“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Bert,” he proposed. “You get in my car and I’ll take you there and you won’t have to pay ten dollars for a hired car.”
Bert took out his pipe and tobacco. Abe waited while he thought the proposition over thoroughly. Bert could not find a match, so Abe handed him one.
“You’ll do that, won’t you, Bert?” he asked.
“Don’t hurry me — I need plenty of time to think this over in my mind.”
Abe waited, bending nervously toward Bert. The match-head crumbled off and Abe promptly gave Bert another one.
“I guess I can accommodate you that little bit, this time,” he said, at length. “Wait until I lock up my house.”
When Bert came back to the automobile Abe started the engine and turned around in the road toward Skowhegan. Bert sat beside him sucking his pipe. Neither of them had anything to say to each other all the time they were riding. Abe drove as fast as his old car would go, because he was in a hurry to get Bert arrested and the trial started.
When they reached the courthouse, they went inside and Abe swore out the warrant and had it served on Bert. The sheriff took them into the courtroom and told Bert to wait in a seat on the first row of benches. The sheriff said they could push the case ahead and get a hearing some time that same afternoon. Abe found a seat and sat down to wait.
It was an hour before Bert’s case was called to trial. Somebody read out his name and told him to stand up. Abe sat still, waiting until he was called to give his testimony.
Bert stood up while the charge was read to him. When it was over, the judge asked him if he wanted to plead guilty or not guilty.
“Not guilty,” Bert said.
Abe jumped off his seat and waved his arms.
“He’s lying!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “He’s lying — he did steal my pants!”
“Who is that man?” the judge asked somebody.
“That’s the man who swore out the warrant,” the clerk said. “He’s the one who claims the pants were stolen from him.”
“Well, if he yells out like that again,” the judge said, “I’ll swear out a warrant against him for giving me a headache. And I guess somebody had better tell him there’s such a thing as contempt of court. He looks like a Democrat, so I suppose he never heard of anything like that before.”
The judge rapped for order and bent over towards Bert.
“Did you steal a pair of corduroy pants from this man?” he asked.
“They were my pants,” Bert explained. “I left them in my house when I sold it to Abe Mitchell and when I asked him for them he wouldn’t turn them over to me. I didn’t steal them. They belonged to me all the time.”
“He’s lying!” Abe shouted again, jumping up and down. “He stole my pants — he’s lying!”
“Ten dollars for contempt of court, whatever your name is,” the judge said, aiming his gavel at Abe, “and case dismissed for lack of evidence.”
Abe’s face sank into his head. He looked first at the judge and then around the courtroom at the strange people.
“You’re not going to make me pay ten dollars, are you?” he demanded angrily.
“No,” the judge said, standing up again. “I made a mistake. I forgot that you are a Democrat. I meant to say twenty-five dollars.”
Bert went outside and waited at the automobile until Abe paid his fine. In a quarter of an hour Abe came out of the courthouse.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to give you a ride back home,” he said, getting under the steering wheel and starting the engine. “But what I ought to do is leave you here and let you ride home in a hired car.”
Bert said nothing at all. He sat down beside Abe and they drove out of town toward home.
It was almost dark when Abe stopped the car in front of Bert’s house. Bert got out and slammed shut the door.
“I’m mighty much obliged for the ride,” he said. “I been wanting to take a trip over Skowhegan way for a year or more. I’m glad you asked me to go along with you, Abe, but I don’t see how the trip was worth twenty-five dollars to you.”
Abe shoved his automobile into gear and jerked down the road toward his place. He left Bert standing beside the mailbox rubbing his hands over the legs of his corduroy pants.
“Abe Mitchell ought to have better sense than to be a Democrat,” Bert said, going into his house.
(First published in Scribner’s)
Crown-Fire
WHEN I STOOD UP the next time, I saw Irene coming around the bend in the road, swinging her wide-brimmed hat beside her. Her face was flushed and her cheeks were the color of ripe oranges. Over her shoulders her long hair fell in waves, rippling like the mane of her father’s sorrel mare pacing along the cowpath in the pasture.
The moment I first saw her, I sat down quickly, trying to hide myself in the tall roadside grass. I was afraid she would see me before she reached the place where I was, and would turn and run across the field before I could speak to her.
Irene was walking slowly, looking backward every few steps at the fires on the eastern ridge. The whole world seemed to have been on fire that day. The air was dense with blue woodsmoke, and, now that evening had come, the flames on the ridge began to color the sky. There had been no rain for almost a month, and the fields and woods were burning night and day. No one tried to stop the fires; only rain could stop the flames from eating over the earth eastward and westward.
I did not know what Irene was going to do when I jumped up and surprised her. I did not want her to run away from me again; each time I had tried to walk home with her in the evening she had run so fast that I could not keep up with her. But I had to see her and to talk with her. I had wished all that summer to be able to walk along the road with her. Once she had said she did not hate me; but no matter what I said to her, she continued to run away from me, leaving me alone in the road.
Just as she reached the place where I was, I pushed aside the tall grass and sprang to the road beside her. I was certain I could hear the beating of her heart; she was so frightened she did not know what to do.
