Chapter VII: Part 7

And three years would pass, years of time merged and woven in a pattern on an endless loom of chores. The color in Ellen’s life would break in snatches on the cloth of the drab days. By summer the radio Garland had brought was growing dim. Anton laid his ear to it in the evenings to catch the feeble sound. “It’s that far off,” he whispered, intent. Then the batteries were exhausted and the instrument was stored away in the wagon shed to gather cobwebs and mold. Maria’s pressure cooker would blow up, rending a gash on the rafter beams. Maria hid in the clothes press, staying there until Ellen had picked up the torn metal parts and thrown them out. She wore the same clothes day on day, her light-colored dresses hanging unused on the ridgepole in her room. Mud daubers constructed a nest over them, soaring in summer with damp balls dangling from their legs, in and out the two small windows.

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.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth good will to men

Ellen was bringing in a split-oak basket of persimmons. “I ran onto them yesterday, Pa. I don’t know why the possums let them be.”

Anton took one of the soft orange fruit. “Used to be they made ’simmon beer in this county. It wasn’t sharp like city beer, Gar. We used to roast ’simmon seeds too, when coffee was scarce.”

Garland bit into the mellow sweet fruit. “They’re good. The pucker’s gone out.”

“The frost seasons them,” Ellen said.

“I know. Used to hunt them when I was a kid.”

“A ’simmon tree’s got a black heartwood in its center,” Anton said, “with layers of yellow sapwood outside it. It’s the only tree I know like that.”

“Those rings, now,” said Ellen. “You can count the rings to tell the age of a tree.”

“Is that black heartwood in the young tree?” asked Frankie.

“And if there’s a drought,” Ellen went on, “the ring’s scarce to be read, it’s so narrow.”

“I want to know about that heartwood, Pa.”

“Well, you don’t find hit in a sapling, Poppet. It comes of itself as the tree takes on age.”

“I think it’s there in the young tree,” Frankie said.

“How come you to worry on that, Poppet? It’s no consequence.”

“But I want to know.”

“Now there,” said Garland. “It’s getting on bedtime. I can tell Frankie’s sleepy.”

“Ellie never sang a song yet,” said Frankie.

“I’ll sing in the morning. We’re wasting coal oil. Come on.”

The girls climbed from the fire-warmed parlor to the loft where winter rain reeled on the roof. Under dank blankets they were waiting for the warmth of their bodies to overtake them. Anton’s disputing voice came up the stairs, “Why’s she act so? Like a highborn one? What are you doing to her there in that city?” Garland’s voice was heard in murmur. And again Anton’s rude shout, “Be she e’er seeing men?” And in a moment, “Well, that don’t mean a thing. N. J. says all his sister e’er did was set on a fellow’s lap one winter. Said his pa watched them courting by the range and thought no harm. They hardly spoke but only set there hugging. Now before God, she came by a child and his pa had to get them married.”

In the melancholy dark from her bed, over the sound of the sleet whipping the shingles, Ellen whispered, “You like a fellow?”

“No, I’m a poor country girl there. I hear them laugh. I came on my singing teacher snickering with Uncle. It was about me.”

“When do you think you’ll start playing in public like Pa wants?”

“I’m the most alone person. It’s because I’m queer, I think. Maybe Pa made me so. Or else I get it from Ma. The way I talk and act.”

Anton’s voice was audible through the doorway as they came into the hall downstairs, “And then I heard Ma saying, I’d fain have been a lady but I married you, little feist. We dragged her down, Gar. We gommed her desires.”

“Hell, An, you’re drunk. Forget Ma. Like I did long ago. Let’s get back to the subject. As I see it, Frankie’s doing the best she can. She’s not got much gumption and she’s plenty like you when she gets stubborn, but I think she’s beginning to adjust. This is the first vacation she’s had, what with lessons. I hope I can keep her present teacher. Says he’s got his hands full. Costs a mint, you know.”

“Hum. If there’s anything I can do for you.”

“You’re my brother.” Garland’s familiar slap on Anton’s back was carried up the staircase. “Covers a multitude of sins. We’ve got to stick together.”

Ellen thought Frankie was asleep until she heard the voice threading the dark. “Seems I got a black heartwood core same as that ’simmon tree.” The girl’s voice was sated with self-pity. “People can tell it’s there.”

* * * * *

The next day Garland came to the barn where Ellen was cleaning the goats’ stable, heaping the soiled litter outside the shed with a heavy fork. An acrid stench hung in the air and the flock of five moved about her. “Keep you company awhile, hon?”

“If you like.”

“You have quite a bunch of your own here.”

“I set store by them.” She was forking fresh bedding in the pen and the animals crowded in to lie down, nosing and chewing the straw. She fastened the gate and leaned to watch them.

