Stories of Erskine Caldwell

by Erskine Caldwell

  “Please, Frank,” she said, “I’m awfully thirsty. Won’t you take me into that drugstore and get me a glass of water?”

  “If you must have a drink right away, I will,” I said, “but can’t you wait a minute more? There’s a restaurant a few doors below here, and we can get a glass of water there while we’re waiting for our supper to be served. If we lose much time we won’t have the chance to see a complete show.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t wait, Frank,” she said, clutching my arm. “Please — please get me a glass of water. Quick!”

  We went into the drugstore and stood in front of the soda fountain. I asked the clerk for a glass of water. Rachel waited close beside me, clutching my arm tighter and tighter.

  In front of us, against the wall, there was a large mirror. I could see ourselves plainly, but there was something about our reflection, especially Rachel’s, that I had never been aware of before. It’s true that we had never stood before a mirror until then, but I saw there something that had escaped me for a whole year. Rachel’s beauty was revealed in a way that only a large mirror can show. The curve of her cheeks and lips was beautiful as ever, and the symmetrical loveliness of her neck and arms was the same beauty I had worshiped hundreds of times before; but now for the first time I saw in the mirror before us a new and unrevealed charm. I strained my eyes once more against the surface of the mirror, and once again I saw there the new sinuous beauty of her body.

  “Quick, Frank!” Rachel cried, clutching me desperately. “Water — please!”

  I called to the clerk again, not looking, because I was afraid to take my eyes from the new beauty I saw in the mirror, I had never before seen such beauty in a girl. There was some mysterious reflection of light and shadow that had revealed the true loveliness of Rachel. The mirror had revealed in one short moment, like a flash of lightning in a dark room, the sinuous charm that had lain undiscovered and unseen during all the time I had known her. It was almost unbelievable that a woman, that Rachel, could possess such a new, and perhaps unique, beauty. My head reeled when the sensation enveloped me.

  She clutched my arm again, breaking as one would a mirror, the reflection of my thoughts. The clerk had filled the glass with water and was handing it to her, but before he could place it in her hands, she had reached for it and had jerked it away from him. He looked as surprised as I was. Rachel had never before acted like that. Everything she did had always been perfect.

  She grasped the glass as if she were squeezing it, and she swallowed the water in one gulp. Then she thrust the glass back towards the clerk, holding her throat with one hand, and screamed for more water. Before he could refill the glass, she had screamed again, even louder than before. People passing the door paused, and ran inside to see what was taking place. Others in the store ran up to us and stared at Rachel.

  “What’s the matter, Rachel?” I begged her, catching her wrists and shaking her. “Rachel, what’s the matter?”

  Rachel turned and looked at me. Her eyes were turned almost upside down, and her lips were swollen and dark. The expression on her face was horrible to see.

  A prescription clerk came running towards us. He looked quickly at Rachel, and ran back to the rear of the store. By that time she had fallen forward against the marble fountain, and I caught her and held her to keep her from falling to the floor.

  The prescription clerk again came running towards us, bringing a glass filled with a kind of milk-white fluid. He placed the glass to Rachel’s lips, and forced the liquid down her throat.

  “I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said. “If we had known ten minutes sooner we could have saved her.”

  “Too late?” I asked him. “Too late for what? What’s the matter with her?”

  “She’s poisoned. It looks like rat poison to me. It’s probably that, though it may be some other kind.”

  I could not believe anything that was being said, nor could I believe that what I saw was real.

  Rachel did not respond to the antidote. She lay still in my arms, and her face was becoming more contorted and darker each moment.

  “Quick! Back here!” the clerk said, shaking me.

  Together we lifted her and ran with her to the rear of the store. The clerk had reached for a stomach pump, and was inserting the tube in her throat. Just as he was about to get the pump started, a physician ran between us and quickly examined Rachel. He stood up a moment later, motioning the other man and myself aside.

  “It’s too late now,” he said. “We might have been able to save her half an hour ago, but there is no heart action now, and breathing has stopped. She must have taken a whole box of poison — rat poison, I guess. It has already reached her heart and blood.”

  The clerk inserted the tube again and began working with the pump. The physician stood beside us all the time, giving instructions, but shaking his head. We forced stimulants down her throat and attempted to revive her by means of artificial respiration. During all of that time the doctor behind us was saying: “No, no. It’s of no use. She’s too far gone now. She’ll never live again. She has enough rat poison in her system to kill ten men.”

  Some time later the ambulance came and took her away. I did not know where she was taken, and I did not try to find out. I sat in the little brown-paneled room surrounded by white-labeled bottles, looking at the prescription clerk who had tried so hard to save her. When at last I got up to go, the drugstore was empty save for one clerk who looked at me disinterestedly. Outside in the street there was no one except a few taxi drivers who never looked my way.

  In a daze I started home through the deserted streets. The way was lonely, and tears blinded my eyes and I could not see the streets I walked on. I could not see the lights and shadows of the streets, but I could see with a painful clarity the picture of Rachel, in a huge mirror, bending over our garbage can, while the reflection of her beauty burned in my brain and in my heart.