“Please, Irene,” I begged, catching her arm and holding it tightly in my hands, “please let me walk part of the way home with you. Will you? Please let me, Irene.”
She was still too frightened to speak or to move. Her heart was beating as madly as that of a captured rabbit.
“Irene,” I said, trembling until my voice sounded as though it were hundreds of miles away, “please let me, this one time. Will you?”
Her breath was becoming slower. The rise and fall of her bosom was slower and more even, and the trembling of her lips had stopped.
“Please stop holding me, Sidney,” she said.
“Let me walk part of the way home with you, Irene. Please let me, this one time.”
“Why do you ask to do that?”
She continued to look at me while I tried to think of something to tell her. I could think of no reason, except that I wanted to go with her. I had waited all summer for the time to come when she would let me walk with her; but now when she had asked me why I wished to go with her, I did not know what to say.
“I’ve got to go with you, Irene,” I said, clutching her arm tighter. “I’ve got to walk home with you.”
“I can’t let you do that,” she said. “You mustn’t.”
“Why, Irene? Tell me why. Why won’t you let me?”
She turned her head and looked back at the red sky over the ridge. There was no sound of shouting men, no cracking of falling pines; there was only the deepening red of the sky at night.
Because I had been waiting all summer, ever since school was out in June, for the time to come when I might walk along the road with her in the evening — because I had lain awake night after night, staring at the blackness, thinking of her — because I could not keep myself from touching her — I released her arm and pressed my hand over her bosom. There was a period of time, an interval so short I knew of no way of measuring its l
ength, when she did not move. Her head was turned towards the fires on the ridge when I clutched her, and she closed her eyes tightly, and, her lips parting, her breath again came quick. Then as suddenly as I had placed my hand over her breasts, she jerked away from me and ran down the road towards home.
“Please, Irene,” I begged, running after her; “please come back. I didn’t mean to make you run away. Let me go with you.”
She was running swiftly, but not so swiftly as I was. I caught her arm again and pulled her back. I could not force her to stop, and we walked along the road while I held her.
“I’m going to tell your father, Sidney,” she said. “You just wait and see if I don’t. I’m going to tell him what you did to me. You just wait and see if I don’t tell your father.”
I did not know what to say. I did not mind so much the whipping he would give me as I did my father’s knowledge of what I had done to her. I did not know what to do. I was afraid to release her arm, and I was afraid to continue holding her.
“I’m going to tell your father on you, Sidney,” she kept on saying. “You just wait and see if I don’t. I’m going to tell him what you did to me in the road.”
When we reached the churchyard where the path was that made a short cut to Irene’s house, we both stopped. It had become darker, and the reflection of the fires against the sky was so bright I could even see the tears in Irene’s eyes when she turned her head towards me. Both of us stood in the churchyard trembling, and looking at the red sky and at each other.
“Why did you do that, Sidney?” she asked.
“When I went to the road to wait for you, Irene, I didn’t think of doing anything like that. I only wanted to see you and walk home with you. But — when I caught you — I couldn’t keep from touching you. I had to. I just had to hold you.”
The fires on the ridge drew her gaze towards them once more. She could not keep from looking at the smoke and flame and at the dull red glow overhead.
Suddenly she turned and looked directly at me.
“Sidney, if you don’t let me go,” she said, “I’ll scream. I’ll scream until everybody hears me.”
At any other time I would have put my hand over her mouth; this time I clutched her in my arms, holding her more desperately than I had the first time. She did not move. She stood still, looking backward at the fires on the ridge. The night was almost light as day by that time. The shadows were long and gray, and the air was filled with blue woodsmoke. We stood in the churchyard path, waiting.
Wind on the ridge had risen, and the flames were leaping higher into the night. While we watched them, we could see the flames climbing into the treetops and burning the pine needles. A little later, the fire in the underbrush and in the grass had almost died out; but in the tops of the pines it burned faster and brighter than ever.
“It’s a crown-fire now,” Irene said. “Look — the pine tops are burning!”
The sight we saw made us tremble. We were standing close to each other, holding each other. Irene’s face was more flushed than ever, and her bosom rose and fell faster than it had in the road when I sprang at her from the tall grass.
“A crown-fire can’t be stopped until it burns itself out,” she said. “I’m afraid of crown-fires.”
She placed her hands over my hands and pressed them tightly against her. Then she leaned against me, and I could feel the soft warmth of her body touching mine. Her heart beat so madly that I could feel with my hands its throb through her body, and her breath came so quickly that, even though I held her firmly, her breasts trembled as her lips were doing.
I did not know for how long a time I had held my face against the soft warmth of her throat when she suddenly raised my head and kissed my lips and tore herself out of my arms. It was much later though, because the crown-fire had burned off into the distance, almost out of sight.
“I’ve got to go home now, Sidney,” she said; “if I don’t go now, they’ll be coming after me.”
I ran after her, and stopped. We were then on the other side of the churchyard, at the end of the path. Through the trees I could see the lights of her house.
