Upstairs, Ellen was standing in the middle of the room, shaken, uncontrolled. She turned abruptly to the trunk along the wall and dragged open the heavy lid. She rummaged through the contents until she came on the two undelivered letters she had written Christian Ay. She ripped them into shreds in a heap on the floor. “I hate Lily and Craig and all the ugly ways of folks.”
When she came down, her face appeared smoothed and untouched. But she was holding her head in such a way that when Anton saw her going to the woodshed, he crossed himself and muttered, “There, I thought it was you, Ma.”
* * * * *
Simon was in the fourth grade. Every morning found him trudging three miles to the school on the Millville Pike. Until the weather turned cold he would go barefoot, for catalog shoes cost a dollar thirty-nine. He went down the lane in the flat morning sunlight, talking to the dog. He carried his lunch in a lard bucket. Holes were punched in its tin lid and it contained a bunch of concord grapes and biscuits spread with jelly. “Stay, Jack.” The dog’s movements were stiff. He settled on the bank amid blue-flowered chicory, head on forepaws, brown eyes fixed on the retreating figure. A tufted titmouse whistled in a cottonwood along the road. “Peet-O. Peet-O!” It joined the chickadees and nuthatches that trooped in the upper branches.
In the afternoon Simon returned late, scarcely recognizable, upper lip swollen, dry blood caked on his face. The skin was puffing out around one eye, the sleeve of his shirt was torn. Anton caught sight of him coming up the lane and ran shouting, “What is it, Poppet?”
Simon halted, scuffling his feet; he began to whine.
“Speak up, son.”
“That fellow mocked me.” Simon was sniffling and as he was led to the house, his voice rose to a wail.
Ellen called from the window, “What ails him, Pa?” She came out the door, shading her face, hurrying down the steps in the sweet-scented fall air.
“He’s not going back to that school.” Anton’s face was hot, his breath thick as he passed her, leading the child. “Crapping bastards are about to kill him.”
Ellen followed into the kitchen. Anton was lifting Simon to the table. “Get a pan of water,” he told Maria. He removed the boy’s shirt, examined his lip.
“Pa. You can see he’s been fighting. Let’s find what happened.”
“We’ll send you to the parochial school. Like decent Catholics. Your ma’s let you run amuck.”
“Please, Pa.”
“The heathen can kill him before you give a care.”
“Simon.” But the boy had fastened his frightened eyes on his grandfather, clinging to the harried look on the man’s face. Ellen turned away, inarticulate. Later, she was in the shed, milking her goats. Simon shuffled in, stood at the pen gate. The goats nibbled his shirt buttons and rubbed against him as he was stroking them.
“I slopped the pigs and watered the team, Ma.” She waited. He was speaking again, “Reckon Leona’s least kid will have horns or not?”
“Simon, what happened today at school?”
“Looks to me like she’s a muley one.” He bent over the kid, moving the skin on the top of its head with his finger. “If horns were sprouting, it wouldn’t move free like that.”
Ellen got up from the stool to strain the milk into a can. She began to draw the white streams from another doe.
The boy said suddenly, “Granddaddy takes care of me.”
She looked at him to see his eyes cold upon her. He was fingering his enlarged lip. She was startled. He’s turning from me. Pa’s getting hold of him. She put her head against the soft warm side of the spotted doe.
“Granddaddy frets about me.”
“Tell how you got in the fight, or I’ll whip you for a fact.”
His eyes were down. “There’s a game at recess. We use a ball belonging to that Penn Hamm. He stores it in the drawer of his desk. Time and again I asked him could I take it home for one night. But he wouldn’t say yes.” Simon looked up. One eye was nearly shut, the bruised skin blue.
“So?”
“I studied on it and hankered after it. Yesterday I slipped it from his desk and put it in my pocket. After school was out.”
“You could have had a ball if you’d told me.”
“I wanted that ball.”
“What then?”
“Penn said I snitched it, and I said I didn’t. He sat under the tree and called me bastard Gaddy brat.”
“You stole his ball, Simon. He was angered. And folks used to call me a Gaddy brat. Some still do, and I don’t care.”
“He called me that. He laid for me coming home. I wrestled him for it but he got his ball back.”
