“Small, isn’t it?” I grinned back.
“Usta be bigger. Not that it helps now. Roaring mining town years ago.” As he spoke I could pick out disintegrating buildings dotting the rocky hillsides and tumbling into the steep washes. “My dad can remember it when he was a kid. That was long enough ago that there was still a river for the town to be in the bend o’.”
“Is that where it got its name?”
“Some say yes, some say no. Might have been a feller named Bendo.” The driver grunted as he unlashed my luggage from the bus roof and swung it to the ground.
“Oh, hi!” said the driver.
I swung around to see who was there. The man was tall, well built, good-looking—and old. Older than his face— older than years could have made him because he was really young, not much older than I. His face was a stern unhappy stillness, his hands stiff on the brim of his Stetson as he he’d it waist high.
In that brief pause before his “Miss Amerson?” I felt the same feeling coming from him that you can feel around some highly religious person who knows God only as a stern implacable vengeful deity, impatient of worthless man, waiting only for an unguarded moment to strike him down in his sin. I wondered who or what his God was that prisoned him so cruelly. Then I was answering, “Yes, how do you do?” And ‘ e touched my hand briefly with a “Saul Diemus” and turned to the problem of my two large suitcases and my record player.
I followed Mr. Diemus’ shuffling feet silently, since he seemed to have slight inclination for talk. I hadn’t expected a reception committee, but kids must have changed a lot since I was one, otherwise curiosity about teacher would have lured out at least a couple of them for a preview look. But the silent two of us walked on for a half block or so from the highway and the post office and rounded the rocky corner of a hill. I looked across the dry creek bed and up the one winding street that was residential Bendo. I paused on the splintery old bridge and took a good look. I’d never see Bendo like this again. Familiarity would blur some outlines and sharpen others, and I’d never again see it, free from the knowledge of who lived behind which blank front door.
The houses were scattered haphazardly over the hillsides, and erratic flights of rough stone steps led down from each to the road that paralleled the bone-dry creek bed. The houses were not shacks but they were unpainted and weathered until they blended into the background almost perfectly. Each front yard had things growing in it, but such subdued blossomings and unobtrusive planting that they could easily have been only accidental massings of natural vegetation.
Such a passion for anonymity…
“The school—” I had missed the swift thrust of his hand.
“Where?” Nothing I could see spoke school to me.
“Around the bend.” This time I followed his indication and suddenly, out of the featurelessness of the place, I saw a bell tower barely topping the hill beyond the town, with the fine pencil stroke of a flagpole to one side. Mr. Diemus pulled himself together to make the effort.
“The school’s in the prettiest place around here. There’s a spring and trees, and—” He ran out of words and looked at me as though trying to conjure up something else I’d like to hear. “I’m board president,” he said abruptly. “You’ll have ten children from first grade to second-year high school. You’re the boss in your school. Whatever you do is your business. Any discipline you find desirable—use. We don’t pamper our children. Teach them what you have to. Don’t bother the parents with reasons and explanations. The school is yours.”
“And you’d just as soon do away with it and me, too,” I smiled at him.
He looked startled. “The law says school them.” He started across the bridge. “So school them.”
I followed meekly, wondering wryly what would happen if I asked Mr. Diemus why he hated himself and the world he was in and even—oh, breathe it softly—the children I was to “school.”
“You’ll stay at my place,” he said. “We have an extra room.”
I was uneasily conscious of the wide gap of silence that followed his pronouncement, but couldn’t think of a thing to fill it. I shifted my small case from one hand to the other and kept my eyes on the rocky path that protested with shifting stones and vocal gravel every step we took. It seemed to me that Mr. Diemus was trying to make all the noise he could with his shuffling feet. But, in spite of the amplified echo from the hills around us, no door opened, no face pressed to a window. It was a distinct relief to hear suddenly the happy unthinking rusty singing of hens as they scratched in the coarse dust.
~ * ~
I hunched up in the darkness of my narrow bed trying to comfort my uneasy stomach. It wasn’t that the food had been bad—it had been quite adequate—but such a dingy meal! Gloom seemed to festoon itself from the ceiling and unhappiness sat almost visibly at the table.
I tried to tell myself that it was my own travel weariness that slanted my thoughts, but I looked around the table and saw the hopeless endurance furrowed into the adult faces and beginning faintly but unmistakably on those of the children. There were two children there. A girl, Sarah (fourth grade, at a guess), and an adolescent boy, Matt (seventh?) —too silent, top well mannered, too controlled, avoiding much too pointedly looking at the empty chair between them.
My food went down in limps and quarreled fiercely with the coffee that arrived in square-feeling gulps. Even yet— long difficult hours after the meal—the food still wouldn’t lie down to be digested.
Tomorrow I could slip into the pattern of school, familiar no matter where school was, since teaching kids is teaching kids no matter where. Maybe then I could convince my stomach that all was well, and then maybe even start to thaw those frozen unnatural children. Of course they well might be little demons away from home—which is very often the case. Anyway, I felt, thankfully, the familiar September thrill of new beginnings.