“Long time ago,” Garland was saying, “old man Alden used to keep a pair of nannies in his shack with him. Wonder if he’s still alive.”

“Ne’er heard of him.”

“Lived a few miles up the road. Us boys would sneak over to peek in his windows. Watch him suck the milk from the udders.”

“Is that a fact?”

Garland watched her intently. “You’re wonderful, puss.”

“That’s a silly thing to say.”

“Well, you make me feel like a boy again. I always said it.”

Ellen laughed at him. “Reckon I best get to the kitchen. I’ll race you to see if you’re still a boy.”

“Now there’s a cruel wench.” He trailed after her.

At the steps she waited. As they started up they became aware suddenly of a commotion within the house, of cries and Anton’s growls. Ellen was running up the stairs. “I’m afraid it’s Ma.”

But the shrill cry of Frankie pierced, “I won’t go back. I won’t. I hate you. You can’t make me.”

And a sound was heard so that Ellen turned to Garland. “He’s beating her. He’ll not be gainsaid. What’ll we do?”

“I’ll show you what. He’s always got to lord it over someone.” Garland sharpened his wrath, ran into the hall, flinging open the parlor door.

Anton was red-faced, and Frankie, in a despair of tears, was shaking in a corner of the sofa, her knitted skirt pulled above her knees, her bobbed hair tangled. She hid her face. “I don’t care about nothing. I don’t care.”

Garland caught Anton’s arm and while they shouted, Ellen bade her sister come into the kitchen. Frankie laid her head on the table and wept. Ellen walked about the room at her work, finally coaxing, “Now these fruits have to be cut up for the cake. You always were good at it, Frankie. Here’s the knife and bowl.”

Frankie pushed them from her. “Ellie, I do hate Pa.” She fled up the stairs.

The angered voices in the parlor rose and fell until the milking hour came. Then Anton, black-faced, strode to the barn. Garland watched him from the porch stoop and then followed. “There,” said Ellen to Maria who came in from the bedroom, “things are in a state. Pa ought to let Frankie stay here where she belongs.”

“Don’t beard Mester Gaddy,” Maria advised. “Let him be.”

That night by the fireside it was as if a ghostly thing stood amid them. Ellen sighed. Maria, feeling the trouble, gestured to herself. Garland smoked one cigarette after another. And Frankie was white, holding her head erect. “Reckon I’ll go to bed,” she said at length. “Good night all.”

Anton bent his scorn-washed face over a farm journal. “Well, I see here it tells about them foreigners in the old country using artificial insemination. Now I reckon that’s a sin against a beast. It’s sodomy.” He pulled furiously on his dead pipe.

“Chrissake, An.”

But in the morning Ellen caught sight at the stairhead of Frankie and Anton. The thin words came, “Forgive my willfulness, Pa.” Frankie’s face was hard. She had purchased her peace, before leaving her father again, kneeling in the short skirt she now wore.

* * * * *

On the second Christmas of these three years, Frankie brought her contradictory ways again into focus, so that Anton stalked about in dudgeon, lying in wait for her open rebellion. She would turn him though, in a new cunning way she had learned, “Beg your pardon, Pa.”

The holiday evenings were drawn short and quiet by the hickory and oak-fed fires. After midnight mass, all but Garland ate sparely at the table, disheartened. The sliced meats and cheese, the sweet cakes and peppered blood pudding, were spread forth. “Have some Barrier Cherries, Uncle,” Ellen pressed him. “Frankie and Lily Garrett made them once.” Ellen, who knew her father and sister so well, felt the sadness of it. She knew the man was like a willful child and here was his only beloved set against him.

Frankie went back to Chicago then. Before they drove away in Garland’s Oakland sedan with the high-squared top and the yellow leather seats, Garland announced, “Frankie’s been engaged for her first recital. March the sixteenth, nineteen twenty-nine. Frankie Gaddy enters the lists of the immortals.”

“Shut up, Uncle,” Frankie sighed.

“You greening me, Garland?” Anton was suspicious. “You going to play before those folks?”

“Yes, I am, Pa.”

“Hell, An, she’s booked,” Garland shouted. “In one of my theatres.”

“I vow.”

“My,” Ellen said, “I ne’er thought Frankie’d be so bold.”

* * * * *

And time moved, weaving a tapestry. On radiant summer nights moonlight laved the meadows and frogs dripped shrill tones. Ellen would slip down the stairs to wander where flowering honeysuckle presaged the passing of time. Longings waxed in her. She lay in the honeyed grass and wept easily. The moon shone and she bared her white body, wondered at the restlessness clutching her. She dwelled on the summer she had met Christian Ay, for at that one time the even cord of her life had risen to such a gleaming line that she doubted on it ever after. I’m bound and thralled. The pleasure and the sadness are too close together. She went back to her attic room to wait for dawn.

