They Came Like Swallows

by William Maxwell

  Robert had the post card still. He kept it in a box, with his second-class Scout badge and his arrowheads.

  “Things are going to be different now,” his father was saying. “You’ll have to do more for yourself. With a baby in the house you can’t expect people to be picking up your things after you and keeping your clothes in order.”

  Once they went out into the hall solemnly. And once into the library. And so long as neither of them spoke, Robert could imagine that he knew what was going on in his father’s mind; that they understood each other. But to have his father turn on him and say, “These things happen to everybody, sooner or later. We have to expect them,” was altogether shocking. Robert looked around wildly as they bore down on the walnut sofa. They turned aside, of course, at the very last minute, but it was a narrow escape.

  “Your mother is a fine woman,” his father said.

  6

  Bunny was very pale after his illness, and he tired easily. The first time that he was allowed to come downstairs was an event. Robert got out his soldiers and laid the box on Bunny’s knees.

  The box was so large that it was all Bunny could do to hold it. And Robert stood by, in case Bunny should want to take the soldiers out of their places. When Bunny had looked at them a short while (at the lancers with silver breastplates and silver plumes, the cowboys, the Cossacks on white horses with bearskin caps and rifles slung across their backs) he indicated that Robert could put the lid on. His hands shook slightly, and there was satisfaction in his tired eyes.

  “They’re nice,” he said. “Thank you, Robert. Thank you a lot.” And then “Maybe sometime we could play with them together?”

  Robert didn’t answer.

  “You take half and I take half, and then we could have a battle—how would that be?”

  Robert returned the soldiers to the top of the bookcase where they belonged. He wanted to be nice to Bunny because Bunny had been sick. But on the other hand, it wouldn’t do to commit himself.

  He said, “Maybe we could sometime,” and went on to the living-room to practice his music lesson. Because there was an epidemic, his mother said, was no reason why he should get off practicing.

  For a while—for fifteen minutes, perhaps—he practiced conscientiously. Then he made a series of trips out to the front hall to look at the clock. Each time that he came back he devoted considerable attention to the piano stool, which was either too high to suit him; or else too low. With half an hour still before him, he switched from The Shepherd Boy’s Prayer to

  Go tell

  That was wrong—

  Go tell

  Aunt Rho

  die her—

  “Flat, Robert … B Flat!” his mother called from somewhere, from the butler’s pantry. She was eating again…. That was the trouble. If they’d just leave him alone, he’d get along fine and maybe learn to play the piano so well that he could give recitals and people would have to pay money to come and hear him. Instead of that, they jumped on him—his mother jumped on him every time he struck a wrong note, so that he was always having to go back to the beginning, hour after hour, week after week, year in (he said to himself) and year out.

  When he went again to see what time it was, Irene was standing in front of the pier-glass. She was poking long hatpins into her hat, and he tried to slip away while her back was turned. Nevertheless, she saw him in the mirror and stopped him. And this time it was not a matter of being kissed.

  “What,” she said, “did you think of my caller?”

  Robert could think of nothing in reply, so he sat down on the bottom step of the stairs. When Irene was convinced that her hat was straight, she came and sat down beside him.

  “I guess I didn’t think anything,” he said.

  “That’s a likely story.”

  Irene took his hand and covered the skinned knuckles with her own. Robert considered a place in his trousers knee—a place which was about worn through. The trouble was that he couldn’t tell Irene what he thought about her caller—not really. Besides, it wouldn’t make any difference. If she was going to live with Boyd Hiller again, she’d do it regardless of anything he said.

  Long ago, before he was hurt and almost before he could remember, there was a wedding in the Episcopal church, with lots of people. It was after dark and they went there in a taxicab—Irene and Grandfather Blaney. And Irene was afraid that he’d drop the ring if he carried it on a pillow, so she put it in his hand and closed his fingers over it. That much he remembered. And going down the aisle past all the people.

  But there was more afterward. It was one of the family stories that he had heard over and over, until it seemed to him that he could almost remember it. When the time came for the ring, he wouldn’t give it up. Boyd tried to take it from him and he said No, it’s Eenie’s ring! So loud that people heard him all over the church.