“Will you let me walk home with you tomorrow evening, Irene, and every evening?” I asked.
She stopped a moment and looked back at me. I waited, shaking all over, to hear her reply. I was afraid that she would say she would not allow me to come with her again.
While I waited, clutching at a tree beside me, she looked off into the distance towards the ridge where the fire had been. There was no light in the sky then, and the air was clearing of woodsmoke. I went a step nearer, gripping the rough bark of the pine tree between my fingers.
“Will you, Irene?”
Without a word, she turned and ran through the grove towards the lights in her home. After she had gone, I stood beside the tree listening. I had hoped so much that she would promise to let me come with her again the next evening, and every evening after that, that I could not believe she had gone away without an answer.
Later I walked back through the dark churchyard, out of the path, and up the road past the tall grass where I had lain that afternoon. There was no longer a light in the sky over the ridge. The crown-fire had burned itself out at the edge of the cleared field. Until there was again fire on the ridge, perhaps not again until the next summer, I knew she would run away from me each time I tried to stop her. Every day when I wanted to see her, I should have to hide in the tall roadside grass and look at her while she passed. I knew I could never again catch her as I had done that evening, because ever after she would be on guard against me, and if I should spring from the tall grass and succeed in catching her, she would surely tell my father of what I had done to her.
Long before I reached home I had made up my mind to catch her again some day and to hold her as I had done for nearly an hour that night. I knew I should never again be happy until I held her again and could feel her soft warm lips kiss mine; I should never again be happy until she pressed my hands against her to hold tighter the trembling of her breasts. Some day, that year or the years following, there would again be a crown-fire on the ridge. New pines would spring up to take the places of the burned ones, and someone would drop lighted matches in the dry underbrush.
(First published in Lion and Crown)
Runaway
MRS. GARLEY WAS seated at the head of the table drinking coffee and reading the paper after breakfast when she heard a plate fall and break on the kitchen floor. The boarders had eaten and left, and she was alone in the room. Garley had left the house too.
When she ran to the kitchen door, threw it open, and looked inside at Lessie, the little Negro girl was cringing in the corner behind the range.
“So you broke another one of my dishes, did you?” Mrs. Garley said evenly. Her anger was slowly rising; the longer she stood and looked at Lessie, the madder she could become. “That makes two you’ve broken this month, Lessie. And that’s two too many for me to stand for.”
The nine-year-old colored girl moved inch by inch farther into the corner. She never knew what Mrs. Garley might do to her next.
“You come out here in the middle of this floor, Lessie,” the woman said. “Come this minute when I speak to you!”
The girl came several steps, watching Mrs. Garley and trembling all over. When she was halfway to the center of the room, Mrs. Garley ran to her and slapped her on both sides of her face. The blows made her so dizzy she did not know where she was or what she was doing. She threw her arms around her head protectingly.
“You stinking little nigger!” Mrs. Garley shouted at her.
Before Lessie could run back to the corner behind the stove, Mrs. Garley snatched up the broom and began beating her with it, striking her as hard as she could over the head, shoulders, and on her back. The girl began to cry, and fell on the floor. Mrs. Garley struck her while she lay there screaming and writhing.
“Now, you get up from there and get to work cleaning this house,” she told Lessie, putt
ing the broom away. “I want every room in this house as clean as a pin by twelve o’clock.”
She left the kitchen and went into the front of the house.
II
Lessie had complained about the work. She had complained about washing so many dishes and cleaning so many rooms in the boardinghouse. She said she was too tired to finish them every day. Mrs. Garley had slapped her for every word she uttered.
“If that nigger has run away,” she told her husband, “I’ll whip her until there’s nothing left of her.”
“You can’t expect too much of her,” Garley said. “She’s not big enough to do much heavy work.”
“You talk like you’re taking up for her,” his wife said. “I feed her, give her clothes, and keep her. If she won’t be grateful of her own accord, I’ll make her be grateful.”
Lessie had run away, and Mrs. Garley knew she had. Mrs. Garley had been expecting it to happen for some time, but she believed she had frightened the girl enough to keep her there. Lessie had been brought into town from the country when she was four years old, and for the past three years she had done all the housework.
“It’s about time to let her go, anyway,” Garley said. “You wouldn’t be able to keep her much longer without paying her something.”
“There you go, taking up for her again! I pay her with her meals and bed. That’s all she should have. I wouldn’t give her a red cent besides that.”
Garley shook his head, still not convinced. For one thing, he was afraid there might be trouble if they kept her any longer. Everybody in town knew they kept Lessie there to do the work, and somebody might want to make trouble for them. His wife worked the girl harder than a grown person.
“Well, I want Lessie back, and I want you to bring her back,” his wife said. “I want her back by tomorrow morning at breakfast time.”
Garley looked at his wife but said nothing. He depended upon her for his living. Without her and the boardinghouse, he did not know what he could do. She ran the boardinghouse and paid all the bills. When she told him to do something, he could not say he would not do it. He got up and went through the house to the back porch.
Stories of Erskine Caldwell Page 51