Now and then she thought of the child, Simon, developed a curiosity, now that she counted the passion buried, to see if this relic bore any resemblances. “I have a notion to visit Penny Dougherty,” she was saying to Anton. “She’s invited me. Says she’s got guineas and we can have a clutch of eggs if we want. I could raise us a flock. Set the yellow hen on them.”

“Guineas. And that worthless ooman,” he scoffed.

“Guineas are no work. You turn them loose and they pair off and care for the eggs by themselves. When you want a meal you catch them where they’re roosting.”

“It’s a far piece to Weems Crossroads but for guinea eggs. And I declared you’d not set foot off this place save to be married. So I said.”

“I’m twenty. And I’ll be gone o’ernight. I promise, Pa.”

“I don’t like it. You’re a froward one. It costs a mort of money going on the train. All to see some poor trash.”

“I’ll make it up to you, Pa.”

“You be back in a day, girl. You got beans to plant, and the cabbages to set out now the killing frosts are gone.”

“I’ll do it, Pa. Day after tomorrow. Soon as I get back, I’ll set them out.”

So she found herself walking up the lane to the familiar small house. Penny greeted her, and her fine features seemed a little thinner. She was laughing, “You came for Simon.”

“Oh Penny, let me see that baby girl you wrote about, Blossom.”

“She’s in here, Ellie.”

While they looked at the sleeping child, Ellen whispered, “I can’t take Simon. Pa doesn’t know.”

“That’s all right. We love him, Ellie.”

“I brought more money.”

Three little boys were trooping through the doorway, shouting. The baby awoke, began to wail. Ellen saw Simon, nearly three now. He was dressed in a blue-checked pinafore, and his small bottoms were bare. He was smallish and fair with round blue eyes. He looked at her soberly and never smiled. Clate had forgot Ellen, and Anse, thin and dark, clung to Penny. Simon was leaning on the wall, his fat thumb in his mouth. Luke arrived amid the bedlam and the children shouted to see him, “Da’s home.” Ellen saw Simon squealed and leaped with the rest.

They took her out to the field to see the goats and the old donkey. Clate was prompted to recite, lisping.

When the elm leaf
Be big ath a mouthe’s ear
Then to thow barley
Ne’er you fear

All the while nearby was Ellen’s son, gazing dumb. His foster mother called him to her. “This is your own ma, Simon. Like I told you.”

In the morning Ellen was returning on the train. She had a setting of spotted guinea eggs in a box. Her mind was on the beans to be planted; she wondered whether Love’s would have flats of young cabbage plants in yet.

* * * * *

The country seemed prosperous. But among the farmers were muffled noises of protest. Anton Gaddy growled when he got ninety-eight cents for wheat that had brought two dollars and thirty-four a bushel after the Great War. Corn dropped to seventy-nine cents, though it used to be good for a dollar to a dollar-fifty. He spoke to Sam, “Reckon you could get by with a little less a week? I’m pure strapped for cash. You could take a hen maybe.” He shrugged nervously.

“All right.” Sam scratched his back.

“Pick one of the old ones with a yellow beak and ears.”

“Now Mester Gaddy. I wouldn’t take a good layer.” Sam was squinting up, his eyes sharp in his leathery face.

“I hate it, being strapped, Sam.”

While they were talking, restless, the stock market was plunging. The depression was on. When Anton heard next week from N. J. Bilberry of the crisis, he said, “Now there’s somewhat for those rich folk to fret about. It’s no worry to us.”

Anton felt vindicated in his way of life, wondered idly if Garland had been affected. And he wished Frankie would write again. Her piano recital of last March had been a failure, the few letters she had written since ignored the subject. The flame in Anton’s life that burned through this daughter dimmed, bewildering him, causing his dream to lag. “Hum. Frankie’s going to make that music yet before the crowd. I’ve got to send her some money again, come the evening mail.”

Then a letter arrived from Chicago.

Dear Father,

It is not necessary to direct any more checks to me. You need money
worse. I moved from Uncle’s house a while ago to an apartment. I’m
going to get a job. Uncle is sick so we won’t drive down. I will
spend Yule in Chicago. Uncle lost his Oakland. The government men
took it away. He had a considerable loss in the market. He has real
worries. One of his friends jumped out of a window.

I will come to visit next summer for sure, and maybe bring a friend
with me to see the dear farm and meet the old folks at home. Then
like the song goes, I’ll tuck me to sleep in my old ’Tucky home!

daughter Frankie

part three

Let it be what it is she said
Let it wait as it must
It will choose soon or late
Let it wait
Love has life not of us
But of love she said
Let it lie where it must

14

Ellen was cutting across the field to the York cabin in the late May morning. Amanda York had married the smithy’s son, Jerome Hatfield. The couple lived in one side of the cabin. Jerome and Mr. York cared for the apple orchard surrounding it and worked in the Bethel Stone Foundry. During the winter and spring Ellen had watched Amanda grow heavy with child, taking vicarious pleasure in the young wife’s joy. “If it’s a boy,” Amanda had claimed, “we’re going to call it Junior. Wonder if it could be baptized Junior, Ellie? I doubt it’s a Christian name.”

