Chapter III: Part 3

The three girls walked a mile down the road to the woods, carrying empty baskets. Amanda had black eyes and black shining hair. She was rosy and lively. “Ask your pa if you can go once to the husking bee. This Saturday.”

“He ne’er would brook it, Mandy.” Frankie was shaking her head.

“There’ll be a sight of folks. From Bethel way and down from Seven Mile Run.”

“Because Pa don’t favor us socializing,” Frankie added.

Amanda tossed her braid. “And a fiddler and a spread of eats.”

“You know Sabatha Withers?” Ellen flushed in the asking.

“I’ll say I do. She’s wild. Boys flock after her like dogs on a rabbit.”

“What?” cried Frankie.

“She sleeps around. Things like that.”

“My.”

“What’s she look like?” asked Ellen.

“Oh, light-set, and got yellow hair like yours, Ellie.”

“Why doesn’t she have a baby,” Frankie asked, “if she sleeps around?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“It’s a mystery,” Frankie sighed.

“Did that Lily Garrett tell you what she did?” Amanda asked.

“You mean sending for that stuff to make her breasts grow?”

“Yes. And what happened.”

“What?”

“Well, she wanted it,” Amanda whispered, “for she’s boy-crazy, Lily is. She’s terrible.”

“I know. She told us.” Frankie giggled. “Men like you big, she said.”

“Well, she waited all summer to hear. We couldn’t figure why it ne’er came. I studied that her pa had got hold of the package some way.”

“Say. Did he?”

“No, last week it came. Just an old envelope. And there was a picture on a card of a man’s hand. It said underneath, Try This. Lily got scared.”

“She should ne’er have sent off, Mandy,” Frankie cried.

“Say, has that Withers girl got a boy friend?” Ellen was asking.

“She’s got plenty, Ellie. There’s always one to take her to doings.”

“Now what if Lily’s papa’d seen it,” Frankie said. “That picture and those words.”

“Wish I could go to that husking bee,” said Ellen. “I’ve got a deal of a desire to go. I might cross my pa and slip out this once.”

“Oh Ellie.” Frankie’s voice was the cheep of a frightened bird. “Don’t say that.”

“Obey thy father and mother.” Amanda spoke cheerfully as they were entering the woods. “Now maybe he’ll say yes this time, Ellie.” They began to gather hickory mast that carpeted the ground. When the baskets were full they walked to Amanda’s home, a saddlebag log house set in an apple orchard. They left two baskets in the passageway between the cabins and climbed to an upstairs room. They shucked Amanda’s nuts, spreading them with brown-stained hands on a carpet of straw. From the rafters hung strings of small ear corn with white pointed kernels that would pop over a fire. And there was a drop cord overhead with a carbon bulb, for the Yorks had electricity.

* * * * *

The sisters took their leave and walked home with the laden baskets. The evening whippoorwills were starting their spasmodic carping. Ellen said, “I’ll make a way to go to that husking bee.”

But at the end of the week Anton brought news so she forgot all about it. He had hauled grain and surplus root crops, Hubbard squashes and pumpkins to Bethel, returning in late afternoon with ground flour, meal, and kitchen and farm supplies. “Saw the new smithy, Troy Hatfield, and got the welding done. That share will hold now. And he gave me outright a great piece of hide for leather stripping, just for that heap of pumpkins Frankie planted. Shaw.” The man was growing genial, his journey a success. He pushed back his chair and strode to the door, spit his quid into the bushes. He wiped his face with a powerful arm, came back to sup coffee noisily and consume chunks of Ellen’s brown dripping-cake. He was turning to her. “Troy gave me news for your ears, girl. You mind that froward young fellow hired to Dutchman Brinker? The one that sassed me? Well, he took off in a sudden. Dutchman had a time finding a new hand. This one’s brought a wife with him, so he’ll not be traipsing about with young maids. Hum.”

“Did smithy have an idea where he went, Pa?”

“You pining after that poor trash Brinker hires?”

“I’ve got a right to ask.”

“You trifling with me?”

“No, Pa.”

“You have to put in your two cents. The fellow’s pa died. Troy says Dutchman was right plagued at having to pay wages out on a Sabbath. That’ll put a good Lutheran in hell, I allow. Haw.”

“He ne’er liked his pa nor that kind of city work.” Ellen was by the door, lingering.

“You got any more on your mind? Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.”

* * * * *

Ellen went to take from its pen the gray rabbit Christian had brought her. She carried it to the edge of the field and put it down. “Go fend for yourself like I’ve got to. Look out for the hungry foxes and weasels.” She watched it hop away, then went to her upstairs room. She hunted in the wood trunk for paper and an envelope.

Dear Christian,

Smithy told Pa you left these parts. The sky is heavy and gray.
Maybe it will come on a snow. I call to mind the hours we spent by
the strawberry bed. Now I think winter is come. I would that you
wrote me how you are getting on.

Ellen Gaddy

She sealed the envelope, addressing it to Mr. Christian Ay, Carl Brinker Homestead, Route 4, Bethel, Ky., send to new address.

Down in the woods the air was still and weighted. Pinched clouds were banking above the swollen land. The red dog fox crept to his post overlooking the shadowed water. His eyes tensed as he spied the old Muscovy duck napping, head under wing, amid brown rush stalks. He struck noiseless. Thrashing wings lashed in a frenzied struggle but the needle teeth found the jugular and blood was spattered on the rushes. Later Ellen called again and again and there was no answering rush of wings. “You’d ne’er come to the safe yard. Reckon some varmint caught you.” She tossed the ear of corn to the tame fowl in the chicken yard.

