
+cherry preserve. “The receipt named this Barrier Cherries,
+Frankie. Takes apple vinegar and strained honey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria’s face was sweated and reddened in the heat of the
+stove fire. She reached back into the dimness of her memory,
+to when she had run in crying to a grayed old woman, “Mam,
+there’s a booger scratching my eye.” The woman had licked
+the eye with her soft tongue to remove the foreign substance,
+then set Maria on a three-legged stool outside the door to
+<a id="page-131" class="pagenum" title="131"></a>
+work the dasher of the churn up and down. “Stone churn
+ain’t good enough for you, girl,” she said to Ellen, suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you say, Ma?” Ellen was startled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Old-timey days we had a stone churn. And when Pap was
+home sometimes he’d bring us a runty possum, or maybe a
+coon. Summers now, we ate good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you store up like we do against winter?” asked
+Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like to lay up when there’s plenty,” Maria admitted.
+“But the most Mam did was to dry corn and herbs. Folks
+didn’t figure to eat then like now. Once or twice a day was
+all we sat to table.” She reflected a moment. “I allow I didn’t
+miss hit. And my folks thought a heap of me till Mester
+Gaddy came along.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell, Ma. Did you pine for love of him when you saw
+Pa?” Frankie cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mester Gaddy gave me a fine snuffbox. It was mother-pearl.
+And a deal fair to hold in the sun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er saw that box, Ma,” said Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Show us.” Frankie was eager.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Mester Gaddy was forced to sell hit once when he
+was short cash. I always regretted that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When did you start honing after Pa?” persisted Frankie,
+slim and frail beside Lily, stirring the kettle at the stove. “For
+love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He rode a big gray mare and there was nothing so tall as
+he. See, I was a tedious plain girl and my folks were old
+already when I was born. They hadn’t looked for me. So they
+fretted on what was to come. Mester Gaddy rode o’er to
+Seven Mile Run and talked to Pap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And then Mester Gaddy courted you?” Lily inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go on,” Frankie pressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pap had scrimped for a dowry that was to come with me.
+Pap was bound to care for me proper. You’d ne’er have
+<a id="page-132" class="pagenum" title="132"></a>
+thought it the way we lived so poor-like while he was putting
+by.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er thought about Pa being young once,” said Ellen.
+“Was he different from now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Except his hair was red and thick. I came with him
+to this farm. Here I been since. He hitched that gray mare
+to a two-wheel cart and I set up beside him and figured I was
+a lady.” Her dull eyes sparked. “E’er do as Mester Gaddy
+says, girls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There was Pa on a horse,” Frankie said. “I’d just as lief
+have seen that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, all the folks rode horses those days,” said Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s right,” Lily assented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t go talking to Mester Gaddy about those days,”
+Maria was warning. “He’s disremembered them. Watch your
+cherries don’t burn there, girls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’re doing right, Mrs. Gaddy,” Lily said. “You were
+gone a powerful time in spring, weren’t you, Ellie?” Curious,
+Lily was sniffing after gossip to brighten her wishful youth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen took up the basket, leaving the table where she had
+been stoning cherries. “I’m getting in some corn for supper,”
+she called as she was going down the porch steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie’s so contrary.” Lily watched Ellen stride down the
+field. “She won’t talk with me proper-like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s her for you,” Frankie said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon she doesn’t like me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh she does, Lily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie’s just bossy that way.” The two girls embraced
+abruptly. The pot boiled. The sugary odor was filling the
+kitchen, seeking darkened rafters where smoke from years
+long past dwelled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would you be best friends with me, Frankie?” The big
+girl was effusive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will. Ellie doesn’t tell things to me ever.” They clung,
+<a id="page-133" class="pagenum" title="133"></a>
+whispering, comforted, sharing their trepidations. They returned
+to their stirring of the Barrier Cherries.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen had made the land to her since she returned, and the
+creatures and birds spawned upon it. In hot night she would
+hear hoot owls ululating in the oaks, and sometimes a mocker-bird
+would hang on the stones of the garden fence, quavering
+through marbled moonlight. I came through. The fear is
+past and I’m home. She stood by while Rhodie was yeaning
+a kid. The doe stamped her little hoofs nervously, pawed the
+straw and crouched, straining. With a worried blat, she expelled
+a spotted kid. Ellen was tearing the caul lining to free
+it in a flood of water. She cleaned the mucus from its gasping
+mouth, gazed on the odd-looking animal with ears like a
+hound. “Where’d you find the buck?” she asked Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I says to myself in March when she commenced to
+wag her tail, Ellie’d want her caught. So I took her over to
+a pied billy the other side of Millville.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er saw a skewbald goat, Sam. And those drooping
+ears.” Penny’s maternal instincts were aroused at the sight
+and smell of a newborn one; she vied with Rhodie in cleaning
+it. Rhodie was stretching her head and yawning as animals
+will do in discomfort. The kid staggered up to nurse the
+tiny nipples. “I’ll call it Pie,” Ellie decided. “There, Pie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the mornings when she left her goats at the pasture, she
+took the path around the farm pond. Tiny green frogs were
+camouflaged in the reeds and grasses, and blacksnakes lived
+among haw and alder roots along the marshy bank. One
+would slip into the shadowed water, head crooked like a twig
+held upright as it moved across the unbroken glass. When the
+speckled thrush was buzzing and flapping by the path, she
+ran to find a snake twined around a sapling cottonwood. Its
+head was in the nest and the mother bird was darting at it,
+crying shrill. A single fledgling remained, beak gaped for
+food. Ellen seized a stick, striking the reptile until it twisted
+<a id="page-134" class="pagenum" title="134"></a>
+dying from the tree. She crushed its head, slit the body with
+her pocketknife to see if there was life in the swallowed birds.
+They were limp and she dropped them in an open field while
+the bird continued the alarm clatter. “You’d as well feed the
+one you got left if you can find your way to go back to that
+serpent-smelling nest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Afterwards buzzards wheeled. Ellen knew they were scenting
+the dried rotted nestlings. One huge bird descended and
+sat hunchbacked on a rail, glassy eyes fixed on her. “Stinking
+brat.” Jack stalked it until it made grunting low sounds and
+flapped away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only once since that day in late July when she had come
+home did a sharp edge touch the smooth progression of Ellen’s
+hours. She awoke in the night to hear Anton speaking to
+Maria in the hall below. “What’s amiss with your daughter?
+There’s no young men coming to the door.” Maria whispered
+to him and they were gone. Ellen lay awake a long time. But
+in the morning when it came to her mind, she thrust it from
+her. “It’s not my fault if they don’t come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton stepped aside on Sunday to speak with Craig Hedrick
+and his widowed mother about a boar he wanted to buy.
+On the way home he looked over his shoulder at Ellen. “That
+Hedrick boy’s got a motorcar.” He was shouting above the
+cart’s rumble, “And he’s done proud with that farm since his
+old man was killed. He says, Ellie’s a comely thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt all her being grow still, watching the dusty road
+glide from under the wagon. Craig had been one of the bigger
+boys in the grammar school, a few years older than she. His
+father, Moses Hedrick, had had a cleft palate and though the
+boy had no actual reason for a speech impediment, he would
+talk in nearly the same tongue-tied manner that had characterized
+his father. Craig had been good-natured, his dog
+followed him to school, he was big enough to force the
+smaller boys from their torturing of turtles and frogs and
+insects that fell into their hands. But while Ellen’s pity made
+<a id="page-135" class="pagenum" title="135"></a>
+her kind, her nature had been revolted by the boy’s way of
+speech, his dirt-ingrained fingernails and pocked face, the
+sour odor that arose from his unwashed winter clothing. She
+did not reply to Anton now. The blood rose hot in her face
+and her pulse beat heavily when he said, “You’re seventeen,
+Ellie. Where’s all those young men?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d best take hold.” Maria wagged her head while the
+wagon jolted. “Lest you be caught an old maid. Get your
+man while you’re still blooming, for you’ll be a rag soon
+enough.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Young Hedrick’s a Catholic, as well,” said Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their words rang with finality. She closed her ears to them.
+Her hands were folded in her lap on last summer’s dress of
+blue-dotted Swiss. She clenched them tightly. The steel-rimmed
+wheels turned in rhythm, hate and hate. Wish I was
+dead like old man Moses Hedrick with a <a id="corr-4"></a>pitchfork tucked between
+my shoulder blades.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+There came, early on a sultry afternoon, the yellow-billed
+cuckoo’s moan, “Kow, kow, kow.” Ellen lifted her head from
+her churning, spoke to Frankie going by with a pail of hog
+slop. “Raincrows. Hear them cry? Reckon it’ll come on a
+storm?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ain’t scared.” Frankie laughed high. “Teacher Peyton’s
+coming and I got my lesson ready.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour later the sky began to darkle. Ellen walked down
+the lane to look toward the pasture. She could see her goats,
+hoofs upon the gate bars. The cows lay in their usual spot,
+chewed their cuds, complacent. Almost imperceptibly the
+air was taking on a greenish cast. A fresh-smelling wind
+yawed and swept the field of rye grass. Green beyond green
+under the sky mass, the grass was weaving, bending to it. Over
+all heaved the blooming sunglow, golden and omnipresent.
+A rumble was sounding faint, a flash of light flicked in the
+west. The wind was subsiding, the heat smoldered oppressive
+<a id="page-136" class="pagenum" title="136"></a>
+and in the gloom of the sky the sun withdrew. Darkness ruled.
+Sam appeared at the lane head, waving like a tiny distracted
+spider, his face grimaced. “Afore Gawd, get the cows, Ellie.
+Could rile up a twister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was running to the field. The dog rounded up the
+cattle, drove them in at a lope, milk-sacks swinging about
+their skinny legs so the white fluid spurted. Ellen took Pie in
+her arms. The others bounded after as she ran to the woodshed.
+Rhodie snorted and jumped sidewise stiff-legged, her
+bearded chin tucked in. The girl laughed, “You daft one.”
+She shut them in the pen. Lightning streaked, a thunderclap
+crashed upon the ground. “If you were out in a storm, you’d
+be safe beneath a cedar or a white birch. So Sam says. Beware
+the ash and the oak for it’s their nature to tempt lightning.”
+She was wending up the path to the house, searching
+cloud drifts for a down-sucked tail that could betoken the
+birth of a tornado. Thunder drummed, light cracked the horizon.
+The sweeping wind had ridden off the burdening heat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The topmost branches of the hackberry lurched and
+swayed and she felt her heart catch. “It’s so fair. So enduring
+fair a storm be.” Tears drew into her eyes from the gladness.
+The wind reeled upon her so the flimsy gingham clung flattened
+along her young hips and the hard nipples of her
+breasts. She sensed her strength quicken, fathoming for an
+instant how she, eternal, would through the ages walk the
+long green soul of man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing there, she heard Frankie’s scream. She turned to
+the porch steps. “It can’t storm. I got my grammar lesson.”
+The voice was protesting, “I’m afraid, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton mocked her, soothing. “Haw, Frankie. Now you
+ne’er seen a twister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid. Afraid.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wind shrieked, the loft door slammed. In the kitchen
+a pot of scented geraniums on the window sill was spun
+across the floor. The noise crackled. Anton, from the parlor
+<a id="page-137" class="pagenum" title="137"></a>
+door, was roaring at Ellen and Maria. “Get the windows
+shut, you oomen. And draw those shades. Open windows are
+what sucks the bolts.” He was lighting a lamp in the parlor,
+pulling the shades. He looked at Frankie in the subdued light,
+drawn up rigid and white in her chair. “Hit’s just an old-timey
+commotion out there now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There came the splintering noise of a falling tree. In the
+instant Frankie sprang up, shook her fists helplessly, shut her
+eyes and clenched her teeth. “Everyone’s against me. Hit’s
+coming to get me.” Under the storm’s tension, her inhibitions
+mounted to the surface. She was sobbing in her reedy voice,
+“I’m going to die. Really I hate you, Pa. I hate you. I don’t
+want to go off to Chicago.” Maria and Ellen had come in.
+Frankie turned her tear-drenched face to them. “Everything’s
+Pa’s fault. What’ll I do, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All I can say,” Ellen told her, “is I’d as lief it would rain
+and get it o’er. This thunder’s souring all the milk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lightning sizzled, then cracked, a flare skirting the window
+shades. Behind came the bolt, reverberating through the hollows
+of the house. The young girl lamented in desperation,
+her breath spasmodic, “I don’t want to get those lessons.
+You’re hateful, Pa. You’re fore’er pushing me.” The voice
+was a pale shriek. “I’m afraid!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here, girl. Hold your sass. Those are baneful words.”
+Anton’s eyes were slits. “Want I should set you on your
+knees and whip you? I’ll do it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned to a chair, taking up a journal. “I mind,” he
+drawled and settled into the low seat, “when there was a
+storm like this two-three years ago. Twister came flailing
+through Bethel killing four.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stayed by the door. Not for long had she seen him
+so wrought up. Maria had taken up her sewing, pursed her
+mouth over it in the lamplit room. Anton was directing his
+words to his younger child who cried now in abject penitence.
+<a id="page-138" class="pagenum" title="138"></a>
+The convulsive sound came sadly into the still of the
+room as the noisy gale tottered and staggered upon the vegetation
+of the earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Three old Chester brothers were batching with their
+ninety-year-old ma. Folks say it was because they were terrified
+of the storm but all three went off their heads and
+murdered one another. The old lady too.” Anton smoothed
+his palm over his balding hair. Dry tobacco juice marked the
+edges of his mouth, his long jaw thrust upward. “The plumber
+man came to fix the pump next day. Found them lying
+about in a mess of blood. Old ooman’s throat ripped with a
+razor. One batch was gored, the other two were filled with
+shotgun holes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heavy drops slammed on the windowpane and Ellen spoke
+in timid relief, “There’s the rain, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Still fixing to die, Frankie?” prodded the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hit was the dread, Pa,” she pleaded and in time was drawn
+to sit shrived on his knee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now tell, would her pa let harm come to her that’s my
+pretty poppet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain was beating strongly, steadily, washing down
+banks along the road, mingling with dust and traveling
+through stones and suckling earth until it gained the water
+pan far below. Over the pond a silver sheet was draping until
+the water rose over the sides to flood the meadows. The
+swaggering wind was in full strength. Moisture softened the
+earth about the roots of a giant basswood that had matured
+before the father of Jules Gaddy built his lean-to and set up
+a rail fence for his mules and hogs. A sudden blast slammed
+into the aged trunk; it fell sluggish, reluctant, upon its side
+with a wounded noise, gashed roots exposed. Tree branches
+grappled and fought the gale and were broken, some borne
+by the wind and slung against the house roof, making
+staccato sounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When you were just a mite, Frankie, I told you thunder
+<a id="page-139" class="pagenum" title="139"></a>
+was a potato wagon going across a bridge. Wasn’t any fear
+in you then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will Mester Peyton come at all, Pa?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Roads are so bad he’ll likely be hindered. Do what I tell
+you, Frankie, for that’s what’s right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The orgasm of the tempest was done. In the clearing sky,
+white fluffs were drifting in remote wind tides. The man went
+to survey the destruction left in the wake. His daughters were
+sent with hatchets and string to gather fallen branches for
+kindling and to fagot the twigs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My sir used to recount,” Anton said, before he walked
+out, “how in the forests of the old country they were given
+leave to break off all the boughs to the height a standing man
+could reach. For firewood. There wasn’t any rotted trash like
+in this new country. And it was soft as carpeting underfoot.”
+He took his ax and wedges and went to join Sam, who was
+bringing the team up the lane, hitched to a whiffletree. Sam
+was balancing on his shoulder a bucksaw and a two-man
+crosscut. They headed toward a yellow locust spraddled
+across the road past the farm entrance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Locust does right smart for fence posts, Mester Gaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m glad that tree came down. I was minded to cut it
+anyway, Sam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the pond frogs were shrilling, in the field near the
+orchard a buzzard sat hunched on a stump, the black dampened
+wings held motionless, outspread to dry, the naked head
+tucked into the wrinkles of its bare neck. “I ne’er meant what
+I said,” Frankie was telling Ellen. “For I love my pa and he’s
+good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You carried on like you were taken with a fit,” admitted
+Ellen. “Makes me puke to see you that way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thinking of me always, he is.” Frankie tied a bundle of
+twigs and threw it to a pile they were making at the field’s
+edge. “Poor Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen heaved a rock at the buzzard and watched it soar
+<a id="page-140" class="pagenum" title="140"></a>
+effortless. “The wind’s flattened that cornfield. There’s a
+mort of damage been done.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The leaves had been touched by the first frost and nearly
+overnight strident colors were emerging on the countryside.
+Ellen and Frankie were cleaning the musty litter from nest
+boxes, stuffing in fresh oat straw. “Wonder how come we
+ne’er tried a doorknob in the nests, Frankie? A porcelain one
+might coax them to lay. I’ve heard of it.” She harked back
+to little Clate hanging to her dress hem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cows were restless, feeling the new season, the sluggish
+summer shaken off. On dark mornings Ellen would wear her
+rough brown sweater, torn in the sleeve, against the chill. The
+cows heaved themselves to their knees, then to all fours. She
+put her bare feet in the warmed straw where they had lain.
+A heifer plopped her hoof in the fresh foam and held it there,
+stubborn head low, flanks whitened with the splash. The lantern
+light blinked and Sam was shuffling in. He gazed at the
+white-spattered wall, belched gently. Ellen caught the whisky
+scent. “Don’t ill at her, Ellie,” he advised, “or she’ll fore’er
+mistrust you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s illing?” She carried the pail to the pump to clean
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was following, garrulous. “My old-old-old man always
+said, don’t ill at a creature which does your work,” he nodded,
+sanctimonious, “and fills your belly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s the milking to do, Sam. You’re late. Pa’s waiting
+on you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Old-old-old’s sort of a byword with us Offuts. When Pa
+was getting on in years, I sassed him once. He’d started in to
+say I shouldn’t talk back at my old man. He commenced to
+say old and he couldn’t stop.” Sam cleared his throat, spit
+phlegm into the cold bushes. “I told it on him after that.
+Old-old-old, we Offuts always say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen sighed. Sam’s milking would wait on his tongue.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-4-3">
+<a id="page-141" class="pagenum" title="141"></a>
+11
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The car was puttering up the lane, a trailer hitched behind.
+It was a day in early October. Ellen drew back from sight,
+hearing Craig Hedrick’s high-pitched halloa. Anton was coming
+from the barnyard where, with Sam, he had been forking
+manure onto the wagon for broadcasting over the fields.
+Ellen fled along the fence line, down to the pond and the
+tranquil woods beyond. “I aim to get a mess of shaggy-manes
+to stew for supper,” she was promising herself. Most of the
+afternoon she stayed in the woods, finding few of the big
+mushrooms she hunted although there were some overripe
+ones. These she kicked to see the sootlike powder billow as
+they split. Jack ran a rabbit and barked at squirrels and woodchucks.
+<a id="page-142" class="pagenum" title="142"></a>
+Ellen was leaning idly on a fence rail, looking over
+the tawny sedge grass of a neighboring field. A red-shouldered
+hawk circled in flight, uttered its squeal like escaping
+steam. She mocked him, “Kee-yoo! Get you a passle of crawdads,
+you old hen-thief.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put her chin in her hands. A mass of midges vibrated
+in the sunshine, minute wings whirring swifter than eye could
+follow. You take a flower now. When it goes to raise out of its
+leaves, it stirs everlasting slow, unfolding. It’s a case of time,
+it would seem, and man’s caught between. How quick we
+must appear to the trees, and how draggy to the midges.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Back she walked in the late day up the fallow hill field,
+new-plowed for autumn wheat. “Wish I was an earthclod,
+nary a care.” She stubbed her shoes against turned furrows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the wagon bed that was rumbling in from the field her
+father swayed, standing spraddle-legged. His face was shadowed
+with a beard, his sateen shirt was open, baring his chest.
+The dun horse shook its mane and the mare nickered to
+its yearling colt trotting in the pasture beside the lane.
+“Whaw,” Anton was shouting. The chomping of bits and
+movement of harness on the sweating animals made tinny
+bright noises. “You’re a great one for roaming, girl. Where
+you been?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I took a notion to gather shaggy-manes for supper, Pa.
+I hunted but there weren’t any.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hit’s a sight too dry for mushrooms. I could have told
+you.” He looked down from his vantage on the wagon. The
+muscles swelled on his freckled forearms and he was holding
+the reins careless. “You just missed young Hedrick. He came
+to visit and trade off our old boar for a thoroughbred one
+I wanted. It’s more than twice the size of the old one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll take a look at it, Pa,” she told him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He asked after you. That young man.” He shrugged with
+satisfaction. “Whup.” The wagon was rolling by her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-143" class="pagenum" title="143"></a>
+She replaced the pole barriers. “There. That hammer-tongue
+Craig.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next afternoon she was gathering herbs and seed pods
+for drying. It was warm while she worked, for the garish
+sun heated the withering earth. Craig Hedrick’s Model T was
+turning into the yard. He came up, throwing himself forward
+as though there were many miles to go before the end of the
+day. His sandy hair curled woolly and his small nose turned
+up, his upper lip protruded slightly, which gave him a
+hounded expression. “Hey, Ellen.” He stood ungainly as she
+nodded. He was hitching the belt to his blue serge slacks,
+adjusting the knot of his purple rayon tie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good-looking hog you traded to Pa, Craig. What do you
+call those spotty ones?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s a Poland China,” he said in his tongue-twisted way.
+“They’re bred for lard. Not what you call a bacon pig.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laid aside her seed harvest and came to sit on the porch
+steps with him. Anton walked out. “Hey, Hedrick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His presence eased the younger man. “Bought me a manure
+spreader, Mester Gaddy. You own one? Chops straw and
+dung up and sifts it like my old lady straining wheat flour
+on her bread board.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hum.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a long pause. All three watched the progress of
+a flicker hammering up one side of the hackberry trunk. Craig
+was lifting his arms slowly as though he held a gun. He
+sighted the woodpecker on the red band across the back of
+its head. “Pow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton grunted, appreciative. He lit his pipe with a match
+he struck on his overall pants, drew the smoke into his lungs
+and exhaled. “There. I allow you got that high-hole.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Craig was adjusting his position on the step, uncomfortable.
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton asked, “Heard the comical one about the hen that
+laid the oversized egg?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-144" class="pagenum" title="144"></a>
+“How’s it go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It wasn’t comical to the hen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young people were still, uncommunicative. “Come on,
+see my Ford, Ellen.” Craig was going in his springy stride
+to the black two-passenger automobile. He held his gait down
+to match Ellen’s. She was conscious of the smell of the man,
+could scarce speak for her contempt. Yet there were the
+pleading eyes and the wounded way of a beast about him.
+“You know where I live, Ellen? Just a piece from Tomkin’s
+Ditch.” He fought with his flaw of speech. There was a rich
+section, he was confiding, adjoining his, that he hoped to buy
+and add to his own. He had many plans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen knew it was because of the way he looked upon her
+that he was pushing out his chest and leaning awkward
+against his polished automobile. He was tall in his shining
+shoes and Sunday wear. Her dress was torn. All the while
+though, she felt he was the pitiful one. She stood apart from
+her own body and watched this Ellen Gaddy, her forbearance,
+her dignity. She was gentle. “I got chores to do now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well then.” He started the motor, drove hastily off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In days to follow Craig would stop to talk with her. Ellen,
+aloof, would listen as he rambled. Her mind would stray on
+whether Pa would remember to get the sorghum syrup or
+whether Sam had mended the split butter paddle as he promised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fields were being prepared for winter wheat, the
+horses and plow working over the land. The disking and harrowing
+were now in progress and the blended figures of man
+and team moved over the horizon to disappear and return
+again. Ellen could see them from the potato patch. She was
+digging in the rows with a fork, and she stuffed the tubers
+into towsacks. The dust rose; her nostrils were clogged with
+it. A bluebird, lingering before it flew south, was beading its
+sad autumn cry, “Far-away, far-away!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was then that the days of a summer came upon her and
+<a id="page-145" class="pagenum" title="145"></a>
+she thought of the man on whom she had laid a curse. She
+wondered if she could remember his looks and ways, if meeting
+him she would know him. It’s past and done. He can’t
+ever hurt me more. Down the row slowly she worked. It’s
+past. She was testing it. But then it was as if Christian Ay
+emerged from the shadows and stood by her in the row. She
+ceased digging, there in the ragged dress, her hair bound by
+a bit of twine, her feet dirty, black outlining the toenails. The
+north wind of late October was blowing and the shadow fell
+across her. It seemed he was broad and strong, he laughed
+greatly and she loved him in a way that her being ached. She
+was trembling, water flowing down her face. She stood a while
+in her surprise, frightened by the issuance from what she
+had thought a safe memory. Its pain stirred her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In that night the wind was changing. She heard it, felt its
+veering. And the whippoorwills came up, calling in the cool
+caves of morning.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The next day Craig hunted until he found her in the orchard
+where her goats were grazing on crisp fallen leaves.
+She was leaning against an apple tree, listless. “Hey, Ellen.
+Hit’s Indian summer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made no reply. He stood restive before her. A yellow
+insect hovered whining about his tight-curled hair. “There’s
+a news-bee, Ellen.” He reached out to catch it and it flew off.
+“Wonder what it came to tell, Ellen?” The fragrance of the
+girl’s blown hair as she leaned on the armor of the old tree,
+brought him yet again to speech, his face on fire. “I’d get
+two-three nanny goats if you’d a mind for them. You could
+have honeybees too, and by the doorside I’d set out petunia
+flowers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned to him, absent, her face wan, her gray eyes sorrowful.
+“Think I’d have a poor rake such as you?” After a
+time she looked up from where she bent her head to see he
+still was standing there. He wore a bruised look and his underlip
+<a id="page-146" class="pagenum" title="146"></a>
+sucked in. “I ne’er meant to say that. It’s because I’ve no
+notion for marrying, Craig. It’s nothing against you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“E’er seen my farm, Ellen? Out by Tomkin’s Ditch? You’d
+only to see hit to change your mind. I was fixing to paint the
+house, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His dreams left her unmoved. She was watching two winging
+birds come to settle in a tree. “There’s a pair of doves.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might even build on a porch and put up screening.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If one dies, it’s mate’ll mourn till it dies too. E’er find a
+dove lying dead, no mark on it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d set out young shade trees, Ellen, to put a chair under.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I came on a dove in the path one time. It ne’er had a sign
+nor wound on its body and was still warm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They returned to the house. Anton was under the hackberry,
+pulling on his pipe. “Set to dinner along with us, Hedrick.”
+He was poking the young man with his elbow. “Ellie
+made a wild-plum pie this morning. She’s one for kitchen
+chores.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After their first hunger was spent, Anton was talkative. “A
+sight of my corn ruined in that summer storm. Might have
+to buy a load come spring. You lose any crops?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon I’ll make out. I’ve got a herd of steers. I’m
+going to take them to the auctions in Louisville.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You fattening steers? Well.” Anton pushed his food with
+a knife onto the fork he held in his left hand. “I call to
+mind my sir gave me two matched bull calves when I was a
+youngen. I set store by them, made them a little yoke and
+learned them to drag a stone-boat and mind hawp and gee.
+My sir waited till they were two-year-olds to cut their balls.
+That was to allow them to get a good crest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you name them, Pa?” asked Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mind the off one was Brown. I disremember the near
+one’s name. I was proud of them for a shirt-tail brat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What happened, Pa?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My ma sold them under me. She needed cash for my
+<a id="page-147" class="pagenum" title="147"></a>
+brother Marc, who was getting his learning. I hunted the
+barns and meadows, came in squalling someone stole them.
+What do you mean, your ox-team, Ma says, cash is cash.”
+Anton pursed his thick lips. “Now, they were so slick you
+could hunt for a loose hair. I used to file the horns and grease
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your maw give you a cut on what they sold for, Mester
+Gaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er seen hit.” He asked Craig, “Have you worked
+oxen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You couldn’t law them on me. I’m one for mules. Steady,
+and easy keepers. But to tell you true what I mostly hanker
+for is a tractor. I aim to get one some day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And where’ll your manure come from then?” Anton
+gloated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were pushing back their chairs. The two men went
+out on the steps while the women cleared. Frankie was drying
+plates and laying them upside down, ready for the evening
+meal. Ellen took the butter and milk jars out to the dry
+well near the porch. “Go to mass in my auto tomorrow,
+Ellen?” Craig asked when she passed on the step.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton answered, “She’ll go. Be pleasured to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen would give them no glance though Craig murmured,
+“Ellen?” as she was going by up the stairs and into the
+kitchen. She heard them. “I aim to take a drive later, Mester
+Gaddy, if it makes no nevermind to you. Ellen’s not seen my
+farm and my maw’d be proud to meet her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That suits.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How’s that seed-boar I traded you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s a crapping mean sonofabitch, Hedrick. Set on rutting
+up his fence all the time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I noticed he liked to do that. Always breaking through.
+But I wouldn’t say he was mean. That’s hog nature.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe so. I call him Luther.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a foreign name. Spot would fit him more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-148" class="pagenum" title="148"></a>
+“After Martin Luther. A crapping bastard Dutchman
+Brinker worships. Heathen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say. Bet that’s the first hog e’er to go by that name in
+this county.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“Ellie, how come Craig’s pa got killed?” Frankie was
+asking as they lay in their beds in the muddled dark of their
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it was in hay time. Craig and him were working with
+a watch-eye hand. Craig and that man were in the loft stacking
+hay back. His pa was down on the wagon. Well, that
+watch-eye man was fixing to jump down and pitched his
+fork ahead of him. It stabbed Moses Hedrick in the back between
+his shoulders. There he was, holding to the hay frame
+and the handle sticking out of his back. They said the prongs
+came out in front. Said he died standing there before he fell
+down.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh my, I’d think a one-eye man would guard against such
+a happenstance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon he couldn’t gauge distances so good.” They lay
+awhile in silence. Then Ellen was speaking in the dark, “Craig
+took on the farm then. You can say that for him. And he was
+still going to the grammar school.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen wore the blue crushed-satin hat that Garland had
+brought her last Christmas. In Craig’s Model T, she was heading
+for the Catholic church. She kept her eyes straight ahead
+on the little ivory crucifix fastened on the dashboard. Under
+her feet the carpeting was torn; the car smelled of dust. The
+young man was voiceless, his tension exhibited in his handling
+of the machine. His collar was starched; the ill-fitted suit constricted
+him. “Here it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were walking in stiffly. When his arm touched her,
+she moved away. At mass when the bell rang, Ellen knelt
+by him. But while heads around her bowed in the incensed
+air, she was staring about. Anton was with Maria and Frankie
+<a id="page-149" class="pagenum" title="149"></a>
+in a back pew. Pa’s trying to trap me with Craig. She held her
+head rebellious among the bent ones. What’s all the begging
+and praying about? I don’t care for this way of loving Him.
+I’ll get my peace out on the fatness of the earth that is His
+footstool. And the dew and the smell of the fields.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stand up, Ellen,” whispered Craig.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Father Tompert was reading out to the people in the clapboard
+church the beginning of the gospel of John. Ellen listened,
+brooding. They can’t make me marry him. “Thanks
+be to God,” said the priest and the people moved to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Craig was driving a mile or two along a cart-rutted road
+on the other side of Millville, unfamiliar to Ellen. “There’s
+Tomkin’s Ditch,” he nodded to a joint post office and general
+store by the deserted roadside. “And here’s that section
+of land I’m fixing to buy. I aim to rent it the first two years
+to make the payments.” He halted the car, gazed upon an
+overgrown field. “Hit’s all virgin. A virgin piece. Ne’er a
+plowshare been put to it. Corn’ll grow ten feet tall with not
+a handful of fertilizer.” He moved the hand throttle and the
+car was lurching forward. He steered down a winding approach
+to a weather-beaten red house set barren of trees before
+a barn of the same color. “Let me point out the sights.
+Then you can meet Maw.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen left her blue hat on the car seat. She came to where
+Craig leaned on the lot fence. Steers, deep in muddy manure,
+idled around troughs of corn. A yellow hound wagged up
+to her, sniffed her dress. She patted its smooth head; it wriggled,
+threw itself with a grunt on its side in the rutted road,
+waving its feet, ingratiating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s Sooner.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey, Sooner.” She was stroking it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sooner stay as come.” An elm grew by the fence. Craig
+cut a twig from it and offered it to Ellen. She shook her head.
+“Hit’s a slippery elm.” He was picking his teeth with the little
+stick. “Keeps off throat trouble.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-150" class="pagenum" title="150"></a>
+He hung his coat on the fence, rolling his sleeves, uncovering
+blond hair that grew long on his arms. He walked with
+caution around the mire of the lot and climbed into the
+shed loft. The steers licked at the dry stalks he was forking
+down; they gazed at Ellen with deep-lidded eyes. Craig
+shouted, “Nothing to do but eat, hey, Ellen?” He was strutting
+over to her. “Rather watch them eat than feed my own
+face. You know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spat out the twig. “I took on a man’s ways when I was
+yet a stripling. I dragged this farm up from a poor bit, starting
+the day Paw was killed. It’ll make some folks set up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your ma take to it out here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you study on her, Ellen. Maw says the day I bring
+home a wife to do my cooking she’ll go to live with my sister
+up Indiana way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Craig,” Ellen warned, “I’m not marrying. I told you. If
+you will talk so, you can take me home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I figured on it, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not beholden to your figuring.” A thrill of fright ran
+through her, seeing he had raised up tall and pulled in his
+lip. He was looking upon her as though she were changed.
+He leaned over, gripping her upper arm, swathed in the
+winter coat. “I told you no, Craig.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I heard a girl was taught to say no to lead her sweetie on
+hotter. You playing games?” His hand was tightening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Craig, Pa’d kill you if he saw how you’re acting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mester Gaddy’s thirsting to foist you off on me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I got ne’er a liking for you, Craig. You have to give
+me time.” If she could but stave him off until she was safe at
+home. Home was distant and dear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you e’er get hot, Ellen?” He was thrusting his hand
+within her coat, roughly hunting her breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pulled from him. “Maybe I would if you were good
+<a id="page-151" class="pagenum" title="151"></a>
+and waited.” She tried to soothe him. “Let’s go meet your
+ma now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was dragging her to his pock-marred face with an arm
+that was a band of steel. “You virgin, Ellen?” The scent was
+there, an odd mingling of moth balls and urine and hair oil.
+His lips were striving upon hers while she struggled. His hand
+was pressing her back, holding her against his body that was
+a rock. She felt the hard prod of him and a streak of flame
+ran through her, overlaid with disgust. I mustn’t go wild, it’s
+like with a mean boar, like Luther. You have to deal easy
+with him. She forced her body to slacken and felt him relax.
+She drew her mouth stiffly aside. “Give me a chance to
+breathe.” She smiled, forcing it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There, Ellen. You do like me. See?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She twisted like a snake, darting free. Upon her heels she
+heard him, his breath an angry roar. The five-tined pitchfork
+was leaning against the fence bars where he had placed it
+after throwing hay to the cattle. She grasped it, flailing with
+the prongs turned backward. It smote him across the face,
+leaving white streaks. He stumbled, gasping amazed. She
+swung again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bitch,” he hissed, “I’ll prick you yet.” He grappled for the
+tool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She tore it loose, driving at him strongly. He was staggering
+backward, tripping in a road rut, falling. He threw up a
+protecting arm, blood oozing from a tine-mark on his forehead.
+Mud covered his Sunday vest and pants and striped
+shirt. She turned, speeding across the stubble field toward
+woods beyond. The hound, Sooner, was pattering alongside.
+She clawed her way through underbrush, aware after a time
+of a hurt in her throat where the breath was sobbing. She
+looked about. The hound had disappeared. She took the direction
+that seemed true, cutting across country, skirting the
+few houses. She climbed a rail fence and her dress caught,
+ripping. She shook her head, “I’ll have to mend that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-152" class="pagenum" title="152"></a>
+The afternoon was wearing on. A chill breeze was born. A
+faintness enveloped her. She startled when a twig cracked.
+She stopped to consider, speaking into the stillness. “It’s the
+fright makes me light-headed. I must have got my bearings
+turned. I should have come on the pike by now.” She was
+going at a slower gait; she remembered, “Now my hat’s in
+his car.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was following a stony path bordered by thimbleberry
+bushes. It led onto the Millville Road which she recognized
+at once. A mud hen ran stammering before her, “Butbutbutbutbut!”
+It vanished in a field. The rail-birds were seldom
+seen; Sam Offut claimed that in winter they changed into
+frogs and hid in the marshes until spring. Ellen walked
+swiftly, head down, as automobiles and later a buggy came
+from behind and passed. Then she was at the house steps and
+slowing her pace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was in the kitchen with Frankie who sprang from a
+chair. “Hey, Ellie. Is your beau with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got no beau,” Ellen said stonily. She stood a moment
+plucking beggar’s-lice from her coat while her fingers shook.
+She turned to her father. “That was a whoreman you set on
+me, Pa.” She began to weep freely as anger overcame her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You greening me? Speak up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were bound and determined to sic that Hedrick on
+me, weren’t you?” Ellen whimpered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Speak up,” shouted Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He wanted to show me his farm. Then he came after me.
+I said let’s go meet your ma, but he wouldn’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell what he did,” Anton threatened, fear glowing in
+the gray pupils of his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I grabbed a dung-fork and hit him. Then I ran.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You seem to be safe enough, girl. The Lord God takes
+care of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anger caught her up again. “It’s not that. With you it’s
+always root hog or die for me, and you know it.” The words
+<a id="page-153" class="pagenum" title="153"></a>
+fell biting as her tears washed. “It’s not because of God’s
+help I be home again.” She was running to her room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later she appeared, pale and sullen, to do her chores and
+help with supper. When Anton came to the kitchen, she
+whispered, cold, “I ne’er meant those words, Pa. I was unsettled,
+I reckon, by all that walking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Were you out walking then, Ellie?” asked Maria. “I
+thought you were with that young man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t take trifling from a youngen,” said Anton, contemptuous.
+“Got worries enough hanging from my neck
+without you laying more on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ask you to overlook it.” She strove against the alienation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Root hog or die, such talk after all that’s done for you.
+And taking God’s name. Whoso curses his father, it’s said,
+his lamp shall be put out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er cursed,” she breathed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I saw you holding your head haughty in church this morning
+at the canon of the mass when all good souls were waiting
+on God. Now bend your head proper, girl. And don’t disgrace
+me. Mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before they blew the candles in the bedroom that evening,
+the sisters were sitting in their shifts on the beds. Ellen looked
+out the window where the curved horn of the waning moon
+bobbed in scuds, and the wind coursed high upon it. “It’s
+wild out there tonight. The Indian summer’s on the decline.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie, what did Craig do to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d ne’er let a man touch me. I’d hide like Ma in the wardrobe
+closet first.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll see that come the time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well tell, did he kiss you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell about girls, Ellie. Why are there girls and then
+men?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-154" class="pagenum" title="154"></a>
+“Go to sleep. Why can’t you let it be? You’re always going
+on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to know if a man’s secrets are more like a ram or a
+stallion. Wish I knew.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You say more and I’m going to tell Pa you’re asking such
+stuff. He’ll whip those notions from you all at once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie lay restless, drawing the quilts up to her chin. She
+sighed. The candles by the bedside flickered, and upon the
+slanted roof beams shadows were wavering like wings of
+pinned moths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen slept. She was dreaming of Christian Ay. And in the
+dream he had knowledge of her. It seemed this time she was
+willing. She came awake wondering at the vividness, sheltering
+its guilt. Maybe it all befell in another world as Miss
+Gentry the school teacher had claimed. Once Ellen had related
+a childish nightmare to her and she had replied, “Some
+say the soul is freed while you’re asleep, Ellen. And that’s
+when evil’s got its chance. And there’s some can prophesy
+from a dream. Now others go against those old ways, holding
+modern notions such as dreams showing up your real
+wishes, and you having a hidden mind with its own thoughts.
+I don’t hold by any of that. I maintain those fancy notions
+are much the same as prophesying.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was another strangeness to dwell on. Then she recalled
+the child she had borne in the Dougherty orchard. She put
+the memory away with distaste, separating its being from
+the love she had held for Christian Ay as if there were no
+connection. She closed her eyes again, weary from the long
+day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The spotted boar that Anton had obtained from Craig Hedrick
+rooted up his fence in the night, wandering into the lot
+where the cows were penned for the winter months. He
+weighed over half a ton, had an untrusty temper, an insatiable
+appetite. Anton and Sam would view him in his pen
+<a id="page-155" class="pagenum" title="155"></a>
+when he fed. “Haw. Luther. Old bastard stinks, doesn’t he,
+Sam? Luther.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s ugly, Mester Gaddy. I want to see the pigs he sires
+to fatten for market. Say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The brute’s jowls below his dish face were touching the
+ground. His ears flapped over tiny vacant eyes. His back
+was arched high and powerful, his larded sides shook when
+he trod on his small cleft hoofs. His screw tail was twitching
+with excitement. He roamed, investigating the new territory,
+growling. He nibbled at the corn he rooted from cow droppings,
+at hay fallen under the racks. But he was seeking a
+tastier morsel. The heavy milker, Maisie, had been due to
+drop a calf, the men examining her judiciously every evening
+for signs because Anton wanted to raise it. Now she was
+down in straw at the corner of the shed, groaning, pushing
+forth a heifer calf. As Luther rounded the shed side he
+smelled it, half born. He fed his hunger, ripping at the moist
+caul-swathed fetus, his eyes glittering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning Anton had to shoot his mutilated cow.
+The men strung it up to skin it and dress out what meat
+could be salvaged. Anton was scooping the foul-smelling entrails
+into a washtub. “When we finish trimming this carcass,
+before God, Sam, we’re going to drive locust posts four feet
+deep. Build that murdering bastard a barricade that’ll hold
+him.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-4-4">
+<a id="page-156" class="pagenum" title="156"></a>
+12
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Near the last of November there was a circle around the
+moon foretelling the wet weather. The downpour held for
+ten days, the pregnant sky slate-colored, the deluge continuous.
+Muck and soggy manure were deep now in stables and
+yards and paths. When Ellen went out to her chores she
+would wear Anton’s discarded rubber boots. Maria and
+Frankie had sickened when the rain first began. They were
+lying together in the big bed in the downstairs room, Anton
+sleeping nights in the guest bed. Though the fever of
+the invalids was abating, their harsh coughs were hanging
+on. Anton soaked inner bark of black cherry and elm,
+<a id="page-157" class="pagenum" title="157"></a>
+boiling it down to a thick brown brew for them to sip
+when the seizures came on. Ellen’s eyes were on him as he
+was moving about the kitchen, preparing the medicine. His
+loose lips drooped in concentration. “Feed a cold and starve a
+fever. Hear, girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe we ought to get a doctor, Pa?” She whispered it,
+confiding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nary a satchel doctor has set foot in this house, even
+when your ma bore you youngens.” His voice surged, “I
+don’t work with charms and tie papers on the sick. The way
+heathen folk do. I use herbs and healing trees. Like my folks
+before me and theirs before that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A doctor might know of something new.” She was persistent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now what do you reckon a doctor be? He uses the same
+herbs as me. He puts them in fancy bottles and gives them
+new names. The Word tells, remove not the ancient landmark
+which thy fathers have set. That goes for all old-timey
+ways.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know, Pa.” The sharp-scented steam was filling the
+kitchen. Ellen took a bowl of spongy warm dough, overturning
+it into a bed of soft flour on the bread board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton set the jar of warm liquid on the table by her.
+“Hum. Now, that’s ready for those two.” He pulled on his
+heavy jacket and fur cap, departing into the drizzle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen worked the dough down and covered it with a towel.
+She would prepare flannel bags of heated earth when the
+chills came on Maria and Frankie, heaping blankets high.
+Then their fever would be reborn and take possession again.
+“Mam,” Maria whispered hoarsely to Ellen once, “tell Pap
+he better make up another sweater tea if the back of this
+fever don’t break soon.” Red-faced, Maria threw back the
+covers. Pity moved in Ellen. When she came from the barn,
+she would leave her muddy boots on the porch and wash herself.
+She wore a fresh apron into the bedroom. She would
+<a id="page-158" class="pagenum" title="158"></a>
+bring the invalids a bowl of pudding and a plate of toasted
+fresh bread, walking softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s a bit for you to try and eat, Frankie. You got to
+have food, Pa says, now the fever’s waning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish I had ice,” complained the girl. “Go get the chamber
+pot for me, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No action, no word or roughness disturbed the tranquil
+edge of Ellen’s spirit. She was gentle-spoken. “It’ll be clearing
+off soon. The red cock crowed on the fence this morning.
+First time he’s flown off the ground.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie was sighing. “Christmas is less than a month away.
+And I’m missing all my lessons. I might ne’er get to go with
+Uncle Garland to the city.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure you will, now.” Ellen took them warm water to
+bathe their faces. She scrubbed bed linen in a tub on the
+kitchen floor, wrung the clothes out, pinned them on the lines
+she strung through parlor and kitchen. All the while she bore
+herself proudly and carefully, feeling her necessity and how
+they were all leaning on her. Surely her father saw she
+was keeping his house alone now, cooking for Sam and the
+sick ones, besides her work out of doors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length a fragment of moon reappeared in the daytime
+sky, and the sun was there too, embryonic, feeble. Maria came
+out of the bedroom to grind beans for breakfast coffee, a
+long maroon sweater draped over her flannel nightdress. Anton
+wrapped Frankie in a quilt and sat her in a chair at the
+table. He was filling her plate. “Now you got to eat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The slender girl laughed, her skin pallid, her red hair seeming
+to prosper unnaturally under the illness, lying abundant.
+“Do tell at her,” said Maria, “and my hair’s falling out. When
+I was a youngen I lost hit all in the epidemic. Pure bald. Had
+to wear a string-knit cap for nigh on a year. He knows.” Her
+lips continued to move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was thinking, Pa,” said Ellen, striving to keep her newly
+<a id="page-159" class="pagenum" title="159"></a>
+won role, “I’ll start cleaning the candlesticks outside after this
+to get away from that mess in the sink.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This little old thing.” Anton touched Frankie’s hair, beaming.
+“Just look at her, you-all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tears stood in Ellen’s eyes. And days that she had made
+full became empty once more. She felt her pride and her
+beauty fall away.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She was cutting down a few of the hard cheeses from the
+rafters in the smokehouse. Grady Love would take them in
+trade for the staples they needed. There was little to carry in
+the basket these days. In the unseasonable weather the hens
+had nearly stopped laying. She used water-glass eggs to cook
+with, put down in a crock during the summer. There was
+no cream or butter, the dairy taking all the milk that was
+produced. It was late in the day before she got started. She
+put on her heavy coat and boots. “I’ll be back in time to fix
+supper, Ma. So don’t fret if it gets dark. Days are so short
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t you wait till tomorrow?” Frankie was asking.
+“Don’t go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tomorrow’s Sunday, Frankie. I’m strapped for salt and
+soda. Pa’s out of tobacco. You try to nap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she finished her trading and was on the way home,
+Ellen took the short cut by Bailey’s Woods to visit Amanda
+York and to warm herself. She knocked at the door of the
+double cabin. Amanda was wearing a bright red dress, her
+hair made into a gleaming braid down her back. She drew
+Ellen to the fire that hissed and sparked. “You know I got a
+beau, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Who is he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jerome Hatfield. Smithy Hatfield’s son. He’ll be coming
+by soon. Stay to meet him, Ellie. He’s real nice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You going to marry him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-160" class="pagenum" title="160"></a>
+“He’s asked me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A car was heard approaching. Then doors were slamming
+outside, and male voices shouting. “Mandy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ask your maw can we come in?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We got a present for you-all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’ll be Jerome,” laughed Amanda. “They’ve been
+drinking, this being Saturday night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This one’s a heavy basket,” called a twisted voice that
+Ellen knew. “Rome Beauties are right solid apples.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three young men came in. Craig Hedrick was carrying
+one handle of a basket. He hesitated, seeing Ellen, his face
+frozen. They set the basket down. She saw a dark scar across
+his forehead lit by the dancing fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you boys been tasting bootleg,” cried Mrs. York.
+“Come have some soft cider to cool you off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amanda was running to fetch glasses. Ellen followed, whispering,
+“I’ve got to go, Mandy. Ma and Frankie are sick in
+bed and it’s dark by now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Ellie, I wish you could stay. Craig,” she was crying,
+“take Ellie Gaddy home in your auto.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” Ellen breathed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amanda whispered, “I’ll make a match for you, Ellie. He’s
+a nice fellow. Got an eighty-acre farm all his own. But he’s
+afraid of girls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hurry up with the glasses, Mandy,” called Jerome. Ellen
+saw him pushing Craig’s ribs with an elbow. “Take her
+home, Craig.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amanda brought the tray and Ellen hung behind her.
+“Ellie, you know Craig here? And Jacob Haas and Jerome
+Hatfield.” She was pointing them out with a nod. “The last
+is the meanest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pleased to meet you.” The silence was awkward. The
+three men leaned on their legs abashed, their faces heated by
+the fire and the liquor they had drunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-161" class="pagenum" title="161"></a>
+“Ah, here we are.” Mrs. York was pouring the cider. Ellen
+shook her head, turning away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Craig,” persisted Amanda. “Cat got your tongue?
+Thought you told me you knew Ellie and went to school
+with her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Craig took her for a drive once. I heard about that,”
+crowed young Haas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you, Craig?” cried Amanda. “When?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, let’s hear. When?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll walk,” whispered Ellen. “I’d rather.” The young men
+were shuffling near the fire; someone spilled cider on the
+stone hearth and Amanda was bringing a mop. Ellen found
+her basket and boots by the doorway. Outside in the dog-trot
+the adjoining cabin was dark, unused in winter. She was
+buttoning her coat. The night was chill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she reached Sweetincreek Road the wind gathered itself
+and whirled strongly about her, up the sleeves of her coat.