At the cabin door Ellen called, “Hey, Mandy. Anybody home?” She heard the hoarse pained cry from within.

Mrs. York was shuffling out of the bedroom. “Ah, hit’s you, Ellen.” Her face was yellowed with fear, eyes staring with wakefulness.

“Mandy’s been taken?” Ellen asked.

“Doc Trumbo’s here. It’s not coming right. Ellen, you think somewhat could happen to her?”

“Bearing’s not so bad,” said Ellen, uncertain.

“I put the ax under the bed. She ought to have had it by now. She’s been at it since noon yesterday. She’s giving out. She’s quit trying.”

Then there was a scream from the room beyond, animal-like in travail. Ellen was recalling a spotted heifer that couldn’t bear its calf; Anton had hitched the team, and taken it from the womb. The scream circled the room and after it, like a splintering of glass, a thin cry echoed. “Ah, Doc’s got hit now.” The woman was scurrying away. Ellen followed slowly into the blood-odored room. Amanda lay oddly flat on rumpled stained sheets, her eyes shut in a white face. On the pillow her dark hair flowed. Ellen took her hand.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch the bed,” the face whispered strangely.

“It’s o’er now,” Ellen said.

Amanda’s eyes came open with an effort of the heavy lids. “Have we got our baby?”

“Yes, Mandy.” Ellen was frightened. “You rest.”

“I want to see it.” The words were barely discernible.

“All right.” Ellen went to the table where the doctor was binding a cloth about the infant’s navel. It feebly squirmed its thin-skinned damp red body and wrinkled its face. “She wants it, Doc.”

He glanced up at Ellen. “Let’s see, you must be one of those Gaddys. Your father hasn’t much use for satchel doctors, either, has he? You know these women never called me till an hour ago?”

“Mandy wants to see her baby.”

“They call me in at the last minute. Think they can do it all themselves. Like Indian squaws.” He wrapped the child in the warmed flannel that he took from Mrs. York and laid it by its mother’s face. “Lie still there, girl. I’m going to look at you now.” He spoke softly, disappeared into the kitchen to wash his hands.

“She’s fair, Mandy,” Ellen whispered, “your baby.”

“Ah, she is,” said Mrs. York, “with it all.”

Amanda’s breath rattled. She was drawing strangled gasps as if she had run a long stretch. Her eyes became fixed on the hewn-log walls, the cracked calking. She shuddered, the labored breath struggle faded and ceased.

Mrs. York sucked in her words, “My girl.” She put a hand out to touch the tired face, screamed, “Ah, Doc.”

Dr. Trumbo stumbled on the threshold in his haste. He was lifting Amanda’s wrist, laying it down, speaking sharply to Ellen, “Good Christ, where’s this girl’s husband?” He picked the sleeping infant up.

“I’ve got to cover the mirror,” Mrs. York mumbled, hurrying indecisively about the room. “So the baby doesn’t die as well. And stop the clock hands. Now what else must I do?”

“Jerome works at the stone foundry, Doc. Same as Mr. York. I can call them from Love’s store.”

“First take the child here. This old one’ll be no more use.” He turned to Amanda’s body again. Ellen laid the baby in the cradle. It was sleeping, its face like an inflamed pansy, lost amid ribbons and ruffles.

“Ah. You did it, Doc,” Mrs. York keened. “You were busy with yourself and your washing and you let it happen. I didn’t want you here. It was only because Mandy made me. She’d have come through but for you.”

“Now, Mrs. York,” he began.

The woman appealed to Ellen, “Don’t ne’er have a child, Ellen Gaddy. Don’t ne’er get caught with a child.” She grasped her arm, the tears squeezing from her old eyes, watering the wrinkles of her face.

“I’ve got to go, Mrs. York.”

Dr. Trumbo continued, “She’d been hemorrhaging. These things will happen. I packed her, did everything humanly possible. I came too late.”

The woman was taboring on the discolored sheet. “Ah, now what have I got?”

“You’ve got the child.”

“I don’t want hit.”

Ellen stood a moment in the cabin passageway before starting up the road toward Millville. “There’s a thing I keep trying to remember.” She spoke aloud, dazed. At the store she cranked the iron handle to the wood box that hung on the wall. “Central?”

“You’ll have to speak up, Madam.”

“Give me the Bethel Foundry.” When she had told Jerome, and heard the click at the other end, she walked out slowly.

