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the car. "We've important business, we..."
Riley jumped the car forward. Looking back, I saw them watching after
us in the raised and drifting road dust. I said to Riley, and was sullen
about it, that we ought to have found out what they wanted.
And he said: "Maybe I know."
He did know a great deal, Amos Legrand having informed him thoroughly
on the subject of Sister Ida. Although she'd not previously been to our
town, Amos, who does a little traveling now and then, claimed to have seen
her once at a fair in Bottle, which is a county town not far from here. Nor,
apparently, was she a stranger to the Reverend Buster who, the instant she
arrived, had hunted out the Sh&riff and der manded an injunction to prevent
the Little Homer Honey troupe from holding any meetings. Racketeers, he
called them; and argued that the so-called Sister Ida was known throughout
six states as an infamous trollop: think of it, fifteen children and no sign
of a husband! Amos, too, was pretty sure she'd never been married; but in
his opinion a woman so industrious was entitled to respect. The Sheriff said
didn't he have enough problems? and said: Maybe those fools have the right
idea, sit in a tree and mind your own business-for five cents he'd go out
there and join them. Old Buster told him in that case he wasn't fit to be
Sheriff and ought to hand in his badge. Meanwhile, Sister Ida had, without
legal interference, called an evening of prayers and shenanigans under the
oak trees in the square. Revivalists are popular in this town; it's the
music, the chance to sing and congregate in the open air. Sister Ida and her
family made a particular hit; even Amos, usually so critical, told Riley
he'd missed something: those kids really could shout, and that Little Homer
Honey, he was cute as a button dancing and twirling a rope. Everybody had a
grand time except the Reverend and Mrs. Buster, who had come to start a
fuss. What got their goat was when the children started hauling in God's
Washline, a rope with clothespins to which you could attach a contribution.
People who never dropped a dime in Buster's collection plate were hanging up
dollar bills. It was more than he could stand. So he'd skipped off to the
house on Talbo Lane and had a small shrewd talk with Verena, whose support,
he realized, was necessary if he were going to get action. According to
Amos, he'd incited Verena by telling her some hussy of a revivalist was
describing Dolly as an infidel, an enemy of Jesus, and that Verena owed it
to the Talbo name to see this woman was run out of town. It was unlikely
that at the time Sister Ida had ever heard the name Talbo. But sick as she
was, Verena went right to work; she rang up the Sheriff and said now look
here Junius, I want these tramps run clear across the county line. Those
were orders; and old Buster made it his duty to see they were carried out.
He accompanied the Sheriff to the square where Sister Ida and her brood were
cleaning up after the meeting. It had ended in a real scuffle, mainly
because Buster, charging illegal gain, had insisted on confiscating the
money gathered off God's Wash-line. He got it, too-along with a few
scratches. It made no difference that many bystanders had taken Sister Ida's
side: the Sheriff told them they'd better be out of town by noon the next
day. Now after I'd heard all this I said to Riley why, when these people had
been wrongly treated, hadn't he wanted to be more helpful? You'd never guess
the answer he gave me. In dead earnest he said a loose woman like that was
no one to associate with Dolly.
A twig fire fizzed under the tree; Riley collected leaves for it, while
the Judge, his eyes smarting with smoke, set about the business of our
midday meal. We were the indolent ones, Dolly and I. "I'm afraid," she said,
dealing a game of Rook, "really afraid Verena's seen the last of that money.
And you know, Collin, I doubt if it's losing the money that hurts her most.
For whatever reason, she trusted him: Dr. Ritz, I mean. I keep remembering
Maudie Laura Murphy. The girl who worked in the post office. She and Verena
were very close. Lord, it was a great blow when Maudie Laura took up with
that whiskey salesman, married him. I couldn't criticize her; 'twas only
fitting if she loved the man. Just the same, Maudie Laura and Dr. Ritz,
maybe those are the only two Verena ever trusted, and both of them-well, it
could take the heart out of anyone." She thumbed the Rook cards with
wandering attention. "You said something before-about Catherine."
"About her goldfish. I saw them in the window."
"But not Catherine?"
"No, the goldfish, that's all. Mrs. County was awfully nice: she said
she was going to send some dinner around to the jail."
She broke one of Mrs. County's cinnamon rolls and picked out the
raisins. "Collin, suppose we let them have their way, gave up, that is:
they'd have to let Catherine go, wouldn't they?" Her eyes tilted toward the
heights of the tree, searching, it seemed, a passage through the braided
leaves. "Should I-let myself lose?"
"Mrs. County thinks so: that we should go home."
"Did she say why?"
"Because-she did run on. Because you always have. Always made your
peace, she said."
Dolly smiled, smoothed her long skirt; sifting rays placed rings of sun
upon her fingers. "Was there ever a choice? It's what I want, a choice. To
know I could've had another life, all made of my own decisions. That would
be making my peace, and truly." She rested her eyes on the scene below,
Riley cracking twigs, the Judge hunched over a steaming pot. "And the Judge,
Charlie, if we gave up it would let him down so badly. Yes," she tangled her
fingers with mine, "he is very dear to me," and an immeasurable pause
lengthened the moment, my heart reeled, the tree closed inward like a
folding umbrella.
"This morning, while you were away, he asked me to marry him."
As if he'd heard her, the Judge straightened up, a schoolboy grin
reviving the youthfulness of his countrified face. He waved: and it was
difficult to disregard the charm of Dolly's expression as she waved back. It
was as though a familiar portrait had been cleaned and, turning to it, one
discovered a fleshy luster, clearer, till then unknown colors: whatever
else, she could never again be a shadow in the comer.
"And now-don't be unhappy, Collin," she said, scolding me, I thought,
for what she must have recognized as my resentment.
"But are you...?"
"I've never earned the privilege of making up my own mind; when I do.
God willing, I'll know what is right. Who else," she said, putting me off
further, "did you see in town?"
I would have invented someone, a story to retrieve her, for she seemed
to be moving forward into the future, while I, unable to follow, was left
with my sameness. But as I described Sister Ida, the wagon, the children,
told the wherefores of their run-in with the Sheriff and how we'd met them
on the road inquiring after the lady in the tree, we flowed together again
like a stream that for an instant an island had separated. Though it would
have been too bad if Riley had heard me betraying him, I went so far as to
repeat what he'd said about a woman of Sister Ida's sort not being fit
company for Dolly. She had a proper laugh over this; then, with sudden
soberness: "But it's wicked-taking the bread out of children's mouths and
using my name to do it. Shame on them!" She straightened her hat
determinedly. "Collin, lift yourself; you and I are going for a little walk.
I'll bet those people are right where you left them. Leastways, we'll see."
The Judge tried to prevent us, or at any rate maintained that if Dolly
wanted a stroll he would have to accompany us. It went a long way toward
mollifying my jealous rancor when Dolly told him he'd best tend to his
chores: with Collin along she'd be safe enough-it was just to stretch our
legs a bit.
As usual. Dolly could not be hurried. It was her habit, even when it
rained, to loiter along an ordinary path as though she were dallying in a
garden, her eyes primed for the sight of precious medicine flavorings, a
sprig of penny-royal, sweet-mary and mint, useful herbs whose odor scented
her clothes. She saw everything first, and it was her one real vanity to
prefer that she, rather than you, point out certain discoveries: a birdtrack
bracelet, an eave of icicles-she was always calling come see the cat-shaped
cloud, the ship in the stars, the face of frost. In this slow manner we
crossed the grass. Dolly amassing a pocketful of withered dandelions, a
pheasant's quill: I thought it would be sundown before we reached the road.
Fortunately we had not that far to go: entering the cemetery, we found
Sister Ida and all her family encamped among the graves. It was like a
lugubrious playground. The crosseyed twins were having their hair cut by
older sisters, and Little Homer was shining his boots with spit and leaves;
a nearly grown boy, sprawled with his back against a tombstone, picked
melancholy notes on a guitar. Sister Ida was suckling the baby; it lay
curled against her breasts like a pink ear. She did not rise when she
realized our presence, and Dolly said, "I do believe you're sitting on my
father."
For a fact it was Mr. Talbo's grave, and Sister Ida, addressing the
headstone (Uriah Fenwick Talbo, 1844-1922, Good Soldier, Dear Husband,
Loving Father) said, "Sorry, soldier." Buttoning her blouse, which made the
baby wail, she started to her feet.
"Please don't; I only meant-to introduce myself."
Sister Ida shrugged, "He was beginning to hurt me anyway," and rubbed
herself appropriately. "You again," she said, eyeing me with amusement.
"Where's your friend?"
"I understand..." Dolly stopped, disconcerted by the maze of children
drawing in around her; "Did you," she went on, attempting to ignore a boy no
bigger than a jackrabbit who, having raised her skirt, was sternly examining
her shanks, "wish to see me? I'm Dolly Talbo."
Shifting the baby. Sister Ida threw an arm around Dolly's waist,
embraced her, actually, and said, as though they were the oldest friends, "I
knew I could count on you. Dolly. Kids," she lifted the baby like a baton,
"tell Dolly we never said a word against her!"
The children shook their heads, mumbled, and Dolly seemed touched. "We
can't leave town, I kept telling them," said Sister Ida, and launched into
the tale of her predicament. I wished that I could have a picture of them
together. Dolly, formal, as out of fashion as her old face-veil, and Sister
Ida with her fruity lips, fun-loving figure. "It's a matter of cash; they
took it all. I ought to have them arrested, that puke-faced Buster and
what's-his-name, the Sheriff: thinks he's King Kong." She caught her breath;
her cheeks were like a raspberry patch. "The plain truth is, we're stranded.
Even if we'd ever heard of you, it's not our policy to speak ill of anyone.
Oh I know that was just the excuse; but I figured you could straighten it
out and..."
I'm hardly the person-dear me," said Dolly.
