Through a Glass, Darkly

by Charlotte Miller

  After a long moment, Walter spoke. “Will the other boy recover?”

  “Dr. Thrasher said that he would, though Buddy would have killed him if someone hadn’t pulled him off of the boy first.”

  Walter nodded his head, considering. “Over a girl, you say—one of Buddy’s girlfriends?”

  “No, the other boy’s—Buddy was, well—”

  “And the boy’s parents?” Walter asked. He knew very well what his grandson was like; he did not have to be told, and he wanted none of the sordid details.

  “The boy’s father is keeping his mouth shut.”

  “Donner’s a good worker,” Walter said, nodding. It was his highest praise.

  “But, Donner’s wife—” He did not continue, and did not have to. Walter expected nothing less than complete loyalty out of a millhand, no matter the circumstances.

  “When the shift’s over, give Donner and his wife both their notice. I want them out of their mill house by day-end tomorrow—and make sure his wife keeps her mouth shut.”

  The last words were said with a feeling that Walter showed only on such occasions. He could not allow such talk in the mill or the village. Complaint bred nothing but discontent—the more people talked, the unhappier they were; the unhappier they were, the more they wanted, and there could be nothing more a mill villager could want than what Walter Eason provided for them. They were poor; they worked long hours in the mill, and lived out their lives in mill houses he owned. They married other mill villagers, and had children just like themselves, too ill-equipped to make more of themselves than what they came into life with, for it was not within Walter to believe that anyone would be poor in the first place if he had any drive or ambition within him. All they could do was complain and cause trouble if they were given the chance, gaining for themselves freedoms they were never equipped to handle. They should be content in their neat homes along their clean streets, content with their steady wages, and the food on their tables, content that their children would come into the mill just as they had—he guaranteed them work; he guaranteed them shelter; he guaranteed them existence. What more could any of them need?

  A discreet tap came at the door, and Walter looked up to see the secretary enter. “Yes, Grace?” Walt asked, an annoyance evident in his voice that brought his father’s eyes to him. Walter had stressed to both his sons never to show emotion, anger or annoyance, before any other human being. To do so only made one appear weak, and Walter Eason would have no member of his family appear weak before anyone.

  “I didn’t mean to bother you, Mr. Eason, but there’s a young man here, and I knew there was an opening in the card room—”

  “Well, send him on to the overseer, and don’t bother me with hiring. What do you think I pay you for?”

  Walter gritted his teeth, wanting in that moment to reach across the wide expanse of the desktop and grab his son by the shirt front. When he had reached the age of sixty-five, he had given Walt a form of authority over the cotton mill, but, in the more than five years since, he had not been able to bring himself to divest complete responsibility for the enterprise, still maintaining his office in the mill just as he always had. It was times such as this when Walter could see the wisdom in not having turned the complete control of the mill over to his son. Walt lacked the temperament to manage a business as vast and involved as the cotton mill, village, and the related enterprises.

  “But, the young man, he asked to see you, Mr. Walter, personally, and I thought you would want to see him—it’s Henry Sanders’s boy, Janson.”

  Walter brought his eyes back to Grace quickly. “Janson Sanders is here, looking for work?”

  “Yes, sir.” There was relief evident on the woman’s face that it had been Walter who had addressed her this time.

  “We had enough trouble out of that boy’s father,” Walt began. “We don’t need the son now bringing the roof down on our heads. Tell him—”

  “Send him in,” Walter said, and the woman moved immediately to obey his words, even as Walt, with his paper title, blustered in opposition.

  “You know what trouble Henry Sanders was, selling his cotton out of the county, thinking he could do whatever he damned well pleased, when every other farmer in this county stayed in line and sold their crop here. He was so damn proud, and so damn stubborn, that if he hadn’t died when he did he might have started others following him—and that boy of his was even worse. I tell you, I won’t have him in this—”

  Walter stared him into silence, seeing the anger in his son’s face at having his orders countermanded. It had been a long time since Walter had struck his son, but at that moment he wanted to—he wanted to thrash him as he had done so many times when he had been a small boy showing his bluster in disrespect.

  The door opened again and the secretary entered, followed by Janson Sanders. Walter turned his attention from the angry man who sat across the desk from him, to the angry one who stood now near the doorway. The boy looked older, much older, in fact, than the passage of a year should have allowed him, and, for having all the coloring and features of his dark, Cherokee mother, he reminded Walter in that moment of no one so much as the tall, reddish-brown-haired man who had made such a problem of himself those years before. Henry Sanders had concerned him as few other men ever had. There had been something in the man that could not be controlled, something that could not be broken—and that something showed in the eyes of the young man who stood before Walter now.

  Janson Sanders held his head high. He looked at Walter, at Walt, then back to the older man, meeting his gaze with a pride in his eyes that showed a sense of self even beyond what had been in Henry Sanders. The boy nodded his head and addressed Walter directly, the green eyes, so odd in the dark face, never leaving his own.

  “You told me once there was a place in th’ mill for me if I wanted it.” The boy met his gaze levelly, that indomitable pride in his eyes, as if demanding respect by his very bearing as few men ever could.