Her letter was returned by the mail carrier. She hid it under her apron. On its face was scrawled: return to sender, no address known. C. Brinker. She took it up to the attic and laid it unopened in the small trunk. She stood looking out the gable window as drifting snow made the world grow small and old familiar shapes became strange and new.

* * * * *

Down Sweetincreek Road in mid-December Anton was driving the wagon to mass in Millville. The lightweight buckboard was unsuited for these winter days and the women rode in the wagon bed shrouded with rugs. A crowd of frightened birds moved and swooped across the sky like a giant amoeba. The pale sun was melting the snowfall into slush. The horses snorted, exhaling a vapor, tramped in the ruts of the road, hurling red mud in clods from their iron shoes. Anton was complaining, “Wish hit could have waited till Monday to thaw. This is a rough piece of road.” He clucked to the team. “Reckon we’ll be late again to mass, Frankie? Here it is Advent time once more.”

“Christmas is but two weeks off, Pa.”

Ellen was praying silently, “Holy Queen, keep him from remembering to send us to confession this week. I’ll not tell it to a priest. I’ll go to hell and burn first. I’m in a sorry strait, now.”

Anton was fastening the team and preceding his family into the square clapboard building half filled with people and heated by a huge black stove at one side. He took one of the rear pews. The heavy clothing rustled, the plank floor creaked. Anton tugged his bulky fur cap off, thrust it behind him on the seat. The women were kneeling at the low bench in their long coats, their caps and boots. They crossed themselves. The priest was murmuring at the altar, his server on his knees. Intimidated by habit and example, Ellen inclined her head. She heard the sonorous chant, “O Thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep, alleluia. Stir up, O Lord, Thy might and come to save us. Who art Thou? I am the voice of one crying in the desert.” She made the sign with her hand, desolate. The priest began to tell off the canon of the mass. He washed his fingers, incense drifted, the signal bell tinkled. Folk shifted and whispered; singly and in groups they left their winter covering on the benches, came with bowed heads to the altar, hands in ancient attitude of prayer, to receive from paten and cup the Body and Blood. Say to the faint-hearted, fear not. It chafed within Ellen, uncomforted. She arose with the rest when it was over. And in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not. The holy man was striding away, the people began to depart in a disturbance of noise and bodies. Ellen touched the water in the granite basin as she walked after her mother and sister.

Anton dipped his head, curt, to those he knew, stopped without the door to speak with N. J. Bilberry. The women waited, Maria whispering to Mrs. Bilberry, fleshy-faced and cheerful. At Anton’s nod they climbed back into the wagon and he took the reins. They jolted down the road. The earth lay dank-sweated, old furrows exposed. Black cottonwood trees were guarding the ditches. “N. J.’s wheat froze out,” the man commented briefly.

“Tinie says there’s chills and fever going about,” Maria told him. “And Ioway Ashby has married a man from the south. He’s thirty-one years old. Ioway was but twelve last June.”

“I heard,” Frankie cried, “he sent off for a poppet doll for her, dressed in a bride veil.”

“Ioway Ashby’s not inclined to give up her dolls yet,” Maria said.

“Now dogwood roots are near as good as quinine for chills and fever,” Anton was saying.

“Ioway’s ma told Tinie they’d begged at her since summer to let them marry. So she figured they just as well. I say, that’s a sight young for robbing the cradle.”

Under cover of the wagon’s rumbling, Ellen whispered, reciting, “Mother of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.”

Frankie pulled the rug about her boots. “It’s powerful cold. What you doing, Ellie?”

“I’m thinking. Sam says if you have a blade of five-finger grass to carry about no one can deny you what you ask. I don’t believe him. Wonder if there’s some in the fields now?” Ellen turned her eyes uncertainly to the future, where somehow she must form a plan.

* * * * *

Anton received a letter the next day. “Hit’s from your Uncle Garland. Says he’s coming in a week’s time for Christmas this year. Hum. We’ll see what he thinks of your piano-playing now, Frankie. And how you’ve grown so fair.”

“Oh Pa.”

The man straightened his back, looked out the window. “Bear in mind, one more Christmas and you’ll be going up to that city with him. That’s Anton Gaddy’s youngen, folks’ll say.”

“Chicago sounds so far off, Pa. Will Uncle be glad for me to come?” Frankie smoothed the brightened hair that hung about her narrow shoulders.

“We’ll butcher tomorrow. Hear, ooman?” Anton said to Maria.

“Yes,” she assented, “and it’s just come on the dark of the moon. It’s right to butcher.”

“You know I don’t hold by that. But my brother dotes on your blood pudding and peppered headcheese. Sam and I’ll fix to prepare right away.” He marched out.

“If you butcher in the light of the moon,” Maria told her daughters, “it’ll all drindle away while it’s frying. Just cracklings’ll be left. The grease’ll go rancid till you’ve got to make it up in soap.”

“I know,” tittered Frankie, “and that soap will turn the clothes yellow.”

“That’s a fact,” said Maria. “Don’t you laugh. My pap and mam e’er went by the moon. It’s natural.”

“Will Uncle Garland say I’m fair, Ellie?” Frankie appealed to her.

“I reckon.”

“Are you cross, Ellie?”

“No.”

“Well you sure act sick then. Doesn’t she, Ma?”

Ellen, who found tears started easily now, who was wary of her sudden sieges of self-pity, was running from the room. Again she dipped the pen.

Mr. Christian Ay,

There is a need for me to speak with you. I wish you were still
hired to Brinker. I fear you have forgot me and this is but a
striving after wind. Could you make a way to write or send word?

Ellen Gaddy
Millville, Ktcky.

This she addressed, Mr. Christian Ay, Care of Ay’s Store, Louisville, Ktcky.

