The Pastures of Heaven

by Steinbeck, John

  “About three miles,” said the driver.

  “Will there be a car to take me into the valley?”

  “No, not unless you’re met.”

  “But how do people get in there?”

  The driver ran over the flattened body of a jack rabbit with apparent satisfaction. “I only hit ‘em when they’re dead,” he apologized. “In the dark, when they get caught in the lights, I try to miss ‘em.”

  “Yes, but how am I going to get into the Pastures of Heaven?”

  “I dunno. Walk, I guess. Most people walk if they ain’t met.”

  When he set her down at the entrance to the dirt side-road, Molly Morgan grimly picked up her suitcase and marched toward the draw in the hills. An old Ford truck squeaked up beside her.

  “Goin’ into the valley, ma’am?”

  “Oh—yes, yes, I am.”

  “Well, get in, then. Needn’t be scared. I’m Pat Humbert. I got a place in the Pastures.”

  Molly surveyed the grimy man and acknowledged his introduction. “I’m the new school teacher. I mean, I think I am. Do you know where Mr. Whiteside lives?”

  “Sure, I go right by there. He’s clerk of the board. I’m on the school board myself, you know. We wondered what you’d look like.” Then he grew embarrassed at what he had said, and flushed under his coating of dirt. “Course I mean what you’d be like. Last teacher we had gave a good deal of trouble. She was all right, but she was sick—I mean, sick and nervous. Finally quit because she was sick.”

  Molly picked at the fingertips of her gloves. “My letter says I’m to call on Mr. Whiteside. Is he all right? I don’t mean that. I mean is he—what kind of a man is he?”

  “Oh. you’ll get along with him all right. He’s a fine old man. Born in that house he lives in. Been to college, too. He’s a good man. Been clerk of the board for over twenty years.”

  When he put her down in front of the big old house of John Whiteside, she was really frightened. “Now it’s com­ing,” she said to herself. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of. He can’t do anything to me.” Molly was only nineteen. She felt that this moment of interview for her first job was a tremendous inch in her whole existence. The walk up to the door did not reassure her, for the path lay between tight little flower beds hedged in with dipped box, seemingly planted with the admonition, “Now grow and multiply, but don’t grow too high, nor multiply too greatly, and above all things, keep out of this path!” There was a hand on those flowers, a guiding and a correcting hand. The large white house was very dignified. Venetian blinds of yellow wood were tilted down to keep out the noon sun. Halfway up the path she came in sight of the entrance. There was a veranda as broad and warm and welcoming as an embrace. Through her mind flew the thought, “Surely you can tell the hospitality of a house by its entrance. Suppose it had a little door and no porch.” But in spite of the welcoming of the wide steps and the big doorway, her timidities clung to her when she rang the bell. The big door opened, and a large, comfortable woman stood smiling at Molly.

  “I hope you’re not selling something,” said Mrs. Whiteside. “I never want to buy anything, and I always do, and then I’m mad.”

  Molly laughed. She felt suddenly very happy. Until that moment she hadn’t known how frightened she really was. “Oh, no,” she cried. “I’m the new school teacher. My letter says I’m to interview Mr. Whiteside. Can I see him?”

  “Well, it’s noon, and he’s just finishing his dinner. Did you have dinner?”

  “Oh, of course. I mean, no.”

  Mrs. Whiteside chuckled and stood aside for her to enter. “Well, I’m glad you’re sure.” She led Molly into a large dining room, lined with mahogany, glass-fronted dish closets. The square table was littered with the dishes of a meal. “Why, John must have finished and gone. Sit down, young woman. I’ll bring back the roast.”

  “Oh, no. Really, thank you, no. I’ll just talk to Mr. Whiteside and then go along.”

  “Sit down. You’ll need nourishment to face John.”

  “Is—is he very stern, with new teachers, I mean?”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Whiteside. “That depends. If they haven’t had their dinner, he’s a regular bear. He shouts at them. But when they’ve just got up from the table, he’s only just fierce.”

  Molly laughed happily. “You have children,” she said. “Oh, you’ve raised lots of children—and you like them.”