Stacey called after, “Tell Maria Gaddy that eggs are down three cents again. They’re hardly worth trading.”

Ellen didn’t hear. A light mist of rain had begun and a sweet smell like the breath of cows was coming from the red plowed fields. The thing that had slipped her mind was back. It was the struggle to bear her own child, the way the throes had struck her in an open field and how she’d dragged herself to the shelter of the pear tree. The sweet heavy scent of crushed grass and blood and the fluttering of goldfinches were mingled into the memory.

After a week Jerome Hatfield came to speak to Anton. “Our baby’s ailing. Doc says she might hold down goat milk.” His face was haggard, his form stooped in exhaustion.

“My daughter’s got the goats.”

“I want to buy one from her.”

Ellen went to the woodshed and tied a rope to Rhodie’s collar. The doe had a little female kid at its side. “You keep Rhodie for as long as your baby needs the milk, Jerome. And raise the kid for the baby’s own.”

“I’m beholden.” He was lifting the goats into the wagon, fastening them there. He drove away, Rhodie baaing plaintively. Ellen watched them go. Here’s the land flowing over with milk and honey. The spring grass is pushing through the red land until it’s all pink and green. And Mandy’s dead. All about was death. The early dark of morning sometimes would be interrupted, awakening her, by Jack’s bark, followed by shotgun blasts and her father’s gruff tones. Ellen would know he had gone down in his mackinaw to kill some varmint in the barnyard. There was no escape from death, no way you could forget it was waiting. Ellen was resentful, disbelieving that some day her own strength would wither. I’m glad it wasn’t me when I bore that child back there. I recall I saw the evening star. And when Luke and Penny came, I got up from the orchard floor and walked to the house myself while Penny carried him. But then I pushed him from me, turned my back on my first-born.

* * * * *

She spoke up that night after the Gaddy supper had been eaten. The May rain was falling weighted, somnambulant, the air was close. “I hid it from you, Pa. Before I came home that summer when I’d run off from Uncle Garland.”

“You played the harlot.”

“I went to the Doughertys and had him there.”

“You were in St. Louis.”

“No. I went to Weems Crossroads in Illinois. I was afraid of you. The boy’s there now. I saw him when I went to get that clutch of guinea eggs that turned bad. Now I want to bring him here, Pa.”

Anton was stumping into the hall; he returned with the wide belt that he held by its buckle. “Before God your lying tongue is an abomination. Name the times I’ve said it.”

Ellen looked at him stony-faced. “Reckon I’m too old to whip, Pa. I’m twenty-one and the mother of your grandchild.”

He paused. “The father of a fool has no joy.” His heavy mouth was shaking. He drew the strap repeatedly through the palm of his hand, the harsh sliding noise rippling into the corners of the room like stones tossed in a pond. “My brother Marc, lusted. You be bound to do the same. He ran off from the college where my ma sent him. To a whorehouse. At St. Louis. And there’s where she went to get him. Dead. Now I’ve always claimed you had his blood, girl.”

Ellen’s eyes narrowed and shone. “You know what Marc was to your ma?” Her nerves shivered to their ends as her temper swung on her. “I know what that Nell did.”

Anton halted at bay. “Don’t say her name. She was a saint, girl. She sits at Mary’s right hand even now.”

Ellen was helpless, found she couldn’t strike. She kept silence.

Anton slapped the belt limply against his overall pants. He turned to a thin-legged doweled chair that was by the wall. “A harlot,” he said softly. “Upon e’er a high hill and under e’er a green tree, thou wanderest, playing the harlot. So says Jeremiah.” He let the strap drop, lifted the chair by its rungs, crashed it violently, splintering, to the floor. “Defiled.” He went from the room.

Ellen was looking at Maria. “You heard, Ma?”

“You got a child, Ellie?”

“A little boy, Ma. Named Simon.”

“I had a boy baby once. But he was a betimes child and had no life. I named him after Mester Gaddy for he wanted it. But they took him. He’s moldering out some’eres. I ne’er liked rain some way. Seems a boy would be unhappy and turn about in a wet place.”

Anton fumed as days passed. “Who’s its pa?”

“I don’t want to say. He’s as good as dead.”

“What’ll they speak of me when it’s told up and down the county?”

“Tell that I married a Yankee, Pa. And he left me.”

“No, the damn fool foreigner was killed. His folks have raised the child till now. And you’re fixing to bring it here.” He paused to eye Ellen with scorn. “Does it favor the Gaddys?”

“Reckon so, Pa.”

“What’s hit called?”

“Simon Gaddy.”

Then he said, “You’ll tell it to the priest, girl.”

“I’d rather not.”

“You’ll tell it Sunday. Before you can go for the brat.”

“I’ll tell it in the priest’s house, but not in the confessional.” She said bravely, “I’ve got a mind to leave the church.”

