Esau reached out and took Len by the arm, his grip painfully tight. “Won’t you come with me?”
Len hung his head. He stood for a moment, quite still, and then he said, “No, I can’t.” He moved away from Esau. “Not now.”
“Maybe next year. I’ll tell him about you.”
“Maybe.”
Esau started to say something more, but he could not seem to find any words for it. Len moved farther away. He started up the bank, slowly at first and then faster and faster until he was running, with the tears hot in his eyes and his own mind shouting at him, Coward, coward, he’s going to Bartorstown and you don’t dare!
He did not look back again.
Mr. Hostetter stayed three days in Piper’s Run. They were the longest, hardest days Len had ever lived through. Temptation kept telling him, You can still go. And then Conscience would point out Ma and Pa and home and duty and the wickedness of running away without a word. Esau had not given Uncle David and Aunt Mariah a second thought, but Len could not feel that way about Pa and Ma. He knew how Ma would cry, and how Pa would take the blame on himself that he hadn’t trained Len right somehow, and that was the biggest part of his cowardice. He didn’t want to be responsible for making them unhappy.
There was a third voice in him, too. It lived way back of the others and it had no name. It was a voice he had never heard before, and it only said No—danger! whenever he thought of going with Esau to Mr. Hostetter. It spoke so loud and so firm without ever being asked that Len could not ignore it, and in fact when he tried to it became a physical restraint on him just like the reins on a horse, pulling him this way and that past a word or an action that might have been irretrievable. It was Len’s first active encounter with his own subconscious. He never forgot it.
He moped and sulked and brooded around the farm, burdened with his secret, bobbling his chores and making excuses not to go into town when the family did, until Ma worried and dosed him heavily with physics and sassafras tea. And all the time his ears were stretched and quivering, waiting to hear hoofbeats on the road, waiting to hear Uncle David rush in saying that Esau was gone.
On the evening of the third day he heard the hoofbeats, coming fast. He was just helping Ma clear off the supper dishes, and the light was still in the sky, reddening toward the west. His nerves jerked taut with a painful snap. The dishes became slippery and enormous in his hands. The horse turned in to the dooryard with the cart rattling behind him, and after that a second horse and cart, and after that a third. Pa went to the door, and Len followed him, with a sickness settling in all his bones. One horse and cart for Uncle David he had expected. But three——
Uncle David was there, all right. He sat in his own cart, and Esau was beside him, sitting still and as white as a sheet, and Mr. Harkness was on the other side of him. Mr. Hostetter was in the second cart with Mr. Nordholt, the schoolmaster, and Mr. Clute was driving. Mr. Fenway and Mr. Glasser were in the third.
Uncle David got down. He motioned to Pa, who had gone out toward the carts. Mr. Hostetter joined them, and Mr. Nordholt, and Mr. Glasser. Esau sat where he was. His head was bent forward and he did not lift it. Mr. Harkness stared at Len, who had stayed in the doorway. His look was outraged, accusing, and sad. Len met it for a fractional second and then dropped his own eyes. He felt very sick now and quite cold. He wanted to run away, but he knew it would not be any use.
The men moved all together to Uncle David’s cart, and Uncle David said something to Esau. Esau continued to stare at his hands. He did not speak or nod, and Mr. Nordholt said, “He didn’t mean to tell, it just slipped out of him. But he did say it.”
Pa turned and looked at Len and said, “Come here.”
Len walked out, quite slowly. He would not lift his head to look at Pa, not because of the anger in Pa’s face, but because of the sorrow that was there.
“Len.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is it true that you have a radio?”
“I—yes, sir.”
“Is it true that you tried to use it to get in touch with Bartorstown?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you read certain books that were stolen? Did you know where they were, and didn’t tell Mr. Nordholt? Did you know what Esau was planning to do, and didn’t tell me or Uncle David?”
Len sighed. With a gesture curiously like that of an old and tired man, he raised his head and threw his shoulders back. “Yes,” he said. “I did all those things.”