  Mrs. Whiteside scowled. “One child raised me. Raised me right through the roof. It was too hard on me. He’s out raising cows now, poor devil. I don’t think I raised him very high.”

  When Molly had finished eating, Mrs. Whiteside threw open a side door and called, “John, here’s someone to see you.” She pushed Molly through the doorway into a room that was a kind of a library, for big bookcases were loaded with thick, old comfortable books, all filigreed in gold. And it was a kind of a sitting room. There was a fire place of brick with a mantel of little red tile bricks and the most extraordinary vases on the mantel. Hung on a nail over the mantel, slung really, like a rifle on a shoulder strap, was a huge meerschaum pipe in the Jaegar fashion. Big leather chairs with leather tassels hanging to them, stood about the fireplace, all of them patent rocking chairs with the kind of springs that chant when you rock them. And lastly, the room was a kind of an office, for there was an old-fashioned roll-top desk, and behind it sat John Whiteside. When he looked up, Molly saw that he had at once the kindest and the sternest eyes she had ever seen, and the whitest hair, too. Real blue-white, silky hair, a great duster of it.

  “I am Mary Morgan,” she began formally.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Morgan, I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you sit down?”

  She sat in one of the big rockers, and the springs cried with sweet pain. “I love these chairs,” she said. “We used to have one when I was a little girl.” Then she felt silly. “I’ve come to interview you about this position. My letter said to do that.”

  “Don’t be so tense, Miss Morgan. I’ve interviewed every teacher we’ve had for years. And,” he said, smiling, “I still don’t know how to go about it.”

  “Oh—I’m glad, Mr. Whiteside. I never asked for a job before. I was really afraid of it.”

  “Well, Miss Mary Morgan, as near as I can figure, the purpose of this interview is to give me a little knowledge of your past and of the kind of person you are. I’m sup­posed to know something about you when you’ve finished. And now that you know my purpose, I suppose you’ll be self-conscious and anxious to give a good impression. Maybe if you just tell me a little about yourself, every­thing’ll be all right. Just a few words about the kind of girl you are, and where you came from.”

  Molly nodded quickly. “Yes, I’ll try to do that, Mr. Whiteside,” and she dropped her mind back into the past.

  There was the old, squalid, unpainted house with its wide back porch and the round washtubs leaning against the rail. High in the great willow tree her two brothers, Joe and Tom, crashed about crying, “Now I’m an eagle.” “I’m a parrot.” “Now I’m an old chicken. “Watch me!”

  The screen door on the back porch opened, and their mother leaned tiredly out. Her hair would not lie smoothly no matter how much she combed it. Thick strings of it hung down beside her face. Her eves were al­ways a little red, and her hands and wrists painfully cracked. “Tom, Joe,” she called. “You’ll get hurt up there. Don’t worry me so, boys! Don’t you love your mother at all?” The voices in the tree were hushed. The shrieking spirits of the eagle and the old chicken were drenched in self-reproach. Molly sat in the dust, wrapping a rag around a stick and doing her best to imagine it a tall lady in a dress. “Molly, come in and stay with your mother. I’m so tired today.”

  Molly stood up the stick in the deep dust. “You, miss,” she whispered fiercely. “You’ll get whipped on your bare bottom when I come back.” Then she obediently went into the house.

  Her mother sat in a straight chair in the kitchen. “Draw up, Molly. Just sit with me for
a little while. Love me, Molly! Love your mother a little bit. You are mother’s good little girl, aren’t you?” Molly squirmed on her chair. “Don’t you love your mother, Molly?”

  The little girl was very miserable. She knew her mother would cry in a moment, and then she would be compelled to stroke the stringy hair. Both she and her brothers knew they should love their mother. She did everything for them, everything. They were ashamed that they hated to be near her, but they couldn’t help it. When she called to them and they were not in sight, they pretended not to hear, and crept away, talking in whispers.

  “Well, to begin with, we were very poor,” Molly said to John Whiteside. “I guess we were really poverty-stricken. I had two brothers a little older than I. My father was a traveling salesman, but even so, my mother had to work. She worked terribly hard for us.”