+There was just light enough to follow the road. She drew her
+coat to her, fought the wind. The way was endless, the few
+dried leaves still cringing in the trees rattled and the wind had
+its way with them. In a darkened corn field an animal was
+slipping along rows of shocks. She heard a distant car engine.
+It became louder, lights were shining faintly behind her. She
+was turning into the ditch at the roadside, stumbling down
+the incline to crouch there. Headlights beamed close at hand.
+The car stopped by the ditch, a voice was calling thickly,
+“Ellen? I’ll drive you home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want no help from you, Craig. I’ll walk.” She climbed
+out and started up the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The car was following. “Get in, Ellen. I’m not going to
+hurt you.” He swung the door open. She stepped up and into
+the seat. There was the tart whisky trace. With a jerk the
+car started. He drove fast down the road, the thin tires
+bumping over hardened ruts. “Thought you were a new field
+of daisies, you whore,” Craig was saying. “You’re nothing but
+<a id="page-162" class="pagenum" title="162"></a>
+a brush field where a plowshare drove through. I found that
+out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She held a frightened silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“E’er a man in the county has slept in that field. So I hear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He’s blind drunk. She stared ahead where the road
+crouched dark before the car lights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why won’t you sleep with me too, Ellen? Why did you
+hit me with that dung-fork?” He began to sniffle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re stark crazy.” She put her fingers on the door
+latch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ran off with a rich fellow, I heard. And got knocked
+up. Had a brat off some’eres.” He was making gruff crying
+noises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re just simple crazy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was swerving the Ford into the lane of her home. He
+braked so that she threw her hands against the dashboard,
+bruised her fingers on the tiny crucifix screwed there. Her
+basket slid across the floor carpet making a rough sound. “I’m
+just drunk. Worthless drunk. I’m sorry for what I said,
+Ellen.” He was leaning to her and she remembered his hairy
+arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get away from me.” The handle turned. She ran to the
+house, the basket swinging wildly. His car remained where
+it was; she glanced back from the porch. She was pushing the
+door open, the kitchen was warm and smelled of security. She
+went to the bedroom door, taking off her coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were gone so long, Ellie,” Frankie whined.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had to put the potatoes on,” Maria said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen tugged at her boots. “I tarried a while at Mandy’s.”
+She was busying herself with supper, making a clatter with
+the dishes. She hummed and when she sliced the ham she
+closed her eyes, blinking tears. He called me a whore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought I heard a car drive up,” Maria said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Someone out on the road, I reckon.” She heard the motor
+start then. Craig would drive back to the York cabin. He and
+<a id="page-163" class="pagenum" title="163"></a>
+the others would sit around the fire, eating apples and popping
+corn in an iron basket. They would laugh about that
+queer Ellen Gaddy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton came in, his long-jawed face ruddy from the harsh
+wind. “I brought your twists of tobacco, Pa. I set them on
+the shelf o’er there.” I hate them all. Men are a pack of tormented
+hogs.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Christmas 1926 was approaching. Preparations were under
+way for Garland’s annual visit. Frankie told Ellen with enthusiasm,
+“I’m just going to sit and study grammar. So don’t
+look for help in the kitchen from me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Frankie, stop worrying about it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the evening the younger girl was arranging dried everlasting
+in the parlor vase, the thistle-like blooms shaking
+palely in her hands. She turned to Ellen, blithe. “I’m that
+eager to see Chicago, you know. Pa says I can get dresses
+from the catalog. You help me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen brought it out and they selected. “You’re like a wild
+one, Frankie. Setting such store on the times you’ll have.
+Just do as Uncle says and it’ll come out well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie had suppressed her misgivings. By her lively chatter
+and protestations she covered the small voice of panic
+beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton came in to where they sat. “Order stout, hear? Not
+cheap. I declare this is the day. Get her new boots too, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’ll more need pretty slippers, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And get chills-and-fever? She can be warm and comely
+too, I say. Just spend it. I got it,” he said recklessly, and went
+to paint the black sink in the kitchen in honor of Garland’s
+coming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen enjoyed the readying for the holidays. “Where are
+the straws I pulled from the new broom you got, Ma? I’m
+bent I’ll find them to judge if my cakes are done right.
+<a id="page-164" class="pagenum" title="164"></a>
+Frankie,” she cried, “stop studying. Come beat this icing for
+me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know, Ellie.” Frankie entered the room, reluctant.
+“How do I sound when I talk?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, you sound like a lady. Whip this up, will you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.” Frankie poised the spoon, reciting, “The deluge
+drowned, the earth around.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s real clear, Frankie.” Ellen took pride in her cakes,
+liked to start the batter with her hands, feeling the fresh
+lard blend to the sugar. “I despise to waste making a cake
+with fat-drippings. They should be delicate and light.” She
+was washing her hands, beating the eggs to a froth with her
+mother’s wire whisk. Her health and good will surged strong
+from some inner store.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After mass on Sunday, Anton left his women-folk to speak
+with Joe Burwell who pressed him, “Borrow my new fence
+stretcher, Gaddy. Hit beats a crowbar and pliers to a fare-thee-well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll try it one time. All my fences are rotting on me. Hell,
+I’d rather set up rails any day than stretch wire.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe Burwell’s son Dyke was approaching the sisters and
+Maria on the church porch. “Hey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey, Dyke,” Frankie cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy was nineteen or twenty, fleshy and large. He was
+smiling weakly at the girls, in anguish. Frankie blushed, Ellen
+looked down, scowling. Anton was calling them to the waiting
+wagon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s cute,” Frankie whispered and looked back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can have him. I heard he does dishes and washes and
+scrubs for his ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wouldn’t mind. He’s tall. But how come he does her
+housework?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s a one-leg. She hitched a horse up without the blinders
+and it scared off and ran the spring-wagon o’er her.
+They had to cut her leg clean off above the knee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-165" class="pagenum" title="165"></a>
+“Say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She wore out three wood legs till she took to pushing a
+chair before her. Had a baby too,” Ellen concluded luridly,
+“couple of years after.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, all the same he’s tall. I’m not so particular.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the cold clear weather the cows would seek sunny spots
+in the barnyard, at night crowding into steaming groups. The
+goats found a plank leaning against the chicken house. Ellen
+came on the younger ones bounding madly on the corrugated
+tin roof, their hoofs rattling. The daring skewbald Pie snorted
+and leaped skittishly from the high slanted roof to the ground.
+She was galloping back to the plank, short tail erect, up on
+the roof again, sure-footed. They seemed like wild animals
+Ellen had come on in the woods, unable to contain their spirits.
+Penny, who was heavier and not inclined to frolic, stood
+on the ground, ears flattened in worry. Ellen patted her and
+she tossed her beard, fretful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girls were gathering walnuts and butternuts. They
+shucked them and threw the hulls in the kitchen stove. Dyke
+Burwell drove up in a buggy with his father. Ellen saw them
+through the window. Dyke sat helpless, holding the reins,
+while the men met and walked to the barns. Joe Burwell
+turned his head, bellowing, “Hitch Blacky to the post, you
+dang fool, and get in where it’s warm. You got a corncob for
+a head?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the kitchen door Dyke was rapping, timid. Ellen opened
+it, her hands stained with walnut juice. She was blocking the
+entrance. “Well?” He cast his eyes to his hobnail shoes. She
+saw the two men disappear in the distance. “We’re busy baking.”
+Cruelly, she closed the door on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie Gaddy!” Frankie was running quick-footed after the
+stout ungainly boy. She led him to the parlor where she gave
+him black and white beans to string clumsily for decoration.
+Ellen heard her vivacious voice and later the piano tinkling
+and Frankie’s falsetto.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+<a id="page-166" class="pagenum" title="166"></a>
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">When I was a lady, a lady, a lady</p>
+      <p class="verse">When I was a lady, a lady was I</p>
+      <p class="verse">And this way and that way and this way</p>
+      <p class="verse">And that way</p>
+      <p class="verse">And when I was a lady, a lady was I</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“That makes two geese in there,” Ellen told Maria briefly.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On the evening Garland was to arrive, the Gaddys were
+waiting in vain. Anton took out the letter that had come from
+Chicago, studied it again, squinting through his reading glass.
+“Hit’s today for sure. That’s what it says here. Lay down that
+red carpet on the twenty-second. That’s his way of saying
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know, Mester Gaddy,” Maria said, “today the sun
+entered Capricornus. First day of winter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton reflected and went for the almanac. “Hit says unsettled
+here. I’ve noticed these folks will often hit it right.
+Could be he’s run up against a storm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The roast was kept on the back of the stove, reheated until
+the juices dried. The chores were finished. The family had
+dressed for company. Late dusk set in and Anton grumbled,
+“Put it out and we’ll eat. I’ll say grace.” They picked at the
+food by lamplight. The man spoke suddenly, “This meat’s not
+fit for hogs.” He pushed his plate and got up, began to pack
+his pipe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie made sniffing sounds. “He’s not coming, that’s
+what. I can’t bear waiting and not knowing.” She ran up the
+stairs, her footsteps fading; the loft door slammed mildly from
+afar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next forenoon Garland was wheeling a yellow Reo
+into the lane; he pressed the horn, “Ah-roooooo-ga!” Frankie
+flew out to greet him. Ellen was hesitating at the door, her
+hand shielding her eyes from the winter sun. She saw the
+familiar derby and Garland’s arm about Frankie as Anton
+<a id="page-167" class="pagenum" title="167"></a>
+came from the barnyard. “Broke down at Minetta, An. Had
+to stay overnight. Why the hell don’t you have a telephone
+installed like everyone else?” Garland was waving at his car.
+“How do you like it? Brand-new touring style. The latest.”
+He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Had her up to forty
+miles on route sixty-six.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton preceded them into the kitchen. Garland was looking
+at Ellen as he came to the steps. “Well, puss?” He pinched
+her thigh, his small blue eyes gay. “How’s the wandering
+little wench?” He wagged his finger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon I was a poor niece to you last winter after your
+kindness.” She gazed at him, candid. “I ne’er meant it so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put on weight, haven’t you, hon? You look good. Pretty.”
+The color rose in her face, relieved that he would let the past
+rest. “Got a boy friend yet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” she was smiling. He met her eyes. At the sight of the
+clipped mustache in the squared smooth face, a part of her
+loneliness had drawn away. They walked into the house, his
+arm on her shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria was in the bedroom doorway, twisting a towsack
+towel in her hands. “Who be you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ooman,” roared Anton, “it’s my brother then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not peddler.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ooman. You’re plaguing me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut up, An. She hasn’t seen me for a year. Hello, Maria,
+I brought you a present, too. It’s in my car. A pressure
+cooker to save you work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now I forgot it was you coming today.” Maria was suddenly
+complacent. “Tinie Bilberry’s got a bread-mixing outfit.
+Hit’s made to save work too. The handle turns like a
+churn and the dough comes out ready for the pans.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does hit shape the loaves too?” asked Anton grimly. “I
+allow men are turning from the Lord God’s ways with these
+contraptions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Next year I’m going to bring you a sewing machine,
+<a id="page-168" class="pagenum" title="168"></a>
+Maria. I saw a treadle one you could use, seeing as your husband
+won’t put in electricity till doomsday. You got to look
+to the future, Anton. Rural electrification. Let machines do
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Next you’ll say get a newfangled automobile,” Anton predicted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen and Maria laid out the noon dinner. Ellen was warmed
+in her uncle’s love. In the evening she sat by him on the sofa.
+Or if he was standing, she linked her arm in his. When he
+laughed and said Frankie’s way of speech wasn’t a whit
+altered from last year and that Anton had got a reaming on
+the grammar teacher, her jealousy was assuaged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Anton angered, “That fellow’s been coming for a year.
+And there was one we had before him that quit on me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold on,” Garland was crying easily. “Chrissake, Frankie’ll
+be all right. You did what you could.” He nodded kindly to
+the girl’s stricken face. “Let’s hear you play something,
+sweet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning Ellen was in late from her barn work.
+She stopped in the hall at the parlor door, hearing Garland’s
+emphatic voice within, “She’s not well, I tell you, An. You’re
+so used to her you don’t notice. But she acts downright
+queer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shaw.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She needs psychiatric care. Mental aid. Look, I’m worried
+about her. Your attitude doesn’t help, God knows. You’re
+as enlightened as a bushman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton laughed, “You modern city folk. Such know-alls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not sure if I should have brought that pressure cooker,
+either.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, that’s a fact. I wouldn’t have any truck with it.
+What’s it got o’er a good fire for cooking? You tell me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen wandered into the kitchen to look at Maria with new
+eyes. She saw the two men going to the barn, her uncle clad
+in one of the country costumes he affected, jodhpurs and
+<a id="page-169" class="pagenum" title="169"></a>
+boots, a dark red turtle-neck sweater. And Anton wearing
+stiff new overalls and a fresh-made black shirt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the time had arrived for midnight mass, Ellen was
+taking her place at the communion rail with the others. She
+waited while the priest stopped at Garland and then Anton
+and Maria. Then Father Tompert spoke in Latin above her
+and in the cold church all became quiet. The fleeting fear
+washed over Ellen. Am I lost? Pa thinks I’m a pure maid.
+But his God knows I’m not. When she was going back to
+the bench, she fortified herself. They that stumbled are
+girded with strength. She had read it when she searched in
+her father’s worn Bible. I’ve done no wrong. I have my God.
+And she rebuilt her peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were driving back to the farm in the Reo. The girls
+tucked their feet in the narrow floor space, sniffed the new
+interior. They savored the luxury of the shallow seat. Frankie
+was giggling, “We’re like soft city ladies.” Ellen laughed into
+the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was pulling at his pipe, the fragrant smoke mingling
+with the fresh biting wind that whipped from the open windows
+into the back seat. Garland inquired, “Where’s your
+fancy blue hat, hon? With the rose on it, that I brought you
+last year? I see you’re still wearing that old cap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s cold tonight,” Ellen was evasive, “so I wore this warm
+wool one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At home, they ate from the laden table. Then the women
+came into the parlor, leaving the kitchen in disarray. They
+sat by the fire that was cracking as the dry wood caught.
+“I’m going to help you girls do those dishes in the morning,”
+Garland cried. “You’ve got to keep me company. I used
+to be in demand as a dishwasher in the old days at some of
+the best hotels. Now I insist.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Such foolishness,” Anton mocked, lighting one of the fresh
+cigars and settling in a chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-170" class="pagenum" title="170"></a>
+Ellen brought a bowl of wrinkled sweet winter apples.
+“Have a russet, Uncle?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie, I’ll play if you’ll sing.” Frankie was at the upright
+piano.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go ahead, pusses.” Garland had produced a bottle of
+bootleg rum; he poured two glasses. He waved his hand until
+they finished the tune.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I don’t want no more of your weevily wheat</p>
+      <p class="verse">I don’t want none of your barley</p>
+      <p class="verse">But I want some more of your pretty white flour</p>
+      <p class="verse">To bake a cake for Charlie</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“I vote for Christmas!” Garland’s face heated. Ellen was
+remembering the party in Chicago where he had seemed a
+stranger. Here he was his old self once again. When he came
+yearly to the farm, the tenor of the home would be transformed,
+and Ellen esteemed by him above her sister. She
+wondered if Anton ever noticed. I’m strong like their mother,
+that Nell they talk of. And Frankie’s not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton finished his glass, set it down. “If you-all want to
+hear about it, we saw a crowd of doves once so thick they
+blacked the sky.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Turtledoves?” Frankie asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Passenger pigeons,” said Garland. “I remember them, too.
+Extinct now. That was when we were boys.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They sounded like a twister when a flock came o’er,” said
+Anton. “Our sir took us three youngens to see them. That
+was in eighteen-eighty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not that far back.” Garland was yawning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes it was. For Ma named it time and again. Eighteen-eighty.”
+Anton was animated by the memory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if you say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You and me were still wearing shirt-tails, Gar. Marc was
+in pants. He’d have been about ten. It was down where Maria’s
+<a id="page-171" class="pagenum" title="171"></a>
+folks lived.” He nodded. “At Seven Mile Run. They shot
+them down and left the squabs to die. They shipped them in
+barrels till the market was so glutted they had to feed them
+out to the hogs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How many you reckon were in that skyful of doves, Pa?”
+Ellen was asking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, when they settled, the flock stretched forty miles
+long and ten deep. Then one day they all flew off at once.
+We went to look at the giant trees stripped and ruined.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d fain have seen them,” Ellen said, “darkening the sky.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I notice they caught some rumrunners,” Garland said,
+“sneaking it in from Canada in a carload of hog carcasses.”
+He mourned, “No more booze.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Prohibition’s nothing to me,” said Anton, “I make what
+wine I need. I’ll give you some to take back if you want.
+Dandelion’s the best, I’d say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll take you up on that. So they don’t catch me, I’ll label
+it perfume for the ladies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie was tittering, Garland stretching, and the family
+found their beds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen remained awake. Life, it seemed, was a long quest for
+love. The wind was whistling low around a corner of the
+house. Her mind went on what Garland had said about Maria
+being ill. The wind sound was bringing to memory a fall evening
+when Ellen was a child and a whippoorwill began to call
+near the porch steps, first in low-pitched chucks, then shredding
+the night with its cry. Maria had shrieked, “Get him off
+the porch, girl.” Ellen ran to open the door, the song ceased as
+the bird winged away. But Maria had wept, “When the
+whippoorwill sings on your doorstep, it brings bad luck. Hit
+sung on the night I lost my betimes baby. It was a little boy.”
+Ellen had vowed then, it’ll not be so with me. Life won’t
+break me whatever comes. The wind was growling, hunting.
+She remembered that in Illinois there was a small child of hers.
+She had a vague wish to see what he was like. And then,
+<a id="page-172" class="pagenum" title="172"></a>
+nostalgia like a memory of the dead drove through her, constricting
+her throat, for what dwelled between Luke Dougherty
+and his wife.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On Christmas, Anton was baffled to find his brother had
+given him a battery radio. “Hit’s a contraption, all right.”
+He was tuning the stations. Static clattered in, a rasping voice
+and a sudden blare of music. Anton was hunching himself
+over the instrument on the table. “Don’t help me, Gar. Leave
+me run hit myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girls opened black velvet boxes. Ellen was turning a
+gold chain over in her hand; she laid it cold about her throat.
+There were matched pearls for Frankie who wore her new
+yellow dress and flitted between Anton and Garland. “Now,
+gather ye rosebuds,” Garland was quoting, “while ye may.
+Old Time’s still a-flying. The same flower that blooms today
+tomorrow’ll be dying.” He thumped the round table with his
+palm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell more about Chicago, Uncle. What’ll it be like for
+me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Anton thinks you’ve got such a talent,” he was
+chucking Frankie’s chin, “he can’t cheat the world of it.
+You’ll like it, sweet. I’ll let you take it slow. Afraid I gave
+your sister too big a dose.” He looked at Ellen, who gravely
+returned his gaze. “Remember how busy I was, hon? Now
+that’s what I like about Christmas down here. Takes my mind
+off my problems.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give me that old-timey religion,” the radio pealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Listen at that,” Anton shouted. “No telling where those
+barbarians are singing from.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The holiday week wore on. Frankie in high excitement,
+was easily given to laughter, as easily wept. On the second
+of January, it was planned, she would drive in the Reo to
+Chicago. The sisters were washing milk buckets in the kitchen
+<a id="page-173" class="pagenum" title="173"></a>
+when Ellen said, “Be good for you to part from Pa for a
+spell.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you just want him for yourself,” Frankie wailed.
+“He’ll ne’er romp with you like me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen tightened her lips, threw back her head, marched to
+her goats in the woodshed. “Scroungy brat,” she sniffed.
+“That’s not so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were all seated before the fire in the parlor at night.
+A knock came at the kitchen door and Ellen went to answer
+it. “Why, Lily Garrett. I don’t know when we saw you last.
+Want to come in?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fat girl was encased in a bulky coat, the figure of a
+youth rearing behind her. “We want you to come with us,
+Ellie. Frankie too. We got a wagon of hay and there’s a moon
+to see by. Come on, Ellie, ask if you can.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Pa wouldn’t let us. Who-all is there?” She leaned
+forward from the security of the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A whole wagonload of us. Papa let me go. Said I’d be
+whipped anyway so I’d as well. It’s a deal of fun.” Lily was
+bouncing with energy. “This is Jacob Haas.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon we can’t go, but I sure thank you for asking. And
+Mester Haas, too.” She nodded to the dark figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She came back into the parlor and Garland said, “That was
+your fellow, wasn’t it, sweet?” His blue eyes were admiring
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stepped lightly across the oak floor, containing her
+gestures. “Oh, it was only Lily, Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s my best friend,” Frankie said. “She told me when
+Sophie had those twins.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and those brats came five months after the girl married
+Buck Lemmon,” Anton said. “A loose crowd.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’re young, Anton,” cried Garland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rakes and loose girls. Defiling the unwedded has no excuse.
+I’ll keep these two chaste.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-174" class="pagenum" title="174"></a>
+On New Year’s Eve, Ellen was putting peas to soak in the
+iron kettle. Garland came looking for her. “What are you
+doing, puss?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you know it’s good luck to eat black-eye peas and
+sowbelly the first day of the year?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What really happened last spring in St. Louis, hon? It was
+a man, wasn’t it? I knew something was going on with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked to her work, her fingers trembling. She felt
+mature, controlled. “Nothing. I ne’er reached St. Louis.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What I can’t figure out is how you managed to get away
+so quietly. I searched the stations in the morning for you.
+Kept it from Anton as long as I could.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish I was like you, Uncle. You got all you want.” She
+said it unexpectedly. “Purely I’d admire to be you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Seems you could have told me your problems. You’re
+growing up so fast. Maybe I could have helped. Why did
+you run away like that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wouldn’t be Pa. But I’d be you, if I were a man.” She
+said it passionately, won to him by his approval of her, by his
+broad opinions, awed with his worldliness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s no one like you, Ellen,” he was smiling, shaking
+his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton called from the parlor door, “Go out and take a
+look at that Gladys heifer, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll go with her,” Garland shouted back. He took Ellen’s
+coat from the hook and held it for her. He was lighting the
+lantern awkwardly. He wore a fur-trimmed jacket and was
+pulling on kid gloves. His esteem seeped over Ellen, making
+her movements supple, her youth a fine thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The path to the barn was a river of canescent moonlight
+drowning the lantern glow. They walked silent until Garland
+said, “You know how much like my mother you are?” He
+reflected. “There was a way she had though, that came out
+sometimes. Like she really hated me.” He was speaking softer.
+“I’d try to make her notice the way I could work quicker
+<a id="page-175" class="pagenum" title="175"></a>
+and do things better than Marc. He was older. She always
+doted so on him.” Ellen’s quiescence encouraged him in the
+cover of the night. “I remember her sitting with her head up
+stiff in the seat of her little rig, driving her pony. Beg her to
+let me harness it for her, or curry it.” He murmured, “You
+know, you’re just the spit of her sometimes, puss. Except for
+your hair. Hers was more the color of Frankie’s.” He took
+her arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen felt him shivering. It’s me, causing him to do that.
+“Venus and Mars and Jupiter are the evening stars now,”
+she told him. “Jupiter’s still up, he doesn’t set till about eight
+these days.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the barn, by fragile lantern light, the pregnant young
+cow seemed quiet. They were turning to go. Ellen noticed
+Sam had stuffed a burlap sack in the broken window to keep
+the wind out. Garland spoke again, “You know I’ve always
+had a thought about Marc that I never told anyone.” Ellen
+was listening in the near dark, amid the pungent animal odors.
+“He had brown straight hair and his face was different somehow.
+Handsome. He wasn’t like any of us.” He lit a cigarette,
+leisurely. “You in any hurry, sweet?” He put his arm about
+her and she waited to hear the secret about her dead uncle,
+Marc. “I don’t think he was Pa’s son at all. I think my mother
+married Jules Gaddy because she got caught and needed a
+father for her child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon your sir knew of it?” whispered Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No telling. He thought the world of my mother, that I’m
+sure of. She got her way on everything.” He was blowing
+the smoke, stamping the cigarette into the musty bedding.
+He breathed broken, “Oh darling.” And his dry mouth was
+on hers, his old mouth, in desire. He was pulling at her skirt,
+fumbling on her thigh with his soft fingers. She tore her
+mouth swiftly away, turning her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Lot went up out of Zoar,” he whispered, holding
+her to him. “He dwelt in the mountains and his daughters
+<a id="page-176" class="pagenum" title="176"></a>
+with him. Didn’t know I could quote from the Bible, did you,
+hon? The first-born went in and lay with her father. Book
+of Genesis.” Hotly he held her but gently withal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was pushing him from her with violent hands. “Come
+to the house, Uncle. Now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wordless he followed her up the path where moonlight
+bloomed cold. In the kitchen she hung her coat on its hook.
+She went upstairs to lie in the chill air, while the dying candle
+made a puddle of tallow on the table top. Ellen’s loneliness
+was an ache, for his kindness had garbed her. He was aged
+and knowledgeable. Despair had laid her bare. It’s not for
+love of me. He’s got no enduring need of me. His imperfection,
+his weakness, had come to stand between them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In the morning Garland was jovial in a bright yellow shirt
+piped in red and a belt with a European clasp fashioned like
+a horse and rider. Ellen dawdled over her barn chores, came
+tardily to the breakfast table. She didn’t wear a fresh apron,
+she ate stolid, uncommunicative. Anton was rapt in the radio,
+the nasal twang.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">She’s pure as the rose, like the lamb she is meek</p>
+      <p class="verse">And she’s never been known to use paint on her cheek</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen went from the room unnoticed. She decided to clean
+in the parlor first. She lifted a heavy chair, viciously dropped
+it thudding into its accustomed place. “Can’t those old fools
+leave things in order? It’s clean and redd up, mop and scrub.
+And then they mess it all up. Hogs.” She was piling rag rugs
+in her arms and striding to the porch. The door slammed after
+her. She stood on the steps and shook the rugs, snapping them
+with loud whacks. The dirt whirled in the cold air. “Dust and
+more,” she was muttering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland opened the door. He was holding a cigarette, and
+traced his mustache with the small finger of his hand. Behind
+<a id="page-177" class="pagenum" title="177"></a>
+him she could hear Frankie’s high inquiring whines and the
+radio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, puss?” She continued her work, her soft mouth set
+in a line. He came over to her. “You know what you mean
+to me? <i>Joie de la vie.</i> Now that’s right. I’m past fifty, hon.
+If I’d have met someone like you earlier things might have
+been different in my life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She let a rug drop and in a deliberate movement took up
+another with a sigh. “I got a tormented lot of work to get
+through today, Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just wanted you to know that.” He was tossing his
+cigarette away; he lit another and went inside. She heard him
+in a few minutes.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">It’s beefsteak when I’m hungry</p>
+      <p class="verse">Rye whisky when I’m dry</p>
+      <p class="verse">Greenbacks when I’m hard up</p>
+      <p class="verse">And heaven when I die</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The Reo was packed, and it waited to carry Garland and
+Frankie away the next day. Ellen was instructed to wake the
+travelers early in the morning before going to the barn. The
+household sought their beds not long after supper. Frankie
+was protesting in their room, “The particular thing I’m afraid
+of is meeting folks, Ellie. Wish you were going to be there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m out of patience with you. You’ve not done a lick all
+day, flitting about like a twitting chick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All the same, talk to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush and leave me be. I’m asleep.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before dawn Ellen went into Garland’s partitioned chamber
+to rouse him. The light of the candle wavered across
+his face. For the instant she was confused, thinking it wasn’t
+her uncle with mouth pulled in withered upon the gums.
+She drew her breath sharply, and he was opening his eyes.
+<a id="page-178" class="pagenum" title="178"></a>
+“Ell’n?” he quavered, reaching for his false teeth in a watercup
+on the stone-topped bed table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you awake? I have to run.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she returned from the barn, Frankie had dressed,
+her new pearls were at her neck, her lips pale, her eyes
+blue-shadowed. “Must I really go, Pa?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s what we planned. And it’s for you to do. You know
+it be my nearest wish.” He warned her, “Don’t start up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took the girl on his lap. “Look here, Poppet.” The
+battery set was clanging to the beat of a banjo, “Off with
+your coat and wet your throat with that real old mountain
+dew.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut it off for Chrissake,” Garland demanded, and the
+women started. “We’re going in a few minutes and then you
+can listen to your heart’s content. By God, An.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man switched off the radio and they sat to breakfast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gladys isn’t letting her milk down so good, Pa.” Ellen
+leaned toward him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell Sam to let her calf bump it some. It can stay with
+the old one awhile. I aim to veal hit anyway.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you e’er tell Uncle about old Full-pail, Pa?” Frankie
+was preparing to prolong the mealtime. “That Dyke told of?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Listen at this, Garland. Joe Burwell went to look at a
+milk cow. The farmer hadn’t but led it out when his old
+ooman came squalling, don’t sell old Full-pail. Pray, don’t
+sell Full-pail, Mester. Joe’s ears pricked up. The old lady kept
+hollering so first thing Joe knows, he’s shelling out thirty
+dollars cold cash and hauling the cow home. That evening he
+couldn’t milk a teacup. Joe was fit to be tied. Went back and
+the farmer said to him, ne’er said how big the pail was.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s good,” Garland approved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the sun rose much higher the bags had been put in
+the car. Garland returned to the porch for the pasteboard
+suitcases of Frankie’s things. “Away we go,” he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-179" class="pagenum" title="179"></a>
+Frankie was clinging to Ellen. “Reckon I won’t see you-all
+till next Christmas.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll be too grand for us then, Frankie,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was getting behind the wheel. “These Reos are
+demons. Did I tell you I had her right at fifty on route sixty-six?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You take care of that girl, Gar. Don’t drive so reckless.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Statistics prove a car’s lots safer than a buggy. You know
+that?” He was looking at Ellen, “Goodbye, hon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Goodbye, Uncle.” She waited for them to be gone, for
+routines to be reestablished and the ways of peace to come
+over the farm. She yearned toward spring, sick of winter’s
+hanging on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So long, Maria,” Garland was calling. Maria waved, walking
+back to the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bye now, Ma.” And the small figure promised, “I’ll write
+once a week, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The yellow car was going down the lane and turning onto
+the road. Stillness descended until it rang like wounded thunder.
+Anton went toward the porch where Maria, in her dark
+red sweater and a discarded broad-brimmed hat of his, waited
+to follow Anton into the house. Ellen walked over to the
+well, putting her coat collar up. She sat on the damp covering
+board and shivered. From her pocket she was taking the
+gold-linked necklace Garland had given her. She dangled it
+where the sun collected to glint and catch the luster. She held
+it over the well before letting it drop.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-4-5">
+<a id="page-180" class="pagenum" title="180"></a>
+13
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Song sparrows were murmuring. Deep in burrows, woodchucks
+blinked and closed their eyes again. Brave white-carved
+flowers unfolded wearily and narrow spires of
+pokeweed started from the debris of winter. A green-striped
+butterfly emerged misshapen from a chrysalis and pumped
+wet wings. Cows bawled, feeling the season, and rutting male
+hogs screamed. Jack carried traces of skunk musk. On Ash
+Wednesday Father Tompert marked the foreheads of Ellen
+and her parents with a cross of ashes, saying, “Remember
+man, thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From cover of the woods Ellen was watching a dog fox in
+a fallow field. It was hunting white-footed mice, repeatedly
+<a id="page-181" class="pagenum" title="181"></a>
+leaped stiff-legged above the weeds, brush high. She rested
+her hands on the thick winter coats of the three goats at her
+side. She put her mind on Frankie, who wrote abrupt letters
+from Chicago. They brought lines to her father’s face until
+Ellen would feel the compassion heating her. She climbed a
+stile in the rail fence and her does were clambering after, the
+spotted kid leaping, shaking its long ears. Her thoughts had
+turned to Garland, and the secret about Marc. Wish I was
+wise. There were him and Pa both, grieving as youngens after
+the love of that mother of theirs, that Nell Gaddy. And her
+honing all the while for Marc’s true daddy that had left her.
+None of them satisfied. And Pa’d never study out that secret
+the way Uncle did. Pa would never think Nell could get
+caught with a brat the same as me. Her mind touched on
+the money she had sent last week again to the Doughertys.
+I put the child to a good mother. I never wanted him. Poor
+thing. The goats followed as she went up through the budding,
+winter-bare woods.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+And three years would pass, years of time merged and
+woven in a pattern on an endless loom of chores. The color
+in Ellen’s life would break in snatches on the cloth of the
+drab days. By summer the radio Garland had brought was
+growing dim. Anton laid his ear to it in the evenings to catch
+the feeble sound. “It’s that far off,” he whispered, intent.
+Then the batteries were exhausted and the instrument was
+stored away in the wagon shed to gather cobwebs and mold.
+Maria’s pressure cooker would blow up, rending a gash on
+the rafter beams. Maria hid in the clothes press, staying there
+until Ellen had picked up the torn metal parts and thrown
+them out. She wore the same clothes day on day, her light-colored
+dresses hanging unused on the ridgepole in her room.
+Mud daubers constructed a nest over them, soaring in summer
+with damp balls dangling from their legs, in and out the
+two small windows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-182" class="pagenum" title="182"></a>
+At first Ellen missed her sister, her shrill voice and dependent
+ways. She told Lily Garrett, “Frankie would always
+be after me to stir up a cake or mend for her. She’d
+lean on me in her way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey, my fudge party was the most fun,” Lily was giggling.
+“Looks like you being nineteen now, Ellie, your papa’d
+let you come. And we shelled corn too. Craig Hedrick found
+a red car. There. He kissed me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that all he did?” Ellen was picking through a pile of
+cornhusks, looking for flat strips to splice and braid into mats.
+“He talk about petunia flowers?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lily’s carefully arranged curls shook. “I ne’er been kissed
+so. Reckon I could catch him, Ellie? Think of me with a
+baby and a man calling me wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Changes would take place within Ellen over these three
+years. Going to church, following her parents in, she came
+to feel that those whom she had seen as pure in the time
+of her transgression were not so. They hid their sins, she
+dared to think, and dressed themselves a poppet God. When
+Anton stepped into the confession cubicle and she heard him
+mumbling ever too loud as he pled the venial sins, she allowed
+herself to think he made his shrift complacently. When he
+dipped the holy water she pitied his narrow habits and more
+than before devoted herself to his will that he might see she
+knew her duty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The God that was hers was not enclosed where the crowd
+gathered. She set her mind on it. Hers stood above when she
+was on the land and alone. His feet were the hills, his hand
+the wind that quivered, his eyes those of the meekest birds.
+“This one’s my Lord,” she said, solaced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was stirred to confide in Anton once. They were standing
+on the porch on a summer’s night while a storm was
+breeding in the south. Lightning flicked and the hot earth
+panted for the coming water. “You can feel the hands of God
+<a id="page-183" class="pagenum" title="183"></a>
+now. All the unknowing. You feel it, Pa? How we’re just
+naught?” She was leaning toward him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you’d take the time, girl,” he said heavily, “to read His
+word, you’d know that He formed man of the dust of the
+ground and you’d know of the Day of Judgment and the
+opening of the graves. The sun shall be turned to darkness
+and the moon to blood.” He left her sitting on the stair. Large
+drops began to fall and the wind swept in a deep sweetness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes a young man would look on Ellen as she was
+standing with Maria in the churchyard, or when bartering at
+Love’s. Or one would offer her a lift in his wagon and would
+look at the gold-flecked pupils and the ripe figure. Then she
+cast her eyes down, surly, or stared at him, bold, until he
+turned aside. She was guarding herself against a hurt. Dyke
+Burwell came to call, waited on the divan in the parlor while
+she slipped away to watch the winging bees, honey-dripped
+and golden, working the hives. Anton ferreted after her and
+bade her keep the young man company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I’ve no mind for him, Pa,” she protested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He roared, “What’s awry with you and you won’t be
+courted? I’ll not put up with your foldilay ways.” He was
+thrusting his chin, “You do as bid, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So she sat sullen with Dyke. But she baited him slyly and
+he went away and came no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Love’s grocery one time, while she was debating on
+thread and needles and picking out salt and coffee, a thing
+happened. Carl Brinker’s hired man was bartering with
+Grady. Ellen had seen the new green pickup outside. He
+was a dark fellow with a heavy face and fists. “You see, Ay
+was my boss’s hired hand before me, Mester Love,” the man
+droned. “Now, haven’t you got a bigger clevis pin?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What size you want? So his baby died?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stacey’s birdlike eyes were on Ellen. “You feeling ill?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen sensed a danger as she felt the flush rise. She laughed
+<a id="page-184" class="pagenum" title="184"></a>
+sharply, “No. I allow I’ve got all Ma needed. Excepting
+yeast. You got some fresh sponge?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll see if mine’s still working good.” Stacey disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen’s heart thudded, hearing the laborious speech of
+Brinker’s man. “That Ay’s had a tedious run of bad luck.
+First his daddy passed on, then his sister ran off. Rose Ay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So?” said Grady. “Tell your boss I got new bridle rosettes
+in. White and blue.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That Ay’s sister was comely. Biggity but comely.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ay wasn’t much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I ne’er knew him well. We used his store some. I’ll
+tell Mester Brinker about those gaudies. He’ll buy some for
+that stallion. You e’er seen that horse?” The man was slowly
+scratching his head. “Now what about the Lord taking that
+little child?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He gives and He takes away,” sighed Grady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen put the warm jar of yeast in her basket, hurried past
+the two men. Grady was nodding, “Here’s someone seen an
+old beau of yours in Louisville.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er had a beau.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Took you to the circus in New Hope, a bird told me.”
+Grady’s eyes flickered while he grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Morning, miss.” Brinker’s man touched his cap, doleful.
+“You know Mester Ay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be getting along now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That had happened in the first of the three years. Ellen
+would ponder on it. Christian was gone out of her days for
+ever and all of eternity. She faced it. He had taken some
+woman to wife, his sweetheart, his may, for the rest of their
+enduring lives. She twisted it and the sharp hurt was dead.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In that first year too, Garland and Frankie had driven
+down for the Christmas holiday in a factory-fresh five-passenger
+Oakland. Ellen saw at once that the year in Chicago
+<a id="page-185" class="pagenum" title="185"></a>
+had altered Frankie. Her old gaiety was shed. She wore a
+modish yellow cloche pulled over her brow, her jacket was
+long, belted at the hips. Her bright hair was bobbed. Anton
+was beside himself, fascinated at Frankie’s apparel and her
+new manner. “I declare she’s a little swell, gar.” He scratched
+his head. “How do you like city life, Poppet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How’s your learning coming on? Are folks setting up?
+I vow. Hum.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well. I’ll unpack now, if you don’t mind.” She
+was going coolly up the stairs and he watched, silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What happened to that radio I gave you?” Garland asked.
+“Hell, I’ve got six in my house now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen had dressed the house with holly and bought red
+candles for the table. She was making her sister’s favorite
+desserts. “I threw together a blackberry cake, Frankie. We
+haven’t had one since you’ve been gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never noticed Ma was so simple, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Should I top it with boiled white icing or jam?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was Mrs. Quimby at Uncle’s when you were there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How come you ask?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hate that know-all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does Uncle treat you good, Frankie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s different there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean, does he make o’er you a lot?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, he’s not much for romping like Pa was, Ellie. He
+thinks me a little child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Ellen was satisfied about Garland. “Reckon I’ll use icing
+and jam both, Frankie.” Ellen was constrained if Garland
+came upon her alone, but in the family group he would seem
+her familiar uncle. When she thought of his incestuous overture
+of the last winter, she would shove the episode into a
+cupboard of her mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Around the fire in the evening, Anton had poured his tales,
+overweening, on the younger girl. “Used to be the only tools
+<a id="page-186" class="pagenum" title="186"></a>
+a man needed were made of wood, Poppet. A plow and a
+harrow and a wagon. Your grandsir used a peg-tooth harrow
+with a hickory-wood frame. When a tooth broke off, he
+fitted a new one from the woods. Haw. No running to the
+Bethel Hardware for a broken piece of this or that. Just like
+the old country.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Speaking of the old country,” said Garland, “you girls
+know about truffle hunters?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s a truffle, Uncle?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Grows on roots of oaks. There was an old woman hunted
+them in this village in France where your ancestors lived.
+She’d take a basket and spade and a pig on a leash.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Slut?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, puss, this wasn’t a trained pig. Truffles have a strong
+odor that any pig can scent. He roots under a tree and then
+she drives him off and digs them up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Such uses for hogs,” Maria was saying, “as you’ve heard
+of.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sometimes they use dogs, but this woman used a pig. She
+chained him at night or he’d slip out and get the truffles.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Christmas makes you remember, doesn’t it, Uncle?” said
+Frankie suddenly. “Why don’t you tell stories at home?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This here’s your home,” grumbled Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was filling glasses with the “imported” Scotch he
+had brought. “Now, Frankie,” he cautioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Want to hear more about hogs?” asked Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When our grandsir came homesteading all he had was a
+few razorbacks. He fattened them on oak and buckmast, said
+it beat corn any day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t see how a pig could be fatter than that spotted
+boar you’ve got,” said Garland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Luther. He’s ornery, spoiled my best milker and her heifer
+calf.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-187" class="pagenum" title="187"></a>
+“Say, Frankie’s practiced a Christmas song for you, An,”
+Garland said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Play it, Poppet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t feel like singing now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ask you to,” Anton glowered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s got a new singing teacher,” Garland was saying as
+the girl went reluctant to the piano. “Makes the third one
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She had two grammar mesters before she went with you,”
+said Anton. “One walked out on me and Peyton tried to quit
+when I fired him. How come they do that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl played accurately, accompanying herself in a
+reedy tone.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I heard the bells on Christmas day</p>
+      <p class="verse">Their old familiar carols play</p>
+      <p class="verse">And wild and sweet the words repeat</p>
+      <p class="verse">Of peace on earth good will to men</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen was bringing in a split-oak basket of persimmons.
+“I ran onto them yesterday, Pa. I don’t know why the possums
+let them be.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton took one of the soft orange fruit. “Used to be they
+made ’simmon beer in this county. It wasn’t sharp like city
+beer, Gar. We used to roast ’simmon seeds too, when coffee
+was scarce.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland bit into the mellow sweet fruit. “They’re good.
+The pucker’s gone out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The frost seasons them,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know. Used to hunt them when I was a kid.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A ’simmon tree’s got a black heartwood in its center,”
+Anton said, “with layers of yellow sapwood outside it. It’s the
+only tree I know like that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those rings, now,” said Ellen. “You can count the rings
+to tell the age of a tree.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-188" class="pagenum" title="188"></a>
+“Is that black heartwood in the young tree?” asked Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And if there’s a drought,” Ellen went on, “the ring’s
+scarce to be read, it’s so narrow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to know about that heartwood, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you don’t find hit in a sapling, Poppet. It comes
+of itself as the tree takes on age.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think it’s there in the young tree,” Frankie said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How come you to worry on that, Poppet? It’s no consequence.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I want to know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now there,” said Garland. “It’s getting on bedtime. I can
+tell Frankie’s sleepy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie never sang a song yet,” said Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll sing in the morning. We’re wasting coal oil. Come on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girls climbed from the fire-warmed parlor to the loft
+where winter rain reeled on the roof. Under dank blankets
+they were waiting for the warmth of their bodies to overtake
+them. Anton’s disputing voice came up the stairs, “Why’s
+she act so? Like a highborn one? What are you doing to
+her there in that city?” Garland’s voice was heard in murmur.
+And again Anton’s rude shout, “Be she e’er seeing men?” And
+in a moment, “Well, that don’t mean a thing. N. J. says all
+his sister e’er did was set on a fellow’s lap one winter. Said
+his pa watched them courting by the range and thought no
+harm. They hardly spoke but only set there hugging. Now
+before God, she came by a child and his pa had to get them
+married.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the melancholy dark from her bed, over the sound of
+the sleet whipping the shingles, Ellen whispered, “You like a
+fellow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I’m a poor country girl there. I hear them laugh. I
+came on my singing teacher snickering with Uncle. It was
+about me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When do you think you’ll start playing in public like Pa
+wants?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-189" class="pagenum" title="189"></a>
+“I’m the most alone person. It’s because I’m queer, I think.
+Maybe Pa made me so. Or else I get it from Ma. The way
+I talk and act.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton’s voice was audible through the doorway as they
+came into the hall downstairs, “And then I heard Ma saying,
+I’d fain have been a lady but I married you, little feist. We
+dragged her down, Gar. We gommed her desires.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, An, you’re drunk. Forget Ma. Like I did long ago.
+Let’s get back to the subject. As I see it, Frankie’s doing the
+best she can. She’s not got much gumption and she’s plenty
+like you when she gets stubborn, but I think she’s beginning
+to adjust. This is the first vacation she’s had, what with lessons.
+I hope I can keep her present teacher. Says he’s got his
+hands full. Costs a mint, you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hum. If there’s anything I can do for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re my brother.” Garland’s familiar slap on Anton’s
+back was carried up the staircase. “Covers a multitude of sins.
+We’ve got to stick together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen thought Frankie was asleep until she heard the voice
+threading the dark. “Seems I got a black heartwood core same
+as that ’simmon tree.” The girl’s voice was sated with self-pity.
+“People can tell it’s there.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The next day Garland came to the barn where Ellen was
+cleaning the goats’ stable, heaping the soiled litter outside the
+shed with a heavy fork. An acrid stench hung in the air and
+the flock of five moved about her. “Keep you company
+awhile, hon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have quite a bunch of your own here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I set store by them.” She was forking fresh bedding in the
+pen and the animals crowded in to lie down, nosing and
+chewing the straw. She fastened the gate and leaned to watch
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Long time ago,” Garland was saying, “old man Alden
+<a id="page-190" class="pagenum" title="190"></a>
+used to keep a pair of nannies in his shack with him. Wonder
+if he’s still alive.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ne’er heard of him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lived a few miles up the road. Us boys would sneak over
+to peek in his windows. Watch him suck the milk from the
+udders.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that a fact?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland watched her intently. “You’re wonderful, puss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a silly thing to say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you make me feel like a boy again. I always said it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen laughed at him. “Reckon I best get to the kitchen.
+I’ll race you to see if you’re still a boy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now there’s a cruel wench.” He trailed after her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the steps she waited. As they started up they became
+aware suddenly of a commotion within the house, of cries
+and Anton’s growls. Ellen was running up the stairs. “I’m
+afraid it’s Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the shrill cry of Frankie pierced, “I won’t go back.
+I won’t. I hate you. You can’t make me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And a sound was heard so that Ellen turned to Garland.
+“He’s beating her. He’ll not be gainsaid. What’ll we do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll show you what. He’s always got to lord it over someone.”
+Garland sharpened his wrath, ran into the hall, flinging
+open the parlor door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was red-faced, and Frankie, in a despair of tears,
+was shaking in a corner of the sofa, her knitted skirt pulled
+above her knees, her bobbed hair tangled. She hid her face.
+“I don’t care about nothing. I don’t care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland caught Anton’s arm and while they shouted, Ellen
+bade her sister come into the kitchen. Frankie laid her head
+on the table and wept. Ellen walked about the room at her
+work, finally coaxing, “Now these fruits have to be cut up
+for the cake. You always were good at it, Frankie. Here’s the
+knife and bowl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-191" class="pagenum" title="191"></a>
+Frankie pushed them from her. “Ellie, I do hate Pa.” She
+fled up the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The angered voices in the parlor rose and fell until the
+milking hour came. Then Anton, black-faced, strode to the
+barn. Garland watched him from the porch stoop and then
+followed. “There,” said Ellen to Maria who came in from
+the bedroom, “things are in a state. Pa ought to let Frankie
+stay here where she belongs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t beard Mester Gaddy,” Maria advised. “Let him be.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night by the fireside it was as if a ghostly thing stood
+amid them. Ellen sighed. Maria, feeling the trouble, gestured
+to herself. Garland smoked one cigarette after another. And
+Frankie was white, holding her head erect. “Reckon I’ll go
+to bed,” she said at length. “Good night all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton bent his scorn-washed face over a farm journal.
+“Well, I see here it tells about them foreigners in the old
+country using artificial insemination. Now I reckon that’s a
+sin against a beast. It’s sodomy.” He pulled furiously on his
+dead pipe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chrissake, An.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But in the morning Ellen caught sight at the stairhead of
+Frankie and Anton. The thin words came, “Forgive my willfulness,
+Pa.” Frankie’s face was hard. She had purchased her
+peace, before leaving her father again, kneeling in the short
+skirt she now wore.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On the second Christmas of these three years, Frankie
+brought her contradictory ways again into focus, so that
+Anton stalked about in dudgeon, lying in wait for her open
+rebellion. She would turn him though, in a new cunning way
+she had learned, “Beg your pardon, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The holiday evenings were drawn short and quiet by the
+hickory and oak-fed fires. After midnight mass, all but Garland
+ate sparely at the table, disheartened. The sliced meats
+and cheese, the sweet cakes and peppered blood pudding,
+<a id="page-192" class="pagenum" title="192"></a>
+were spread forth. “Have some Barrier Cherries, Uncle,”
+Ellen pressed him. “Frankie and Lily Garrett made them
+once.” Ellen, who knew her father and sister so well, felt the
+sadness of it. She knew the man was like a willful child and
+here was his only beloved set against him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie went back to Chicago then. Before they drove
+away in Garland’s Oakland sedan with the high-squared top
+and the yellow leather seats, Garland announced, “Frankie’s
+been engaged for her first recital. March the sixteenth, nineteen
+twenty-nine. Frankie Gaddy enters the lists of the
+immortals.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut up, Uncle,” Frankie sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You greening me, Garland?” Anton was suspicious. “You
+going to play before those folks?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I am, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, An, she’s booked,” Garland shouted. “In one of my
+theatres.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I vow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My,” Ellen said, “I ne’er thought Frankie’d be so bold.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+And time moved, weaving a tapestry. On radiant summer
+nights moonlight laved the meadows and frogs dripped shrill
+tones. Ellen would slip down the stairs to wander where
+flowering honeysuckle presaged the passing of time. Longings
+waxed in her. She lay in the honeyed grass and wept easily.
