Christy

by Catherine Marshall

  “Now I’ll tell ye about coons,” Creed said, as if beginning a naturalist’s lecture. There were snorts from some of the men; they thought they knew everything about coons. “Good fer victuals, that’s what,” said a voice in the back of the room.

  Creed was undaunted. “There were five babies in Scalawag’s kit. He’s not grown yit, about twenty-seven inches long now. Coons are awful good hands to climb trees and to swim. They eat frogs, turtles, berries, crayfish. Corn too, and they wash everything before they eat it. Some eat chickens, but not Scalawag,” he added defensively. “This here is the second coon I’ve had as my main best pet, and I know now that it’s pleasured me a heap more to watch what’n’ all they do than jest kill them. When I’m a man grown, I’d live happily if’n I could—”

  His voice was drowned in yiping and growling and furious barking as two hounds streaked toward the front of the room, rushing the coon. Children began shrieking. Scalawag leaped from the top of the desk to Creed’s head, hanging onto his hair, screaming frantically as the dogs reached Creed and began leaping and clawing at his legs. The children were out of their seats now, in turn, flinging themselves on the dogs. “Grab a-hold of them dogs!”

  “Not that way—Scat, you hound! Scrunch him.”

  Creed’s voice could be heard above the tumult, “Quit that tryin’ to shinny up me. I ain’t no tree.”

  The noise was so great that I could not make my voice heard. I recognized the dogs as Jeb Spencer’s. Now Jeb came running forward to take charge. “Jasper, settle thar! Such a franzy. Big Ed, I’ll lay my hand to you. Down, dog!” He hit the dog with his open palm and Big Ed whined and backed away. Obviously, the dogs were confused; heretofore, their rushing a coon had always pleased their master. They had smelled coon, so they had gone after coon! But now Jeb was herding them away. “Numskull hound-dogs. They bark big,” he said apologetically to the room at large, “but they bite small.”

  It was not exactly the windup of his performance that Creed had planned. But the other children had enjoyed it. “Tarnel good fight, wasn’t hit?” Zacharias spoke for all of them.

  In spite of lapses and botches and absurdities, our program was turning into a success. The people were in such a holiday mood that they took each misadventure as part of the entertainment to add to the fun.

  About the middle of the morning, Miss Alice Henderson rose to bestow the first of the awards. “Friends,” she said, “during this school term we’ve had three students with top grades—Rob Allen, Lizette Holcombe, and John Spencer. Their averages were so close that it was difficult to choose between them. The highest average, however, is 96.7%. It is my privilege to present this prize for outstanding grades to—Lizette Holcombe.”

  The cheering and clapping and whistling was deafening as the tall dark-haired girl came to the front of the room. I could tell that Lizette was so excited that she was close to tears. Miss Alice’s voice was warm as she handed the girl a package, “Lizette, I congratulate you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Why don’t you open it here so that everyone can know what it is?”

  But Lizette’s hands were trembling so that she could not get the cord untied.

  “Here, let me help.” Miss Alice reached for the package. “There now.”

  “Oh-h! How beautiful!”

  “Friends, this is a copy of The Complete Shakespeare, the poems and the plays. Yours to enjoy, Lizette. You’ve earned it.”

  Lizette went back to her seat hugging the book. I saw Bessie Coburn’s eyes fastened on that wonderful copy of Shakespeare with envy and longing.

  But the action was not over for the day. Since religion was David’s subject, he had been in charge of the Scripture memorization. He too had allowed the children their own selections. There were some nice ones: Zady Spencer recited the Twenty-fourth Psalm; Rob Allen, a portion of the eighth chapter of Romans; Charles Holcombe, the One Hundred First Psalm; Little Burl, the familiar and beloved “For God so loved the world . . .”

  But then Festus Allen stood up and began reeling off in a singsong voice one of the “begat” passages:

  “These are the generation of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Ar-phax-ad two years after the flood . . .”

