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.