  “The honest truth, Robert …”

  Irene had to turn, they said, and take the ring away from him. But that part he didn’t remember.

  “… the honest truth is that I didn’t know Boyd was coming. I knew he was in town, of course. And when I took little Agnes to her Grandmother Hiller’s, I saw him and talked to him for a few minutes. That was all.”

  Robert was not used to having grown-up people confide in him. First his father, and now Irene…. His mouth stiffened with embarrassment.

  “I had been in the house all afternoon, you know, with Bunny. And your father came up to relieve me, so I threw a shawl around my shoulders and went outside to get a breath of air…. When I discovered who it was, Robert, I did the same thing you did—I ran away.”

  A week’s suspense, a week of secret misery escaped in one breath, so that Robert felt very light and unstable. It wasn’t that Boyd Hiller was to blame for his accident—because he wasn’t, really. He didn’t know that Robert was climbing on the back end of his carriage. He didn’t even know that Robert was there until Robert got his foot in the wheel. And then it was too late…. He thought of that every time that he saw Boyd. He couldn’t help thinking of that. But what troubled him now was something else. It was about Irene.

  “The older you get, Robert, the less courage you have.”

  Robert stood up and put his hands in his pockets. He was glad of one thing, anyway. He would not have to avoid Irene any longer.

  “You wouldn’t like to see some muskrat traps, would you?”

  “Not now. The taxi will be here any minute.”

  Robert glanced at the clock. They had already talked away six whole minutes of practicing.

  “Next time, then?”

  Irene buttoned her right glove and drew the left one on—all but the thumb. “Next time,” she said, and kissed him soundly on the mouth.

  7

  Robert awoke into a bright cold room. There was snow on the window sill, and on the floor beneath. He looked out and saw that the walks were gone, the roofs buried under an inch of snow. And in the level morning light, which came neither from the sky nor the white earth but from somewhere between sky and earth, the maples stood out with stereoscopic clarity.

  While Robert was trying to accustom himself to the change, his mother came in.

  “I never knew it to fail,” she announced as she closed the window.

  “Never knew what to fail?”

  “Sophie—”

  Although it was a thing he had seen happen a thousand times, Robert sat up in bed and watched his mother turn on the radiator.

  “She’s gone and had all her teeth out. Every tooth in her head. Wouldn’t you know! She came to work this morning feeling so miserable and she was such a sight, that I told her to go home….”

  The radiator began to kick and stomp, and only occasionally could Robert make out a word or two of what his mother was saying. When she left, he washed and dressed slowly. For long periods at a time his mind remained stationary and entranced, while he played with the buttons on his shirt. But there were moments in between, when he thought about teeth, and how he
swallowed one at the age of seven; and about his Grandmother Morison, who had false teeth and kept them in a glass of water at night; and about Sophie, and what she would look like without any.

  Eventually the smell of bacon frying aroused him. He went downstairs by the back way, and found his mother in the kitchen.

  “Was it that,” he said, “that was making Sophie so disagreeable?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His mother turned the gas down under the coffeepot.

  “I didn’t ask her. She was in no fit condition. If she had been, I’d have found out where she keeps the grapefruit knife. Because I’ve looked high and low….”

  After breakfast Robert wandered upstairs and stood looking at the back room that was some day to be his.

  No change had been made since the day he came here with his mother and they planned together what they were going to do to fix it up. His mother suggested matting for the floors, in place of rugs. And pictures of birds. Also if they could pick up an old sea-chest somewhere—a chest that opened from the top. He thought it would be a good idea if the bed were built against the wall like a seaman’s bunk, high and narrow, with long drawers under it where he could keep his things. There was to be a bulletin board where he could tack up notices and post-cards that he wanted to look at. And they both agreed that the door was to have a padlock on it.