"But what would you do? with a half gallon of gas, maybe not that,
fifteen mouths and a dollar ten? We'd be better off in jail."
Then, "I have a friend," Dolly announced proudly, "a brilliant man,
he'll know an answer," and I could tell by the pleased conviction of her
voice that she believed this one hundred per cent. "Collin, you scoot ahead
and let the Judge know to expect company for dinner."
Licketysplit across the field with the grass whipping my legs: couldn't
wait to see the Judge's face. It was not a disappointment. "Lordylaw!" he
said, raring back, rocking forward; "Sixteen people," and, observing the
meager stew simmering on the fire, struck his head. For Riley's benefit I
tried to make out it was none of my doing, Dolly's meeting Sister Ida; but
he just stood there skinning me with his eyes: it could have led to bitter
words if the Judge hadn't sent us scurrying. He fanned up his fire, Riley
fetched more water, and into the stew we tossed sardines, hotdogs, green
bay-leaves, in fact whatever lay at hand, including an entire box of
Saltines which the Judge claimed would help thicken it: a few stuffs got
mixed in by mistake-coffee grounds, for instance. Having reached that
overwrought hilarious state achieved by cooks at family reunions, we had the
gall to stand back and congratulate ourselves: Riley gave me a forgiving,
comradely punch, and as the first of the children appeared the Judge scared
them with the vigor of his welcome.
None of them would advance until the whole herd had assembled.
Whereupon Dolly, apprehensive as a woman exhibiting the results of an
afternoon at an auction, brought them forward to be introduced. The children
made a rollcall of their names: Beth, Laurel, Sam, Lillie, Ida, Cleo, Kate,
Homer, Harry-here the melody broke because one small girl refused to give
her name. She said it was a secret Sister Ida agreed that if she thought it
a secret, then so it should remain.
"They're all so fretful," she said, favorably affecting the Judge with
her smoky voice and grasslike eyelashes. He prolonged their handshake and
overdid his smile, which struck me as peculiar conduct in a man who, not
three hours before, had asked a woman to marry him, and I hoped that if
Dolly noticed it would give her pause. But she was saying, "Why certain
they're fretful: hungry as they can be," and the Judge, with a hearty clap
and a boastful nod towards the stew, promised he'd fix that soon enough. In
the meantime, he thought it would be a good idea if the children went to the
creek and washed their hands. Sister Ida vowed they'd wash more than that.
They needed to, I'll tell you.
There was trouble with the little girl who wanted her name a secret;
she wouldn't go, not unless her papa rode her piggyback. "You are too my
papa," she told Riley, who did not contradict her. He lifted her onto his
shoulders, and she was tickled to death. All the way to the creek she acted
the cut-up, and when, with her hands thrust over his eyes, Riley stumbled
blindly into a bullis vine, she ripped the air with in-heaven shrieks. He
said he'd had enough of that and down you go. "Please: I'll whisper you my
name." Later on I remembered to ask him what the name had been. It was
Texaco Gasoline; because those were such pretty words.
The creek is nowhere more than knee-deep; glossy beds of moss green the
banks, and in the spring snowy dew-drops and dwarf violets flourish there
like floral crumbs for the new bees whose hives hang in the waterbays.
Sister Ida chose a place on the bank from which she could supervise the
bathing. "No cheating now-I want to see a lot of commotion." We did.
Suddenly girls old enough to be married were trotting around and not a
stitch on; boys, too, big and little all in there together naked as
jaybirds. It was as well that Dolly had stayed behind with the Judge; and I
wished Riley had not come either, for he was embarrassing in his
embarrassment. Seriously, though, it's only now, seeing the kind of man he
turned out to be, that I understand the paradox of his primness: he wanted
so to be respectable that the defections of others somehow seemed to him
backsliding on his own part.
Those famous landscapes of youth and woodland water- in after years how
often, trailing through the cold rooms of museums, I stopped before such a
picture, stood long haunted moments having it recall that gone scene, not as
it was, a band of goose-fleshed children dabbling in an autumn creek, but as
the painting presented it, husky youths and wading water-diamonded girls;
and I've wondered then, wonder now, how they fared, where they went in this
world, that extraordinary family.
"Beth, give your hair a douse. Stop splashing Laurel, I mean you Buck,
you quit that. All you kids get behind your ears, mercy knows when you'll
have the chance again." But pros' enfly Sister Ida relaxed and left the
children at liberty. "On such a day as this..." she sank against the moss;
with the full light of her eyes she looked at Riley, "There is something:
the mouth, the same jug ears-cigarette, dear?" she said, impervious to his
distaste for her. A smoothing expression suggested for a moment the girl she
had been. "On such a day as this..."
"...but in a sorrier place, no trees to speak of, a house in a
wheatfield and all alone like a scarecrow. I'm not complaining: there was
mama and papa and my sister Geraldine, and we were sufficient, had plenty of
pets and a piano and good voices every one of us. Not that it was easy, what
with all the heavy work and only the one man to do it. Papa was a sickly man
besides. Hired hands were hard to come by, nobody liked it way out there for
long: one old fellow we thought a heap of, but then he got drunk and tried
to burn down the house. Geraldine was going on sixteen, a year older than
me, and nice to look at, both of us were that, when she got it into her head
to marry a man who'd run the place with papa. But where we were there wasn't
much to choose from. Mama gave us our schooling, what of it we had, and the
closest town was ten miles. That was the town of Youfry, called after a
family; the slogan was You Won't Fry In Youfry: because it was up a mountain
and well-to-do people went there in the summer. So the summer I'm thinking
of Geraldine got waitress work at the Lookout Hotel in Youfry. I used to
hitch a ride in on Saturdays and stay the night with her. This was the first
either of us had ever been away from home. Geraldine didn't care about it
particular, town life, but as for me I looked toward those Saturdays like
each of them was Christmas and my birthday rolled into one. There was a
dancing pavilion, it didn't cost a cent, the music was free and the colored
lights. I'd help Geraldine with her work so we could go there all the
sooner; we'd run hand in hand down the street, and I used to start dancing
before I got my breath-never had to wait for a partner, there were five boys
to every girl, and we were the prettiest girls anyway. I wasn't boy-crazy
especially, it was the dancing-sometimes everyone would stand still to watch
me waltz, and I never got more than a glimpse of my partners, they changed
so fast. Boys would follow us to the hotel, then call under our window Come
out! Come out! and sing, so silly they were-Geraldine almost lost her job.
Well we'd lie awake considering the night in a practical way. She was not
romantic, my sister; what concerned her was which of our beaux was surest to
make things easier out home. It was Dan Rainey she decided on. He was older
than the others, twenty-five, a man, not handsome in the face, he had jug
ears and freckles and not much chin, but Dan Rainey, oh he was smart in his
own steady way and strong enough to lift a keg of nails. End of summer he
came out home and helped bring in the wheat. Papa liked him from the first,
and though mama said Geraldine was too young, she didn't make any ruckus
about it. I cried at the wedding, and thought it was because the nights at
the dancing pavilion were over, and because Geraldine and I would never lie
cozy in the same bed again. But as soon as Dan Rainey took over everything
seemed to go right; he brought out the best in the land and maybe the best
in us. Except when winter came on, and we'd be sitting round the fire,
sometimes the heat, something made me feel just faint. I'd go stand in the
yard with only my dress on, it was like I couldn't feel the cold because I'd
become a piece of it, and I'd close my eyes, waltz round and round, and one
night, I didn't hear him sneaking up, Dan Rainey caught me in his arms and
danced me for a joke. Only it wasn't such a joke. He had feelings for me;
way back in my head I'd known it from the start. But he didn't say it, and I
never asked him to; and it wouldn't have come to anything provided Geraldine
hadn't lost her baby. That was in the spring. She was mortally afraid of
snakes, Geraldine, and it was seeing one that did it; she was collecting
eggs, it was only a chicken snake, but it scared her so bad she dropped her
baby four months too soon. I don't know what happened to her-got cross and
mean, got where she'd fly out about anything. Dan Rainey took the worst of
it; he kept out of her way as much as he could; used to roll himself in a
blanket and sleep down in the wheatfield. I knew if I stayed there-so I went
to Youfry and got Geraldine's old job at the hotel. The dancing pavilion, it
was the same as the summer before, and I was even prettier: one boy nearly
killed another over who was going to buy me an orangeade. I can't say I
didn't enjoy myself, but my mind wasn't on it; at the hotel they asked where
was my mind-always filling the sugar bowl with salt, giving people spoons to
cut their meat. I never went home the whole summer. When the time came-it
was such a day as this, a fall day blue as eternity-I didn't let them know I
was coming, just got out of the coach and walked three miles through the
wheat stacks till I found Dan Rainey. He didn't speak a word, only plopped
down and cried like a baby. I was that sorry for him, and loved him more
than tongue can tell."
Her cigarette had gone out. She seemed to have lost track of the story;
or worse, thought better of finishing it. I wanted to stamp and whistle, the
way rowdies do at the picture-show when the screen goes unexpectedly blank;
and Riley, though less bald about it, was impatient too. He struck a match
for her cigarette: starting at the sound, she remembered her voice again,
but it was as if, in the interval, she'd traveled far ahead.
"So papa swore he'd shoot him. A hundred times Geraldine said tell us
who it was and Dan here'll take a gun after him. I laughed till I cried;
sometimes the other way round. I said well I had no idea; there were five or
six boys in Youfry could be the one, and how was I to know? Mama slapped my
face when I said that. But they believed it; even after a while I think Dan
Rainey believed it-wanted to anyway, poor unhappy fellow. All those months
not stirring out of the house; and in the middle of it papa died. They
wouldn't let me go to the funeral, they were so ashamed for anyone to see.