  (First published in Clay)

  The Midwinter Guest

  IT WAS THE FIRST time in his whole life that Orland Trask had done such a thing. Even Orland’s wife could not say afterward what had got into Orland to cause him to tell the strange man from the eastern country that he might remain in the house and stay for the night. And it was the last time. Both Orland and Emma knew better than to do a thing like that again.

  The stranger from the eastern country knocked on the door that evening while Orland and his wife were eating supper. Orland heard him knock at the beginning, but he did not make an effort to get up from the table to answer a knocking on his door at suppertime.

  “It’s nobody I want dealings with,” Orland said to his wife. “A man who would come knocking on a neighbor’s door at mealtime hadn’t ought to be listened to. Finns and Swedes are the only people I ever heard of who didn’t have better sense.”

  “Maybe some of the Morrises are sick, Orland,” Emma said. “I’ll go see.”

  “Stay sat in your seat, woman. Even those Morrises have got better sense than to take to illness at mealtime.”

  The knocking became louder. The man out there was pounding on the storm door with a heavy oak walking stick.

  Orland’s wife turned and looked out the window behind her. It was still snowing. The wind had died down with nightfall and the flakes were floating lightly against the panes.

  The stranger at the door was impatient. He opened the storm door and banged on the panels of the house door and against the clapboards with the knotted end of his walking stick, and then he turned and beat against the door with the heels of his studded boots. He was making a lot of noise out there for a stranger, more noise than Orland had ever heard at his door.

  “I’ll go see,” Emma said again, rising from her chair at the other end of the table.

  “You stay sat in your seat, woman,” Orland told her.

  Orland’s wife sank back into the chair, but barely had she settled herself when suddenly the door burst open with a gust of snow and icy wind, and the strange man
stood there glaring at them. He was wearing black leather breeches and a red and green mackinaw and a brown fur cap pulled so far down over his ears that only his eyes and nose were showing. Snow had clung to his eyelashes and had frozen in long thin icicles that reached almost to his mouth. He stomped and blew, knocking the snow from his boots and shaking it from his cap and mackinaw. The heavy oak walking stick rapped as loudly as ever against the door sill. The man had not entered the house, but the door was open and the frosty air blew inside.

  Orland’s back was turned to the door and the first that he knew of the man bursting in was when the icy blast of snow and wind struck him. His wife, Emma, had seen everything from the beginning, but she was afraid to say or to do anything until Orland turned around. She knew that a man who would burst open a door would not wait to be asked into the room.

  “Holy Mother,” the stranger who stood in the doorway muttered, “the bones of my body are stiff as ice.”

  He came into the room then, his mittens under his arm, and his hands full of snow that he had scooped from the doorstep. He shut the door with the heel of his boot and walked around the table at which Orland was sitting, and rubbed his hands with the new snow.

  Orland had not said a word. He sat glaring at the heavily clothed man who had entered his house unbidden.

  Emma asked the strange man, guardedly, if his hands were frozen. While she waited for him to answer, she glanced again at Orland.

  “Holy Mother,” the stranger said again, “the bones of my body are stiff as ice.”

  He continued to rub the new snow over the backs of his hands and around his fingers. He still did not go near the heater in the corner.

  “My name is Phelps,” he said, “and I come from the eastern country of Maine. Down there the townsmen take in cold men from the frost at night.”

  “Well,” Orland said, pushing back his chair from the table, “the townsmen in this part of the state have got the sense to stay indoors when they have no good business out in a frosty night.”

  Emma went to the door and brought back a bowl of new snow. She placed the bowl on the carpet in front of the stranger who had said his name was Phelps. He began to unlace his boots while Emma got ready to take away the supper dishes.

  “Freeze your toes, too?” Orland said. “Any man who would walk out and freeze his hands and feet ought to have them drop off with frostbite.”

  Phelps removed his boots and socks and began rubbing his toes with the new snow.

  “Am a poor man,” Phelps said, “and I’m not a house owner. My brother wrote me a letter to come over to New Hampshire and help him peel pulpwood. Started out walking, and I’ve got the high mountains yet to cross. Guess you will take me in and put me up for the night.”

  Orland filled his pipe and struck a match before he answered. He then waited until Emma had gone into the kitchen again.

  “The country would be a heap better off without fools like you walking through the snow and frost to New Hampshire in dead of winter, and it’s my duty to turn you out and let the frost finish its job of freezing you. That’s what I ought to do to a man who would come into a neighbor’s house without asking. The country has got too many like you in it now. But my wife would take on if I was to turn you out, so I’ll have to let you stay for the night. Will give you warning, though; the next time your brother writes you to come over to New Hampshire to help him peel pulpwood, it had better be before winter sets in. You won’t get aid here again. Won’t stand to have strangers coming into my house unbidden.”

  Phelps took his feet out of the new snow and put them on the sheet of newspaper Orland’s wife had spread for him. He made no effort to move or to thank Orland for permitting him to stay for the night. He just sat and stared at the snow falling against the window. He was an old man, much older than Orland. He looked to be at least eighty years old. His hair was almost white, but his body was firm and muscular. If he had been less than six feet tall, he would have appeared to be overweight.