She mused, near suffocating in the loneliness. Had she led him on as Christian had declared? Had she sinned? Her brows contracted and she searched again the halls of memory for meanings. Surely she had known to fear that which befell. Here in the countryside tales were constantly bruited and old songs sung of fallen virgins and light young men. The Bible related dire warnings and horrid punishments meted out to defiled maids. She had led him to their sin then. But that wasn’t so. I didn’t knowing lead him on. I wasn’t a wanton. There came to her mind the woodchucks Anton trapped. A shotgun often didn’t penetrate the small thick skulls so steel traps were set in their underground paths. If a creature blundered and felt the sudden grip, it would strive with its greatest strength. And if it could not tear free, it backed into its den, pulling the trap after. There it gnawed its own leg above the metal jaws. It destroyed a part of its flesh, knowing it was a way.

When the next morning was just made, two scalded hog carcasses were hanging from the sourwood scaffold. The blood had been caught in a bowl and taken to the kitchen for boiling and seasoning. The great white wrinkled heads were on the porch in a red-daubed washtub. “If there was a ooman with child about,” Sam grunted as they were hoisting the scraped bodies by gambrel sticks thrust through the hamstrings, “we’d have to take care to cover this mess. Butchering blood on the earth marks a child.”

“I don’t have those worries any more.” Anton tossed the liver and kidneys and sweetbreads in the pan Ellen brought out to them.

The fire was dying under the iron cauldron. Soon hams were piled in a heap along with the sagging shoulders and sides on a lye-scrubbed plank. The sausage-making began. Sam was scraping the inverted intestines preliminary to stuffing them. He stopped to hone his knife on a whetstone he carried in his pocket, spat on it for lubrication. “My old ooman came back last night. First thing Eadie did was boil up hot mustard water and set her feet in it. She chewed up a sourwood twig to make her a snuff brush. Give me a dipping, Samuel, she says, I’m tuckered.” He sat back thoughtful. “For Gawd, my house was a lonely place against that old hen’s return.”

Anton sliced chunks of meat savagely, the razor-sharp knife whipping close to his finger tips. He held his silence, fed the pork into the grinder.

In the kitchen the women were preparing in their fashion for the celebration ahead. Anton had given Ellen coins with which to buy sugar when she did her trading, and for spices and raisins to put in the holiday cakes. In this season when his brother came for the annual visit, Anton would have no stinting. “Girl,” he said to her, “my ma used to make a pale holytide cake. There were whites of eggs beat in bowls and it was thick with nuts and sugared fruits. Not black like those strong sorghum ones you-all make. Hum.” He nodded, complacent.

Ellen was assenting, eager. “I’ll ask Mrs. Love. Could be she’s learned the rule of such a cake, Pa.”

“And when you’re trading, go down of an evening when priest is holding hours for confession. Your uncle be due on Saturday, and I’ll have you all at the communion rail when he’s here, proper pious.”

Before walking the muddy road to Millville in the cloudy darkened late afternoon, Ellen went to her room. She was binding her waist tight with a length of cloth. “I can’t see nothing yet, but Stacey Love might.”

In the confessional box, she whispered to the young priest. “Bless me, Father Tompert. I confess to God and you that I’ve sinned. My last confession was Easter.” She despaired. It’s all made up of falseness. I’ve no right to be here.

“Confess your sins since then, child.”

“I took God’s name in vain. One time I did truly hate my pa.”

“Have you had any impure thoughts, my child?”

“No.”

“If you have any of these kind of thoughts you must do your best to banish them. Are you truly sorry for your sins?”

“I am, Father.”

She went to kneel in a pew, forbearing to recite the penance prayers the priest had assigned to her. Instead she asked the Virgin to have pity, to understand why she was mute to Father Tompert for the sake of Anton’s pride. She was thus driven, with a measure of courage, to rejecting the rituals bestowed on her since a cross was hung about her throat as a baby, since she first held the beads and lisped the Credo. And praying to Mary, Ellen emerged with her as a personal god. She grasped the blue-gowned symbol in her need as if it were flesh and blood and could wield an influence on her fate. She denied the immense father figure of God without debating it.

* * * * *

In coming days she would meet the mail carrier in his Model T, take back her second letter and place it with the other in the trunk. She at last put aside the hope of finding Christian Ay.

By Friday, cakes and tarts, breads, cheeses and dried fruit pies were overflowing from the pantry shelves. Hams and sidemeat were curing in the smokehouse, sausages strung lavish from the shed eaves. There were crocks of fried meat packed in white fat, as well as headcheese, liverwurst, and tins of fresh lard. In the hot kitchen, Maria was baking breads and biscuits in the newly-blacked range, vaguely wakened in the prospect of a visitor. She spoke to Ellen, “Get wax candles when you go by Love’s next time, girl. The tallow ones ain’t suited for Mester Garland Gaddy.”

Frankie was at the long table, a basket of butternuts and walnuts on the floor by her. She was cracking them on a sadiron with a blow of an old hammer head. She looked up, “You’re right peaked, Ellie. Are you ailing?”

“I’ll hunt out some of that bloodroot tonic,” Maria said, “if you got the complaint. It’ll make new blood.”

“I’d as lief you’d sing again,” Frankie was saying. “And you used to cut up so. Seems you’ve given it up.”

Ellen, startled, burned her hand on the iron pan she was taking from the oven. She shook her wrist to ease the seep of pain.

“Go smear yellow soap on it,” her mother said, “it’ll draw out the heat.”

Ellen rubbed on the soap, blinking her eyes. She sang to hide the tears and to hold her tongue from blurting her trouble.