It happened this day, with them off at the burial and me alone in the house
and a sandy wind blowing rough as an elephant, that I got in touch with God.
I didn't by any means deserve to be Chosen: up till then, mama'd had to coax
me to leam my Bible verses; afterwards, I memorized over a thousand in less
than three months. Well I was practicing a tune on the piano, and suddenly a
window broke, the whole room turned topsy-turvy, then fell together again,
and someone was with me, papa's spirit I thought; but the wind died down
peaceful as spring-He was there, and standing as He made me, straight, I
opened my arms to welcome Him. That was twenty-six years ago last February
the third; I was sixteen, I'm forty-two now, and I've never wavered. When I
had my baby I didn't call Geraldine or Dan Rainey or anybody, only lay there
whispering my verses one after the other and not a soul knew Danny was born
till they heard him holler. It was Geraldine named him that. He was hers,
everyone thought so, and people round the countryside rode over to see her
new baby, brought presents, some of them, and the men hit Dan Rainey on the
back and told him what a fine son he had. Soon as I was able I moved thirty
miles away to Stoneville, that's a town double the size of Youfry and where
they have a big mining camp. Another girl and I, we started a laundry, and
did a good business on account of in a mining town there's mostly bachelors.
About twice a month I went home to see Danny; I was seven years going back
and forth; it was the only pleasure I had, and a strange one, considering
how it tore me up every time: such a beautiful boy, there's no describing.
But Geraldine died for me to touch him: if I kissed him she'd come near to
jumping out of her skin; Dan Rainey wasn't much different, he was so scared
I wouldn't leave well enough alone. The last time I ever was home I asked
him would he meet me in Youfry. Because for a crazy long while I'd had an
idea, which was: if I could live it again, if I could bear a child that
would be a twin to Danny. But I was wrong to think it could have the same
father. It would've been a dead child, bom dead: I looked at Dan Rainey (it
was the coldest day, we sat by the empty dancing pavilion, I remember he
never took his hands out of his pockets) and sent him away without saying
why it was I'd asked him to come. Then years spent hunting the likeness of
him. One of the miners in Stoneville, he had the same freckles, yellow eyes;
a goodhearted boy, he obliged me with Sam, my oldest. As best I recall,
Beth's father was a dead ringer for Dan Rainey; but being a girl, Beth
didn't favor Danny. I forget to tell you that I'd sold my share of the
laundry and gone to Texas-had restaurant work in Amarillo and Dallas. But it
wasn't until I met Mr. Honey that I saw why the Lord had chosen me and what
my task was to be. Mr. Honey possessed the True Word; after I heard him
preach that first time I went round to see him: we hadn't talked twenty
minutes than he said I'm going to marry you provided you're not married
a'ready. I said no I'm not married, but I've got some family? fact is, there
was five by then. Didn't faze him a bit We got married a week later on
Valentine's Day. He wasn't a young man, and he didn't look a particle like
Dan Rainey; stripped of his boots he couldn't make it to my shoulder; but
when the Lord brought us together He knew certain what He was doing: we had
Roy, then Pearl and Kate and Cleo and Little Homer -most of them born in
that wagon you saw up there. We traveled all over the country carrying His
Word to folks who'd never heard it before, not the way my man could tell it.
Now I must mention a sad circumstance, which is: I lost Mr. Honey. One
morning, this was in a queer part of Louisiana, Cajun parts, he walked off
down the road to buy some groceries: you know we never saw him again. He
disappeared right into thin air. I don't give a hoot what the police say; he
wasn't the kind to run out on his family; no sir it was foul play."
"Or amnesia," I said. "You forget everything, even your own name."
"A man with the whole Bible on the tip of his tongue- would you say he
was liable to forget something like his name? One of them Cajuns murdered
him for his amethyst ring. Naturally I've known men since then; but not
love. Lillie Ida, Laurel, the other kids, they happened like. Seems somehow
I can't get on without another life kicking under my heart: feel so sluggish
otherwise."
When the children were dressed, some with their clothes inside out, we
returned to the tree where the older girls, bending over the fire, dried and
combed their hair. In our absence Dolly had cared for the baby; she seemed
now not to want to give it back: "I wish one of us had had a baby, my sister
or Catherine," and Sister Ida said yes, it was entertaining and a
satisfaction too. We sat finally in a circle around the fire. The stew was
too hot to taste, which perhaps accounted for its thorough success, and the
Judge, who had to serve it in rotation, for there were only three cups, was
full of gay stunts and nonsense that exhilarated the children: Texaco
Gasoline decided she'd made a mistake-the Judge, not Riley, was her papa,
and the Judge rewarded her with a trip to the moon, swung her, that is, high
over his head: Some flocked south, Some flocked west. You go flying after
the rest. Away! Awheel Sister Ida said say you're pretty strong. Of course
he lapped it up, all but asked her to feel his muscles. Every quarter-minute
he peeked to see if Dolly were admiring him. She was.
The croonings of a ringdove wavered among the long last lances of
sunlight. Chill green, blues filtered through the air as though a rainbow
had dissolved around us. Dolly shivered: "There's a storm nearby. I've had
the notion all day." I looked at Riley triumphantly: hadn't I told him?
"And it's getting late," said Sister Ida. "Buck, Homer- you boys chase
up to the wagon. Gracious knows who's come along and helped themselves.
Not," she added, watching her sons vanish on the darkening path, "that
there's a whole lot to take, nothing much except my sewing machine. So,
Dolly? Have you..."
"We've discussed it," said Dolly turning to the Judge for confirmation.
"You'd win your case in court, no question of it," he said, very
professional. "For once the law would be on the right ride. As matters
stand, however..."
Dolly said, "As matters stand," and pressed into Sister Ida's hand the
forty-seven dollars which constituted our cash asset; in addition, she gave
her the Judge's big gold watch. Contemplating these gifts. Sister Ida shook
her head as though she should refuse them. "It's wrong. But I thank you."
A light thunder rolled through the woods, and in the perilous quiet of
its wake Buck and Little Homer burst upon the path like charging cavalry.
"They're coming! They're coming!" both got out at once, and Little Homer,
pushing back his hat, gasped: "We ran all the way."
"Make sense, boy: who?"
Little Homer swallowed. "Those fellows. The Sheriff one, and r don't
know how many more. Coming down through the grass. With guns, too."
Thunder rumbled again; tricks of wind rustled our fire.
"All right now," said the Judge, assuming command. "Everybody keep
their heads." It was as though he'd planned for this moment, and he rose to
it, I do concede, gloriously. "The women, you little kids, get up in the
treehouse. Riley, see that the rest of you scatter out, shinny up those
other trees and take a load of rocks." When we'd followed these directions,
he alone remained on the ground; firm-jawed, he stayed there guarding the
tense twilighted silence like a captain who will not abandon bis drowning
ship.
Five of us roosted in the sycamore tree that overhung the path. Little
Homer was there, and his brother Buck, a scowling boy with rocks in either
hand. Across the way, straddling the limbs of a second sycamore, we could
see Riley surrounded by the older girls: in (he deepening burnished light
their white faces glimmered like candle-lanterns. I thought I felt a rain
drop: it was a bead of sweat slipping along my cheek; still, and though the
thunder lulled, a smell of rain intensified the odor of leaves and
woodsmoke. The overloaded tree-house gave an evil creak; from my vantage
point, its tenants seemed a single creature, a many-legged, many-eyed spider
upon whose head Dolly's hat sat perched like a velvet crown.
In our tree everybody pulled out the kind of tin whistles Riley had
bought from Little Homer: good to give the devil a scare. Sister Ida had
said. Then Little Homer took off his huge hat and, removing from its vast
interior what was perhaps God's Washline, a thick long rope, at any rate,
proceeded to make a sliding noose. As he tested its efficiency, stretched
and tightened the knot, his steely miniature spectacles cast such a menacing
sparkle that, edging away, I put the distance of another branch between us.
The Judge, patrolling below, hissed to stop moving around up there; it was
his last order before the invasion began.
The invaders themselves made no pretense at stealth. Swinging their
rifles against the undergrowth like canecutters, they swaggered up the path,
nine, twelve, twenty strong. First, Junius Candle, his Sheriff's star
winking in the dusk; and after him, Big Eddie Stover, whose squint-eyed
search of our hiding places reminded me of those newspaper picture puzzles;
find five boys and an owl in this drawing of a tree. It requires someone
cleverer than Big Eddie Stover. He looked straight at me, and through me.
Not many of that gang would have troubled you with their braininess: good
for nothing but a lick of salt and swallow of beer most of them. Except I
recognized Mr. Hand, the principal at school, a decent enough fellow taken
all around, no one, you would have thought, to involve himself in such
shabby company on so shameful an errand. Curiosity explained the attendance
of Amos Legrand; he was there, and silent for once: no wonder: as though he
were a walking-stick, Verena was leaning a hand on his head, which came not
quite to her hip. A grim Reverend Buster ceremoniously supported her other
arm. When I saw Verena I felt a numbed reliving of the terror I'd known
when, after my mother's death, she'd come to our house to claim me. Despite
what seemed a lameness, she moved with her customary tall authority and,
accompanied by her escorts, stopped under our sycamore.
The Judge didn't give an inch; toe to toe with the Sheriff, he stood
his ground as if there were a drawn line he dared the other to cross.
It was at this crucial moment that I noticed Little Homer. He gradually
was lowering his lasso. It crawled, dangled like a snake, the wide noose
open as a pair of jaws, then fell, with an expert snap, around the neck of
the Reverend Buster, whose strangling outcry Little Homer stifled by giving
the rope a mighty tug.
His friends hadn't long to consider old Buster's predicament, his
blood-gorged face and flailing arms; for Little Homer's success inspired an
all-out attack: rocks flew, whistles shrilled like the shriekings of savage
birds, and the men, pummeling each other in the general rout, took refuge
where they could, principally under the bodies of comrades already fallen.
