She could see Portius now as he was then, a bushnipple and no mistake, standing up to marry her in his ruffled linen shirt pied with doeskin patches and his homemade buckskin britches shrunk and dried and clapping like clapboards when he walked. And she could see him as he was these last years, the eminent Judge Wheeler, in his long coat and broadcloth britches, starting for court on a weekday. Now on the Sabbath he would go out in the oldest suit he had, with his stick across the back of his shoulders. He did it on purpose, she always thought, setting out at that hour with his walking stick and old clothes so he would pass Christian folk dressed in their Sunday best on their way to church. He liked to devil them as he did her when he came to the kitchen for cake stuff.
“Any gingerbread, my love and my dove?” he would say, and yet all the time she knew what he was after. He had no sweet tooth for her baking. No, he only wanted the gingerbread to set out for the mice so they would spare his law books.
Oh, sometimes he had been hard to put up with, and yet that was the very part of him she would have parted with last. His feeling for rogues, she always thought, came from his being part of one himself. He liked to take sly digs at folks, and none was so honest or sacred as to be spared. He would poke wily fun at Resolve’s mother-in-law’s table by telling how he had that day seen the Morrison goat—it belonged to another and poorer set of Morrisons—so thin it followed the handbill man around and licked the flour paste off the put-up handbills. And when somebody’s brandy tasted weak, he would say it reminded him of Ferry House whiskey. “I never knew King Sam to buy but one barrel of it,” he told. “Every time he drew a gallon, he replaced it with a gallon of water.” Even poor and simple country folk were not immune from Portius’s jokes. He liked to tell of the farmer who bought a wagon from the Tateville Wagon Works and then hung around waiting for the discount they promised him. “Why, I gave it to you!” the manager said. “Oh, no you didn’t,” the farmer said craftily. “I’ve been sitting here looking for it all this while and I ain’t seen a thing.”
He had no shame, and nothing fazed him. Hardly would she forget the time long ago she had got him to camp meeting and the preacher for something to say called out in his sermon, “Where is that winebibber and agnostic who sits in high places!” “Here I am, sir,” Portius said cheerfully, standing up. It had shamed her so no end and scared the preacher nearly out of his boots. The story went all over the county, but people had respected Portius more than ever. “Honest Judge Wheeler,” they called him. “He’d send himself to prison if he done any wrong.”
Favorite words and sayings of Portius came back to Sayward’s mind tonight. Never would he say “Christmas” but “at the time called Christmas.” He would make common things sound noble like when he called some good-for-nothing, “that scurrilous and epithetical piece of rascality” or when he’d refer to Sayward’s family’s humble tramp west as, “Their long and arduous exodus from the Eastern states.” A dead man was “a man deprived of his life”; a gentleman, “a man of parts.” If a guest praised the food on Sayward’s table, Portius would invariably agree and add slyly, “As Fred Pynchon used to say, ‘Yes, it’s good, what there is of it, and there’s enough of it such as there is.’ ” When Chancey was still at home and would lie abed late in the morning, Portius used to call in stentorian tones up the back stairs, “Chancey! Don’t you know that the great majority of people die in their beds!” You could never get the best of him. Even when he made a mistake and you proved it, his eye would twinkle and all he would admit was that old Wheeler household saying that Mathias Cottle first said, “I was just a thinking, and if I hadn’t been a thinking, I wouldn’t have thunk that way.”
He liked especially to tell stories against aristocrats and the gentry like the one of the driver who said to the lord, “Are you the man to take the carriage? If you are, I’m the gentleman to take you.” But most of his stories were about the law. One they told about him so often that Sayward knew it by heart. At one time it was Resolve he was supposed to be talking to, another time some other young lawyer. “What do I do if the law is on my side and justice against me?” the apprentice lawyer was supposed to ask. “Advocate the majesty of the law,” they said Portius answered. “Well, suppose justice is on my side and the law against me?” “Advocate justice though the heavens fall,” they said Portius thundered. “But what do I do if the law and justice are both against me?” “Oh, then saw the air and talk of glorious liberty for all men,” Portius told him.
