At mid-morning Ellen was busy. “I declare at this iron, it’s so light.” She skimmed over the clothes swiftly, laid them folded and smooth on the newspaper-covered table.
“It sure is a help having you here, Ellen.” Mom was mending, a wicker basket beside her. “Makes me feel old though, not doing my own work.”
“Only I forget about the cord and keep walking off with the iron.”
The kitchen door slammed. “It’s me,” Dan’s voice shouted. The sound of running water came.
“You’ll see, he’s had trouble with the tractor,” Mom said.
“The tractor turned over on me.” His voice was muffled. “Cut myself.”
“That suits you fine, Dan,” Mom called. “He can play now. Nothing suits him like when some piece of equipment won’t work and he can get his head under it. Rather do that than work.”
“You don’t have to shout. I hear you.” Dan appeared in the doorway, rubbing his face with a white turkish towel, a gash on his browned forehead. He was shaking his head, cocky. “Ellen, you think my family’s crazy?”
When she was washing the supper dishes she heard the tinny sound of the piano in the sitting room. Simon was behind her at the kitchen table leafing through his new schoolbooks, waiting for her. “Wonder who that is playing?” she asked him.
“That’s Dan. I’ve ne’er heard that song, Ma.” Simon smiled, his blue eyes curious.
She put the plates away. “It’s right melancholy.”
A spanish cavalier stood in his retreat And on his guitar played a tune, dear The music so sweet would ofttimes repeat The blessings of my country and you, dear
O say, darling say, when I’m far away Sometimes you may think of me, dear Bright sunny days will soon fade away Remember what I say and be true, dear
Ellen was hanging up the dishcloth. “Let’s go hear the music.”
“Can we?”
“This is our home,” she said with dignity, “while we’re here.”
From his easy chair, Sudduth was bemoaning, “We’ve got to clean out the barns again. Get it on the fields before plowing. Jesus, we’re going to be strapped with work this year.”
Dan looked up at Ellen as she came in, his eyes golden in his lined dark face. “Wish it would rain liquid manure for a whole week. Save us some trouble.” His lean fingers ran over the keys tenderly.
She sat down in the rocker by the windows. On the table beside her was a tall glass bell, exhibiting underneath a stuffed red bird with black wings and tail, its eyes bright glass. Ellen was looking down at her hands in her lap. She had an inflexible manner about her, seldom laughing easily even with her son. It was as if she had been bruised once and armed herself against a recurrence. And when she would make her hair into braids in the morning, winding, and fastening with tortoise shell pins, she would pull tightly. There was an unconscious satisfaction to the act as though it were easing a guilt. Ellen held herself at times almost like one righteous. She was glancing at the scarlet tanager under the bell, wondering who had shot it. Vaguely she was listening to the words the man sang. They differed from those Penny had taught Ellen.
When your heart was mine, true love And your head lay on my breast You could make me believe By the falling of your arm That the sun rose up in the west
22
The weather turned brisk, the temperature fell, the dew had frozen in a white sprinkle. Mouths of animals and men steamed. The excavation for the cellar of the new house had been completed, a square gash in a rise of land at the far end of the farm. “Now let it freeze,” Mom was saying. “They can still lay cinder-block.”
“It’s like a dream come true,” said Adele, “them building our house. Land.”
The little girls had spread old mail-order catalogs on the kitchen floor. They cut and snipped, squabbling. “It’th mine. You shut up, booby.”
“You see, Mom?” Adele pleaded. “It’s not right you should have to put up with this commotion.”
Ellen was savoring the friendly companionship of the two women. The girls she had known—her sister, Lily Garrett, even Amanda York—had been younger than she. And they had leaned on her. She could never look up to them or turn to them for advice. There was a freshness in her relationship with these older women.
“Just wait till Ellen sees my roses, Adele. They’re a sight, all pink and white.”
“You know, Ellen, Pop can tell to the exact how many flowers each bush has every year,” Adele said.
“Keeps it in his head.”
They worked, their hands busy in the baking, they talked idly, “He’ll say, this white rose had only fifty-one buds last year.”
“Every rose, he’ll count.”
The cold air rushed in as the door opened. “There. That cake fell,” said Mom. “Land o’ Goshen, I’m peeved.” Dan came in, leading Simon, who was tear-stained. “You will slam doors on baking day, Dan.”