  Now that everything was so upset, with the baby coming and all, he couldn’t expect them to do much about his room. Not for a while, anyway. Turning to go, he noticed the arrangement of rectangular walls and buildings: the ruler, the block of stone, brown paper, pencils, wooden spools. Bunny must have built it—whatever it was. He was the only one who ever came here. But Robert saw that with that piece of cardboard braced against the sides of the two largest buildings and curving upward he could construct a first-rate airplane hangar.

  He carried out his idea immediately, and in a way that satisfied him beyond words. But he could not resist making one or two more serious changes, and he became so intent on what he was doing that he was startled when he heard Bunny’s voice, close behind him: “What’s that?”

  “A flying field.”

  Bunny regarded him with suspicion.

  “What did you think it was?”

  Robert leaned back proudly, so that Bunny could see his handiwork. It was all neatly arranged—the hangar and three sheds, the road leading up to it, the corners of the field. He saw that Bunny, too, was pleased, or at least hovering on the edge of pleasure.

  “Those are searchlights,” he said, fearing that Bunny would miss them.

  Bunny was looking at something else—at a cylindrical box which had once contained a typewriter ribbon.

  “My village … you’ve torn up my Belgian village!”

  Robert sighed. All he ever wanted to do was to play with Bunny. And whatever he did, the result was always the same.

  “It can be fixed, Bunny. All you have to do is build it over again.”

  “It can’t, either. And I wasn’t through with it. I was going to play with it a lot more and now you’ve spoiled it!” Bunny looked so queer when he lost his temper: white as a sheet and like a little old man. “You’ve spoiled the whole thing.”

  “I know, Bunny, but I didn’t mean to…. And I built you a new flying-field, didn’t I? That’s a lot better than any old Belgian village.”

  “If you’d only play with your own things,” Bunny shouted, “and keep out of here where you don’t belong …” Blocks, kindling-wood, pencils, wooden spools scattered noisily across the floor and out into the hall where his father stood, looking at them.

  “What’s all this?”

  “My village. Robert went and—”

  “I didn’t, either. I didn’t spoil anything. I was just—”

  “Be quiet, both of you. And listen to what I have to say. Irene was going to stay with you but she’s out of town.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Chicago.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her. Sophie is in no fit shape to come to work, and so I’ve been talking to your Aunt Clara. You and Bunny are to go there and stay while we’re gone.”

  As suddenly as that, everything was changed. Everything was different.

  Robert was too uneasy to remain upstairs even while his clothes were being packed, and so he wandered disconsolately from room to room, with Bunny at his heels. Bunny was looking for his yellow agate which had got lost somehow, or mislaid. And he seemed to be more perturbed about that than he was over the change of plans.

  For some time Robert stood before the bookcase in the library, uncertain whether or not to take his soldiers. He didn’t want to go and stay at Aunt Clara’s. He didn’t like it there. But on the other hand, what if the house should burn down while they were gone…. At the last minute he decided to take both his soldiers and The Scottish Chiefs, which he had finished once, and read partly a second time.

  “Hurry up, son,” his father said from the doorway. “Dr. Macgregor is outside with his car, waiting. Say good-by to your mother and then we’ll….”

  When Robert came into the hall his mother was standing before the pier-glass with her hat and coat on. He started toward her, but Bunny was there first, tugging at her and sobbing wildly into her neck.

  “Why,” she exclaimed through her veil. “Crying … at your age. What a thing to have happen!” And when Bunny cried the harder, “There, there, angel, don’t take on so!”

  Robert hesitated. He saw his father pull out his watch.

  “Well, good-by,” he said, though she probably didn’t hear him. “Good-by, Mother. Take care of yourself.” And went on out to the car.

  8

  Aunt Clara was waiting for them behind the storm door.

  “Well, how are my boys? And how are you, Doctor?”

  Robert held his breath while she embraced him. Aunt Clara was a large woman—almost as tall as his father. And on weekdays she didn’t wear any corset.

  “Won’t you take your coat off, Doctor? I say won’t you take your coat off?”

  Dr. Macgregor set their suitcases down in the front hall.

  “Not today, thank you.”