Verena had to box Amos Legrand's ears: he tried to sneak up under her skirt.
She alone, you might say, behaved like a real man: shook her fists at the
trees and cursed us blue.
At the height of the din, a shot slammed like an iron door. It quelled
us all, the serious endless echo of it; but in the hush that followed we
heard a weight come crashing through the opposite sycamore.
It was Riley, falling; and falling: slowly, relaxed as a killed cat.
Covering their eyes, the girls screamed as he struck a branch and splintered
it, hovered, like the torn leaves, then in a bleeding heap hit the ground.
No one moved toward him.
Until at last the Judge said, "Boy, my boy," and in a trance sank to
his knees; he caressed Riley's limp hands. "Have mercy. Have mercy, son:
answer." Other men, sheepish and frightened, closed round; some offered
advice which the Judge seemed unable to comprehend. One by one we dropped
down from the trees, and the children's gathering whisper is he dead? is he
dead? was like the moan, the delicate roar of a sea-trumpet Doffing their
hats respectfully, the men made an aisle for Dolly; she was too stunned to
take account of them, or of Verena, whom she passed without seeing.
"I want to know," said Verena, in tones that summoned attention,
"...which of you fools fired that gun?"
The men guardedly looked each other over: too many of them fixed on Big
Eddie Stover. His jowls trembled, he licked his lips: "Hell, I never meant
to shoot nobody; was doing my duty, that's all."
"Not all," Verena severely replied. "I hold you responsible, Mr.
Stover."
At this Dolly turned round; her eyes, vague beyond the veiling, seemed
to frame Verena in a gaze that excluded everyone else. "Responsible? No one
is that; except ourselves."
Sister Ida had replaced the Judge at Riley's side; she completely
stripped off his shirt. "Thank your stars, it's his shoulder," she said, and
the relieved sighs. Big Eddie's alone, would have floated a kite. "He's
fairly knocked out, though. Some of you fellows better get him to a doctor."
She stopped Riley's bleeding with a bandage torn off his shirt. The Sheriff
and three of his men locked arms, making a litter on which to carry him. He
was not the only one who had to be carried; the Reverend Buster had also
come to considerable grief: loose-limbed as a puppet, and too weak to know
the noose still hung around his neck, he needed several assistants to get up
the path. Little Homer chased after him: "Hey, hand me back my rope!"
Amos Legrand waited to accompany Verena; she told him to go without her
as she had no intention of leaving unless Dolty-hesitating, she looked at
the rest of us, Sister Ida in particular; "I would like to speak with my
sister alone."
With a wave of her hand that quite dismissed Verena, Sister Ida said,
"Never mind, lady. We're on our way." She hugged Dolly. "Bless us, we love
you. Don't we, kids?" Little Homer said, "Come with us. Dolly. We'll have
such good times. I'll give you my sparkle belt." And Texaco Gasoline threw
herself upon the Judge, pleading for him to go with them, too. Nobody seemed
to want me.
"I'll always remember that you asked me," said Dolly, her eyes hurrying
as though to memorize the children's faces. "Good luck. Good-bye. Run now,"
she raised her voice above new and nearer thunder, "run, it's raining."
It was a tickling feathery rain fine as a gauze curtain, and as they
faded into the folds of it. Sister Ida and her family, Verena said: "Do I
understand you've been conniving with that-woman? After she made a mockery
of our name?"
"I don't think you can accuse me of conniving with anyone," Dolly
answered serenely. "Especially not with bullies who," she a little lost
control, "steal from children and drag old women into jail. I can't set much
store by a name that endorses such methods. It ought to be a mockery."
Verena received this without flinching. "You're not yourself," she
said, as if it were a clinical opinion.
"You'd best look again: I am myself." Dolly seemed to pose for
inspection. She was as tall as Verena, as assured; nothing about her was
incomplete or blurred. "I've taken your advice: stopped hanging my head, I
mean. You told me it made you dizzy. And not many days ago," she continued,
"you told me that you were ashamed of me. Of Catherine. So much of our lives
had been lived for you; it was painful to realize the waste that had been.
Can you know what it is, such a feeling of waste?"
Scarcely audible, Verena said, "I do know," and it was as if her eyes
crossed, peered inward upon a stony vista. It was the expression I'd seen
when, spying from the attic, I'd watched her late at night brooding over the
Kodak pictures of Maudie Laura Murphy, Maudie Laura's husband and children.
She swayed, she put a hand on my shoulder; except for that, I think she
might have fallen.
"I imagined I would go to my dying day with the hurt of it. I won't.
But it's no satisfaction, Verena, to say that I'm ashamed of you, too."
It was night now; frogs, sawing infects celebrated the slow-falling
rain. We dimmed as though the wetness had snuffed the light of our faces.
Verena sagged against me. "I'm not well," she said in a skeleton voice. "I'm
a sick woman, I am. Dolly."
Somewhat unconvinced. Dolly approached Verena, presently touched her,
as though her fingers could sense the truth. "Collin," she said, "Judge,
please help me with her into the tree." Verena protested that she couldn't
go climbing trees; but once she got used to the idea she went up easily
enough. The raftlike tree-house seemed to be floating over shrouded Vaporish
waters; it was dry there, however, for the mild rain had not penetrated the
parasol of leaves. We drifted in a current of silence until Verena said, "I
have something to say, Dolly. I could say it more easily if we were alone."
The Judge crossed his arms. "I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me.
Miss Verena." He was emphatic, though not belligerent "I have an interest in
the outcome of what you might have to say."
"I doubt that: how so?" she said, recovering to a degree her exalted
manner.
He lighted a stub of candle, and our sudden shadows stooped over us
like four eavesdroppers. "I don't like talking in the dark," he said. There
was a purpose in the proud erectness of his posture: it was, I thought, to
let Verena know she was dealing with a man, a fact too few men in her
experience had enough believed to assert. She found it unforgivable. "You
don't remember, do you, Charlie Cool? Fifty years ago, more maybe. Some of
you boys came blackberry stealing out at our place. My father caught your
cousin Seth, and I caught you. It was quite a licking you got that day."
The Judge did remember; he blushed, smiled, said: "You didn't fight
fair, Verena."
"I fought fair," she told him drily. "But you're right-since neither of
us like it, let's not talk in the dark. Frankly, Charlie, you're not a
welcome sight to me. My sister couldn't have gone through such tommyrot if
you hadn't been goading her on. So I'll thank you to leave us; it can be no
further affair of yours."
"But it is," said Dolly. "Because Judge Cool, Charlie..." she dwindled,
appeared for the first time to question her boldness.
"Dolly means that I have asked her to marry me."
"That," Verena managed after some suspenseful seconds, "is," she said,
regarding her gloved hands, "remarkable. Very. I wouldn't have credited
either of you with so much imagination. Or is it that I am imagining? Quite
likely I'm dreaming of myself in a wet tree on a thundery night. Except I
never have dreams, or perhaps I only forget them. This one I suggest we all
forget."
"I'll own up: I think it is a dream. Miss Verena. But a man who doesn't
dream is like a man who doesn't sweat: he stores up a lot of poison."
She ignored him; her attention was with Dolly, Dolly's with her: they
might have been alone together, two persons at far ends of a bleak room,
mutes communicating in an eccentric sign-language, subtle shifting of the
eye; and it was as though, then. Dolly gave an answer, one that sapped all
color from Verena's face. "I see. You've accepted him, have you?"
The rain had thickened, fish could have swum through the air; like a
deepening scale of piano notes, it struck its blackest chord, and drummed
into a downpour that, though it threatened, did not at once reach us:
drippings leaked through the leaves, but the tree-house stayed a dry seed in
a soaking plant. The Judge put a protective hand over the candle; he waited
as anxiously as Verena for Dolly's reply. My impatience equaled theirs, yet
I felt exiled from the scene, again a spy peering from the attic, and my
sympathies, curiously, were nowhere; or rather, everywhere: a tenderness for
all three ran together like raindrops, I could not separate them, they
expanded into a human oneness.
Dolly, too. She could not separate the Judge from Verena. At last,
excruciatingly, "I can't," she cried, implying failures beyond calculation.
"I said I would know what was right. But it hasn't happened; I don't know:
do other people? A choice, I thought: to have had a life made of my own
decisions..."
"But we have had our lives," said Verena. "Yours has been nothing to
despise, I don't think you've required more than you've had; I've envied you
always. Come home. Dolly. Leave decisions to me: that, you see, has been my
life."
"Is it true, Charlie?" Dolly asked, as a child might ask where do
falling stars fall? and: "Have we had our lives?"
"We're not dead," he told her; but it was as if, to the questioning
child, he'd said stars fall into space: an irrefutable, still unsatisfactory
answer. Dolly could not accept it: "You don't have to be dead. At home, in
the kitchen, there is a geranium that blooms over and over. Some plants,
though, they bloom just the once, if at all, and nothing more happens to
them. They live, but they've had their life."
"Not you," he said, and brought his face nearer hers, as though he
meant their lips to touch, yet wavered, not daring it. Rain had tunneled
through the branches, it fell full weight; rivulets of it streamed off
Dolly's hat, the veiling clung to her cheeks; with a flutter the candle
failed. "Not me."
Successive strokes of lightning throbbed like veins of fire, and
Verena, illuminated in that sustained glare, was not anyone I knew; but some
woman woebegone, wasted-with eyes once more drawn toward each other, their
stare settled on an inner territory, a withered country; as the lightning
lessened, as the hum of rain sealed us in its multiple sounds, she spoke,
and her voice came so weakly from so very far, not expecting, it seemed, to
be heard at all. "Envied you. Dolly. Your pink room. I've only knocked at
the doors of such rooms, not often Х-enough to know that now there is no one
Riley jumped the car forward. Looking back, I saw them watching after
us in the raised and drifting road dust. I said to Riley, and was sullen
about it, that we ought to have found out what they wanted.