That story had gone far and wide among lawyers. She heard them telling it at the funeral table again today along with the one about the tattered Bible Portius had for years in his court. Thousands of witnesses and several judges had been sworn on it. Then one day somebody opened it and found it was a copy of Arabian Nights.
Well, she better try closing her mind for a while, Sayward told herself. She could lie here till New Year’s Day if she wanted to recollect all the things Portius said and did. It must be getting toward morning. Not that it mattered any. A woman needed small sleep and less passtime when she got old. The clock and calendar passed fast enough for you then.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE WITNESS TREE
Come from? Why, I didn’t come from any place. I been here all the time.
OLD SETTLER
SAYWARD was in her kitchen, supper eaten, what she had of it, the few dishes washed and put away. She had made it herself around five o’clock as usual. Now she sat here, not doing anything, just thinking. It was singular how she had it in her head tonight about Hugh McFall’s locust post. Portius used to tell of the time he was in Hugh’s field and Hugh laid his hand on a fresh-cut-and-peeled post he had just put in. Portius said Hugh felt and patted that stick of wood like it was a colt.
“I just wish I could last as long as this post,” he told Portius.
Hugh must have been failing then or had second sight, for he was dead in the year. Twenty years afterward Portius said he went in the field a purpose and found that post sound as the day Hugh had put it in. And now Portius himself was dead and buried eight years. She declared it didn’t seem that long. Now what made her think this way? Oh, yes, it was Hugh McFall and his locust post. But what made her think of that in the first place?
Why, it was most dark already! She had seen a slew of winters in her time, and it still surprised her how early night came of a fall afternoon. She pulled herself up and made her way to the front of the house. Now what did she come in for? It must have been something or she wouldn’t be standing here with a candle, lighted at the kitchen stove, a burning in her hand. Oh, yes, how could she forget what she did every day at this time for nigh onto thirty years? The big hall lamp she lit blinded her for a minute. Now she had to watch out she didn’t let it burn too high and smoke like she did last week.
Going back to the kitchen she dropped the candle. Well, it didn’t matter so long as she hadn’t set fire to anything. She didn’t need the light. It felt good to pass from a lighted to an unlighted room and feel the darkness wash over and soothe her. She had always liked that, from the time Portius built a second room to their cabin. Even since they had the big house, she liked to sit and rest a minute in the dim kitchen when her evening’s work was done, taking notice of the pleasant glow and sounds of life coming from some other rooms up yonder in the front of the house.
She went to the high narrow closet with the little doors behind the kitchen fireplace. There was no light save what came down the long hall, but she didn’t need any. Her fingers could find what she wanted. When she was little, the touch of a clay pipe used to go through her like eating a persimmon. Now it felt like an old friend. Her unsteady hand cut plug in her palm and her thumb pushed it in the bowl. When she had lighted it with a spill from the stove, she sat back in the rocker. Oh, this, she knew these last years was why her father smoked. The small fire in the bowl warmed you, body and soul. The smoke drifted up like chimney smoke. A pipe in truth was a piece of household comfort you could carry with
you far into the lonesome tracks of the deep woods.
If only she could take off her shoes and stockings now and have her feet free against the floor by the stove. The girls reckoned it unladylike, but she even liked the scent of sweat and tan bark leather from her shoes. Some could crack their toe knuckles but she never could. Folks who wore their shoes all the time like she had to these years missed the good feel of grass and leaves, the bare toes a working in earth or sand. But she better not do it now, not till she went to bed.
Wasn’t that the front door and somebody in the front hall? Sayward put the pipe back to its cup on the shelf behind the little door and went front. Yes, there was Libby a few steps up the stairs.
