“I aim to. I’d like to have a child like yours.” They worked awhile, the murmurs of the other two coming from the end of the bed. “I don’t know if it’s right to tell such a thing on my promised husband, but I knew you long before him.” Lily’s face fired red. “He says you be free with men, Ellie. Says he could name the ones you’ve slept with.”
“There’s lots of tales told, Lily.”
“Says you weren’t even married.”
“The grapes are grapes of gall,” Ellen spoke bravely. “I don’t care.”
“You’re twisting my words, Ellie. But I’ll say more.” The hot sun drenched them, drew the last moisture from the flower bed. Lily’s curls lay straggled on her sun-browned neck and Ellen waited. “I’ll be glad when Craig won’t let me come here to visit you-all. I know he wanted you for a wife. He tells those tales for the hate he bears you. Being as you slighted him.”
“Lily. There was nothing between Craig and me.”
“I’ve seen a little silk rose he keeps. It came off that blue hat you wore when you went to Chicago that time. How’d he come by it?”
“Oh Lily.”
“You won’t tell. And knowing I took what you wouldn’t have, I’d as lief bide away from you.” Lily’s eyes brimmed as she bent over the handful of pale-purple blooms.
Ellen trembled. “If you feel that way.” She was working down the perfumed rows, away from her childhood friend. “I don’t care.”
* * * * *
The visitors were planning to leave the following weekend. Genevieve Wheeler was due at her desk in the Featherbone Works on Monday morning. On Wednesday night Anton awoke to the stutter of thunder. He shuffled barefoot, to close windows in the kitchen and parlor. As he was returning, he stopped a while at the calico curtains of the partitioned room where his daughter and Genevieve slept. He overheard their whispers. Grinding his teeth, he took the cloth in his violent fist. But he released it and went to the bed where Maria was snoring, mouth half open. “Hail, Holy Mary,” he whimpered. He prayed, envisioning his mother Nell, clad in a blue gown like the Virgin, her bright red hair flowing about her shoulders. He wept secretly, fashioning words he would say as he banished Frankie forever.
The night’s rain drew upward to the hot sky. The sticky air was clinging as the family slowly collected for breakfast. Frankie and Genevieve were seated, Maria was placing a dish of fried potatoes on the table before joining them. Ellen had brought a hot skillet of eggs from the stove. She lifted them onto plates with her iron spatula. “I’ll take two, Ellie,” Genevieve cried. “This country air’s given me an appetite.”
“Oh, Gen, you always take two.”
A bumblebee, caught at the glass, was buzzing. Simon ran in. He had washed at the pump and water was dripping from his hands. “Morning, Simon,” said Frankie. “Why does an old maid go to church so early on Sunday? Don’t tell him, Gen.”
“Let’s see, Auntie.” The child studied his egg.
Anton came in. The screen door cracked behind him like a breaking stick. The people turned. He spoke softly to his younger daughter. “The Bible says, were they ashamed when they committed abomination? Nay, they were not. Neither could they blush.” He wiped his face with an arm dusted with chaff of hay and hair of cows. Ellen heard the bee mumble at the glass and her hand, holding the skillet, was tiring. “You be not welcome under my roof now, girl. The Lord God’ll have a reckoning day for you.”
“What’s this all about, Mr. Gaddy?” began Genevieve.
“Shut your jaw. Unnatural ooman.”
Frankie was still, a paleness blanketing her features. She was wearing a high-throated shirtwaist, the color of her hair brilliant against its whiteness. Her linen skirt fitted her small hips. Her hands rested in her lap. Frankie had turned, after months of terror and insecurity in Garland’s house, to the gentle dominion of the older female. The grip of her father’s hand had gradually fallen away and she had begun to think of the home farm as a place in one of the tunes they would sing, nostalgic and typical.
First the farmer sows his seed Then he stands And takes his ease
They were gay in the small Chicago flat. Now the old fear of Anton was absent. She was waiting until he would speak again into the sultry kitchen.
“You be gone.” His voice was a blade cutting a cord. “When Sam and me get back from the wheat this noon. Christ, you be not my daughter any more.” He stalked to the door and out.
“What did Granddaddy say, Mama?” The high whisper spilled into the silence.
“I don’t know,” sighed Ellen.
