by Unknown
Mr. Bumpus pushed his spectacles up.
“Well, mister. It’s likely I have. You moving in to buy?”
“No.”
“Well, if you ain’t intending to move in, I don’t see what you want to look at a map for.”
Little knots of muscle bulged along Jerry’s jawbone.
“What’s it to you if I want to see the map?”
Mr. Bumpus scratched the back of his neck. It was stuffy and dark in the store; the door made a blinding spot of sunlight framing the scratching dog.
“Well,” said Mr. Bumpus, “it’s a walk back to my house if you got to see that map, and it’s a hot day, and I wasn’t intending to go back till noon. Now, if you was to wait till noon, I’d take you up and glad to do it.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
Mr. Bumpus ran a finger round the inside of his shirt band. He took a cotton handkerchief from his pocket, looked at it, wiped his forehead, blew his right nostril. The dog stopped scratching to eye a rooster on the bridge that carried the Oak Orchard road over the canal. A woman came in to trade some butter for cotton backing for a quilt. Mr. Bumpus wiped his nose and said apologetically to Jerry, “Well, I guess it will be handier if I just match this up for Mrs. Losey, and then we can get back to talking.”
Jerry seethed as he watched the interminable yes-and-noing going on at the counter over the shades of thread needed to match the backing. A wagon rattled away over the bridge. An oxcart loaded with white-wood boarding lumbered up to a waiting boat. The boatman and the driver of the cart started a chain from cart to boat, and the boards went up and down between their hands, like inchworms walking. The dog roused himself with a kind of moan in his nose and began to scratch, thumping his leg endlessly.
Mrs. Losey satisfied herself she had the right shade.
“For God’s sake,” Jerry cried as she went out, “let me see that map, before she comes back again.”
“Now don’t get worried,” said Mr. Bumpus tolerantly. “You’re going to look at that map, mister. But while I was helping Mrs. Losey match up I was thinking.” He rubbed his sandy hair upward on the back of his head. “Yes sir. I was thinking that if you told me your business maybe it would save me the trip back to my house. And anyways,” he added contentedly, “I don’t see as how I could get up there afore noon with nobody tending the store for me.”
Jerry cursed.
“It’s too bad,” said Mr. Bumpus. “But I figger we can be comfortable here a-talking things over until noon.”
The dog’s thumping picked up a beat; then they heard him groan as if hope were lost. He sighed as he lay down. Jerry felt sorry for that dog; he knew how he felt.
Mr. Bumpus took a seat in a rocker that had one leg too short; but he rocked it just the same and fanned his face with an old turkey wing.
“Reckon it’s hot out. Makes a man feel kind of dozy right in here.” He pulled his spectacles down and eased his pants where they needed easing and looked across at Jerry. “If you don’t intend to buy and you want to look at that map, it ‘pears to me you must be looking for somebody.”
“You’ve got it exactly right, Mr. Bumpus.”
“Oh shucks. If a man has time to think… . But that being so, why didn’t you tell me just who you wanted to see?”
“That’s the trouble,” Jerry said. “I don’t know.”
Mr. Bumpus rocked his chair, squeak as it went forward, bump when it came back. He fixed his eyes on the door. He had the short, round nose, a little swollen, of the man who deals with small ideas in a large way. In the door the dog sprang up joyfully to try under his chin. His leg thumped.
“If you don’t know the folks you’re looking for, mister, I don’t see as how looking at a map is going to help.”
Jerry said patiently, “I don’t know it will help. But I’ve been thinking that if I could see the names, maybe I’d have some idea.”
Mr. Bumpus sighed. “I guess maybe then you’ve got to look at that map, eh?”
“That’s the idea.”
“But look here.” The rocker stopped in the middle of a squeak. “Why don’t you ask me the names? I know everybody.”
“Everybody?”
“Yes sir.” The rocker continued. “Just as good as a map myself. Who do you want to know first?”
“I don’t know. Wait a minute. Is there any especially big farm?”
“Lansing’s is big, but that’s mostly on the corner of Range three. Let’s see, Range two. Why, there’s Halleck’s.”