+The moon shone and she bared her white body, wondered
+at the restlessness clutching her. She dwelled on the summer
+she had met Christian Ay, for at that one time the even cord
+of her life had risen to such a gleaming line that she doubted
+on it ever after. I’m bound and thralled. The pleasure and
+the sadness are too close together. She went back to her attic
+room to wait for dawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now and then she thought of the child, Simon, developed
+a curiosity, now that she counted the passion buried, to see
+if this relic bore any resemblances. “I have a notion to visit
+<a id="page-193" class="pagenum" title="193"></a>
+Penny Dougherty,” she was saying to Anton. “She’s invited
+me. Says she’s got guineas and we can have a clutch of eggs
+if we want. I could raise us a flock. Set the yellow hen on
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Guineas. And that worthless ooman,” he scoffed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Guineas are no work. You turn them loose and they pair
+off and care for the eggs by themselves. When you want a
+meal you catch them where they’re roosting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a far piece to Weems Crossroads but for guinea eggs.
+And I declared you’d not set foot off this place save to be
+married. So I said.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m twenty. And I’ll be gone o’ernight. I promise, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t like it. You’re a froward one. It costs a mort of
+money going on the train. All to see some poor trash.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll make it up to you, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You be back in a day, girl. You got beans to plant, and
+the cabbages to set out now the killing frosts are gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll do it, Pa. Day after tomorrow. Soon as I get back, I’ll
+set them out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So she found herself walking up the lane to the familiar
+small house. Penny greeted her, and her fine features seemed
+a little thinner. She was laughing, “You came for Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Penny, let me see that baby girl you wrote about,
+Blossom.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s in here, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they looked at the sleeping child, Ellen whispered,
+“I can’t take Simon. Pa doesn’t know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s all right. We love him, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I brought more money.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three little boys were trooping through the doorway,
+shouting. The baby awoke, began to wail. Ellen saw Simon,
+nearly three now. He was dressed in a blue-checked pinafore,
+and his small bottoms were bare. He was smallish and fair
+with round blue eyes. He looked at her soberly and never
+smiled. Clate had forgot Ellen, and Anse, thin and dark, clung
+<a id="page-194" class="pagenum" title="194"></a>
+to Penny. Simon was leaning on the wall, his fat thumb in
+his mouth. Luke arrived amid the bedlam and the children
+shouted to see him, “Da’s home.” Ellen saw Simon squealed
+and leaped with the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They took her out to the field to see the goats and the old
+donkey. Clate was prompted to recite, lisping.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">When the elm leaf</p>
+      <p class="verse">Be big ath a mouthe’s ear</p>
+      <p class="verse">Then to thow barley</p>
+      <p class="verse">Ne’er you fear</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+All the while nearby was Ellen’s son, gazing dumb. His foster
+mother called him to her. “This is your own ma, Simon. Like
+I told you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning Ellen was returning on the train. She had
+a setting of spotted guinea eggs in a box. Her mind was on
+the beans to be planted; she wondered whether Love’s would
+have flats of young cabbage plants in yet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The country seemed prosperous. But among the farmers
+were muffled noises of protest. Anton Gaddy growled when
+he got ninety-eight cents for wheat that had brought two
+dollars and thirty-four a bushel after the Great War. Corn
+dropped to seventy-nine cents, though it used to be good
+for a dollar to a dollar-fifty. He spoke to Sam, “Reckon you
+could get by with a little less a week? I’m pure strapped for
+cash. You could take a hen maybe.” He shrugged nervously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.” Sam scratched his back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pick one of the old ones with a yellow beak and ears.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now Mester Gaddy. I wouldn’t take a good layer.” Sam
+was squinting up, his eyes sharp in his leathery face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hate it, being strapped, Sam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they were talking, restless, the stock market was
+plunging. The depression was on. When Anton heard next
+<a id="page-195" class="pagenum" title="195"></a>
+week from N. J. Bilberry of the crisis, he said, “Now there’s
+somewhat for those rich folk to fret about. It’s no worry
+to us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton felt vindicated in his way of life, wondered idly if
+Garland had been affected. And he wished Frankie would
+write again. Her piano recital of last March had been a failure,
+the few letters she had written since ignored the subject.
+The flame in Anton’s life that burned through this daughter
+dimmed, bewildering him, causing his dream to lag. “Hum.
+Frankie’s going to make that music yet before the crowd.
+I’ve got to send her some money again, come the evening
+mail.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a letter arrived from Chicago.
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p class="addr">
+Dear Father,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is not necessary to direct any more checks to me. You
+need money worse. I moved from Uncle’s house a while ago
+to an apartment. I’m going to get a job. Uncle is sick so we
+won’t drive down. I will spend Yule in Chicago. Uncle lost
+his Oakland. The government men took it away. He had a
+considerable loss in the market. He has real worries. One of
+his friends jumped out of a window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I will come to visit next summer for sure, and maybe bring
+a friend with me to see the dear farm and meet the old folks
+at home. Then like the song goes, I’ll tuck me to sleep in my
+old ’Tucky home!
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign">
+daughter Frankie
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="part" id="chapter-0-5" title="Part three">
+<a id="page-197" class="pagenum" title="197"></a>
+part three
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Let it be what it is she said</p>
+      <p class="verse">Let it wait as it must</p>
+      <p class="verse">It will choose soon or late</p>
+      <p class="verse">Let it wait</p>
+      <p class="verse">Love has life not of us</p>
+      <p class="verse">But of love she said</p>
+      <p class="verse">Let it lie where it must</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-5-1">
+<a id="page-199" class="pagenum" title="199"></a>
+14
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Ellen was cutting across the field to the York cabin in the
+late May morning. Amanda York had married the smithy’s
+son, Jerome Hatfield. The couple lived in one side of the
+cabin. Jerome and Mr. York cared for the apple orchard surrounding
+it and worked in the Bethel Stone Foundry. During
+the winter and spring Ellen had watched Amanda grow heavy
+with child, taking vicarious pleasure in the young wife’s joy.
+“If it’s a boy,” Amanda had claimed, “we’re going to call it
+Junior. Wonder if it could be baptized Junior, Ellie? I doubt
+it’s a Christian name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the cabin door Ellen called, “Hey, Mandy. Anybody
+home?” She heard the hoarse pained cry from within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-200" class="pagenum" title="200"></a>
+Mrs. York was shuffling out of the bedroom. “Ah, hit’s
+you, Ellen.” Her face was yellowed with fear, eyes staring
+with wakefulness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mandy’s been taken?” Ellen asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Doc Trumbo’s here. It’s not coming right. Ellen, you
+think somewhat could happen to her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bearing’s not so bad,” said Ellen, uncertain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I put the ax under the bed. She ought to have had it by
+now. She’s been at it since noon yesterday. She’s giving out.
+She’s quit trying.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was a scream from the room beyond, animal-like
+in travail. Ellen was recalling a spotted heifer that couldn’t
+bear its calf; Anton had hitched the team, and taken it from
+the womb. The scream circled the room and after it, like a
+splintering of glass, a thin cry echoed. “Ah, Doc’s got hit
+now.” The woman was scurrying away. Ellen followed
+slowly into the blood-odored room. Amanda lay oddly flat on
+rumpled stained sheets, her eyes shut in a white face. On the
+pillow her dark hair flowed. Ellen took her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch the bed,” the face whispered
+strangely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s o’er now,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amanda’s eyes came open with an effort of the heavy lids.
+“Have we got our baby?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Mandy.” Ellen was frightened. “You rest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to see it.” The words were barely discernible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.” Ellen went to the table where the doctor was
+binding a cloth about the infant’s navel. It feebly squirmed its
+thin-skinned damp red body and wrinkled its face. “She
+wants it, Doc.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He glanced up at Ellen. “Let’s see, you must be one of those
+Gaddys. Your father hasn’t much use for satchel doctors,
+either, has he? You know these women never called me till an
+hour ago?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mandy wants to see her baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-201" class="pagenum" title="201"></a>
+“They call me in at the last minute. Think they can do it
+all themselves. Like Indian squaws.” He wrapped the child in
+the warmed flannel that he took from Mrs. York and laid it
+by its mother’s face. “Lie still there, girl. I’m going to look at
+you now.” He spoke softly, disappeared into the kitchen to
+wash his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s fair, Mandy,” Ellen whispered, “your baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, she is,” said Mrs. York, “with it all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amanda’s breath rattled. She was drawing strangled gasps
+as if she had run a long stretch. Her eyes became fixed on the
+hewn-log walls, the cracked calking. She shuddered, the labored
+breath struggle faded and ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. York sucked in her words, “My girl.” She put a hand
+out to touch the tired face, screamed, “Ah, Doc.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Trumbo stumbled on the threshold in his haste. He
+was lifting Amanda’s wrist, laying it down, speaking sharply
+to Ellen, “Good Christ, where’s this girl’s husband?” He
+picked the sleeping infant up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got to cover the mirror,” Mrs. York mumbled, hurrying
+indecisively about the room. “So the baby doesn’t die as
+well. And stop the clock hands. Now what else must I do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jerome works at the stone foundry, Doc. Same as Mr.
+York. I can call them from Love’s store.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“First take the child here. This old one’ll be no more use.”
+He turned to Amanda’s body again. Ellen laid the baby in the
+cradle. It was sleeping, its face like an inflamed pansy, lost
+amid ribbons and ruffles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah. You did it, Doc,” Mrs. York keened. “You were busy
+with yourself and your washing and you let it happen. I
+didn’t want you here. It was only because Mandy made me.
+She’d have come through but for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Mrs. York,” he began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman appealed to Ellen, “Don’t ne’er have a child,
+Ellen Gaddy. Don’t ne’er get caught with a child.” She
+<a id="page-202" class="pagenum" title="202"></a>
+grasped her arm, the tears squeezing from her old eyes,
+watering the wrinkles of her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got to go, Mrs. York.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Trumbo continued, “She’d been hemorrhaging. These
+things will happen. I packed her, did everything humanly
+possible. I came too late.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman was taboring on the discolored sheet. “Ah,
+now what have I got?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve got the child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want hit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stood a moment in the cabin passageway before starting
+up the road toward Millville. “There’s a thing I keep trying
+to remember.” She spoke aloud, dazed. At the store she
+cranked the iron handle to the wood box that hung on the
+wall. “Central?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll have to speak up, Madam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give me the Bethel Foundry.” When she had told Jerome,
+and heard the click at the other end, she walked out slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stacey called after, “Tell Maria Gaddy that eggs are down
+three cents again. They’re hardly worth trading.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen didn’t hear. A light mist of rain had begun and a
+sweet smell like the breath of cows was coming from the
+red plowed fields. The thing that had slipped her mind was
+back. It was the struggle to bear her own child, the way the
+throes had struck her in an open field and how she’d dragged
+herself to the shelter of the pear tree. The sweet heavy scent
+of crushed grass and blood and the fluttering of goldfinches
+were mingled into the memory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a week Jerome Hatfield came to speak to Anton.
+“Our baby’s ailing. Doc says she might hold down goat milk.”
+His face was haggard, his form stooped in exhaustion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My daughter’s got the goats.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to buy one from her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went to the woodshed and tied a rope to Rhodie’s
+collar. The doe had a little female kid at its side. “You keep
+<a id="page-203" class="pagenum" title="203"></a>
+Rhodie for as long as your baby needs the milk, Jerome. And
+raise the kid for the baby’s own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m beholden.” He was lifting the goats into the wagon,
+fastening them there. He drove away, Rhodie baaing plaintively.
+Ellen watched them go. Here’s the land flowing over
+with milk and honey. The spring grass is pushing through the
+red land until it’s all pink and green. And Mandy’s dead. All
+about was death. The early dark of morning sometimes would
+be interrupted, awakening her, by Jack’s bark, followed by
+shotgun blasts and her father’s gruff tones. Ellen would know
+he had gone down in his mackinaw to kill some varmint in
+the barnyard. There was no escape from death, no way you
+could forget it was waiting. Ellen was resentful, disbelieving
+that some day her own strength would wither. I’m glad it
+wasn’t me when I bore that child back there. I recall I saw
+the evening star. And when Luke and Penny came, I got up
+from the orchard floor and walked to the house myself while
+Penny carried him. But then I pushed him from me, turned
+my back on my first-born.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She spoke up that night after the Gaddy supper had been
+eaten. The May rain was falling weighted, somnambulant, the
+air was close. “I hid it from you, Pa. Before I came home that
+summer when I’d run off from Uncle Garland.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You played the harlot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I went to the Doughertys and had him there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were in St. Louis.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I went to Weems Crossroads in Illinois. I was afraid
+of you. The boy’s there now. I saw him when I went to get
+that clutch of guinea eggs that turned bad. Now I want to
+bring him here, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was stumping into the hall; he returned with the
+wide belt that he held by its buckle. “Before God your lying
+tongue is an abomination. Name the times I’ve said it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked at him stony-faced. “Reckon I’m too old to
+<a id="page-204" class="pagenum" title="204"></a>
+whip, Pa. I’m twenty-one and the mother of your grandchild.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused. “The father of a fool has no joy.” His heavy
+mouth was shaking. He drew the strap repeatedly through
+the palm of his hand, the harsh sliding noise rippling into the
+corners of the room like stones tossed in a pond. “My brother
+Marc, lusted. You be bound to do the same. He ran off from
+the college where my ma sent him. To a whorehouse. At St.
+Louis. And there’s where she went to get him. Dead. Now I’ve
+always claimed you had his blood, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen’s eyes narrowed and shone. “You know what Marc
+was to your ma?” Her nerves shivered to their ends as her
+temper swung on her. “I know what that Nell did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton halted at bay. “Don’t say her name. She was a saint,
+girl. She sits at Mary’s right hand even now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was helpless, found she couldn’t strike. She kept
+silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton slapped the belt limply against his overall pants. He
+turned to a thin-legged doweled chair that was by the wall.
+“A harlot,” he said softly. “Upon e’er a high hill and under
+e’er a green tree, thou wanderest, playing the harlot. So says
+Jeremiah.” He let the strap drop, lifted the chair by its rungs,
+crashed it violently, splintering, to the floor. “Defiled.” He
+went from the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was looking at Maria. “You heard, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You got a child, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A little boy, Ma. Named Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had a boy baby once. But he was a betimes child and
+had no life. I named him after Mester Gaddy for he wanted
+it. But they took him. He’s moldering out some’eres. I ne’er
+liked rain some way. Seems a boy would be unhappy and
+turn about in a wet place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton fumed as days passed. “Who’s its pa?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want to say. He’s as good as dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’ll they speak of me when it’s told up and down the
+county?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-205" class="pagenum" title="205"></a>
+“Tell that I married a Yankee, Pa. And he left me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, the damn fool foreigner was killed. His folks have
+raised the child till now. And you’re fixing to bring it here.”
+He paused to eye Ellen with scorn. “Does it favor the
+Gaddys?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon so, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s hit called?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon Gaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he said, “You’ll tell it to the priest, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll tell it Sunday. Before you can go for the brat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll tell it in the priest’s house, but not in the confessional.”
+She said bravely, “I’ve got a mind to leave the church.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Impotent in frustration and wrath, Anton turned away. He
+was heard bawling commands to the team as he plowed up
+and down, making ready for the corn-planting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were standing before Father Tompert in the parlor
+of the rectory. Ellen, emboldened by her first successful stand
+against her father, spoke candidly to the Jesuit priest. “It’s
+like the church wants to boundary God, Father. And He is
+thus and so. And if you say at such a time such a prayer
+you’ll get off so much sooner to paradise. This is false to me,
+Father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold, girl, you blaspheme,” roared Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Father Tompert said, “I’ll speak with your daughter alone,
+sir. Wait outside this room. If you please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Ellen told the priest what was in her. And she added,
+“In the gospel of Matthew the Lord himself says, don’t pray
+where you’re seen of men. But enter into thy closet. And
+when you’ve shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in
+secret. And use not vain repetitions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The priest saw she loved God. He saw her mind was bright
+and she had thought this thing out. The wise Jesuit was not
+uncommon among those consecrated to the cross of his faith.
+He spoke to Ellen. “It’s not your kind that need the mother
+<a id="page-206" class="pagenum" title="206"></a>
+church, Ellen. We’ll wait till you’re ready to come again to
+us. Till then, the Lord be with thy spirit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was walking to the door. She laid her hand on the
+sleeve of his cassock. “Father, is it wrong to lie to the neighbors
+and say I had a husband?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at her while a bell tolled somewhere outside over
+a stitch of time. She saw his eyes were an indigo blue and the
+pupil in the center was a dormant coal. “For the sake of the
+child, perhaps not. In the eyes of God it may have been a
+marriage. I don’t know.” He folded his arms, went to the
+door. His face was smooth, his body moved ageless below
+the black frock. “Don’t worry about your daughter, sir. She’s
+in no danger of damnation. God is with her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen put on the faded dotted Swiss dress in the morning.
+She combed her hair, plaiting it tightly in a new way she had.
+Anton counted money into her hand. Maria was concerned
+about the census taker whom Tinie Bilberry had reported was
+coming and no telling at what hour. “Now, whate’er will
+I say to him? He be the government. I’m that fretted. Do you
+have to go now, girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The train coughed and clanged into the Weems Crossroads
+station. The road to the Doughertys seemed longer than Ellen
+remembered. She was passing the burial ground. A group of
+black-clad people were ringed at a fresh grave, cars and buggies
+were parked by the roadside. She hurried by. Amanda
+had been laid in the ground like that, for rain to rot and
+worms to suck until she would be as earth herself, her rosy
+face and gleaming braid living on in Jerome Hatfield. And
+a day might come when his daughter would ask, “Now tell,
+Pa, what was Mammy like?” And Jerome would say, “Seems
+I can’t remember. Appears to have fallen from me some way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen reached the mailbox, went up the lane and heard
+a guinea cry. It came to her on a sudden that she was terrified,
+as if she had been sent to the dark cellar for supplies again.
+Something lurked there in the shadows. She lifted her skirts
+<a id="page-207" class="pagenum" title="207"></a>
+and fled toward light and Penny and the gray-streaked house
+with door open and unscreened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen studied her son that evening. They took the meal out
+under the crab apple tree. Its leaves, not yet green, were
+coated with soft white hairs. Its pink flowers were like the
+wild rose, their spicy odor hovered where the five children
+gathered to be fed. Penny’s smallest child, Melinda, climbed
+on a stool, reaching her hands to the food. Blossom stood by
+Anse, who was four now and tall for his age, his dark head
+looking down on Simon’s blond one. And Clate was the leader
+and spoke what they all should do. “If it wasn’t for Clate,”
+Penny said, “I’d ne’er get this troop together. And we’ll have
+another Dougherty come Christmas. Seems I be e’er in this
+strait.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing about the table, the children were eating corn
+pone and bacon and beans. There was milk and a honeycomb.
+Melinda sucked her sticky tiny fingers and crumbled
+the pone. Penny was cleaning the child’s hands with a damp
+rag, laughing, “I got plenty of pullets now, Ellie. Luke built
+a hen house. I trade eggs just like you Gaddys now. But say,
+the store’s paying low this spring.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen saw that Simon’s cheekbones and hair were like those
+of Christian Ay. He had Anton’s long chin. But there was
+the look of Christian about his eyes and high cheeks and
+broad mouth. “I wonder at him, Penny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re thinking of his pa, aren’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I allowed I’d forgot what he looked like. Time goes so fast.
+But Simon calls him back to mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Soon you won’t see it. It’ll just be little Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see Luke coming. We’ve been lucky. Webster laid off
+most of the hands when times got bad, but he kept Luke on.
+He’d let them all go before Luke.” Penny’s look wound itself
+about the man moving up the path, her love like a warm
+wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-208" class="pagenum" title="208"></a>
+“He’ll be short and stout. Strong like a bull.” Ellen was
+watching Simon, who leaned against the table, his cheek on
+one fat hand while the other spooned beans unsteadily into
+his mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luke slept in the mow of the shed that night so there would
+be a place for Ellen. The women lay in the narrow bed. The
+baby girls were in cribs, the three boys in the attic room.
+“If you should have a trouble sometime, Penny,” Ellen said,
+before dozing off, “or there’s a sickness or a way I can help.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll miss Simon. He’s quiet. He can milk Tiny even.
+He coaxes me to let him. He does real good for four years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those little hands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And he’s one with the donkey. Why, I missed him once
+and hunted till I found him sleeping under it and it standing
+like a rock.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen awoke after midnight; she lay still until it came to
+her where she was. An owl called, deep-toned, “Whoo-whoo-tooo-oo-oo.”
+She went into the yard, walking down the
+lane in the warm dark. The owl shrieked suddenly from the
+catalpa by the road, in a voice like a woman. On noiseless
+widespread wings it was flapping toward her and passing.
+“There he’ll be, following me about the farm.” She stayed
+in the night until she reached the end of her fears. “Whate’er
+comes, it’s right to bring him home and tell he’s mine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning Simon had on bleached canvas pants, well
+patched. The sleeves to his nubby sweater were too short.
+They were waiting for Luke to come in a truck to take them
+to the station. Simon’s eyes were wide. He shrank from Ellen.
+Penny was washing his face again. “Take your ma’s hand,
+now.” But Simon shook his head, threw himself upon his
+foster mother. “You can have this. It’s Anse’s.” Penny was
+handing him a yarn ball she had made by winding bright
+colors around a piece of cloth. “If you’ll go now with your
+ma.” So then Simon took Ellen’s hand. She led him while
+he dragged his feet, gazing back to Penny and her brood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-209" class="pagenum" title="209"></a>
+“Where’s Simon going,” asked Clate, “with Anse’s ball?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s his ball now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the train the boy clutched his toy and looked away.
+At last Ellen took a piece of string and showed him how to
+play cat’s cradle. He was lifting the twine from her hands and
+biting his lip. He cast his blue eyes on her. “I like that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do too, Simon.” The sun fought through the streaked
+sooted windows. The train rushed through the greening land,
+coming into the valleys and hills of Kentucky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was there with the buckboard. He ordered them
+into the high seat. He had laid his faded kerchief under his
+black round hat to catch the sweat from his balding head. The
+corners of the red cloth were draping about his florid face.
+“Whole county can get a look at Gaddy’s youngen toting
+her bastard home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The horses trotted down the macadam main street, past
+store-fronts, out onto country roads. Ellen spoke timidly,
+“This is your granddaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quit jawing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they neared Millville, Ellen spoke again. “Penny said to
+tell you howdy. Her husband told me about a dog that grinds
+axes and things.” She spoke too rapidly, lines drawing on her
+forehead. “This man’s got a treadwheel. He runs a belt from
+it to his grindstone. The dog runs there in the big wheel,
+grinding sickles and knives too. Luke said the dog waits for
+the man to whistle.” She appealed to Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haw.” They had passed Love’s store, turned down Sweetincreek
+Road for a mile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She broke the silence once more. “Luke heard of a cat too.”
+And holding Simon in her arm, she felt him press close. He
+laid a chubby arm across her lap. “It turned a churn, treading
+a wheel for the lady of the house. Now think, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack met them barking. The dog’s eyes were nearly on a
+level with Simon’s; the child laid his face in the fur. When
+Anton drove the team to the barn, the boy watched him
+<a id="page-210" class="pagenum" title="210"></a>
+covertly. Maria was coming on the porch in her shapeless
+Mother Hubbard dress. “Now here’s your granny,” called
+Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria glanced at the boy, felt her bun. “The census taker
+came, Ellie. I had a day. I told him all he asked. I wish he’d
+come again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m glad it’s o’er, Ma. You know if Sam did my chores?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I gave him a cup of tea and some of that butter-cake you
+made. I told him all he asked.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-5-2">
+<a id="page-211" class="pagenum" title="211"></a>
+15
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+June dawdled by. Lilacs faded and roses unfolded. Simon
+went behind Ellen, dropping pumpkin seeds in the young
+corn rows. He wore new overalls that she ordered from the
+catalog, and shirts she made for him. He ran barefoot at her
+heels. In his pocket he kept the colored ball that had been
+Anse’s. He spoke seldom, but Ellen would hear his piping
+voice when he was with the geese or with Jack and he had no
+fear of the heavy work horses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie had written, “We’ll be down Independence Day.
+My friend is coming with me for two weeks’ vacation. Oh,
+the dear farm and dear Ellie. Why didn’t you tell me I had a
+nephew, Ellie? I can’t wait to see him. You cunning sister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-212" class="pagenum" title="212"></a>
+When Joe Burwell told his son that Frankie was coming,
+Dyke drove up the Gaddy lane in his Oldsmobile to offer the
+use of his car to meet the train. “It’ll be a pleasure to see
+Frankie again, Mester Gaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stay for supper with us, Dyke,” Ellen invited him, cordial.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two men went to the station. Ellen had hung the calico
+curtain across her parents’ bedroom to make the guest chamber.
+Simon had taken over Frankie’s old bed upstairs. She
+was placing a vase of catalpa blooms by the bedside on the
+marble-topped table. A heady fragrance seeped from the
+spikes of creamy scalloped blossoms specked with purple and
+yellow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The car was returning. Ellen and Simon were going into the
+yard. Frankie threw her arms about Ellen. There was perfume
+in her hair, her face was accented with eye-shadow and penciled
+brows, her lips vivid. She was kneeling by Simon. “I’m
+Auntie! See what we brought you.” She took his hand and
+they went to Dyke’s car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie’s companion was talking with the two men. Her
+black hair was shingled. She was heavy-hipped, her face appearing
+almost delicate above her squat body. She wore no
+make-up and held her head back to eye the men squarely.
+Anton waved his hand while talking, and she nodded again at
+him. They came toward Ellen. “This here’s Genevieve
+Wheeler,” Anton said. “Did I get that name right? Haw.
+And from the way Frankie wrote at first I thought it was
+a fellow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pleased,” Ellen said shortly. The woman’s hand was warm
+and dry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly do admire your father, Ellen. The farmer’s the
+backbone of America.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haw.” Anton was shrugging. “Go on in and get settled,
+you-all. We’ll be back when we finish the chores. Coming,
+Dyke?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-213" class="pagenum" title="213"></a>
+Frankie opened the screen door for Simon. She called,
+“Ellie, he’s cute.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen followed the men to the barns. Dyke, in his black
+suit, was feeding the cows. Later Simon came out. He stroked
+the big shoulder of the brown cow that Ellen was milking.
+“I like Auntie, Mama,” he lisped. “She brung me this.” He
+wore a stiff yellow visor cap. He straightened it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s go tend the goats, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy strutted beside her, looking up. “I’ll milk Leona
+for you, Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See if you can get it all this time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Leona had a high round udder and gave her milk down
+easily. “How come Leona’s white, Mama?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because her daddy was a white one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon sat on a stool, leaning into the goat’s side and
+squeezing the teats so the milk came in little squirts. The animal
+turned to sniff the new cap and lick Simon’s neck where
+the tow hair curled. Then it wheezed as it brought up its
+cud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen meanwhile milked Penny and Pie, set out their hay
+and grain. She stood over Simon. “Want me to finish her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sighed, turning the three-legged stool over to her. “I
+most got her clean, didn’t I, Mama?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just about.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That Auntie’s comely, Mama.” He was leaning against
+her while the white liquid purred in her bucket, foaming,
+hot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ne’er know her for my sister, would you, Simon? Like
+a peacock sister to a hen.” Her gray eyes were level with his
+blue ones. She was stirred. He’s a fair boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’s a little hen, Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re my chick, then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peep. Peep.” He took her hand as she picked up the pail.
+Nearing the house, they heard the piano and voices raised.
+Genevieve was carrying the alto.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+<a id="page-214" class="pagenum" title="214"></a>
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">O Robin, Robin Redbreast</p>
+      <p class="verse">O Robin, Robin dear</p>
+      <p class="verse">O Robin sings so sweetly</p>
+      <p class="verse">In the falling of the year</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“Mercy.” Ellen set the pail in the kitchen, began to help
+Maria with the meal. Simon stationed himself beside the parlor
+door to listen to the singing. He was discovered and with
+cries and kisses they drew him to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After supper Frankie remained in the kitchen with Ellen.
+Simon went up to bed. From the parlor came Anton’s deep
+voice and an occasional question from Genevieve. Maria was
+knitting and Dyke listened while he smoked a cigar. Frankie
+polished the plate she was holding. “Don’t you like Gen,
+Ellie? Don’t you like her? We’ve got a flat, you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You wrote you left Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I left last February. The market crash changed him, Ellie.
+He wouldn’t eat and stayed up nights going over papers. He
+got real crabby. Stingy, too. You’d never have recognized
+him. I stopped all my lessons. I was glad.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He turned Mrs. Quimby out on the street.” Frankie was
+smiling, prim.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When I left, he closed the house up. He went to a flat he
+has in East Chicago. You know he’s bad, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He keeps a woman,” she whispered. “He’s had that flat
+for years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For lack of wood the fire goes out, Frankie.” Ellen was
+stiff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a cute saying, Ellie. Where’d you hear it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re so scatterbrained, Frankie. And I ne’er had any
+use for whisperers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-215" class="pagenum" title="215"></a>
+“You like my hair, Ellie? Gen says I look like Janet
+Gaynor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie. A movie star.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When did you first meet this Gen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s my best friend.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dyke stepped into the kitchen. “Hey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello, Dyke. Wouldn’t Gen let you talk?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s like that. She has no use for men. Except for one
+like Pa there. A good farmer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sure are different, Frankie. You’re plumb pretty.”
+Dyke stood his ground, blushing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always liked you, Dyke,” Frankie was bold. “Remember
+how we used to argue about him, Ellie? I said he was tall
+and he’d do because I wasn’t particular?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Frankie,” Ellen cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come out and look at the stars, Frankie. Please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go on, you two. I’ll finish up.” Ellen went into the parlor
+after a few minutes. She sat down by Maria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Genevieve looked up alert. “I thought Frankie was with
+you, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She went out with Dyke a spell ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, dear,” the woman laughed. “Excuse me a moment,
+Mr. Gaddy. I’ll be right back. I want to hear more about
+what you were saying.” The heavy sound of her shoes was
+heard on the porch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why doesn’t she leave Frankie and Dyke be?” Ellen
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was filling his pipe. “She sees the case I’ve got here
+farming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two came in noisily, hand in hand; Dyke followed.
+“Here’s your little girl, Mr. Gaddy. I’m afraid this young
+man was hiding her from us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-216" class="pagenum" title="216"></a>
+“What do you think, Genevieve,” Anton was asking, “of
+my daughter becoming a fine musician?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, in time she could be. Nothing ventured, nothing
+gained. She’s got talent. And she’s a beauty. When I get more
+money saved, I’m going to get her the best teacher I can find.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just love you, Pa,” cried Frankie. “And this dear house.
+And Ma and Ellie and everyone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tsk, tsk, such a little girl,” said Genevieve. She stood by
+the piano.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Woodman, spare that tree</p>
+      <p class="verse">Touch not a single bough</p>
+      <p class="verse">In youth it sheltered me</p>
+      <p class="verse">And I’ll protect it now</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen was pressed to make fudge and coffee. Dyke was
+left in the parlor with Anton and the visitors came into the
+kitchen to help. While the two cracked nuts, they chattered
+in steady rapport. Ellen stepped into the hall, put her hands
+on her ears. “That ox.” Obscurely, she resented the older
+woman, missed the old way in which Frankie would turn
+to her for approbation and counsel. She could overhear Anton
+in the next room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes sir, boy, this fellow had a dog to run his treadmill.
+He sat in the shade and ground axes and knives for folks on
+the grindstone that dog turned for him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ne’er heard of that being done before, Mester Gaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, I even knew a man that fixed a treadmill for his old
+ooman’s cat to run her churn.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They gathered at breakfast. Ellen had set potatoes to boil,
+fried bacon, and sent Simon to refill the blue water pail.
+Frankie and Genevieve were coming in sleepy-eyed, clad in
+gray twill skirts. The girl appeared frail and willowy beside
+her companion whose broad buttocks and ample breasts were
+constrained by her clothing. As they were sitting at the laden
+<a id="page-217" class="pagenum" title="217"></a>
+table, Anton and Sam hurried in. They were late. “The colt’s
+gone,” Anton worried. “Must have jumped the rails where it’s
+rotting. Jesus Wept, they’re all falling apart. We’ve got to
+string fence wire all o’er now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Red horse tired of the meadow,” Simon piped. “He set
+out for to see the other side.” The child looked through the
+square-paned window, past the low wall of the garden, to the
+day that had cast off the shawl of night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I tell you, let’s organize a search party,” Genevieve said.
+“We’ll go get our hats. Don’t you agree, Frankie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Gen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s up to you-all to find him. Sam and me can’t help. We
+got the rails to mend and the hay field to cut. Come on, Sam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They left Maria cleaning the kitchen, for she refused to
+stir without the door. They searched woods and adjacent
+fields. There was no sign of the missing colt. At noontime
+the three women met outside the house. Genevieve was bramble-scratched,
+the smell of perspiration thick on her as she
+sat with Frankie on the porch steps. “I think I got poison
+ivy,” said Frankie, “and I tore my stockings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I brought some bug stuff with us. It’s in the bags somewhere.
+These mosquito bites itch.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was bringing water from the well in a dishpan and
+they got up to wash. The woman grunted as she dried herself.
+Frankie was laughing at her, wrinkling her nose. Suddenly
+Ellen said, “Where’s Simon? He was with you,
+Frankie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Frankie denied it. “He got tired. He said he was going
+home to get a drink.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A hand twisted within Ellen. She was running. She heard
+the calls behind her. “Wait, Ellie!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Genevieve, “Let’s be calm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Ellen ran and ran, Jack barking beside her, to fields
+stretching past woods, and past that, to places she had wandered
+before her son had gained this hold on her. All the
+<a id="page-218" class="pagenum" title="218"></a>
+while she cried, “Simon. Simon.” And the dog’s staccato answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was late in the day when she returned. They had all assembled
+in the yard. “We’ve been looking, too, Ellie,” Sam
+told her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe a snake’s bitten him.” An empty place trembled in
+Ellen. “And he’s lying some’ere.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nonsense,” said Genevieve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s too little.” Ellen’s mind tried doors that were barred.
+“He doesn’t know the country well.” She looked at the
+ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam said, “Don’t fret, Ellie. He’s a steady youngen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The group was wavering, uncertain. “Appears you could
+look after your own youngen.” Anton bent for his pitchfork.
+“That hay’s got to be turned.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Genevieve took a deep breath as the men went toward the
+field. “I’m not concerned. He’ll come home. Why, he’s a big
+boy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quit jawing,” Ellen said savagely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they heard the men’s shouts, their distant figures were
+pointing. “There! Look there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blood-bay colt was ambling up the lane, the boy on
+its back, his short legs spread, a lock of the mane in his stubby
+hand. His cap was set visor backwards. “I got lost, Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where did you find him?” Ellen ran to take the colt’s
+headstall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Down the road a ways. I got turned about.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was leading the horse to the barn. “Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon slid to the ground. “I lost Anse’s ball.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Should I make you another?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” He was petting the tall colt’s shoulder. “Mama?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you want?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d like a horse to name my own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe someday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-219" class="pagenum" title="219"></a>
+“Mama?” He stroked the horse, looked up at her, mute.
+His eyes were wide. He smiled slowly, waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fancy you finding the red colt, Simon. When none of us
+could.” They turned to walk to the house. He swaggered behind
+her, pleased with himself.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Little Tom Tinker</p>
+      <p class="verse">Got burned with a clinker</p>
+      <p class="verse">And he began to cry</p>
+      <p class="verse">What a poor fellow am I</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Anton nearly shot a dog fox a day or so after. The
+fences, lined with stones and weeds, had furnished ambush
+for the daring fox. In broad daylight even, it would slip to
+the hen house, kill three or four, and escape, slinging its
+latest victim across its shoulders. Anton would smoulder,
+viewing his dead hens. He told Genevieve, “Years back I had
+a flock of pullets just starting to lay. One morning I found
+a heap of thirty dead under that oak. Next week there was
+eighteen. I’d hear the varmint barking at night. Times he’d
+screech like a wildcat. I didn’t sleep till I got him. Ne’er did
+find the earth where the whelps were hid.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the hour he was free before milking, Anton had taken
+his gun. He set out, Jack at heel. He plodded through likely
+spots, and as he came up out of the woods he heard a crow
+call, signaling. He glimpsed in the distance the fox they
+hunted. Its summer fur was scraggly and yellow-red; it was
+digging at a woodchuck hole on the edge of the field. Jack
+had seen it too; he fell behind the man, who was slipping
+noiseless through the high orchard grass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Anton had stopped short. He had come upon Frankie
+and her friend, sitting with hands about their knees in the
+grass. The older woman was leaning over to kiss Frankie on
+the lips. Frankie laughed, tossing her shining bobbed hair.
+Anton forgot his quarry. Jack whined and growled as the fox
+<a id="page-220" class="pagenum" title="220"></a>
+clawed at the earth. The man moved in dourly upon the
+women in the afternoon sun. He stood before them with legs
+set like trees in the grass. “What’s going on here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie lifted her head. “We’re singing, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her companion was getting up. “We were just enjoying
+ourselves out here, Mr. Gaddy. My, your Frankie’s a pretty
+thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton strode from them. They saw him spit amber juice
+into the weeds. Jack galloped, yapping, for the fox had slunk
+off. Frankie giggled, “Oh, Gen. You shouldn’t have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening the man was stalking restive between kitchen
+and parlor. Genevieve sought to draw him into a discussion.
+“I was reading about a new commercial fertilizer, Mr.
+Gaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shit,” he growled and went to stand on the porch. Car
+lights glared as Dyke Burwell’s Oldsmobile arrived in the
+yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dyke called from the darkened window, “Hey!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come in, boy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lights cut and Dyke walked toward the porch.
+“Frankie home?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton saw suddenly that Dyke was a man now, bulky
+and tall, stooped somewhat from the weight of his awkward
+upper body. “Hum. She’s here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood together, embarrassed by the companionship
+they felt. They were looking off into the half-dusk of the
+yard. “Getting hot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hum.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Could rain, Mester Gaddy. Ma says if she can feel toes
+on her missing leg, it’s rain for sure.” They were leaning
+against the porch posts. The older man stirred, unhappy.
+Dyke was talking in a soft monotone, relating a joke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton interrupted him, “I’d like to shoot that varmint.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, like I was saying, Mester Gaddy, a bird came o’er
+then and muted on him. Hell, he says looking up, now you
+<a id="page-221" class="pagenum" title="221"></a>
+know, Lord, this is just going a trifle too far.” Dyke snickered,
+hopeful, but Anton remained glum. The young man
+scratched his neck. “You say Frankie’s home?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went into the house. Anton’s voice was cold, “Dyke,
+I want you to take Frankie here to the movie house in Bethel.
+That way Miss Wheeler and I can talk about the farm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are sweet, Pa. But I don’t care to.” Frankie yawned,
+getting up from her chair. “Here we are on this old Kentucky
+home and why go to the flickers? We see them all the time
+in the city. But you’re thoughtful, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So instead Frankie coaxed Dyke to sing with them. Ellen
+saw how Genevieve’s black eyes glinted when Dyke spoke
+to Frankie. She saw Dyke’s confidence wither as he appeared
+a poor thing. Genevieve was saying, “Frankie told me you
+keep house for your mother?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I help her, Miss Wheeler.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think it’s wonderful you mop and dust like a daughter.
+That’s an accomplishment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen walked out of the room and onto the porch. A
+shadow was drifting by the hen house fence. “There’s that
+fox, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton grasped the gun that stood by the loft stairs. His
+body mingled with the shadows. His face was vacant-eyed,
+as he slipped past Ellen, like a cat that spies a bird flutter to
+its nesting bush. After the family was in bed and Dyke had
+driven away, Anton returned. He flung the yellow-furred
+carcass at the base of the porch steps. The dog worried it
+until Sam arrived at dawn and dragged it into a field for
+buzzards to pick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon came in dirt-stained to where the family and Sam
+Offut sat at the noon table. His hair was over his eyes and
+he brushed it back. He held a box-turtle he had found. He
+was clutching it to his shirt and standing within the door.
+Ellen said, “Go clean up. And put that turtle away, Simon.
+You’re late. Now run.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-222" class="pagenum" title="222"></a>
+But Simon went to stand at Anton’s side. The man continued
+eating, pushing his food with his knife, his head bent
+in hunger. Simon spoke so that Ellen knew he had thought
+how he would say this all the way to the house, ever since he
+caught the turtle. “Da says they’s seven kinds of meat in a
+turtle. E’er heard that, Granddaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s Da?” Anton threw his knife with a clatter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon was staring, open-mouthed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s Da, boy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Da,” Simon blurted, cradling the turtle, the spiny legs
+scratching his soft flesh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa, that’s Mester Dougherty,” cried Ellen. “The youngens
+called him that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t speak his name again. Mind, boy?” Anton picked
+up his knife. Genevieve and Frankie exchanged small knowing
+smiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen pleaded, “This is a land turtle, Simon. The kind you
+eat’s a water turtle. Go wash now.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Later on, the women were clearing the dishes. Anton was
+puffing his pipe. From the direction of the hog pens came
+a squealing. Through the screen, Ellen saw a score of young
+pigs spreading out toward house and barn. After them stumbled
+Simon, trying with aimless movements to round them
+up. His face was worried, his body blundering. She pushed
+the door to go and help him. Anton spoke behind her. “Stay
+there, girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen knew what had happened. Simon had been sent out
+as soon as he had eaten, to move the twenty yeanling pigs
+to new quarters. Anton had directed him to move them one
+at a time. But the child had tried to shoo them in a drove, the
+way he did the geese or cows. The baby pigs were fractious
+and ran out like wheel spokes. Sam was hustling from the
+barn. Ellen watched the two men break sticks, then shouting,
+gather the pigs into their new pen. The little boy’s shoulders
+<a id="page-223" class="pagenum" title="223"></a>
+were rounded, hands dangling helplessly. Sam returned to the
+barn. Anton called the boy to him. He cut a switch from a
+locust tree. Simon was moving slowly across the yard. Ellen
+came out on the porch. “Get in the house, girl. Lest I switch
+you for your brat to see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went up the stairway to her room. “He’s bound and
+determined to have it out. But it’s because he’s plagued at
+Frankie.” She sat dry-eyed on the bed. Her head was throbbing.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Afterwards she found Simon in the field with the goats. He
+held his hand on the neck of one doe and scratched under its
+beard. His face was streaked and dirty. “I was bad, Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sure could use a bath. Come on, let’s get the tub
+down.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On Sunday the two Gaddy sisters were sitting on the porch.
+Lily Garrett walked up to them in her shapeless Mother
+Hubbard dress. “I’ve come to make lavendery sticks for the
+last time with you-all.” Lily was sweating through her padding
+of fat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean, last time?” Ellen got up to greet
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie and Lily kissed. “You haven’t met Gen yet, Lily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got news for you.” Lily’s face was shaking as she
+laughed. “Craig Hedrick’s making me his wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellie went with Craig once, didn’t you?” Frankie asked.
+“I remember.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just to mass,” said Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t ask you to a wedding.” Lily was raising her large
+arms to her hair. “We’re only going to the priest. The bans
+have been read and we’ve got no time for fancy doings.
+Craig’s bought the farm next to him. He’ll be working o’er a
+hundred acres this summer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My,” said Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-224" class="pagenum" title="224"></a>
+“We’ll drive straight home from the priest and go to work,
+he says. He’s going to get a tractor with lights so he can
+work nights. Law, he’s a goer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Calling him a goer makes me remember Mandy York,”
+Frankie was saying. “When she was out hoeing with us that
+time and she said, I’m smart, I’m a good duster and a good
+sweeper and a good hoer. We laughed at how it came out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Her baby is doing good on your goat’s milk,” Lily said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I still can’t believe Mandy’s dead,” cried Frankie. “But
+now here’s Gen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The older woman came down the stairs. “Who’s this?” She
+was linking arms with Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is my friend, Lily Garrett, Gen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You certainly look hot,” Genevieve said. The two walked
+away to the lavender bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they were plucking the flowers, Lily talked softly to
+Ellen. “Where’s Simon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s in the field. Sam lets him ride Blueberry. He thinks
+he’s a man sitting up there holding on the hame knobs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s a pretty child. Does he take after your husband?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A mite.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t say he takes after your side.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the silence, Ellen was binding the stalks with yarn; the
+sweet oil scented her fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Craig’s got no use for you, Ellie. Reckon he’ll not let me
+come down this way when I’m Mrs. Hedrick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think a lot of him, Lily?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s like this. I’m built so big most fellows laugh at me.
+Papa’s glad to get me settled. He’s going to help us where
+he can. I allow I’m a sight lucky to catch Craig.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen had never heard the flighty Lily speak so seriously.
+She seemed nearly sad as she came to this turning in her life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll make him a good wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I aim to. I’d like to have a child like yours.” They worked
+awhile, the murmurs of the other two coming from the end
+<a id="page-225" class="pagenum" title="225"></a>
+of the bed. “I don’t know if it’s right to tell such a thing on
+my promised husband, but I knew you long before him.”
+Lily’s face fired red. “He says you be free with men, Ellie.
+Says he could name the ones you’ve slept with.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s lots of tales told, Lily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Says you weren’t even married.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The grapes are grapes of gall,” Ellen spoke bravely. “I don’t
+care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re twisting my words, Ellie. But I’ll say more.” The
+hot sun drenched them, drew the last moisture from the
+flower bed. Lily’s curls lay straggled on her sun-browned
+neck and Ellen waited. “I’ll be glad when Craig won’t let me
+come here to visit you-all. I know he wanted you for a wife.
+He tells those tales for the hate he bears you. Being as you
+slighted him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lily. There was nothing between Craig and me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve seen a little silk rose he keeps. It came off that blue
+hat you wore when you went to Chicago that time. How’d
+he come by it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Lily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You won’t tell. And knowing I took what you wouldn’t
+have, I’d as lief bide away from you.” Lily’s eyes brimmed as
+she bent over the handful of pale-purple blooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen trembled. “If you feel that way.” She was working
+down the perfumed rows, away from her childhood friend.
+“I don’t care.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The visitors were planning to leave the following weekend.
+Genevieve Wheeler was due at her desk in the Featherbone
+Works on Monday morning. On Wednesday night Anton
+awoke to the stutter of thunder. He shuffled barefoot, to
+close windows in the kitchen and parlor. As he was returning,
+he stopped a while at the calico curtains of the partitioned
+room where his daughter and Genevieve slept. He overheard
+their whispers. Grinding his teeth, he took the cloth in his
+<a id="page-226" class="pagenum" title="226"></a>
+violent fist. But he released it and went to the bed where
+Maria was snoring, mouth half open. “Hail, Holy Mary,” he
+whimpered. He prayed, envisioning his mother Nell, clad in
+a blue gown like the Virgin, her bright red hair flowing
+about her shoulders. He wept secretly, fashioning words he
+would say as he banished Frankie forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The night’s rain drew upward to the hot sky. The sticky
+air was clinging as the family slowly collected for breakfast.
+Frankie and Genevieve were seated, Maria was placing a dish
+of fried potatoes on the table before joining them. Ellen had
+brought a hot skillet of eggs from the stove. She lifted them
+onto plates with her iron spatula. “I’ll take two, Ellie,” Genevieve
+cried. “This country air’s given me an appetite.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Gen, you always take two.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bumblebee, caught at the glass, was buzzing. Simon ran
+in. He had washed at the pump and water was dripping from
+his hands. “Morning, Simon,” said Frankie. “Why does an
+old maid go to church so early on Sunday? Don’t tell him,
+Gen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s see, Auntie.” The child studied his egg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton came in. The screen door cracked behind him like
+a breaking stick. The people turned. He spoke softly to his
+younger daughter. “The Bible says, were they ashamed when
+they committed abomination? Nay, they were not. Neither
+could they blush.” He wiped his face with an arm dusted with
+chaff of hay and hair of cows. Ellen heard the bee mumble
+at the glass and her hand, holding the skillet, was tiring. “You
+be not welcome under my roof now, girl. The Lord God’ll
+have a reckoning day for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s this all about, Mr. Gaddy?” began Genevieve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut your jaw. Unnatural ooman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie was still, a paleness blanketing her features. She
+was wearing a high-throated shirtwaist, the color of her hair
+brilliant against its whiteness. Her linen skirt fitted her small
+hips. Her hands rested in her lap. Frankie had turned, after
+<a id="page-227" class="pagenum" title="227"></a>
+months of terror and insecurity in Garland’s house, to the
+gentle dominion of the older female. The grip of her father’s
+hand had gradually fallen away and she had begun to think
+of the home farm as a place in one of the tunes they would
+sing, nostalgic and typical.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">First the farmer sows his seed</p>
+      <p class="verse">Then he stands</p>
+      <p class="verse">And takes his ease</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They were gay in the small Chicago flat. Now the old fear
+of Anton was absent. She was waiting until he would speak
+again into the sultry kitchen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You be gone.” His voice was a blade cutting a cord.
+“When Sam and me get back from the wheat this noon.
+Christ, you be not my daughter any more.” He stalked to the
+door and out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did Granddaddy say, Mama?” The high whisper
+spilled into the silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” sighed Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now he ne’er ate his breakfast,” Maria was complaining,
+“with his fretting. But here comes Sam. He’ll eat good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s simply no talking to Pa when he’s set like that,
+Gen,” Frankie laughed. “He gets so sore.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell, why does the old maid go so early to church,
+Auntie?” Simon asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, by golly,” said Genevieve, pushing back her chair.