“I was just going by,” she said, as if her mother didn’t know she came by here every day on purpose, “What do you have it so dark for? I’ll light the sitting room lamp for you.”
“A body gets tired being in the light all the time,” her mother told her. “Won’t you take off your things?”
Libby waited till she had done her work with a spill from the mantel lighted from the hall lamp chimney. Then her eyes critically examined her mother as she took off her cape and promptly slipped it back on again.
“It’s cold in here. I don’t see how you stand it with only that knit thing around your shoulders. You ought to be in a warm house. How do you feel tonight?” Her mother didn’t answer and Libby lifted her nose to sniff. “It smells exactly like somebody was smoking in here.” And when Sayward still kept mildly silent. “Why don’t you ever want to tell how you feel, Mama?”
“You just asked me last night or night before,” her mother complained. “I don’t think about it till you ask me.”
“We’re concerned about you, Mama.”
“You needn’t fret so much. I can get along real good.”
“We’re thankful you can. But what if something would happen and you all alone in this house?”
“Then I reckon it would happen,” Sayward said, resigned.
“I don’t see how you can be so cold-blooded. Think what people would say about us? And think how we feel! We never know night or day.”
“It’s better sometimes if you don’t know,” Sayward said shortly.
“That’s foolish, Mama. If Harry knew in time, he could do something for you. He’s your doctor. He knows more about you than anybody else. More than you do yourself. And he says you’re not fit to be alone.”
“I don’t know what he says that for,” Sayward said stoutly.
“He doesn’t mean only your leg. He means the way you are lately.”
“What way?”
“Well, just the way people get when they get old. They ought to have somebody with them. They can’t be trusted.”
“You mean I’m getting queer?” Sayward put to her.
“Well, not queerer than anybody else your age. People must expect it when they get up in years. They’re forgetful. Take yourself. You don’t remember things any more.”
“I can remember as good as you, Miss Libby,” her mother said sharply.
“Yes, right now, but not all the time. Especially when you’re alone. You eat things you shouldn’t. You won’t take your medicine. You keep runaways in the house, no matter how big and black and dangerous they are. You cook their meals and give them money. They could knock you on the head so easy. Then you won’t listen to your children. You won’t come to live with any of us. You say we should come and live with you, but if anything happened, we’d have to move again because the square’s all business now and getting worse every day. Even if we did come, we’d have to do everything like you said. We’d be living in your house and you’d be the master. It wouldn’t work, especially with the man of the family. Besides, you said yourself you’d rather be alone. If you’d only have a regular maid in the house, so there’d be somebody here with you all the time, it would be different. Why, there isn’t a house in Americus half this size that doesn’t have one maid or two. But all you’ll have is just Matty to clean a couple of times a week. And she’s pretty near as old and feeble as you are.”
“The house don’t get upset with just one person in it,” Sayward protested.
“It gets upset enough. Folks come in here all the time. If it isn’t somebody to pay rent or interest, it’s somebody trying to borrow or get you to donate. Or it’s somebody who stayed with you once, and there were thousands of those. Or they knew Papa or Resolve when he was governor. If it’s meal time, you cook their dinner or supper, and if it isn’t, you give them cakes and whiskey. Or it’s somebody who knew you when you were a girl.”
“Folks that knew me when I was a girl are all gone, Libby,” Sayward said.
“Well, you shouldn’t have to lift a finger,” Libby declared. “Not with your bad leg and all your other ailments. You must remember you’re an old lady, Mama.”
“But I’m not dead yet, Libby,” Sayward said mildly, “and I like to have something to do my own self.”
“Well, I should think there’d be other things for you to do than go out and pet those trees of yours in the side yard. Now don’t get mad at me, Mama. You asked a while ago if you were getting queer, and that’s one queer thing you do. Your neighbors over the Water Company say you go around to every one and pat it with your hand and look up at it and talk to it. Yes, they do. They claim you do it twice a day. They can’t hear what you say, but after little Sooth stayed with you the last time she said you give those trees good night and good morning. We told her not to dare breathe a word to anybody. We can’t imagine how you would do such a thing. You used to tell us how you hated trees. Just what do you do it for, Mama?”