“Halleck’s! Four farms. Of course. I’ve been a complete damned fool, Mr. Bumpus.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, mister.”
“A damned fool for three years.”
“Why …”
“I never asked George Halleck, and he didn’t tell me nothing.” Jerry grabbed his hat. “Whereabouts do Hallecks live?”
“Why, their land lies mostly in township fifteen, mister. They’ve got a pile of land to wheat, and the old woman sells fancies, sugar and such things. I sold her a wagonload of butter firkins myself last spring. Don’t get impatient, mister. I’m coming round, all right, and if you use up to-day you’ve always got tomorrow. Well, let’s see. You might take the canal footpath, but I guess you’d do better by the road. Yes, you take the Oak Orchard road. Cross that bridge there and keep a-going. When you come to the swamp causeway you’ll see a road off your right. Take that, mister, and keep right on straight as your nose until you come to a big frame barn and a couple of houses. That’s Halleck’s.”
“A red barn?”
“Yes, no, I think it’s white. Funny to paint, a barn white, but Mrs. Halleck’s notional, they say. Leastways it’s the first barn you come to.”
“Thanks, Mr. Bumpus.”
“No trouble.”
The dog got over to give Jerry free passage. He sat down to watch him across the bridge. It was hot beyond the porch steps. Inside the store Mr. Bumpus watched too. Then a strained look settled in the dog’s eyes. He began scratching.
But Jerry went quickly.
“I’ll walk fast,” he told himself. “I won’t stop to think. I’ll just walk right there. I’ll say, Where’s Mary? and they’ll tell me and I’ll just go up to her, and she’ll say, Jerry! and I’ll say …” Wheat stubble covered the land with golden bristles. It showed the shape of the land with its even trim, the little curves and hollows that the eye would never trace in grass; and in itself it showed the sweeps of the sower’s hand, sweeps like the curve of the scythe blade where the seed had fallen, taken root, made milk and grain, been reaped a cycle for the eye to grasp in a single glimpse. “Walk fast, Jerry Fowler. Three years is a long time. Walk fast. They’ll say she’s in the cow barn watering the calves. They’ll look queer at me. Maybe they’ll stand off; but who cares for that? So long as her eyes light on me. Mary, I’ve been sorry. For three years I’ve been sorry. It was my fault, Mary. And she’ll say …” Fox grapes showing their clusters, the hard green softening with blue; the crinkled leaves lifting their whitening edges, and the tendrils like silver springs. The dust lifted behind his feet. The roadside shrubs were dusty. The chokecherries wore a film of it. “I’ll just go in if they’re at dinner. Mary, I’ll say, and they’ll look up at me. Her eyes will light on me… .” The road ran through a point of the old oak forest that gave it its name; and then it turned a little west through broad country. To the left the causeway stretched into the swamp. In places it rose up on islands; in places it floated on the water. Tamaracks showed ashy green. Way off a sycamore lifted immense white limbs, like the living ghost of a tree. But there was a road branch on the right that turned back into the rolling wheat stubble. It led behind low oaks. “Maybe I turn here.” …
A wagon rumbled over the causeway. Four horses dragging early threshed wheat to Ingersoll’s warehouse, the driver said.
“Does this road lead past Halleck’s farm?”
“Yes, it does. Betsey Halleck. And her children and her grand
children. Settled down in a tract like Jemima Wilkinson and her Universal Friends. But these Hallecks are proper Christians. They’re a tribe to see. A half mile, mister, and you’ll see a white barn on your right.”
“Thanks.”
“Welcome to you, mister. Hot day for foot travel or hauling wheat. But it’s been a good season.”
“It’s been a fine season.”
“Never knew a better myself.”
“Nor I.”
“Git there, Trip. ‘Bye to you, mister.”
“Good-bye.”
4
‘A man that cuts his own pie”
With almost painful clearness he saw the farm. One mighty barn dominated the wheat and cornfields. Its sheer white walls, unpierced with windows, stood square to the four compass-points. Just off the road was a large house with a great brick chimney; next to it the log cabin it had supplanted; between them and the barn, wagon-sheds, tool-sheds, corncribs, a poultry house, and smokehouse made the square complete. Jerry could see hens dusting themselves in the yard. The herd-run leading back to pasture was laced deep in cowpaths. Two old horses dozed against the paddock rails. Pigs were grunting lazily somewhere out of sight. It was still with the midday stillness.