+“Let’s get to packing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frankie laughed again. “So she can be there when the
+hymns are given out, silly.” She got up, brushing her skirt.
+“Oh, Ellie, don’t worry. You know Pa. And we did have our
+visit. You’ll see, we’ll be back next summer.” Frankie was
+going to the bedroom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t call that much of a riddle,” said Simon. “Don’t get
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-228" class="pagenum" title="228"></a>
+“You want to go berrying by the lake?” Ellen set the skillet
+down on the stove. Her voice was unsteady. “They’re real
+thick, Simon. All you have to do is shake them in the pail.
+You take Jack for company. Watch out for snakes, mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam was coming up the porch as the boy took the lard pail
+and marched off, his hand on the dog’s back. Simon’s hair
+was white in the summer sun. His cap, grimy and wrinkled
+now, perched on his head. Ellen turned to free the imprisoned
+bee still tumbling at the pane. Maria spoke, “Want these cold
+eggs, Sam?”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-5-3">
+<a id="page-229" class="pagenum" title="229"></a>
+16
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Summer had hurled itself on the quailing countryside. The
+moisture was drawn from the bowels of the land, first from
+the stony top clay, until finally from the reservoir far below.
+The few humid clouds were carried away on winds that lived
+in the upper troposphere and there was no rain. A drought
+prevailed. As daylight made colors known, an opossum was
+waddling through the oat field, where stunted stems withered
+before the white grains could form. It pounced on a
+fleeing lizard just before Sam Offut shot it cleanly through
+the skull. He plucked its young, no bigger than a thumbnail,
+from its nipples and left them in the field. At breakfast
+<a id="page-230" class="pagenum" title="230"></a>
+he told the Gaddys, “My old ooman’ll bake it. That’s one
+thing Eadie can do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was restless. He walked outdoors, drawing on his
+cold pipe. “Turning the earth’ll just dry it worse, Sam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No weeds are going to come up anyhow. What’ll we do
+if it doesn’t rain, Mester Gaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon was watching them from the screen, his nose against
+the wire. He called, “Granddaddy, which way’s the wind
+blowing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the men looked at the burning sky. They stood in the
+yard awhile, then went to the tool shed or scattered old hay
+to the cows in the dried-up pasture, puttering time away until
+it should rain. Simon was on the steps talking to the dog.
+Ellen could hear his singsong. She told Maria, “Simon’s at
+the aping age. He thinks he’s Sam. Or again he thinks he’s
+Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That sweltering noon Anton beat his wife. It had little to
+do with the drought, although irritation had made his temper
+short. Anton seldom lifted his arm against Maria ever since
+a few summers past when she had taken to bed after he struck
+her. Anton had felt justified at the time, for Maria had been
+nagging him about the kind of wood for her pap’s coffin. He
+had given her money enough for a pine box, but she demanded
+oak. “Oak’s dear, ooman. No more now.” And when
+he had beat her she was somehow hurt. He had been forced
+to hire the girl, Penny, to help while his wife was recovering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria was alone in the house in the hot morning. A salesman
+came to the door, a thin man, wearing a flat-top hat. His
+striped suit was frayed around the lapels and seams. “Madam,
+I presume you’re the lady of the house. It’s clear you’re a
+pious one. I myself am a man of God. I carry the Word.” He
+was taking a Bible from his worn satchel. It was handsome,
+gold-embossed, gold-edged. He was showing her how in some
+sections the first letter was immense, with doves or flowers set
+into scrolled lines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-231" class="pagenum" title="231"></a>
+Maria coveted it. “But I’ve got no money, Mester.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is such a bargain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I had the money.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sometimes a farmer will hide money in a mattress. It’s
+his way. Or again in the rear part of a drawer that he alone
+uses.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She began to shake her head, eying him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s few would think ill of a wife who knew a fine
+trade. Look at this Good Book.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned the leaves, lingering over the gold letters.
+“What’s its price?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fifty dollars, Madam. To you, ten.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.” He sat in the parlor while she found the bills laid
+in the ticking. She moved her mouth in an inner argument.
+She took some of them, replaced the roll in the straw. She
+walked back into the parlor. “Hit seems there be but seven.
+What do you say, Mester?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll make you a special.” He was reaching for the money.
+“I’ll take it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At noontime, when they finished eating, Maria spoke.
+“There’s a thing I did.” She went to get the Bible, her eyes
+moist and bright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The smoke from Anton’s pipe dwelled over the used dishes
+and his brow drew in puzzled lines. “How’s this?” He was
+taking the book from her. “Where’d you get the money?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Amid the straw then, under the bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How’d you think to look, ooman?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peddler said it would be there. So he knows is the way of
+a farmer. I took but seven.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Anton was hitting her on the shoulder from where
+he sat, because he had been shown for a fool. He rose, seizing
+his black shirt and ripping it so buttons fell tinkling. His chest
+was exposed, matted. He struck her again. “Prices are falling
+so I can’t sell. Rising so I can’t buy. There’s a drought on us,
+and you have to thieve behind my back.” He lifted up his fist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-232" class="pagenum" title="232"></a>
+She ran to the bedroom where the wardrobe closet stood,
+and crouched in the camphor-ridden woolens. She whimpered,
+“Mam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen waited until Anton had gone to join Sam in the
+yard. She picked up the Bible and put it on the table before
+Simon. Most of the Book of John was missing, and Kings and
+Isaiah. Later Anton would hunt in vain for Jeremiah, his favorite
+prophet. But now Ellen was turning to the First Book
+of Samuel. She had accepted Anton’s violence as she did the
+drought, linking them in her mind as manifestations of indisputable
+power. And she would give Maria time to recover, in
+the same unquestioning way in which the farm folk would
+woo the land back with seed and share when the rain came.
+Ellen was reading to Simon, “The Lord seeth not as man
+seeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance. But the Lord
+looketh on the heart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon examined the pictures while she made order in the
+kitchen. “Here’s varmints I ne’er knew of, Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The windows were open. Anton had taken a screen down
+the day before to mend it and Ellen had hung strips of cloth
+to keep out flies that bred constantly in the barnyard. Simon
+snatched at those buzzing about him. When he caught one,
+he would slide from his chair and let it out the door. He
+returned to his perch and book. “You’re a soft one,” she
+scoffed. “That fly’s coming right back through the window.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled in his slow way. “I don’t care.” His eyes were
+as if he had drawn aside curtains where he was apt to hide
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was making a pot of coffee. She went to coax her
+mother from the closet. “Come on, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria stared coldly. “Leave me be.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have some coffee. You were clever, Ma. To get a book
+like that at such a price.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length the woman arose, rubbing her bruised shoulder.
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-233" class="pagenum" title="233"></a>
+Simon gave her the book. “Take it, Granny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We have to cut hoofs, Ma. You drink the coffee.” Ellen
+set the cup by Maria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go along, then.” Maria was opening the book. “You can
+take a look if there’s any apples. This is a dreary year for
+storing up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the pasture, Ellen trimmed the goats’ hoofs with a
+pocketknife while Simon held their leather collars. The little
+herd had prospered. There were six, besides Rhodie who still
+boarded at the Yorks. Ellen walked among her goats and she
+was the center of the wheel. She knew each and the way it
+differed from the next, how it placed its foot, how it moved
+or crowded to be close to her, butting another with a click of
+horns. Penny was aging and moved slow. Pie, the big skewbald
+one, had no beard and was slick and fat. There were two
+shaggy brown yeanlings, saucy and bold. And Leona, the
+white doe, had yellow eyes in a long homely face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon and she took the does, when they had finished, over
+to the orchard. “Wonder why goats like to follow after,
+Mama? And you got to drive a cow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was drawing tree boughs down. The animals craved
+the young shoots more than field clover; they were rearing
+on their hind legs, dancing with tongues extended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s no apples here, Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’ll be a few later. I see some fruiting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The goats had their fill and were taken to the pasture again.
+Then Ellen went up the lane, Simon trailing behind. The
+does stood their slender forefeet on the gate bars, calling after
+them. The heat quivered, the land lay gasping, the corn died
+as clay cracked like a split plate around yellowed stalks. The
+sun dominated the clear dome as well as the prostrate land.
+Even Simon felt the menace and reached for Ellen’s hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After supper Anton, his anger exhausted, was reading to the
+boy from Maria’s Bible. He had brought it to the porch. The
+women in the hot kitchen could hear through the open door.
+<a id="page-234" class="pagenum" title="234"></a>
+“Now this Elisha was going about the countryside doing
+miracles. There came forth children out of a city and mocked
+him. Said, go up thou baldhead. Go up thou baldhead. Elisha
+he looked on them and cursed them in the name of the Lord.
+There came two she-bears then out of the woods. They tore
+forty and two children of them. And then Elisha he went
+from thence to Mount Carmel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon’s eyes were large and wary. “They shouldn’t have
+sassed that man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take a lesson from it. Heed your manners. Hear,
+youngen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will, Granddaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The women came out with cornhusk fans that Maria once
+had fashioned. Anton turned pages, seeking the words of
+Jeremiah. “You got a reaming to top all here, ooman. Go
+fetch my own Bible, boy. This one’s not put together proper.”
+Then he read, “Thus saith the Lord. Stand ye in the ways
+and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way. And
+walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever since Ellen and Anton had visited Father Tompert
+and she had voiced herself to the priest, Ellen had discovered
+a new freedom. She had found herself supported by the
+church in her dispute with it, in her desire to find her own
+path. It gave her a wholeness and a bravery toward Anton.
+So she would keep Simon at her side on Sundays while her
+parents rode to church. Maria was disturbed. “Hope you
+don’t burn for this, Ellie. Wonder what Jesus would say if
+he came through Millville today?” Anton had grunted, angry,
+to the team, “Haw-whup.” Unknown to Ellen, he had spoken
+to another priest in Bethel regarding his daughter’s departure
+from the church. This man was old, his face creased in deep
+lines, and he advised Anton to obey his parish priest and to
+care for his own soul.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+After her sister had gone away with Genevieve Wheeler,
+<a id="page-235" class="pagenum" title="235"></a>
+Ellen would watch Anton going about his work abstractedly.
+He would stop now and again to raise a hand or mumble
+to himself, then startle as though coming out of a dream, and
+resume his work. He declared no one was to speak Frankie’s
+name. One day Ellen, rummaging for a lost tool in the shed
+behind the hog pens, came on the remains of a glass bowl-garden,
+the one Frankie had made when she was fifteen to
+please her father. It was smashed and Ellen knew Anton had
+hurled it there in a smoldering rage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He began to use certain phrases with Simon such as he had
+used with Frankie. “A storm is nothing, Poppet,” he said
+once when thunder moved over the sky, failing to see that
+Simon had no fear. He baited the boy too, told him to watch
+the butchering of an old milk cow. “This is man’s work and
+you just as well learn it early.” He smote the beast with a
+maul behind the ear. When it staggered to its knees, he used
+the maul again. Sam cut the jugular with a sticking knife and
+while the lifeblood flowed, they fastened chains to its hocks
+and hoisted the limp body up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon brought a pail of water for washing, took the
+liver and kidneys in a pan to the kitchen. He helped carry
+meat that the women were frying down in fat for the lean
+winter coming. He stumbled up the steps to the kitchen
+with his load. “Granddaddy killed old Jess. While she was
+looking at him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He needs the money, Simon. She wasn’t good for a milker
+any more. He’s going to take the hide and one side to Bethel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He could have laid his kerchief o’er her eyes.” He took up
+the blood-stained pail. With lagging step he returned to his
+tasks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton found Simon was apt to be slow and chided him.
+He was scattering handfuls of slaked lime on the hog house
+floor, sending Simon to refill the pails from the sack in the
+yard. In the ovenlike heat, the white dust clung to their
+sweated clothing and skin. “Think menfolk are always going
+<a id="page-236" class="pagenum" title="236"></a>
+to wait on your lazy ass? Now when I was a youngen I
+learned on a stick. Haw.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And sometimes Anton turned on him unexpectedly. When
+the child heard his steps and ran to open the porch door, the
+man would say, “Now get out of here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s but his way, Simon,” Ellen pleaded when she saw the
+boy’s eyes following the stocky erect figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know it, Mama.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The drought broke toward the end of September. Maria
+was claiming the Man of Signs had foretold it. “It be the
+Autumnal Equinox. The sun’s entering Libra now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a fact,” said Sam. “The Scales been balanced toward
+drought. And now they be tilting the way to the rain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thunder belted the heavens, rattling the timbers of the old
+house. The moist air was lightened and smelled of a sweetness
+unknown since early summer rains. Water was pouring from
+a full sky. In the oat field it hit the cracked clay and bounced
+off. Washes were beginning where stones formed little dams.
+Rivulets were taking the paths contrived and becoming foaming
+streams that roared like rivers and cut gashes that deepened
+into crevices. Much of the topsoil washed into the valleys.
+But the land was filled, the water stores replenished.
+All vegetation sucked and had its fill. And still there was
+more. “I vow we’ll get wet tonight, Sam. Appears to be just
+commencing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon I might make a little mess of garden truck yet,”
+Ellen said, “before the first frost.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mester Gaddy,” said Sam, “I’d as soon set right out in
+this while I milk. I got a honing to get drenched.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night crickets that dwelled in the stone foundations
+and katydids with leaflike wings and long silken feelers and
+green eyes, were scraping their wings in the teeming dark.
+They had been listless through the dry weather, now were
+voicing themselves in lusty chorus. The red cardinal was singing
+<a id="page-237" class="pagenum" title="237"></a>
+so softly in the hackberry that it sounded as if it were
+away down Sweetincreek Road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The drought had wreaked a stiff toll. A few loads of hay
+would be brought in but most of the crop was lost. There
+would be no corn to garner, no small grains. One crib remained
+from the previous year and from it Anton would eke
+out the winter feeding. He decided to ride with Dyke Burwell
+to the auctions in Louisville up on the northern border of
+Kentucky. He selected four sows to hold over the winter
+with the breeding boar; he would sell the others and all the
+yeanling pigs. They were flat-sided, poorly finished. The men
+hoped that in the city they would get a better price than was
+paid locally. Dyke had loaded his father’s excess hogs in the
+Burwell Chevrolet truck. The two were driving off for the
+seventy-mile trip and would return in a few days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Gaddy women and the child watched the load of
+squealing hogs, bedded in straw, lurch down the lane. Ellen
+laughed, “Let’s have an outing, Simon.” The air was brightened
+as the head of the house was carried further and further
+away. They took biscuits and cheese down to the orchard.
+Jack accompanied them. When they had eaten, they gathered
+fallen apples into a bushel; Simon climbed trees, shook
+down the few that clung to the branches. They went beyond
+the orchard to a patch of sorghum cane. Being near the farm
+brook, it had survived the dry spell. They were breaking
+stalks, sucking the juice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Crows don’t always squall, Mama. They can talk soft too.
+I heard one twittering like a wren, feeding its youngens.”
+The child wanted to know the ways of the beasts and fowl.
+“Granddaddy says buzzards will kill a baby pig and steal
+off with it. Reckon that’s so?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A buzzard’s not biggity enough. They’re good but to
+clean up what’s dead and rotting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Returning to the house, they had come on an opossum in
+<a id="page-238" class="pagenum" title="238"></a>
+the path. The heart of the swooned animal beat faintly, its
+dull-white jaws, withered ears and skinny tail bore a semblance
+to death. Simon was plucking it from the dust, cradling
+it in the bend of his arm. He stroked the coarse fur.
+“I’ll make it a pet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen laughed then. But somehow she was lonely, walking
+up the hill in the breeze of the afternoon, bearing the
+basket of fall apples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always wondered if a mole could swim, Mama. Yesterday
+I saw one cross the branch. Now I know that thing.”
+She made no reply and he went on, “You reckon those goat-sucker
+birds truly suckle the cows at night? Sam says it’s so.
+He says milk snakes’ll do it too. I’m going to spy one time
+on them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton and Dyke came back from Louisville. Prices had
+fallen more than anticipated; the buyers’ eyes had been hard.
+Anton bought a load of poor-quality hay that was stacked
+high on the truck. They had had a flat tire on the way home
+and arrived late at night. Anton was pounding on the door.
+“Open up, ooman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They brushed by Maria who stood in a knee-length
+sweater, her grayish hair in braids. “Hey, ma’am,” Dyke muttered.
+They went in the parlor, the stench of manure and sweat
+about them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Paid fifty cents for this lightning.” Anton cradled a
+Mason jar of clear liquid. “Didn’t tell you, boy, in case we
+got asked if we had any moon hid in that hay.” He unscrewed
+the lid and filled glasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went up to bed; she found Simon on the stairway
+and sent him before her. She heard her father’s shout and
+Dyke’s growl of agreement as she was drifting off to sleep.
+She awoke, feeling a hard hand on her shoulder. “What’s
+amiss?” she whispered, thinking it was Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey. It’s me, Ellie.” She heard the pleading whisper,
+smelled the sour breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-239" class="pagenum" title="239"></a>
+“You’re sodden drunk, Dyke. Go downstairs and get to
+sleep. If you can find your way to the sofa in the parlor.”
+She spoke severely, heard his clumsy steps descending the
+stairs, his curse as he stumbled and bumped the wall. In the
+morning she was serving them breakfast. As soon as the hay
+was unloaded Dyke would drive home. Ellen could see he
+had no sure memory of his visit to her room. She caught
+his covert glance. He thinks it was a fancy he had.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-5-4">
+<a id="page-240" class="pagenum" title="240"></a>
+17
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+In that fall Ellen had a dream of Christian Ay. It was her
+first thought of him in many months’ time. His figure was
+unclear, touched with gentleness and warmth; it was apart
+from her. She fancied he was hurt. He was calling, his voice
+as if through water. When she awoke she could hear the echo
+of her own cry. She was musing at the power of the nightmare’s
+image. “There could be a meaning. Like the Prophet
+Ezekiel seeing the dreadful wheels. A wheel whirling in the
+middle of a wheel. And there was a meaning there that certain
+men read.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went downstairs to sit wakeful while the dream was
+still fresh, in the balmy fall moonlight. Fog steamed in the
+<a id="page-241" class="pagenum" title="241"></a>
+air, blurring the rims of trees and the porch roof. There was
+a rustle in the drying grass and though no wind stirred a
+fallen leaf seemed to move on itself, and presently another,
+and then the shadow of an embryonic mouse was darting,
+vanishing before the eye could catch the shape. The shrews
+were harvesting for the winter ahead; their tiny gray piglike
+bodies sped soundless; through the movement in their wake
+one was aware of them. “Sam says folks will dream of a body
+when they’re in danger. Or when they’ve died. Wonder if a
+trouble’s come to Christian Ay?” Dwelling on the dream
+Ellen forgot the curse she had laid once on the man. She
+buried her injury, turning the old love over gently, painfully,
+alone on the step.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winter was casting her days off, one by one. Spring had
+arrived. Anton’s worrying of Simon had become less pronounced.
+Ellen heard the child’s high voice repeating the
+tuneless song his grandfather was teaching him.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">It was our William Jennings Bryan</p>
+      <p class="verse">Who told them</p>
+      <p class="verse">Adam was there first</p>
+      <p class="verse">When he fought the battle</p>
+      <p class="verse">With those sons of darkness</p>
+      <p class="verse">At the trial of John T. Scopes</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Anton was lifting the big boy onto his knee. “Shaw. Now,
+here’s this poppet. You know I had a son once. If he’d have
+lived, I’d been minded to give him my name.” Simon sat stiff
+at the favor granted. Ellen watched through the door from
+where she worked, pleased at this new way of Anton’s. “How
+come you called him Simon, girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Doughertys named him, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anton’s a good name. I don’t favor Simon. There was a
+Simon in the Bible tried to buy Peter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Pa. There are lots of Simons in the Bible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-242" class="pagenum" title="242"></a>
+“Well.” He was turning to the boy again. She had never
+heard her father sing, and was glad.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">They said our ancestors</p>
+      <p class="verse">Were monkeys</p>
+      <p class="verse">Now can’t you see, folks</p>
+      <p class="verse">That’s quite absurd?</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+And then the days were passing, made of long hours. The
+months were lengthening into years. The winter following
+the drought was the first Ellen knew when the table wasn’t
+amply laid. She had to learn how to stint in the cooking and
+to curb her generous hand. When weevils got in the meal
+she would strain them out and mix the meal with water to
+make a corn pone. In the old days she would have tossed it
+easily to the hens. The market for the milk and produce
+worsened. Every fall Anton and Dyke made two or three
+trips up to Louisville to the sales. They took pigs and steers,
+chickens, geese and ducks, small grains and root crops.
+Through the years the Gaddys would manage, for they depended
+on varied harvests. The one-crop farmer suffered the
+most. Many of them were driving away from their plots of
+land, their families and goods piled on wagons and trucks,
+hoping to find jobs in factories and foundries of the cities.
+When Anton saw a loaded vehicle go down Sweetincreek
+Road, he articulated his scorn, “I’d set and eat clay before
+I’d leave my farm. Those fellows are oomen-farmers, farting
+with a patch of tobacco. Putting on fertilizer and then burning
+it off. Laying cheesecloth strips like a ooman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What for, Granddaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I vow I don’t know. Then they go to the auction and
+hit don’t sell for nothing. They buy moon from the patent
+medicine man and come back with their pockets empty. So
+go on,” he shouted at the retreating wagon, “and don’t come
+back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-243" class="pagenum" title="243"></a>
+“And don’t come back,” cried Simon shrilly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton turned to the boy, his eyes hot. “You stay on this
+farm, Poppet, and some day maybe it’ll all belong to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton slowly was transferring the fervor he used to spend
+on his younger daughter, Frankie, to this boy, Simon. He was
+taking him over. As time passed he judged Ellen’s guidance
+of the child. “You be a fool, girl. You’ll spoil him rotten.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the boy remembered and did as bid, Anton was
+pleased; when he disobeyed, he whipped him, stolid. “Thou
+shalt beat him with a rod, so it’s said. I’ll take no sass. You
+do as I say, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his way Simon tried not to make errors that would
+aggravate his grandfather. He had developed a spasmodic
+pain in his chest that would come at odd moments. He told
+no one of it but sometimes when he thought about it, believed
+he would die. Then he lay vacantly staring upward as he had
+done in the Dougherty shed in the vague days before he
+came to live here. At times he dreamed of Anse Dougherty
+pinching his arm, whispering, “Gaddy brat. Gaddy brat.”
+He awoke struggling and muttering. When Ellen questioned
+him, he couldn’t remember the details of the dream. She
+would sing, soothing, until he slept.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Dear mother, I said, come and bind up my head</p>
+      <p class="verse">You ne’er shall bind it any more</p>
+      <p class="verse">Sweet William he died of the wound that he bore</p>
+      <p class="verse">And Fair Ellen, she died also</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In 1934 another drought smote the farm. This time the condition
+was prevalent over the Midwest, involving dust storms
+and soil erosion. Over these depression years there were no
+visits from Garland Gaddy. At Christmas he would send a
+package through the mail. It would be placed on the parlor
+table. Ellen’s parents went straight to bed when they returned
+silent from midnight mass. On Christmas morning the family
+<a id="page-244" class="pagenum" title="244"></a>
+would find cigars for Anton, and for Maria and Ellen mittens
+or a wool scarf. Garland was unsure of Simon’s age. When
+he was six, Garland sent him the book <i>Ben Hur</i>, and when
+eight, a set of ABC building blocks. Ellen wrote to thank him,
+urged him to come at the next holiday. “Some time,” she told
+Simon, “I’ll show you Chicago. And your great-uncle who
+lives there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t I have an aunt there, too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. Some day maybe you’ll meet her. Don’t ne’er say
+her name to Granddaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know. That’s Auntie. She brought me a yellow hat one
+time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen never heard from Frankie, but once Garland put a
+card in her package of fur gloves: “Love from Uncle and
+Frankie.” So she knew that they saw each other and it was a
+comfort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The years were sweeping by. In 1935 the Federal dole was
+stopped and the national relief program got under way.
+Anton was told that for twenty-five dollars he could have a
+WPA privy constructed. Since the old one was in ramshackle
+state, he decided to go ahead. “Christ, Sam, hit must be fifteen
+feet down.” They stepped within the new-painted door,
+looked into the openings. “It’ll take a hundred years to fill
+that hole.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“More, Mester Gaddy.” Sam paused. “I recollect Pa. He
+hung the door on the last shithouse we Offuts had. Swung it
+in by mistake. Said it e’er plagued him after that, for when
+he sat out there he liked to have a door swing out, so he
+could watch the neighbors go by along the road. He’d call
+out to them if he had a mind, friendly-like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll take the cow barn any day. For a fact. It’s a
+sight more natural.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon was growing. He was nine, stocky and strong,
+heavy for his age. The bones of his shoulders were knobby
+so he would appear undernourished when shirtless. Ellen
+<a id="page-245" class="pagenum" title="245"></a>
+laughed at him for his diffident ways. “You’re shy as a field-raised
+calf, Simon.” If the boar broke loose though, or if a
+new heifer kicked because her udder was hot and tender,
+Simon was fearless. He laid his hands on her when she kicked
+out, vicious, or walked up to the great angry seed-hog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once Anton thrashed the red horse with the lines. It was
+harnessed with another and when the load began to move,
+it reared, balking in the traces. Anton whipped it. The boy
+loved the red horse—he hurled himself before it so the lines
+were lashing him. Anton saw the white stripes. “What foolishness
+now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s the blinders, Granddaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And it was true. This horse had always worn the bridle
+with blinders. The wrong bridle had been put on and he saw
+things in a new way, frightening him. Simon was sent for the
+other bridle and then the horse pulled squarely with its mate.
+“Beasts are plagued fools sometimes,” the man said. But the
+boy’s eyes were gazing straight ahead, as red welts rose on
+his cheek and arm. He grit his teeth against the familiar pain
+searing his breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton went into Millville to the priest one afternoon and
+had Simon baptized. When they returned, he told Ellen. She
+protested, “Pa, it doesn’t matter. But you could have said you
+were going.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And he’s riding to mass Sundays too, along with us, proper
+pious. I can’t hinder you from being a heathen, but I’ll save
+my grandson.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen glanced down at Simon. The man was pressing him,
+“You want to go along with me, don’t you, boy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Granddaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, all right, Simon. You know your mind, I reckon.”
+She watched them go, saw Simon running to bring the cows
+and start the feeding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was twenty-six. She was quite handsome but there
+was a coldness in her bearing. Her oval face was sober, gray
+<a id="page-246" class="pagenum" title="246"></a>
+eyes austere, she wore her hair plaited tightly and pinned in a
+circle around her head. She never knelt in the honeyed grass
+at night as she once had, weeping over the lost love and her
+restive longings. It was as if a scar had formed, protective,
+and a part of herself was sealed off underneath. She moved
+quietly through the days as if waiting. And she seemed
+satisfied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon spent his hours with the beasts of the farm or trailing
+his grandfather. When he felt the need for Ellen, he
+sought her out, standing near her. They were alike in many
+ways, shy, spare of words. She taught him songs, and read
+to him from the Bible and the almanac. He brought home
+an average report card and she signed it, “Mrs. Ellen Gaddy.”
+He queried her, “How come I got no daddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s dead, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell, what was he like?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t rightly remember. Like you, I reckon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If more comes to you about him, will you tell me, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Granddaddy says he be the same as a father to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen saw her old friend Lily again one day. She had not
+visited with her since Lily had become Mrs. Craig Hedrick
+five years earlier. If they met, Lily would walk away, turning
+her head aside. It was late August. Ellen and Maria were
+making apple butter, the spicy fragrance filled the kitchen.
+There was a gentle knock and Ellen put down her wood
+ladle, wiping her hands on the brown-stained apron. “Yes?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you know me, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lily.” Ellen opened the door wide. “Come on in.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was just hankering to see you. It’s fierce lonesome at
+home. I ran off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean?” Ellen was taking the old tone with
+her at once. “Hush your crying.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-247" class="pagenum" title="247"></a>
+“Craig sent me to hoe the truck beans. Hit seemed I
+couldn’t bear it any more. I up and walked away.” Lily’s
+blond curls that she had always taken such care with, were
+pulled into an untidy knot at the nape of her neck. She was
+stouter. “I’m afraid to go back. Craig was running the tractor
+in the corn and his man was working the mules. He told
+me I must clean the bean patch.” Her small mouth was puckered,
+unhappy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why are you afraid? He’s your husband.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman heaved a breath. “He’s taken to whipping me
+like Papa did. So I told him I was carrying a child to make
+him stop.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got no child. I can’t seem to get caught. Craig wants
+one as bad as me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s have some coffee.” Ellen was going to the kitchen.
+“Ma, you know Lily. She’s Mrs. Hedrick, remember?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey, Mrs. Gaddy.” Lily was eager.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey there, Lily. How’s Mester Garrett’s bees?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, my husband says Papa’s making a sight of honey this
+year. He’s got o’er twenty hives now. I’ve not been to see him
+myself these many months.” Ellen laid cups on the table while
+the water came to a boil. She put out a dish of hot apple
+butter, slices of fresh bread. “It’s like coming home here,
+Ellie. We used to have fun, you and me and Frankie. I always
+loved fun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know,” Maria spoke up from her thoughts, “I had
+another girl, named Frankie. I dassn’t say her name. Mester
+Gaddy won’t brook it. She’s dead.” Maria was wagging her
+head, knowing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here’s your coffee, Ma,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is Frankie dead?” Lily whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, and Ma knows it. It’s a way she has, like a child,
+sometimes. She can’t seem to keep it straight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She can’t?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-248" class="pagenum" title="248"></a>
+“You e’er think of seeing Doc Trumbo, Lily? Maybe he
+could help you and Craig to have a child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lily’s eyes were trailing Maria, breaking bread and spooning
+the brown preserves. “Reckon we could try that, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always thought a heap of Craig,” Ellen said, “for taking
+o’er like he did when old Mester Hedrick was killed so
+sudden.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He doesn’t have to beat me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You e’er think about how it was for him, Lily, back
+then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria broke in, “But there’s a little boy lives here now.
+Named Simon. I’m his granny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lily spoke slowly, “I can’t even go to see my papa and
+mama any more. I’m not allowed to go home.” Grave, she was
+watching Maria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Craig’s a good man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have to stop being a girl some day. And think on
+the ways of a woman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three drank their coffee. Presently Lily was pushing
+back her chair; she spoke deliberately, “Reckon I’ll get back
+to my house. I have work to do. It’s a long walk. Bye, Mrs.
+Gaddy. Ellie.” Her retreating steps were heard on the stones
+in the yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Ellen was caught in a burst of tears. She put her
+hands to her face, sobbing hoarsely. She ran up the steep stairway,
+her bare feet noiseless. “I vow at that girl.” Maria took
+the ladle to stir the mixture, thick and hot in the iron kettle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upstairs, Ellen was standing in the middle of the room,
+shaken, uncontrolled. She turned abruptly to the trunk along
+the wall and dragged open the heavy lid. She rummaged
+through the contents until she came on the two undelivered
+letters she had written Christian Ay. She ripped them into
+<a id="page-249" class="pagenum" title="249"></a>
+shreds in a heap on the floor. “I hate Lily and Craig and all
+the ugly ways of folks.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she came down, her face appeared smoothed and
+untouched. But she was holding her head in such a way that
+when Anton saw her going to the woodshed, he crossed himself
+and muttered, “There, I thought it was you, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Simon was in the fourth grade. Every morning found him
+trudging three miles to the school on the Millville Pike.
+Until the weather turned cold he would go barefoot, for
+catalog shoes cost a dollar thirty-nine. He went down the
+lane in the flat morning sunlight, talking to the dog. He carried
+his lunch in a lard bucket. Holes were punched in its
+tin lid and it contained a bunch of concord grapes and biscuits
+spread with jelly. “Stay, Jack.” The dog’s movements
+were stiff. He settled on the bank amid blue-flowered chicory,
+head on forepaws, brown eyes fixed on the retreating figure.
+A tufted titmouse whistled in a cottonwood along the road.
+“Peet-O. Peet-O!” It joined the chickadees and nuthatches
+that trooped in the upper branches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the afternoon Simon returned late, scarcely recognizable,
+upper lip swollen, dry blood caked on his face. The skin
+was puffing out around one eye, the sleeve of his shirt was
+torn. Anton caught sight of him coming up the lane and ran
+shouting, “What is it, Poppet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon halted, scuffling his feet; he began to whine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Speak up, son.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That fellow mocked me.” Simon was sniffling and as he
+was led to the house, his voice rose to a wail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen called from the window, “What ails him, Pa?” She
+came out the door, shading her face, hurrying down the
+steps in the sweet-scented fall air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s not going back to that school.” Anton’s face was
+hot, his breath thick as he passed her, leading the child.
+“Crapping bastards are about to kill him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-250" class="pagenum" title="250"></a>
+Ellen followed into the kitchen. Anton was lifting Simon
+to the table. “Get a pan of water,” he told Maria. He removed
+the boy’s shirt, examined his lip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa. You can see he’s been fighting. Let’s find what happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll send you to the parochial school. Like decent Catholics.
+Your ma’s let you run amuck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please, Pa.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The heathen can kill him before you give a care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon.” But the boy had fastened his frightened eyes on
+his grandfather, clinging to the harried look on the man’s
+face. Ellen turned away, inarticulate. Later, she was in the
+shed, milking her goats. Simon shuffled in, stood at the pen
+gate. The goats nibbled his shirt buttons and rubbed against
+him as he was stroking them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I slopped the pigs and watered the team, Ma.” She waited.
+He was speaking again, “Reckon Leona’s least kid will have
+horns or not?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon, what happened today at school?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Looks to me like she’s a muley one.” He bent over the
+kid, moving the skin on the top of its head with his finger.
+“If horns were sprouting, it wouldn’t move free like that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen got up from the stool to strain the milk into a can.
+She began to draw the white streams from another doe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy said suddenly, “Granddaddy takes care of me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him to see his eyes cold upon her. He was
+fingering his enlarged lip. She was startled. He’s turning from
+me. Pa’s getting hold of him. She put her head against the
+soft warm side of the spotted doe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Granddaddy frets about me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell how you got in the fight, or I’ll whip you for a fact.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eyes were down. “There’s a game at recess. We use
+a ball belonging to that Penn Hamm. He stores it in the
+drawer of his desk. Time and again I asked him could I take
+<a id="page-251" class="pagenum" title="251"></a>
+it home for one night. But he wouldn’t say yes.” Simon looked
+up. One eye was nearly shut, the bruised skin blue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I studied on it and hankered after it. Yesterday I slipped it
+from his desk and put it in my pocket. After school was out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You could have had a ball if you’d told me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wanted that ball.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Penn said I snitched it, and I said I didn’t. He sat under
+the tree and called me bastard Gaddy brat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You stole his ball, Simon. He was angered. And folks
+used to call me a Gaddy brat. Some still do, and I don’t care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He called me that. He laid for me coming home. I
+wrestled him for it but he got his ball back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, Simon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wanted it.” His eyes were like small empty caves. “And
+I lost my lard pail too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The night meal was pregnant with unspoken words. Then
+as Anton was leaving the kitchen he told Ellen, “I’ll take
+him to the sisters tomorrow.” She looked at him from where
+she was sitting. His short body leaned against the door casing.
+“Why I even got to jump on him to say the Lord’s Prayer
+right.” He cut a slice of apple tobacco with his slender knife.
+“Trespasses, he says, like heathen. The school taught him
+that. The Lord said debtors. Forgive us our debtors.” He
+walked softly into the other room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon was sent to bed. Ellen came into the parlor. “Pa,
+this isn’t right. Simon stole that Hamm youngen’s ball. He’s
+got to learn. He should go back and own up. He’s nine and
+he knows right from wrong. You’re always preaching the
+Bible and this is the time to stand by what it says.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haw. I’ll say a thing here, girl.” He was speaking fast,
+harsh. “He has no daddy, since you begot him in whoredom.
+Now I let him come here like a son. I look on him so.
+Don’t stand against me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-252" class="pagenum" title="252"></a>
+“It was the same with Frankie. You pulled her out of school
+too. You know it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re mourning because I didn’t take you out.” Anton
+rolled the quid in his mouth, continuing gently, “You know,
+this boy’s a good bit like my brother, Marc. Minds me of
+him.” He settled into a chair. “Some way Ma favored Marc
+o’er Garland and me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know why.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you know?” he drawled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was handsome. Not ugly like you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How come you say that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know somewhat else.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Speak hit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He wasn’t your full brother. Nell Gaddy ne’er wanted
+you or Uncle. That’s a fact.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” he roared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She married your sir because she got caught. Like me with
+Simon.” Ellen moved to stand over him, by his chair. “She
+ne’er wanted you, I say. She loved Marc for his daddy’s sake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man rose like an unleashed bull. He struck her so
+she reeled against the sofa. “I’ll kill you for that lying tongue.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She slipped from his hands, ran outside, down the path
+through the hill field to the orchard. She stopped running
+there. Night fog was drifting in low spots, the sky was
+clouded. She leaned against a twisted apple tree until she
+seemed composed. Her face became like the glass of the pond
+where there was no wind and mist was caught above. Later
+she wended up to the house to sit on the damp garden wall,
+waiting until the kitchen and the bedroom candles flicked out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning, as she was pumping water into the blue
+pail, Anton went by to the house. He looked past her as if she
+were not there. She had told Simon earlier that he must go
+back to the Millville school, knowing Anton would refute her
+word. But she went through the motions, she hunted for a
+lard pail in the pantry, made up the lunch. She saw her fingers
+<a id="page-253" class="pagenum" title="253"></a>
+were shaking. The boy pushed his chair back and took the
+lunch pail. Anton said, “You and me are going to the Catholic
+school, boy. Did you forget? Let’s go harness Moll and Red.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon looked at him. Ellen knew the child was pleased and
+yet would hide this from her. He said like a question, “Bye
+now, Ma? I’m going now, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam was already in the field when Anton came back late
+in the morning. He was cutting cornstalks, making tall shocks
+that would cure until the long white ears were garnered.
+Anton joined him, swinging the heavy blade. “Put my boy in
+a proper school, Sam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Ellen was planning. She scrawled a letter quickly.
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p class="addr">
+Dear Uncle Garland,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is a thing I should have done long ago. I have to leave
+home. Could you find a farmer who would hire me? My boy
+is 9 now. Wages as deemed fair. Please answer by return
+post. And obliged.
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign">
+Ellen
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The next few days she moved pallid-faced, watching for the
+mail car. She gathered honey, lulling the bees with smoke.
+She cut the combs into a galvanized washtub. The soft stuff
+oozed and mingled, yellow, black, and amber, in a heavy
+pool. Some of the comb she let drip free, and laid it in a
+tree fork for the bees to use again. She fastened the lids
+back on the hives. While she was doing these things, it was
+as if her bones might break were her movements too sudden.
+Then the RFD car was leaving a letter.
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p class="addr">
+Dear Puss,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is delightful. You know I have opened my Redding
+Street house again on the north side. I’m a married man now,
+you see. Are you surprised? Violet and I would be glad to
+have you and Simon visit with us until you can get a job.
+You might learn my wife a few things about housework! I
+am sending ten dollars herewith. Come soon.
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign">
+Uncle Garland
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a id="page-254" class="pagenum" title="254"></a>
+She put the paper in her pocket. O my strength, deliver my
+soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog.
+Save me from the lion’s mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Courageous, she went to Anton. “Simon and me are taking
+the train to Chicago to visit Uncle Garland for a spell. He’s
+got married and he wants us to come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will not.” He ravened. “No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By the law, Simon’s mine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child was coughing; he clutched his chest. But the two
+who fought over him didn’t see. Their eyes narrowed, and the
+pale gray irises of father and daughter were glinting in the
+same way. Ellen said they would leave in the morning. She
+ordered Simon to his room after the night meal. He went,
+meek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton strode out to the corn field, tearing off his shirt.
+He dragged aside the standing shocks just built. Furious
+sweat drops were forming on the hairs of his chest. He
+snapped off the soft unseasoned ears, hurling them in great
+piles until dark engulfed the field. Reaching for the next
+stalk, he stumbled, falling. He lay panting a moment before
+getting to his feet, and came to the house to lie emptied
+and exhausted beside his sleeping wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam and Ellen milked without him in the morning. They
+breakfasted and then Ellen went to the door of the bedroom.
+She was looking across at the unkempt bent figure on the bed
+under the crucifix, elbows on knees. At length she turned
+away, taking Simon’s hand. He held his other over the buttons
+of his shirt. “You’re not afraid?” he queried, timid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Ellen was speaking to Maria. “I’ve got to go, Ma. You
+see that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where you off to? Is Mester Gaddy going?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Just us two.” Ellen kissed her. “It’s all I know to do,
+Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria went to gaze at her husband. “Why’s he setting
+there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-255" class="pagenum" title="255"></a>
+Ellen fled with Simon. They were overtaken down the
+road by Dr. Trumbo, who gave them a lift in his rattletrap
+Nash to the station at New Hope. A north wind blew up,
+keening in the corners of the unheated station. It struck down
+dry autumn leaves and herded them into desolate piles. They
+boarded the train at noon. Simon mounted the iron stair before
+her. He turned and peered from the windows at the
+retreating town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t put your feet on the clean seats, Simon.” Ellen did
+not look back.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Anton had shaken his head at the noon meal his wife
+proffered him. He stared at the floor. In late evening he
+arose at last from his position on the bed. Maria was in the
+parlor poring over her gilded Bible. Anton took a long thin
+butcher knife from a kitchen drawer. He went onto the half-dark
+porch, taking down the lantern that hung on a bent nail
+and lighting it. He was making his way then with measured
+gait to the woodshed. Wind coming out of the north chattered
+in the branches of the hackberry. The yellow light was
+shedding over the pen of goats lying in oat straw. They
+blinked up at him. Rhodie, who was skittish, arose and
+snorted. As the man was fumbling with the gate latch the
+other beasts got to their feet, one at a time, sensing an outsider,
+Leona’s pair of three-week kids turned to her warm
+side when she stood, seeking her udder. Feverish, Anton was
+seeking a peg, feeling with his fingers. He hung the lantern,
+his breathing quickening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first doe he grasped was Penny. When he bent her
+old neck back by the beard and the red ran down into the
+fur, she died almost gently. The clever ones saw his game.
+Rhodie was rearing upon the furthest stone wall; her hoofs
+made a subdued pattering. Leona’s white throat came next,
+for she was foolish and made no play at running away. Her
+two kids were dispatched too, uttering feeble birdlike sounds.
+<a id="page-256" class="pagenum" title="256"></a>
+And then Jenny and Babs, baaing low, were snared by their
+shaggy beards. Their taut silken throats were bending to the
+knife. The hot blood spouted on the straw and the man’s
+boots. He was lunging for the spotted Pie, powerful and
+large, catching her by a hind leg. She pulled loose, and
+bleating, kicked out, striking him on the neck, making a
+dark bruise. “Haw. Come here now.” He threw his body
+at her, encouraged the struggle. He took a pleasure in the
+battle, prolonged its ending, letting her heave, crying in
+alarm beneath his weight. Then he was dragging her along
+the straw to the knife he had dropped. Rhodie was the last.
+In a silent crazed way she was still leaping against the far
+wall. This doe had always been apt to startle since she had
+been left untended over a winter and spring as a yearling
+when his daughter Ellen had been away in Illinois. Rhodie’s
+small hoofs were beating again and again upon the wall. Anton
+trapped her by the collar. She made no sound, dropping
+slowly to the bedding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He breathed loud, threw his hand as if he had spoken and
+were justifying himself to someone. He walked out of the
+shed leaving the gate ajar, the lantern flaming. He strode to
+the bedroom and knew his wife. In the frost of the following
+morning Sam would come upon the stiffened bodies of the
+animals and bury them in a near field.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-5-5">
+<a id="page-257" class="pagenum" title="257"></a>
+18
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+While the wind of late September hurled in dreary gusts
+about them, the two stood in the chill of the next morning
+before the brownstone front of the house on Redding Street.
+They were walking up wet granite stairs strewn with blown
+leaves. Ellen rang the bell. The woman who opened the door
+was tall and narrow-shouldered. Her eyes were dark, and like
+a dog’s seemed to beg. Her hair was a brown mane, piled
+sleek. She put her hands on her hips. “Hi. You must be
+Chicken’s niece. I’m Violet. Come out of the wet.” She was
+preceding them into the living room. The old green carpet
+was shoddy. The trivia of ornaments that had burdened the
+mantle and end tables had been taken away. The oval dining
+<a id="page-258" class="pagenum" title="258"></a>
+room table had been moved into this room and the drapes
+replaced with white ruffled curtains that drooped as the
+starch wore out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This room’s bright now,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like ruffles and trimmings. Is this Simon? Chicken told
+me about you. I’m Aunt Vi. Sit down. I’ll get some lunch.”
+She bustled out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m tired, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So am I, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are we e’er going back to Granddaddy’s?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe some day.” She was pushing aside the curtains,
+looking down into the street where traffic moved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will we live in this rich house?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For a spell, I reckon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do I call that lady?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aunt Violet, you say. And be mannerly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not hungry, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take off your shoes. I’ll give you dry socks from the
+bag.” They waited until Garland’s wife returned with a tray
+of hot milk and coffee, slices of poundcake and a plate of
+bananas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You like bananas?” she asked. “I do. I feel like one of
+the quality when I have bananas around.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where’s Uncle Garland?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s at one of the restaurants. He’s got two, you know.
+He gets home about four-thirty and goes back till late at
+night. Have a banana, Simon. They’ll rot before you can snap
+your fingers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want any. Go away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy began to weep softly, laying his head on the arm
+of the chair. “I’m hot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He doesn’t look good, Ellen. Let’s put him to bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pay no mind to his talk, Aunt Violet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t,” she said cheerfully. “Nerts, I forgot to make
+<a id="page-259" class="pagenum" title="259"></a>
+up your beds. Wonder where I stored the sheets this time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upstairs in a little room, Simon was undressed and put to
+sleep. He drowsed uneasily. The bedstead was of black-enameled
+iron. There was a battered wood bureau and a cane-bottom
+chair. Simon awoke, whimpering, “Ma? Did Anse
+take back his ball?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know, Ma. What did I say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt the dry heat of his forehead. Violet came in the
+doorway. “Hi, Simon. Brought you some ice cream.” She
+offered him the little dish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat up, his blue eyes darkening. “I ne’er meant what
+I said, lady.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t mind, Simon. Eat before it melts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you have any tonic in the house?” Ellen whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think Chicken would say call the doctor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My pa ne’er had one. Only satchel doctor I knew let a
+friend of mine die.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Didn’t you have one when he came?” Violet was nodding
+at Simon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy finished the ice cream, laid the dish on the faded
+bedspread. He stroked the sheet, closing his eyes. “Sing about
+that William, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She waited until Violet had gone.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">It was in the merry merry month of May</p>
+      <p class="verse">When the meadows were fresh and gay</p>
+      <p class="verse">Sweet William hung his bugles round about his neck</p>
+      <p class="verse">And he went riding away</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+He slept. Ellen went downstairs to help with the housework.
+Violet knew little about it, made simple chores tedious,
+and in her careless way laughed it off. “Chicken says, I’ve
+got a niece at least that’s a model housekeeper.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-260" class="pagenum" title="260"></a>
+“I like things to be in the place they live.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You take last night. The soup was ready but I forgot and
+put the potatoes in late. They weren’t done. Nerts. Good
+thing Chicken brings things home from the restaurant.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she was talking, Ellen busied herself. She boiled
+starch for the wilted curtains. “How long have you and
+Uncle been married?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m what they call a common-law wife. I guess I can tell
+you, being Chicken’s family so to speak. We’ve lived on the
+east side ever since thirty-two. Or was it thirty-three? Last
+year Chicken gave me a box of stationery with Mrs. Garland
+Gaddy on it. He says, we’ve got a checking account, you
+and me, the National Trust.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That sounds like Uncle.” Ellen stopped scouring the
+bronze-trimmed icebox, wiped her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All the time he’d had it in his head. I’ve never written
+a check, I don’t know how. Let him do that. But there’s my
+name with that bank.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He told me your husband died, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got to look at Simon.” She was going upstairs. The
+covers were thrown back, the boy’s face reddened. When he
+opened his eyes, they stared at her bloodshot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Penn didn’t want that ball,” he breathed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was rushing down the long echoing staircase. “Call
+Uncle’s doctor, Vi. Simon’s really sick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went back. The voice met her, wheedling, “I didn’t
+wet the quilt, Da.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t talk, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I saw that burying-beetle. He made a grave for the
+speckled thrush. He dug all about the body till it settled in
+the earth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laid a wet cloth on his forehead. Her hand was pushed
+away strongly. Now God, shall I give up my first-born for
+<a id="page-261" class="pagenum" title="261"></a>
+my transgression? The doctor arrived. The watch began. For
+nearly three days the fever would possess Simon’s body.
+Garland came and went but Ellen didn’t notice him, that he
+was changed, his hair whitened, his figure grown portly,
+his mustache shaved so his face had lost its sharpness. His blue
+eyes looked out shrived. Ellen saw only Simon. She sat in
+the cane-bottom chair and watched. Simon was laying his
+hand on his breast, “Now there’s that pain. I won’t tell
+Mama.” His voice rose, “Granddaddy clobbered old Jess.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen asked the doctor, “How come he grabs at his chest?
+I’ve seen him do that before but he said it didn’t hurt.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He might be afraid of something, Mrs. Gaddy, that he’s
+not aware of. Some anxiety. It’s possible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Late in the night, Ellen was sitting alone in the glare of
+the small overhanging bulb. The doctor had said that only
+time would reveal the extent of the child’s malady and his
+strength to combat it. Gusts were rattling the house eaves,
+rain drummed insistent on the glass behind the stained brown
+shade. Her eyes sought patterns in the striped wallpaper.