Pa’s face, in the deepening dusk, had become like something cut from a gray rock.
“Very well,” he said. “Very well.”
“You can ride with us,” said Mr. Glasser. “Save harnessing up, just for that little distance.”
“All right,” said Pa. And he gave Len a cold and blazing glance that meant Come with me.
Len followed him. He passed close to Mr. Hostetter, who was standing with his head half turned away, and under his hatbrim Len thought he saw an expression of pity and regret. But they passed without speaking, and Esau never stirred. Pa climbed up into the cart with Mr. Fenway, and Mr. Glasser climbed in after him.
“Up behind,” said Pa.
Len climbed slowly onto the shelf, and every movement was an effort. He clung there, and the carts jolted off in line, out of the dooryard and across the road and out around the margin of the west field, toward the woods.
They stopped about where the sumacs grew. They all got out and the men spoke together. And then Pa turned and said, “Len.” He pointed at the woods. “Show us.”
Len did not move.
Esau spoke for the first time. “You might as well,” he said, in a voice heavy with hate. “They’ll get it anyway if they have to burn the whole woods.”
Uncle David cuffed him backhanded across the mouth and called him something angry and Biblical.
Pa said again, “Len.”
Len yielded. He led the way into the woods. And the path looked just the same, and so did the trees, and the tiny stream, and the familiar clumps of thorn apple. But something was changed. Something was gone. They were only trees now, and thorn apples, and the rocky bed of a trickle of water. They no longer belonged to him. They were withdrawn and unwelcoming, and their outlines were harsh, and the big boots of the men crushed down the ferns.
They came out on the point at the meeting of the waters. Len stopped beside the hollow tree.
“Here,” he said. His voice sounded unfamiliar in his ears. The bright glow of the west fell clearly here along the open stream, painting the leaves and grass a lurid green, tinting the brown Pymatuning with copper. Crows flapped homeward overhead, dropping their jeering laughter as they went. It seemed to Len that the laughter was meant for him.
Uncle David gave Esau a rough, hard shove. “Get it out.”
Esau stood for a minute beside the tree. Len watched him, and the look that was on him in the sunset light. The crows went away, and it was very still.
Esau reached into the hollow of the tree. He brought out the books, wrapped in canvas, and handed them to Mr. Nordholt.
“They’re not hurt,” he said.
Mr. Nordholt unwrapped them, moving out from under the tree so he could see better. “No,” he said. “No, they’re not hurt.” He wrapped them again and held them against his chest.
Esau lifted out the radio.
He stood holding it, and the tears came up into his eyes and glittered there but did not fall. A hesitancy had come over the men. Mr. Hostetter said, as though he had said it before but was afraid it might not have been understood, “Soames had asked me if anything happened to take his personal belongings and give them to his wife. He had shown me the chest they were in. The people at the preaching were about to loot his wagon. I did not stop to see what was in the chest.”
Uncle David stepped forward. He knocked the radio from Esau’s hands, driving his fist downward like a hammer. It lay on the turf, and he stamped on it, over and over with his heavy boot. Then he picked up what was
left of it and flung it out into the Pymatuning.
Esau said, “I hate you.” He looked at them all. “You can’t stop me. Someday I’ll go to Bartorstown.”
Uncle David hit him again, and spun him around, and started to march him back through the woods. Over his shoulder he said, “I’ll see to him.”
The rest followed in a straggling line, after Mr. Harkness poked his hand around in the hollow of the tree to make sure nothing more was in there. And Mr. Hostetter said,
“I wish my wagon to be searched.”
Mr. Harkness said, “We’ve known you a long time, Ed. I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
“No, I demand it,” said Hostetter, speaking so that everyone could hear. “This boy has made an accusation that I can’t let pass. I want my wagon searched from top to bottom, so that there can be no doubt as to whether I possess anything I should not have. Suspicion once started is hard to kill, and news travels. I wouldn’t want other people to think of me what they thought of Soames.”