“Now he ne’er ate his breakfast,” Maria was complaining, “with his fretting. But here comes Sam. He’ll eat good.”
“There’s simply no talking to Pa when he’s set like that, Gen,” Frankie laughed. “He gets so sore.”
“Tell, why does the old maid go so early to church, Auntie?” Simon asked.
“Well, by golly,” said Genevieve, pushing back her chair. “Let’s get to packing.”
Frankie laughed again. “So she can be there when the hymns are given out, silly.” She got up, brushing her skirt. “Oh, Ellie, don’t worry. You know Pa. And we did have our visit. You’ll see, we’ll be back next summer.” Frankie was going to the bedroom.
“Don’t call that much of a riddle,” said Simon. “Don’t get it.”
“You want to go berrying by the lake?” Ellen set the skillet down on the stove. Her voice was unsteady. “They’re real thick, Simon. All you have to do is shake them in the pail. You take Jack for company. Watch out for snakes, mind.”
Sam was coming up the porch as the boy took the lard pail and marched off, his hand on the dog’s back. Simon’s hair was white in the summer sun. His cap, grimy and wrinkled now, perched on his head. Ellen turned to free the imprisoned bee still tumbling at the pane. Maria spoke, “Want these cold eggs, Sam?”
16
Summer had hurled itself on the quailing countryside. The moisture was drawn from the bowels of the land, first from the stony top clay, until finally from the reservoir far below. The few humid clouds were carried away on winds that lived in the upper troposphere and there was no rain. A drought prevailed. As daylight made colors known, an opossum was waddling through the oat field, where stunted stems withered before the white grains could form. It pounced on a fleeing lizard just before Sam Offut shot it cleanly through the skull. He plucked its young, no bigger than a thumbnail, from its nipples and left them in the field. At breakfast he told the Gaddys, “My old ooman’ll bake it. That’s one thing Eadie can do.”
Anton was restless. He walked outdoors, drawing on his cold pipe. “Turning the earth’ll just dry it worse, Sam.”
“No weeds are going to come up anyhow. What’ll we do if it doesn’t rain, Mester Gaddy?”
Simon was watching them from the screen, his nose against the wire. He called, “Granddaddy, which way’s the wind blowing?”
But the men looked at the burning sky. They stood in the yard awhile, then went to the tool shed or scattered old hay to the cows in the dried-up pasture, puttering time away until it should rain. Simon was on the steps talking to the dog. Ellen could hear his singsong. She told Maria, “Simon’s at the aping age. He thinks he’s Sam. Or again he thinks he’s Pa.”
That sweltering noon Anton beat his wife. It had little to do with the drought, although irritation had made his temper short. Anton seldom lifted his arm against Maria ever since a few summers past when she had taken to bed after he struck her. Anton had felt justified at the time, for Maria had been nagging him about the kind of wood for her pap’s coffin. He had given her money enough for a pine box, but she demanded oak. “Oak’s dear, ooman. No more now.” And when he had beat her she was somehow hurt. He had been forced to hire the girl, Penny, to help while his wife was recovering.
Maria was alone in the house in the hot morning. A salesman came to the door, a thin man, wearing a flat-top hat. His striped suit was frayed around the lapels and seams. “Madam, I presume you’re the lady of the house. It’s clear you’re a pious one. I myself am a man of God. I carry the Word.” He was taking a Bible from his worn satchel. It was handsome, gold-embossed, gold-edged. He was showing her how in some sections the first letter was immense, with doves or flowers set into scrolled lines.
Maria coveted it. “But I’ve got no money, Mester.”
“This is such a bargain.”
“If I had the money.”
“Sometimes a farmer will hide money in a mattress. It’s his way. Or again in the rear part of a drawer that he alone uses.”
She began to shake her head, eying him.
“There’s few would think ill of a wife who knew a fine trade. Look at this Good Book.”
She turned the leaves, lingering over the gold letters. “What’s its price?”
“Fifty dollars, Madam. To you, ten.”
“Well.” He sat in the parlor while she found the bills laid in the ticking. She moved her mouth in an inner argument. She took some of them, replaced the roll in the straw. She walked back into the parlor. “Hit seems there be but seven. What do you say, Mester?”
“I’ll make you a special.” He was reaching for the money. “I’ll take it.”