  David opened his mouth to protest, but then reached frantically for a Bible off my desk and began flipping pages, hunting for the spot in Genesis.

  “And Ar-phax-ad lived five and thirty years and begat Salah . . .

  “And Salah lived thirty years and begat Eber . . .”

  The incredulous look on David’s face as he checked up on Festus line by line was very funny. How could any child recite correctly a genealogy with all those difficult names? But the monotonous voice went on and on, emphasizing only one word, that all-important begat . . .

  “And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah . . .

  “And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran . . .”

  Festus went barreling on right to the end of the chapter. David looked sheepish. He had offered the prize for the most verses and he had not stipulated what kind of verses. The reaction of the highlanders was enthusiastic approval. I could not understand why, unless memorizing an intricate genealogy was as impressive to them as declining a Latin word. So Miss Alice, making little effort to conceal her amusement, gravely bestowed a beautiful new Bible upon Festus of the red hair and the impudent grin.

  During refreshments when I was at last relaxing, thinking that the program was happily behind me, there came a further surprise. Miss Alice asked for quiet. “Christy Huddleston, I want thee. Up here by me—please.”

  Puzzled, I went to her.

  “Friends, last January someone who had never taught school before came to us. In her heart was a dream, the dream of helping boys and girls because she cared what happened to them. Already we have seen the beginning of the fulfillment of some of her dreams. Folks, we’ve had the longest school term ever seen in Cutter Gap so far and it’s been a great term. So much of it we owe to David Grantland who built this church-schoolhouse, and to Christy Huddleston, whose presence has made it vital and living and full of fun. Christy, this is for thee.”

  I had not expected this and emotion rose in me, stinging my eyes. I took the package and opened it. It was a deer, whittled and carved out of a single piece of wood, smoothed and polished, grace in motion somehow captured in wood.

  “John Spencer’s work,” Miss Alice told me softly. “He wanted it to be from all of us. He worked on it for three months.”

  In a few days I was to leave for Asheville for a vacation with my family. Gradually, during the days since David had asked me to marry him, I had realized that I could not, for some mysterious reason that would not come clear to me, rush into a formal engagement. Perhaps I needed to be away from David to get more perspective. The situation might look different to me in Asheville. So I told him that I needed more time to think about it. But we agreed that we would exchange letters.

  To my surprise, David made no protest at my postponing a decision.

  The day before I was to leave to spend the month-long harvesting holiday at home, Miss Alice sent for me. No reason or explanation was given. It was mid-afternoon when I got to her cabin. She had tea ready and poured me a cup, but it was clear at once that she was not of a tea-party mind. She sat looking at me as I sipped the scalding tea, those gray eyes of hers as guileless as ever. Scrutinizing her face over the rim of my teacup, I thought, The eyes really do mirror the soul, don’t they?

  “I knew thee would come, Christy.” Her voice was soft.

  “You mean today?”

  “No, to the Cove. I didn’t know how or when—or what thee would look like. Or from what kind of background. But I was expecting thee. Does that sound whimsical?”

  “Perhaps. A little—but I like it.”

  “Looking forward to thy coming, I’ve been storing up spiritual treasures for thee for some time now. Whenever I’ve had a real breakthroug
h in working with the highlanders, I’ve thought ‘I must remember to tell her that.’

  “Or whenever a new insight would come to me, almost always I would jot it down and tuck it away in a particular cubbyhole in my desk, thinking even as I wrote, ‘This is for her.’

  “Or there have been those rare instances when I have been able to take a new step forward in total obedience, so that some of the fog of my self-will that veils His face has rolled away. Then when new understanding of what He is really like has come to me, I’ve thought, ‘What joy it will be to share this with her. Oh, let me not forget a single bit of it.’ ”

  I felt overwhelmed, suddenly very small and very humble. “Miss Alice, I—well, how can I deserve all that?”

  “Deserve! Child, none of us deserves anything. We couldn’t, no matter how hard we tried.”

