Through a Glass, Darkly

by Charlotte Miller

  Never did Janson hear the complaints any louder than when the county agents began to talk of plowing up part of the year’s cotton already growing in the fields. He little understood the talk of supply and demand, of reducing the amount of something to hit the market in order to raise the price it would bring. He only understood that the AAA wanted him to plow under a part of the crop already planted, cotton he had worked and sweated over for months. He had expanded the acreage, planted as much of the land as possible—and now they wanted him to plow part of it under.

  They offered him money now, money he might not make in the fall if prices fell before he could get the cotton picked—so he agreed, gritting his teeth and guiding the reluctant mule down the rows of his work, plowing under the cotton plants he had hoped and prayed over for months. All that worry, all that sweat—plowed under like it was nothing. Later the bolls burst open, leaving the destroyed fields peppered over with fleecy white—but they were not allowed to pick the cotton in the plowed-under fields even then, and the white cotton lay rotting on the red earth, unused and wasted.

  Janson had been told he would receive a fifty-percent share of the money the government paid for the plowed-under cotton, but, when the time came to make the split, Stubblefield faced him once again with his long column of figures. “You owe me this much for th’ charge at th’ store, and this—your share from the AAA’ll go t’ cover that, and you’ll make your money back in th’ fall, boy, when you sell your crop. A big piece ’a your store bill’ll be paid then, and you’ll have more t’ go int’ your own pocket after my share.”

  But, it did not work that way. In the fall, after the reduced cotton crop was picked and sold, his share barely covered the remaining store charge. “What’d you expect, boy?” Stubblefield faced him, angry when Janson questioned the amount he was told they owed at the store. “What’d you expect, selling a littler crop like that—what’d you expect?”

  Elise said that the bill at the store had been “padded.” They had watched every cent, charged so carefully—she knew how much they should owe.

  “Are you doubtin’ my figures, boy?” Stubblefield asked, angrily rising from his chair at the battered old desk there in the store. “Are you callin’ me a liar?”

  “I’m just sayin’ I think you’re wrong, that I want you t’ double-check your figures.”

  “I done double-checked them!”

  “There ain’t no way we could owe that much.”

  “If you’re callin’ me a liar, boy, you can get off my property right now, and you can go live off relief like them other lazy bastards in town.”

  Threatened with eviction, he had to back down. He knew he was right, that Elise was right, but what could he do? If he pushed the point, they would be off the land with no place to go, no way to make a living—what else could he do?

  A hatred developed between Janson and Stubblefield that made Janson avoid the man at all costs. He wanted no trouble. He just wanted to support his family—they had just needed the money so badly this year.

  Gran’ma had been sick for months, growing progressively worse as the days went by. He had hoped for enough money to bring a doctor if the stubborn old woman would allow it, her claiming that God would heal her Himself if He was of a mind to—but there was no money. She coughed and wheezed, and by Christmas she was unable to move from her bed or the rocker unless doubled-over in a desperate battle with her own body for breath. The Holiness church women came to help tend her, praying through, trying to bring her peace, if not healing. The minister and other church members visited, both from the Holiness church Gran’ma had attended for so many years, and the Baptist church that Elise attended with the children, bringing food and prayer as they did all that they could, but nothing seemed to help. Gran’ma needed a doctor, and a doctor cost money—but there was no money in the little house for a doctor, no money for anything.

  January set in with the bitterest cold that Janson could remember. Gran’ma worsened as the days passed, until, in desperation, Janson went for the young doctor who had come in to work with Dr. Washburn, forcing the reluctant man out on a frigid night, promising him money when he had it, and threatening him physical injury if he resisted. The man was silent and cold as he arrived at the house with Janson in the old truck that had been borrowed from a reluctant Stubblefield. He went to Gran’ma and spent a long time examining her as Janson and Elise waited by the door.

  The doctor straightened, then came to lead them into the other of the two rooms when he was finished, his young face different now, the anger of having been dragged out on a night like this by an angry sharecropper no longer evident in his expression. He turned to close the door after them, then brought his eyes back to Janson’s. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing I can do for her. If I had seen her sooner—”

  “She—she can’t—” Elise began, and Janson could hear her voice shake. “There has to be something we can do.”

  The doctor looked at her with sympathy. “You can pray,” was all he said.

  Gran’ma’s breathing filled the rooms. Elise strained for the sound of each breath, certain somehow that it would be the last. She sat at Gran’ma’s bedside, as she had for days, holding the old woman’s hand, unable to do anything but watch her—and listen for the sound of each breath that she knew could be the last.

  Elise had never watched death come to someone before, but somehow she knew, the sound, the look, the feeling—and Gran’ma knew. The old woman had talked to Gran’pa for hours the night before, looking past Elise and into the room, talking to her husband dead now more than two years.

  “Tom’ll be back for me,” she told Elise later, her eyes bright with fever. “Tom’s gonna take me with him.”