Impotent in frustration and wrath, Anton turned away. He was heard bawling commands to the team as he plowed up and down, making ready for the corn-planting.

They were standing before Father Tompert in the parlor of the rectory. Ellen, emboldened by her first successful stand against her father, spoke candidly to the Jesuit priest. “It’s like the church wants to boundary God, Father. And He is thus and so. And if you say at such a time such a prayer you’ll get off so much sooner to paradise. This is false to me, Father.”

“Hold, girl, you blaspheme,” roared Anton.

Father Tompert said, “I’ll speak with your daughter alone, sir. Wait outside this room. If you please.”

Then Ellen told the priest what was in her. And she added, “In the gospel of Matthew the Lord himself says, don’t pray where you’re seen of men. But enter into thy closet. And when you’ve shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret. And use not vain repetitions.”

The priest saw she loved God. He saw her mind was bright and she had thought this thing out. The wise Jesuit was not uncommon among those consecrated to the cross of his faith. He spoke to Ellen. “It’s not your kind that need the mother church, Ellen. We’ll wait till you’re ready to come again to us. Till then, the Lord be with thy spirit.”

He was walking to the door. She laid her hand on the sleeve of his cassock. “Father, is it wrong to lie to the neighbors and say I had a husband?”

He looked at her while a bell tolled somewhere outside over a stitch of time. She saw his eyes were an indigo blue and the pupil in the center was a dormant coal. “For the sake of the child, perhaps not. In the eyes of God it may have been a marriage. I don’t know.” He folded his arms, went to the door. His face was smooth, his body moved ageless below the black frock. “Don’t worry about your daughter, sir. She’s in no danger of damnation. God is with her.”

Ellen put on the faded dotted Swiss dress in the morning. She combed her hair, plaiting it tightly in a new way she had. Anton counted money into her hand. Maria was concerned about the census taker whom Tinie Bilberry had reported was coming and no telling at what hour. “Now, whate’er will I say to him? He be the government. I’m that fretted. Do you have to go now, girl?”

The train coughed and clanged into the Weems Crossroads station. The road to the Doughertys seemed longer than Ellen remembered. She was passing the burial ground. A group of black-clad people were ringed at a fresh grave, cars and buggies were parked by the roadside. She hurried by. Amanda had been laid in the ground like that, for rain to rot and worms to suck until she would be as earth herself, her rosy face and gleaming braid living on in Jerome Hatfield. And a day might come when his daughter would ask, “Now tell, Pa, what was Mammy like?” And Jerome would say, “Seems I can’t remember. Appears to have fallen from me some way.”

Ellen reached the mailbox, went up the lane and heard a guinea cry. It came to her on a sudden that she was terrified, as if she had been sent to the dark cellar for supplies again. Something lurked there in the shadows. She lifted her skirts and fled toward light and Penny and the gray-streaked house with door open and unscreened.

Ellen studied her son that evening. They took the meal out under the crab apple tree. Its leaves, not yet green, were coated with soft white hairs. Its pink flowers were like the wild rose, their spicy odor hovered where the five children gathered to be fed. Penny’s smallest child, Melinda, climbed on a stool, reaching her hands to the food. Blossom stood by Anse, who was four now and tall for his age, his dark head looking down on Simon’s blond one. And Clate was the leader and spoke what they all should do. “If it wasn’t for Clate,” Penny said, “I’d ne’er get this troop together. And we’ll have another Dougherty come Christmas. Seems I be e’er in this strait.”

Standing about the table, the children were eating corn pone and bacon and beans. There was milk and a honeycomb. Melinda sucked her sticky tiny fingers and crumbled the pone. Penny was cleaning the child’s hands with a damp rag, laughing, “I got plenty of pullets now, Ellie. Luke built a hen house. I trade eggs just like you Gaddys now. But say, the store’s paying low this spring.”

Ellen saw that Simon’s cheekbones and hair were like those of Christian Ay. He had Anton’s long chin. But there was the look of Christian about his eyes and high cheeks and broad mouth. “I wonder at him, Penny.”

“You’re thinking of his pa, aren’t you?”

“I allowed I’d forgot what he looked like. Time goes so fast. But Simon calls him back to mind.”

“Soon you won’t see it. It’ll just be little Simon.”

“I reckon.”

“I see Luke coming. We’ve been lucky. Webster laid off most of the hands when times got bad, but he kept Luke on. He’d let them all go before Luke.” Penny’s look wound itself about the man moving up the path, her love like a warm wind.

“He’ll be short and stout. Strong like a bull.” Ellen was watching Simon, who leaned against the table, his cheek on one fat hand while the other spooned beans unsteadily into his mouth.