+“Gaddy brat. Bastard Gaddy.” Simon was crying in the
+way of the young, without effort, his tears wetting the pillow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Violet came in, her brown hair hanging to the waist of her
+dressing-gown and bound with a clasp. “I had a brother,” she
+said, “was sick like that as a child. He came through. The
+doctor thinks Simon’s getting better. He told me when he
+went out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t cry. Why does he cry, Aunt Violet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. Maybe he’s thinking thoughts we can’t
+know of.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon you’re right,” Ellen sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know one way to stop it, but you might think it improper.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What, Aunt Violet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I doubt the quality ever heard of it. It’s a way people
+<a id="page-262" class="pagenum" title="262"></a>
+did where I was brought up. Even with babies. We lived
+in the slums, all in one room. Mom would stroke my brother’s
+privates. She was forced to hush him so Dad could get his
+sleep. And it quieted him right off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I don’t know. I’ll just use the wet cloth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How is he?” Garland’s rasp sounded from the door. “Just
+closed up the restaurant. Busy tonight. It’s after midnight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen didn’t turn. “He’s better, it seems.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is, Chicken. The first time he’s resting good. I’ll go
+make your tea. You want some too, Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure she does, Vi.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pattered away down the hall. “Won’t be long.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was coming in by the bed. “Poor fellow. He’s a
+fine kid, puss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know it.” Tears began to flow down her tired face.
+“You-all been so good. Taking us in, Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chrissake, hon. It’s Anton, isn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was he mistreating the kid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, then he was lording it over you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not that, I don’t mind that.” She was whispering, weeping.
+“Seemed he didn’t care for Simon’s good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, that’s An. Wish there was some way to make him
+see the light.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only to have him do his bidding.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What makes that bastard that way? I’m fed up with him.
+I’m done.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To make Simon a part of him like his own son would be.”
+Ellen was looking up. She saw that Garland was old. He had
+always seemed young, vigorous. “When I got your letter,
+Uncle. Saying we could come here. It was like a way opened
+up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your letter to me was pretty plain. I thought I knew
+what the trouble was. I suspected Anton then.” His small
+<a id="page-263" class="pagenum" title="263"></a>
+angry eyes cooled. “You know how tickled Vi is with you
+both?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ve been married a long time. Since about thirty-two,
+I think.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Like I wrote,” she looked at Simon who breathed evenly
+in sleep, “I want to get a job right away, though.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How old is he anyway?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nine, now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Frankie told me she thought your husband had died.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.” The wind rushed, pushing rain sharply against the
+pane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Frankie said what a nice kid Simon was. She’ll be glad to
+see him, too. We’ll have her over.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m so tired, Uncle.” She looked at him, vacant. “I can’t
+think so good. Does Frankie live near here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just you take it easy.” He put his hand at Simon’s forehead.
+“Feels cool to me.” The humming of Violet who was
+mounting the stairs came, and then dishes were rattling in an
+adjoining room. “Let’s go have some hot tea and ginger-bread.
+Do you good, sweet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d better stay here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can come back. In a little while.” He jerked the
+chain dangling from the overhead light. He drew her from
+the darkened room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen slept late into the morning like one drugged. Simon
+dozed. The fever had disappeared, with it went the constriction
+in his chest. When he roused, Violet tiptoed up to
+amuse him, making shadow-pictures on the wall with her
+thin hands. “I used to do this for my brother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland came home, stood in the doorway. “There’s nobody
+like my Vi, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do the little goat now,” the boy whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went down to the kitchen in the evening. Violet was
+in a rocker by the tin-topped table. The radio was blaring.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+<a id="page-264" class="pagenum" title="264"></a>
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">The music goes round and round</p>
+      <p class="verse">O-o-o-o-o-o</p>
+      <p class="verse">And it comes out here</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The woman snapped it off. “Hi. How is he, Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fine. I promised him a kitten. Reckon we could find one?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll tell Chicken. He’ll get you one somewhere. Have a
+cup?” They sat in the kitchen room that was littered as in
+the days of Mrs. Quimby’s reign. Years of neglect and Violet’s
+efforts had done little to improve it. The chipped sink
+was touched up, the cupboards were painted cream color, and
+a square of red-and-white linoleum was on the wood floor.
+The fireplace was still unused, the opening blocked. “If times
+get better, we’ll fix the house up, Ellen. Get an electric icebox
+and a new stove and sink.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen drank the tea. “Violet, did Uncle look for a job for
+me yet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s watching the want ads. We’d like you to stay here as
+long as you can. Have you ever worked out?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have. Since I was eleven. One place they had a special
+French toilet in their bathroom. When they finished their
+business on the regular one, they switched to it. It washed
+them off with a spray. Now it was outlandish.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those French are tormented clean folks. My great grandsir
+was one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The front door slammed. “Where are you, Vi?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She bayed, “Here, Chicken.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was pushing the swinging door. “Home is the
+sailor, home from the sea. And the hunter from the hill.”
+He kissed Violet’s cheek. “I’ll have some of that tea.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen wants you to find Simon a kitten. He likes pets.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll ask Charlie. He’s got cats. Charlie’s my dishwasher.
+<a id="page-265" class="pagenum" title="265"></a>
+Say, we’re going to have company in a couple of hours.
+Frankie’s coming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just remembered supper,” Violet cried. “Nerts, I’ll never
+get it together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, we will,” Ellen gathered the teacups. “How’s Frankie’s
+piano-playing now, Uncle?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, hon,” Garland was laughing, “when did you see her
+last?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At six-thirty, Frankie arrived, Genevieve Wheeler, stout
+and amiable, just behind her. “How’s the farm, Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s fine, Miss Wheeler.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take my coat, Gen, will you?” Frankie’s red hair was
+long and she wore a pearl comb in it. Her fine features had
+filled out and she had lost her frailness, was somewhat plump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All righty. I’ll go put these chocolate eclairs in the frig.”
+Genevieve was striding vigorously into the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh sure, Ellie. We’ve been visiting Uncle and Vi ever
+since Pa tossed me out. We live on the east side.” Frankie’s
+eyes appraised Ellen. “You’re different. Older, I guess.” She
+had her hand on Ellen’s arm, was kissing her cheek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen drew away. “And I am older, so what’s that if I look
+it?” She spoke sharply from the wound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did Pa make you go? We didn’t believe Uncle when he
+said you were in the city. And Simon, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I told Pa I was leaving.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you raising Simon Catholic?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Pa took him to church, but I don’t go. I got weary
+of the prayers and such.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa know that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I talked to Father Tompert once and he said I was right.
+So Pa gave in.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always got a kick out of the way you defied him, Ellie.
+I never dared. How is he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The same.” It tasted bitter. “It’s us that have got to
+change.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-266" class="pagenum" title="266"></a>
+“I’m glad you left. But how are you going to get along?
+Are you staying here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I want to find a place on a farm, Frankie. So I can
+work and Simon can help with the stock.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Genevieve was in the doorway, hearty-voiced, “I know a
+farmer might be able to take you, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where, Gen?” Frankie was asking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Down in the state somewhere. Wasilewski’s the name.
+One of their cousins works in my office. He was reading a
+letter yesterday about his aunt getting old and wanting to
+hire a girl. Sounded nice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s write them,” Frankie cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonder if they have cows.” The desire caught in Ellen’s
+throat to lay her hands on the silken hair and smell the pungent
+kine breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure,” Genevieve said. “I guess. Cows and pigs and chickens.
+The works. We’ll write them, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And we’ll call you,” Frankie promised, “as soon as we
+find out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t get it,” Genevieve said. “Wouldn’t you rather find
+something here in Chicago? My kind of work’s so much more
+interesting than the drudgery of a farm. It’s stimulating.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Miss Wheeler.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You could live with us,” Frankie offered. “You could
+do steno work like me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll bet Garland would be tickled silly if you’d stay with
+them,” Genevieve said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vi’s such a slob,” Frankie giggled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s not,” said Ellen. “She’s good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t say she wasn’t good,” Frankie was shrugging.
+“But she’s a slob. She’s perfect for her Chicken.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Garland thinks he’s taking care of the downtrodden,” said
+Genevieve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s good,” Ellen repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you stay, then?” Genevieve asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-267" class="pagenum" title="267"></a>
+“They need a housekeeper,” said Frankie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather be on a farm, if I could. Besides, Simon can’t
+bear to be cooped up.” But Ellen knew she wanted to be
+away from Garland and his wife, and Frankie and Genevieve
+Wheeler. She wanted to leave all ties, to start on new
+ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day, Frankie called to say they had mailed the letter
+and when the reply came would let Ellen know without
+delay. Ellen walked through the park, Simon beside her.
+Leaves were dropping, scudding into damp niches, mingling
+with soot particles and bits of paper and debris that gathered
+in gutters. Sleet sheeted from a dull sky. They returned to
+the house. Violet was bringing a bowl of popcorn into the
+living room. Garland urged Ellen, “<i>Top Hat</i>’s at the Acme
+tonight. With Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Why don’t
+you come with us, puss?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t care to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Make me some fudge, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.” When Garland and Violet had left, they went
+into the kitchen. Simon sat in the rocker while Ellen was
+hunting through cupboards for ingredients.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When you reckon Uncle will get my kitten, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Soon, he said.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonder if Leona’s kid sprouted horns?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle says the man that washes dishes at the restaurant
+has a cat that littered. But they aren’t weaned yet.” She was
+stirring the hot mixture in the iron pan, the strong odor of
+chocolate filled the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon stared at the red-and-white checked linoleum, held
+the arms of the chair to keep it from movement. “Reckon
+Sam milks the goats out good?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She poured the thick fudge on a buttered cold plate. Her
+body was tense and unyielding. Her braids lay like marble
+coils about her head. “Uncle says those kits are spotted.
+Black and white and orange.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-268" class="pagenum" title="268"></a>
+Simon got up and followed her into the living room. He
+was nibbling at a sweet brown square, his eyes looking past
+the ruffed curtains to the steady noise of the street. “I say,
+Ma, I get to honing for them.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It was two weeks before Frankie came for an evening
+again. “Why in the world did you and Uncle move from the
+old flat, Vi?” She was laughing. “It takes us an hour to get
+over to this side.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you e’er hear from those people, Frankie?” Ellen
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“About that farm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh yes. We meant to call you. Gen’s got a letter from
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s here somewhere in my bag.” Genevieve searched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen took it quickly to slit it open.
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p class="addr">
+Mrs. Gaddy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I hear you want to hire out. Winter work is light here.
+Can you come say latter part of Jan.? If satisfactory would
+pay 4 &amp; half dollars per week and board. Child to work
+according to size. My wife raises chickens. Needs help with
+them and house. Also garden-stuff. That is all I have to say.
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign">
+Matthew Paul Wasilewski<br>
+Hidden Creek, Ill.<br>
+Rt. 1
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“Well?” asked Gen. “Good or bad?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’ll take us. But not till after winter.” She colored.
+“I know where Hidden Creek is. Penny Dougherty lives near
+there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” said Violet when she heard the news, “I’m glad it’s
+not till January at least.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s that I hate putting you and Uncle out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nerts, you don’t. We wish you’d stay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I have my own horse there, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-269" class="pagenum" title="269"></a>
+“We’ll see if you can leastwise have a chicken.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me have it as soon as it hatches. I’ll give it all its feed
+and raise it for a pet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never heard of a pet chicken,” Violet said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When’s Uncle going to bring me the kitten, Aunt Vi?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll get after him again, Simon. He’s always busy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d love a spotty kitten.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen cleaned the house as the weeks flowed. With strong
+yellow soap she scrubbed into corners, taking a pleasure in
+the dark lather that would form in the ancient dust. She
+pulled down drapes, hauled dingy frayed rugs out on the line
+strung in the yard and set Simon to beating them in the cold
+autumn sunlight. “You got to polish brass with wood ashes
+mixed in oil. Hit’s the only way,” she told Violet. “It mars
+our hands but the brass comes shiny like new.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Violet, thin arms akimbo, followed, protesting. “Look at
+you, Ellen. Let it be. We don’t mind. Come on and sit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather finish this off first, Aunt Vi.” She felt a compulsion
+to drive her body as if that would make the days
+shorter.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-5-6">
+<a id="page-270" class="pagenum" title="270"></a>
+19
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+There was a heavy fall of snow in the early afternoon. All
+city noises were dulled. Violet had spread newspapers before
+her and she was sipping hot tea. “Says here they found
+a frozen man on the el steps, people walking around him. You
+think they figured he was sleeping?” The telephone rang and
+Violet picked it up. “Hello. Yes, we’ll accept it. Hold the
+line, ma’am, she’s right here. It’s Millville, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen grasped the phone. She could scarcely hear the voice
+of Sam Offut. “Ellie? Your Ma’s acting queer. Mester
+Gaddy’s got to pull her out of the wardrobe to get the meals.
+You best come and do somewhat with her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Sam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-271" class="pagenum" title="271"></a>
+“She’s not been the same since you left. I allow I don’t
+know how we’ll make out at butchering.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is Pa all right?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For Gawd, Ellie. He thinks she’s being ornery. But I don’t
+know. Seems like she’s off her head to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are you, Sam?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At Love’s. I traded a basket of eggs. The hens are doing
+good for this weather. I says to the central, there’s a Garland
+Gaddy lives at Chicago. He’s got my boss’s niece there. Ellie
+Gaddy. Can you get her to this phone? She says, collect? I
+says, look, I got no money. Can you fix it so I don’t have to
+pay? Lo and behold, I was about to walk out when Stacey
+hollers, it’s for you, Sam. How about this age of miracles?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m hanging up, Sam. I’ll come some way.” She cut off his
+voice. “What do you reckon that call cost, Aunt Vi?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s the matter, Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to know. I’ll pay it back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Ellen told Frankie, the young woman laughed as if
+embarrassed, the light catching in her blue eyes. “I’m done
+with all that, Ellie. You can go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven’t you got any pity for Ma? Uncle says she has
+to be taken to a place the state runs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When she’s there, we’ll go visit her. And Gen and me
+will give what money we can spare.” Frankie’s full face was
+set, her mouth pouting.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen and Garland were going by train to New Hope, leaving
+Simon in Violet’s care. Garland hired a man to drive them
+to the Gaddy farm. The corduroy country roads were uneven
+because of the freezing and thawing of winter, and they
+were jostled in the back seat of the worn-out Model T. Garland
+was relaxed as he stared out at the countryside. His
+jaw had dropped, the flesh was folding on his face about the
+age lines. Shaving his mustache had given him a guileless
+expression, and with Violet not present, he had laid aside his
+<a id="page-272" class="pagenum" title="272"></a>
+forced lusty manner. They were passing Bailey’s Woods.
+Ellen recalled the glowbugs that had lit the path sides with
+fitful orange lights when she played there as a child on summer
+evenings. Now dead twigs of tree branches tangled and
+meshed like spiders’ webs. A winter wren on a lean bough
+was whistling, “Teakettle, teakettle, teakettle!” and with a
+whirr fading down the road toward the sky where gray
+clouds lived uncared for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s not your father’s fault about Maria, puss.” Garland
+was speaking suddenly. “Don’t go blaming it on him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s laying it to him?” flashed Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know, Maria had a hard childhood. Her people were
+queer, you might say. Her mother was over forty when
+Maria was born and her father going on sixty. Christ. Must
+have near starved some winters back in the hills. He’d go off
+and leave the two of them to fend for themselves. Probably
+half crazy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think so.” Ellen’s mouth was stubborn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anton said he was a hunchback. Had Maria’s dowry
+stuffed in a gunnysack fastened with binder twine. Fifteen
+hundred dollars in coin and bills.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the way he was. I don’t call it so queer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The house appeared uninhabited as they approached. Jack
+came out from the hole he had made for warmth in the earth
+behind the leaf-bare bushes. He watched them dull-eyed, uncertain.
+Garland called at the bottom of the porch; there
+was no answer. He set out for the barns while Ellen went up
+into the house. The porch was littered with mud and manure,
+in the kitchen the floor was tracked and the usual order on
+Maria’s shelves and table was broken. Ellen guessed that Sam
+had been making an effort to clean up and wash the dishes.
+Her pulse was pounding as she glanced at the bedroom. She
+draped her coat on a hook and drew off her winter boots.
+She went slowly into the room and over to the dark standing
+closet. The heavy crucifix was looming on the wall over
+<a id="page-273" class="pagenum" title="273"></a>
+the bed by the light from the little windows. It was a dream.
+From another time. She was in the cellar of her childhood,
+her feet fixed and immovable. There was someone behind her
+with a stick, waiting to perform a vague frightful act. Her
+heart was beating like a living stone as she dragged open
+the double doors to the closet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria’s birdlike eyes looked up from where she sat, clad in
+a long maroon sweater and a worn housedress. “I got my
+little boy here, Mam. He’s a bit cold. But he’s not dead by
+a long sight. That whippoorwill was wrong.” She had cradled
+a pillow in the crook of her arm. Her hair was loosely
+braided, gray wisps straggled over her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ma,” Ellen whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maria was frowning. “Shut the doors. I allowed he was
+out there in the ground moldering and turning. But he’s right
+here. Shut them now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s Ellie, Ma.” But the woman bowed her head into her
+shielding hands, waiting until the doors would close.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went into the kitchen. “She’s stark mad.” She stirred
+up the fire, adding lighter-wood and a log from the bin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three men scraped noisily coming up the porch and
+into the room. They stood in their muddied boots, their
+breath steaming up. Anton stamped his boots and coughed,
+rubbing his fingers together above the stove.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Evening, Ellie,” Sam said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She nodded, holding herself from them, over at the side
+by the windows where a chill seeped in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton had on his black bear-fur cap, the collar of his tattered
+mackinaw was turned up. He shrugged and said directly
+to Garland, “So hell, I’d get her out mealtimes. She
+wouldn’t go to mass and the last few days she wouldn’t get
+in bed. Hum.” He inquired softly, “Has she gone loony?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would she cook for you?” Garland asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fair to middling,” said Sam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But always she’d set out for the bedroom,” Anton was
+<a id="page-274" class="pagenum" title="274"></a>
+saying, “and I’d pull her back. Like she aimed to anger me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She needs a doctor, An. And care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you fixing to do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll have to make some calls first. Where’s the nearest
+phone? I think the state will take her. We have to see a doctor
+and you’ll have to sign papers. You come with me, An.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go hitch Red,” Anton said. The hired man went as bid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is she now, hon?” Garland asked Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In the closet,” Ellen whispered. “She ne’er knew me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And why should she?” Anton was glaring at her, hurt and
+reproachful. Like old Jess led to the sourwood scaffold in the
+yard. “Isn’t that right, Gar? There’s a great daughter. That
+one.” The door slammed after him in a gust of cold air, and
+Ellen shrank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your ma’s probably best off right where she is, puss. She
+isn’t violent or anything?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Just sitting there harmless. She used to do that sometimes
+when Pa had his back up. I thought it was a place for
+her to get away. Far as I can remember she’d do that. But
+now she’s talking daft and she didn’t know me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood, hands hanging useless. Nothing moved. The
+silence was complete. Then the buckwagon clattered outside.
+Garland roused, picked up his homburg hat. “Be back late.
+Not much of a Christmas this year, hon.” From the window
+she watched them climb onto the seat. The chestnut horse
+was restive, its winter coat woolly and ungroomed, dry
+manure casing its flanks and legs. It carried its broomlike tail
+high and pawed the ground. It moved off, the two figures
+hunched against the cold, heads drawn down into scarves and
+collars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen left the house, going toward the woodshed. She called
+to the dog but he had disappeared. She went seeking her
+goats. She met Sam, and learned of their destruction from
+him, “You know your pa e’er was a strong-willed man, Ellie.
+And you be cut off the same last. I saw that when you were
+<a id="page-275" class="pagenum" title="275"></a>
+yet a set-along child. You’d ne’er squall when he took a stick
+to you. It wasn’t natural.” Sam was wagging a gnarled hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen’s mind had only partly encompassed what he told
+her. She was conscious of the faint liquor scent. “What’ll I
+do, Sam?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You hadn’t ought to torment him so.” Sam was stooped
+over, holding one hand on a hip as if an ache lay underneath.
+“Being as you’re a ooman grown now, you ought to stand
+behind him. Mrs. Gaddy’s no use any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen wasn’t listening. “Where’d you put them, Sam?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went before her to the orchard edge. “I threw them in
+the wagon and toted them down here. For Gawd, took a
+big hole. Wore me plumb out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had gone, Ellen looked about at the familiar landscape.
+Penny and Leona and spotted Pie. Rhodie and the
+shaggy yearlings. Pa gave me an eye for an eye, it appears.
+Burning for burning, stripe for stripe. Because I took Simon.
+It’s my goats for Simon. Life for life. That’s an enduring
+fine trade. At last she was wending back up the hill field.
+Darkness dropped almost instantly as it does in the short days
+of the year. The bark of a dog fox was rising shakily from
+the woods, the eerie sound lingered. Ellen’s hands in her
+pockets were stiff and cold. She blew on them and rubbed
+them. “I’ll ne’er have truck with my pa again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the house, squares of lamplight were wavering. Ellen
+entered, heard Dr. Trumbo’s murmur. The Gaddy brothers
+were sitting with him, and papers were spread before
+them. They all wore their overcoats, and their headgear
+was cast near their hands as though, in the half-warmth
+of the kitchen, they were passers-by with a bit of business
+to perform here. Ellen removed her coat. She shook
+the grate in the stove and laid a fresh fire. That’s all we be.
+Passers-by. Strangers sitting in His home, dragging the past
+on our shoes. If we could but lose that burden, start afresh.
+The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth
+<a id="page-276" class="pagenum" title="276"></a>
+are set on edge. There’s Pa whom I ever loved, thinking of
+ways to make him see me since I was a least youngen, following
+him with my eyes, running to do for him. But I never
+saw Pa for himself, only for the way I wished him, like the
+songs that seem to happen in another land. From this valley
+they say you are going, we will miss your bright eyes and
+sweet smile. I loved Pa in the land of myself, in a valley of
+my mind. While Ellen was mixing the corn meal, her hand
+was turning the egg and buttermilk into it quickly. Tears
+started and fell unheeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laid plates before the men and they ate silent by the
+mellow light. Forks and knives chinked. The smell of burning
+oil pervaded the room. Ellen went to where the woman hid
+herself. “Come get your supper, Ma.” Maria laid her head on
+her knees. Ellen brought her a dish and she accepted it. The
+doctor and Garland were lighting cigarettes, Anton puffed
+his pipe. Ellen finished the dishes and swept the floor. Dr.
+Trumbo arose then, it was time to go. He drew Maria struggling
+and whimpering from her place, and Ellen persuaded
+her to change from her ragged clothes. “Here, Ma. Take off
+that sweater and those rags. Put this on.” She was offering the
+old crepe de Chine dress. “It’s silk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” Maria felt of the black material. She was putting
+her pillow down. When she had dressed they came into the
+kitchen where the others waited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All set?” asked Dr. Trumbo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was watching his wife from where he still sat at
+the table. He was pushing tobacco angrily with his thumb
+into the pipe bowl. “There goes the last of my oomen-folk.
+Now who’s to do the cooking, Gar? Sam, you think?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll get her bag.” Garland went into the shadowed bedroom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve been a righteous man. And pious,” Anton carped
+harshly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here we go, Mrs. Gaddy.” The doctor was taking Maria’s
+<a id="page-277" class="pagenum" title="277"></a>
+arm; he led the way with Ellen to the car, into the black
+night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was bringing Maria’s valise. He paused at the
+open door to the porch. Light from the kitchen made a hesitant
+path reaching to the top step. “Goodbye, An.” Car lights
+had beamed suddenly in the yard, revealing the shrouded figures
+of the women climbing into the back seat. Garland
+cleared his throat. “I’ll remember when I first met Maria.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton did not move. Pipe smoke wreathed and dimmed
+his lined face, his strong shoulders, his powerful arms
+stretched on the table before him. “Man born of ooman is of
+few days, Gar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was running his soft hand nervously through his
+white hair, fingering the place where his mustache had used
+to be. He hurried down the steps. “Let’s go, Doc.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen sat in back with Maria, dust from the car floor mingled
+with a vague clinical smell. She drew an old alpaca robe
+about their knees; it was damp to her hands, musty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I remember winters, Doc,” Garland was saying. “We cut
+shoes from hides my father tanned. They had only one last so
+both shoes were cut the same. Pa’d say, your feet will wear
+them into shape to fit. Times I thought it was the shoes shaping
+my feet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think everyone nowadays buys shoes, Mester Gaddy?
+They come down out of the back country or I hunt them out.
+Ridden with hookworm, wearing shoes made like yours were,
+no right or left.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chrissake, bet you see some things, Doc?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure. Blacksnake root for the stomach. Butterfly root for
+female trouble.” Dr. Trumbo grunted. “Lady came in yesterday.
+Said she was near starvation. She was down to her
+last chicken and couldn’t wring its neck. Said it was her pet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the lot of a farmer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s right, Mester Gaddy. Always dealing with death.
+The youngens play with the calves and lambs and maybe
+<a id="page-278" class="pagenum" title="278"></a>
+teach them tricks. Then they have to watch them slaughtered.
+Always losing whate’er they get attached to.” The feeble
+lights of the car parted the night. Ellen watched the slack
+shoulders of the men before her. Maria breathed deeply, the
+pillow slipping from her angular fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fellow was a grave digger, see?” Garland was telling an
+old joke. “He dug one too deep, this time. So he was shouting
+up from it, help. Get me out of here. I’m freezing. A
+drunk came staggering along and he looked in. Says, Hell,
+fellow, no wonder. They forgot to cover you up. And he
+began to throw in what was shoveled out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, that’s a good one,” Dr. Trumbo was whispering.
+“I’ll remember it. Sure wish I had you to go the rounds with
+me.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A day later Ellen and Garland were back in Chicago.
+Simon met them at the front door. “Look here, what Aunt
+Vi gave me for my Christmas.” A sleeping calico kitten was
+within his shirt, a soft lump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen laughed at him, “My.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Simon touched it with a finger, the kitten stretched
+a paw and yawned. Simon was delighted. “See that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You made him right at home, boy,” Garland cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Violet was stepping down the wide staircase, trailing her
+housecoat, her hair undone, her eyes wistful. Garland put his
+arm about her tall form. “Miss me, wife?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure did, Chicken. I didn’t hear the doorbell, I was sleeping
+so hard. You know Simon was in the school play? He was
+the shepherd and he brought a gift.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I ne’er,” said the boy. “I just knelt by the sheep, singing
+‘Round John Virgin.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was carving the holiday ham that night. “Next
+year we’re going to have a turkey, Vi. I hear they might vote
+FDR in for another term. We’ll see prosperity again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen watched Simon eating, struck by it. He held the
+<a id="page-279" class="pagenum" title="279"></a>
+fork in his left hand, pushing the food with the knife as his
+grandfather did. She said abruptly, “How come you hold
+your fork so? I ne’er noticed that. It’s not proper. Your fork
+goes in the right hand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let him eat Christmas dinner like he wants, puss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reckon I’ll always see those ways Pa stamped on him.
+Simon was reaching for the ketchup and pouring it heavily
+on the potatoes, his head bent over his plate. She remembered
+how he said, “Mind now,” to the kit. She was wondering if
+that too came from Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now these quality,” Violet was saying, “had an exercise
+machine. You could hear it clear down in the kitchen. It was
+bolted to the floor and there was a wide belt they put around
+them. It juggled their stomach or wherever there was a fat
+spot and it just rubbed it away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say now, that’s what I need.” Garland was patting his
+stomach.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-5-7">
+<a id="page-280" class="pagenum" title="280"></a>
+20
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Anton and Dyke were loading the Burwell truck for the
+trip to Louisville. It was late January. They had become familiar
+with the town since their first excursion six years ago
+at the beginning of the depression. They had come to know
+the wholesale section and the waterfront district where the
+Ohio flowed and where auctions were conducted in the
+shadow of tobacco warehouses and mills and the newly-operated
+distilleries, reeking and guarded. Now too, they would
+manage more than one yearly trip. They found it necessary,
+in fact, to go many times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam Offut had moved in with Anton the week after Maria
+went, bringing along his wife Eadie. She was plagued with
+<a id="page-281" class="pagenum" title="281"></a>
+lumbago and vestiges of various diseases contracted when
+much younger, and she seemed satisfied to settle with Sam in
+Mr. Gaddy’s house for as long as she was required. She
+learned to carry out her duties to his partial satisfaction. She
+cooked three meals and cleaned occasionally. She was cowed,
+however, by the Catholic icons, refusing to dust the crucifix
+or the statuettes or the framed Sacred Heart. “Be careful
+what you say near the things, Samuel,” she warned, “they
+be Romish. You know Mr. Gaddy’s not a true Christian like
+us.” The Offuts would go to the new Holiness Church that
+had set up a tent on the outskirts of Millville. There folks
+spoke in strange tongues and preachers would handle rattlesnakes
+and fire and encourage public confession. Besides
+being entertained, the Offuts had found an ideal place to express
+themselves without censure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This morning Eadie was bringing sandwiches of bread and
+bacon to the truck. Dyke was gunning the motor and a white
+smoke streamed from the exhaust. Six fattened shoats, stowed
+behind the load of corn, grunted and squealed until the machine
+was set in motion. Then they were lulled, grew sleepy-eyed
+swaying warm-bodied against each other. “I’m going to
+get me a piece of cock tonight, Mester Gaddy,” Dyke sang
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do that, boy,” Anton glowered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey. I like a ooman built like a brick shithouse.” Dyke’s
+ruddy face shone. Beside the taciturn older man he was feeling
+debonair and knowing. “Big and soft all o’er. And I know
+where they’ve got them.” He blew the horn, “Beep. Beep!”
+A flock of chickens fled squawking into ditches from the carcass
+of a dog that lay in the frosted road. “Want me to show
+you where, Mester Gaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Christ.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Setting about the room in wrappers. Nothing underneath.
+For a fact, now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll get the claps and come home dragging your tail.
+<a id="page-282" class="pagenum" title="282"></a>
+Hum. Won’t be so horny then, I vow. Best stay away from
+harlots, boy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, there’s one old girl does a trick with a cigarette.
+You’d ne’er think she could do it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get your pecker down, boy.” Anton looked out on the
+frozen fields that waited fallow for spring. “Give not thy
+strength unto oomen. Mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon the corn’ll sell high, Mester Gaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Prices always come up in late winter. Seems most folks
+are so strapped for cash in fall, they’ll sell when hit’s cheap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stoutish younger man and the other near sixty were
+drawn together in the close cab, knitted by the future, unforeseen.
+The return trip would be different, then the tie
+would fall away as tomorrow became a routine of familiar
+chores. Dyke was laughing. “Hey, Mester Gaddy. Saw
+Butcher Faust last night. He’d just got in a cow carcass. Still
+had the udder on it. So he sliced off a front teat and let it
+hang out his fly. Old lady Brenner came in. He took her
+order, started in to cut her meat for her. Well, she jerked up
+of a sudden. Says, timid-like, look there, Butcher Faust. And
+he looked down, says, Oh that damn thing. And lays it on
+the block, whacks it off with his knife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haw,” snorted Anton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Old lady Brenner near passed out. That Butcher Faust
+slays me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hog prices had nearly doubled over the fall rate. The men
+found a buyer for the corn and stopped in at a dingy corner
+bar for a glass of draught beer before parting company. Then
+Anton was making his way down Market Street, a bleak wind
+thrusting at his back, up the sleeves to his mackinaw and ill-fitting
+black suit. He took a left turn for two blocks, then a
+right. He swung in at the second house, his stride unaltered.
+The building was of red brick, one of a series of identical
+houses. The long hall was unheated and dark, a radio lilted
+faintly from under a doorway.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+<a id="page-283" class="pagenum" title="283"></a>
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I don’t want your sugar sprinkled in my tea</p>
+      <p class="verse">Because the gal I’ve got is sweet enough for me</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Anton was climbing a staircase, knocking at the door at
+the head. A shapely woman opened it, her jet-black hair
+heavy about her sallow-skinned broad face. Anton spoke
+thickly, “You alone, Rose?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve been looking for you, Daddy.” She was turning in a
+studied careless way. He put a heavy-muscled hand toward
+the slim curve of her back, withdrew it hastily as if caught
+between guilt and greed. He closed the door and followed her
+to the window where she was looking out as if waiting. His
+hand came upon her insistent, he was pulling her to the bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She asked him after a while, “Why don’t you ever kiss
+me? And you with those big lips.” She was slipping into her
+wrapper. He followed her with his eyes, made no answer.
+She took his coat from the chair, explored the inner pocket
+and brought out a flat box. “Why not, Daddy?” She was
+deriding, but gentle, for the kind elderly farmer suited her.
+She had met him a few months ago, knew he was Catholic
+with a wife committed recently to an institution. She opened
+the gift box holding a red and blue silk handkerchief. Louisville,
+Kentucky. The Biggest Wholesale Distributor Of The
+South. She knotted it softly at her neck, wise that the vivid
+colors set off her hair. She planned that she would marry
+Anton. She was preparing supper on a two-burner hot plate,
+boiling spaghetti, searing ground meat in a frying pan. “Vo-do-do-dee-o-do-o-o!
+Guess I’ll teach you to dance, Daddy.
+Okay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the bed he was taking in the figure in the bright
+kimono that contrasted so completely with the shadow of
+Maria. He would leave Louisville tomorrow, returning to the
+farm. But he would be restless and irritable, lonely, his sin
+again unconfessed. “Come o’er here, Poppet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was going to the bed. He took her to his lap. His sateen
+<a id="page-284" class="pagenum" title="284"></a>
+shirt was open and she stroked the red hair of his chest.
+“You’re a comfortable man. You’re strong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rose, you wait here for me.” He was heated. “Don’t see
+e’er a man. You hear?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know.” But Rose said it as if she would obey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This little grandson of mine had hair would turn pale in
+summer, like oat straw. Hum.” Rose went back to where the
+savory odors were steaming. She laid dishes and brought
+glasses of beer to a low table. Anton drew on his pants, fastening
+his belt; he pulled his heavy frame erect, began to pace
+back and forth. His yellowed winter underwear was exposed
+above the waist. He stopped in his stride as if angry,
+“Will you do like I say, Rose?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Okay, Daddy.” But this time she was amused and said it
+as though she would not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning Rose was frying ham and eggs for
+breakfast. The stale air in the flat was surfeited with the high
+fat odor. She made her ways soft so the pain of parting would
+lie in Anton like a hot ball. She was teasing him so he would
+never be quite sure away from her and would remember
+her standing by him in the bright-flowered kimono, her hips
+soft and her city face white. She was forking the food onto
+his plate. Anton observed the lift of her arm along her breast;
+he laid his gnarled hand against the pointed shape of it, his
+mind turning to a morning long years ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl Penny, who married that fool Dougherty, had
+worn a flowered dress patterned like Rose’s kimono. She had
+come to the hay field to bring Anton a drink of water in a
+stone jar. He was turning the damp clover alone. The girl
+watched him drink, smiling. “It’s a power hot out here, Mester.”
+She was lifting her hands to brush back her hair, seeking
+the breeze. She looked cool from her head to her brown toes
+that were small as a youngen’s. Something stirred in Anton
+when her breasts stood out as she raised her arms. He put his
+<a id="page-285" class="pagenum" title="285"></a>
+hand forward hardly knowing what he did, and cupped one
+in his palm. “Are you coming in the heat?” he was whispering,
+hoarse. Penny’s eyes had widened. She was bending for
+the jug and slipping away. In days to follow he named her
+“that roaring ooman,” angered with his own calflike ways,
+despising his moment of weakness. And when his older daughter
+had picked up the foldilay songs, ever after they would
+stir his ire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke dourly to Rose, removing his hand, “The lips
+of a strange ooman drop honey, says the Book. And her
+mouth be smoother than oil.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Banana oil, Daddy,” said Rose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Anton met Dyke at the truck parked on Market Street.
+Hoarfrost had glazed the windows, Dyke was scraping at
+it with his knife while the engine warmed. The truck backfired
+and trundled with an effort through early traffic, past
+the slow gray river, and into the country where smoke was
+seeping from dunghills and fowl scratched the frozen earth.
+Anton was restless in his seat, crabbed. Dyke was driving
+stolidly. The radiator was beginning to boil as they chugged
+up the Gaddy farm lane. Dyke peered through the cloud
+above the hood. “Just made the well in time, Mester Gaddy.”
+He was shouting over the noise of the engine, and cut it.
+“Hey there, Sam.” He still shouted although the motor had
+stopped. He lowered his voice in the quiet wintry air, “Did
+your wife help you milk, Sam?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I shift for myself at the barn when Mester Gaddy’s
+off.” There was the hint of home-brew about Sam’s breath.
+He sighed, “But this here lumbago’s getting me down.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton had descended his side of the truck. Shading his
+eyes, he was looking at buzzards that wheeled over one of the
+fields. “What be dead out there, Sam?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. Could be the dog’s killed him a woodchuck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-286" class="pagenum" title="286"></a>
+Anton walked to the top of the land, the other two following.
+“Reckon it’s old Jack himself?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now I recollect, Mester Gaddy, Eadie said she ne’er seen
+him about yesterday to get his dinner scraps.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton picked up a shovel, walked down the lane alone.
+A few sluggish bluebottles buzzed up in the sunless air from
+the dog’s decaying worn-out body, matted with burrs and
+beggar’s-lice, damp from melted frost. While the man was
+digging, clay caught in the cuffs of his shiny black pants.
+From the woods nearby the two notes of the carping bluejays
+echoed like pieces of crockery being knocked together.
+The birds were heralding the spring winds. Anton tipped the
+carcass into the grave with his shovel. A warm stench floated
+from where maggots quivered. Anton neither smelled nor
+saw. His disciplined arms were performing efficiently. His
+mind dwelled apart, jealous, on the woman in Louisville.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="part" id="chapter-0-6" title="Part four">
+<a id="page-287" class="pagenum" title="287"></a>
+part four
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Lovers who must say farewell</p>
+      <p class="verse">When the road has reached the trees</p>
+      <p class="verse">Lovers who have all to tell</p>
+      <p class="verse">Where the road runs out of sight</p>
+      <p class="verse">In the green beyond the leaves</p>
+      <p class="verse">The green cove below the light</p>
+      <p class="verse">Lovers who must say farewell</p>
+      <p class="verse">When the road has reached the trees</p>
+      <p class="verse">Touching hand to hand to speak</p>
+      <p class="verse">All their love has ever known</p>
+      <p class="verse">Find no words to speak and say</p>
+      <p class="verse">Love...&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O love...</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-6-1">
+<a id="page-289" class="pagenum" title="289"></a>
+21
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Ellen had spotted the wagon before Simon, drawn by a
+strapping team of grays. The little farmer had a white beard
+and mustache. He was touching his hat and yelling across the
+tarred road to where they sat on the station house steps, “Hi.
+You Mrs. Gaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They took up their bags and ran. Simon was scrambling
+into the wagon bed. “Hey, Mester.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m Matthew Wasilewski,” the old man said. Ellen
+climbed to the seat beside him. He was clicking to the team
+and the shod hoofs resounded on the patched streets of Hidden
+Creek. They came upon dirt country roads and Ellen observed
+how there were no stones and they stretched flat and
+<a id="page-290" class="pagenum" title="290"></a>
+straight, not curving and hilly like those about Millville. The
+horses set a fast pace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon shouted, “That’s a spanky team. Can I hold the
+reins sometime?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, Simon. He’s fond of horses.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let him talk. I say, let boys speak out.” The man’s complexion
+was translucent, as happens with the aged. His beard
+was yellow about the mouth from tobacco stains and food.
+His frail body was engulfed by baggy overalls and a fresh-starched
+blue shirt. He bobbed his head, “Now, Mom raises
+Leghorn hens. She’ll want you to help with them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s a Leghorn? How’s it differ?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’ll beat any breed at laying, Mrs. Gaddy. Mom follows
+the Department of Agriculture. She reads the bulletins.
+And she sees the county agent too. He told her to put those
+runners on her chicken sheds and tow them out to pasture.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, feeding them on grass like a cow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keeps down disease, the agent claims, and saves feed. You
+think this land’s rich? You should go to the old country some
+day. Poland. Where I came from. Plums as big as my fist.
+Apples the size of my head. Never a drought.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We had one where I lived two years ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where you from?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kentucky.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I heard that drought was widespread. We had it bad; most
+all the crops died right in the field. Our boys took a loan on
+the mortgage. They shouldn’t have done it. Debts are bad. In
+the end it was the Triple A that pulled us through. Roosevelt
+paid for what we didn’t have to plant. Did he pay you
+folks too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, but I knew a man got a government check for letting
+hogs root up his tobacco. I ne’er did understand how that
+worked.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now in Poland, Mrs. Gaddy, they never heard of a
+drought or a Triple A either.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-291" class="pagenum" title="291"></a>
+“Say, Mester,” Simon spoke up, “what are those horses’
+names?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Off one’s Pearl. The other’s Major, son.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That Pearl’s a sight the prettiest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and that Major’s the smartest. Who do you think’s
+pulling this load?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon fell back abandoned in the straw of the wagon,
+shouting in glee. He lay gazing up at the sky and the bare
+treetops that came into view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s it.” The old man pointed. “Ninety acres.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two women and a man were coming from the white house
+into the yard to welcome Ellen. Mom was fleshy and large-framed,
+her eyes shy. She was shaking Ellen’s hand. “Guess
+Pop told you all about the fruit in the old country.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, he did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sudduth was their younger son, thirty-two, scrawny, anxious-eyed.
+“We sure can use your help. We’ve been after
+Mom a long time to get someone. Here’s my wife, Adele.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pleased,” said Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Howdy.” The woman held her head on one side like a
+bird, waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You-all could call me Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll show you to your room, Ellen.” Adele was going
+ahead up the stairs. Her face was harrowed from the years,
+but retained the child’s shape, round and eager-eyed, looking
+for encouragement. Two little girls with eyes like hers
+looked from behind a door. “This is Mrs. Gaddy, Hannah.
+Grace. My boy Dennie is in school.” The girls squealed and
+ran to hide. Adele was stopping at the room that would be
+Ellen’s. Simon was to have another for himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They came together later for the evening meal, Pop at the
+head of the table, Mom at the foot. They were all shouting
+noisily. “Let’s see those brown-eye peas down here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Save a corner for the blueberry dowdy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-292" class="pagenum" title="292"></a>
+“Let a child talk up, I say.” Pop maneuvered the food
+through his mustache, his head on a level with the children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I got a hundred in Penmanship,” cried Adele’s son,
+Dennie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My, at that child,” said Adele.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The girls printed for me. I sure could follow it good.”
+Mom felt the sisters were being slighted at times. At her left
+stood an empty chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’th Uncle Dan’s plathe,” Hannah was saying shyly to
+Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan’s my older brother,” Sudduth explained. “He’s off at
+the cattle sale in Weems Crossroads, trying to buy a Crestmore
+bull. We already have a purebred bull, but he’s the sire
+to so many of our heifers we don’t get the good of him any
+more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, I’ve been to Weems Crossroads,” Ellen said. “I visited
+some folks there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan’s going to see if he can bid a bull low,” Sudduth said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing but the best for Dan,” said Pop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By the name of Dougherty?” Ellen was hopeful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing but the best.” Sudduth was sopping the juice
+from his plate with dark home-baked bread.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never heard of a Dougherty,” Pop said. “You know,
+Sudduth, if a purebred cow jumps the fence and gets to a
+grade bull, you can just as well sell her? She’ll be no good
+from then on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s ridiculous, Pop.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve heard of it,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There was a mare bred to a zebra stallion,” Pop told him.
+“Every foal she threw thereafter was striped. Now that’s
+proof, Sudduth.” He pounded his knife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There,” Ellen whispered, for she had heard this same
+thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pop, that old tale’s been shown up long ago. I’ll get out
+<a id="page-293" class="pagenum" title="293"></a>
+the article for you to read, in the <i>Breeder’s Journal</i>. Old
+superstitions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they were talking the cats were underfoot, three or
+four of them, tiger-striped and black. They wound under the
+table legs and sometimes one of the children slipped them a
+bite of food. A little later Ellen and Simon went up to bed.
+The talking and shouts from below were seeping through
+the flooring as Ellen dozed off to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She heard the cock crowing in her dream, insistent, shrill.
+She threw her arm in a fending gesture, engrossed in the
+nightmare. She was running up the stairway from the cellar,
+her father racing after. “I’ll kill you because you took the
+boy.” She shouted to stay his hand, “You dassn’t kill on the
+cock’s crow, Pa.” She awoke, her voice straining in her
+throat. She lay listening, oppressed by the dream, letting it
+recede. I won’t hold to any of it. I’ll button it into a far part
+of me. I want to weave a new way here in this land where all
+the folks are foreign. I’ll make a place for Simon and me.
+I’ll put the past away. I vow I will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not yet dawn. Darkness kept the room corners. She
+threw back the covers. The air was chill but there was an
+earth odor, fresh, redolent of spring. She was throwing open
+the window, looking out at the muddled unfamiliar landscape.
+The eastern sky was gray and hushed. She sat on the
+low sill in the sleeveless garment she wore at night, hugging
+her cold bare arms. Her hair hung clinging and disheveled.
+It was late January but it was warm, the first false spring.
+There would be cold days yet, and the last frost might come
+as late as mid-April. But already in protected southern exposures
+a few flowers were opening, a jonquil or narcissus,
+releasing suppressed and forgotten perfumes. The earth
+seemed to turn itself like an animal stirring in its lair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bull bellowed in the half-light, pawing the floor of its
+paddock, shaking its brawny shoulders. It began to butt the
+<a id="page-294" class="pagenum" title="294"></a>
+bars with its heavy smooth head like a toy set in motion.
+Tiny pigs wandered to and fro in a yard beyond the bull.
+The gray of clouds that lay in the east transformed gradually
+into mauve. Shifting and changing, lights and colors
+were fanning upward. A man’s figure strode around a corner
+of the house. There was a black-and-white feist at his heels.
+The man was tall, seemed young, his hair thick and black,
+unruly. The cuffs of his pants were tucked into leather boots.
+He stopped to shake tobacco into his left hand, and rolled a
+cigarette swiftly. The dog jumped repeatedly at his arm,
+yapping sharply in the pink-tinged air. As he was walking off,
+his bass voice came clear.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">The minstrel boy to the war is gone</p>
+      <p class="verse">In the ranks of death you’ll find him</p>
+      <p class="verse">His father’s sword he hath girded on</p>
+      <p class="verse">And his wild harp slung behind him</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A warm breeze stirred from the east. Ellen shivered. On
+the brim of the color-draped sky, the first round edge of the
+red sun was emerging as if pulled by a string. The fields were
+stretching forth under the rosy light, spreading wide and
+tended, damp with dew. The pungent sweetness of the earth
+was arising from its bowels. Time moved quickly. The sun
+came whole over the line of horizon, lay alive in the brilliant
+stained sky. The man’s song had faded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voices began to call back and forth in the reaches of the
+house. Ellen turned from the window. The room was furnished
+with a white wood bedstead, a dresser with a tiny
+mirror, a table and an upright chair. There was a striped rag
+rug on the floor, made by Mom; the curtains and bedspread
+were yellow and threadbare, streaked unevenly by sun rays
+over the years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She dressed and hurried down the dusky stairs. Simon and
+Dennie sat whispering on the bottom step. “You seen my
+<a id="page-295" class="pagenum" title="295"></a>
+room, Ma?” They followed her. Adele was turning the handle
+of the coffee grinder, the friendly crusty noise filling the
+kitchen. “Dennie’s got a room too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always had a room.” Dennie hiked his suspenders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When breakfast was nearly ready, Sudduth came in with
+the man Ellen had seen earlier. They washed at the sink,
+then leaned against the wall to wait for food to be set out.
+Ellen had difficulty finding things. “Where does the sugar
+live, Mom?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is my brother Dan,” Sudduth said as she was passing
+with the bowl of sugar. “Mrs. Gaddy. Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do you do. Mom keeping you busy? You’ve got to
+watch her.” He was a head taller than Sudduth, older than he
+had looked from the windows, with an air of authority. His
+straight hair hung over his forehead, his eyes were greenish-yellow,
+his ears pointed at the top. His lips were thin and
+flat, his nose angular. His skin was olive and creased. There
+was a birthmark on his left cheek, and when he flushed it
+darkened. “That damn bull’s a beaut, Sudduth. Supposed to
+be delivered this morning. We’ll charge a service fee on him
+that’ll pay his price a few times over.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s eat.” Mom was carrying a bowl of fried potatoes in
+one hand, a platter of smoking ham in the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had finished, Simon got his coat from upstairs,
+for he would set out with Dennie to school. There was over
+a mile to walk. He stood in the doorway and his blue eyes
+settled on Ellen. “Bye now, Ma.” He picked up the yellow
+cat mewling at his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You tell the teacher who you are proper, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say you’re living at the Wasilewski farm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan rolled a cigarette, leaning back. “You like horses,
+boy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-296" class="pagenum" title="296"></a>
+“Oh yes, Mester.” Simon spilled the cat to the floor. “What
+can I do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You groom them every night. Will you do that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mornings too, Mester? You won’t find a loose hair.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Call me Dan,” the man was laughing. “We’ll see what else
+we can find for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys ran off and Ellen said, “He’s proud to just lay
+his hands on a horse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The day had begun. When the beds were made and the
+kitchen floor scrubbed, Ellen scoured the white refrigerator
+and the electric stove. She washed the white-painted wood
+cabinets that lined the walls. “Pop made those,” Adele said,
+“three years ago. They got the notion one night when Mom
+was reading the <i>Farm Woman’s Magazine</i>. Dan and Sudduth
+put the old pantry cupboards in the shed for machine parts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The brothers drifted in at noon, hobnail boots clacking on
+the floors, preoccupied in talk of the new bull that had arrived
+by truck. They ate hastily, hurrying out. Mom said the hens
+were to be deloused. The county agent advised it. The women
+caught each bird by the leg, shook the can of powder over it
+and turned it loose so it escaped to the yard, shaking its
+feathers, clucking indignant. Dust from the litter mingled
+with the powder and hung in the air. The women sneezed.