  “When James called, I told him to bring the children right over. Mr. Paisley and I were going to Vandalia for Thanksgiving, but with the epidemic and so many people sick and all, we decided to stay home.”

  Blindfolded and set down like the suitcases in Aunt Clara’s front hall, Robert would have known where he was. He would have known mostly by the smell, which was not like the smell of any house that he had ever been in, and not easy to describe, except that it was something like the smell of clothes shut up in boxes for too long a time.

  The walls and the woodwork were dark, and the shades always at half-mast, except in the parlor, where they were all the way down, to keep the rug from fading.

  While Robert stood with his cap and his overcoat still on, it occurred to him that he might slip out the back door and around the house to the car again, before anybody noticed what he was doing. He could stay with Dr. Macgregor until his father and mother came home, and then everything would be all right. He moved toward the dining-room, but just then Dr. Macgregor put his hand out to say good-by.

  “If there is anything you want,” Dr. Macgregor said; “if anything comes up, Robert—”

  Aunt Clara answered for him: “If there’s any occasion to, Doctor, we’ll call you. I say we’ll call you.”

  It was clear from the tone of her voice that there would be no occasion. In the doorway, with cold air rushing in between his legs, Dr. Macgregor turned and smiled at Robert approvingly. “Be good boys,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  “Well,” Aunt Clara said, “I wasn’t looking for you quite so soon. Half after nine, your father said. Go stand your overshoes on the register, Robert. There’s snow on them and it’ll stain the carpet.”

  Robert had intended to watch until Dr. Macgregor drove away,
but he did not dare go to the window when Aunt Clara had told him to do something else. He stood bravely still, however. For they were rubbers, not overshoes. And in the second place, Aunt Clara was not his mother. He didn’t have to mind her. Unless he wanted to, he didn’t have to do anything she said.

  “Come upstairs with me, Bunny. I’ll take the spread off, and the bolster, in Grandma’s room. And then you can have some place to lie down. You must be careful for a while. You’ve been a sick boy.”

  Although his face was streaked with tears, Bunny was pleased with himself. Robert recognized the symptoms. And he saw that Bunny was making up to Aunt Clara—starting up the stairs in front of her as if she were the one person that he liked and depended on. Just as he did to Irene, or to Sophie, or to anybody who happened to be around and could get him what he wanted. When Bunny and Aunt Clara reached the landing, Robert went over to the register and stood on it, rubbers and all, preserving his independence by a kind of technicality while the hot air came up in waves, around his legs.

  As soon as the rubbers were dry he took them off and his overcoat and cap, and went into the darkened parlor. He was looking for a place to put his soldiers. Though it was safe, or fairly so, the parlor would not do because it was never used except for company. Then Aunt Clara raised the shades halfway and people sat about in the big mahogany rocking-chairs, making conversation. On the piano there was a sea-shell that roared and a big starfish that came apart, once, in Robert’s hands. He could still remember how he felt, holding it and trying to make the broken point stay on. Eventually, in fright, he put the starfish back the way it was, on top of the piano, and hoped that no one would notice. Aunt Clara discovered it the very next day, when she came to dust, and said would he please not touch things without asking.

  All Robert wanted was to see what it looked like underneath. But if he had known what was going to happen, he would have let the starfish be.

  In the sitting-room over the two doorways were plaster heads—a Negress in a red turban, and another (darker, and larger by several sizes) in a blue. Robert could never make up his mind whether he liked them or whether he didn’t. And so he sat experimentally in various parts of the room, on the leather couch, in the big chair, holding his box of soldiers. Wherever he went, the Negresses followed him with their white eyes. He asked his mother once where Aunt Clara got them, and she said in darkest Africa. But that was only his mother’s way of saying things. Aunt Clara had been to New York with Uncle Wilfred, and come home by way of Niagara Falls. And she had been to Omaha, to a funeral. But she had never crossed the ocean. Robert was quite sure of that. Just as he was sure that the heads were not real heads but plaster, and the fireplace not a real fireplace, though it had a fancy metal screen that looked as if it were screwed on over a grate.