  But then, as on that day of my first talk with Miss Alice Henderson, abruptly her mood shifted. “Anyway Christy, for some time now I’ve been wanting to talk to you, woman to woman. You’re so eager to taste life, all of it, to the full.”

  Her eyes sought mine in a level straight gaze. “Remember when you reported to me your discussion with the doctor about what he believed?”

  “Yes.”

  “How you kept quoting me to him that day? And how he reacted against your parroting my thoughts?”

  “I remember.”

  “That and other instances have told me that you’ve been seeing me through a rosy glow. Basically, you’re a realistic girl, so perhaps I’m one of the few persons on earth still on something of a pedestal for you. Christy, that won’t do. We humans weren’t meant to sprout wings on this earth.”

  I said nothing because I did not quite understand where this conversation was leading.

  “You mustn’t leave the Cove, Christy, with any such notions about me. As you go home and consider your second school term here, it cannot be with any illusions.”

  Still, I did not understand. Though the gray eyes were still looking at me as unwaveringly as ever, a smile tugged now at the corners of Miss Alice’s mouth. But there was no trace of teasing in the smile, rather something that seemed out of place, a gentle pity for me. “So now, Christy, I’m going to tell thee a true story. That’s why I asked thee to come here today.” Her voice trailed off and I could sense her mind going backward into the past.

  “No little girl ever loved her father more than I,” she mused. “I used to sit on his lap by the hour. One of my earliest recollections is of our family in the comfortable parlor of our home, father sitting at the end of the sofa, mother close beside him, I on his lap with one arm about his neck, the other children leaning against his knees or perched on the arm of the sofa.

  “Touch is important to children. You’ve discovered that in your school. I know that I drew a sort of nourishment from this physical contact. I can remember the feel of leaning back against father’s black broadcloth cutaway coat. In his Quaker garb he may sometimes have looked austere to others, but never to me. He had twinkly eyes, curves of fun around his mouth. He called me ‘Purtie.’

  “I would go with him on errands for the family business—we manufactured stoves, heating and cooking stoves—and I was always proud to sit beside him in the buggy. We talked about everything, often quite grown-up conversations. When father had to go inside a store for a business conference, I’d wait for him in the buggy, keeping our horse Mollie company, not a bit impatient, content with the thought that father had trusted me enough to take me with him on such important excursions.

  “I adored my mother too and my two sisters and my brother—but in a different way. My mother was gentle and lovely and made a delightful home for us. But it was always my father with whom I had that special bond.

  “In those days parents were reluctant to talk to their girls about sex. Perhaps father talked to my brother. I don’t know. But mother scarcely mentioned the subject at all. I learned about conception and birth when our cat had kittens. I knew where babies came from, but that was about all I knew. This silence was a mistake, of course; in the case of our family, a tragedy.

  “You wouldn’t believe how ignorant I was. We Friends were forbidden to visit art galleries or even look at a statue. Headily, just once I defied this and stumbled into the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. There before me was a cast (imported from the Louvre) of Michelangelo’s “The Bound Captive.” I’d never seen a nude man before and I found myself blushing crimson, so I raced back onto the sidewalk, my heart beating wildly.

  “When I was just turned thirteen, a ‘ministering Friend,’ as we called those itinerant preachers, a Quaker from England, first visited us. To us children, English Friends seemed like visitants from some angelic sphere. To be noticed or spoken to by one of these personages was heaven come down to earth. Thus when this particular man made much of me, I was ecstatic. His mannerisms, many of his ways were so like my father’s. He had traveled in the South Seas, had engrossing adventure stories to tell. While novels or fiction stories were not allowed to us, true stories were. So he would spin these stories out endlessly, and while I was too old to sit on his lap, I would sit on a stool near his knee. Sometimes he would reach out and stroke my hair.

  “At that age I was still very much the little girl, still climbing trees, sliding down hills, making hundreds of mud-muddly pies. So my parents saw nothing odd about these story hours. They looked on, amused, half-listening to the wild tales, proud of the compliments that the visiting Friend paid to their children.