And he said: "Maybe I know."
He did know a great deal, Amos Legrand having informed him thoroughly
on the subject of Sister Ida. Although she'd not previously been to our
town, Amos, who does a little traveling now and then, claimed to have seen
her once at a fair in Bottle, which is a county town not far from here. Nor,
apparently, was she a stranger to the Reverend Buster who, the instant she
arrived, had hunted out the Sh&riff and der manded an injunction to prevent
the Little Homer Honey troupe from holding any meetings. Racketeers, he
called them; and argued that the so-called Sister Ida was known throughout
six states as an infamous trollop: think of it, fifteen children and no sign
of a husband! Amos, too, was pretty sure she'd never been married; but in
his opinion a woman so industrious was entitled to respect. The Sheriff said
didn't he have enough problems? and said: Maybe those fools have the right
idea, sit in a tree and mind your own business-for five cents he'd go out
there and join them. Old Buster told him in that case he wasn't fit to be
Sheriff and ought to hand in his badge. Meanwhile, Sister Ida had, without
legal interference, called an evening of prayers and shenanigans under the
oak trees in the square. Revivalists are popular in this town; it's the
music, the chance to sing and congregate in the open air. Sister Ida and her
family made a particular hit; even Amos, usually so critical, told Riley
he'd missed something: those kids really could shout, and that Little Homer
Honey, he was cute as a button dancing and twirling a rope. Everybody had a
grand time except the Reverend and Mrs. Buster, who had come to start a
fuss. What got their goat was when the children started hauling in God's
Washline, a rope with clothespins to which you could attach a contribution.
People who never dropped a dime in Buster's collection plate were hanging up
dollar bills. It was more than he could stand. So he'd skipped off to the
house on Talbo Lane and had a small shrewd talk with Verena, whose support,
he realized, was necessary if he were going to get action. According to
Amos, he'd incited Verena by telling her some hussy of a revivalist was
describing Dolly as an infidel, an enemy of Jesus, and that Verena owed it
to the Talbo name to see this woman was run out of town. It was unlikely
that at the time Sister Ida had ever heard the name Talbo. But sick as she
was, Verena went right to work; she rang up the Sheriff and said now look
here Junius, I want these tramps run clear across the county line. Those
were orders; and old Buster made it his duty to see they were carried out.
He accompanied the Sheriff to the square where Sister Ida and her brood were
cleaning up after the meeting. It had ended in a real scuffle, mainly
because Buster, charging illegal gain, had insisted on confiscating the
money gathered off God's Wash-line. He got it, too-along with a few
scratches. It made no difference that many bystanders had taken Sister Ida's
side: the Sheriff told them they'd better be out of town by noon the next
day. Now after I'd heard all this I said to Riley why, when these people had
been wrongly treated, hadn't he wanted to be more helpful? You'd never guess
the answer he gave me. In dead earnest he said a loose woman like that was
no one to associate with Dolly.
A twig fire fizzed under the tree; Riley collected leaves for it, while
the Judge, his eyes smarting with smoke, set about the business of our
midday meal. We were the indolent ones, Dolly and I. "I'm afraid," she said,
dealing a game of Rook, "really afraid Verena's seen the last of that money.
And you know, Collin, I doubt if it's losing the money that hurts her most.
For whatever reason, she trusted him: Dr. Ritz, I mean. I keep remembering
Maudie Laura Murphy. The girl who worked in the post office. She and Verena
were very close. Lord, it was a great blow when Maudie Laura took up with
that whiskey salesman, married him. I couldn't criticize her; 'twas only
fitting if she loved the man. Just the same, Maudie Laura and Dr. Ritz,
maybe those are the only two Verena ever trusted, and both of them-well, it
could take the heart out of anyone." She thumbed the Rook cards with
wandering attention. "You said something before-about Catherine."
"About her goldfish. I saw them in the window."
"But not Catherine?"
"No, the goldfish, that's all. Mrs. County was awfully nice: she said
she was going to send some dinner around to the jail."
She broke one of Mrs. County's cinnamon rolls and picked out the
raisins. "Collin, suppose we let them have their way, gave up, that is:
they'd have to let Catherine go, wouldn't they?" Her eyes tilted toward the
heights of the tree, searching, it seemed, a passage through the braided
leaves. "Should I-let myself lose?"
"Mrs. County thinks so: that we should go home."
"Did she say why?"
"Because-she did run on. Because you always have. Always made your
peace, she said."
Dolly smiled, smoothed her long skirt; sifting rays placed rings of sun
upon her fingers. "Was there ever a choice? It's what I want, a choice. To
know I could've had another life, all made of my own decisions. That would
be making my peace, and truly." She rested her eyes on the scene below,
Riley cracking twigs, the Judge hunched over a steaming pot. "And the Judge,
Charlie, if we gave up it would let him down so badly. Yes," she tangled her
fingers with mine, "he is very dear to me," and an immeasurable pause
lengthened the moment, my heart reeled, the tree closed inward like a
folding umbrella.
"This morning, while you were away, he asked me to marry him."
As if he'd heard her, the Judge straightened up, a schoolboy grin
reviving the youthfulness of his countrified face. He waved: and it was
difficult to disregard the charm of Dolly's expression as she waved back. It
was as though a familiar portrait had been cleaned and, turning to it, one
discovered a fleshy luster, clearer, till then unknown colors: whatever
else, she could never again be a shadow in the comer.
"And now-don't be unhappy, Collin," she said, scolding me, I thought,
for what she must have recognized as my resentment.
"But are you...?"
"I've never earned the privilege of making up my own mind; when I do.
God willing, I'll know what is right. Who else," she said, putting me off
further, "did you see in town?"
I would have invented someone, a story to retrieve her, for she seemed
to be moving forward into the future, while I, unable to follow, was left
with my sameness. But as I described Sister Ida, the wagon, the children,
told the wherefores of their run-in with the Sheriff and how we'd met them
on the road inquiring after the lady in the tree, we flowed together again
like a stream that for an instant an island had separated. Though it would
have been too bad if Riley had heard me betraying him, I went so far as to
repeat what he'd said about a woman of Sister Ida's sort not being fit
company for Dolly. She had a proper laugh over this; then, with sudden
soberness: "But it's wicked-taking the bread out of children's mouths and
using my name to do it. Shame on them!" She straightened her hat
determinedly. "Collin, lift yourself; you and I are going for a little walk.
I'll bet those people are right where you left them. Leastways, we'll see."
The Judge tried to prevent us, or at any rate maintained that if Dolly
wanted a stroll he would have to accompany us. It went a long way toward
mollifying my jealous rancor when Dolly told him he'd best tend to his
chores: with Collin along she'd be safe enough-it was just to stretch our
legs a bit.
As usual. Dolly could not be hurried. It was her habit, even when it
rained, to loiter along an ordinary path as though she were dallying in a
garden, her eyes primed for the sight of precious medicine flavorings, a
sprig of penny-royal, sweet-mary and mint, useful herbs whose odor scented
her clothes. She saw everything first, and it was her one real vanity to
prefer that she, rather than you, point out certain discoveries: a birdtrack
bracelet, an eave of icicles-she was always calling come see the cat-shaped
cloud, the ship in the stars, the face of frost. In this slow manner we
crossed the grass. Dolly amassing a pocketful of withered dandelions, a
pheasant's quill: I thought it would be sundown before we reached the road.
Fortunately we had not that far to go: entering the cemetery, we found
Sister Ida and all her family encamped among the graves. It was like a
lugubrious playground. The crosseyed twins were having their hair cut by
older sisters, and Little Homer was shining his boots with spit and leaves;
a nearly grown boy, sprawled with his back against a tombstone, picked
melancholy notes on a guitar. Sister Ida was suckling the baby; it lay
curled against her breasts like a pink ear. She did not rise when she
realized our presence, and Dolly said, "I do believe you're sitting on my
father."
For a fact it was Mr. Talbo's grave, and Sister Ida, addressing the
headstone (Uriah Fenwick Talbo, 1844-1922, Good Soldier, Dear Husband,
Loving Father) said, "Sorry, soldier." Buttoning her blouse, which made the
baby wail, she started to her feet.
"Please don't; I only meant-to introduce myself."
Sister Ida shrugged, "He was beginning to hurt me anyway," and rubbed
herself appropriately. "You again," she said, eyeing me with amusement.
"Where's your friend?"
"I understand..." Dolly stopped, disconcerted by the maze of children
drawing in around her; "Did you," she went on, attempting to ignore a boy no
bigger than a jackrabbit who, having raised her skirt, was sternly examining
her shanks, "wish to see me? I'm Dolly Talbo."
Shifting the baby. Sister Ida threw an arm around Dolly's waist,
embraced her, actually, and said, as though they were the oldest friends, "I
knew I could count on you. Dolly. Kids," she lifted the baby like a baton,
"tell Dolly we never said a word against her!"
The children shook their heads, mumbled, and Dolly seemed touched. "We
can't leave town, I kept telling them," said Sister Ida, and launched into
the tale of her predicament. I wished that I could have a picture of them
together. Dolly, formal, as out of fashion as her old face-veil, and Sister
Ida with her fruity lips, fun-loving figure. "It's a matter of cash; they
took it all. I ought to have them arrested, that puke-faced Buster and
what's-his-name, the Sheriff: thinks he's King Kong." She caught her breath;
her cheeks were like a raspberry patch. "The plain truth is, we're stranded.
Even if we'd ever heard of you, it's not our policy to speak ill of anyone.
Oh I know that was just the excuse; but I figured you could straighten it
out and..."
I'm hardly the person-dear me," said Dolly.