  Presently Emma came back into the room and carried out the bowl of melting snow and the damp newspaper, and then she handed the old man a clean bath towel. He dried his hands and feet and put his socks and boots on again.

  “Show me the place to sleep, and good night,” he said wearily.

  “Guess you will want the use of the spare chamber,” Orland said, scowling at the old man. “Well, you’re going to get it. Could give you some blankets and put you on the carpet, but I’m not. Am giving you the use of the spare chamber. My wife will fix you a plate of breakfast in the morning, if you are in here on time. Nobody eats a breakfast in my house after six-thirty.”

  Emma lit a lamp and showed the old man to the spare chamber. When she returned, Orland had begun reading the paper and he had nothing to say to her.

  Just before he got up to go to bed, Orland called his wife.

  “Give that man who said his name was Phelps a helping of beans and potatoes for breakfast,” he said, “but don’t give him but one plateful. Don’t want to be the cause of prolonging the lives of people who walk through the snow and frost to New Hampshire in dead of winter.”

  Orland went to bed then, leaving Emma to clean the room and to set the chairs against the wall. He was asleep long before she had finished her work.

  When Orland got up and lit the lamp the next morning at five-thirty, he listened for several minutes before calling Emma. He went to the wall that separated their room from the spare chamber and listened for a sound of the old man. The only sound that he could hear anywhere in the house was the breathing of Emma.

  After calling his wife, Orland went to the kitchen range and opened the drafts and shook down the ashes. The firebox was ablaze in a minute or two, and he went to the next room and replenished the fire in the heater. Outside, it had stopped snowing during the night, and there were deep drifts of new snow.

  Breakfast was ready at six-thirty, and Emma set the dishes aside on the range to wait until the old man came into the next room. She knew that Orland would call for his breakfast at almost any minute, but she delayed placing it on the table as long as she could.

  “It’s time for breakfast, Emma,” Orland said. “Why haven’t you got it ready?”

  “Am putting it on the table right away,” she said. “Maybe you had best go call Mr. Phelps while I’m doing it.”

  “Will be damned if I go call him,” Orland said. “Told the old fool last evening what time breakfast was ready, and if he doesn’t get up when it’s ready, then I’m not going to wear out my shoes running to call him. Sit down and let’s eat, Emma.”

  Emma sat down without a word.

  After they had finished, Orland filled his pipe. He took a match from his coat pocket, but he waited a minute or longer before striking it.

  “Clear away the dishes, Emma,” he said.

  Orland’s wife carried out the dishes and plates to the kitchen. She placed the dish of beans on the range to keep them warm a while longer.

  When she came back into the room for the rest of the tableware, Orland motioned to her to listen to him. “That old fool from the eastern country and going to New Hampshire to help his brother peel pulpwood had better be setting out toward the high mountains. He’s already missed the breakfast we had for him. Will give him another ten minutes, and if he’s not out of the house by then, I’ll throw him out, leather breeches and all.”

  Emma went back into the kitchen to wash the dishes while Orland filled the heater with maple chunks. One look at Orland’s face was enough to frighten her out of the room.

  Orland waited longer than ten minutes, and each second that passed made him more angry. It was almost eight o’clock then, an hour after breakfast was over. Orland got up and opened the house door and the storm door. His face was aflame and his motions were quick and jerky.

  “Take care, woman,” he said to Emma. “Take care!”

  Emma came to the kitchen door and stood waiting to see what Orland was going to do. She did not know what on e
arth to do when Orland became as angry as he was then.

  Stand back, Emma,” he said. “Stand back out of my way.”

  He began running around the room, looking as if he himself did not know what he was likely to do that minute or the next.

  “Orland —” Emma said, standing in the kitchen door where she could get out of his way if he should turn toward her.

  “Take care, woman,” he shouted at her. “Take care!”

  Orland was piling all the furniture in the corner of the room beside the heater. He jerked up the carpet and the rugs, pulled down the curtains, and carried all the old newspapers and magazines to the fire. He was acting strangely, Emma knew, but she did not know what on earth he was going to do nor how to stop him. She had never seen Orland act like that before in all her life, and she had lived with him for almost fifty years.

  “Orland —” she said again, glancing backward to the outside kitchen door to make certain of escape.

  “Take care, woman,” Orland said. “Take care!”

  The furniture, rugs and carpet, and newspapers were blazing like a May grass fire within a few minutes. Smoke and flame rose to the ceiling and flowed down the walls. Just when Emma thought surely that Orland would be burned alive in the fire, he ran out of the door and into the yard. She ran screaming through the other door.

  Emma’s first thought when she saw the house burning, was where would they live now. Then she remembered their other house, the ten-room brick house down the road near the village. Orland would not live in it because he had said that the frame house would have to be worn out before they could go to live in their brick house. He had been saying that for twenty years, and during all of that time the fine brick house of ten rooms had been standing at waste. Now, at last, they could live in it.

  There were no people passing along the road so early in the morning, but John White saw the smoke and flame from his house across the flats, and he came running over with a bucket of water. By the time he got there, all the water had splashed out of the bucket, and he set it down and looked at the fire.