  “This man came back the next year and the next. He and I were by this time fast friends and he had my complete confidence. By now I was a big girl. We still had our long talks, but now when my parents were not around, he began to tell me of a new and delightful discovery he’d made. It had to do with the Spirit of God and of how this was a sort of divine electricity which could flow at its highest voltage through touch, through laying the hands on the body of another. He opened the Bible to passage after passage to show me how Jesus had laid His hands on people to heal and to minister. And he told me of the new insights which could come to one, even of physical healings and thrills from the rediscovery of this ancient truth.

  “I believed all this because I trusted the man. And there was just enough truth mixed in with his false interpretations and motives to make it all seem valid to an eagerly questing young girl. Then too I was a dreamer. I wanted to be a good and noble woman to make myself worthy of some glorious destiny that would bless the world.”

  I wanted to put my fingers in my ears to stop the story before it went any further. There was a weight on my chest; I felt as if I were choking. “Miss Alice, if you’re going to say what I think you’re going to say—please, do I have to hear it? I’d rather not.”

  Her voice was gentler than ever. “Yes, you know the end of the story, Christy. But thee must hear me out. Christy, I’m sorry! Bear up. When I’m finished, thee will understand why I had to tell it.”

  Relentlessly, she picked up where she had left off. “The only thing not understandable now is the carefulness and patience of the seduction. Usually passion wants to grab and to yank. Perhaps for this man vestiges of his Quaker virtue remained in the midst of his despoiling. Also I believe that he had a number of such situations under way in different stages so that he was content to bide his time for me.

  “That year when I was fifteen there was a certain amount of experimentation, what he called ‘the laying on of hands.’ Some of it I thought odd all right, questioned it in my own mind. But the man was so much older than I. And we children had been taught to think of these ‘traveling Friends’ as such divinely chosen oracles of the mind of God that almost every word they spoke was supposed to be inspired.

  “And yes, I felt the thrill because I was a perfectly normal girl. But because I was so ignorant of sex, I interpreted the thrill in exactly the high-flown spiritual way that the man meant for me to interpret it.

  “So the groundwork was all laid and eagerly I looked forward
to the man’s visit that spring that I was sixteen. Because this Friend had been in our home so many times, my parents trusted him implicitly. The usual careful chaperonage didn’t even occur to them. Word had not yet reached Pennsylvania that the man’s teaching and ministry had just been sharply discredited in England.

  “One afternoon when my parents had gone into the country to visit a sick aunt, the man and I were alone. He had made even greater discoveries than last year, he told me. There was a way to have wave upon wave of spiritual blessing which one felt as a physical thrill through one’s body. But he would have to show me. Was I game?

  “His hands moved to my breasts, my thighs. I should remove some of my clothes in order to feel the thrill best. The words that he whispered to me as his hands moved over my body were blasphemy.

  “Mercifully, I’ll draw the curtain there—but you need to know that much, Christy. Except—except to say that when he was finished, I was weeping violently, crumpled up at his feet, no longer a virgin. I had never felt anything like this before. I was mesmerized. Yes, there was wave upon wave of physical sensation, but suddenly, with his body on top of mine, I had known that this was wrong, was of evil all the way. I had been duped. So I began fighting the man, pummeling him with my fists, trying to kick him off me. But it was too late.”

  My eyes were fastened on Miss Alice’s face. I moistened my lips and tasted salt there. I had not known that I was crying, crying for the girl who had been, crying for the loss of a girl’s idealism, crying because life is like that. Crying, Oh God, God, God—why does it have to be?

  Miss Alice did not appear to notice my tears. She was lost in remembrance.

  “I should have told my parents that night. But the same silly Victorian reticences that had sealed their lips to sex instruction, sealed mine. I didn’t know how to tell them. I hadn’t the least idea what words to use, how to begin.