+Mom’s face was hot. “The roosts have to be scrubbed down
+next.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At supper Ellen was tired. When she finished her plate, a
+cat jumped on her lap. She let it remain for she saw it was
+the custom. It was purring, kneading its paws. Simon joined
+in the clamor and Ellen was bending her thoughts to how
+different these ways were from the house where she had been
+raised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come play for us, Uncle Dan,” Dennie was coaxing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girls joined, “Thing ‘Thay, Darling, Thay,’ Uncle
+Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tomorrow, you pesky kids,” he shouted over the din.
+<a id="page-297" class="pagenum" title="297"></a>
+“We have to check on the bull right now. Coming, Sudduth?”
+He was charging through the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning the tractor roared out of the barnyard,
+Dan perched in the driver’s seat. “Land,” Mom was laughing,
+“he does love that machine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a good day to start the spring plowing,” said Ellen.
+“The land’s thawed good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’re not plowing yet,” Mom said. “They’ll wait till
+February.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve heard folks say it ruins land for seven years to plow
+in January. Pa ne’er held to that notion. He plowed when
+he had a mind to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sakes, Ellen.” Mom was amused. “That’s not it. It’s the
+house. We’ve got a busy year laid out here. Adele’s going to
+have her own home. Her and Sudduth.” She was turning to
+Adele. “He went by already with the team and the scoop.
+Did you see him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sudduth’s just raring,” said Adele.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ve got to be ready to paint and all in late summer,
+Ellen. So Adele and him and the kids can get moved in the
+fall.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want everything to be perfect when we leave, Mom.”
+Adele was earnest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They told Ellen that lumber was stored at the warehouse
+in Hidden Creek; part had been bought in fall when cash crops
+had been sold and part was still on credit against the early
+wheat crop. “There’s kegs of nails and rolls of tar paper and
+shingles in the shed. They drew the plans out on paper.”
+Mom was proud. “There’s going to be another big event here
+in the fall.” Mom’s eyes gleamed secret. “Wait and see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At mid-morning Ellen was busy. “I declare at this iron, it’s
+so light.” She skimmed over the clothes swiftly, laid them
+folded and smooth on the newspaper-covered table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It sure is a help having you here, Ellen.” Mom was mending,
+<a id="page-298" class="pagenum" title="298"></a>
+a wicker basket beside her. “Makes me feel old though,
+not doing my own work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only I forget about the cord and keep walking off with
+the iron.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The kitchen door slammed. “It’s me,” Dan’s voice shouted.
+The sound of running water came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll see, he’s had trouble with the tractor,” Mom said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The tractor turned over on me.” His voice was muffled.
+“Cut myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That suits you fine, Dan,” Mom called. “He can play
+now. Nothing suits him like when some piece of equipment
+won’t work and he can get his head under it. Rather do that
+than work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t have to shout. I hear you.” Dan appeared in the
+doorway, rubbing his face with a white turkish towel, a gash
+on his browned forehead. He was shaking his head, cocky.
+“Ellen, you think my family’s crazy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she was washing the supper dishes she heard the
+tinny sound of the piano in the sitting room. Simon was behind
+her at the kitchen table leafing through his new schoolbooks,
+waiting for her. “Wonder who that is playing?” she
+asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s Dan. I’ve ne’er heard that song, Ma.” Simon smiled,
+his blue eyes curious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put the plates away. “It’s right melancholy.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">A spanish cavalier stood in his retreat</p>
+      <p class="verse">And on his guitar played a tune, dear</p>
+      <p class="verse">The music so sweet would ofttimes repeat</p>
+      <p class="verse">The blessings of my country and you, dear</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">O say, darling say, when I’m far away</p>
+      <p class="verse">Sometimes you may think of me, dear</p>
+      <p class="verse">Bright sunny days will soon fade away</p>
+      <p class="verse">Remember what I say and be true, dear</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a id="page-299" class="pagenum" title="299"></a>
+Ellen was hanging up the dishcloth. “Let’s go hear the
+music.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can we?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is our home,” she said with dignity, “while we’re
+here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From his easy chair, Sudduth was bemoaning, “We’ve got
+to clean out the barns again. Get it on the fields before plowing.
+Jesus, we’re going to be strapped with work this year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan looked up at Ellen as she came in, his eyes golden in
+his lined dark face. “Wish it would rain liquid manure for a
+whole week. Save us some trouble.” His lean fingers ran over
+the keys tenderly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat down in the rocker by the windows. On the table
+beside her was a tall glass bell, exhibiting underneath a stuffed
+red bird with black wings and tail, its eyes bright glass. Ellen
+was looking down at her hands in her lap. She had an inflexible
+manner about her, seldom laughing easily even with her
+son. It was as if she had been bruised once and armed herself
+against a recurrence. And when she would make her hair into
+braids in the morning, winding, and fastening with tortoise
+shell pins, she would pull tightly. There was an unconscious
+satisfaction to the act as though it were easing a guilt. Ellen
+held herself at times almost like one righteous. She was glancing
+at the scarlet tanager under the bell, wondering who had
+shot it. Vaguely she was listening to the words the man sang.
+They differed from those Penny had taught Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">When your heart was mine, true love</p>
+      <p class="verse">And your head lay on my breast</p>
+      <p class="verse">You could make me believe</p>
+      <p class="verse">By the falling of your arm</p>
+      <p class="verse">That the sun rose up in the west</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-6-2">
+<a id="page-300" class="pagenum" title="300"></a>
+22
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The weather turned brisk, the temperature fell, the dew
+had frozen in a white sprinkle. Mouths of animals and men
+steamed. The excavation for the cellar of the new house had
+been completed, a square gash in a rise of land at the far end
+of the farm. “Now let it freeze,” Mom was saying. “They
+can still lay cinder-block.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s like a dream come true,” said Adele, “them building
+our house. Land.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little girls had spread old mail-order catalogs on the
+kitchen floor. They cut and snipped, squabbling. “It’th mine.
+You shut up, booby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see, Mom?” Adele pleaded. “It’s not right you should
+have to put up with this commotion.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-301" class="pagenum" title="301"></a>
+Ellen was savoring the friendly companionship of the two
+women. The girls she had known—her sister, Lily Garrett,
+even Amanda York—had been younger than she. And they
+had leaned on her. She could never look up to them or turn to
+them for advice. There was a freshness in her relationship
+with these older women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just wait till Ellen sees my roses, Adele. They’re a sight,
+all pink and white.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know, Ellen, Pop can tell to the exact how many
+flowers each bush has every year,” Adele said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keeps it in his head.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They worked, their hands busy in the baking, they talked
+idly, “He’ll say, this white rose had only fifty-one buds last
+year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Every rose, he’ll count.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cold air rushed in as the door opened. “There. That
+cake fell,” said Mom. “Land o’ Goshen, I’m peeved.” Dan
+came in, leading Simon, who was tear-stained. “You will
+slam doors on baking day, Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dammit. Sorry, Mom. He bumped his knee, Ellen. Fell
+down.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon was pulling his torn pants leg up to reveal a soiled
+bruise. He held his tongue between his lips; phlegm was dripping
+from his nose. “Hit don’t hurt now,” he mourned. Ellen
+washed the wound. Her mind was apart from the accident.
+Wonder why Dan came in with Simon. He needn’t have.
+Simon’s ten and not a baby. Maybe Dan’s thinking on me.
+I don’t want him. Nor any man. She was wrapping the strip
+of cloth about the knee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan was lighting one of his hand-rolled cigarettes. “Press
+my suit today, Mom, will you? I’m taking Star to the grange
+dance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the two went out Mom shouted, “And don’t slam it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-302" class="pagenum" title="302"></a>
+“Star’s his girl,” Adele was telling Ellen. “She’s lots younger
+than him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh I don’t know,” Mom said. “She’s nearly nineteen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Dan’s over forty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish they’d set the date,” said Mom. “Keeps me on edge.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think Star’ll settle down to being a farmer’s wife?”
+Adele asked. “After all, she’s used to a maid doing the work.
+Why, I bet she can’t cook even.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She loves him. That’s what counts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s an only child. She gets whatever she wants.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Star’s so pretty,” Mom told Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Her folks have spoiled her,” said Adele. “But Dan’s
+crazy about her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Marrying will settle her. She’s the nicest looking girl in
+the countryside.” Mom was complacent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan wants his bull to have the best blood lines. He’s got
+to have the latest machinery, the newest hybrid seed.” Adele
+sawed the air with a flour-streaked hand. “I wouldn’t be his
+wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you’ve got Sudduth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Praise the Lord,” Adele was laughing, an edge to her
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When are they getting married?” Ellen asked, quiet in her
+relief, detached.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Didn’t I tell you there might be a big event this fall? The
+date’s not fixed, but when the house is built, there’ll be nothing
+to stop them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sudduth figures that’s why Dan’s in such a stew to get
+the cellar dug.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now there. I forgot the eggs,” Mom was saying. “They
+have to be gathered at ten, two, and after supper. Maybe
+you’d better take over that job too, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Every Saturday afternoon Ellen would find an envelope
+on her dresser, in it four and a half dollars. When she laid
+<a id="page-303" class="pagenum" title="303"></a>
+them in her drawer she felt a wealth and a peace. She was
+moving less uncertainly in the new household. She was the
+hired girl and the value set on her talents gave her a self-respect.
+On Sundays, Pop, Mom, Adele and the three children
+would go to the Presbyterian church in Hidden Creek, Adele
+driving the Dodge car. Sudduth and Dan would work on the
+new house. Ellen walked out with Simon to see the farm, for
+during the week she was too busy. Simon showed her the
+gray horses he groomed and she patted sleek brown-and-white
+cows, fastened in metal stanchions, munching hay, their
+tongues curling about the wisps. “Aren’t those stalls modern,
+Ma?” They passed the hog lot where white-banded pigs were
+squealing and snuffling at a trough of water in the cement lot.
+“They’re not dish-faced like Granddaddy’s pigs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see they’re not. They’re a different kind.” The shouts
+of the men were faint on the air, mingled with the low lonesome
+bawl of the new bull. Some day I’ll tell Simon what Pa
+did. And why we had to leave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonder how little Rhodie is, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And fat old Pie. And Leona. If their hoofs are cut regular.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. You still honing after them?” Reckon I’ll
+tell him sometime what Pa did to my goats, cutting their
+throats. “You miss your granddaddy?” She was looking off
+to the bowl of sky. The far calls floated and echoed in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon he was e’er good to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s nice here, on this place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And there was old Jack. I set store by him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dennie’s feist is pretty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s a scrappy thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.” They walked back.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Dan wore a white shirt on Saturday nights, with a blue
+detachable collar. He knotted on a brash necktie and brushed
+<a id="page-304" class="pagenum" title="304"></a>
+his shoes, stood at the doorway to the sitting room where the
+family convened. He seemed older to Ellen when dressed
+in the brown suit, his lean body pinched into tight cloth,
+the tough skin of his face emphasized. He was leaning against
+the frame, the birthmark a dull red. He tapped tobacco into
+thin paper, licked the edge, twirled the ends, all in a quick
+motion. “How’s this tie, Ellen? Too loud? Think my girl
+will take a second look?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I reckon.” She was patting the cat, inwardly disturbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if she was smart,” Sudduth mocked, “she’d run the
+other way fast, wouldn’t she Pop?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man cackled. Ellen felt stiff and plain, smiled
+faintly as Dan walked out. I’d never be that Star.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On weekday nights Dan played the piano. His energy was
+contagious, it was as if his day had just begun. In the lamp
+glow their faces turned to where he sat.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">There are many flags in many lands</p>
+      <p class="verse">There are flags of every hue</p>
+      <p class="verse">But there is no flag however grand</p>
+      <p class="verse">Like our own red white and blue</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The family were joining in, swept away by his exuberance
+and health. Sometimes Ellen sang with them.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Then hurrah for the flag, our country’s flag</p>
+      <p class="verse">Its stripes and white stars too</p>
+      <p class="verse">There is no flag in any land</p>
+      <p class="verse">Like our own red white and blue</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She was saying, “I know a languishing one, Dan. ‘Lord
+Lovel.’ You know it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can play the tune if you’ll sing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.” He found the keys easily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They like me here. She dwelled on it. It’s not like home
+<a id="page-305" class="pagenum" title="305"></a>
+where Pa jeered when I sang Penny’s songs and Ma never
+heard me.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Lady Nancy she died as it might be today</p>
+      <p class="verse">Lord Lovel he died tomorrow</p>
+      <p class="verse">Lady Nancy she died out of pure pure grief</p>
+      <p class="verse">Lord Lovel he died out of sorrow</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It was the first week in March, on a warm windy day,
+when the bees swarmed. Pop had on an old hat decked with
+a bee veil, he was wearing long gloves and had tied strings
+around the bottoms of his overalls. He carried a smoker to
+still the swarm that hung like a living sack on an oak branch.
+Ellen saw him from the window. He stooped and moved
+until finally the bees were in the new hive, their angry droning
+muffled, subsiding. The old man came in, taking off the
+veil. “Hee. Only got one sting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My sister Frankie and me used to beat pie pans and make
+a racket when our bees wanted to swarm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How come?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s so the workers can’t hear the queen calling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did it keep them in the home hive?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Two-three times it did. But the queen’s call is strong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t tell the boys. They’d call it a superstition. They
+go by the book too much for me.” His teeth flashed through
+his beard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before going up to bed, Ellen went out into the night.
+There was a light fog. She was curious about the bees, went
+to listen to the new hive. From it came a faint contented
+purr. She laid her hand on the wood. It’s like they’re one
+creature, like the whole drove’s got but one mind. Her hand
+was feeling the movement within, the insects changing position
+endlessly. While she was standing enclosed in the darkness,
+she heard Dan humming as he came back from the
+barnyard. His boots rasped on the pathway. She was waiting
+<a id="page-306" class="pagenum" title="306"></a>
+for him to pass but he sensed a presence, and stopped. “Who
+is it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s me. Ellen.” She could see the coal of his cigarette. The
+air was balmy, brought up during the day from the south.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The wind’s laid,” he said. Overhead a twisted sliver of
+moon was freeing itself from dodging clouds. The starlight
+was dim, pulling at the mist gently. “What are you doing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Feeling the bees move. The hive’s like an animal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s so. It is.” She heard his body settling against a tree
+trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Like it’s bedded down for the night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silence dwelled while she waited on him. “What happened
+to your husband, Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He died.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was seeking his face, but there was blackness. “He was
+killed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see. How?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a while she said, “It was in the haying time. He was
+down on the wagon bed.” The words were dragged up from
+some other part of her. She watched that part of her talk on,
+fumbling, “He had a watch-eye man hired to him. That man
+pitched the fork down and it stuck him between the shoulders.”
+The fog was rising, the moon slid away in clouds. Her
+tongue stumbled along of itself. “When they reached him,
+they say he was dead already.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something welled in her then, born of loneliness. It caught
+high in her throat. “No. I ne’er had a husband.” She wept.
+But she was eased. She was speaking of Christian Ay and how
+she couldn’t recall if he was tall or if his hair was brown. It
+had happened to her when she went to see a horse belonging
+to the farmer he worked for. Her letters had come back unopened.
+Ellen’s tears stopped then, and her voice. She began
+<a id="page-307" class="pagenum" title="307"></a>
+to hate the man hidden behind the black curtain. A shame was
+rising in her so she felt her face heat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His voice was flat. “Windy days like this one’s been can
+bring on a cyclone.” He hummed slowly.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Some call her Lady Nancy Belle</p>
+      <p class="verse">Some call her the Lady Nancy, Nancy</p>
+      <p class="verse">Some call her the Lady Nancy</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A twig broke under his foot, he ceased in the middle of the
+tune. “A cyclone’s a sight to see, Ellen. You should watch my
+kid brother run when one comes. You ever have them in
+Kentucky?” He paused for an answer, and resumed, “Star’s
+home was right in the path of one last year. Her father lost
+a bull valued at five thousand. He’s a big Jersey breeder.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Al Webster’s his name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Webster?” Ellen remembered. “Webster’s Stock Farm?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s it. You’ve heard of it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know a Luke Dougherty?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure. Tall fellow, black-haired. Runs one of the barns.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Luke’s wife’s a close friend of mine. They live near
+Weems Crossroads.” All the time the echo of her voice rang
+in her ears: I ne’er had a husband. I ne’er had a husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll drive you over sometime to see her, if you want. It’s
+only twenty miles or so. Come along when I go see my girl
+some Sunday. I’ll drop you off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hear your girl’s a beauty.” He’ll tell everyone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, Star’s got more than beauty. She’s exciting.” His
+voice was heavy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen thought how it was full of love. When he goes about
+the farm here, Star bides in him. She softens his movements
+like the way Penny and Luke love each other. And when he
+plants the wheat, his mind’s but a part on his work. And when
+Sudduth and he laid the cement in the cellar, he was thinking
+<a id="page-308" class="pagenum" title="308"></a>
+all the while, each day’s bringing me closer to when
+Star’s my bride. Why did I tell him I wasn’t married?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The yellow flash from a match spurted, making shadows
+streak over his bent face. The smoke filtered through the
+warm fog. “It’s just the past year Star’s mother hasn’t had
+to sit by her bed when she goes to sleep.” He was tender,
+boastful. “She’s afraid of the dark.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There came to Ellen’s mind the little donkey Luke had led
+up the lane. They had gathered around it as a wonderful thing
+and set baby Clate on its back. Star Webster’s father had
+given it to Luke when his daughter tired of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The red ash glowed. Dan’s harsh voice was there. “Even
+that’s exciting about her.” His voice drifted in the south air,
+“I’m glad you kept your son with you, Ellen. Instead of giving
+him away like lots of women would have done. Shows
+you’ve got strength.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a secret.” It sounded thin and anxious as she said it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t let it out.” Then his voice lowered, “Simon’s a
+good boy. You taught him manners, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well. Good night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good night, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went into the house and to her bedroom. I’m a jawing
+fool. In the morning when Dan came into the kitchen she
+managed to avoid speaking to him. But he shouted down the
+length of the table, “Can I have the butter, Ellen? Let’s see
+that grape jelly, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She averted her eyes, passing the plates. I don’t like him
+one bit.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-6-3">
+<a id="page-309" class="pagenum" title="309"></a>
+23
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The storm was already forming. The radio reported a twister
+passing briefly through a small town in Kansas. Throughout
+the troposphere of the Midwest certain conditions prevailed
+as the ancient pattern of the spawning of the tornadoes got
+under way. In corners of the Southwest, winds were gathering
+and moving across the continent; they drove warm wet
+air before them in a mass hovering close to the earth. In the
+fluctuations of these winds, gigantic columns of air would rise
+rapidly, a mile or so in diameter. At the spreading foot of
+these tall clouds, rain would gather and often local storms
+occurred under them. To complete the scheme, eight kilometers
+above ground the cold jet stream was rushing constantly
+<a id="page-310" class="pagenum" title="310"></a>
+in from the West at tremendous speed. This was the pattern.
+And when the summit of a rising cloud was hit by the jet
+stream, it began to twist counterclockwise. The movement
+was transferred in a spiral down the length of the column
+into the ugly widespread base. A whirling funnel of great
+power would lick downward. This was a tornado.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It sucked dust and stones, any object not fastened down.
+Its duration was from a few minutes to sixty or more. And
+no one could predict where it would strike. People who
+lived in these areas had a way of watching the sky during
+certain months. If there was a sudden drop in temperature
+or the sky darkened, if the wind rose, they fastened barn
+doors and herded their families into rooms where shades were
+pulled, or into cellars. It happened so fast that sometimes
+there wasn’t enough time and they were caught in the open.
+And if a noise was heard suddenly like a monstrous machine
+at high speed, they might pray as they crouched, waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few miles from Hidden Creek, Illinois, a gray-white
+cloud pillar was rising now, churning. Rain clouds at its base
+were low-spread and frowning. Over the land it became so
+dark that twilight descended though it was mid-afternoon.
+Ellen Gaddy was gathering eggs. “It’s making up a storm,
+biddy,” she said to the hens, “I heard the raincrow just this
+morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele was shopping in Hidden Creek. Sudduth was distracted
+because she had taken the girls with her in the Dodge.
+Hannah had a stye and they planned to stop at the doctor’s.
+“I said, Adele, it’s fixing to storm. You ought to stay home,”
+Sudduth was explaining. “She should do what I say. I’m supposed
+to be wearing the pants.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Adele’s smart,” Pop soothed. “She’s all right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pop and Mom and the boys were going down the cellar
+stairs, Sudduth pushing them before him. Ellen followed.
+Dennie was carrying the feist dog and Simon three cats. “Get
+a move on, Simon,” Sudduth was muttering, “Hurry.” Then
+<a id="page-311" class="pagenum" title="311"></a>
+on the last step he tripped, sprawling on the cement. “God
+damn it.” His voice was shrill, near tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’d pull the shades and stay in the house because of
+lightning.” Ellen went over to Mom. “But we ne’er would
+go down to the cellar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Land, we always do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pop and Dennie sat with Simon on a crate in a corner.
+Sudduth was rubbing his back. He leaned on the wall and
+whined, “Don’t you be sick now, Dennie, or I’ll swat your
+bottoms.” He ran his hand nervously across his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy laid his small head in the fur of the dog. He was
+pale. Pop turned to him, “Say, Dennie. Let’s you and me
+buy a sofa. Might as well set the storms out comfortable.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Ellen remembered. “Where’s Dan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was working,” Sudduth said, “on the dump rake last
+I saw. I hollered to him to come.” He was rubbing his palm
+across his face again. “I don’t know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll go see.” Ellen ran up the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen,” Mom called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be all right.” The sky was massed with rolling cloud
+of blue and green and purple. In the north, lightning erupted
+in a yellow flare and the blacked clouds hanging before were
+outlined. A jagged orange bolt cracked through them. She
+was exhilarated. It’s a sight. And those folks are all hiding
+from it. She heard a rushing noise. The wind was coming.
+It tore at her hair, loosing it from its bonds. Within her, joy
+leaped again, like youth and first experience. And underneath
+she quailed. She was rounding the corner of the barn, running
+toward the shed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She heard his shout and Dan was in the wide barn doorway,
+scowling, booted feet spread. His black hair was wild, the
+wind had whipped his shirt out, the birthmark burned like
+a new wound. He cried again, “You damn fool.” She was
+stopping, poised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-312" class="pagenum" title="312"></a>
+He strode out and pulled her arm, hurrying her to the barn.
+She protested, “I was afraid for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For me? You fool.” He was roaring above the wind.
+“Dammit. Look there.” He pointed at an inky cloud where a
+tongue licked downward and retreated. “That’s a twister.”
+Like a long thick snake it shot down to the earth and a whining
+roar commenced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan’s hand was gripping hers. They were dashing to the
+stalls in the middle of the barn. She was suddenly afraid.
+“Now they’d talk of cyclones, but I ne’er saw one before,
+Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Swiftly, in the dull light, in the musty smell of the unused
+stable, he had his arms about her. His yellow-green eyes
+glittered, laughing, “Lady Nancy Belle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It came upon Ellen the way Craig Hedrick was grabbing
+with a band of steel while she struggled. That had haunted
+her dreams so she would awake in a sweat sometimes. And
+there was Uncle Garland’s hand seeking incestuous under her
+coat that lonely winter, so she had to drive the memory from
+her, suppress it, divorce it from her uncle whom she loved
+for his goodness. These things flooded up when she saw Dan’s
+weathered face, his shut eyes and hawknose, the red scar
+bending. She fought, violent, her hands hard against his blue
+shirt. “Bullying bastard.” The words were framed out of
+fright, without volition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shoved her against the stall’s side planking, furious because
+her struggle disconcerted him. “You little bitch, what
+do you mean? You’ve been licking after me ever since you
+came.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s not so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dammit, Ellen. You aren’t going to get raped again.
+You’re not that lucky.” His yell was coming under the hurricane
+wind. He was gripping her arms, forcing his hard mouth
+against hers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the stiffness of her lips and body, she resisted. But suddenly
+<a id="page-313" class="pagenum" title="313"></a>
+it all was falling away and a gentle hotness came up
+within her. She was parting her mouth and his tongue was
+seeking its softness. She moved her arms, laid them about his
+neck, holding him, feeling the coarse hair at her fingers. Wish
+I was Star. And there was the distant storm racket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He let her go, laughed regretful, “What were those names
+I called you? Dammit, Ellen, you are pretty. I never noticed
+that.” She felt it too, though her dark-blue dress was long
+and her low-cut shoes soiled because she wore them at her
+work about the Leghorns. “I never saw you before. Look at
+your hair. The wind’s blown it out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hail clattered on the galvanized tin roof. Thunder rolled.
+She leaned upon the worn wood of the manger, where bites of
+cribbing horses had made notches during long winters. She
+was putting her hand to her yellow hair, tucking it up while
+he watched. The thing that had happened, she felt it. How she
+would never be rigid and tied again, how she was free. Courage
+had replaced her hidden fears. Then it was that she came up to
+kiss Dan. And she put her head against his opened shirt, his
+tall strength, she felt the even thrusts of his heart. His hard
+arms were holding her and he stroked her hair. “The rain’s
+come,” she said, “it’s all o’er.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you see that twister come out of that cloud?” He was
+releasing her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“First one I e’er saw, Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’re safe for another year, now. They never come
+twice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why’s that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The law of averages.” He was going down the aisle then
+to the doorway. “The rain’s letting off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was following, seeing the cuff was untucked from
+one of his heavy boots, the smoke of his cigarette drifting
+blue. “What are you looking at, Dan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing. Smells good. I like a storm, even a mean one.”
+He looked down at her, absent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-314" class="pagenum" title="314"></a>
+“I always did too.” The wind rode on bright clouds. She
+felt he was many miles away. Wonder if he’s thinking on Star.
+Well, I don’t care.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went into the light drizzle, met the family streaming
+from the house. “You scared me, Ellen,” Mom shouted. “You
+two all right?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was there a storm?” Dan cried. Ellen laughed. Dennie
+and Simon skipped, whooping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I heard it,” Sudduth frowned. “Bet it went through Hidden
+Creek. Adele could be killed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Sudduth,” Mom said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the girls.” Sudduth added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” said Pop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And she’s with child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s that?” Pop said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, she’s not,” Mom was soothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’d have told us, Sudduth. She was just taking Hannah
+for that stye.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She didn’t want it. She tried to kill it with vinegar.”
+Sudduth leaned his skinny body forward eager, his thinning
+hair damp, his black eyes full of tears. “She was going to try
+arsenic.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But a baby.” Mom twisted her hands. “Why didn’t you
+tell us?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, we have our own affairs, you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to have a look around.” Dan was striding off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two boys came running. “The lines are down. And
+one of the chicken sheds is a sight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s go see,” Sudduth led the way. His parents came behind,
+whispering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The people moved about Ellen, words were spoken, but it
+was as if it flowed separate from her, reached her through
+a blurred wall. Everything was new, everything changed.
+She went to the field where the Leghorns were kept. She
+righted an overturned coop, discovering a dead hen under
+<a id="page-315" class="pagenum" title="315"></a>
+it. The rest were huddled safely beneath a shed. She got a
+dipper of cracked grain. The white flock was coming up
+one by one, clucking, bobbing brilliant red combs and wattles,
+discarding their fright as they pecked the seed in the
+clean afternoon sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I came down the mountainside</p>
+      <p class="verse">Give my horn a blow</p>
+      <p class="verse">Everywhere them pretty girls</p>
+      <p class="verse">Says yonder goes my beau</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I went down in the valley green</p>
+      <p class="verse">To win to me my love</p>
+      <p class="verse">When I was done with that pretty little girl</p>
+      <p class="verse">She turned to a turtledove</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The tongue that Ellen and Dan saw had spun over a path
+fifty yards wide, catching a neighbor’s cow shed from an
+angle, sucking rafters aloft, strangling a cow while her bull
+calf brayed feebly below. It had prowled across the level
+land, come upon turkeys in a corn field, the gobbler shrieking
+insanely, flapping, trailed by his harem of hens. They were
+sucked into the wind like dust. Green oat shoots were rooted
+out so that when the field ripened later there was a clean
+swath across its bottom third. Varied incidents had occurred;
+a nest of newborn rabbits was flipped up, numbers of birds
+that clung to fence corners were torn loose and pounded into
+obstructions, the mortality among the insect life was untold.
+It had circled Hidden Creek. Adele was at the doctor’s office,
+calling to say she would be home as soon as her shopping was
+finished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s fine,” Sudduth said in a low voice to Mom and
+Pop in the doorway. “That God-damn stair. I wrenched my
+back good.” Through coming years he would try out different
+chiropractors. For weeks at a time the pain would recede,
+<a id="page-316" class="pagenum" title="316"></a>
+then each movement would drive a dull fire as he dragged
+his way about the farm. The family would laugh at his self-concern,
+taking it as Sudduth’s way. He talked about “that
+first twister of thirty-six,” like men talk of a battle. When he
+spoke to his children’s children, putting a hand on the small
+of his back, it would seem to them that Sudduth had by himself
+stemmed a tornado in its path.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mom stood apart now from her younger son, whispered
+irritably to Pop, “That boy’s still a baby. You know, I’ll be
+glad when they all clear out to the new house. I plumb admire
+Adele for the way she puts up with him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next evening a chill wind was blowing. Ellen went to
+her room for a sweater. The furnace was not stoked in these
+spring days and there were no fireplaces. As she was coming
+out, putting it on, she saw Dan leaping softly up the stairs,
+two at a time. He laughed, catching her arm, pushing her
+back into her room. There he was kissing her. She breathed
+to him, “You know what I read in the Bible? Dan’s a lion’s
+whelp.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen. Your lips are soft.” He put his finger on them. A
+hot flood was taking her breath. He was loosing her, chucking
+her chin. “And I’ve got a date. Dammit, Star gets her dander
+up if I’m late. I’m out of gas, too. I’ll have to stop on the
+way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went down the steps to the kitchen where the dishes
+waited. Jealousy was rankling, but her gray eyes were mellow.
+I’d not get my dander up, was he late. Through days
+to follow, Dan would come on her, take her aside to kiss
+her. If she went out in the night, sometimes he followed.
+And if she knew he was in the tool shed, she went to see
+if the chicken house door beyond was locked. If he met her
+in the hallway, alone, he led her back to her room. They
+heard footsteps passing in the hall as his mouth lay on hers.
+He bided his time, careful, waiting on her shyness. “Come
+here, honey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-317" class="pagenum" title="317"></a>
+So the days of March went by, and April started. Spring,
+and Dan’s in the same world with me. Ellen and Adele were
+laying out the kitchen garden. Ellen’s hands in the earth were
+like a mother’s. She had never seen such black rich soil. She
+held a clod, kneeling in her soiled damp skirt. She was crumbling
+it. “Look here, Adele. Ne’er a stone or pebble. Where I
+used to live they’ve got stone fences every way you turn.
+Sometimes a rock grows so big in a field they plow in a
+ring about it. Sam Offut claimed those rocks were nailed to
+the center of the world where the fire is. To hold the earth
+together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Land.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sam was full of tales. This is a fine garden.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I call it a dirty job, though. I’d rather work at the house,
+Ellen. I like my hands clean. Dirt makes them dry and the
+nails break easy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t mind.” Ellen was putting her hands down in the
+soft loam she had spaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele brooded. “I’m going to have another baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m glad for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That Sudduth. He won’t let me alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always liked the Scarlet Globe radish. It’s the first one
+up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When I just got home from the hospital with Grace, there
+he was, hanging his pants on the bedpost. First thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonder if it’s too early for sweet corn? We could put
+in a few rows.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hannah came when Grace was only ten months old.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re supposed to put it in by sundown on the tenth
+of May.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The breeze sprang up like a promise, stirring the hair of
+the women. Ellen knelt in the earth, her friend stood tall
+and hurt, the seed unfolding within her. The circle of sky
+<a id="page-318" class="pagenum" title="318"></a>
+was porcelain blue. A lone hawk held his wings still and
+floated away.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On Sunday Ellen spoke up at the breakfast table, “Would
+there be room in the car for me and Simon to go along? I’d
+like to see how the Presbyterians do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can have my place,” Pop said, “I’m mulching roses
+today.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Ma,” Simon complained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll save Ellen yet from us heathen,” Dan said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I saw the sermon in the paper.” Pop was pounding his
+knife. “He’s taking the text, what is man?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know that one,” Ellen said. “Thou madest him a little
+lower than the angels.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ma sure knows her Bible,” said Simon to Dennie. “She’s
+e’er preaching it at me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon, that’s not so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll learn you the song, Ellen,” Dennie was crying, “I
+want to live in a royal way, as a child of a king should live.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell you, Dennie, she can convert me,” Dan grinned, his
+eyes yellow in the early sun flooding across the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I will too.” Ellen got up to fill the milk pitcher.
+Her hand brushed over the top of his black head. She saw
+Mom start. She filled the pitcher. Now why did I do that?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele loaned Ellen a hat and Simon put on a fresh shirt.
+They were piling into the old car. Mom’s ample form filled
+the seat by Adele and the others sat in back. The sermon was
+dull. The minister was a wan tired man. “Yes, what is man?”
+he queried, “that Thou art mindful of him? Yes.” He said
+it as if he believed the question presumptuous. Ellen thought
+the service uneventful compared to a Catholic mass. She rose
+at each hymn time, stretching her shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Abide with me, fast falls the eventide</p>
+      <p class="verse">The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide</p>
+<a id="page-319" class="pagenum" title="319"></a>
+      <p class="verse">When other helpers fail and comforts flee</p>
+      <p class="verse">Help of the helpless, Lord, abide with me</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Simon shuffled his feet. Mom and Adele separated the little
+girls, who giggled, black eyes squinting up. Ellen looked
+around. I reckon it’s that people like to gather together. It’s
+their nature, the way sheep go in a band. Lambs of God. And
+I’m a solitary. They were driving home. Her curiosity was
+sated and she stayed at the farm thereafter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the middle of April when Dan remembered his
+promise. He had come in for dinner, his hands smudged with
+cup-grease, his pants streaked. “Damn tractor again,” he was
+growling happily. “Ought to sue Ford for misrepresenting
+that pile of tin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pass down the biscuits,” Sudduth cried. “Dan, let’s raise
+the studs this afternoon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you make a mistake now, boys,” Mom said gravely,
+“and get the back door to the front. Land.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, Ellen,” Dan was calling, “I’m going up near Weems
+Crossroads tomorrow. Want to go see Luke Dougherty’s
+wife?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen flushed. “There. I do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you going to Webster’s?” Mom asked him. “And visit
+Star?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. A fellow up there’s got sheep. I thought we might start
+a few lambs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Better stop in to see Star,” Mom said. “Since you’re going
+to be up that way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sheep.” Pop was sipping his coffee through his beard.
+“Thought this was a dairy farm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might, Mom,” Dan said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’th dripping, Pop.” Grace pointed to the coffee in his
+white beard. Hannah snickered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Girls,” cried Adele. “Manners at table. I’ll get a switch.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-320" class="pagenum" title="320"></a>
+“Dan, you stop in at Webster’s.” Mom’s voice was persistent.
+“A pretty girl needs attention.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll leave as soon as the morning work’s done, Ellen,”
+Dan said. “Let’s go now, Sudduth. Get those studs up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan,” Mom warned, as the door snapped shut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sheep will ruin pasture faster than anything,” Pop said.
+“Pull the grass out by the roots.” He was wiping his beard
+where it was wet and yellowed. “Why don’t you two girls
+quiet down?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish he was little again so I could spank him, Pop. He’s
+so stubborn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Ellen and Dan drove off in the morning, he threw
+ropes into the bed of the truck on the litter of dry manure
+and straw. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled, it was
+unbuttoned at the neck. His face was constrained, the cheek
+lines tight. As they made a turn onto the main highway, the
+wheels shrilled. Ellen caught at the door handle. He grunted,
+“My mother. Women. What a nagger.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go see Star. What’ll Mr. Webster think? Forever butting
+in.” He was tapping the wheel with his thumbs, the line of
+his lips wrathful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mom doesn’t mean anything.” All the day with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let her run my kid brother. Not me. She won’t stop. I’ll
+be an old man and she’ll be doing it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be that way,” Ellen coaxed, hopeful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen’s anger lifted and she pushed it down. The drowsy
+odor of flowers was flooding through the open window, and
+of verdant wheat spears and growing fields. The breeze stirred
+dust on the floor. She was leaning back against the cool
+leather, watching trees flash by. With her shoe she felt the
+tin cake pan holding a three-layer cake for Penny’s children.
+A bird warbled and dipped before the truck, a darting of
+gray. “That’s a catbird. Dennie told me. We don’t have them
+<a id="page-321" class="pagenum" title="321"></a>
+in Kentucky. It mocks the other birds and it mews like a cat.”
+She sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made no reply. The brooding silence grew as they covered
+the roadways swiftly. He raised his hand once and she
+glanced over. He was running his strong fingers over his hair
+that rose coarse. His lean legs were taut, his hips high on the
+seat, poised. His thin nostrils were spread. He’s honing for a
+fight, like a feisty bull. And he’s driving too fast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s along this road a ways,” she was saying, then she
+pointed. “There it is. That’s the Doughertys.” The house was
+set back near the crab apple tree at the head of the winding
+lane; a wing newly built at the back had changed its contour.
+“You want to meet Penny, Dan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m out to buy sheep, remember?” He was lifting his
+eyebrows, the beak of his nose haughty. “I’ll be back to pick
+you up about three. I’ve got to get home for chores.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be waiting here. In the roadway. So you won’t have to
+bother to drive to the house.” She slammed the door, went
+down the lane swiftly, her cake pan on one arm. The truck
+ground its gears and whirled down the road. Ellen’s cheeks
+were red, she breathed deeply. She saw Penny coming into
+the open doorway of the house, a baby on her arm, shielding
+her eyes from the sun glare. The woman appeared frail, her
+face that had been soft was sharper-featured, the skin dry.
+She came to meet Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Luke and me were talking about you last night. How’s
+that Simon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s big, Penny.” She was looking at the child in the
+blanket. “What do you call this least one?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jess. He’s a bit peaked.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen took the bundle. The child was like a tiny aged man.
+It slept, scarcely breathing. “Say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was right ill while carrying him. Have you come to
+spend the day, Ellie? You know how I always was one for
+<a id="page-322" class="pagenum" title="322"></a>
+company. Ernie,” she was calling, “stay out of the kitchen,
+now. Blossom, you watch him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I brought a cake for the youngens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How’s your goats? How’s old Tiny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tiny died. Must have been three years ago. But there’s a
+daughter out of her, Little Tiny. We got fifteen head now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where’s the donkey?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We let him go when times got bad. The boys’ll show
+you around after a spell.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are Clate and Anse?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In the orchard. Blossom’s minding Ernie for me. He’s
+ailing today. She’s good with him.” Blossom was in the doorway,
+brushing her unkempt hair from her face, her eyes
+soft like a rabbit’s. She was eight, sober with responsibility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Blossom,” Ellen was calling, “I brought you a daisy cake.”
+The child smiled politely and retreated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s not used to folks,” Penny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where’s Melinda, Penny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s been gone four years. She came down with the
+scarlet fever.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry to hear that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Four years to the month. We put a marker on her grave.
+Says, Under the Shadow of His Wings. Luke got it from
+the mail-order house.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I heard Luke’s in charge of one of Webster’s barns now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, he is. And Anse was right sick with that fever too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m working for some folks now, Penny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was going to ask you how you got to come.” Penny
+was putting her arms out suddenly, “You want to give me
+Jess? I’ll see if he’s hungry.” She gave her breast to the baby
+and Ellen saw that despite her many children, Penny was
+still rounded with milk. Her neck was thin, the bones
+prominent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pale boy of two came out the door, clad in a short
+<a id="page-323" class="pagenum" title="323"></a>
+checked pinafore, his bare feet dirty. He pulled at Penny’s
+dress, whining. “Don’t now, Ernie,” Penny said, mild.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ought to let your ma be,” said Ellen. The child waved
+his hand, petulant, at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave him alone,” Penny spoke sharply. She laid her
+hand on the boy’s cheek. “I lost a baby that came before
+Ernie.” The child had put his head in her lap. Ellen watched
+them. She’s like an old cow that has one calf after the last.
+And if you try to mind it for her, she’ll drive you off with
+her horns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At noon, the boys came dashing in. Clate was sunburned,
+a brawny boy of eleven. Anse, shy and tall, shook Ellen’s
+hand, blushing. “The table’s too small or we’d set it proper.”
+He went to lean on the wall where he watched the other
+children eat, so that Ellen would see the way he scorned the
+lot of them. When they finished, Ellen cut the cake. The
+layers were yellow, and butter-coloring had been stirred into
+the frosting to make it yellow, too. They sat about in the
+grass and felt the breeze move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish you’d come more often, Ellie. I haven’t done a lick
+today,” Penny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clate was clapping his hands. He tapped his foot, throwing
+back his curly brown hair. The children were joining in as if
+it was a thing they did often, gathering close to their mother.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man</p>
+      <p class="verse">Whipped his wife with a frying pan</p>
+      <p class="verse">Combed his head with the wagon wheels</p>
+      <p class="verse">Died with a toothache in his heel</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Penny asked about Ellen’s goats. “How are they faring
+with you out working?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pa butchered them.” She let Penny think it was done with
+her consent. “I miss them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now we got a kid at the barn, Ellie, for Simon. It’s Little
+<a id="page-324" class="pagenum" title="324"></a>
+Tiny’s. You tell Simon it belongs to him because he used
+to milk Old Tiny for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon’ll be proud, Penny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was shortly after two when Ellen heard the truck’s
+noisy motor. Her breath caught. There he was. He drove
+up the lane and parked. He called, genial, as he came up,
+“Hello, Mrs. Dougherty. I know your husband. I’ve talked
+to him over at Webster’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Penny held her hand out in welcome. “Howdy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come see my sheep.” High bleats were audible from the
+truck bed. Blossom brought Ernie out, lifting him to see
+the beasts with sawdust caught in the gray wool. “I bought
+a ram and three ewes. They’ll be breeding this fall.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dog. Dog,” babbled the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now you two come again,” Penny was saying as Ellen
+and Dan got into the truck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’ll be no holding Simon when he hears about that
+kid. Goodbye, Blossom.” She waved to the little boy, “Bye
+now, Ernie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dog.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Penny laughed, “He’s a case.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cake tin was rattling on the floor. Ellen smoothed her
+rumpled skirt. “That Penny. I ne’er knew a body like her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Got her hands full with that gang.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She lost two. One was a little girl I saw a few years back.
+A pretty one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s no way to live. But you ask that kind of a woman.
+They’ll pick it again if you give them a choice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s how some women are.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose. You ought to know.” He was laughing at her.
+“Me, I like things under control.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sure are acting braggy today.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He flushed, reaching for her shoulder and pulling her
+beside him. “Hello.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you see Star?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-325" class="pagenum" title="325"></a>
+“No, I didn’t.” His hard fingers were within her dress on
+the tender underarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan?” The April air was suggesting lilacs unsealing, tight
+dark purple buds becoming a feathery lavender, the vague
+pressing fragrance was turning Ellen back into the past. She
+was riding home in the Ford pickup from the circus, she was
+sixteen. She stirred now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There had been a pair of baby shoes dangling from the dashboard.
+It was hot in a late afternoon. The birds were still.
+Christian Ay was saying, “Want me to stop along the way?”
+It was long past, it was a dream. But the world had been
+new and fresh. Like today.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it was Dan again. He was turning off the highway
+onto a lane bordered by a grove of horse chestnuts. “Now
+then.” He was braking the truck on the grass sward beside
+the trees. He opened the door on his side. “Come on,” he was
+shouting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They ran into the shade, under the low branches, where
+the grass was sun-speckled. Ellen was crying, “Smell the
+air.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was drawing her down beside him. She saw blue innocence
+flowers in the moist grass amid wood sorrel. He was
+touching his hand on her face, her hair. His eyes were greenish
+in the shaded light. His flat thin mouth was demanding.
+His fingers were large and rough and at once tender. She
+felt them quiver. “Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be.” And he was unskillful for Ellen had lived
+lonely all of her days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her head was on his arm, tears flowing from somewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I really didn’t know, Ellen.” They stayed there a long
+time. She had fallen asleep. The shadows in the chestnut
+branches spreading made a network. The blue was far beyond.
+The small flowers were bowing to the breeze, a catbird
+<a id="page-326" class="pagenum" title="326"></a>
+started to warble, harsh, very clear, twitching its tail. After
+a while another bird called back from afar. Dan was waking
+her. “It’s nearly four. My arm’s asleep. I was afraid I’d
+disturb you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wasn’t sleeping.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lambs bleated from the bed of the truck. “Yes, you
+were.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you pleased?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We had better go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will in a minute.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were ugly this morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m trying to show you how sorry I am. What do you
+think that was all about?” He was grinning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ran from him to the truck. He came after and swung
+open the door for her. He made up a cigarette while she
+waited; he tapped the Bull Durham pouch, pulled the drawstring
+with his teeth. Then they were driving homeward. She
+leaned into his arm until they nearly reached the Wasilewski
+house. She had picked a horse chestnut leaf, and showed him
+the print of a hoof where the leaf was torn from the twig
+that held it; even the horseshoe nails were there, five of them.
+She twirled the leaf in her fingers. She sighed, smiling at him,
+already regretting the incident in the grove. And him plighted
+to Star Webster.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-6-4">
+<a id="page-327" class="pagenum" title="327"></a>
+24
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+In the morning Adele was urging her daughters through
+breakfast so they would be ready for church on time. Simon
+cried, “Wish I had my kid here, Ma. I’m naming it April
+for it was born this month.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll stay at home today, Adele,” Mom said. “I want to
+ready up the fruit cellar. We’ll be canning before we know
+it. Applesauce and berries.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little girls clamored, “Pleathe. Let us stay too, and
+play with Thimon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’m going,” Dennie said. “We’re hearing about
+that Goliath.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Girls,” said Adele, “I’m surprised you don’t want to
+hear that story too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-328" class="pagenum" title="328"></a>
+“Wish April was here,” Simon was saying, “trailing after
+me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Star’s coming for supper tonight,” said Mom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I forgot that.” Dan rubbed the blemish that colored the
+taut flesh of his cheek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Be nice to see Star again,” said Adele. “When was she
+here last?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s see,” said Pop. “It was snowing, wasn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you meet her, Ellen?” asked Adele.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” Ellen felt the hot flush creep over her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then it must have been before the thaw, Pop,” Sudduth
+said. “Because right after that Ellen came.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re wearing your hair a new way, Ellen,” Mom said.
+“It’s very nice. Soft like that around your face. You used
+to pin it so tight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen hastily brushed the loose strands back. “Reckon I
+did.” She could sense Mom’s piercing eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men went out; Adele and the children drove to church.
+Ellen was working in the kitchen. She was preparing peach
+cobblers for dinner that night. Mason jars of peach halves
+glistened bright orange in the sun-shot window. While she
+was mixing the dough with her fingers, Mom came in, carrying
+a heavy book. “Have you ever seen a Polish Bible, Ellen?”
+Mom laid it on the table and turned to the record of family
+dates on the first page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen knew the woman had brought it in for a purpose.
+“I’ve heard that some keep their Bibles like that, Mom.
+Though our family ne’er did with ours.” She put her hand
+swiftly to her hair leaving a drift of flour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mom pointed to the list. “Pop’s mother brought it over
+from Poland. We can’t any of us read Polish, but it’s been
+in his family so we write everything in it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were different hands, some with foreign characters,
+hard to decipher. The latest entry read, “Hannah Wasilewski.
+<a id="page-329" class="pagenum" title="329"></a>
+July 6, 1932.” Higher on the list Ellen could see in faded
+green ink, “Daniel Matthew Wasilewski. May 10, 1895.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See, there’s Sudduth’s wedding to Adele.” Mom was putting
+a broad finger on it. “That was clean before the depression.
+Now Star and Dan’ll be setting their date. It’ll say,
+Daniel Wasilewski took Star Webster in marriage. October
+first, maybe. This year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a fine book there.” Ellen said it coolly. I was born
+in 1909. That makes him fourteen years older. He’s forty-one.
+She felt languid because of her love. She was smiling
+at Mom, gray eyes narrow, hiding the secret anger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We know Dan’s making a good marriage, Ellen.” Mom’s
+cheeks were red.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That Mr. Webster’s a rich man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look, Star suits Dan.” Mom spoke crisp. “My son loves
+her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reckon two cobblers’ll be enough for tonight, Mom?
+With company coming?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Better make three.” The older woman was going to put
+the Bible back on its shelf; her heavy body moved stolid,
+with decision. Ellen watched her go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she and Dan had come back last night from Penny’s,
+Dan had changed his clothes and gone directly to the barn.
+After supper he hurried out again with Sudduth to set up
+a pen for the new sheep. The two men returned at dusk,
+stood in the kitchen awhile talking before they went to bed.
+Dan paid no heed to Ellen. The yellow cat purred and mewled
+now about her feet while she rolled the dough deftly, fitted
+it into the pie tins. She thought how she disliked Mom. The
+woman’s hostility was palpable. She was calling out as her
+steps were heard descending, “I’ll be in the fruit cellar, Ellen.