If I had known before I courted
That love had been so hard to win
I’d have locked my heart with the keys of golden
And pinned it down with a silver pin

“That’s too lamenting, Ellie. Sing that one Penny used to. About that Minnie.”

Hush little Minnie and don’t say a word
Papa’s going to buy me a mocking bird
It can whistle and it can sing
It can do most anything

They were making ready for the guest coming. Calico was hung across one end of the downstairs bedroom to form a separate chamber in which Garland would sleep. A chair was placed by the bed and a stone-topped table. In its base was a chamber pot, and on top a crockery pitcher with pink roses glazed on its surface set in a matching basin. A cake of store soap lay in a dish, a towel folded beside it. They ripped the bed tick open, removed the old stuffing, and filled it with soft wheat straw. The one feather pallet was aired and placed on the mattress, and over all they spread muslin sheets and their best quilts.

That night Ellen was in a chair in the warm parlor, her back aching from the long hours, a piece of mending in her hand. Dark had come on, the lamp was throwing feeble quivering shadows. Anton was holding the Bible and his lips moved. He raised his eyes, studied the image of Joseph alone on the table. He spoke, abrupt, “Where’s the Virgin Mary that stood there with Joseph? She be broke, I vow.”

Ellen looked up in alarm. “I took her to the loft-room, Pa. What with holytide, I thought it would please you if I prayed to her, pious-like.”

“Well, I allow you can keep her for a spell. But she’ll not be broke, girl.”

“No, Pa. I’ll take care.” She arose. “Reckon I’ll go to bed. Coming, Frankie?”

He stopped them. “I’ll say the prayer to Michael once for this family. Get down, you-all.”

On their knees the women were waiting, their shadows cast like gentle giants on the wall. The man knelt by the lamp and his specter engulfed theirs. “Holy Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the snares of the devil. Thou, Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits that wander through the world seeking the ruination of souls.”

The temperature dropped in the night. As they were beginning the morning chores, whitefrost covered the land. The remote stars were cold and challenging. Ellen shivered, feeling her frailty. “What does it matter? One soul like me. I’m but a grain in a field of wheat. Who’s to heed if I be lone or have a sin to burn me?”

She was closing the woodshed door. Her two goats got up in the half-light by the stone wall. Their beards twitched as they chewed in unison, their hair stood out woolly. “Why did I e’er take up with the careless love of Christian Ay?”

She was putting bread crusts and salt and soybeans from her pocket in the wood trough. She laid her hands on the animals’ soft necks. “Here’s some linseed meal for richness. You feel the storm coming?”

She went to get a bucket of tepid water that had stood by the kitchen range all night, carried it to the barnyard fowl. They were huddling together, feathers ruffled, on the pole roosts. She threw cracked corn on the dirt floor of their shed, and the birds hopped down one by one to eat, singing and crooning over the food. “Tonight I’ll mix a sprinkle of red pepper in your wet mash to warm your craws while you sleep.” Tending the creatures of the farm, Ellen took comfort and so forgot herself.

6

Garland Gaddy, in a new green Ford, was returning to the home of his youth. As he drove up the lane, Anton was in the barn on his knees while the old cow Bramble, delivered him twin heifers. But Garland’s nieces bade him welcome. They showed him the feather bed and he was well pleased. He took Ellen in his arms. “You’re a handsome wench, hon. Last Christmas you were a child and here you’re nearly a woman. What does Anton say when the young men come sparking?” He pinched her thigh, smiling warm.

“You’re plaguing me, Uncle. But he’s a sight for sore eyes, isn’t he, Frankie?”

“Oh he is.”

At night when the festive meal was over they sat in the parlor. The wind growled, and above the alders at the pond the moon bobbed like a ball on a chain while water-shadows trembled. Anton kept a fire roaring, carrying armfuls of oak logs from the kitchen and piling them on the hearth. Garland brought out a fifth of contraband whisky, setting the bottle on the round table. The two men tasted from the heavy kitchen glasses. “This be good moon, Gar.”

“Well, it beats needle beer. Place I get it has all their hooch analyzed and tested by a registered chemist. Ought to be good. Cost fifteen dollars a bottle.”

“Christ.” Anton was impressed. “Smithy sold me some Jackass Peach Brandy from Virginia. Fifty cents a pint jar.”

“Better watch out for that junk. Break you down inside. Internal bleeding. I wouldn’t drink a thing made down here in the Bible belt.”

Ellen was sent to the cellar for a bottle of pale sweet wine that Anton made yearly from his scuppernong grapes, the vine of which had been planted five decades ago by Jules Gaddy, the father of the brothers. Ellen had put a scarf at her neck and it became her. She poured the wine, and came behind her uncle in his chair. When she put her head against his while he was talking, her hair fell on his shoulders. And she loved him.

Garland Gaddy was the middle one of three brothers, a bachelor. He was a head taller than Anton, overweight, not yet fat. His small eyes were light blue, his once-blond hair had turned gray, he trimmed a neat mustache. His jaw was square, his lips full. He wore hand-cut dark suits, vivid ties. As a child he had shared with Anton their mother’s neglect, had run away from home at nineteen to prowl the states from coast to coast, brawling and scattering his seed. Then when he was twenty-nine, Anton offered him the sum of fifteen hundred dollars in cash, Maria’s dowry, for his half the farm. Garland had accepted, hitchhiking to Chicago with the bills sewn into his belt. He soon was co-owner of a thriving burlesque house. Now, over twenty years later, from his office on State Street he handled a set of neighborhood theatres where vaudeville and the silver screen vied for public approval.