  The rest of the family had been there earlier in the day, Wayne and Rachel, Olive and Cyrus, Belle and Maggie, Tom, Jr. from Atlanta and his family, Gran’ma’s sister, Nancy, and so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that Elise had lost count. The churchwomen had been by to pray for her, as had Brother Harmon, and even Brother Leverett who had traveled from his new church in Randolph County. Elise had tried to add her own prayers—but Gran’ma was not getting better.

  As day passed into night, her breathing became more tortured and there was a deep rattle in her chest. Janson had gone into town to bring the doctor again, though he knew already nothing could be done. Stan was outside, bringing in more wood so they could keep the house warm through the night. Sissy lay in Janson and Elise’s bed in the other room, the three children with her, away from the harsh reality at work in the room where they usually slept.

  Firelight moved in pale orange and yellow shadows against the walls. The kerosene lamp cast ghosts of the chifforobe, the table, the bed, even Elise herself, against the walls. The smell of burning wood, the medicine the doctor had left, the sickness itself, filled the room. It was quiet, except for Gran’ma’s breathing and the occasional pop of the logs burning in the fireplace.

  Elise was cold in spite of the fire and the closed room, cold from the knowledge of what would happen very soon. She pulled her sweater tighter and eased her chair closer to the bed, trying to reduce the strain on the arm stretched out to hold Gran’ma’s hand. She closed her eyes and bowed her head and tried to pray, but no words would come. Gran’ma would not recover. Elise already knew that.

  “Tom?” Gran’ma’s voice came again from the bed, and Elise lifted her head and looked at the old woman. Gran’ma was looking toward the closed doorway across the room, a look of expectancy on her face.

  “Gran’ma, I’m here—it’s Elise. There’s no one here but me.”

  “I knowed you’d come back for me, Tom. I knowed—” and a light smile touched her lips, making her look for a moment younger than Elise had ever known her.

  Don’t let her start hallucinating again, Elise begged God silently. Please, I can’t stand that—please.

  �
��I knowed—”

  “Gran’ma, look at me. It’s Elise, please—Janson will be back with the doctor in a little while—”

  “I knowed you’d come—”

  Please—please, Elise closed her eyes and forced back tears. I can’t cry, she told herself. Not now. Please, don’t let her end like this, talking out of her mind, seeing people who aren’t here, people who are long dead. Please—

  “Elise?”

  She lifted her head, startled at the sound of her own name, and startled even more as she found Gran’ma’s eyes on her. The old woman smiled and weakly reached to pat her hand. “Don’t you cry, honey—this ain’t nothin’ t’ cry about.”

  “But, you’ll be better—you’ll see. In the spring—”

  She smiled and shook her head. “We both know I ain’t gonna see th’ spring, child.”

  “But—” The tears began and Elise turned her face away so that Gran’ma would not see them.

  “There—there, honey.” The hand gently patted her own again. “Don’t cry. I’m goin’ where I want t’ go.”

  “But, I don’t want you to go—” She looked back at Gran’ma, letting the tears flow freely now.

  “It’s where I belong—with Tom an’ my babies that’s already gone on.” She smiled past Elise again. “Tom’s here for me now—”

  “No—he’s dead, Gran’ma. He can’t—”

  “Still s’ much t’ learn—” She smiled, bringing her eyes back to Elise. “But you’re young still, s’ young—”

  “Gran’ma—” But no words would come; she could think of nothing to say.

  “You take care ’a my boy, an’ Henry, Catherine, my little Judith—”

  Elise turned her face away, her tears flowing now in earnest.

  “Don’t cry—I’m happy. My work’s done, an’ I can go home—”

  “Not yet—”

  “Yes, Tom’s come for me.”

  Elise watched the dear face, the eyes turned toward the empty doorway again, the longing in them, the readiness. There was a prickly sensation along the back of her neck, the same as the night before when Gran’ma had talked out of her mind, talking to her dead husband. Elise looked toward the door, knowing no one was there, knowing—

  “I’m ready, Tom. I’m ready—”

  Gran’ma lifted her head from the pillow, seeming for a moment as if she were going to get out of bed. Her long gray hair, now with only a few streaks of brown remaining, fell across her shoulder in one thick plait—she looked toward the door, reaching for it with her eyes.

  For a moment Elise thought Gran’ma would speak again, but the older woman smiled and closed her eyes, then rested her head back against the pillow. After a moment she turned her face slightly aside, the look of happiness remaining, and the tortured sound of her breathing at last stopped.

  It seemed in 1934 that things were getting better. People were going back to work after years of having no jobs. The number of the unemployed stood at about half what it had been the year before. Farm prices were up, and if the price of cotton held steady, Janson hoped to clear enough from the year’s crop, barring unexpected freedom with the figures by Stubblefield, to see them well through the winter for once. There were two hogs being fattened for slaughter, and they hoped to have food enough stored as the months went by—times seemed so much better this year than the last, though the two rooms of the little sharecropped house missed Gran’ma’s presence.

  They began the winter that year with more hope than they had known in the past years, but, as the early weeks of 1935 came in, Elise and all three of the children became ill, and, though Elise, Henry and Judith recovered quickly, Catherine remained sick, crying and feverish into the darkness each night.