"But what would you do? with a half gallon of gas, maybe not that,
fifteen mouths and a dollar ten? We'd be better off in jail."
Then, "I have a friend," Dolly announced proudly, "a brilliant man,
he'll know an answer," and I could tell by the pleased conviction of her
voice that she believed this one hundred per cent. "Collin, you scoot ahead
and let the Judge know to expect company for dinner."
Licketysplit across the field with the grass whipping my legs: couldn't
wait to see the Judge's face. It was not a disappointment. "Lordylaw!" he
said, raring back, rocking forward; "Sixteen people," and, observing the
meager stew simmering on the fire, struck his head. For Riley's benefit I
tried to make out it was none of my doing, Dolly's meeting Sister Ida; but
he just stood there skinning me with his eyes: it could have led to bitter
words if the Judge hadn't sent us scurrying. He fanned up his fire, Riley
fetched more water, and into the stew we tossed sardines, hotdogs, green
bay-leaves, in fact whatever lay at hand, including an entire box of
Saltines which the Judge claimed would help thicken it: a few stuffs got
mixed in by mistake-coffee grounds, for instance. Having reached that
overwrought hilarious state achieved by cooks at family reunions, we had the
gall to stand back and congratulate ourselves: Riley gave me a forgiving,
comradely punch, and as the first of the children appeared the Judge scared
them with the vigor of his welcome.
None of them would advance until the whole herd had assembled.
Whereupon Dolly, apprehensive as a woman exhibiting the results of an
afternoon at an auction, brought them forward to be introduced. The children
made a rollcall of their names: Beth, Laurel, Sam, Lillie, Ida, Cleo, Kate,
Homer, Harry-here the melody broke because one small girl refused to give
her name. She said it was a secret Sister Ida agreed that if she thought it
a secret, then so it should remain.
"They're all so fretful," she said, favorably affecting the Judge with
her smoky voice and grasslike eyelashes. He prolonged their handshake and
overdid his smile, which struck me as peculiar conduct in a man who, not
three hours before, had asked a woman to marry him, and I hoped that if
Dolly noticed it would give her pause. But she was saying, "Why certain
they're fretful: hungry as they can be," and the Judge, with a hearty clap
and a boastful nod towards the stew, promised he'd fix that soon enough. In
the meantime, he thought it would be a good idea if the children went to the
creek and washed their hands. Sister Ida vowed they'd wash more than that.
They needed to, I'll tell you.
There was trouble with the little girl who wanted her name a secret;
she wouldn't go, not unless her papa rode her piggyback. "You are too my
papa," she told Riley, who did not contradict her. He lifted her onto his
shoulders, and she was tickled to death. All the way to the creek she acted
the cut-up, and when, with her hands thrust over his eyes, Riley stumbled
blindly into a bullis vine, she ripped the air with in-heaven shrieks. He
said he'd had enough of that and down you go. "Please: I'll whisper you my
name." Later on I remembered to ask him what the name had been. It was
Texaco Gasoline; because those were such pretty words.
The creek is nowhere more than knee-deep; glossy beds of moss green the
banks, and in the spring snowy dew-drops and dwarf violets flourish there
like floral crumbs for the new bees whose hives hang in the waterbays.
Sister Ida chose a place on the bank from which she could supervise the
bathing. "No cheating now-I want to see a lot of commotion." We did.
Suddenly girls old enough to be married were trotting around and not a
stitch on; boys, too, big and little all in there together naked as
jaybirds. It was as well that Dolly had stayed behind with the Judge; and I
wished Riley had not come either, for he was embarrassing in his
embarrassment. Seriously, though, it's only now, seeing the kind of man he
turned out to be, that I understand the paradox of his primness: he wanted
so to be respectable that the defections of others somehow seemed to him
backsliding on his own part.
Those famous landscapes of youth and woodland water- in after years how
often, trailing through the cold rooms of museums, I stopped before such a
picture, stood long haunted moments having it recall that gone scene, not as
it was, a band of goose-fleshed children dabbling in an autumn creek, but as
the painting presented it, husky youths and wading water-diamonded girls;
and I've wondered then, wonder now, how they fared, where they went in this
world, that extraordinary family.
"Beth, give your hair a douse. Stop splashing Laurel, I mean you Buck,
you quit that. All you kids get behind your ears, mercy knows when you'll
have the chance again." But pros' enfly Sister Ida relaxed and left the
children at liberty. "On such a day as this..." she sank against the moss;
with the full light of her eyes she looked at Riley, "There is something:
the mouth, the same jug ears-cigarette, dear?" she said, impervious to his
distaste for her. A smoothing expression suggested for a moment the girl she
had been. "On such a day as this..."
"...but in a sorrier place, no trees to speak of, a house in a
wheatfield and all alone like a scarecrow. I'm not complaining: there was
mama and papa and my sister Geraldine, and we were sufficient, had plenty of
pets and a piano and good voices every one of us. Not that it was easy, what
with all the heavy work and only the one man to do it. Papa was a sickly man
besides. Hired hands were hard to come by, nobody liked it way out there for
long: one old fellow we thought a heap of, but then he got drunk and tried
to burn down the house. Geraldine was going on sixteen, a year older than
me, and nice to look at, both of us were that, when she got it into her head
to marry a man who'd run the place with papa. But where we were there wasn't
much to choose from. Mama gave us our schooling, what of it we had, and the
closest town was ten miles. That was the town of Youfry, called after a
family; the slogan was You Won't Fry In Youfry: because it was up a mountain
and well-to-do people went there in the summer. So the summer I'm thinking
of Geraldine got waitress work at the Lookout Hotel in Youfry. I used to
hitch a ride in on Saturdays and stay the night with her. This was the first
either of us had ever been away from home. Geraldine didn't care about it
particular, town life, but as for me I looked toward those Saturdays like
each of them was Christmas and my birthday rolled into one. There was a
dancing pavilion, it didn't cost a cent, the music was free and the colored
lights. I'd help Geraldine with her work so we could go there all the
sooner; we'd run hand in hand down the street, and I used to start dancing
before I got my breath-never had to wait for a partner, there were five boys
to every girl, and we were the prettiest girls anyway. I wasn't boy-crazy
especially, it was the dancing-sometimes everyone would stand still to watch
me waltz, and I never got more than a glimpse of my partners, they changed
so fast. Boys would follow us to the hotel, then call under our window Come
out! Come out! and sing, so silly they were-Geraldine almost lost her job.
Well we'd lie awake considering the night in a practical way. She was not
romantic, my sister; what concerned her was which of our beaux was surest to
make things easier out home. It was Dan Rainey she decided on. He was older
than the others, twenty-five, a man, not handsome in the face, he had jug
ears and freckles and not much chin, but Dan Rainey, oh he was smart in his
own steady way and strong enough to lift a keg of nails. End of summer he
came out home and helped bring in the wheat. Papa liked him from the first,
and though mama said Geraldine was too young, she didn't make any ruckus
about it. I cried at the wedding, and thought it was because the nights at
the dancing pavilion were over, and because Geraldine and I would never lie
cozy in the same bed again. But as soon as Dan Rainey took over everything
seemed to go right; he brought out the best in the land and maybe the best
in us. Except when winter came on, and we'd be sitting round the fire,
sometimes the heat, something made me feel just faint. I'd go stand in the
yard with only my dress on, it was like I couldn't feel the cold because I'd
become a piece of it, and I'd close my eyes, waltz round and round, and one
night, I didn't hear him sneaking up, Dan Rainey caught me in his arms and
danced me for a joke. Only it wasn't such a joke. He had feelings for me;
way back in my head I'd known it from the start. But he didn't say it, and I
never asked him to; and it wouldn't have come to anything provided Geraldine
hadn't lost her baby. That was in the spring. She was mortally afraid of
snakes, Geraldine, and it was seeing one that did it; she was collecting
eggs, it was only a chicken snake, but it scared her so bad she dropped her
baby four months too soon. I don't know what happened to her-got cross and
mean, got where she'd fly out about anything. Dan Rainey took the worst of
it; he kept out of her way as much as he could; used to roll himself in a
blanket and sleep down in the wheatfield. I knew if I stayed there-so I went
to Youfry and got Geraldine's old job at the hotel. The dancing pavilion, it
was the same as the summer before, and I was even prettier: one boy nearly
killed another over who was going to buy me an orangeade. I can't say I
didn't enjoy myself, but my mind wasn't on it; at the hotel they asked where
was my mind-always filling the sugar bowl with salt, giving people spoons to
cut their meat. I never went home the whole summer. When the time came-it
was such a day as this, a fall day blue as eternity-I didn't let them know I
was coming, just got out of the coach and walked three miles through the
wheat stacks till I found Dan Rainey. He didn't speak a word, only plopped
down and cried like a baby. I was that sorry for him, and loved him more
than tongue can tell."
Her cigarette had gone out. She seemed to have lost track of the story;
or worse, thought better of finishing it. I wanted to stamp and whistle, the
way rowdies do at the picture-show when the screen goes unexpectedly blank;
and Riley, though less bald about it, was impatient too. He struck a match
for her cigarette: starting at the sound, she remembered her voice again,
but it was as if, in the interval, she'd traveled far ahead.
"So papa swore he'd shoot him. A hundred times Geraldine said tell us
who it was and Dan here'll take a gun after him. I laughed till I cried;
sometimes the other way round. I said well I had no idea; there were five or
six boys in Youfry could be the one, and how was I to know? Mama slapped my
face when I said that. But they believed it; even after a while I think Dan
Rainey believed it-wanted to anyway, poor unhappy fellow. All those months
not stirring out of the house; and in the middle of it papa died. They
wouldn't let me go to the funeral, they were so ashamed for anyone to see.
It happened this day, with them off at the burial and me alone in the house
and a sandy wind blowing rough as an elephant, that I got in touch with God.