Anton was affected by the abundance of festive food, the polished house, and the women’s raiment. Maria even, had laid aside the sack apron she usually pinned on and was wearing her churchgoing black dress and an ecru crocheted collar. Anton nearly begrudged the honor they paid Garland, although his pride assured him that the tribute was to himself. “Say, Gar, I call to mind when we were youngens, and Ma was honing for that black driving rig. You recollect? Our sir had but two gold dollars. So he went to Trader Bocock. Said, Bocock, you can have this gold and all the rocks you can haul out of that rye field if you’ll trade that rig to me.”

“She get the buggy, Pa?” asked Frankie.

“Bet she did, hon,” Garland said.

“What did the trader want of rocks?”

“I don’t know. But Bocock had the field cleaned before spring plowing,” said Anton.

“Ma managed to get what she wanted pretty near every time,” Garland said.

“Hum.” Anton packed his pipe, pushing with his thick thumb. “Had her hands full. Say, Frankie, play for us, and sing the prayer you learned.”

Frankie obeyed.

Angel of God, my Guardian dear
To whom his love commits me here
E’er this day be at my side
To light and guard, to rule and guide

“That’s a special prayer, you know, Garland. Priest says it’s worth a hundred days’ indulgence. Sing it once more, Poppet.”

“I better learn that one.” Garland kept time with his hand. He got up to stand by the upright piano, tapping his foot. “You know the old one—Captain Jinks?”

“I don’t think so, Uncle.”

“Goes like this.” Garland made several false tries before he sang in off-key:

I’m Captain Jinks of the horse marines
I feed my horse on corn and beans
And court the ladies in their teens
For that’s the style in the army

“That’s a new one, Uncle,” Ellen said.

Garland was pulling her hand, drawing her beside him. “You sing with me.”

When they had finished, Ellen offered, “Want to hear one of Penny’s tales?”

“That roaring ooman,” growled Anton. “Tell you, Gar, she couldn’t cut an onion or hold a scrub brush without she was screeching some foldilay.”

“Let’s hear it, puss.” Garland sat back in his chair. Ellen stood behind him to sing while Frankie played. Anton bit his pipe in his yellowed teeth and the smoke wreathed. Maria knitted, her lips moving occasionally with an inner thought.

I courted pretty Pol the livelong night
Then left her next morn before it was light

The song told of how Pol went riding off with the man and then,

They went a bit further and what did they spy
But a new-dug grave and a spade lying by,
Willie, O Willie, I’m afraid of your way
I’m afraid you will lead my poor body astray
Pretty Pol, pretty Pol, you’re thinking just right
I dug on your grave the best part of last night

And Willie stabbed the girl and put her in the grave.

He threw a bit of dirt o’er her and started for home
Leaving no one behind but the wild doves to mourn

“Now, if that ain’t a dumb fool story,” Anton snorted.

Ellen looked down at Garland and he patted her hands, placing them on his shoulders. “I liked it.”

“You e’er hear,” she asked quickly because of the tears that were trapped by her father’s scorn, “it will strengthen a man’s eyes to have a mustache?”

“Well,” he laughed, “I’ll keep it then.”

Uncle’s so kind. It came on her as he was stroking her wrists.

Anton lifted his head. “My sir said his grandsir in France owned a sporting hog one time. You mind that story, Gar?”

“He called her Slut,” Garland said. “He was a gamekeeper in one of the king’s forests. Bred his own dogs, taught them to stand and back game. They say he was watching the men and saw the pups weren’t responding. Little black shoat went by, not a wild hog, she was the kind that ran loose in the forest those days. Made a wager with the men, he could train and break the shoat faster than they could the dogs. He penned her, taught her to come to her name. She pointed small game and partridge. After awhile she’d retrieve rabbit and pheasant, careful, too, she didn’t harm them—all sorts of game. Did better than his dogs. And backed them when she saw them point. That hog’s nose was so true she’d point a bird fifty yards away. In a straight line. That’s the story anyway.”

“He win the bet?” Frankie asked.

“Oh sure, hon.”

“Came when he hollered,” said Ellen. “Wish I could have seen that.”

“Did she run good or was she too fat?” asked Frankie.

“She was trim. She’d come at full gallop. Excited like the dogs when she saw a gun.”

Maria said, “They must have set store by that beast.”

“You bet,” Garland turned to her, “and you know, Maria, when Slut was ten years old she weighed half a ton and they still hunted with her.”

“Ain’t that a tale, Frankie?” Anton demanded. “Those were the olden days. Then there came the time of Napoleon the Bonyparty. Pa’s grandsir had to soldier under him. He’d watch o’er the old country and if some land like Germany was trying to conquer a scroungy sort of a country, why Napoleon the Bonyparty, he’d say no. He’d get in front of his army and go lick Germany or whate’er land it happened to be. He stayed in France between wars and our great grandsir belonged to his company.” Anton shrugged with pride. “That fellow wasn’t the king, he worked for himself. He made his living that way, watching o’er the old country.”

“Say, my great great grandsir,” claimed Frankie, “knew Napoleon the Bonyparty.”

“Well,” Garland was laughing, “tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. Let’s hit the hay.”

Ellen stayed awake far into the night. The wind was tugging at her window and the lonely dark pressed down. Her lips were dry and her mouth became as cotton. I’ll tell Uncle tomorrow for sure. At length she lapsed into a fitful sleep while in the parlor below the fire died to coals and field mice came from the walls to nibble crumbs and nut meats fallen on the rugs.

* * * * *

At breakfast Maria was stirring a pancake batter while the girls fried sausages and potatoes, set out slices of blood pudding, crocks of jam and sorghum. “I favor lacing griddle-cakes with hot sausage fat,” Anton said. “Sweetening takes the taste out.”

Garland, clad in a red shirt, new hunting pants and shining engineers boots, beamed. “Good old country sorghum for me. Well, pusses, what’s new? Anyone dream about a pointing pig? Or poor Pol? Or Napoleon?”