“Why, Simon?”
“I wanted it.” His eyes were like small empty caves. “And I lost my lard pail too.”
The night meal was pregnant with unspoken words. Then as Anton was leaving the kitchen he told Ellen, “I’ll take him to the sisters tomorrow.” She looked at him from where she was sitting. His short body leaned against the door casing. “Why I even got to jump on him to say the Lord’s Prayer right.” He cut a slice of apple tobacco with his slender knife. “Trespasses, he says, like heathen. The school taught him that. The Lord said debtors. Forgive us our debtors.” He walked softly into the other room.
Simon was sent to bed. Ellen came into the parlor. “Pa, this isn’t right. Simon stole that Hamm youngen’s ball. He’s got to learn. He should go back and own up. He’s nine and he knows right from wrong. You’re always preaching the Bible and this is the time to stand by what it says.”
“Haw. I’ll say a thing here, girl.” He was speaking fast, harsh. “He has no daddy, since you begot him in whoredom. Now I let him come here like a son. I look on him so. Don’t stand against me.”
“It was the same with Frankie. You pulled her out of school too. You know it.”
“You’re mourning because I didn’t take you out.” Anton rolled the quid in his mouth, continuing gently, “You know, this boy’s a good bit like my brother, Marc. Minds me of him.” He settled into a chair. “Some way Ma favored Marc o’er Garland and me.”
“I know why.”
“What do you know?” he drawled.
“He was handsome. Not ugly like you.”
“How come you say that?”
“I know somewhat else.”
“Speak hit.”
“He wasn’t your full brother. Nell Gaddy ne’er wanted you or Uncle. That’s a fact.”
“What?” he roared.
“She married your sir because she got caught. Like me with Simon.” Ellen moved to stand over him, by his chair. “She ne’er wanted you, I say. She loved Marc for his daddy’s sake.”
The man rose like an unleashed bull. He struck her so she reeled against the sofa. “I’ll kill you for that lying tongue.”
She slipped from his hands, ran outside, down the path through the hill field to the orchard. She stopped running there. Night fog was drifting in low spots, the sky was clouded. She leaned against a twisted apple tree until she seemed composed. Her face became like the glass of the pond where there was no wind and mist was caught above. Later she wended up to the house to sit on the damp garden wall, waiting until the kitchen and the bedroom candles flicked out.
In the morning, as she was pumping water into the blue pail, Anton went by to the house. He looked past her as if she were not there. She had told Simon earlier that he must go back to the Millville school, knowing Anton would refute her word. But she went through the motions, she hunted for a lard pail in the pantry, made up the lunch. She saw her fingers were shaking. The boy pushed his chair back and took the lunch pail. Anton said, “You and me are going to the Catholic school, boy. Did you forget? Let’s go harness Moll and Red.”
Simon looked at him. Ellen knew the child was pleased and yet would hide this from her. He said like a question, “Bye now, Ma? I’m going now, Ma?”
Sam was already in the field when Anton came back late in the morning. He was cutting cornstalks, making tall shocks that would cure until the long white ears were garnered. Anton joined him, swinging the heavy blade. “Put my boy in a proper school, Sam.”
And Ellen was planning. She scrawled a letter quickly.
Dear Uncle Garland,
This is a thing I should have done long ago. I have to leave home. Could you find a farmer who would hire me? My boy is 9 now. Wages as deemed fair. Please answer by return post. And obliged.
Ellen
The next few days she moved pallid-faced, watching for the mail car. She gathered honey, lulling the bees with smoke. She cut the combs into a galvanized washtub. The soft stuff oozed and mingled, yellow, black, and amber, in a heavy pool. Some of the comb she let drip free, and laid it in a tree fork for the bees to use again. She fastened the lids back on the hives. While she was doing these things, it was as if her bones might break were her movements too sudden. Then the RFD car was leaving a letter.
Dear Puss,
This is delightful. You know I have opened my Redding Street house again on the north side. I’m a married man now, you see. Are you surprised? Violet and I would be glad to have you and Simon visit with us until you can get a job. You might learn my wife a few things about housework! I am sending ten dollars herewith. Come soon.