I didn't by any means deserve to be Chosen: up till then, mama'd had to coax
me to leam my Bible verses; afterwards, I memorized over a thousand in less
than three months. Well I was practicing a tune on the piano, and suddenly a
window broke, the whole room turned topsy-turvy, then fell together again,
and someone was with me, papa's spirit I thought; but the wind died down
peaceful as spring-He was there, and standing as He made me, straight, I
opened my arms to welcome Him. That was twenty-six years ago last February
the third; I was sixteen, I'm forty-two now, and I've never wavered. When I
had my baby I didn't call Geraldine or Dan Rainey or anybody, only lay there
whispering my verses one after the other and not a soul knew Danny was born
till they heard him holler. It was Geraldine named him that. He was hers,
everyone thought so, and people round the countryside rode over to see her
new baby, brought presents, some of them, and the men hit Dan Rainey on the
back and told him what a fine son he had. Soon as I was able I moved thirty
miles away to Stoneville, that's a town double the size of Youfry and where
they have a big mining camp. Another girl and I, we started a laundry, and
did a good business on account of in a mining town there's mostly bachelors.
About twice a month I went home to see Danny; I was seven years going back
and forth; it was the only pleasure I had, and a strange one, considering
how it tore me up every time: such a beautiful boy, there's no describing.
But Geraldine died for me to touch him: if I kissed him she'd come near to
jumping out of her skin; Dan Rainey wasn't much different, he was so scared
I wouldn't leave well enough alone. The last time I ever was home I asked
him would he meet me in Youfry. Because for a crazy long while I'd had an
idea, which was: if I could live it again, if I could bear a child that
would be a twin to Danny. But I was wrong to think it could have the same
father. It would've been a dead child, bom dead: I looked at Dan Rainey (it
was the coldest day, we sat by the empty dancing pavilion, I remember he
never took his hands out of his pockets) and sent him away without saying
why it was I'd asked him to come. Then years spent hunting the likeness of
him. One of the miners in Stoneville, he had the same freckles, yellow eyes;
a goodhearted boy, he obliged me with Sam, my oldest. As best I recall,
Beth's father was a dead ringer for Dan Rainey; but being a girl, Beth
didn't favor Danny. I forget to tell you that I'd sold my share of the
laundry and gone to Texas-had restaurant work in Amarillo and Dallas. But it
wasn't until I met Mr. Honey that I saw why the Lord had chosen me and what
my task was to be. Mr. Honey possessed the True Word; after I heard him
preach that first time I went round to see him: we hadn't talked twenty
minutes than he said I'm going to marry you provided you're not married
a'ready. I said no I'm not married, but I've got some family? fact is, there
was five by then. Didn't faze him a bit We got married a week later on
Valentine's Day. He wasn't a young man, and he didn't look a particle like
Dan Rainey; stripped of his boots he couldn't make it to my shoulder; but
when the Lord brought us together He knew certain what He was doing: we had
Roy, then Pearl and Kate and Cleo and Little Homer -most of them born in
that wagon you saw up there. We traveled all over the country carrying His
Word to folks who'd never heard it before, not the way my man could tell it.
Now I must mention a sad circumstance, which is: I lost Mr. Honey. One
morning, this was in a queer part of Louisiana, Cajun parts, he walked off
down the road to buy some groceries: you know we never saw him again. He
disappeared right into thin air. I don't give a hoot what the police say; he
wasn't the kind to run out on his family; no sir it was foul play."
"Or amnesia," I said. "You forget everything, even your own name."
"A man with the whole Bible on the tip of his tongue- would you say he
was liable to forget something like his name? One of them Cajuns murdered
him for his amethyst ring. Naturally I've known men since then; but not
love. Lillie Ida, Laurel, the other kids, they happened like. Seems somehow
I can't get on without another life kicking under my heart: feel so sluggish
otherwise."
When the children were dressed, some with their clothes inside out, we
returned to the tree where the older girls, bending over the fire, dried and
combed their hair. In our absence Dolly had cared for the baby; she seemed
now not to want to give it back: "I wish one of us had had a baby, my sister
or Catherine," and Sister Ida said yes, it was entertaining and a
satisfaction too. We sat finally in a circle around the fire. The stew was
too hot to taste, which perhaps accounted for its thorough success, and the
Judge, who had to serve it in rotation, for there were only three cups, was
full of gay stunts and nonsense that exhilarated the children: Texaco
Gasoline decided she'd made a mistake-the Judge, not Riley, was her papa,
and the Judge rewarded her with a trip to the moon, swung her, that is, high
over his head: Some flocked south, Some flocked west. You go flying after
the rest. Away! Awheel Sister Ida said say you're pretty strong. Of course
he lapped it up, all but asked her to feel his muscles. Every quarter-minute
he peeked to see if Dolly were admiring him. She was.
The croonings of a ringdove wavered among the long last lances of
sunlight. Chill green, blues filtered through the air as though a rainbow
had dissolved around us. Dolly shivered: "There's a storm nearby. I've had
the notion all day." I looked at Riley triumphantly: hadn't I told him?
"And it's getting late," said Sister Ida. "Buck, Homer- you boys chase
up to the wagon. Gracious knows who's come along and helped themselves.
Not," she added, watching her sons vanish on the darkening path, "that
there's a whole lot to take, nothing much except my sewing machine. So,
Dolly? Have you..."
"We've discussed it," said Dolly turning to the Judge for confirmation.
"You'd win your case in court, no question of it," he said, very
professional. "For once the law would be on the right ride. As matters
stand, however..."
Dolly said, "As matters stand," and pressed into Sister Ida's hand the
forty-seven dollars which constituted our cash asset; in addition, she gave
her the Judge's big gold watch. Contemplating these gifts. Sister Ida shook
her head as though she should refuse them. "It's wrong. But I thank you."
A light thunder rolled through the woods, and in the perilous quiet of
its wake Buck and Little Homer burst upon the path like charging cavalry.
"They're coming! They're coming!" both got out at once, and Little Homer,
pushing back his hat, gasped: "We ran all the way."
"Make sense, boy: who?"
Little Homer swallowed. "Those fellows. The Sheriff one, and r don't
know how many more. Coming down through the grass. With guns, too."
Thunder rumbled again; tricks of wind rustled our fire.
"All right now," said the Judge, assuming command. "Everybody keep
their heads." It was as though he'd planned for this moment, and he rose to
it, I do concede, gloriously. "The women, you little kids, get up in the
treehouse. Riley, see that the rest of you scatter out, shinny up those
other trees and take a load of rocks." When we'd followed these directions,
he alone remained on the ground; firm-jawed, he stayed there guarding the
tense twilighted silence like a captain who will not abandon bis drowning
ship.
Five of us roosted in the sycamore tree that overhung the path. Little
Homer was there, and his brother Buck, a scowling boy with rocks in either
hand. Across the way, straddling the limbs of a second sycamore, we could
see Riley surrounded by the older girls: in (he deepening burnished light
their white faces glimmered like candle-lanterns. I thought I felt a rain
drop: it was a bead of sweat slipping along my cheek; still, and though the
thunder lulled, a smell of rain intensified the odor of leaves and
woodsmoke. The overloaded tree-house gave an evil creak; from my vantage
point, its tenants seemed a single creature, a many-legged, many-eyed spider
upon whose head Dolly's hat sat perched like a velvet crown.
In our tree everybody pulled out the kind of tin whistles Riley had
bought from Little Homer: good to give the devil a scare. Sister Ida had
said. Then Little Homer took off his huge hat and, removing from its vast
interior what was perhaps God's Washline, a thick long rope, at any rate,
proceeded to make a sliding noose. As he tested its efficiency, stretched
and tightened the knot, his steely miniature spectacles cast such a menacing
sparkle that, edging away, I put the distance of another branch between us.
The Judge, patrolling below, hissed to stop moving around up there; it was
his last order before the invasion began.
The invaders themselves made no pretense at stealth. Swinging their
rifles against the undergrowth like canecutters, they swaggered up the path,
nine, twelve, twenty strong. First, Junius Candle, his Sheriff's star
winking in the dusk; and after him, Big Eddie Stover, whose squint-eyed
search of our hiding places reminded me of those newspaper picture puzzles;
find five boys and an owl in this drawing of a tree. It requires someone
cleverer than Big Eddie Stover. He looked straight at me, and through me.
Not many of that gang would have troubled you with their braininess: good
for nothing but a lick of salt and swallow of beer most of them. Except I
recognized Mr. Hand, the principal at school, a decent enough fellow taken
all around, no one, you would have thought, to involve himself in such
shabby company on so shameful an errand. Curiosity explained the attendance
of Amos Legrand; he was there, and silent for once: no wonder: as though he
were a walking-stick, Verena was leaning a hand on his head, which came not
quite to her hip. A grim Reverend Buster ceremoniously supported her other
arm. When I saw Verena I felt a numbed reliving of the terror I'd known
when, after my mother's death, she'd come to our house to claim me. Despite
what seemed a lameness, she moved with her customary tall authority and,
accompanied by her escorts, stopped under our sycamore.
The Judge didn't give an inch; toe to toe with the Sheriff, he stood
his ground as if there were a drawn line he dared the other to cross.
It was at this crucial moment that I noticed Little Homer. He gradually
was lowering his lasso. It crawled, dangled like a snake, the wide noose
open as a pair of jaws, then fell, with an expert snap, around the neck of
the Reverend Buster, whose strangling outcry Little Homer stifled by giving
the rope a mighty tug.
His friends hadn't long to consider old Buster's predicament, his
blood-gorged face and flailing arms; for Little Homer's success inspired an
all-out attack: rocks flew, whistles shrilled like the shriekings of savage
birds, and the men, pummeling each other in the general rout, took refuge
where they could, principally under the bodies of comrades already fallen.