  Walter looked at him, at the straight, black hair, the high cheekbones, the odd green eyes, at the worn coat and dungarees, and at the scuffed work shoes, remembering that day, more than a year before, when he had made the offer. He had gone to the Sanders farm after he had received word at last that the land was being foreclosed on. He had gone to offer the boy a job, and a decent house in the village. The boy had lost both his parents, and now he had lost his home as well; Walter had assumed that he was beaten, finished in life even as Henry Sanders had never been finished even in death—but the boy had ordered him from his land, staring at him with that same hatred that sat in his eyes even now. It took a great deal of character, or stupidity, for the boy to be able to come to him today in acceptance of that same offer, and Walter wondered as he stared at him what it had taken in the past year to bring the boy to this.

  “As I recall, you told me to get the hell off your land,” Walter said, watching Janson closely.

  “I’ve got a wife now, an’ a baby on th’ way. I’ve got t’ have steady work, an’ a decent place for her t’ live.” His gaze never wavered.

  “A baby, eh?” All the county needed now was another generation of these peculiar men. He considered Janson for a long moment, remarking to himself again how like the father this son was. There had been something within Henry Sanders that Walter had grudgingly respected, just as there had also been something within the man that Walter had feared, as he had feared few things in his life. Henry Sanders had not been content to be who and what he was, just as this boy before Walter now was not content. They both held a desire to have something that was all their own, not to be beholden to anyone or anything for their livelihoods or their dreams—and Henry Sanders’s dreams had at last cost him his life, as well as his land. Walter knew this boy held him responsible for his father’s death, as well as for the foreclosure that had taken his farm; the boy had made no secret of his feelings before he left the cou
nty a year before.

  And now he was back, with a wife, and a child on the way, having reached a moment in his life that the boy would never have thought to see himself reach, and, as Walter stared at him, he could almost feel responsible—

  “Go see the overseer of the card room,” Walter told him, never once letting his gaze leave the green eyes. “Tell him you’re on the night shift, and go see the house boss for your house assignment; the rent will be held from your wages.”

  Janson Sanders stared at him without speaking, and Walter returned the stare, not moving his eyes toward his son even as he heard Walt mutter angrily just beneath the level of his hearing. After a time, Janson nodded his head just once and left. Walter watched him go, not surprised in the least when the boy did not say thank you.

  Less than an hour later, Janson left the white-painted office building that sat before the mill and made his way, following directions from a nervous little man in a tiny office, toward the place that would be home to him, and to Elise, for what could be many years to come. Row upon row of neat, white-painted frame houses sat on either side of the red dirt streets that led away from the mill. The houses all looked the same, with their small, neat yards and tiny, cleared garden patches, their stacks of cordwood against side walls, their chimneys with smoke drifting out, their tin roofs and gray porches—all the same. Most he passed were of six rooms, divided down the middle, he knew, for two families, an outside water faucet in the yard between every other structure. Occasionally he passed a four-room structure, one designed for the fixers on each shift, or a three-room shotgun house where no larger home would fit.

  He stared at the houses, the structured sameness of the place seeming odd to his eyes more accustomed to the never-ending change of the countryside. God might not have made any two things alike, but Walter Eason had tried to, with these identical houses along these identical rows throughout the village. But, even here, touches of individuality did show through. Chairs and rockers sat on porches; flower beds and garden patches, neatly cleared for winter, were marked off in various yards; trees and plants grew and were tended. A dog was tied before one house, and a cat slept on the porch of another. Milk cows stared back at him from beneath houses that sat supported high off the hilly ground on one side by stone pillars; gaudy flowered curtains hung in one window, sedate lace ones in another.

  Janson nodded to the few people he passed on the street, not recognizing a single face. He felt out of place in this village, and he found himself wondering how Elise would be able to survive here—but this was the best he could do. At least it would be a roof of their own, a home that he could provide. Something he could do. Part of him still resisted the knowledge that he would be working for the Easons, that he would be bringing Elise and their child under the Easons’ control—but he had no choice. The events of the past year had left him with little choice in anything.

  He could hear a train passing along the edge of the village on tracks that ran beside the mill, tracks that effectively cut the town in half. On the other side of those tracks lay the business district, the big churches and nice homes, the town schools and Main Street. On this side lay the mill and the mill village, the row upon row of mill houses the Easons owned, the small stores the Easons rented to proprietors, and the small Methodist and Baptist churches the mill villagers attended. On this side was the cotton warehouse that sat just behind the mill and alongside the railroad tracks, the village school for the children of the mill workers, the small power plant that supplied electricity to the mill and mill office, and the water plant and tower that supplied the faucets throughout the village—all owned by the Easons. The Eason family owned much of the businesses and property on the other side of those tracks as well, owned, or at least controlled, much of the county, but on this side, in the village, they owned all, down to the last thought, the last feeling, the last impulse they could lay hands on.

