“Read?” Joey asked, lost for the moment. He was still thinking about Horace’s answer, which made him feel better; it also made Horace seem older and wiser than himself. “Oh. I like to read. I used to read Tom Swift and books like that, but I don’t any more. I like poetry and stuff, and books about real people. Do you like to read?”
“I read books like that, too,” Horace said, and they smiled at one another. A fine feeling of friendship, a current of good will, moved between them. “I read them when I can get them.”
“I have a lot of books,” Joey said. “I can bring some to you. I’ll be here again Christmas, maybe. I’ll bring some then.”
“It would be nice.”
“Well,” Joey said, “I reckon I better go. Mr. Ben might need the water.” He took a quick, secret look at Horace’s foot beside the wagon. It lay almost at a right angle to the leg, a useless thing, and a feeling of protest went through him that Horace should have this additional infirmity; it wasn’t fair. “I’ll bring you the books.”
“Thank you, Joey. I hope you come again.”
“I will,” Joey said. “Good-by.”
“Good-by,” Horace said, and smiled brightly at him.
Joey turned away and walked around the corner to the well, where he filled the buckets. The mule had come out into the stable yard; it moved up to the fence along the lane, showed Joey the whites of its eyes, and he gave it a wide berth as he passed it. He thought about his meeting with the crippled boy all the way back to the house, and was considerably sobered when he took the buckets into the kitchen and put them on the table.
Mr. Ben was taking the ashes out of the stove. “See anybody over there?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Joey said. “I saw Horace.”
“You did?”
“Yes, sir,” Joey said. “He’s nice, Mr. Ben.”
“You couldn’t find a nicer boy anywhere,” Mr. Ben said, and waited for more.
“I walked around the corner of the house and he was there. I was so scared I almost ran for a minute, but I’m glad I didn’t. He’s smart, Mr. Ben. I like him. I’m going to bring him some books.”
“It would be a very kind thing to do. I guess it’s almost impossible for him to get many books. His mother helped him some, but he practically taught himself to read.”
“I reckon he could teach himself almost anything if he had the chance. It’s not fair that he’s like that. It’s not fair at all.”
“No, it’s not, Joey, but I wouldn’t think too much about it if I were you. Nobody can fix it.”
“Yes, sir,” Joey said, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He walked to the window and looked out at the gray and drizzling day, and Horace’s fate, so hopeless and so harsh, depressed him. He felt that he had found in Horace a friend different from other boys, like a grownup in some ways but within his reach, and that this friend was so handicapped was dispiriting.
He stared out of the window for a while, and then wandered about the room; finally he saw the turkey call on the mantel and sat down and began to work with it, but the sounds he produced were shrill and off-key. He grew impatient with the call presently; he was still thinking of Horace and wasn’t much interested in it. He put it back on the mantel and began to wander about again, touching things as he wandered.
“Joey,” Mr. Ben said, after a bit, “take your gun and go for a walk. You’ll feel better when you get back.”
“Yes, sir,” Joey said, with little enthusiasm, but he got his gear together and went out. He didn’t feel like going anywhere that he had already been; he didn’t feel like going anywhere at all, for Horace’s condition, and the bright smile that Horace had given him when they parted, which underlined it, was still in his mind. His feet took him down the path toward the wharf, but part way down he turned off it toward the north and continued in that direction. The woods were old and high, oak and beech interspersed with great ancient pines, and the misty drizzle made them shadowy and mysterious; the litter on the ground was damp and his footfalls made no sound. Being able to move so silently and secretly began to interest him; Horace slipped into the back of his mind, and his spirits rose.
He had wished several times in the past that he could travel through the woods a little above the ground, in just such a silence, and now he was able to do something very like it. Nothing could hear him coming; the animals, unwarned by the noise of his feet in the leaves, would be unaware of him. He slowed his pace and drifted between the trees, stopping frequently to stand still for a while and look about. Silent and slow-moving, he felt almost disembodied; it was as though he wasn’t there at all.
The first thing he saw was a squirrel on the ground taking short little jumps and slow steps, pausing to dig small holes in a search for nuts it had buried earlier in the year. Seen so, unconscious of him, it was a captivating animal; several times it suddenly made swift sidewise jumps and skittered about as though playing with an invisible companion. Then, at the edge of visibility, Joey saw something else. There was a flash of wings, and turning his glance that way Joey saw a Cooper’s hawk land in a tree. The squirrel’s back was toward it and it hadn’t seen the hawk, but the hawk had seen it. Joey watched, fascinated, as the hawk dropped down behind the tree, reappeared near the ground, and turning silently in the air glided toward the squirrel behind the cover of a holly bush. As it rounded the holly it put on an astonishing burst of speed. It almost seemed to be a streak as it went for the squirrel. At the last instant before the reaching talons closed on it the squirrel dodged away, dashed for a beech, and leaped up on the trunk. The hawk turned in its own length and pursued it. The squirrel went round and round the tree as it climbed, its claws scraping on the bark; the hawk followed it with marvelous speed and dexterity, but the squirrel managed to stay far enough ahead of it to slip into a hole in the trunk and disappear. The hawk wheeled and flew off; the squirrel’s head reappeared in the hole and it raised its voice in a noisy scolding, like a boy pouring scorn on another who had threatened attack with a stick or a stone and been frustrated.