+When you finish, come and help. We’ve got to get this
+straightening done if it is Sunday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will.” In a swift flood Ellen was <a id="corr-9"></a>homesick for the old
+kitchen in the yellow house. For Frankie and Maria nearby,
+<a id="page-330" class="pagenum" title="330"></a>
+the boiler steaming on the range, Jack waiting in the bushes
+by the porch. The goats in fresh straw in the woodshed. And
+her in the garden rows, singing “Down in the Valley.” Here
+the customs were foreign, even their manners and speech
+differed from what she had known. The old people had been
+born in a land across the water, brought their alien habits
+with them. They bathed in a separate room where a white
+tub stood on ornate legs. Everyone had his own towel, and
+when he bathed he would hang it on the line in the sun,
+even Hannah. Ellen would see Dan pinning his in the evenings,
+casually, pausing to light a cigarette before returning
+to the house. It would seem to her as if he performed a
+woman’s task, as if it were too clean. When she first came
+to this household and rolled pie crusts, Mom had showed
+her how the edges of the dough must be crimped by twisting
+the thumbs in a particular way. And when they went
+to kill a chicken, they laid a broomstick across its neck and
+yanked the legs sharply so the head was pulled off. She
+poured the fragrant peach halves into the pans. At first I
+couldn’t get over their merry ways. But there’s Adele who
+tried to keep from having her baby. Sudduth’s jealous of his
+brother. And Mom’s bent on managing them all. Dan will
+bring Star Webster here just like she says. They’ll write it in
+that Bible. Wish I could be away tonight. I don’t want to see
+that girl. Ellen was crimping the edges of the pies skillfully
+and sliding them into the oven. The yellow cat bounded after,
+and she caught it in her arms as she went down the cellar
+steps.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The lilacs on the north side of the house, outside the dining
+room windows, were opening their buds in the afternoon.
+The perfume was drifting through the house. Ellen fried the
+chickens while Mom helped Adele dress the girls and
+straighten the rooms. Ellen was setting the table, spreading
+first the linen cloth, cream-colored with age. She took out
+<a id="page-331" class="pagenum" title="331"></a>
+crystal that stood in the sideboard and heavy-plated silver,
+placed it as Mom had directed, the knife and spoon on the
+right side with blade turned to the plate, the fork on the left.
+Simon came in. “Who’s Star Webster?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s a friend of theirs, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dennie says she’s Dan’s sweetheart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was laying small butter knives in front of the plates.
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s fancy there, Ma. The way you’re doing.” Simon
+was grown so his head came above Ellen’s shoulder. He was
+over ten now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put goblets at the knife tips and turned to him. “You
+eat proper. No swooshing your food with a biscuit. Mind,
+now. And the fork goes in the right hand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll most likely fall o’er backwards in my chair.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Watch Dennie and do like he does. You’re twice his size
+and half as mannerly. And be quiet too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t care for all this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put on that new shirt I made.” She went to the kitchen.
+“Now go on. The queen’ll be here before we know it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clock read seven when they drove up. Ellen paused to
+look out the window. Dan had changed into his brown suit,
+wore a bright striped tie. He was taking Star’s hand as she
+stepped down from the truck cab. Star Webster was just
+nineteen. Her small form was sheathed in a white dress, she
+wore white shoes and gloves and a wide-brimmed white hat.
+Her hair fluffed out, her arms were untanned. Adele said
+Star put stockings on her arms when she went to pick berries
+to keep the sun from them, and a sunbonnet to protect her
+face and neck. She was laughing up at Dan. He had said she
+was exciting. She was afraid of the dark. He liked that. Maybe
+she leans on him, helpless. A man doesn’t like a woman
+strong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The potatoes steamed as they boiled over, and Ellen turned
+hastily to them. Mom and Adele came in, fastening on
+<a id="page-332" class="pagenum" title="332"></a>
+starched print aprons. Mom wore her new black rayon dress,
+a cameo gold brooch at the neckline. Adele’s dark green suit
+made her round face sallow. The little girls followed. “Thay,
+Ellen. Look at us.” They twirled pink and blue dresses before
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sure sew pretty, Adele,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A little starch will do wonders with that cheap voile.”
+Adele was modest. “Now you girls go say hello to Star.”
+They ran, whispering and nudging.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The women beat potatoes with a wood masher, lifted
+browned chicken onto the huge white platter, and broke ice
+cubes into a water pitcher. The family was coming in from
+the living room, Star holding to Dan’s arm. Sudduth was
+complaining, “Sunday’s a workday like every other around
+here, Star. When my house is built, I’m going to church with
+Adele and the girls. That’ll give me a day off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pop shuffled after them, pulling his beard. “Hee. That’s one
+way to do it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is our girl, Ellen,” Mom said to the guest, “and that’s
+Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello there,” said Star. “Oh Mom, what a lovely table.
+You always set it so pretty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sit over here, Dan,” Mom said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll sit where I usually do.” He was smiling stiffly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Star, you take the chair by him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dennie said grace. “God is great, God is good, bless us for
+our daily food.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Grace shouted, “Zaccheus he. Did climb a tree. Our Lord
+to thee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s enough,” threatened Sudduth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were pressing extra morsels on the girl in white.
+“Have some watermelon pickles,” Mom said. “Land o’
+Goshen, it was two years ago we put them up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I got thick on them,” Hannah lisped, “on my new thpring
+coat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-333" class="pagenum" title="333"></a>
+“Hannah,” Pop shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re always saying speak up,” Dan reminded him, “so
+you ought to let her alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s right.” Pop clattered his knife. “Speak up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And it won’t come out of the coat, neither,” Grace said
+shyly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Girls,” Mom cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jesus, my back hurts.” Sudduth fidgeted in his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan and Star were sitting near Mom at one end of the
+table. Star would turn her face sidewise, appealing, “Don’t
+you agree, Dannie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sudduth was saying, “I’m trying to buy a piece of our
+neighbor’s land, Star. Near where my house’ll be. If I get it,
+this farm’ll total a hundred and ten acres.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a lot,” Star’s fork was poised, “don’t you think,
+Dannie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s Sudduth’s twenty acres,” Dan said, without looking
+at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh.” Her mouth was round and pink. She set the fork
+down, the food untouched, put her napkin to her lips. “Did
+you fry the chicken, miss?” she asked Ellen. “It’s delicious.
+Isn’t it, Dannie?” The lilac scent was floating through the
+open window behind her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I did.” Ellen was blushing, resentment like a knot in
+her chest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Her name’s Ellen, Star,” Dan said, “you just met her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think I’ll ever make chicken like this, Dannie?” The
+girl’s laughter was the bright tinkle of a bell. “Will you teach
+me, Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mom said, “Oh, you’ll catch on easy enough.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why should she teach you?” Dan’s voice was deliberate,
+matter-of-fact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I never cooked a chicken.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, why her? Your mama can teach you.” He laughed,
+abrupt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-334" class="pagenum" title="334"></a>
+“Dannie. Don’t fuss.” The white dress was cut in a square
+neckline. Her eyes bloomed innocent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I want to know. Why?” His underlip was jutting out,
+his smile had set. The mark on his cheek was dark, and his
+palms were on the table where he leaned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan. Star’s our company. Land.” Mom reproved him,
+fingering the brooch at her breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now there,” Pop cried, and the children, sensing the
+tenseness of their elders, looked from one to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well? Can’t you answer?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Star’s little mouth quivered. “I’ll ask Mama to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan, will you behave? He doesn’t mean it, Star.” Mom
+shook her head. “Ellen, run get the dessert. You want to help
+them clear, Star?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I do.” The girl took up her plate and Dan’s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele shoved her chair back so it squeaked, and Ellen noted
+that she pinched Sudduth’s shoulder as she passed him. This is
+one of those times Adele’s glad she’s got Sudduth. Ellen was
+moving rapidly, clearing dishes and brushing the crumbs. She
+cut the pies and brought them in silver holders to set before
+Mom. She went into the kitchen, and while cobbler wedges
+were passed down on small china dishes, Ellen was filling the
+flowered white cups with coffee and carrying them around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love this pattern.” Mom appraised her cup. “It’s Wreaths
+of Roses. And the set’s complete like the day I got it. I’ve
+held on to it. Even through the bad years. And not a one’s
+been broken.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen set Dan’s coffee by him. He looked up, his eyes
+flinty, his thin mouth cruel. He doesn’t even see me. He
+muttered, “Now serve proper from the right, Ellen. And
+take care with Mom’s china.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We bought them in nineteen ten,” Mom went on, ignoring
+him, “I remember just as clear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can we have more pie?” Dennie asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’re awful pretty, you know?” Star admired her cup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-335" class="pagenum" title="335"></a>
+“More, more,” the children were shouting. “Pleathe.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You weren’t even born yet, Star,” Mom said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All you can hold,” Pop decided. “Fill those kids up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were pushing back their chairs. Sudduth lit a cigar
+and Pop took one, too. Simon groaned, holding his stomach,
+“Oh, this is heaven.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon, you mind what I said,” Ellen warned. She was
+piling the cups and saucers, carrying them out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you roll one, Uncle Dan?” Dennie inquired
+gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No thanks,” Dan told him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go on into the living room, all of you,” Mom said. “We
+girls will be done in a jiffy. Go on, Star.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was just lovely, Mom.” Star hugged her about the
+waist. “And that peach pie was delicious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know what gets into him,” Mom whispered, “but
+don’t pay him any mind. He was just hungry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dannie’s a grouch.” Star ran out lightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had nearly finished in the kitchen, as Ellen
+was saying, “Do go along, Mom. Adele and me’ll redd up
+the rest,” they heard the truck roar, saw it spinning down the
+driveway in the light of dusk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There,” Mom said. “I’m mortified. I thought we were
+going to sit and talk. Dan was going to play for us, and Star
+could sing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” said Adele, “I was shocked. Treating a guest like
+that.” Mom stepped into the other room to replace the shining
+goblets, and Adele said softly, “That was a fine example
+to set for young children.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was really raising sand,” Ellen admitted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan can’t bear it that she’s so useless, Ellen. You know
+Websters have a maid. Lord knows when she gets up of a
+morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know. You already told me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be glad,” Adele said brightly to Mom as she entered,
+<a id="page-336" class="pagenum" title="336"></a>
+“to have our house finished. And I’ll have this baby in October.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The family trooped out to stand looking at the blooming
+lilacs. The children scuffled with each other without purpose.
+After a while as dark drifted, they all went in. Mom pressed
+her hands on the piano keys, discordant. She prodded Dennie,
+“Can’t you play a piece, Dennie? You know some.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m tired.” The boy’s eyes were heavy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I could put a record on the victrola, Mom,” Adele suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” Mom was walking to the windows, looking into the
+shadowed yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s everyone waiting for?” Simon inquired sleepily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mom sighed. “Let’s go to bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen followed the others upstairs, avoiding any intrusion
+on her thoughts. She undressed, turned off the light. Sounds
+died in the house, all was still. She was sitting on the wide
+window sill. The lilac odor wafted up, her feet were cold.
+She felt the constriction in her throat, wondered if she would
+cry soon. She imagined Star lying dead somewhere. Mutilated.
+What a small baby she is. But Star’s white beauty came
+back, the immaculate dress and gloves, the big hat she swung
+in her hand, dainty, laughing, tipping her head up at Dan.
+She’ll make him forget me. The night hours, weighted, were
+passing. The silence was marred occasionally by a creaking
+rafter or a settling floor beam. In a distant meadow the whistle
+of a whippoorwill was echoing. It was nearly three when
+he returned. The boards of the rack on the truck rattled and
+slammed. The gravel crunched. The kitchen door clattered.
+His tread sounded on the stairs, it stopped outside her doorway.
+She held her breath until the steps went on down the
+hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was awake before dawn, in the cellar sorting clothes
+into ragged heaps. The wash boiler steamed on the range. She
+dropped clothes into the chugging electric machine, and let
+<a id="page-337" class="pagenum" title="337"></a>
+them beat while she hung those she had run through the automatic
+wringer. She took up the basket, piled high with white
+sheets. A narrow stone stairway led outside through sloping
+double doors. They were open and pallid sun rays crawled
+into hidden dark corners. She was going up into the sunlight.
+The grass was wet, an early bluebird darted to a fence wire
+and clung there, “Purity!” It vanished into the high leaves
+of the oak. At breakfast her dress was darkened in front
+from suds and water that had splashed; grass stems were
+caught between her toes. Her hair was brushed and coiled
+high. She moved lissome about the kitchen, looking at Dan’s
+black head bent surly over his food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen’s going barefoot,” Grace was crying. “Can I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I only did it,” Ellen explained, “to save my shoes from
+the wet. You’d catch cold.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen’s right,” Adele agreed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When I’m growed, I’ll do it,” Hannah said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll warm the tractor up, Sudduth.” Dan spoke brusque,
+grease streaked on his browned arms and neck. “We’ll grind
+cobs as soon as you’re ready.” He was rushing out. Ellen
+saw him from the window. He had stopped under the oak
+to light his cigarette, glancing at the clothes strung on the
+line. She wondered if he saw the freshness of the grass or
+heard the bird.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A week had gone. Ellen was grubbing on her knees in the
+flower beds along the side of the house. During the days the
+strain between Dan and Mom had been clear to the others.
+Dan refused to play the piano, Mom sat mending, her mouth
+unhappy. Only Sudduth was more talkative in the evenings;
+he would engage Pop and Adele in long good-natured arguments.
+Ellen was digging into the dirt now, vigorous. Mom’s
+voice came shrill from one of the windows above. Ellen held
+her trowel motionless. “But she expects you to. Star loves
+you.” Dan’s voice muttered and Mom was shouting again,
+<a id="page-338" class="pagenum" title="338"></a>
+“Who do you want then? That hill-woman? What’s the
+matter with you, Dan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut up, Mom. Will you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve got a chance here of a marriage that’s the best in
+the county. Land. You ought to get on your knees and thank
+God a family like Websters took up with poor Polacks like
+us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dammit, you forget we’ve got some of the best black soil
+there is. That’s better than money in a bank. A family like
+Websters. You sound like some cockeyed book. Now look,
+I told Star we’re finished. She’s got it through her head.
+That’s the last I’m going to hear about it in this house. It’s
+none of your business.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s not?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, dammit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s that hill-woman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you stop calling her that hill-woman like she’s a
+tramp and not decent?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sawed-off hoe was poised in Ellen’s hand. A door
+slammed. Later when Mom came to see how her work was
+coming on, there was no sign of the quarrel in her voice.
+“You think it’s too shady here for asters, Ellen?” The skin
+was tight around Mom’s eyes and her lips curved downwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Marigolds might do better,” Ellen suggested. And when
+she met Dan, as she was coming from the hen house with a
+basket of eggs, she sought his eyes. He frowned, feeling her
+gaze. “Hell, I’ve got the milking.” He strode away. She was
+walking back to the house, thoughtful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lilacs that night, on the wane after their peak, were
+spilling forth a dulcet fragrance. In a few days they would
+be gone, withered. Ellen was seated in the long window of
+her room, studying the sky. There was a quarter moon, it was
+near midnight. She was restless and sighed on the shadows.
+All at once a red point came and went in the dark under one
+of the oaks in the yard. She raised her head quickly, seeing
+<a id="page-339" class="pagenum" title="339"></a>
+it. Her mind explored it. The figure had been there all the
+time, outlined vaguely against the trunk. As she watched it,
+her blood began to beat dully into the lilac scent. Then she
+was slipping into a dress swiftly and closing her room door.
+She went down the stairs one at a time, and lingered. At the
+kitchen door she turned around, hesitant, trembling. But then
+she was going out, languorous, into the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He still leaned unmoving, against the oak. His features
+were dissolved into the dark moonlight. She smelled the burning
+tobacco, saw the scarlet coal. “Hi, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She whispered, “What is it, Dan?” Pausing, she had blended
+to the night, a part of the grass, pliant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shifted sharply and threw aside the stub, moved away
+from the tree hole. She went unerring into his lean arms. In
+a little while he was putting his hands in her hair that was
+nearly without color, bluish in the light of the small piece of
+moon. “Always I’ve been waiting for you, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at the crag of his nose, the etched bold face.
+“There. You’re like a hawk. I love you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Half made, half a man. Waiting for you. Understand?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, you don’t. You’re a woman. You don’t understand at
+all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re what I need. You make me complete. I want to do
+all things for you.” He was poised above her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-6-5">
+<a id="page-340" class="pagenum" title="340"></a>
+25
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The square dances at Silvers Farm were held every year before
+the main hay crop was gathered. Dan and Ellen, Sudduth
+and Adele, were going together in the old Dodge. Ellen
+was in the front seat close against Dan. Adele was saying, “We
+used to go to Silvers when Sudduth was courting me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Time sure flies,” Sudduth said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you positive I don’t show too much, Sudduth? To go
+to a public place? What do you think, Ellen? You know how
+girls can be. They’ll all be saying, is it September, October or
+November.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You look real nice, Adele.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had pulled out of the Wasilewski drive, the
+<a id="page-341" class="pagenum" title="341"></a>
+children had shouted goodbye, Pop went to count the roses
+the damask bush had borne this year, and Mom called, “You
+young folks enjoy yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mom was resigned to Dan’s rupture with Star but where
+she had once been warm and friendly toward Ellen, a coldness
+was now in her air. Where she had used to gossip freely,
+she was constrained. Ellen would try to please her, to think
+ahead, doing the tasks before Mom could assign them. “But
+I already picked the bush beans this morning, Mom. There’s
+near a bushel. I reckoned you’d want it done.” And all the
+time there was joy because of Dan. He would come to where
+she was scrubbing the baby chick brooders or polishing windows,
+seeking her out when he was free. “Oh, this is a woman
+I’ve found.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the Silvers barn the first cutting of hay was stacked at
+one end of the loft, its honey permeating the air. Wire cables
+had been stretched from automobiles and tractors below, and
+from them colored lights were strung along the rafters, and
+paper lanterns. On a platform near the door a fiddler and a
+banjo-player were busy. “Sometimes,” Dan told Ellen, “he’ll
+take steel knitting needles to those banjo strings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All he ever does,” said Sudduth, “is play that banjo.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pigeon wing,” Mr. Silvers called, his fleshy face in a
+sweat, his barrel stomach shaking with covert laughter.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">I had an old hat with a flop down brim</p>
+      <p class="verse">It looked like a toad frog</p>
+      <p class="verse">Setting on a limb</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“Double shuffle,” he was roaring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I told you I can’t dance, Dan,” Ellen protested. “Pa’d
+ne’er let us go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll show you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele went to talk with her friends and Sudduth merged
+<a id="page-342" class="pagenum" title="342"></a>
+into a group of men. “Any borers in your corn yet, Wasilewski?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A few.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My cow throwed twins.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God damn. Better look if one’s a freemartin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wrenched my back in the spring.” Sudduth put his hand
+on it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tarred my corn this time. Crows got pesky.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sounds gummy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Roll in it wood ashes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God damn. Where’d you hear that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“County agent.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God-damn bull-shitter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No crows.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Um.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the women were questioning Adele avidly, “Who’s
+that with Dan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why that’s our girl, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never saw her before. Is she from around here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s from Kentucky.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thought Dan was courting the Webster girl. I was looking
+forward to seeing them. They made a cute couple.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Star’s real sweet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What happened with Star, Adele? You can tell us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He simply broke off with her. I don’t know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Adele, we know how these things can be.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why’d Dan bring your hired girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She was there. Maybe he felt sorry for her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s good-looking, Adele.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Right young, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s not as young as she looks,” Adele pleaded. “Told
+me she was thirty.” Ellen had said twenty-seven, but thirty
+slipped out against Adele’s will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now that just shows you what the night will do for a
+woman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-343" class="pagenum" title="343"></a>
+“You might have a new sister-in-law one of these days,
+Adele.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Now when are you
+expecting it, Adele? Late September? Does Sudduth want
+a boy or a girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The floor of the hayloft was dusted with chaff. The people
+were spinning in the pattern of the dance.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Oh five times five are twenty five</p>
+      <p class="verse">And six times five are thirty</p>
+      <p class="verse">Seven times five are thirty five</p>
+      <p class="verse">And eight times five are forty</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen was handed from one partner to the next. There were
+spindly angular boys caught by the music, feet tapping and
+shoulders springing in an extra beat. There were jovial men,
+worried ones, dumpy ones, old and young. Dan was across
+the floor, his dark face above the red shirt bending taut to
+a girl with curly hair. Jealousy touched in Ellen so she
+flinched, laughing up to her partner. Then when Dan came
+by, following the step, he whispered, “You’re having such
+a good time I’ll have to kill all your partners, honey.” And
+the roiling had vanished. Dan belonged to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The music ceased and the fiddler was leaning back. The
+banjo-player wiped his brow. “Hell, it’s hot.” Dan and Ellen
+came up to sit on the platform edge. Dan was smoking. They
+watched the crowd at the bench where a barrel of cold beer
+was rolled on its side next to tin pitchers of Mrs. Silvers’ iced
+lemonade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sure can handle those strings,” Ellen was telling the
+fiddler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Been doing this off and on since I was ten. Maybe this
+child will die this away. Maybe I’ll be like that Callahan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a song. Fiddler Callahan killed somebody so they were
+<a id="page-344" class="pagenum" title="344"></a>
+about to hang him. Says if anyone would play his fiddle
+while he was being strung up, they could keep it. He begged
+at the crowd for it was a notion he had. Nobody’d do it, so
+when they were fixing to trip the gallows he quit pleading,
+and busted it to pieces over the coffin they had ready for
+him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look,” Dan stood up, grinding his cigarette on the floor.
+“Could you play ‘Lord Lovel’ for her to sing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure thing.” The fiddler was taking up his bow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked past the swaying lanterns into the June night.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Lord Lovel he stood at his castle gate</p>
+      <p class="verse">Combing his milk-white steed</p>
+      <p class="verse">When up came Lady Nancy Belle</p>
+      <p class="verse">To wish her lover <a id="corr-10"></a>godspeed</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Lord Lovel went away then, vowing to return. But when at
+last he did, the Lady Nancy had died.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">He mounted on his milk-white steed</p>
+      <p class="verse">And he rode to London town</p>
+      <p class="verse">And there he heard the death bells ringing</p>
+      <p class="verse">And the people mourning all round</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">He ordered the grave to be opened wide</p>
+      <p class="verse">And the shroud to be turned down</p>
+      <p class="verse">And there he kissed her clay-cold lips</p>
+      <p class="verse">And the tears came trinkling down</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“That was keen,” the banjo-player said. “You two want
+to try a Hound-and-Dog?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right,” she was whispering. “I want to be woven into
+a part of all you undertake to do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s why you’re my girl.” His shaven hard cheek was
+<a id="page-345" class="pagenum" title="345"></a>
+on her hair, the red-checked shirt was tight against the white
+dress. And the people were all about but far away.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Summer put her hand on the earth and all things flourished.
+In early hours earthworms coupled on damp paths. Grain
+fields turned yellow. Mowers and reapers hummed busily
+across the countryside. Mulberries and cherries ripened. The
+children spread an old sheet under the trees and shook the
+branches. They gathered the corners and ran to the kitchen.
+“Berry pieth and cherry pieth,” chanted Hannah and Grace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now that school was out, Simon was given a string of
+cows. He put his arm about their necks and the light of possession
+and love gleamed. One of them had leaped the fence
+and got to the bull when too young. Her teats were small
+and short. Simon’s hands were coaxing them patiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’d have sold that one if it wasn’t for you, Simon,” Dan
+shouted from his milking stool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t abide a short-teated cow,” Sudduth said. “Come on,
+Lady, let those big bubbies down for me,” Sudduth was nudging
+the heavy udder with his fist; the cow chewed, serene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon told Ellen, “Dan might let the colt be mine if Pearl
+got caught with one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Colts are worth a lot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, so Dan said,” the boy insisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were driving over to the Doughertys. Penny gave
+Simon Little Tiny’s kid. It was brown with white stripes on
+its face and legs. “The daddy’s a Toggenburg,” Penny said.
+“It ought to milk proud.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy was entranced. “Hey, Clate. Hey, Anse. This be
+a fine yeanling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anse stood aside and said nothing, but Clate swaggered.
+He began to tell Simon how to care for the kid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh shut up, Clate. I know about burnt flour when she
+gets the scours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You named it yet, Simon?” Penny asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-346" class="pagenum" title="346"></a>
+“April.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a fair name.” Ellen could see Penny was pregnant
+again. She’s liable to have another as puny as little Jess is.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they were waving from the truck windows as they
+went down the narrow winding lane. “Seems I’m always
+saying goodbye to Penny, Dan.” He smiled at her across
+Simon who held the little doe on his knees. Used to be I worried
+over the past, how it clutched at me. Now that’s fallen
+away and I’m looking ahead, making this foreign place mine.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The days were dropping, one upon one. Ellen and Dan
+would seek each other out. Their gladness was contagious, so
+that Sudduth was gallant with Adele, and Mom more attentive
+to Pop. Sometimes in the evenings they would sit on the
+board seat nailed between two oaks in the yard. “Ellen, we
+ought to get married now. We don’t have to wait till fall.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whatever you say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d like to wait.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your family’s Catholic. You want a priest?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t care about that, but I’d like to see Adele and the
+children moved. Then I want to wash the walls and wax the
+floor. I’d as soon have a proper wedding.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see.” He was kissing her, and her earnestness faded as
+she made herself to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the next day she said, “I thought I’d write Frankie and
+my uncle and aunt. And even my pa. I’d like them to come
+here if they can and stand as my family when I marry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All that nonsense.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d like it that way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Suppose I’ll have to wear a flower in my buttonhole?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. And Simon has to have a suit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does he get a flower too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s next?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-347" class="pagenum" title="347"></a>
+“The minister. We can have Adele’s Presbyterian. That
+little sad one. I’ll have flowers in vases standing about. And
+the minister should have a flower too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He doesn’t have a buttonhole.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought he did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if you change your mind, we’ll get married now.
+It’s up to you, honey.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+That was in August. In mid-September the roof struts of
+Sudduth’s house were in place. The boards and shingles were
+nailed and fitted. Adele was moving laborious, the child big
+in her, sighing, “All my plans to leave this house so orderly
+for you, Mom.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you worry, Adele. Things are good enough.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen went out often to see how the building was progressing.
+Every nail driven was bringing the day nearer. Mrs.
+Daniel Matthew Wasilewski. I’ll write Ma, too. The nurses
+could read it to her. She might know what it said. I’ll go see
+her this winter. You can’t tell, in a year or so we might even
+be having a youngen. I could walk out to Dan where the corn
+was ripe, “Here’s your son I just happened to have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morning was bright and moist. The wind was drifting
+steadily from the southwest. Ellen had been picking tomatoes
+since breakfast and she was walking down to meet the
+men before the noon hour. They had been cutting hay in the
+field next to the new house. It was edged by a row of heavy-trunked
+willows. Long ago when posts had been cut and
+set, they had rooted in the easy way of a willow, and made
+heads, sprouting in summer rains. “What do you call those
+fence trees, Dan?” she was calling. Simon waved boldly as
+he clattered past her with the team and mower, heading for
+the barnyard. The men dropped their forks and came up to
+meet Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those are golden osier willows,” Sudduth explained. “Pop
+planted them before we were born.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-348" class="pagenum" title="348"></a>
+“Dinner ready?” Dan took Ellen’s hand as they were walking
+through the sweet-odored drying alfalfa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. Mom’s getting it. I’ve been in the garden.”
+The air was lightly misted though the sun was bright. There
+were cumulus clouds in the sky. The south wind continued
+to blow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hope we get this hay in all right,” Dan said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This has been the best year yet,” Sudduth said. “Good
+and dry. Not a load lost.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think we’ll lose this one. Knock on wood. The
+storm’s way off. The hay’ll be cured by early afternoon.
+We can get it in quick. Simon’s a help. He’s fast and he’s
+got the hang of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s not twister weather, is it?” Ellen asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re not afraid of a wind?” Dan’s yellow eyes laughed,
+so she knew he was thinking of the day in the barn when he
+first kissed her, and she him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the afternoon, Ellen was in the middle of the tomato
+canning. At the kitchen door were four full bushel baskets;
+depleted ones were stacked outside. She was scalding the
+fruit, packing it into hot Mason jars. Rows of empty jars
+waited upside down on the table, the filled ones were boiling
+in the canner. Mom came in. “I’ll help out for a spell.” She
+fanned herself with her ample apron. “Sakes, the air’s close.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen could feel how the wind had stopped. A piece of
+fear plucked at her. “Isn’t the hay in yet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’re going at it real hard. They even gave Dennie a
+fork. He’s out working alongside Sudduth. Land, the rain’s
+not too far off.” Mom frowned. “Sudduth says the last cutting
+of alfalfa is like grain, it’s so high in protein.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know.” Ellen was pausing. “Mom, is this twister
+weather?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a little early for them. Doesn’t feel like it to me. We’ll
+<a id="page-349" class="pagenum" title="349"></a>
+know if Sudduth comes tearing in.” She turned to the sink.
+“Now, let’s get this mess put up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They worked swiftly. But their minds were with the men
+who strove to save the hay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the far field, Simon was perched on the load that towered,
+dwarfing the two dappled grays. Dan was throwing
+great forkfuls to him and Simon laid it deftly back, stepping
+it down, his small arms muscled and brown. Sudduth was
+unloading the truck at the barn, stacked with the previous
+load. The farm buildings were like toys in the distance, sharp-edged
+in the air which had a peculiar transparency. The
+movements of the man and boy quickened. Dan pitched up
+the last of the hay. “Whip them if you have to, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The youngster clambered into the driving seat, gathered
+the leather reins. The team pawed, rattling the harness. “I
+will, Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get it in the loft fast. Sudduth’ll pitch it up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon, overworked, sweated heavily, drops running down
+his face. His bleached hair curled damp, his shirt and pants
+clung to his skin. He shrilled, “Get in there. Major. Pearl!”
+The wagon was lurching through the stubble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan began to stack the hay that remained. By now the
+nimbus rain clouds were hovering low in the bruised sky.
+The man worked at a rapid pace. The temperature was falling,
+dusk descended, the air was dense. He was bent into
+his tool, trying to beat the rain in the race.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A greenish-gray cloud tumbled slowly on the skyline to
+the west. Suddenly the wind came up, crying. Dan lifted his
+head, feeling the heat. The cloud had begun to spin. “Holy
+God,” he muttered. The stout willow fence teetered and
+creaked, the hay was swept wild, swirling. A purplish tongue
+licked downward, hunting, moving toward the hay field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan shook his fists at it, rearing lean in his high leather
+boots. “Dammit. Turn!” The long thick line veered crazily
+and then sucked back into the wounded cloud. But it was
+<a id="page-350" class="pagenum" title="350"></a>
+slipping down again, howling. “Turn. Turn!” His voice was
+nothing, his throat rended. The menace was swerving below
+the neighboring farm where it had come through in the
+spring. He was tearing his throat again, his loins on fire with
+fear. “Now, dear God. Turn!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Objects were fluttering, grotesque, like bugs in the dark
+pulsing. They were dying pigs and turkeys and a broken
+cart, small barns shattering glass, boards, dust, manure. Pieces
+of houses and ripped posts. Ravaged fruits from gardens.
+Drying hay, dust, chaff, dirt. Over Dan’s head a drove of
+birds winged abruptly, disappearing to the north. The heinous
+rhythmic humming was constant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The world was as if under water, green-blue, unreal, glowing.
+Simon was in the far barnyard, tiny on the stacked child’s
+wagon, attempting to pitch the hay to the loft alone. The
+three women, like dolls, were fluttering into the yard. Dan
+plunged into the shallow ditch bordering the field; he flattened
+himself, cowering. The ugly dancing shadow advanced.
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the roof of Sudduth’s bare unpainted house was rising
+weirdly. In deliberate motion it was wheeling above the
+field. The man stumbled up from the trench in rage, disbelief,
+clawing the air dazed, with his powerful hands, as if
+to replace the mighty shower of timber where he had nailed
+it with sweat and struggle. The roof was engulfing the field
+and the golden osier willows were breaking. The noise was
+tremendous.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+When they rode out to the hay field, Ellen was beside
+Sudduth in the truck. Warm silent rain blew gently against
+the windshield. Lumber and rubble were scattered and Sudduth
+had to drive around the larger planks, skidding in the
+mud. The prone figure was stretched face up amid the litter.
+Sudduth braked and Ellen was tearing at the door. She ran,
+believing him dead. She lifted the two-by-four from his body.
+<a id="page-351" class="pagenum" title="351"></a>
+She knelt, uncertain. His eyelids were flickering and they
+opened. “Hi.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sudduth,” she called evenly. “Get a doctor. Hurry.” She
+was touching the wet dark face, leaning over to keep off the
+constant rain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You came.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It didn’t turn,” he whispered. The rain was streaming
+from his carven face, his soaked black hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where do you hurt?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dying. You know that?” He was moving narrow wood
+lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Dan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sonofabitch,” he was sighing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t die.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The doctor’s coming. Do you hurt somewhere?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Damn wind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t leave me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never comes twice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never. No.” His mouth was thickening, his body was
+broken and when he heard her voice he came back through
+an effort of will. “Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t let you.” Her cheek against his, she cradled him
+in her arms. “Holy Mary?” The rain was pouring sweet and
+hot, releasing the sun-baked alfalfa odor. Her lips clung to his
+wet cool face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t talk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His face was gray and seamed. It twitched, wounded. A
+red dot was appearing at the side of his mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t,” she breathed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His dulled greenish eyes were seeking her. For a few minutes
+she wasn’t sure he was gone. A thunderbolt tore exultant
+<a id="page-352" class="pagenum" title="352"></a>
+about the field, rolling passionate. A new torrent of rain swept
+like an enfolding blanket. She wasn’t aware. She lay upon the
+lifeless body reciting Hail Marys over and again. Pray for
+us sinners now. Amen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The truck sped down the drenched slick mire of the lane.
+The doctor jumped out, pried Ellen from the body. “Is he
+dead?” she asked. Sudduth was leading her to the truck cab.
+They wrapped a rug about the limp figure and laid it in back
+on soggy hay chaff. She looked at it through the rear window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll ride out here,” the doctor called, climbing over the
+rear bumper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sudduth was driving through the field, avoiding the litter
+of boards and shingles. “Jesus.” He wagged his head, aimless.
+“I don’t know what we’re going to do, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She watched the two men carry the body upstairs. Then
+she went into the kitchen, still in her wet hay-flecked dress,
+clinging. Vaguely she knew Mom was crying and the doctor
+was using the telephone in the sitting room. She lifted one of
+the heavy bushels by the door and set it down by the sink.
+She dipped tomatoes, peeling, packing them hot in jars, measuring
+teaspoons of salt out. No one paid her any mind. Sudduth
+called the children, shrilling, insistent. He took them all,
+even the little girls, to the barn with him while he did the
+chores. Upstairs, Adele began to cry aloud, and soon moaned
+at regular intervals. Mom was hurrying back and forth, hair
+wisped, mouth unsteady. She looked in at the kitchen door.
+“Land. I’m glad you’re finishing them, Ellen. Like the doctor
+says, the living come first.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele’s premature baby died in the night. Adele turned her
+head and wept into the pillow. She believed an all-seeing God
+was punishing her because she had tried once to rid herself
+of it. At breakfast Mom asked Ellen if she could stay at home
+to care for Adele while they went to the funeral. “I can’t,
+Mom. I would, but I have to go see him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-353" class="pagenum" title="353"></a>
+“Well, the boys can get Adele what she needs, I guess.”
+Mom moved her body cautiously; she had not grasped the
+two deaths yet. She was turning to Ellen. “Sakes. I really did
+want you and him to marry, Ellen. I know you’d have been
+to him what Star Webster never could have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Mom,” Ellen shrugged, “want me to make up the
+rest of the bacon or fry ham?” She was dry-eyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Finish the bacon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon,” Ellen was asking at the table, “did you get that
+last hay in before the rain?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, it’s bad soaked, Ma. We can spread it in the yard.
+Reckon it’ll dry good enough.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You-all do that. Even if it’s leached, it’ll still make horse
+feed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jesus, I got a back this morning,” Sudduth said. “I don’t
+know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen appealed to Mom, “You got a black hat?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can wear Adele’s.” Mom patted Ellen’s shoulder. “It’s
+even got a veil. At least I think it has.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she had dressed, Ellen came into the sitting room.
+Sudduth was pacing the floor, tears coming steadily down
+his thin face. Pop sat shriveled and fragile in his overlarge
+Sunday suit, his bony hands protruded from the sleeves like
+bird legs. The sun stretched itself over the room, catching the
+luster of the stuffed red-and-black tanager under the glass bell
+on the table. I hate the sun and I hate the prying light. “It’s
+a beautiful day,” she was saying. She had watched dawn unfolding
+out of dark, felt the dry thickening in her throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s go on out and wait for Mom,” Sudduth said, stiff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen walked with them, getting into the back seat with
+Pop. She folded her handkerchief, unfolded it. Sudduth
+started the motor and let it idle. After a while, Mom came to
+the house door, a fleshy large figure in black, veiled. The children
+stared, circling her, restless. “You be good and do what
+Adele says,” Mom told them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-354" class="pagenum" title="354"></a>
+“Don’t punch me, Grace.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never touched you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where’th everybody going?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s the funeral of Uncle Dan,” said Grace. “He’s dead.
+And they’re going to plant him in the ground.” They watched
+the car go down the road, milling in a group, close to each
+other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the services, in the carpeted stuffy room, Ellen went
+up on the dais to look at the body. The casket was heavy.
+There was satin and white and purple cloth about him. He
+wore his brown suit. His hands were folded on each other,
+they had lost their sun color. Those men had their will with
+his body. Their prying hands. The almond tree shall blossom
+and the caperberry shall fail because man goeth to his long
+home and the mourners go about the streets. There was a
+slight reek of incense. His eyes were shut, his face puffed out
+so the familiar creases hardly showed. His hair was combed
+flat. They drained off his blood and pumped somewhat in his
+body, didn’t they? To keep back the death smell? He had a
+false look; it was the birthmark, they had hidden it with paste.
+Reckon he heard death bells in the air when it roared to him?
+Or the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken or
+the pitcher at the fountain. And the dust return to the earth
+as it was. That’s the husk of Dan. All I’ve got is a memory. I
+can’t recall him. I forget. She struggled, throat tight, to bring
+to mind how he moved and laughed, how he would be grease-stained
+from working under the machines, how he was alert
+and strong and moved quicker than the others. How he was
+awkward when he ran his fingers on her hair. But the statue
+slept, its hawklike features impassive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The organ struck up like breaking soft boulders. She moved
+as if she was of glass. For who knoweth what is good for
+man in his life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth
+as a shadow? She was going down the steps to sit by Mom
+in one of the blue plush chairs. The carpet made footfalls
+<a id="page-355" class="pagenum" title="355"></a>
+noiseless, the organ pushed her. She sat in the bruised music.
+Dan would be proud of how quiet I am. She didn’t feel tears
+pouring until she discovered her wet hands; she wiped them
+dully with the handkerchief. She knew she had been robbed
+once more. Praise ye the Lord. He telleth the number of the
+stars. He calleth them by their names.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The minister was walking up onto the dais, patting his head
+where hair once flourished. He stared at the floor and straightened
+his coat. The head undertaker nodded. The organ
+hushed. “Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand.
+Yes. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them
+in his bosom. Yes. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to
+pay our last respects.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What I can’t understand is why Dan didn’t see it coming
+and go to the barn on the wagon with Simon. When we ran
+out to look, I waved and called. But he just kept shocking
+the hay up. I can’t understand why he never saw it making
+there in the south sky. He should have come in with Simon.
+I don’t know why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dust to dust. Yes. Ashes,” the preacher intoned. That man
+was going to marry us. Daniel Wasilewski took Ellen Gaddy
+in marriage. So it would have been written. “Lord, make me
+to know mine end. Yes. And the measure of my days that
+I may know how frail I am. Behold, Thou hast made my days
+as a handbreadth. Oh yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The service was done, the organ was rolling muted hymns
+over plush upholstery. The undertaker bent his head in a
+gentle unctuous way to Mom. They walked out to where the
+sun dazzled the trees in a gilt sheen. They were rumbling
+slowly down flat roads toward the cemetery. Ellen asked
+Pop, “Why must they go so tormented slow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s the custom, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather put him straightaways in the earth. Fast. I got
+no use for all this furbelowing.” She looked through the
+<a id="page-356" class="pagenum" title="356"></a>
+windows to the bright day. Under her black veil, water ran
+down. “Why’d he die, Pop?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was in the way when it struck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I told him to come in,” Sudduth cried out. “I told him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut up,” Mom flared, and sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the open grave, the metal-bound box was lowered. Now
+they’ll wait until we go away. They’ll take down the purple
+canopy and fold the green grass rug. They’ll drive off, leaving
+a man to cover the hole. He’ll throw dirt on the box with
+Dan in it. And it’ll be all over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon came to her that evening where she sat by the
+windows in the cold lavender air of dusk. The silence was
+delicate, like ringing. The family had taken the noise away.
+They were with Adele or in their beds. The boy touched her
+shoulder. “Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started, striking his hand from her. Then she spoke
+quickly, penitent, “What is it, Simon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t grieve. Here, I brought you one of the kittens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And because he was so kind and tender in his youthful shy
+way, all the walls she built broke suddenly. She bowed her
+head and wept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Ma, I loved him too. He wasn’t afraid of ne’er a
+thing.” The boy’s voice was laden. He began to cry. Holding
+the kitten in his arm, he was putting his head in her apron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t weep, Simon,” she sobbed on his hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later she cradled in her hand the tiny black kitten. Through
+the window she was watching the north wind blow as autumn
+cast itself on the cringing landscape. I shall go softly all the
+years in the bitterness of my soul.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-6-6">
+<a id="page-357" class="pagenum" title="357"></a>
+26
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+The winter was passing. It had been long. As its last
+days dragged, in Louisville, a false spring came on as it often
+does in that season. Outside the city the first glimmers of
+growing had appeared, tiny green spears in barley fields, and
+hesitant statuesque spring flowers. Wake-robins bloomed in
+woods, dark red and hidden, like grief. In the city a soft evening
+wind moved. Anton Gaddy was parting from Dyke Burwell
+at the truck. He settled his round hat firmly. Dyke was
+coaxing, “Hey Mester Gaddy, whyn’t you come with me
+this once? There’s this here old girl. Must weigh near a quarter
+ton. Now I mean that pussy’s buried.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll see you here at the Chevy, boy.” Anton was impatient.
+“Tomorrow morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-358" class="pagenum" title="358"></a>
+“All right. But they got skinny ones too. If you’d rather.
+They got all kinds.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton was rushing away down the street, his flewlike lips
+sagging, a frown over his long face. He was preoccupied,
+afraid. He believed he was losing the woman Rose. For more
+than a year now he had been visiting her apartment. At one
+time he and Dyke had made excuses to each other that there
+were auctions and sales that must be attended. But gradually
+they had shed the pretense and now traveled the seventy miles
+often. Dyke would come by the Gaddy farmhouse to see
+Anton. “Got an old cow that’s no good. Reckon I’ll take
+her to the auctions.” And Anton would reply, “Before God,
+leave the fool beast be. Haw. Let’s take off for Louisville
+right now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was halting outside the brick building. The last few
+times here a man had come down the darkened stair and once
+he saw him stride away on the street. The man’s cheekbones
+were broad and high, he was stockily built with a bold way
+about him. Anton had confronted Rose with it when she let
+him in. “You’ve had company, I see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might.” She had smiled, tantalizing, throwing back her
+heavy dark hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I told you to e’er wait for me.” Rose denied it then and
+said she was teasing. But it had festered in him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton looked up now as he came into the doorway. The
+figure was there, at the bottom of the stairs. He stood aside
+while it brushed by. His heart began to thud, an anger started
+in his bowels. On the stairs he was breathing heavily. “Like
+to take the strap to her.” But he was held from physical action.
+She might slip away. He was never sure of his grip on Rose,
+winced from her laughter. He had thought of asking Father
+Tompert about a dispensation to make her his wife. But he
+put off the issue, fearing the priest’s flat refusal, his suspicious
+eyes. Anton’s old peremptory ways had given over to some
+hesitancy. His younger daughter and then his grandson had
+<a id="page-359" class="pagenum" title="359"></a>
+evaded him. His belief in his mother Nell’s, fidelity and excellence
+had been ravaged. Even his faith was wavering. He
+lived with feelings of frustration, of powerlessness, of guilt
+in sin. He was bent on Rose with a measure of desperation. As
+he was about to rap, the door swung open as if the woman
+were waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh it’s you.” As if surprised she said it and laughed, her
+wide soft face impudent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s this you say? Hum. I told you I was coming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t say I wasn’t pleased to see you. Did I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was coming after her in his heavy coat, placing his
+hand on her buttocks as he was used to do. “Rose?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t own me, Daddy,” she railed, eluding his grasp.
+She was wearing a sheathed dress instead of her flowered
+housecoat. “You’ll muss my make-up. I’m going out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had on high slippers so that she was taller than Anton.
+This somehow angered him. “You’re going to meet that man.
+That whoreson that just was here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Daddy.” Her voice was light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve caught him coming out three-four times now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s young,” she mocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got a power in me yet. You know that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look.” She was picking up her purse and coat, and a green
+beret with a matching feather. “Look, I need some things
+for supper. I’ll be back a little late.” She put on the hat, her
+eyes moist and teasing. “But I’ll be back, Daddy. You wait.”
+She was out the door, her high laugh stringing behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat on the edge of the bed, wearing his overcoat and
+hat. “I’ve got a mind to whip her. Got a mind to kill her.
+Punish her for lying.” He was whispering into the room. His
+coat dropped from his shoulders and was sliding to the floor.
+He pulled his shirt open roughly at the neck, tearing the tie.
+Noises came from throughout the building. A door slapped
+shut. Steps were ascending and descending. He waited for
+each to be Rose. His sickness for her churned in him. He
+<a id="page-360" class="pagenum" title="360"></a>
+could feel his potency failing, shrinking. “She’s wanting a
+young stud.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was rising, moving to the window, the black hat still
+on. He shoved the window up, banging it, leaning out. There
+was a pale street lamp at the corner. A semi-truck came rumbling
+heavily over the pavement. A man stumbled across the
+half-dark spring-scented street. A couple were sauntering,
+arms about each other’s waists, the girl tittering shrill. A sailor,
+pants tight about his loins, stalked the sidewalk opposite:
+“Where’d you get the broad, Jack?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anton’s eyes had slitted. He was wrenching off his belt.
+It was the old one of thick cowhide with a weighted brass
+buckle. His gray eyes were dry though his defeated mouth
+was drawn as if to weep. He spoke hoarse, threatening, “Before
+God, I’ll punish that Rose-whore good. I’ll put myself
+into damnation. I’ll learn her to cuckold.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Two hours passed before Rose returned. She was humming
+in time to the click of her confident heels.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">In a little lovenest</p>
+      <p class="verse">Just for you and me, a dovenest</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She shifted her parcels and turned the knob. When she saw
+the dead man hanging in the grip of the strap from the tall
+closet door, the body had ceased any movement. She stepped
+close enough to touch it with her hand; it was beginning to
+stiffen. Mechanically, she plucked up the overturned chair beneath
+it, and set it straight. A breeze blew up, billowing the
+curtains, and she went to the window to close it. She stumbled
+on his overcoat by the bedside, dropped her bags on the coverlet
+and caught up the phone. She spoke a number to the operator,
+whispering, and waited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Christian?” She was sitting on the bed abruptly. “You
+have to come here right away. I can’t explain. I’m afraid. You
+tell Mama I might go home after all.” She began to cry, listening.
+<a id="page-361" class="pagenum" title="361"></a>
+“I’ll wait. You hurry.” She returned the receiver. She
+was quiet, shivering. After a long time she heard a step outside,
+ran to the door, pulling him in. All at once sobs were
+convulsing her, “It’s there. Look.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He called the police. “By damn, where’d you meet him,
+Rose?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s the one I wanted to marry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the two officers arrived they took the body down
+and laid it out on the floor. They searched pockets and made
+notes. “Who are you?” they asked Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m her brother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They directed Rose to appear at the inquest; they questioned
+her, “You must have some idea why he did it, Miss
+Ay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t understand. We were the best of friends, Mr.
+Gaddy and me. I just went down the street for a few minutes.
+He was waiting for me. I was going to get some food.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian was asking, “Will you notify the relatives?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His wife’s in a state institution,” Rose offered. “He’s had
+family troubles, one kind and another. Maybe that’s why it
+happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here’s a letter,” the officer said. “Garland Gaddy. We’ll
+get hold of him.” A knock was heard. “That’s the ambulance.”
+The body was covered, then removed, the interns
+clattering as they went down the staircase. “All right, miss.
+We’ll notify you when we want you. Good night.” He put
+his cap back on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d be glad to help,” Christian said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We won’t need you. Just your sister. Good night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian didn’t say that long ago he had known the dead
+man. Once Anton Gaddy had stood scornful in high weeds,
+spitting tobacco juice, calling him boy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Dyke Burwell was waiting at the truck in the morning,
+baffled, having searched cafes and bars for Anton. By afternoon
+<a id="page-362" class="pagenum" title="362"></a>
+he made the decision to drive back to Millville alone. A
+rainstorm was brewing and there was a load of soybean sacks
+under the tarpaulin on the truck. Dyke had known Anton
+was keeping a woman but that was as far as his information
+went. He had considered notifying the police but dismissed it.