  The noise of the mill followed him through the streets of the village, as did the lint that floated in the air. This was an existence so far from any he had ever thought to have, and so different from the one he had hoped to bring Elise to, that he was surprised at his own feelings as he finally reached his destination and stared up at the house that was his assignment. It was a house like any other on this street, divided down the middle to be shared by two families. It sat on a rise, sandwiched between two houses that looked very much the same, high off the ground on stone pillars in the front, flush with the level of the yard in the back. Its gray porch, smoke-blackened chimneys, tin roof, and twin front doors much the same as the others, its yard just as neatly tended—but, as he stared up at it, he felt a degree of satisfaction that he had not felt since before the money he had worked for and had saved to buy back his land was stolen. This half of a house would be something he could do, a home that he could give to Elise, could give to his child, and to other children who would one day come to them.

  He looked at the place, memorizing every detail, wanting to take it in memory back to his grandparents’ home so that he could tell Elise about it—he was going to give her a home; he was doing his job, the job of a man, of a husband and father. He knelt at the side of the road and took his shoes off, smiling at a little boy of about five who played, bundled in a coat much too big for him, in a yard nearby. In a few years his son or daughter would be playing here. Elise would make friends, and he would work hard—life would not be so bad, he told himself. He had the woman he wanted. He would be a father in a few months time. He had a dream to work for. The rest he would take care of himself with his own sweat and work, just as his own father had. Sweat and work were two things he did not fear.

  He knotted his shoestrings together and stood, slinging his shoes over one shoulder as he looked up at the house once again. It might be a long walk before someone offered him a ride back toward his grandparents’ place, and it would be even more difficult to get back into town late that afternoon in time for the night shift in the mill, but perhaps he could borrow his Gran’pa’s wagon. He was hungry, and he wanted to see Elise, to touch and love her and tell her about the house, and maybe have her lie in his arms while he tried to get some rest before returning for his first shift in the mill. He would have to get at least a few hours sleep this afternoon, or he would be dead on his feet by the morning when his shift ended—but he would not worry about that just now.

  He stared at the house—two weeks, he told himself. Two weeks, and he and Elise would move here. Two weeks, and this would be their home. The man who lived in half of this house now, the half that would be their home, had held the job that Janson would begin on learner’s wages tonight. In two weeks he would be leaving this home he had held for ten years, just as he had left the job he had held for even longer. He had been fired—not for dishonesty or unsatisfactory work, the mill’s nervous house boss had told Janson, not for a sharp tongue or trouble-making on the job, but because his children had started a fight with other children on the way home from the village school one day. Walter Eason tolerated misconduct from the children and families of his millhands no better than he did from the millhands themselves.

  What a pretty hell I’ve bought for us, Janson thought, staring up at the house, realizing that no matter how satisfied he felt to be doing something on his own for his wife and for the family they were making, he had very likely gained that satisfaction by selling their souls to the devil in exchange.

  The first night Janson worked in the mill, he saw a man mangled in the machinery.

  It had been a careless movement, a moment’s inattention, and the man’s arm was jerked into the cards while he was stripping cotton dust out of a machine. From that moment, the sight of that mangled arm would not leave Janson, giving him a healthy aversion for machines that could cost him an arm, or even his life. There was too much talk in the mill of lost arms and broken bones, of women who had their hair ripped out by machinery in the spinning room, or of a card hand killed when he had gott
en caught in the belt that ran from the machinery to the drive shaft near the ceiling. Janson could not afford to take chances; Elise was depending on him. He knew he was risking enough to be working for the Easons in the first place, for he well knew what they could be capable of doing to a man in Eason County—and, if he had not known, Walt Eason had given him a clear reminder on his first shift in the mill, coming into the card room only minutes after the bleeding man had been taken out, to stand staring at Janson for an interminable time, his arms crossed before his chest. The man had not spoken, but his eyes had never once left Janson—it had been a clear warning, a warning that Janson had understood. He was being watched, and it would take only one mistake to cost him home, shelter, livelihood, and much more in Eason County.

  To Janson, the first weeks working in the mill seemed to stretch into forever. He saw Elise only for the short while between the long rides to and from town and an exhausted sleep, with what seemed almost too little time in the afternoons when he finally woke to dress, eat, and begin the long ride back to town to start the next shift. He found as the days passed that he hated the mill more than he had thought possible, but the time away from Elise was even worse. The twelve-hour shifts five days a week left little time for anything except eating, sleep, and the never-ending rides in the creaky wagon to and from work, rides ending in the walk across town from the wagon lot on Main Street to the mill village, since the town would no longer allow mules, horses, and wagons free roam of the village any more than they would the town area on the other side of the railroad tracks. Janson stole whatever time he could to be with Elise, even though his body was exhausted from both work and the wagon rides, his mind numb from the machinery and noise he had endured through the night, and his lungs choked on the cotton dust he had breathed in the card room. He told himself that things would be better once they were living in the village, even though he hated the thought of bringing Elise to live in this place. At least they would be alone, in half a house that would be their own, until the baby came. At least there would be no more endless hours behind the plodding mules to get to his shift—things would be better then.