Luke slept in the mow of the shed that night so there would be a place for Ellen. The women lay in the narrow bed. The baby girls were in cribs, the three boys in the attic room. “If you should have a trouble sometime, Penny,” Ellen said, before dozing off, “or there’s a sickness or a way I can help.”

“We’ll miss Simon. He’s quiet. He can milk Tiny even. He coaxes me to let him. He does real good for four years.”

“Those little hands.”

“And he’s one with the donkey. Why, I missed him once and hunted till I found him sleeping under it and it standing like a rock.”

Ellen awoke after midnight; she lay still until it came to her where she was. An owl called, deep-toned, “Whoo-whoo-tooo-oo-oo.” She went into the yard, walking down the lane in the warm dark. The owl shrieked suddenly from the catalpa by the road, in a voice like a woman. On noiseless widespread wings it was flapping toward her and passing. “There he’ll be, following me about the farm.” She stayed in the night until she reached the end of her fears. “Whate’er comes, it’s right to bring him home and tell he’s mine.”

In the morning Simon had on bleached canvas pants, well patched. The sleeves to his nubby sweater were too short. They were waiting for Luke to come in a truck to take them to the station. Simon’s eyes were wide. He shrank from Ellen. Penny was washing his face again. “Take your ma’s hand, now.” But Simon shook his head, threw himself upon his foster mother. “You can have this. It’s Anse’s.” Penny was handing him a yarn ball she had made by winding bright colors around a piece of cloth. “If you’ll go now with your ma.” So then Simon took Ellen’s hand. She led him while he dragged his feet, gazing back to Penny and her brood.

“Where’s Simon going,” asked Clate, “with Anse’s ball?”

“It’s his ball now.”

On the train the boy clutched his toy and looked away. At last Ellen took a piece of string and showed him how to play cat’s cradle. He was lifting the twine from her hands and biting his lip. He cast his blue eyes on her. “I like that.”

“I do too, Simon.” The sun fought through the streaked sooted windows. The train rushed through the greening land, coming into the valleys and hills of Kentucky.

Anton was there with the buckboard. He ordered them into the high seat. He had laid his faded kerchief under his black round hat to catch the sweat from his balding head. The corners of the red cloth were draping about his florid face. “Whole county can get a look at Gaddy’s youngen toting her bastard home.”

The horses trotted down the macadam main street, past store-fronts, out onto country roads. Ellen spoke timidly, “This is your granddaddy.”

“Quit jawing.”

As they neared Millville, Ellen spoke again. “Penny said to tell you howdy. Her husband told me about a dog that grinds axes and things.” She spoke too rapidly, lines drawing on her forehead. “This man’s got a treadwheel. He runs a belt from it to his grindstone. The dog runs there in the big wheel, grinding sickles and knives too. Luke said the dog waits for the man to whistle.” She appealed to Anton.

“Haw.” They had passed Love’s store, turned down Sweetincreek Road for a mile.

She broke the silence once more. “Luke heard of a cat too.” And holding Simon in her arm, she felt him press close. He laid a chubby arm across her lap. “It turned a churn, treading a wheel for the lady of the house. Now think, Simon.”

Jack met them barking. The dog’s eyes were nearly on a level with Simon’s; the child laid his face in the fur. When Anton drove the team to the barn, the boy watched him covertly. Maria was coming on the porch in her shapeless Mother Hubbard dress. “Now here’s your granny,” called Ellen.

Maria glanced at the boy, felt her bun. “The census taker came, Ellie. I had a day. I told him all he asked. I wish he’d come again.”

“I’m glad it’s o’er, Ma. You know if Sam did my chores?”

“I gave him a cup of tea and some of that butter-cake you made. I told him all he asked.”

15

June dawdled by. Lilacs faded and roses unfolded. Simon went behind Ellen, dropping pumpkin seeds in the young corn rows. He wore new overalls that she ordered from the catalog, and shirts she made for him. He ran barefoot at her heels. In his pocket he kept the colored ball that had been Anse’s. He spoke seldom, but Ellen would hear his piping voice when he was with the geese or with Jack and he had no fear of the heavy work horses.

Frankie had written, “We’ll be down Independence Day. My friend is coming with me for two weeks’ vacation. Oh, the dear farm and dear Ellie. Why didn’t you tell me I had a nephew, Ellie? I can’t wait to see him. You cunning sister.”

When Joe Burwell told his son that Frankie was coming, Dyke drove up the Gaddy lane in his Oldsmobile to offer the use of his car to meet the train. “It’ll be a pleasure to see Frankie again, Mester Gaddy.”

“Stay for supper with us, Dyke,” Ellen invited him, cordial.

The two men went to the station. Ellen had hung the calico curtain across her parents’ bedroom to make the guest chamber. Simon had taken over Frankie’s old bed upstairs. She was placing a vase of catalpa blooms by the bedside on the marble-topped table. A heady fragrance seeped from the spikes of creamy scalloped blossoms specked with purple and yellow.