I shifted in bed again, then stiffening my neck, lifted my ears clear of my pillow.
It was a whisper, the intermittent hissing I had been hearing. Someone was whispering in the next room to mine. I sat up and listened unashamedly. I knew Sarah’s room was next to mine, but who was talking with her? At first I could get only half words and then either my ears sharpened or the voices became louder.
“… and did you hear her laugh? Right out loud at the table!” The quick whisper became a low voice. “Her eyes crinkled in the corners and she laughed.”
“Our other teachers laughed, too.” The uncertainly deep voice must be Matt.
“Yes,” Sarah whispered. “But not for long. Oh, Matt! What’s wrong with us? People in our books have fun. They laugh and run and jump and do all kinds of fun stuff and nobody—” Sarah faltered, “no one calls it evil.”
“Those are only stories,” Matt said. “Not real life.”
“I don’t believe it!” Sarah cried. “When I get big I’m going away from Bendo. I’m going to see—”
“Away from Bendo!” Matt’s voice broke in roughly. “Away from the Group?”
I lost Sarah’s reply. I felt as though I had missed an expected step. As I wrestled with my breath the sights and sounds and smells of my old dorm room crowded back upon me. Then I caught myself. It was probably only a turn of phrase. This futile desolate unhappiness couldn’t possibly be related in any way to that magic…
“Where is Dorcas?” Sarah asked, as though she knew the answer already.
“Punished.” Matt’s voice was hard and unchildlike. “She jumped.”
“Jumped!” Sarah was shocked.
“Over the edge of the porch. Clear down to the path. Father saw her. I think she let him see her on purpose.” His voice was defiant. “Someday when I get older I’m going to jump, too—all I want to—even over the house. Right in front of Father.”
“Oh, Matt!” The cry was horrified and admiring. “You wouldn’t! You couldn’t. Not so far, not right in front of Father!”
“I would so,” Matt retorted. “I could so, because I—”
His words cut off sharply. “Sarah,” he went on, “can you figure any way, any way, that jumping could be evil? It doesn’t hurt anyone. It isn’t ugly. There isn’t any law—”
“Where is Dorcas?” Sarah’s voice was almost inaudible. “In the hidey hole again?” She was almost answering Mart’s question instead of asking one of her own.
“Yes,” Matt said. “In the dark with only bread to eat. So she can learn what a hunted animal feels like. An animal that is different, that other animals hate and hunt” His bitter voice put quotes around the words.
“You see,” Sarah whispered. “You see?”
In the silence following I heard the quiet closing of a door and the slight vibration of the floor as Matt passed my room. I eased back onto my pillow. I lay back, staring toward the ceiling. What dark thing was here in this house? In this community? Frightened children whispering in the dark. Rebellious children in hidey holes learning how hunted animals feel. And a Group… ? No it couldn’t be. It was just the recent reminder of being on campus again that made me even consider that this darkness might in some way be the reverse of the golden coin Karen had showed me.
~ * ~
My heart almost failed me when I saw the school. It was one of those monstrosities that went up around the turn of the century. This one had been built for a boom town, but now all the upper windows were boarded up and obviously long out of use. The lower floor was blank, too, except for two rooms—though with the handful of children quietly standing around the door it was apparent that only one room was needed. And not only was the building deserted, the yard was swept clean from side to side innocent of grass or trees—or playground equipment. There was a deep grove just beyond the school, though, and the glint of water down canyon.
“No swings?” I asked the three children who were escorting me. “No slides? No seesaws?”
“No!” Sarah’s voice was unhappily surprised. Matt scowled at her warningly.
“No,” he said, “we don’t swing or slide—nor see a saw!” He grinned up at me faintly.
“What a shame!” I said. “Did they all wear out? Can’t the school afford new ones?”
“We don’t swing or slide or seesaw.” The grin was dead. “We don’t believe in it.”
There’s nothing quite so flat and incontestable as that last statement. I’ve heard it as an excuse for practically every type of omission, but, so help me, never applied to playground equipment. I couldn’t think of a reply any more intelligent than “Oh,” so I didn’t say anything.
All week long I felt as if I were wading through knee-deep Jello or trying to lift a king-sized feather bed up over my head. I used up every device I ever thought of to rouse the class to enthusiasm—about anything, anything! They were polite and submissive and did what was asked of them, but joylessly, apathetically, enduringly.
Finally, just before dismissal time on Friday, I leaned in desperation across my desk.
“Don’t you like anything?” I pleaded. “Isn’t anything fun?”
Dorcas Diemus’ mouth opened into the tense silence. I saw Matt kick quickly, warningly, against the leg of the desk. Her mouth closed.
“I think school is fun,” I said. “I think we can enjoy all kinds of things. I want to enjoy teaching but I can’t unless you enjoy learning.”
“We learn,” Dorcas said quickly. “We aren’t stupid.”
“You learn,” I acknowledged. “You aren’t stupid. But don’t any of you like school?”