Sayward’s face set and she didn’t answer. How could she explain that to Libby? She couldn’t even explain it to herself. At her silence, Libby’s face set too. Studying it, her mother could well believe that this was the child whom folks said favored her the most. Sayward could see some of her stubbornness and resolve in her now.
“Mama, there’s no need deceiving you. We don’t like to tell you some things, but you won’t listen to us. Harry’s told us for a long time to expect anything. It’s not only your leg although that’s bad enough. The veins are clotted and abscessed, and if it isn’t watched and dressed, it might turn into gangrene any day. But what he’s worried most about is a stroke. One time he came in and you couldn’t talk to him right, he says. You’ve worked too hard ever since you were a little tyke. It’s telling on you now and something has to be done about it. We’d have gone ahead before but we didn’t want to disturb you too much before your picture’s painted.”
Behind Libby in one of the long looking glasses that had come down from the Wheelers, Sayward could see herself. So that, she thought, was the face her family and the Pioneer Society wanted painted so they could show generations still to come how the first settler of Shawanee County looked. Libby was right when she said that she was getting up in years. The skin of her face had pulled together and worn away like old cloth when the nap is gone and you can see only the warp. Crisscross ridges ran across her cheeks like on old trees and Indians. Her neck had shrunken mostly to up and down tendons. Now what made the top of her head slant away more than it used to? Her nose stood out plain enough but her mouth pinched and drew down like she had seen on old folks in their coffins, bitter at that bitterest of all things, death. She reckoned it was partly that her teeth were gone. Her hair had turned gray long ago; then white, and now to another color. It had that dirty “yaller” look she had seen on old women in her time. When she was younger she thought those old women just had dirty hair, but now she knew better. She couldn’t wash it out. Even soap she made her ownself wouldn’t take off the tarnish. Once she had been light complected but now her skin looked dark brown. It was the Indian in her, she told herself. Only her blue eyes belied it. They looked out at her straight and “cam” like always.
“Do you hear me, Mama?” she heard Libby’s voice say sharply.
“Yes, I hear you,” Sayward said, looking bac
k to her again.
“What I want to say is that this isn’t something sudden. We’ve been facing it a long time. Ever since last winter we’ve done nothing but talk about it. We wrote to Huldah and Kinzie. We talked to Dezia when she was home. We came to the conclusion we couldn’t let you in the house another winter alone. Not in your condition with all the fires to keep up that you wouldn’t be able to. We decided there was only one thing to do and that was bring you to my house where you could have care.”
“You mean winter next year?” Sayward asked.
“No, I mean this year. In a week or two.”
Sayward sat silent, with a kind of shocked grief.
“Your father and I built this house,” she said at last. “I’ve lived here for over thirty year, and I wouldn’t have it torn down for a store or something. Not while I’m alive.”
“We talked that over, too. It’s handy to the court house, Resolve said he could use it for his law offices. Not the whole house, but he could rent the rest out. They wouldn’t have to change a thing, and the furniture could be stored on the third floor.”
“The other children mightn’t like Resolve having the house,” Sayward mentioned cautiously.
“We took that up with Huldah and Kinzie. They said it was all right.”
“Did you take it up with Chancey?”
“We thought what’s the use talking to him. He’s against everything and everybody, especially Resolve. But we did then, and he said so, too. It surprised us after all he’s printed against Resolve. We don’t understand who pays the money to keep up that terrible paper of his. It doesn’t make any money. It isn’t you, is it, Mama?”
Sayward sat there a moment with a cruel face.
“I haven’t seen Chancey but once since his father’s funeral, and then I didn’t have a chance to speak to him.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d do a thing like that, give him more than you gave us, but I told the others the first chance I had I’d come right out and ask you.”
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