The car was returning. Ellen and Simon were going into the yard. Frankie threw her arms about Ellen. There was perfume in her hair, her face was accented with eye-shadow and penciled brows, her lips vivid. She was kneeling by Simon. “I’m Auntie! See what we brought you.” She took his hand and they went to Dyke’s car.

Frankie’s companion was talking with the two men. Her black hair was shingled. She was heavy-hipped, her face appearing almost delicate above her squat body. She wore no make-up and held her head back to eye the men squarely. Anton waved his hand while talking, and she nodded again at him. They came toward Ellen. “This here’s Genevieve Wheeler,” Anton said. “Did I get that name right? Haw. And from the way Frankie wrote at first I thought it was a fellow.”

“Pleased,” Ellen said shortly. The woman’s hand was warm and dry.

“Certainly do admire your father, Ellen. The farmer’s the backbone of America.”

“Haw.” Anton was shrugging. “Go on in and get settled, you-all. We’ll be back when we finish the chores. Coming, Dyke?”

Frankie opened the screen door for Simon. She called, “Ellie, he’s cute.”

Ellen followed the men to the barns. Dyke, in his black suit, was feeding the cows. Later Simon came out. He stroked the big shoulder of the brown cow that Ellen was milking. “I like Auntie, Mama,” he lisped. “She brung me this.” He wore a stiff yellow visor cap. He straightened it.

“Let’s go tend the goats, Simon.”

The boy strutted beside her, looking up. “I’ll milk Leona for you, Mama.”

“See if you can get it all this time.”

Leona had a high round udder and gave her milk down easily. “How come Leona’s white, Mama?”

“Because her daddy was a white one.”

Simon sat on a stool, leaning into the goat’s side and squeezing the teats so the milk came in little squirts. The animal turned to sniff the new cap and lick Simon’s neck where the tow hair curled. Then it wheezed as it brought up its cud.

Ellen meanwhile milked Penny and Pie, set out their hay and grain. She stood over Simon. “Want me to finish her?”

He sighed, turning the three-legged stool over to her. “I most got her clean, didn’t I, Mama?”

“Just about.”

“That Auntie’s comely, Mama.” He was leaning against her while the white liquid purred in her bucket, foaming, hot.

“Ne’er know her for my sister, would you, Simon? Like a peacock sister to a hen.” Her gray eyes were level with his blue ones. She was stirred. He’s a fair boy.

“You’s a little hen, Mama.”

“You’re my chick, then.”

“Peep. Peep.” He took her hand as she picked up the pail. Nearing the house, they heard the piano and voices raised. Genevieve was carrying the alto.

O Robin, Robin Redbreast
O Robin, Robin dear
O Robin sings so sweetly
In the falling of the year

“Mercy.” Ellen set the pail in the kitchen, began to help Maria with the meal. Simon stationed himself beside the parlor door to listen to the singing. He was discovered and with cries and kisses they drew him to them.

After supper Frankie remained in the kitchen with Ellen. Simon went up to bed. From the parlor came Anton’s deep voice and an occasional question from Genevieve. Maria was knitting and Dyke listened while he smoked a cigar. Frankie polished the plate she was holding. “Don’t you like Gen, Ellie? Don’t you like her? We’ve got a flat, you know.”

“You wrote you left Uncle.”

“I left last February. The market crash changed him, Ellie. He wouldn’t eat and stayed up nights going over papers. He got real crabby. Stingy, too. You’d never have recognized him. I stopped all my lessons. I was glad.”

“I see.”

“He turned Mrs. Quimby out on the street.” Frankie was smiling, prim.

“Oh?”

“When I left, he closed the house up. He went to a flat he has in East Chicago. You know he’s bad, Ellie?”

“How?”

“He keeps a woman,” she whispered. “He’s had that flat for years.”

“For lack of wood the fire goes out, Frankie.” Ellen was stiff.

“That’s a cute saying, Ellie. Where’d you hear it?”

“You’re so scatterbrained, Frankie. And I ne’er had any use for whisperers.”

“You like my hair, Ellie? Gen says I look like Janet Gaynor.”

“Who’s that?”

“Ellie. A movie star.”

“When did you first meet this Gen?”

“She’s my best friend.”

Dyke stepped into the kitchen. “Hey.”

“Hello, Dyke. Wouldn’t Gen let you talk?”

“No.”

“She’s like that. She has no use for men. Except for one like Pa there. A good farmer.”

“You sure are different, Frankie. You’re plumb pretty.” Dyke stood his ground, blushing.

“I always liked you, Dyke,” Frankie was bold. “Remember how we used to argue about him, Ellie? I said he was tall and he’d do because I wasn’t particular?”

“Frankie,” Ellen cried.