A shiver ran through Len. He realized suddenly that Hostetter was making an explanation and an apology.
He also understood that Esau had made a fatal mistake.
It seemed a long way back across the west field. This time the carts did not enter the farmyard. They stopped in the road and Len and Pa got down, and the others shifted around so that Esau and Uncle David were alone in their own cart. Then Mr. Harkness said, “We will want to see the boys tomorrow.” His voice was ominously quiet. He drove away toward the village, with the second cart behind him. Uncle David started the other way, toward home.
Esau leaned out of the cart and shouted hysterically at Len. “Don’t give up. They can’t make you stop thinking. No matter what they do to you they can’t——”
Uncle David turned the cart sharp around and brought it into the farmyard.
“We’ll see about that,” he said. “Elijah, I’m going to use your barn.”
Pa frowned, but he did not say anything. Uncle David went across to the barn, shoving Esau roughly in front of him. Ma came running out of the house. Uncle David called out, “You bring Len. I want him here.” Pa frowned again and then said, “All right.” He put out his hands to Ma and drew her aside and said a few words to her, very low, shaking his head. Ma looked at Len. “Oh no,” she said. “Oh, Lennie, how could you!” Then she went back to the house with her apron up over her face, and Len knew that she was crying. Pa pointed to the barn. His lips were set tight together. Len thought that Pa did not like what Uncle David was going to do, but that he did not feel he could question it.
Len did not like it either. He would rather have had this just between himself and Pa. But that was like Uncle David. He always figured if you were a kid you had no more rights or feelings than any other possession around the farm. Len shrank from going into the barn.
Pa pointed again, and he went.
It was dark now, but there was a lantern burning inside. Uncle David had taken the harness leather down off the wall. Esau was facing him, in the wide space between the rows of empty stanchions.
“Get down on your knees,” said Uncle David.
“No.”
“Get down!” And the harness strap cracked.
Esau made a noise between a whimper and a curse. He went down on his knees.
“Thou shalt not steal,” said Uncle David. “You’ve made me the father of a thief. Thou shalt not bear false witness. You’ve made me the father of a liar.” His arm was rising and falling in cadence with his words, so that every pause was punctuated by a sharp whuk! of flat leather against Esau’s shoulders. “You know what it says in the Book, Esau. He who loveth his child chasteneth him, but he who hateth his son withholdeth the rod. I’m not going to withhold it.”
Esau was not able to keep silent any longer. Len turned his back.
After a while Uncle David stopped, breathing hard. “You defied me a bit ago. You said I couldn’t make you change your mind. Do you still feel that way?”
Crouched on the floor, Esau screamed at his father. “Yes!”
“You still think you’ll go to Bartorstown?”
“Yes!”
“Well,” said Uncle David. “We’ll see.”
Len tried not to listen. It seemed to go on and on. Once Pa stepped forward and said, “David——” But Uncle David only said, “Tend to your own whelp, Elijah. I always told you you were too soft with him.” He turned again to Esau. “Have you changed your mind yet?”
Esau’s answer was unintelligible but abject in surrender.
“You,” said Uncle David suddenly to Len, and jerked him around. “Look at that, and see what boasting and insolence come to in the end.”
Esau was groveling on the barn floor, in the dust and straw. Uncle David stirred him with his foot.
“Do you still think you’ll go to Bartorstown?”
Esau muttered and moaned, hiding his face in his arms. Len tried to pull away but Uncle David held him, with a hot heavy hand. He smelled of sweat and anger. “There’s your hero,” he said to Len. “Remember him when your turn comes.”
“Let me go,” Len whispered. Uncle David laughed. He pushed Len away and handed Pa the harness strap. Then he reached down and got Esau by the neckband of his shirt and pulled him up onto his feet.
“Say it, Esau. Say it out.”
Esau sobbed like a little child. “I repent,” he said. “I repent.”
“Bartorstown,” said Uncle David, in the same tone in which Nahum must have pronounced the bloody city. “Get out. Get home and meditate on your sins. Good night, Elijah, and remember—your boy is as guilty as mine.”