+Anton would have to return by bus. When he reached the
+Gaddy farm three hours later, thunder was growling in the
+murky afternoon sky. Sam Offut ran out, followed by Eadie,
+her hair disheveled, her hands flapping. Eadie threw her
+apron over her face and wailed. Sam was yelling, hunched
+and beady-eyed, “Old man’s dead. Sheriff just left us. I says,
+call his brother in Chicago, he’ll know where those daughters
+be. Poor trash, walking out on their pa. For Gawd, Dyke.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey,” Dyke shouted in fear. “Who was it killed him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Himself. He done it himself.” The wind smote the treetops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Raised his hand,” cried Eadie. “Against his soul. He’ll
+burn for it. Jehovah!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dyke helped Sam unload half the soybeans while lightning
+flashed nearby. Then Dyke went home and word was bruited
+throughout the countryside. Folks found reasons to drive past
+the Gaddy farm. They would peer fearfully at the two old
+Offuts and exchange words about them. They named it a
+ghost farm.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="part" id="chapter-0-7" title="Part five">
+<a id="page-363" class="pagenum" title="363"></a>
+part five
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+                  <p class="verse7">and each alone</p>
+      <p class="verse">Walk together toward the trees</p>
+      <p class="verse">Where the road runs out of sight</p>
+      <p class="verse">In the green beyond the leaves</p>
+      <p class="verse">The green cove below the light</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-7-1">
+<a id="page-365" class="pagenum" title="365"></a>
+27
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Pop Wasilewski’s bees were suddenly swarming at winter
+end. On a sunny day from a secret impulse half the colony
+was awake, one by one whipping out to cluster on a fence
+post. The bearded old man brushed the yellow-brown insects
+into a new hive while the smoker puffed. Ellen was laughing
+to Mom, “I ne’er seen such a body, he’s that clever with bees.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pop’s always been like that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen had lost weight and because the work over the winter
+had been largely indoors, she was pale. But her body had
+fought for its health, and she moved in the household with
+vigor again. Over a few weeks she had thought she would
+have Dan’s baby, hoped wildly that it was so. But her time
+came again then in its regular pattern and she accepted it.
+<a id="page-366" class="pagenum" title="366"></a>
+Gradually she healed. There had been the moments when
+she forgot he was dead, “I’ll have to tell Dan the do-hickey’s
+broken on the wash machine.” The day would shatter about
+her where she stood trembling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mom still leaned on Ellen, crippled by her loss. “You’re
+like a daughter to me.” Mom would humor herself by constant
+thoughts of Dan. She talked to Ellen about when her
+son was a baby of two staggering after her in the rose garden,
+and when older he would fetch her a blue eggshell or a butterfly
+wing he found. “I want you to stay here always, Ellen.
+This is your home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele, so wounded by the loss of her premature baby that
+Dan’s death had scarcely grazed her, would talk about the
+infant yet. “He’d have been four months old today.” Adele
+had written in the page of the Bible: Jason Wasilewski.
+September 17, 1936. Died the night of his birth. Mourned
+by all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve got to quit thinking of it,” Mom said. “Sakes, it’s
+your duty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adele was eager in self-reproach. “I just get my mind on
+it somehow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ruins beyond the line of smashed willows were left
+untouched. Only the children would wander through the
+wrecked debris, playing. “Thith ith the dining room. I am
+Mithith Hannah.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon, you be the father.” The half-demolished walls
+loomed like ghostly monuments. The roof was shattered,
+snow had drifted around timbers, melting, rotting them. In
+half-empty kegs of nails wild mice explored.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The farm work had fallen heavily on Sudduth. Dennie and
+Simon were roused at daybreak to help at chores before they
+hurried to school. Evenings, they hustled out again to the
+barnyard. Sudduth’s back ached him like a recurring plague.
+“In spring I’m going to have to hire a man, Mom. I can’t do
+it all. He can sleep in the barn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-367" class="pagenum" title="367"></a>
+“No, we’ll give him Dan’s room.” Mom’s voice was strained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks, Mom.” Sudduth had become more dependable
+over past weeks. He made his plans resolutely. “I’ll put rye
+in the old corn field. And if you don’t care, Pop, we’ll sell
+the sheep. They’re ruining the pasture.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s just fine with us, Sudduth. Whatever you say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen had gone out to help with the milking, a pail in her
+hand. Sudduth protested gravely at first, “It’s not our way
+to let women do barn work, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I’m most happy here. I get tired of the house.” She
+sat on the three-legged stool, the cow’s hot breath on the
+back of her neck, snuffling, curious. It was licking her with a
+rasping tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See here,” Simon shouted. “Old Belle’s begging Ma to
+milk her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Ellen.” Sudduth was won over. “If you want.
+Thanks.” And he soon forgot that it seemed strange to have
+a woman at the barn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen would think about Penny, wondering if her last baby
+had come wellborn. If work ever lightens, if Sudduth hires
+a hand like he says he might, Adele and me can drive over to
+see the Doughertys in spring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was in the sitting room one morning after breakfast,
+ironing by the windows. Mom was holding a small black volume,
+with pictures of the little boy, Dan, pasted into it.
+“Ellen, I’m afraid you’re forgetting him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dan wouldn’t want us mourning him fore’er.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The phone rang. “You get it, Ellen.” Mom pored over the
+photographs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.” It was Western Union. Ellen listened quietly.
+She whispered into the mouthpiece, “Read it again, please.”
+The distant strange voice was almost inaudible. And the message
+was repeated. She hung the receiver onto its hook. She
+leaned against the table, put her hand to her mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mom looked up, urged, “What is it, Ellen? What is it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-368" class="pagenum" title="368"></a>
+Her words fell of themselves, “Something’s happened to
+my pa.” Request presence Ellen Gaddy at inquest, the voice
+had said, cause of death suicide. Why would he do that? And
+him ever a good Catholic. He wouldn’t dare. And in the suddenness
+memories came rushing through the unbarred door.
+Anton was loving and he sought this daughter out. Guilt
+clutched her. He was dead too, now. She was stunned, but
+yet unable to weep. “I have to go to Louisville, Mom, and
+claim the body.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That afternoon she packed. Adele was ready to drive her
+to the station and the family had gathered to say goodbye.
+Mom was kissing her, “Land. You’ve got to come back,
+Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will if I can. I want to go to our farm in Millville when
+it’s o’er. And I have to see my sister, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t go to Millville, Ma,” Simon cried out. His tow hair
+was mussed, his young face worried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t take Thimon,” Hannah and Grace piped. “Let
+Thimon thtay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see?” Pop shouted. “Sell your farm and be one of
+us, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Old Belle won’t give down her milk tonight,” Sudduth
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How can you resist us?” Adele put her arm about Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Ma,” said Simon, “I want to stay right here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe you will.” But Ellen was remembering the old
+orchard and the little hills, the stony soil where crops were
+hard-won, goats bounding down the pasture lane, hoofs hammering
+the ground, snorting and tossing their beards. She
+turned to the Wasilewskis, “I’ll write you-all if Simon has to
+come. Just as soon as I know.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The corpse in the refrigerated drawer looked fragile and
+unprotected. The morgue smelled of mingled odd odors.
+“That’s him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-369" class="pagenum" title="369"></a>
+“Thank you, Miss Gaddy,” said the officer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want him to stay there. Can I take the body?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly. When the inquest is over.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How soon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Day after tomorrow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll call you. I’ll find a funeral home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You notify them he’s here. And we’ll make the arrangements.”
+Then the officer was telling Ellen how Anton had
+hung himself by a leather belt in a woman’s flat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A woman?” She was bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Says her name’s Rose Ay. Maybe you’d want to see her,
+miss. She doesn’t live far from here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rose Ay?” Ellen stood beside the tall desk. The vein was
+throbbing in her forehead, the oval of her face stayed white
+in the bright glare of the waiting room. She was probing
+dully, raking into the past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know this woman?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you all right, Miss Gaddy? You look sort of shaky.
+You knew it was suicide by hanging?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. You said you’d give me her address, Mester?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The officer tore a sheet from a pad, scribbled on it. “This
+is the easiest way to get there.” He handed her the paper.
+“Turn left outside.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was following corner signs then, and house numbers.
+In the streets winds were moving undisputed, brutal, and the
+city quailed and shrank upon itself. Finally Ellen was entering
+the brick building. She sensed the subdued trace of urine
+and must that corrupted the hall air. A woman’s deep voice
+was berating behind walls. And a radio came muted,
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Oh sister Phoebe, how merry were we</p>
+      <p class="verse">The night we sat under Tom Jones plum tree</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A man was on the upper stairs, pausing. He was coming
+down a few steps. “Hello, Ellen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-370" class="pagenum" title="370"></a>
+She peered into the obscure light. “Who are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Christian Ay.” The shadows crouched quiet about him
+along the steep stairwell. “Guess you’re here to talk to my
+sister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cheekbones and broad mouth were Simon’s, the stocky
+body. But his hair was different, no longer blond. And he
+was grave-faced. “I thought it was you,” she said thinly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His voice rent the stillness, “I’m sorry about Mr. Gaddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you know he’d been coming here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, indeed.” He came down another step.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She backed away. “I say, did you? That it was my pa?”
+She was plaintive, cornered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not till my sister called me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did he want of her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She says they’d have been married.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well. I don’t understand.” Jazz blared from the radio as
+a door opened and shut. She put her hand up and dropped
+it, aimless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are coming to see Rose?” he was asking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s that door at the head.” He gestured, disturbed with
+the awkward moment, at her air of incredulity. “Right up
+there. You can’t miss it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she was passing, he stood aside by the wall. His face
+was harassed, lined. She looked at it. “Your home’s in Louisville?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On the outskirts. Twenty minutes from this place. Someone
+said you weren’t living in your home town any more.”
+The music, overloud, was persistent through the hollow walls.
+He was speaking then, abrupt, “Come. I’ll go up with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.” She preceded him to the landing, where a white
+square of daylight existed at one end of the dirty passageway.
+He was knocking. In a moment, while she shifted constrained,
+quick steps approached. The door was opening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-371" class="pagenum" title="371"></a>
+“Well, Chris.” Rose spoke nervously, “I thought you’d
+gone. Who’s that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen Gaddy. His daughter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No kidding. How do you do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was staring at the woman in the tight skirt and spiked
+heels. Coldly she observed the waved thick dark hair, the
+wide white face, the pale irises of the eyes outlined in black.
+She was rudely brushing past Rose, hasty, and then checking
+herself in the center of the room, by the bed. “I’m pleased
+to meet you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rose shrugged careless. “Would you like tea, Miss Gaddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If it’s no bother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here’s a chair for you.” Christian was pulling one up.
+He took her coat. “I’ll hang it on the clothes tree.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, thanks.” He was speaking with his sister over by
+the small stove. Sunlight was coming through the gray windows,
+drifting onto flimsy curtains and two narrow long
+mirrors. The simmering kettle and the quick disquieted whisper
+of the woman were playing on the air. I should never
+have come. I’ve got no business to be here. I wondered if I’d
+hear of him, or see him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rose was bringing the tea on a black lacquer tray. “Get a
+table, Chris.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure.” He placed the low table before Rose’s chair and
+sat down opposite Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rose was pouring and passing the cups. “Well, here we
+are, Ellen. It is all right to call you Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman was impetuous, “Give Mama the news, Chris.
+She’s been after me for years to go home, Ellen. At last I’ve
+made up my mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was sipping the weak hot tea. Rose was brash and
+Christian seemed embarrassed by it. Pa was going to marry
+her. I don’t believe that. Besides the church would not have
+brooked it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-372" class="pagenum" title="372"></a>
+“Honestly, Chris,” Rose was saying, “I can’t get over you
+quitting the store.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve made plans to leave Louisville,” he said to Ellen with
+a slight grin, aloof. “Getting out of the city.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think he’s nuts,” Rose laughed, brushing at her heavy
+hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And how about you? Come, do you think I am?” Christian
+raised his brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” Ellen listened idly, half attending, refusing to make
+an effort. In the hallway he had seemed vaguely like the
+young man she had once loved. But he wasn’t at all. I shouldn’t
+have expected it. He was a stranger, changed, his aspect stern.
+He glowered now at his sister.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chris is going shares on a feed concern.” Rose was mocking.
+“Grinding stuff for farmers. Banana oil. Did you ever?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a nice small town, now. Troy is a good way from the
+city.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was remembering the gossip she had heard in Grady
+Love’s store. “How will your family like the move?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He lives with Mama,” Rose said. “They have The Standard
+Shop over at the other end of Louisville. Mama’s getting
+old. That’s another reason why I’m going back there.” She
+was speaking warmly to Ellen, “You know, Daddy never
+mentioned much about you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen caught her breath. “Who?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Gaddy. Your father.” Rose was motioning lightly,
+smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen put her cup down. Her face was firm and molded,
+guarded. But she spoke unsteadily. “Reckon I have to go
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll come with you,” Christian said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t have to run yet,” Rose was protesting. “Daddy
+used to come up, you know, for the waterfront auctions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t call him that, woman.” Ellen’s voice rose high.
+<a id="page-373" class="pagenum" title="373"></a>
+She was crossing the room, groping for her coat where Christian
+had hung it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t mean anything,” Rose said, hurt. “I thought a lot
+of him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you for the tea.” Ellen felt her hands shaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll see you to your hotel.” Christian was taking her coat
+from her hands, holding it while she put it on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t have to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was picking up his cap. The door closed behind them
+and they heard the tap of heels receding. They went down
+the stairs. “Rose means well,” Christian said. When he had
+hailed a cab, he looked at her. “You’re wishing you’d stayed
+away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But no.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were sitting in the leather-smelling interior. The
+meter clicked. There were house fronts, wood and brick,
+cafes and corner saloons blazoned with neon. Pigeons strutting
+in lonely gutters, pecking, winging across streets. Christian
+was saying, “I’m sorry about your father.” They looked
+out of opposite windows. A parked van was unloading enormous
+handled baskets of gladioli and roses. There were people
+on foot. And bicycles, and trucks blaring, cars, a dray hauled
+by mules, red pompons on black bridles, and shouting teamsters.
+The taxi was halting. Christian paid the driver. They
+were standing before an old graystone structure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You read the Bible, Christian?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do, sometimes.” Their minds were running inward on
+their separate thoughts. He twisted his soft cap, frowning at
+the pavement. Her hands were in her coat pockets. “There’s a
+part goes, from out of the populous city men groan and the
+soul of the wounded cries out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t worry yourself,” he whispered. The city lowered
+about them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got no mind for it here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-374" class="pagenum" title="374"></a>
+“Nor I. I know just what you mean. I don’t like it either.
+That’s why I’m moving to Troy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s unnatural.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It takes all kind.” His face softened. “Are you all right?
+Is there something I can do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” She turned to the stone steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll try to come to the funeral.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She watched the last sunbeams striking against him as he
+merged into the moving people. He doesn’t remember. He’s
+forgot it all. I don’t give a care.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But in the night Ellen dreamed of him. He was the way
+he had been long ago, swaggering and strong, laughing. It
+was a peaceful dream. As she came awake Christian was putting
+his hand on her hair. She cried into the dark, “Dan? Dan,
+I loved you.” She was weeping in the unfamiliar hard hotel
+bed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen was unable to get permission for a Catholic burial.
+The priest had been firm. “Absolutely. There is no possibility
+of it. Madam. Unquestionably he died in mortal sin.” He
+looked down at Ellen, fierce, “When were you last at confession?
+Madam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went from him, telling herself, “I’ll get Father Tompert
+in Millville to say a mass for him. There, he will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The funeral was costing over two hundred dollars. Ellen
+had wired Garland and he sent the money. She intended to
+reimburse him for her share but it would take time. All her
+wages were rapidly disappearing in train and hotel costs and
+meals. The coffin would be oak, chemically treated to endure.
+The sermon would last twenty minutes. They would engrave
+a stone. Anton Gaddy. 1877-1937. At Rest. Beloved Husband
+and Father. There were things she had heard, customs attending
+a death. The clothes should be removed and hung on a
+line outside. The body should be anointed, silver coins laid
+on the eyes. And someone should sit with the corpse so a cat
+<a id="page-375" class="pagenum" title="375"></a>
+or something strange didn’t get to it. The tearing of the winding
+sheets, the telling of the bees so they didn’t leave the hives.
+And there lay Pa in the new-fashioned way. I misdoubt Pa
+would have cared for the way I handled things here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she was spotting, in the entrance way, Garland and
+Frankie and Violet, who had arrived from Chicago just in
+time for the service. She hurried down the aisle to greet them.
+She clung to Frankie, who was plumpish in her fur coat,
+holding Ellen’s hands, crying, “It’s her hair, Vi. Look how
+Ellie’s wearing it. She’s so sweet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was afraid you-all would be late,” Ellen laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s make her go back on the train with us, Vi.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nerts. She won’t. Ellie’s a country girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d say the country agrees with this wench.” Garland was
+fatter, his square jaw lost in sagging folds. He kissed Ellen’s
+cheek. “I suppose this puss has got her a beau now?” His small
+eyes were merry, sunk into the flesh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The organ began to play and they were taking their seats.
+We never said one word about Pa. We talked about ourselves
+all the time. She glimpsed Christian on the opposite side of
+the room by the far wall. At first she didn’t recognize him, a
+short man in a large gray overcoat, holding a gray cap. He
+was nodding to her, sitting down, bunching his coat on his
+knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last words were being spoken over Anton. Her
+father had been quick to quote the Bible at them all, relishing
+the Old Testament. But the funeral text was taken from Paul.
+Behold, I show you a mystery. The trumpet shall sound and
+the dead be raised. She was remembering her slaughtered
+goats. Her ire rose once more at that secret deed of his against
+her. Now she stilled it. Reckon there’s more to it than I could
+ever piece. He must have had a great sadness to take his life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They followed the hearse to the cemetery. The crank
+squeaked as the coffin was lowered. Earth to earth. Dust to
+<a id="page-376" class="pagenum" title="376"></a>
+dust. Behold the tabernacle of God is with men. And there
+shall be no more death. Neither shall there be pain. For the
+former things are passed away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was taking the party to a steak-house for dinner.
+He went back into the kitchen to talk with the chef, to
+approve the cuts before they were broiled. Then Ellen began
+to tell them about the second tornado that had struck without
+warning near Weems Crossroads in Illinois, how it killed
+the older Wasilewski brother and tore apart a new-built house
+on the farm. “I might have married him, had he lived. We
+talked of it, Dan and me.” Her mouth twisted and she looked
+down at her plate. “I’d have had a life there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Ellie. Why didn’t she tell us, Vi?” Frankie appealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shouldn’t have stayed after it happened, puss.” Garland
+was tapping the table with his finger. “Should have come
+to us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, how’s Simon?” Violet asked. “How’d he take it,
+Ellie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s grown and he likes farming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do bring my nephew and visit us,” Frankie pressed,
+“come on, Ellie. Gen would love it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I’ve got to take my own way. I can’t go to you folks.
+Tell me about your job, Frankie. Do you still like it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve been promoted, Ellie. And Gen has a new office and
+twice the pay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garland was seated close to Violet, his arm was about her.
+He was ordering coffee for her and desserts to be brought for
+everyone. “What are you planning to do about the farm,
+hon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going there as soon as I can.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you really?” Frankie cried, surprise on her round
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Want to come with me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, thanks,” Frankie said swiftly. “Not me. I don’t want
+any part of that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-377" class="pagenum" title="377"></a>
+“But, Frankie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And that’s the truth. I don’t want my piece of that farm.
+I can’t stand it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You two can do it legally,” Garland said, “if Frankie
+means it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You make out the papers, Uncle, for me to sign. It should
+be Ellie’s. She likes it and needs it.” Frankie’s features were
+set, obstinate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Funny,” said Garland, “An and me decided the same
+thing when we were just the age of you two. He bought me
+out of my rights and I signed over to him. When he married.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You might change your mind sometime, Frankie,” Ellen
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Ellie looks so doubtful,” Frankie smiled. “She thinks
+everyone wants to be a farmer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It doesn’t seem right,” Ellen said. “At least I’m going to
+pay you for your share.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s silly. We have all we need. We’ve got good jobs.
+You have Simon to look out for.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They began to remember Anton then because Garland
+had used his name. “Uncle used to come at Christmas time,
+Vi. We’d butcher and bake,” Frankie was saying, “and then
+go to midnight mass in that little church.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They watched out for my soul,” said Garland, “and
+Frankie was to be a concert artist.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Chicken!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was Pa’s idea,” Frankie told Violet grimly, then
+giggled, “not mine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was time for their train, they were getting up in a rush.
+They laughed, bustling out together. Garland, from the middle
+of the street, waved a taxicab down. The women were
+waiting under the marquee. “Give my little nephew my love,
+Ellie,” Frankie said, and whispered, “I’m sorry about that
+man you were going to marry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-378" class="pagenum" title="378"></a>
+“You wouldn’t know your nephew, Frankie. He’s not a
+baby, he’s not little.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come see us, Ellie. Gen would honestly love it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Violet took Ellen’s hand impulsively. “We’re redecorating
+the house. Why don’t you come back with us and have a
+real visit?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Goodbye, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Goodbye. Goodbye, Aunt Vi. Uncle.” She was walking
+back to the hotel. The streets were damp, the narrowed sky
+strip above the buildings clear. There was a purple circle of
+mist about the moon. Lone figures were moving in lighted
+areas. They gave her a message. Call Mr. Ay at the following
+number. She went into a phone booth, for there was a
+void now that they were all gone. She told him she would
+go to the Ay home tomorrow for supper.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3 class="chapter" id="subchap-0-7-2">
+<a id="page-379" class="pagenum" title="379"></a>
+28
+</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Christian Ay had called for her in his year-old V-Eight Ford.
+The Standard Shop was an echoing large building, half dark.
+They were passing aisles of goods spread out on counters and
+under glass, their footfalls drumming. At the base of a dowel-railed
+staircase, barely illuminated by a tiny skylight, he took
+her arm. She looked at his face cast into the new lines. His
+brown hair was smooth, his broad mouth disciplined. Only
+his eyes are the same, blue like that flower. He was waving
+in back of them at the laden counters. “What do you think
+of it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s nice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re polite. It’s not. It’s a decent living.” He was smiling,
+<a id="page-380" class="pagenum" title="380"></a>
+formal. “Now it’s quite a thing, Ellen, meeting you
+again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked away, moved from under his hand up the stair.
+“Oh, yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you angry about Rose and your father?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not at all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re sure you don’t hold it against me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, shall we go up?” They went through a cluttered
+office space at the stairhead and into a linoleum-floored room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Ay was hustling from the square table she had been
+setting, a white-haired short woman with a quick smile. She
+spoke in a clipped way to Ellen, “Had tea with my daughter,
+Miss Gaddy? Sorry about your father. Too bad. It’s hard.
+I know. I lost my husband many years ago. Suddenly. Heart
+attack.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had heard of it,” Ellen murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rosie said she knew your father too. Said she’d had dinner
+with him. Heard Rosie’s coming home? She tell you? Nearly
+twelve years she’s lived in that flat near Market Street. Determined
+to show she was independent. It’s a bad section. Time
+she came back to the Shop, don’t you think?” She was gathering
+her apron in her small hands. “Oh dear, that’s the pie
+shell burning.” She ran out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She gets that way when we have company.” Christian
+grinned. Then he was meeting her eyes, intent. “She hasn’t
+kept track of Rose any more than me. They go shopping
+together or Rose eats here with us two or three times a year.
+I might as well tell you she doesn’t know Rose had it in mind
+to marry anyone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked away. “She’s nice.” A speckled bird with a
+long iridescent tail was mounted beside a clock on the sideboard.
+“That’s a fine cock pheasant there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shot it at Brinker’s farm that summer.” His voice for
+an instant was surging with the old eager sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-381" class="pagenum" title="381"></a>
+Mrs. Ay was back. “Soup’s on.” She carved the roast swiftly
+with a long blade, heaping the plates. “You like mashed potatoes?
+We aren’t fancy here.” There was a bouquet of artificial
+daisies in the center of the red-checked tablecloth. They
+ate hungrily. “Chris says he knew you, Miss Gaddy, that
+time he worked near Bethel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen lived only three miles from me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve been away from Millville more than a year now,”
+Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why’d you leave, Ellen?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gazed down at her napkin. “I wanted to work out.”
+Why did I say that? I had to look after your youngen. I ought
+to tell him that. Her mind worked it over. She sat absent
+while Mrs. Ay began to talk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“After Kate left us, Chris nearly convinced me we ought
+to sell this here store and buy a small farm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kate was my wife,” Christian said. “I got married the
+spring after I came back from Brinker’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He wanted to grow truck crops. Store’s much safer. Better
+investment. Rain or shine you’re not dependent. It’s just
+getting nice too, we’ve got three girls at the counters. I can
+sit down in the afternoon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I knew you’d been married,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Divorced. Three years ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Too young when they did it in the first place.” Mrs. Ay
+was shaking her head, reproving. “Chris is headstrong. Like
+his father before him. I told him it wouldn’t work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, Mama, let’s keep some secrets from Ellen.” He
+was coloring, pushing his chair back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll get that pie.” Mrs. Ay got up. “Shame the crust
+had to burn.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I meant to write you, Ellen. You know? Back there when
+we were kids?” He laughed, still flushed, the skin wrinkling
+around his blue eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-382" class="pagenum" title="382"></a>
+“How come you aren’t married?” The silence came down,
+overlaid thinly with the whisper of the clock on the sideboard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Ay slammed the kitchen door as she returned. She
+was cutting the cocoanut cream pie into large pieces. “You
+rather have something else, Miss Gaddy? There’s jello in the
+icebox.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, this is fine. It’s very good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So after Kate ran away like that,” Mrs. Ay was saying,
+“why Chris kept wanting to sell. Not me. He’s putting his
+share into something now that suits him. Over in Troy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You only live once,” Christian said dryly, “isn’t that
+right, Mama?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be running the shop here with Rosie. The luck of my
+daughter coming home. And in my old age.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t let her fool you,” Christian said, “she’s not so old.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was helping them collect the plates then, Mrs. Ay
+insisting on leaving them stacked beside her sink. The evening
+was moving on. The older woman had brought out a pot of
+coffee and she stood in the bedroom doorway, her figure
+slack and weary. “Good night, Miss Gaddy. You come visit
+again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian and Ellen were silent now on the chintz-covered
+davenport where the winter twilight faltered. Cars were whirring
+in the street outside, horns blew faint, lights shuddered
+and vanished on the ceiling. “Reckon it’s time for me to go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Wait.” He put his arm along the sofa behind her. “I
+can’t get over you, Ellen. You’re just the same. I had thought
+you’d be different.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lingering noise of the clock was beating heavily upon
+time. She waited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did intend to write when I had to quit that job with
+Brinkers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wrote to you. That autumn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You did? My father’s attack had come out of the blue. He
+<a id="page-383" class="pagenum" title="383"></a>
+left the accounts in bad shape. We almost lost the business.
+You know what that meant those days.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wrote you. Twice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Funny. I didn’t get them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know. They came back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d have answered.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t have the right address.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you try Mr. Brinker?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He didn’t know either.” She sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say.” He dropped his arm onto her shoulder. “I feel badly
+about that.” She had stiffened, but he was bending his head
+gently, hunting a thing lost, a fragment of his youth when
+time had been ground easily beneath the heel of his fired
+blood, his just-discovered manhood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the anger was grating in Ellen. She cried to him compelled,
+as if she had memorized it, “Once I laid a curse on
+you. Curse him, I said! I swore it on the Virgin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, what kind of talk is that?” He reddened, withdrawing
+himself. He was taking a pipe from a nearby ash tray,
+filling it from his pocket pouch. He scratched a match,
+fragrant smoke sifted into the half-dusk. “A curse?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t believe in such things?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why would you do that?” He was looking at her, discomfited,
+inquiring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made a movement to rise, impatient. “I don’t know.
+It’s getting late. I don’t want to talk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m curious, Ellen. Why did you?” he pressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s no use.” She twisted her fingers, at bay. Like I said that
+time. I’ll go all my days in bitterness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on,” he was grinning. “We were such babies. Were
+you in love with that young squirt?” He drew on the pipe,
+then he was laying one hand over hers, the palm cool and
+hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is a child.” Now it was said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have a baby? You were married then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-384" class="pagenum" title="384"></a>
+“Simon. He’ll be eleven the first of July.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stillness stayed. Then he removed his hand, swift. His
+pipe knocked as he was putting it in the ash tray. He stood
+and was walking across the room to the dead pheasant. He
+looked up at it on the sideboard. He struck his fist into his
+palm, his back was to her. “By damn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She cringed, waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never once thought of that. I didn’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She listened to the chatter of the clock at the side of the
+stuffed bird. His voice was intruding suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Brinker’s farm. That horse. What was his name? That
+stallion. Next morning I got the wire about my father.” His
+words were fast. He slapped his fist again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she shrank, wishing herself on the street, away from
+him. She recoiled from his ferocity, his vitality. Hate, hate,
+the clock was spelling it out. I hate him. I do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A boy, you say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does he know about me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I told him his father’d died.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All these years.” He whispered it. “By damn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well.” Her voice sounded frail. “It’s past and done. It’s
+o’er.” It was as if the room were empty and the clock, as it
+unwound, harped on dead walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” He moved quickly over the floor to stand above her,
+stocky and angry. The pulse of traffic was heard, ghost lights
+were shifting disturbed, on the walls about them. “I’d have
+married you. You know that. Don’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you would.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know I would. Why didn’t you find me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was shaking her head. “I tried.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was there. In Louisville,” he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t you go to Carl Brinker? For the child’s sake.”
+He shouted, towering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-385" class="pagenum" title="385"></a>
+“I wrote. I didn’t know what to do. Where to turn.” She
+felt tears gathering. “I couldn’t even confess it. I’ve left the
+church since and I don’t care. But I dreaded it then. The sin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“El?” Christian was leaning down, he put a hand along
+her cheek. He was pulling her beside him. They were about
+the same height and his eyes, dark and gentle, were gazing
+into hers. His teeth flashed in the dusk. “Remember that silly
+rabbit?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I turned it loose,” she flared and tore away from him,
+to the table across the room, where the paper daisies were
+in a white bowl. She felt the tightness catch her and the
+quiver as she began to weep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the primrose from Mrs. Brinker’s kitchen? In the
+red pot?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wished you dead.” Her voice was quavering. “O’er the
+years. I hated you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pursued her. “Look here, El.” His hands were touching
+her shoulders and wheeling her to the vast warm bulwark
+of him. “I didn’t know.” He was putting his fingers to the
+wetness on her thin face. “And I see how it was.” He came
+out heavy and seeking, forged in deliberate tenderness. “If I
+had known. All the time lost.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She let his mouth find hers. And it was there, what she
+had wished to sense all along, the old love restored and made
+real. In their common need, they were clinging together,
+deaf to the brisk hammer of the clock and the keening wind
+that whined in sterile streets without; they were engrossed
+in their sudden solace.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Within a week they had married. Christian had driven over
+to Troy and severed his partnership with the feed store. Ellen
+was helping Mrs. Ay pack his belongings. “Has he told you
+about Simon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Ay nodded, vigorous. “His father didn’t get along
+good with Chris. Think that could have made him wild?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-386" class="pagenum" title="386"></a>
+“We’d like you to come see us sometime.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will do that.” She opened a closet door. “Want to go
+through some of this stuff? Might be a thing or two you
+could use. Here’s a lamp shade. Good shape, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll take it,” Ellen laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they were driving to Millville in Christian’s car. On
+the way they ate the fried chicken and cookies Mrs. Ay had
+prepared, and by noon they were turning into the yard.
+They halloed but there was no sign of human life at the
+barn. A group of doleful-eyed cows, a woolly spindly foal,
+a pair of dull-coated horses gazed, questioning. Pigs were
+squealing in their pen, speckled roosters and hens wandered
+free under the hackberry or perched, roosting, on the porch
+rail. The wood bottom to the tin tub was broken out and
+a gray towel was flapping on the clothesline under the February
+wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen called to the dog, but there was no response from
+the bushes. “Wonder who’s caring for Jack?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went into the house. Dust lay heavy, the beds were
+unmade, the windows closed. The air was musty, unlived in,
+as if the occupants had suddenly been spirited away. “It’s high
+time we got here, El.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the late afternoon, while Christian was feeding the
+cows and she was scrubbing the porch, Sam Offut arrived.
+“Hey there, Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey Sam. Where you been?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I come o’er twice a day to milk and feed. I live at my
+place down the road. My ooman and me moved out of
+here. Folks call this farm haunted. What are you doing
+back?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m here for good, Sam.” She came down into the yard,
+putting her wet cold hands in the sleeves of her coat for
+warmth. “I’m married now. Will you stay on with us?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean work for you-all?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We sure could use you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-387" class="pagenum" title="387"></a>
+“Reckon not.” Hunched over, he was rubbing his hip. “See,
+I spent my best years working for your pa. I liked him real
+well. He was a just man. And he was a right lone man, some
+ways. I don’t know. I study about him and that happenstance.
+Hope Jesus isn’t weeping for you, Ellie. Have you
+e’er taken hold of the horns of salvation?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Sam.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian was coming from the barn, heavy-set in his stiff
+new-purchased blue jeans and a storm jacket. His face was
+pale, winter-bleached. He called, “Hello, Mr. Offut.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Heard you married up to Ellie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s so. You going to help us out?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m too old. I got some garden and a roadside stand of
+sorts.” Sam shrugged. “My ooman does a little. Reckon not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wish you could see your way.” Christian put his arm
+about Ellen’s shoulder; she was wearing an old ragged coat
+of Maria’s she had found in the attic room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sam rubbed his stubble beard. His breath had a taint of
+whiskey. He was shifting his feet as if they ached. “You’ll
+make out. The cows aren’t milking much. This place is right
+run-down. I got the lumbago the same as my wife now. I’ve
+been doing the least I can get by with.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do we owe you anyway, Mr. Offut?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You figure it out. You can get it to me sometime. I’ll say
+farewell to you both.” The old man was shuffling away. “Go
+with Christ.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stood next to Christian, against his warm bulk. “I
+always favored Sam.” The small bent figure was going out of
+sight onto Sweetincreek Road.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The rooms were being scoured and the floors rubbed with
+wax. Ellen rooted into dark places with a harsh brush and yellow
+soap. When seasonal winds blew up she threw the windows
+open and put on her torn brown sweater. She washed
+sheets and quilts, freshened curtains, and changed bed ticking.
+<a id="page-388" class="pagenum" title="388"></a>
+She lifted the crucifix from its nail over the bed to pack it in
+a trunk along with the painting of the Sacred Heart and the
+dusty images of Mary and Joseph. Reckon they had a meaning
+for Pa. And for me as well. I made that doll into a god
+when I had a trouble once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had fixed up the loft-room to be Simon’s, dusting out
+a chest and setting it by the bed for his own. The big downstairs
+bedroom would be for Christian and herself. She was
+surveying it. “Could you cut some big windows in here,
+Chris?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leaned in the doorway, his high boots caked. “I’ll do it.
+Let in some light.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I’ll hang yellow print curtains.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were looking out the window at the bare bushes. A
+sparrow lit on a twig, lisping, “See, peabody, peabody, peabody!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the harbinger of spring,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And today Simon will be here. That’s my son.” The boy
+was due on the afternoon train.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The redwing blackbirds are back at the pond.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s plowing weather for sure, El. Say, the horses are
+shedding bad. Would Simon groom them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You might say he’s partial to horses.” She told him how
+the boy had found the red colt when he was very small.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How about the foal in the stable? We’ll call it Simon’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There. He’d have been here long since if he’d known
+that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were at the station at New Hope then, waiting for
+the overdue train. Ellen was standing beside Christian. A
+black-haired man, his back to her, was rolling a cigarette. It
+was Dan, hawknosed, demanding, hot and vital. She had to
+still herself while she turned to Christian. She had to remember,
+while the pain was beating, that Dan had dropped out
+for always. She took Christian’s hand. He thought it was because
+of their son. “Don’t worry, El. I’ll make him like me.”
+<a id="page-389" class="pagenum" title="389"></a>
+When she had been cleaning the house she had found it was
+one of Dan’s songs she had been singing.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">O say, darling, say, when I’m far away</p>
+      <p class="verse">Sometimes you may think of me, dear</p>
+      <p class="verse">Bright sunny days will soon fade away</p>
+      <p class="verse">Remember what I say and be true, dear</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Dan was a part of her, even a part of the way she would cherish
+her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were watching at the coach car for Simon to step
+down. But he jumped onto the cement runway from a baggage
+car. He had brought his brown kid with him. He was
+running down the platform and it skipped after. “Ma. Look
+at me. Look at April and me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s a wild one,” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s big.” Christian straightened himself, nervous, turning
+his soft cap with his fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is Christian Ay. Like we wrote you, Simon. Now,
+he’s your father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know it.” The boy was leaning over his kid, adjusting
+its leather collar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian took his hand. “Well now. Hello, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hi.” They walked to the V-Eight, Simon leading the docile
+animal. It stepped in and the boy followed, sitting on the
+back seat, holding the leash, watchful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian faced him. “I hear you’re keen after horses,
+Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does he mean, Ma?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s a colt in the barn,” Christian was saying, “belongs
+to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How old, now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ten weeks or so. Don’t you think, El?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she agreed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pearl had her colt, Ma,” Simon was hunting for her eyes.
+<a id="page-390" class="pagenum" title="390"></a>
+“And Sudduth’s getting him a hired man next week.” He
+leaned toward Ellen. “Strong like an ox, Sudduth says. Pop
+claims he’s got brains like one too.” The boy smiled, strained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You want our colt?” Christian asked. “For your own?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. Reckon I do, Mester.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian and Ellen got in the front seat, and they were
+driving out on the road. Near Bailey’s Woods, a flock of
+bluejays darted before the car, pursuing a blinded flapping
+owl. Their barking was strident and shrill as they winged
+after it into the winter-stripped trees, now spattered with
+white blooms of shadblow. At the farmyard the three were
+getting out of the car, standing in the yard. Simon had his
+kid tightly by the collar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Simon?” Ellen said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His face became red. He stood before Christian, steady. “If
+it doesn’t matter to you, I’d as lief call you Pa, like Dennie
+does with Sudduth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the general idea, son,” Christian sighed, glancing
+at Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They were lingering at the long oak table in the kitchen.
+Ellen moved about, putting dishes and pots away. Christian
+was smoking his pipe. The boy cried, “Simon Ay’s a good
+name, isn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You look a little alike, too,” Ellen nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say it again, how it was, Pa,” Simon urged, “that you
+happened to leave the county before you could marry Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was later when Simon told them about Luke bringing
+Penny and the new baby over to the Wasilewskis to visit
+Ellen. “Penny felt bad when you weren’t there, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was it a boy or girl, Simon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. She said a boy, I think. Now I disremember.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon. You knew I’d ask.” Ellen was disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-391" class="pagenum" title="391"></a>
+Christian was speaking to her. “Luke Dougherty works for
+a farmer, doesn’t he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A stock farmer. Webster. He raises Jerseys and Short-horns.
+Blooded beasts. Mester Webster thinks a mort of Luke
+too. There. I hate it, not seeing Penny and the baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian put down his pipe. “I’ve got an idea. You know
+I have to have help here if we want to make this farm pay.
+It’s in bad shape.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m here. I’m a good worker,” Simon said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How about asking Mr. Dougherty to come in with us?
+You think he would? What do you say? We could buy more
+land if it’s too small for two families. We could convert one
+of the old sheds for them till we found time to build a house.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simon’s due in school on Monday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I need a man. I’d have to find one. And the Doughertys
+did raise you, Simon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Luke would be on his own.” Ellen considered it. “Reckon
+he’d like that. He’s got a way with cattle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m rusty. I’ll make mistakes alone. I haven’t enough experience.
+And I’d lose all my money.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’d be Penny. She’s like my family, Chris. I’d be
+done saying goodbye to Penny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Clate and Anse,” crowed Simon. “They’d have to go to
+school with me. We’d sleep in the barn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold on now. We don’t know if Mr. Dougherty’ll take
+us up on it yet. He might figure he’d be a fool to leave
+Mr. Webster.” Christian wrote the letter and Simon took it
+to the mailbox. He put the red metal flag up so the RFD car
+would stop.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+While they were waiting to hear from Weems Crossroads,
+Simon followed his father about. They pitched and shoveled
+and scraped from the stables, scattered manure on the hilly
+fields, rubbed the newborn calves with straw to clean them
+<a id="page-392" class="pagenum" title="392"></a>
+and put them to their dams’ inflamed fresh udders. Simon
+curried and brushed the horses and his long-legged undernourished
+foal. Masses of dead hair would accumulate in the
+litter under the animals in their stalls. “I’ll be glad to take
+orders from you for a change,” the child was telling Christian
+gravely. “Ma means well, but half the time she’s wrong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be so sure,” Christian grinned down at him, “might
+be you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen was sitting at the table in the kitchen, writing Mom
+Wasilewski. She told Mom how she missed all of them, Pop
+and Adele and the little girls. She asked advice on starting a
+flock of Leghorns. “And we’re fixing to send off to the mail
+catalog for some Italian bees. Does Pop calculate them to be a
+good honey variety? I’ve heard they’re mean.” A sadness
+descended on Ellen. Now that’s become my past. It never
+turns out the way I figure it will. I thought to spend my
+days in Illinois with Dan. Now he’s gone and that’s all lost.
+There came to her mind the white buckling that had perished
+so long ago, strangling in a fence. She heard Christian and
+Simon approaching. And their footfalls on the porch boards
+washed away her grieving. The sun threw itself in a blanket
+on the floor in front of them as the door opened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you doing, El?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Writing a letter. Thinking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christian was placing his firm fingers on her shoulder. In
+the heat of her love, born of gratitude, her blood mingled
+with his. She turned in her chair to lean against him. “I was
+reading a while ago in that gilt-edged fancy Bible in there,
+El. Where it says, for lo, the winter’s past. The rain’s over
+and gone. The flowers appear on the earth. The time of the
+singing of birds is come.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ellen was collecting Anton and Maria’s moth-eaten garments
+from the clothespress. She had made a bonfire and was
+carrying them out, throwing them upon it. She told Christian
+<a id="page-393" class="pagenum" title="393"></a>
+about her mother. “Frankie and Uncle and Vi went to see
+her on the way down for Pa’s funeral. They said she didn’t
+know them. She had a doll the nurses had given her and
+seemed content, rocking it.” Ellen poked the fire with a stick
+so it blazed up afresh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll go to visit her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I used to fear the past, Chris. I wanted to shake it off. And
+here we are on Pa’s farm, where he ruled. I ne’er thought I’d
+see it again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has to be our way, though, El. That we’re building.
+Our own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know. I want to change all of it. So it’s new.” She stood
+marking the ashes that trembled and faded.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In a few days the Doughertys were arriving, herded by
+the tall round-faced Luke. Clate and Anse were bearing boxes
+and suitcases in either hand. Ellen was taking the wailing new
+baby from Penny’s arms. The young girl, Blossom, held the
+blanketed sickly Jess. And little Ernie hung behind her.
+Penny’s face was relieved. “It’s a wonder we e’er got here,
+Ellie. With this crowd.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked down at the baby. “What’s his name?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Melinda. Didn’t Simon tell you it’s a girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now all we got is one V-Eight,” Christian was grinning.
+“Women and babies first trip. Boys and baggage the next.
+Come, Luke.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Doughertys had crated and shipped their shedfull of
+goats when they learned that Ellen wanted them. The animals
+came two days after the family. There were fifteen all
+told, kids and goats. They arrived blatting and white-eyed at
+the New Hope station. In a week they were accustomed to
+the woodshed and the new pens there. Their mild oval pupils
+would follow Ellen’s unhurried movements. She set up a
+block of salt and shelled corn in their long trough while they
+<a id="page-394" class="pagenum" title="394"></a>
+crowded to eat. They crunched and shoved, and the hurt of
+her own lost herd began to heal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men were enlarging one of the bigger outbuildings for
+the Doughertys to live in temporarily. They papered the
+rooms, tarred the roof, slapped on a coat of white paint. “I
+can’t smell pigs in here any more, Chris,” Luke was saying,
+“can you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By fall the houses and barns were wired and electric fixtures
+had been put in. There was an overhead light in Ellen’s
+kitchen. “You sure are reckless,” she told Christian, “with
+your money.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m so glad to be shed of The Standard Shop,” his face
+was browned and young, “I like spending it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sent for a separator for the dairy house. It spilled cream
+in a thin yellow stream from one fountain while skim milk
+gushed from another into tall cans. There was an electric
+churn, too. Christian promised Simon, “Give us a few years
+and we’ll have milking machines in the barn. Wait and see.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In early spring, a young purebred Guernsey bull was strolling
+about in a sturdy barred pen. It arched its crest and
+snorted toward the barnyard where the cows were. It baaed
+in a high voice like a calf, for it was yet immature. The men
+laughed at it. Luke said, “His seed’s got the lines to build
+up our herd.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But has he got the strength in him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He has. What we ought to do, though, is buy a few top
+brood cows from good farms. Raise their calves by that bull.
+It’s the fastest way to get a producing herd.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s go ahead. You ride over to the next sale that’s advertised.
+Can you pick them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll spot them easy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cold fresh winds moved. Christian was drawing on his
+pipe. “By damn, how’d you like to paint a Guernsey bull
+clear across the barn, Luke? I’ve been thinking. And trim the
+<a id="page-395" class="pagenum" title="395"></a>
+windows with white? The boys could help on that part. I’d
+like to see some fancying up around here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, that’s an idea. Does no harm. It’ll bring people in
+to use the bull, too. Give the farm a name hereabouts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the women came to watch the painting. Penny was
+holding her baby girl on her arm, Ernie at her heels. “Look
+at that giant Guernsey there. Well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside Ellen tottered Jess, the undergrown brown-haired
+child, her favorite among Penny’s brood. He was gripping
+her skirt, open-mouthed at the men on the high ladders. Their
+blue jackets were paint-spattered, their buckets dangled by
+baling wire from the rungs. Simon and the Dougherty boys
+came running up from Sweetincreek Road, swinging their
+schoolbooks and lunch pails. They dropped them by the yard
+fence and went for paint brushes to join the men in the sun-dipped
+warm barnyard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say,” Ellen called, “you might set an iron bull on the
+roof for a weather vane, too. If you had a mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll do it, El,” Christian was shouting down, laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to make my pies up,” Ellen told Penny. “I’ll
+take Jess with me. He fancies my kitchen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was walking slowly to the house. A tan puppy followed.
+She patted it as she helped Jess up the porch steps. A turtledove
+was calling, “Croo-ah, croo-croo.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s the saddest voice,” she sighed, “of all the birds.”
+She let the small dog in the doorway. It heaved itself on
+the floor with a contented snort. She gave the little boy a
+cracker and sat him on a rug. He munched damply, eyes
+wide, watching Ellen roll out the dough. She was fluting
+the edges of the crusts, deft. Her cats were stretched in the
+warm sun on the window sills. She stepped over the sleeping
+puppy to put the pies in the new white porcelain stove.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the orchard below the house, blossoms were unfolding
+in a pink and white mist upon the shapes of old twisted trees
+and new-set nurslings. Shooting-stars and woodsorrels wasted
+<a id="page-396" class="pagenum" title="396"></a>
+their fragrance and birds began to trill, as if afraid of disturbing
+the air, from where they swung on branches. Gray
+squirrels carped at a cub-fox gliding down the path in the
+woods. Ellen, at the opened kitchen window, watched hawks
+sweeping in the blue and sensed the rustle of the new season.
+There was the green odor of growing. She felt the ancient
+promise, the wheel of earth once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She led the pinafored Jess, his short legs stumbling, to the
+bedroom. He held onto the white spread, thumb in mouth,
+sleepy eyes fixed on her as she laid out a diaper. She changed
+him, then straightened her laden body as a birth pain came.
+Within her the child quickened in the darkness and she was
+aware of its joy.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="about" id="chapter-0-8" title="About the author">
+ABOUT THE AUTHOR
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="about">
+<p>
+Helga Sandburg was born in Maywood, Illinois, spent most of
+her early years in Harbert, Michigan, around the lake bend,
+ninety miles from Chicago. As a youngster, she was curious
+about the ways of the semi-wild country surrounding her isolated
+home. She mounted butterfly and leaf collections, kept a
+bird-watcher’s notebook, taught her five dogs to pull a sled
+over the snow-covered sand dunes of Lake Michigan’s shore,
+and trained her own horses. In her father’s house, she saw pass
+the great literary figures of the midwest. She served as secretary
+to the poet for many years and became steeped in the
+tradition of American folkway and song. <i>The Wheel of Earth</i>
+casts a glance back to the vanishing lore of the prairie farmlands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1946 Miss Sandburg’s family moved to the Great Smokies
+of western Carolina. There she renewed her childhood interest
+in animals, raising calves, colts, dogs, goats, cats, varieties
+of rabbits, Peruvian cavies, parakeets, and hooded rats. Her
+animal collection was reduced to two Siamese cats and one
+Doberman Pinscher when she took up residence six years ago
+in Falls Church, Virginia. For two years she was employed
+nearby at the Library of Congress. Currently she is at work
+on her second novel. She has a son of sixteen and a daughter
+of fourteen. She is the wife of Arthur D. Golby, Assistant
+Professor of English at The American University in Washington,
+D. C.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="trnote chapter">
+<p class="transnote">
+Transcriber’s Notes
+</p>
+
+<p class="skip_in_txt">
+New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The original spelling was mostly preserved.
+All other changes are shown here (before/after):
+</p>
+
+
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>
+... love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, <span class="underline">cranebills</span> ...<br>
+... love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, <a href="#corr-0"><span class="underline">cranesbills</span></a> ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... dead like old man Moses Hedrick with a <span class="underline">pitchfolk</span> tucked between ...<br>
+... dead like old man Moses Hedrick with a <a href="#corr-4"><span class="underline">pitchfork</span></a> tucked between ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... “I will.” In a swift flood Ellen was <span class="underline">homestick</span> for the old ...<br>
+... “I will.” In a swift flood Ellen was <a href="#corr-9"><span class="underline">homesick</span></a> for the old ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... To wish her lover <span class="underline">goodspeed</span> ...<br>
+... To wish her lover <a href="#corr-10"><span class="underline">godspeed</span></a> ...<br>
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78102 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78102
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78102)
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