The sun struck full on Jerry. His trousers were white with dust, his boots powdered and caked. Sweat from his hard walk had soaked through his shirt and made brown stains under his coat sleeves. But as he stood there a smile came over his face, half shy, half fearful. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and pushed his dark hair back beneath his hat. His back straightened. Then, drawing a deep breath, he started down the slope.
The door letting out on the back stoop opened. A stout figure, suddenly familiar for its light, quick step, came down into the yard. Even at that distance, Jerry saw the shine of cookery on the round red cheeks.
Ma Halleck walked over to where a bell was hung between two cedar posts. Her red hands laid hold of the rope. Her fat arms pulled down. The heavy bell lifted its mouth. The clapper caught a spark out of the sun. Ma Halleck’s arms straightened to let the rope slide up, and the bell swung. Deep-toned, ample, brassy, the bell’s voice might have been her own. She swung it lustily, sending the notes over the wheatfields and the marsh, distributing to the four corners of four hundred acres her call to come and eat. Echoes came back from the barn wall, from the woodland, from the very heaven itself. Even when she had stopped, the overtones clung to the air in imitation of the passing clangor.
Dinner was in the act of passing from fire to table. The bell was its servant to announce its passage.
Ma Halleck stepped back into the house after pausing for a last look over her farm. A small, dark figure took her place. That would be George’s Prue. She was waiting for something. Then Jerry heard shouting, and a parcel of children streamed round the corner of the barn. One was holding up a fish on a hooked stick a boy, as dark as Prue herself. While he walked his eyes took in Prue’s pantomime, bending to greet the children, hefting the fish with admiration. There was a bright golden head at the last, leading a little boy. He came stumbling and laughing, reaching up to hold the girl’s hand; and his hair had a copper shine in the sun. Jerry stopped a moment, waiting.
Prue was calling over her shoulder, and in a moment Mary came out upon the stoop. Her cheeks were flushed from the kitchen warmth, her hair mussed. She ran down the stoop and over to the little boy, swooping him up in her arms. She paused for a moment beside Prue, and Jerry caught her laugh before she carried the child back through the door.
For a minute his feet were rooted to the road; he could not move. Her care-free attitude dismayed him. She might have made a joke, for Prue was laughing after her. But Prue went in again and Angy took her place. There was no mistaking Angy Judson, fussing with the children to make them wash their feet in the pump-tub. Laughing loudly, her sister joined her, but she was careless with the children as her eyes roved for her husband.
As he watched Esther, Jerry’s smile came back to him and he resumed his slow walk down the long slope to the farm. Now he became aware of the men coming in from different ways and keeping pace with him in an-swer to the bell. They were like a congregation converging on a house of worship where Ma Halleck was the preacher. Out of a woods road Abijah trotted, sitting side wise on a galumphing bay mare. He held an axe and crowbar balanced on her rump, and the chisel blade and mallet in his apron pocket showed that he had been mending fence. There came the two Hal-leek brothers, long, rangy men, their lean faces unchanged, walking beside a wagon piled high with ears of early corn. Glints of the golden kernels showed through the dry green husks. Over a slope walked Abel Marcy, the arch of the scythe snathe over his shoulders, and his two arms outstretched.
The children had passed in ahead of Angy. Esther was reaching out to Abel, smacking his cheek with her plump mouth and being kissed square on it for her pains. Her high laugh echoed against the barn wall, and Abel with a sheepish look was drawing his hand across his mouth. The two Hallecks drove their wagon under a shed, their horses to the barn. Jerry’s stride loitered as he saw the horses pause to drink at the trough, dribbling diamond water from their bits. The brothers took them through the doors, came out, and walked over to the well. Judson turned loose his mare and joined them.
Now the men were taking turns hauling up the well bucket. They lathered their hands and faces and the backs of their necks with brown bar soap and sluiced each other’s heads with bucketfuls. The water poured on them a glittering jet, broke into silver spray, and left them glistening. Jerry could hear their voices as they dried themselves, men’s crop-voices, low and steady.