Joey had been so caught up in this swift and deadly incident that he had forgotten to breathe; he took a deep breath now and said, “Great day!” He realized that he was holding his gun and had completely forgotten about it; he had even forgotten about it when he had first seen the squirrel. He was glad that he had forgotten it, for if he had shot the squirrel he would have missed an experience that was much more exciting. He recalled the craftiness of the hawk, the instantaneous reaction of the squirrel, and the swift maneuverings of both of them, and was amazed anew. “Great day!” he said again.
The squirrel had ceased its scolding and withdrawn its head, and Joey, who was feeling very friendly toward it by now, grinned at the hole and went on. The drizzle stopped but the sky remained overcast and gray. His interest in seeing more of the secret lives about him had been sharpened, and he drifted through the misty woods with keen anticipation. He didn’t see anything for a while; presently he came to a little clearing overgrown with low brush with a large pile of big rocks in the middle of it. It had apparently been there for a long time; fields must have surrounded it once, and the rocks cleared from them piled there. He stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked at it; while he watched a snaky head appeared in a crack between two rocks and two eyes lit with green fire regarded him. They were baleful and without fear; they seemed to defy him. There was a chittering in the rockpile and a mouse popped out. The head swung and the owner of it, a lean, sinuous brown shape, leaped out, flowed over the rocks, and caught the mouse.
Joey had never seen a weasel before, but he had heard a lot about what bloodthirsty little killers they were. He laid his gun down, picked up a stick, and ran at it. The weasel dodged him with almost contemptuous ease, and carrying the mouse in its mouth disappeared into the rockpile again. Joey ran after it and poked the stick down the crack it had gone into. There was more chittering and several of the snaky heads popped out of other cracks, vanished, then popped out
elsewhere. It was like a sleight-of-hand trick. It was impossible to tell how many of them were there; they seemed to surround him, and their eyes all burned upon him with defiance and a chilling hostility. One of the beasts appeared on top of the rockpile as though by magic, bounded toward him, and vanished into another crack almost at his feet. By the time he thought of swinging his stick at it, it had disappeared.
The chittering increased in volume, a thin and hateful screeching that rasped at the nerves, and four heads popped up closer to Joey. It was as though the little savages were preparing to attack him, and a little chill went up his back. He didn’t know how many of them were there, he had seen how swiftly they moved, and his imagination suddenly pictured a pack of them bounding out of the rockpile and swarming over him, leaping, screeching, tearing at him.
It frightened him; he dropped the stick, retrieved his gun, and got out of the clearing. He looked over his shoulder several times to be sure they weren’t following him, and didn’t stop until he was a hundred yards away. He stood there until his heartbeat slowed, for the experience with the demonic little beasts had rather shaken him, and then went on again. He encountered no other animals, and presently came to the top of a low hill. The woods thinned out before him and at the bottom of the hill gave way to a field with a road running along it; a small and somewhat dilapidated schoolhouse sat by the road. The ground around it was pounded hard and bare and it looked deserted, but just then a woman came out of the door onto the little roofed porch in front and shook what seemed to be a rug.
This was apparently the school which Odie and Claude attended, closed now for Thanksgiving vacation, and the woman was the teacher cleaning up a little. She finished shaking the rug, turned to go in again, and there was a whistle from the bottom of the hill. The woman turned and waved, and a man whom Joey hadn’t seen because he had been sitting quietly beside a tree stood up. It was Sam White; Joey was close enough to be sure of that.
The boy was startled to see him there, and to be so close to him; because of the silence of his footsteps in the wet leaves he had almost stumbled over the man. Some things he had overheard, some innuendoes and oblique references, came into his mind. The man had whistled and the woman had waved at him; it indicated that they had met before. In another moment she came out again, shut the door, looked up and down the road, and then crossed it toward White. Joey wanted to run and was afraid to, for she was coming toward him and might see him; she might even call out. If she did this it would bring Sam White’s attention to him, and Joey wanted nothing to do with Sam White. Joey had stopped by a thick growth of holly trees and was partially concealed from her; he moved very slowly behind them and crouched down.
The woman came closer. She was not very tall, and she had blonde hair; she was almost pretty, but the almost-prettiness was spoiled by an expression at once avid and wary. She came up to White and looked at him flirtatiously, with her head canted, but when he reached one hand toward her she avoided it with a step to one side. They stood and looked at each other for a moment.
“You ain’t very friendly,” White said, “movin’ out of the way. I reckoned you might be friendlier this time.”
“I am friendly, Sam,” she said. “I like to talk to you. You know that.”
“I reckon you wouldn’t be here at all if all you wanted to do was talk.”
“That’s not true. Why do you say a thing like that?”
“I say it on account of I think it,” White said. “Maybe from now on we better talk in the road, or where everybody can see us.” The woman didn’t say anything; she looked at the ground for a long moment, and White went on. “Maybe,” he said, “you want to catch Crenshaw first.”