  About once in every six months a great event occurred. In the morning the mother crept silently out of the bed­room. Her hair was brushed as smoothly as it could be; her eyes sparkled, and she looked happy and almost pretty. She whispered, “Quiet, children! Your father’s home.”

  Molly and her brothers sneaked out of the house, but even in the yard they talked in excited whispers. The news traveled quickly about the neighborhood. Soon the yard was filled with whispering children. “They say their father’s home.” “Is your father really home?” “Where’s he been this time?” By noon there were a dozen children in the yard, standing in expectant little groups, caution­ing one another to be quiet.

  About noon the screen door on the porch sprang open and whacked against the wall. Their father leaped out. “Hi,” he yelled. “Hi, kids!” Molly and her brothers flung themselves upon him and hugged his legs, while he plucked them off and hurled them into the air like kittens.

  Mrs. Morgan fluttered about, clucking with excitement. “Children, children. Don’t muss your father’s clothes.”

  The neighbour children threw handsprings and wres­tled and shrieked with joy. It was better than any holiday.

  “Wait till you see,” their father cried. “Wait till you see what I brought you. It’s a secret now.” And when the hysteria had quieted a little he carried his suitcase out on the porch and opened it. There were presents such as no one had ever seen, mechanical toys unknown before—tin bugs that crawled, dancing wooden Negroes and astound­ing steam shovels that worked in sand. There were superb glass marbles with bears and dogs right in their centers. He had something for everyone, several things for everyone. It was all the great holidays packed into one.

  Usually it was midafternoon before the children became calm enough not to shriek occasionally. But eventually George Morgan sat on the steps, and they all gathered about while he told his adventures. This time he had been to Mexico while there was a revolution. Again he had gone to Honolulu, had seen the volcano and had him­self ridden on a surfboard. Always there were cities and people, strange people; always adventures and a hundred funny incidents, funnier than anything they had ever heard. It couldn’t all be told at one time. After school they had to gather to hear more and more. Throughout the world George Morgan tramped, collecting glorious ad­ventures.

  “As far as my home life went,” Miss Morgan said, “I guess I almost didn’t have any father. He was able to get home very seldom from his business trips.”

  John Whiteside nodded gravely.

  Molly’s hands rustled in her lap and her eyes were dim.

  One time he brought a dumpy, woolly puppy in a box, and it wet on the floor immediately.

  “What kind of a dog is it?” Tom asked in his most sophisticated manner.

  Their father laughed loudly. He was so young! He looked twenty years younger than their mother. “It’s a dollar and a half dog,” he explained. “You get an awful lot of kinds of dog for a dollar and a half. it’s like this ... Suppose you go into a candy store and say, ‘I want a nickels worth of peppermints and gumdrops and licorice and raspberry chews.’ Well, I went in and said, ‘Give me a dollar and a half’s worth of mixed dog.’ That’s the kind it is. It’s Molly’s dog, and she has to name it.”

  “I’m going to name it George,” said Molly.

  Her father bowed strangely to her, and said, “Thank you Molly.” They all noticed that he wasn’t laughing at her, either.

  Molly got up very early the next morning and took George about the yard to show him the secrets. She opened the hoard where two pennies and a gold policeman’s but­ton were buried. She hooked his little front paws over the back fence so he could look down the street at the schoolhouse. Lastly she climbed into the willow tree, carrying George under one arm. Tom came out of the house and sauntered under the tree. “Look out you don’t drop him,” Tom called, and just at that moment the puppy squirmed out of her arms and fell. He landed on the hard ground with a disgusting little thump. One leg bent out at a crazy angle, and the puppy screamed long, horrible screams, with sobs between breaths. Molly scram­bled out of the tree, dull and stunned by the accident. Tom was standing over the puppy, his face white and twisted with pain, and George, the puppy, screamed on and on.

  “We can’t let him,” Tom cried. “We can’t let him.” He ran to the woodpile and brought back a hatchet. Molly was too stupefied to look away, but Tom closed his eyes and struck. The screams stopped suddenly. Tom threw the hatchet from him and leaped over the back fence. Molly saw him running away as though he were being chased.