The road pitched down suddenly for the yard. He felt the thud of his heart against his ribs. Though he was almost on them, none of them had noticed his approach. He could hear their voices clearly now. George ask-ing Judson about the back-lot fence, and Judson stroking his pale moustache and saying how he never had liked maple for a fence post.
Ma Halleck came to the door. Her ringing voice admonished them:
“Ain’t you boys never coming in to eat? A’ roasted loin with young potaties and our new carrots. Melon pickle, and a huckleberry pie.”
Joe lifted his lean face to grin.
“Ma’s with me like Esther is with Abel. Can’t abide to see me stay outside.”
“Shush you, Joey!” She made a flounce upon the stoop, snapping her stiff skirts in her hands. “Some day a girl is going to capture you, and then you’ll remember your fat Ma, I reckon… . Good land of gracious! What’s Ginger see?”
Out of the shadow of the bushes by the cellar wall two dogs darted. They crouched low down over their forepaws.
“Here you, Ginger! Toby! Come back here!”
The dogs stopped at the gate.
“Who is it, walking in a-foot?”
“Hello, there, mister. Them dogs won’t bother you.”
Jerry unlatched the gate, opened it, stepped through, latched it again. His breath was short and his heart felt high in his chest. He wanted to smile, but his lips were trembling. He turned full on them and took off his hat.
“Hello, Ma Halleck.”
The fat woman started. She clapped a red hand hard under one breast.
“Hello, George. Hello, Joe …” He was walking towards them with a dog snu ffin g at each heel. “Hello, Abel. Hello, ‘Bijah.”
There was a close, set look on the mouths of the four men. Their eyes stared hard at him, but he did not mind.
“I reckon you’ve forgotten me, Ma.”
Her bold stare took him in. Her mouth opened.
“Jerry Fowler!”
Her voice carried throughout the house. There was a scurry for the door. His eyes switched to it. Angy, Esther, and Prue stepped out beside the fat woman, and the children clustered behind them.
Then in the doorway he saw Mary. She stood quite still. The shadow of the doorjamb slanted just across her throat; her eyes were shadowed by it, and quiet in their surprise. As he looked at her he lost awareness of
the others, but he remembered old Issachar’s voice, “So long as her eyes light on you,” and he waited.
They were all so still that when a hen dusted herself behind them the dry ruffle of her feathers was like the clap of hands. Ma drew a deep breath and bent her middle over the rail.
“Jerry! So you’ve turned up at last.”
The welcome in her voice was tinged with stiffness.
“You’re just in time for dinner. Come in and eat with us.”
She turned round, shooing the children through the door, crowding Mary back into the kitchen. Her daughters followed her like two stout ewes, but Prue lingered a moment, giving him a little smile. His hands felt empty at his sides, and he turned dully to face the men.
Abijah was stroking his moustache, Abel chewed a stick. They seemed uneasy with him there in front of the hens. George’s face was troubled. But he and Joe came up together, holding out their hands.
“I’m glad to see you back with us,” said Joe. “It’s been a real long time since we came out along the Pike together.”
George found it hard to meet his eyes. But he said, “Me, too, Jerry. I’m glad you’ve come here.” He seemed relieved when Jerry took his hand. “I couldn’t rightly tell you then. I didn’t know what Mary wanted. And you didn’t ask about her.”
“It’s all right now,” Jerry said.
Abijah and Abel followed the brothers’ example quietly. They stood around a moment, shifting feet, hiking their trousers up.
“I guess we’d better be moving inside,” Abel said.
Their shoes thumped heavily up the steps.
Joe laughed and put his hand on Jerry’s shoulder.
“You look as though you needed rinsing, Jerry. Come over to the well and I’ll draw you up a bucketful.”
George followed them.
“You’ve come quite a ways? By the look of you, you’ve been walking.”
“I walked in from Newport this morning. I was on my way back from Lockport.”
He stripped off his coat, unbuttoned his shirt and slid it over his shoulders. Joe dropped the bucket down the well and seized the dangling rope.