  Dr. Washburn was called in, taking the little money they had cleared off the cotton, and, as she recovered, Elise and Janson realized they would have to do something if they were to make it through the remainder of the winter. The children did not have warm clothes, and what they did have was so often patched that it was hardly serviceable. There was one decent pair of shoes that might fit Catherine, but none for Henry or Judith. In spite of all their careful planning, food would be running low before winter was out, and no charge could be run at the store until spring came and a new cotton crop could be gotten into the ground.

  On a cold night in February of that year, Elise sat brushing her hair before the faded dresser mirror as Janson watched from where he sat on the side of the bed they shared there in the little sharecropped house on Stubblefield’s property. The children and Sissy were asleep in the next room, and Stan as well, having again made a pallet for himself on the other side of a quilt hung across the room. Elise watched Janson’s reflection in the mirror, seeing an unfamiliar expression on his face.

  The shadows cast by the kerosene lamp on the table beside the bed, as well as the fire burning in the fireplace across the room, moved across his features, hollowing his cheeks and making his cheekbones look even more pronounced—but it was the look of almost haunted resolve in his eyes that captured her as she stared at his reflection. At last he looked away, his words coming slowly, giving Elise the impression that he was speaking as much to himself as to her.

  “I’ll be gone most all day t’morrow,” he said, not bringing his eyes back to her, and she stopped in her brushing to wait for the remainder of the words to come.

  “Tomorrow?” she asked, sitting the brush aside and turning fully in her chair to look at him.

  He nodded as he stared at the floor somewhere between himself and the fireplace. “I’m goin’ t’ Wiley. I’ll start out walkin’; I guess somebody’ll give me a ride before I get t’ far.”

  Wiley—the county seat. Elise understood. She did not speak but turned back to the mirror, picking up her brush again—she would leave Janson at least his pride. Through all the hard times they had seen together, that was the one thing in him that had never changed.

  “I’m puttin’ in for relief,” he said at last, unnecessarily, again as if he were saying the words more for his own benefit than hers, as if he were trying to convince himself of what it was he was telling her he would do.

  Elise did not turn back to him, but watched him in the mirror. “Should I go with you? Will you need me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe—I don’t know.”

  There was nothing more to say. No matter how hard the times had been, they had never turned to relief monies or food. Charity had been given to them—that had been bad enough to Janson, but at least they had never asked for it.

  And now, after all that struggle—Janson, her proud, independent Janson, would ask for help. It almost broke her heart to watch his reflection in the mirror, knowing what had to be going on inside of him with the knowledge.

  She watched him, not turning back, but staring at his reflection as he lowered his head and shook it slowly back and forth.

  She did not let him know that she had seen.

  Elise sat beside Janson in the county office the next morning, watching the looks of shame and pride that alternated across his features, then the look of concentration, of determination, as he worked to draw the two words that were his name on the paper he was given to sign, a signature that Elise herself could not make out afterward, not even knowing what the words were meant to be. There was a look of awful pride in his features moments later as he handed the paper to the relief worker, pride that did not diminish even as the woman said:

  “You could have signed with an X, you know,” her words clipped, though Elise knew they had not been meant to be condescending.

  “You told me t’ sign my name. I signed my name,” he answered, then sat as if frozen as she moved from her chair, not bringing his eyes to Elise even when she reached out to touch his hand.

  He would not allow Elise to go with him after that to pick up the relief they were given, going alone instead, somet
imes gone an entire day if no one would give him a ride, often coming home late in the night, his feet tired, his back aching, carrying gunny sacks of apples or cabbages or whatever other relief foods were being distributed. At times the food was inedible, bruised, wilted, worm-ridden—they used whatever was good, and threw the remainder away.

  He was quieter than usual after each trip into the county seat, and Elise could do little but worry about him in the hours he was gone. Accepting relief was almost more than he could bear, his pride bowed before the need to ask for charity for his family—and Elise knew what he was going through on each trip, whether she went with him or not. It was hard for him to understand that he could no longer feed, clothe, and support his family with the work of his own hands. He had once told her that he would do whatever it took to see to it that she and the children would not go hungry, even if he had to steal to feed them—and, somehow, Elise realized that stealing would be preferable to him over asking for charity for his family. At least stealing was something a man could do with his own hands. But stealing was not part of Janson’s nature, though pride was, and he took the charity with gritted teeth and with as much dignity as was allowed him.

  A new cotton crop was planted, vegetables began to come from their own garden, and there was less need for relief as the months passed. People were going back to work throughout the country. Tim Cauthen found work under the Works Progress Administration, and shyly, and with a great deal of embarrassment, he asked Sissy to marry him, leaving at last only Janson and Elise, the three children, and Stan in the little house.

  As summer became autumn, Elise suffered a second miscarriage in less than six months, and she was told by Dr. Washburn that it was unlikely she would have more children. Elise had not been at all certain she wanted another baby, but knowing there was little possibility had left her in tears, especially as she worried at how Janson would react to the news.