  At that moment Joe and her father came out of the back door. Molly remembered how haggard and thin and grey her father’s face was when he looked at the puppy. It was something in her father’s face that started Molly to crying. “I dropped him out of the tree, and he hurt himself, and Tom hit him, and then Tom ran away.” Her voice sounded sulky. Her father hugged Molly’s head against his hip.

  “Poor Tom!” he said. “Molly, you must remember never to say anything to Tom about it, and never to look at him as though you remembered.” He threw a gunny sack over the puppy. “We must have a funeral,” he said. “Did I ever tell you about the Chinese funeral I went to, about the colored paper they throw in the air, and the little fat roast pigs on the grave?” Joe edged in closer, and even Molly’s eyes took on a gleam of interest. “Well, it was this way …”

  Molly looked up at John Whiteside and saw that he seemed to be studying a piece of paper on his desk. “When I was twelve years old, my father was killed in an accident,” she said.

  The great visits usually lasted about two weeks. Always there came an afternoon when George Morgan walked out into the town and did not come back until late at night. The mother made the children go to bed early, but they could hear him come home, stumbling a little against the furniture, and they could hear his voice through the wall. These were the only times when his voice was sad and discouraged. Lying with held breaths, in their beds, the children knew what that meant. In the morning he would be gone, and their hearts would be gone with him.

  They had endless discussions about what he was doing. Their father was a glad Argonaut, a silver knight. Virtue and Courage and Beauty—he wore a coat of them. “Some­time,” the boys said, “sometime when we’re big, we’ll go with him and see all those things.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Molly insisted.

  “Oh, you’re a girl. You couldn’t go, you know.”

  “But he’d let me go, you know he would. Sometime he’ll take me with him. You see if he doesn’t!”

  When he was gone their mother grew plaintive again, and her eyes reddened. Querulously she demanded their love, as though it were a package they could put in her hand.

  One time their father went away, and he never came back. He had never sent any money, nor had he ever writ­ten to them, but this time he just disappeared for good. For two years they waited, and then their mother said he must be dead. The children shuddered at the thought, but they refused to believe it, because no one so beauti­ful and fine as their father could be dead. Some place in the world he was having adventures. There was some good reason why h
e couldn’t come back to them. Some day when the reason was gone, he would come: Some morning he would be there with finer presents and better stories than ever before. But their mother said he must have had an accident. He must be dead. Their mother was distracted. She read those advertisements which offered to help her make money at home. The children made paper flowers and shamefacedly tried to sell them. The boys tried to develop magazine routes, and the whole family nearly starved. Finally when they couldn’t stand it any longer, the boys ran away and joined the navy. After that Molly saw them as seldom as she had seen her father, and they were so changed, so hard and boisterous, that she didn’t even care, for her brothers were strangers to her.

  “I went through high school, and then I went to San Jose and entered Teachers’ College. I worked for my board and room at the home of Mrs. Allen Mont. Before I finished school my mother died, so I guess I’m a kind of an orphan, you see.”

  “I’m sorry,” John Whiteside murmured gently.

  Molly flushed. “That wasn’t a bid for sympathy, Mr. Whiteside. You said you wanted to know about me. Every­one has to be an orphan some time.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I’m an orphan too, I guess.”

  Molly worked for her board and room. She did the work of a full time servant, only she received no pay. Money for clothes had to be accumulated by working in a store during summer vacation. Mrs. Mont trained her girls. “I can take a green girl, not worth a cent,” she often said, “and when that girl’s worked for me six months, she can get fifty dollars a month. Lots of women know it, and they just snap up my girls. This is the first schoolgirl I’ve tried, but even she shows a lot of improvement. She reads too much though. I always say a servant should be asleep by ten o’clock, or else she can’t do her work right.”

  Mrs. Mont’s method was one of constant criticism and nagging, carried on in a just, firm tone. “Now, Molly, I don’t want to find fault, but if you don’t wipe the silver drier than that, it’ll have streaks.”—“The butter knife goes this way, Molly. Then you can put the tumbler here.”