“I ne’er,” giggled Frankie, “but tell another story.”

“Well, you know that same great-great-grandfather of yours that trained Slut, went to Russia with Napoleon’s army. There was a bad winter and Napoleon beat it back to France. He let most of the troops die in the snow without food.”

“I don’t take much stock in that,” said Anton. “I doubt Bonyparty did that.”

“Now, Anton, you know Pa used to talk about it. How they conscripted all the men of the village, twenty-three of them. And only his grandfather came back.”

“He must have been strong. They say he was a good-looker, too,” said Anton. “Finest in the village, a proud one.”

“Doesn’t look like you or me inherited much from him,” laughed Garland.

“Reckon Marc took after him,” Anton said, “for he was the dandy of us three boys.”

“Well,” Garland asked, “what you pusses got to report this morning?”

“One of the barn cats brought in a little mole yesterday,” said Frankie.

“You didn’t know I lost my white kid last summer, Uncle,” Ellen said. “He was but two months old.” Lines still edged her eyes when she spoke of it. “You ne’er got to see him.”

“I was telling about the mole, Ellie.”

Garland listened to them, then said suddenly, “Now An, here’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up. Been thinking a lot about Frankie here. About her coming up to the city next year. You see, I want everything to go right. She needs to make a good impression from the start. Now you folks don’t realize it, but you practically talk like first settlers with that old-fashioned country dialect. Think Frankie could take lessons in grammar or speech this coming year to correct some of that?”

Anton had been spearing sausages and pancakes with a fork. He paused. The blood was leaping to his cheekbones, his freckles stood out in vivid specks. He made a guttural sound and scraped his chair back. He spat the food from his pendulous lips on to the table before him, hurled the sausage and fork to the floor. “Hit do be my sir’s tongue and my ma’s and before God, hit’ll be that girl’s. She’ll go forth with hit and no more farting teaching mesters will I suck upon.” He flung himself from the house.

Ellen began to weep. Maria was taking up a cloth to clean the table and the floor. Frankie looked at her uncle and her eyes were wary, her voice small, “You’re not afraid?”

“Jesus Wept, no, puss. Have another flapjack and I’ll talk to him when he cools off. That squirt always had a hot temper.”

* * * * *

Ellen snared the largest of the geese by a stout pink leg. She bore it to the stump, placed its head between the spikes and cleaved the neck just below the jaw. She threw the beheaded bird from her to flail its wings and flop about. She handed the head to Jack, eager and knowing. “I see you licking your chops.” She tore the down from the breast, stuffing it into a sack. She brought a pail of boiling water, scalded the carcass and finished the plucking. She gave the entrails to the chickens to pick, washed the heavy bird under the pump, hung it near the sausages dangling from the eaves in the shed.

In the kitchen, Anton was tipping his chair back. He took from his pocket a twist of tobacco leaves and sliced the end with his jackknife. He thrust his short legs in front of him, balancing. “Hell, Gar, might be it’s as you say and Frankie’s speech is queer to city folk. But what matters her way of speech if she’s to make music? If you say so, why I’ll get her a grammar mester. But hark at me, Gar,” and his eyes were glinting, “don’t ne’er speak again such as you did there before them oomen-folk. Like what I say ain’t gospel.”

“Chrissake, get off your high horse. They know you’re boss.” Garland ground his cigarette butt in a plate and laughed. He ran his little finger across his mustache, touching his sensuous lips. “I was always big enough to lick you if it came to that, now wasn’t I?”

“You’ve tried hit.”

“I always give you good advice. Now here’s another bone I want to pick. Indoor plumbing.” He hit his fist on the table. “You think you’ve progressed because you dug a new privy ten years ago. Maria and those young girls haul water from the well like pioneers. This is December nineteen twenty-five. The century of progress.” Again the fist.

“They got a sink and a clear drain that our ma ne’er had,” Anton drawled, tobacco juice staining the corners of his mouth, “and she ne’er had a deep hole like our shithouse but just a board and a shed. Nor that sweet-water well that Witch Lufty found. I see you’ve gone soft in the city.” The farmer was pleased, for now the ground was familiar. He backed down only when there was jeopardy to his younger daughter’s future.

“Yes, guess I was going soft, Anton, when I got you that loan back in the war when times were bad. So you could buy good milkers and get shed of that worthless herd you were supporting. Guess it’s soft to buy a good breed of chickens or thoroughbred hogs.”

“Hell, those are beasts where we make our living. Hit’s not the same.” Anton stumped to the stove and lifting the round iron lid with the poker, spat on the coals. They sizzled. “And I paid that loan back, Gar. Hard cash from crops and milk.” He replaced the lid with a violent noise.

“I give up. Chrissake, you’re stubborn.” Garland arose. “I suppose you’d declare you’ll never run in a line and wire the farm for electricity?”

“I was born by lamplight and I’ll see that I die by it.”

“Well, I’ve got two or three Christmas packages in the Ford.” Garland was going to the door. “Good a time as any to bring them in. Frankie,” he shouted, “call off that practicing and come with me. Jesus Wept, this is a holiday.”

Anton was sawing his fist in the air, exhorting, “Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set, says the Word. Mind, Gar.”

That evening an austere meal of bread and cabbage soup was consumed. By custom the family semi-fasted before communion. They would wait to eat of the festive food when they returned from midnight mass. After supper the girls popped corn and cracked nuts to put on the table. Ellen boiled up a pan of taffy at Garland’s suggestion. She buttered her hands and pulled it with him until it cooled into long pale sticks. But all his jokes and laughter did not rouse her from her lassitude.

