part two (cont. 3)

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?”