They went out into the darkness. A minute later Len heard the cart drive off.
Pa sighed. His face looked tired and sad, and deeply angry in a way that was much more frightening than Uncle David’s raging. He said slowly, “I trusted you, Len. You betrayed me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Why, Len? You knew those things were wrong. Why did you do them?”
Len cried, “Because I couldn’t help it. I want to learn, I want to know! ”
Pa took off his hat and rolled up his sleeve. “I could preach a long sermon on that text,” he said. “But I’ve already done that, and it was breath wasted. You remember what I told you, Len.”
“Yes, Pa.” And he set his jaw and curled his two hands up tight.
“I’m sorry,” said Pa. “I didn’t ever want to have to do this. But I’m going to purge you of your pride, Len, just as Esau was purged.”
Inside himself Len said fiercely, No, you won’t, you won’t make me get down and crawl. I’m not going to give them up, Bartorstown and books and knowing and all the things there are in the world outside of Piper’s Run!
But he did. In the dust and straw of the barn he gave them up, and his pride with them. And that was the end of his childhood.
7
He had slept for a while, a black heavy sleep, and then he had waked again to stare at the darkness, and feel, and think. His body hurt, not with the mere familiar smart of a licking but in a serious way that he would not forget in a hurry. It did not hurt anything like as much as the intangible parts of him, and he lay and wrestled with the agony in the little lopsided room under the eaves that was still stifling from the day’s sun. It was almost dawn before anything stood clear from the blind fury of grief and rage and resentment and utter shame that shook around in him like big winds in a small place. Then, perhaps because he was too exhausted to be violent any more, he began to see a thing or two, and understand.
He knew that when he had groveled in Esau’s tracks in the dust and forsworn himself, he had lied. He was not going to give up Bartorstown. He could not give it up without giving up the most important part of himself. He did not know quite what that most important part was, but he knew it was there, and he knew that nobody, not even Pa, had the right to lay hands on it. Good or bad, righteous or
sinful, it lay beyond whim or attitude or passing play. It was himself, Len Colter, the individual, unique. He could not forswear it and live.
When he understood that, he slept again, quietly, and woke with a salt taste of tears in his mouth to see the window clear and bright and the sun just coming up. The air was full of sound, the screaming of jays and the harsh call of a pheasant in the hedgerow, the piping and chirping of innumerable birds. Len looked out, past the lightning-blasted stub of a giant maple with one indomitable spray of green still sprouting from its side, over the henhouse roof and the home field with the winter wheat ripening on it, to the rough hill slope and the upper wood rising to a crest on which were three dark pines. And a dull sadness came over him, because he was looking at it for the last time. He did not arrive at that decision by any conscious line of reasoning. He only knew it, immediately he waked.
He rose and went stiffly about his chores, white and remote, speaking only when he was spoken to, avoiding people’s eyes. With rough kindness, Brother James told him, out of Pa’s earshot, to buck up. “It’s for your own good, Lennie, and someday you’ll look back and be thankful you were caught in time. After all, it’s not the end of the world.”
Oh yes it is, thought Len. And that’s all people know. After the midday meal he was sent upstairs to wash himself and put on the suit that ordinarily he wore only on the Sabbath. And pretty soon Ma came up with a clean shirt still warm from the iron and made a pretense of looking sternly behind his ears and under his back hair. All the while the tears stole out of her eyes, and suddenly she caught him to her and said rapidly in a whisper, “How could you have done it, Lennie, how could you have been so wicked, to offend the good God and disobey your father?”
Len felt himself beginning to crumble. In a minute or two he would be crying in Ma’s arms and all his resolve gone for the time being. So he pushed away from her and said, “Please, Ma, that hurts.”
“Your poor back,” she murmured. “I forgot.” She took his hands. “Lennie, be humble, be patient, and this will all pass away. God will forgive you, you’re so young. Too young to realize——”
American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-56 Page 47