At mass she moistened her tongue to swallow the dry communion disk. It seemed to her that now truly the door was closed on her childhood. As she returned to the pew she grieved, weighing what she had read in her Bible. If thou hast done foolishly in lifting thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth. For as the churning of milk bringeth forth butter and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood, so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife. I’ll have to find a way to leave my home, a place to go and drop this wayside colt.

Garland drove the green car back down the road to the farm. He was talkative and his mood had passed to his brother. “Tell you,” Anton was yawning, “I’ll ne’er forget that Christmas I passed shivering and repenting while sleeping up against the cows, and thinking of you and Marc warm in the quilts. I’d been whipped on my knees for leaving the cow gate open. You remember it? That was one.”

The car lights beamed down the corduroy road. The night was parted like great doors swinging open on hinges. I haven’t told Uncle yet. A light fall of snow was starting and the wind hushed.

The store-wrapped gifts that Garland had laid on the table in the parlor were opened Christmas morning. Anton was puffing at a hand-rolled cigar. “If you be setting and your hands be idle, hit’s a good enough pleasure,” he said, stinting. “I even heard they’re rolling cigars now with a machine.”

Ellen opened her package, took out a hat of crushed blue satin, a silk rose on its soft brim. “My, that’s fair.” Her voice was tremulous because of his care for her.

“Put it on, hon,” he was saying. “Ordered it special from the milliner. You know, satin’s the thing this year. Say, when she wears that to mass, Anton, you’ll have to keep the beaus back with a shotgun.”

Maria smoothed her fingers over a black crepe de Chine dress. Frankie ran to try on one of pink wool, to fling herself upon Garland while her father smoked in his chair, tracing her movements with a jealous eye. “E’er see the glass bowl-garden Frankie made me last summer, Gar?” he asked. “Hit’s setting in the bedroom window.”

* * * * *

Ellen was drying the breakfast dishes when Garland came into the room. He had on a bright striped jacket and brown corded jodhpurs. His gray hair was neat, his square jaw shaven. “Don’t you ever get tired of all this work, puss? You never get a change, hidden out on the farm here by yourself.”

“It’s my home, Uncle. And I love the earth and its doings. Sometimes in the summer it comes on such an hour like when the Lord God walked in the garden of Eden. Sometimes a wind passes o’er the earth that’s fair and all its bounty is spread before.” The wetness stood in her eyes as she was blurting it.

“I know, but you’ve got your future to think about. You should meet people. Get around. Your father dotes on Frankie too much, never gives a thought to you. It’s not right, you know.”

“It’s his way.”

“You got a boy friend?”

“No.” Water filled her eyes again.

Garland tapped the table. “It’s your father. Keeps you kids cloistered like a pair of nuns.”

Ellen was stacking the dried silver in the milkglass jar. She turned to him, desperation fringing her tones. “I would as lief go from the farm awhile, to see the world outside.”

“Course you would, sweet.” He was hearty. “That’s only normal. Now what chore comes next?”

“Tending my goats.” She was taking her coat from its hook. “Want to come?”

With the dog trailing after, they took the path over which Ellen had sped light in the summer past. She fed her does and was standing at the gate while they ate, her eyes absorbed. Garland smoked his cigarette, observing her a while. “How would you like to visit me in Chicago, sweet? Work’ll be light here till spring. They can get along without you.”

She breathed soft, “Pa’d not have it.”

“He doesn’t need you. Got your sister to keep him company.”

“He does so need me.”

“Well then, he can let you have a vacation.” He smiled. “Does he ever strap you now you’re a grown girl?”

“No, but I call to mind when I was a child and once Ma said I picked at a rhubarb pie from the pantry shelf. I ne’er knew of it being there. Pa cut a hickory, length of his arm, and beat me. Made me kneel. Said I lied. I won’t squall and that gets his back up.” She rubbed with her finger the area between the black stub horns of Rhodie, veiling her eyes. “Reckon I’d love to visit at your house.”

“Well, it’s high time. I’ll throw a party when you come. I’ll talk to Anton this afternoon. Tell him it’s only logical for you to be first since you’re the oldest. He’ll let you. You’ll see.” He was putting his arm around Ellen. She leaned against him with a sigh. “You’re a sweet girl, hon.” He kissed her, lingering on the young mouth.

Ellen decided not to say more to him now. I’ll wait till I’m at his house to tell him he must help me.

Anton wasn’t averse to Ellen’s journey. Garland had emphasized how he was making ready for Frankie’s arrival the next year, and he spoke of the money he planned to spend on her.

Maria said suddenly, “Who’ll do the trading if Ellie goes off?”

“Enough jawing on this,” cried Anton. “I’ll send Sam, ooman. Ellie’ll not be gone two-three weeks.”

Garland laughed, “Her turn comes first. You don’t mind, do you, Frankie?”

“Oh no, I want her to go. Maybe I could do the trading, Pa? Just while Ellie’s gone?”

“No, Poppet. Say, is she riding back with you in the auto?” Anton inquired.

“I guess not. No, I’ll be going by way of St. Louis. I’ve got some business to look after. Then I’ll drive on up and get the house in order. I’ve never gotten ready for one of these young ladies before.”

“She’s taking a train then?” Anton was persistent.

“This is my treat. I’m giving Ellen the ticket money. It’s an extra Christmas present.”

“Well. If you want,” Anton said, relieved.

Ellen stood by them pale, her eyes fastened to her uncle. He nodded, “Come the middle of January, puss. Leave here on the fifteenth. I know the train. There’s only one out of New Hope that goes to Chicago.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“It’s foolishness.” Anton walked out.