“I like school,” Martha piped up, my first grader. “I think it’s fun!”
“Thank you, Martha,” I said. “And the rest of you—” I glared at them in mock anger, “you’re going to have fun if I have to beat it into you!”
To my dismay they shrank down apprehensively in their seats and exchanged troubled glances. But before I could hastily explain myself Matt laughed and Dorcas joined him. And I beamed fatuously to hear the hesitant rusty laughter spread across the room, but I saw ten-year-old Esther’s hands shake as she wiped tears from her eyes. Tears—of laughter?
~ * ~
That night I twisted in the darkness of my room, almost too tired to sleep, worrying and wondering. What had blighted these people? They had health, they had beauty— the curve of Martha’s cheek against the window was a song, the lift of Dorcas’ eyebrows was breathless grace. They were fed—adequately, clothed—adequately, housed—adequately, but nothing like they could have been. I’d seen more joy and delight and enthusiasm from little campground kids who slept in cardboard shacks and washed—if they ever did—in canals and ate whatever edible came their way, but grinned, even when impetigo or cold sores bled across their grins.
But these lifeless kids! My prayers were troubled and I slept restlessly.
A month or so later things had improved a little bit, but not much. At least there was more relaxation in the classroom. And I found that they had no deep-rooted convictions against plants, so we had things growing on the deep window sills—stuff we transplanted from the spring and from among the trees. And we had jars of minnows from the creek and one drowsy horny toad that housed in his box of dirt only to flick up the ants brought for his dinner. And we sang, loudly and enthusiastically, but, miracle of miracles, without even one monotone in the whole room. But we didn’t sing “Up, Up in the Sky” or “How Do You Like to Go Up in a Swing?” My solos of such songs were received with embarrassed blushes and lowered eyes!
There had been one dust-up between us, though—this matter of shuffling everywhere they walked.
“Pick up your feet, for goodness’ sake,” I said irritably one morning when the shoosh, shoosh, shoosh of their coming and going finally got my skin off. “Surely they’re not so heavy you can’t lift them.”
Timmy, who happened to be the trigger this time, nibbled unhappily at one finger. “I can’t,” he whispered. “Not supposed to.”
“Not supposed to?” I forgot momentarily how warily I’d been going with these frightened mice of children. “Why not? Surely there’s no reason in the world why you can’t walk quietly.”
Matt looked unhappily over at Miriam, the sophomore who was our entire high school. She looked aside, biting her lower lip, troubled. Then she turned back and said, “It is customary in Bendo.”
“To shuffle along?” I was forgetting any manners I had. “Whatever for?”
“That’s the way we do in Bendo.” There was no anger in her defense, only resignation.
“Perhaps that’s the way you do at home. But here at school let’s pick our feet up. It makes too much disturbance otherwise.”
“But it’s bad—” Esther began.
Matt’s hand shushed her in a hurry.
“Mr. Diemus said what we did at school was my business,” I told them. “He said not to bother your parents with our problems. One of our problems is too much noise when others are trying to work. At least in our schoolroom let’s lift our feet and walk quietly.”
The children considered the suggestion solemnly and turned to Matt and Miriam for guidance. They both nodded and we went back to work. For the next few minutes, from the corner of my eyes, I saw with amazement all the unnecessary trips back and forth across the room, with high-lifted feet, with grins and side glances that marked such trips as high adventure—as a delightful daring thing to do! The whole deal had me bewildered. Thinking back I realized that not only the children of Bendo scuffled but all the adults did, too—as though they were afraid to lose contact with the earth, as though… I shook my head and went on with the lesson.
Before noon, though, the endless shoosh, shoosh, shoosh of feet began again. Habit was too much for the children. So I silenty filed the sound under “Uncurable, Endurable,” and let the matter drop.
I sighed as I watched the children leave at lunchtime. It seemed to me that with the unprecedented luxury of a whole hour for lunch they’d all go home. The bell tower was visible from nearly every house in town. But instead they all brought tight little paper sacks with dull crum
bly sandwiches and unimaginative apples in them. And silently with their dull scuffly steps they disappeared into the thicket of trees around the spring.
“Everything is dulled around here,” I thought. “Even the sunlight is blunted as it floods the hills and canyons. There is no mirth, no laughter. No high jinks or cutting up. No preadolescent silliness. No adolescent foolishness. Just quiet children, enduring.”
I don’t usually snoop but I began wondering if perhaps the kids were different when they were away from me—and from their parents. So when I got back at twelve thirty from an adequate but uninspired lunch at the Diemuses’ house I kept on walking past the schoolhouse and quietly down into the grove, moving cautiously through the scanty undergrowth until I could lean over a lichened boulder and look down on the children.
Some were lying around on the short still grass, hands under their heads, blinking up at the brightness of the sky between the leaves. Esther and little Martha were hunting out fillaree seed pods and counting the tines of the pitchforks and rakes and harrows they resembled. I smiled, remembering how I used to do the same thing.
Ingathering - The Complete People Stories Page 11