The woman looked at him. “I want to get married,” she said defiantly, and added with more calmness, “Every woman wants to get married, Sam. They’re nowhere without that.”
“You get married, then,” White said. “I can wait.” He grinned at her. “Well, I got to get back.”
The woman took half a step toward him, and stopped. “You’re not going to … I mean, I always come here to the school for a while on Saturdays. I’m not going to stop coming.”
“I’ll see you, I reckon,” White said, and grinned again. “I ain’t liable to quit seein’ a woman pretty as you are.”
There had been a good deal said that Joey didn’t entirely understand, but the half-understood things oppressed him. Besides, they acted as though they were going to part, and he was terrified that White would find him as he turned for home. He half arose from his crouch, not noticing that three shells spilled from his pocket as he did so, and crept away behind the holly trees. He went very carefully at first to make no noise, and then more rapidly. He walked for a quarter of a mile, and as he got farther from them the feeling of oppression lightened; he pushed the experience into the back of his mind. He didn’t want to think about it, and presently was helped by a distraction. He was returning by a slightly different route from the one he had taken to reach the schoolhouse; he had turned a little farther north, and after a bit he came to a belt of young pines. They were about twenty feet high, close growing and thick; there was just enough room for him to move about under them if he stooped a little. The gloom beneath them was accentuated by the gloom of the day, and the ground was covered with their dead needles. There was a feeling of somber mystery about the place, and after he had got a little way into it, a rabbit jumped up in front of him. He could see little of it but its white tail bounding erratically before him, and was too surprised to shoot, but he was ready for the next one. He shot at it but missed, and at the gun’s report another jumped a little farther away and by a wild chance fell to his second barrel.
He stuffed it triumphantly into his game pocket and set about looking for more. There were more there; the place was full of rabbits, and his excitement mounted as he moved about in the gloom at a half crouch, keyed up to swift action as the white tails suddenly appeared, danced erratically before him, and vanished. It was the kind of snapshooting, very difficult and fast, with no time to aim, that called for instant response and concentration and made the hunter feel that he was living at the very top of his pitch.
He stopped only when his ammunition was gone. He had three rabbits, and it was beginning to grow dark. Despite his excitement he had managed to keep oriented, and so came out of the pine thicket into the open woods again and set out for the house. The rabbits were heavy in his coat, he was greatly pleased with himself and the day, and had forgotten for the time the scene at the schoolhouse, and Horace as well.
* * *
It was almost dark when Joey climbed the back steps and went into the kitchen. He didn’t see the extra lantern on the table; Mr. Ben was just taking a pan out of the stove and turned as he came in.
“Did you see Odie and Claude?” he asked. “They were here to go shooting with you.”
“No, sir,” Joey said and then remembered. “I didn’t see anybody except Mr. White and the school teach—”
He got no farther; Mr. Ben just opened his hands and the pan fell to the floor with a crash, spraying gravy, meat, and potatoes all over everything. He paid it no attention; with one swift step he had Joey by the arm. “Crenshaw is here!” he whispered urgently in Joey’s ear. “Don’t say any more about that!” He moved away a step or two, and exclaimed in a loud voice, “Ah, damn it to the devil!” Then he went to the living room door and said, “Sorry for the noise, Crenshaw. I dropped our supper. We’ll be in as soon as we get it cleaned up.”
Joey was still standing in the middle of the floor, collecting himself and wondering what to do next, when Crenshaw appeared in the doorway and looked somberly at him. Crenshaw seemed very big, and a shocked look had taken the place of the diffidence that had been his most noticeable characteristic to Joey before. Joey squirmed to be away from that look, which almost seemed to lay a physical weight on him; to avoid it he turned, reached for a big spoon on the table, and getting down on his knees turned the pan over and began to
put the meat and potatoes back into it. He didn’t look up.
“I … better go along,” Crenshaw said. “Y’all won’t have any supper, so we better not come.”
“Why certainly you’ll come,” Mr. Ben said. “We’ll scramble eggs or something and be ready after a while. You come later. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t.”
There was a silence, while Joey scraped the spoon around on the floor, then Crenshaw said, “Yes, sir. We’ll come, then.”
Mr. Ben stepped around Joey and got Crenshaw’s lantern, lit it, and gave it to him; they both went out on the back porch, and after a minute or two Mr. Ben came back in again and stood with his back to the door. He looked at Joey without seeming to see him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ben,” Joey said miserably. “I sure am sorry. I didn’t know—”
Mr. Ben’s eyes focused. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “Don’t worry yourself about it. He stopped in to ask me if he could bring the schoolteacher for a while this evening.” He shook his head. “It would have come out sooner or later. Where were they?”
Joey told him, relating their actions and as much of their talk as he could recall. “Then I sneaked away,” he said, ending his tale. “I thought Mr. White would find me, and I didn’t want to hear any more anyhow.”
Mr. Ben nodded, and the line of his lantern jaw grew a little firmer. “I see,” he said. “I see. Well …” He stood for a moment in thought, and it was apparent that his thoughts were not pleasant. “Well, I’ll do what I can. We’ll get something to eat, and then you go to bed. It would be better if you weren’t around when they get here.”
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