Before Garland left, he came on Ellen alone, slipping her an envelope of money. “No need to mention this to your father. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Just tell him I gave you enough for your ticket.”

“All right, Uncle.” She held the extra money tightly in her apron pocket.

On the morning after New Year’s Day, Garland was jaunty in his yellow driving cap and raccoon coat. The girls were helping him carry his bags out to the Ford. Then he unfolded the hood, examined the interior. “That’ll do.” He fastened the hood down, removed the figured radiator cap and dipped a finger. “Water.”

Frankie brought a pail from the pump. “Can I do it?”

“No, this is fine.” He poured until it flowed over, replaced the cap, and opened the car door. “Here goes one more year.”

“Wish you’d stay on a while,” said Frankie.

“There,” Maria said, “I love that dress. I ne’er had a silk one before.”

“That’s crepe de Chine, Maria,” Garland laughed, “it’s the style.”

“It’s not silk, ooman,” Anton said, “that stuff’s too dear.”

“Yes, is it,” Garland said. “It’s one kind of silk. Well, here I go.” His gloved hand was waving from the window. The exhaust rose in a fog, dogging the car in the chill air.

The days sped. It was time for Ellen to leave. She had bought a length of dark heavy cloth with some of the money Garland had given her. She made it into a dress, cutting so it hung in loose folds on her hips. “I can feel where it lays hard in me. Soon the cleverest stitching won’t hide it.”

She had given Frankie the primrose bulb from Brinkers’ kitchen. “Hope it fares well. Keep in mind to feed it cold tea. And do tend my goats, Frankie.”

“You’re only going for a week or so, Ellie.”

“Uncle said I might stay a little longer.”

Ellen was bringing salt to her two does. They licked her hands, leaning affectionate against her. She knew the places they liked best to be rubbed, along the withers and between the horns, on the silken spots behind their small pricked ears, on their throats below the beards. “Frankie’s promised to care for you.”

Maria said, “Bye now. When you reckon Mester Gaddy’ll be back from taking you to Millville? I’m out of coffee.”

Frankie was kissing Ellen fondly. “It’ll be right lonely with you off there. I’ll miss your singing, too.” Frankie’s qualms for her own leavetaking a year hence were exposed when she viewed Ellen’s breakaway. “There. I’m that eager to go to Uncle’s myself.” But she whispered, plaintive, “Wish I was little again. What if it’s not fun like you think it’ll be, Ellie?”

“I ain’t afraid,” Ellen spoke stoutly as she stepped down to where the team waited; her tan coat was covering her new dress, she wore the blue satin hat. Jack was flattening his ears and going to sit amid the weeds on the bank to await her return.

Anton drove the buckwagon, Ellen on the railed seat beside him. At Love’s she would wait to catch a ride on the milk truck to New Hope. “You be a credit to me, girl. I don’t favor your idling about in that Zion. And you’ll not lust after young men, mind.” He was nodding. “So I told my brother.” He reined in the team outside the store. Ellen went in for Maria’s coffee. She handed it up to him. “I’ll see you in two weeks’ time. You can write and I’ll make a way to get you home.”

“Yes, Pa. Goodbye.” Ellen watched the buckboard until she could barely make out her father’s round hat.

In Love’s store, she was peering through the wide window. Stacey Love rocked, vigorous, by the stove. “Hit’s a far piece where you’re going.” Grady was chopping wood and the report of his ax was heard. “I always thought a heap of Mester Gaddy’s brother.” She placed a pinch of snuff between her lower lip and teeth. “Though I ne’er had no truck with another Yankee.”

Ellen kept silence, sickened with excitement and fear.

“You’re sure looking seedy, Ellen. I was telling Grady you seemed kind of pinched this winter.” Stacey swayed back and forth.

There was a noise at the door and Lily Garrett was pushing in, her curls springing about her soft face. “Well, hey you-all.”

“Wish I had a rich uncle,” Stacey went on quietly.

“Why, Ellie Gaddy,” the fat girl cried, “where you going all smartened up? And you got a new hat. Look at that rose.”

Ellen kept her back to them. She continued looking up the road, the pulse in her throat throbbing.

“Ellen’s leaving us poor folks, Lily. Going to the big city.”

“Oh, Mrs. Love,” whispered Ellen.

“My goodness,” cried Lily, “you ne’er told me.”

“Wish I could go visiting,” Stacey said, “lie around in bed of a morning.”

“You-all heard,” Lily called to Ellen, “Buck Lemmon and Sophie Goode wedded? Kept it a secret. It was at the husking bee they met up. How come you didn’t go to the bee, Ellie? Mandy declared you were going.”

Ellen looked around. “My pa wouldn’t suffer neither me or Frankie to go, Lily. That’s all.”

“I calculate Buck Lemmon seen Sophie a sight before that husking bee,” Stacey said flatly.

“Whate’er you mean?” Lily was giggling.

“I ain’t saying,” Stacey smiled. “But you e’er see such a funny-looking girl as Sophie? I marvel at her catching a fine fellow like Buck. I can see she’s wearing stays and binding herself so it won’t show. Guess she allows she’ll fool somebody that way. Buck told me himself she’s been to see Doc Trumbo. Lazy old sow.”

“There’s the milk truck.” Ellen turned to flee. Lily was kissing her extravagantly at the door while Stacey waved a hand and renewed her wad of snuff. Ellen hailed the truck. “Can I hitch a ride to New Hope, Mester Durley?”

“Sure thing, Miss Gaddy.” Those were his last words until they reached the New Hope station.

“I’m beholden, Mester Durley,” she said as she was taking her bag.

“Sure thing.”

In her valise was the plaster of Paris image of the Virgin Mary, and Ellen was somewhat fortified by its presence.

7