Verena had to box Amos Legrand's ears: he tried to sneak up under her skirt.
She alone, you might say, behaved like a real man: shook her fists at the
trees and cursed us blue.
At the height of the din, a shot slammed like an iron door. It quelled
us all, the serious endless echo of it; but in the hush that followed we
heard a weight come crashing through the opposite sycamore.
It was Riley, falling; and falling: slowly, relaxed as a killed cat.
Covering their eyes, the girls screamed as he struck a branch and splintered
it, hovered, like the torn leaves, then in a bleeding heap hit the ground.
No one moved toward him.
Until at last the Judge said, "Boy, my boy," and in a trance sank to
his knees; he caressed Riley's limp hands. "Have mercy. Have mercy, son:
answer." Other men, sheepish and frightened, closed round; some offered
advice which the Judge seemed unable to comprehend. One by one we dropped
down from the trees, and the children's gathering whisper is he dead? is he
dead? was like the moan, the delicate roar of a sea-trumpet Doffing their
hats respectfully, the men made an aisle for Dolly; she was too stunned to
take account of them, or of Verena, whom she passed without seeing.
"I want to know," said Verena, in tones that summoned attention,
"...which of you fools fired that gun?"
The men guardedly looked each other over: too many of them fixed on Big
Eddie Stover. His jowls trembled, he licked his lips: "Hell, I never meant
to shoot nobody; was doing my duty, that's all."
"Not all," Verena severely replied. "I hold you responsible, Mr.
Stover."
At this Dolly turned round; her eyes, vague beyond the veiling, seemed
to frame Verena in a gaze that excluded everyone else. "Responsible? No one
is that; except ourselves."
Sister Ida had replaced the Judge at Riley's side; she completely
stripped off his shirt. "Thank your stars, it's his shoulder," she said, and
the relieved sighs. Big Eddie's alone, would have floated a kite. "He's
fairly knocked out, though. Some of you fellows better get him to a doctor."
She stopped Riley's bleeding with a bandage torn off his shirt. The Sheriff
and three of his men locked arms, making a litter on which to carry him. He
was not the only one who had to be carried; the Reverend Buster had also
come to considerable grief: loose-limbed as a puppet, and too weak to know
the noose still hung around his neck, he needed several assistants to get up
the path. Little Homer chased after him: "Hey, hand me back my rope!"
Amos Legrand waited to accompany Verena; she told him to go without her
as she had no intention of leaving unless Dolty-hesitating, she looked at
the rest of us, Sister Ida in particular; "I would like to speak with my
sister alone."
With a wave of her hand that quite dismissed Verena, Sister Ida said,
"Never mind, lady. We're on our way." She hugged Dolly. "Bless us, we love
you. Don't we, kids?" Little Homer said, "Come with us. Dolly. We'll have
such good times. I'll give you my sparkle belt." And Texaco Gasoline threw
herself upon the Judge, pleading for him to go with them, too. Nobody seemed
to want me.
"I'll always remember that you asked me," said Dolly, her eyes hurrying
as though to memorize the children's faces. "Good luck. Good-bye. Run now,"
she raised her voice above new and nearer thunder, "run, it's raining."
It was a tickling feathery rain fine as a gauze curtain, and as they
faded into the folds of it. Sister Ida and her family, Verena said: "Do I
understand you've been conniving with that-woman? After she made a mockery
of our name?"
"I don't think you can accuse me of conniving with anyone," Dolly
answered serenely. "Especially not with bullies who," she a little lost
control, "steal from children and drag old women into jail. I can't set much
store by a name that endorses such methods. It ought to be a mockery."
Verena received this without flinching. "You're not yourself," she
said, as if it were a clinical opinion.
"You'd best look again: I am myself." Dolly seemed to pose for
inspection. She was as tall as Verena, as assured; nothing about her was
incomplete or blurred. "I've taken your advice: stopped hanging my head, I
mean. You told me it made you dizzy. And not many days ago," she continued,
"you told me that you were ashamed of me. Of Catherine. So much of our lives
had been lived for you; it was painful to realize the waste that had been.
Can you know what it is, such a feeling of waste?"
Scarcely audible, Verena said, "I do know," and it was as if her eyes
crossed, peered inward upon a stony vista. It was the expression I'd seen
when, spying from the attic, I'd watched her late at night brooding over the
Kodak pictures of Maudie Laura Murphy, Maudie Laura's husband and children.
She swayed, she put a hand on my shoulder; except for that, I think she
might have fallen.
"I imagined I would go to my dying day with the hurt of it. I won't.
But it's no satisfaction, Verena, to say that I'm ashamed of you, too."
It was night now; frogs, sawing infects celebrated the slow-falling
rain. We dimmed as though the wetness had snuffed the light of our faces.
Verena sagged against me. "I'm not well," she said in a skeleton voice. "I'm
a sick woman, I am. Dolly."
Somewhat unconvinced. Dolly approached Verena, presently touched her,
as though her fingers could sense the truth. "Collin," she said, "Judge,
please help me with her into the tree." Verena protested that she couldn't
go climbing trees; but once she got used to the idea she went up easily
enough. The raftlike tree-house seemed to be floating over shrouded Vaporish
waters; it was dry there, however, for the mild rain had not penetrated the
parasol of leaves. We drifted in a current of silence until Verena said, "I
have something to say, Dolly. I could say it more easily if we were alone."
The Judge crossed his arms. "I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me.
Miss Verena." He was emphatic, though not belligerent "I have an interest in
the outcome of what you might have to say."
"I doubt that: how so?" she said, recovering to a degree her exalted
manner.
He lighted a stub of candle, and our sudden shadows stooped over us
like four eavesdroppers. "I don't like talking in the dark," he said. There
was a purpose in the proud erectness of his posture: it was, I thought, to
let Verena know she was dealing with a man, a fact too few men in her
experience had enough believed to assert. She found it unforgivable. "You
don't remember, do you, Charlie Cool? Fifty years ago, more maybe. Some of
you boys came blackberry stealing out at our place. My father caught your
cousin Seth, and I caught you. It was quite a licking you got that day."
The Judge did remember; he blushed, smiled, said: "You didn't fight
fair, Verena."
"I fought fair," she told him drily. "But you're right-since neither of
us like it, let's not talk in the dark. Frankly, Charlie, you're not a
welcome sight to me. My sister couldn't have gone through such tommyrot if
you hadn't been goading her on. So I'll thank you to leave us; it can be no
further affair of yours."
"But it is," said Dolly. "Because Judge Cool, Charlie..." she dwindled,
appeared for the first time to question her boldness.
"Dolly means that I have asked her to marry me."
"That," Verena managed after some suspenseful seconds, "is," she said,
regarding her gloved hands, "remarkable. Very. I wouldn't have credited
either of you with so much imagination. Or is it that I am imagining? Quite
likely I'm dreaming of myself in a wet tree on a thundery night. Except I
never have dreams, or perhaps I only forget them. This one I suggest we all
forget."
"I'll own up: I think it is a dream. Miss Verena. But a man who doesn't
dream is like a man who doesn't sweat: he stores up a lot of poison."
She ignored him; her attention was with Dolly, Dolly's with her: they
might have been alone together, two persons at far ends of a bleak room,
mutes communicating in an eccentric sign-language, subtle shifting of the
eye; and it was as though, then. Dolly gave an answer, one that sapped all
color from Verena's face. "I see. You've accepted him, have you?"
The rain had thickened, fish could have swum through the air; like a
deepening scale of piano notes, it struck its blackest chord, and drummed
into a downpour that, though it threatened, did not at once reach us:
drippings leaked through the leaves, but the tree-house stayed a dry seed in
a soaking plant. The Judge put a protective hand over the candle; he waited
as anxiously as Verena for Dolly's reply. My impatience equaled theirs, yet
I felt exiled from the scene, again a spy peering from the attic, and my
sympathies, curiously, were nowhere; or rather, everywhere: a tenderness for
all three ran together like raindrops, I could not separate them, they
expanded into a human oneness.
Dolly, too. She could not separate the Judge from Verena. At last,
excruciatingly, "I can't," she cried, implying failures beyond calculation.
"I said I would know what was right. But it hasn't happened; I don't know:
do other people? A choice, I thought: to have had a life made of my own
decisions..."
"But we have had our lives," said Verena. "Yours has been nothing to
despise, I don't think you've required more than you've had; I've envied you
always. Come home. Dolly. Leave decisions to me: that, you see, has been my
life."
"Is it true, Charlie?" Dolly asked, as a child might ask where do
falling stars fall? and: "Have we had our lives?"
"We're not dead," he told her; but it was as if, to the questioning
child, he'd said stars fall into space: an irrefutable, still unsatisfactory
answer. Dolly could not accept it: "You don't have to be dead. At home, in
the kitchen, there is a geranium that blooms over and over. Some plants,
though, they bloom just the once, if at all, and nothing more happens to
them. They live, but they've had their life."
"Not you," he said, and brought his face nearer hers, as though he
meant their lips to touch, yet wavered, not daring it. Rain had tunneled
through the branches, it fell full weight; rivulets of it streamed off
Dolly's hat, the veiling clung to her cheeks; with a flutter the candle
failed. "Not me."
Successive strokes of lightning throbbed like veins of fire, and
Verena, illuminated in that sustained glare, was not anyone I knew; but some
woman woebegone, wasted-with eyes once more drawn toward each other, their
stare settled on an inner territory, a withered country; as the lightning
lessened, as the hum of rain sealed us in its multiple sounds, she spoke,
and her voice came so weakly from so very far, not expecting, it seemed, to
be heard at all. "Envied you. Dolly. Your pink room. I've only knocked at
the doors of such rooms, not often Х-enough to know that now there is no one