“Dammit. Sorry, Mom. He bumped his knee, Ellen. Fell down.”
Simon was pulling his torn pants leg up to reveal a soiled bruise. He held his tongue between his lips; phlegm was dripping from his nose. “Hit don’t hurt now,” he mourned. Ellen washed the wound. Her mind was apart from the accident. Wonder why Dan came in with Simon. He needn’t have. Simon’s ten and not a baby. Maybe Dan’s thinking on me. I don’t want him. Nor any man. She was wrapping the strip of cloth about the knee.
Dan was lighting one of his hand-rolled cigarettes. “Press my suit today, Mom, will you? I’m taking Star to the grange dance.”
“All right, Dan.”
As the two went out Mom shouted, “And don’t slam it.”
“Star’s his girl,” Adele was telling Ellen. “She’s lots younger than him.”
“Oh I don’t know,” Mom said. “She’s nearly nineteen.”
“And Dan’s over forty.”
“Wish they’d set the date,” said Mom. “Keeps me on edge.”
“You think Star’ll settle down to being a farmer’s wife?” Adele asked. “After all, she’s used to a maid doing the work. Why, I bet she can’t cook even.”
“She loves him. That’s what counts.”
“She’s an only child. She gets whatever she wants.”
“Star’s so pretty,” Mom told Ellen.
“Her folks have spoiled her,” said Adele. “But Dan’s crazy about her.”
“Marrying will settle her. She’s the nicest looking girl in the countryside.” Mom was complacent.
“Dan wants his bull to have the best blood lines. He’s got to have the latest machinery, the newest hybrid seed.” Adele sawed the air with a flour-streaked hand. “I wouldn’t be his wife.”
“Well, you’ve got Sudduth.”
“Praise the Lord,” Adele was laughing, an edge to her voice.
“When are they getting married?” Ellen asked, quiet in her relief, detached.
“Didn’t I tell you there might be a big event this fall? The date’s not fixed, but when the house is built, there’ll be nothing to stop them.”
“Sudduth figures that’s why Dan’s in such a stew to get the cellar dug.”
“Now there. I forgot the eggs,” Mom was saying. “They have to be gathered at ten, two, and after supper. Maybe you’d better take over that job too, Ellen.”
* * * * *
Every Saturday afternoon Ellen would find an envelope on her dresser, in it four and a half dollars. When she laid them in her drawer she felt a wealth and a peace. She was moving less uncertainly in the new household. She was the hired girl and the value set on her talents gave her a self-respect. On Sundays, Pop, Mom, Adele and the three children would go to the Presbyterian church in Hidden Creek, Adele driving the Dodge car. Sudduth and Dan would work on the new house. Ellen walked out with Simon to see the farm, for during the week she was too busy. Simon showed her the gray horses he groomed and she patted sleek brown-and-white cows, fastened in metal stanchions, munching hay, their tongues curling about the wisps. “Aren’t those stalls modern, Ma?” They passed the hog lot where white-banded pigs were squealing and snuffling at a trough of water in the cement lot. “They’re not dish-faced like Granddaddy’s pigs.”
“I see they’re not. They’re a different kind.” The shouts of the men were faint on the air, mingled with the low lonesome bawl of the new bull. Some day I’ll tell Simon what Pa did. And why we had to leave.
“Wonder how little Rhodie is, Ma?”
“Oh, Simon.”
“And fat old Pie. And Leona. If their hoofs are cut regular.”
“I don’t know. You still honing after them?” Reckon I’ll tell him sometime what Pa did to my goats, cutting their throats. “You miss your granddaddy?” She was looking off to the bowl of sky. The far calls floated and echoed in it.
“Reckon he was e’er good to me.”
“It’s nice here, on this place.”
“And there was old Jack. I set store by him.”
“Dennie’s feist is pretty.”
“He’s a scrappy thing.”
“Well.” They walked back.
* * * * *
Dan wore a white shirt on Saturday nights, with a blue detachable collar. He knotted on a brash necktie and brushed his shoes, stood at the doorway to the sitting room where the family convened. He seemed older to Ellen when dressed in the brown suit, his lean body pinched into tight cloth, the tough skin of his face emphasized. He was leaning against the frame, the birthmark a dull red. He tapped tobacco into thin paper, licked the edge, twirled the ends, all in a quick motion. “How’s this tie, Ellen? Too loud? Think my girl will take a second look?”