“The reason you didn’t hear me was because I whispered it,” replied Becky.
“Why did you whisper Amen, Becky?” asked Luke. Luke was the musical one. At eight he could already play the piano. The Spencers did not own a piano, but one day at school Luke had climbed up on the piano bench and simply begun to play a tune. The tune was “You Are My Sunshine,” and of course he had not played it perfectly, but still it was recognizable. It had amazed everybody but Olivia who, when told, simply stated, “Oh, he’s always been musical.”
“I whispered it to see if God could hear me,” replied Becky.
“Did He hear you?” asked Luke.
“I don’t know,” answered Becky. “I’m testing Him.”
“Of course He heard you,” said Olivia. “God hears everything.”
“I hope He didn’t hear Matt today,” said Becky.
Matt had been bent over his soup. Hearing Becky’s comment he raised his head and looked at her fiercely.
“You better shut your yap if you know what’s good for you,” he said.
“That’s no way to talk to your sister, Matt,” admonished Olivia, who was trying to eat her supper with one hand while she fed the baby with the other.
“Matt’s goen to hell,” continued Becky. “Today he mashed his finger and he said somethen bad.”
“What did he say?” asked Olivia.
“He said ‘Damn, damn, double damn, triple damn, hell!’,” answered Becky with some satisfaction.
“Did you, Matt?” asked Olivia.
Matt pretended he had not heard his mother and continued to eat his soup.
“Did you say what Becky said you did?” asked Olivia.
“Daddy says it all the time,” answered Matt.
“That is no excuse for you to say it,” said Olivia. “If I ever hear you say such a thing again I’m goen to wash your mouth out with Octagon soap.”
“Why is Matt goen away?” asked three-year-old Pattie-Cake, who was struggling with some food in front of her. Pattie-Cake waged a constant fight with gravity, and most of the time she was so busy keeping things from falling down that she did not often have time to enter a conversation. Sometimes her milk fell over. Usually the floor around her was littered with meat that started for her mouth and had fallen to the floor in transit. She even had trouble keeping her pants on; those too kept falling down and half the time she ran around with her chubby little rear bouncing in the wind. “I don’t want Matt to go away,” she said through the hamburger she had somehow safely managed to get to her mouth.
“Matt’s not going anywhere,” said Olivia. “Now you eat your supper and watch what you’re doen.”
“Where’s he goen?” demanded Pattie-Cake loudly.
“He’s goen to hell,” said Becky. “For sayen bad words.”
“I want to go too!” said Pattie-Cake. “I want to go with Matt!” Her eyes filled with tears at the thought she might be left behind. Suddenly she burst into loud angry screams.
“Now, see what you’ve done,” said Shirley.
“Donnie, you sit!” said Olivia to the baby, who somehow found it impossible to remain seated in his high chair but much preferred to stand and reach for everything within the radius of his arms. Olivia stuffed him down in his high chair, went around the table, picked up Pattie-Cake and attempted to quiet her.
Mark, the quiet seven-year-old, remained oblivious of the activity going on around him. Paying not the slightest attention to the hubbub on all sides, he reached quietly for a second biscuit, buttered it and went on eating. Mark was the businessman of the family. During the summer months he spent all his time collecting junk, pieces of iron from discarded automobiles, old aluminum pails, mountains of newspapers, magazines, wrapping paper, string, balls of yarn, strips of cloth and metal. All these he sold to the junkman who made a stop in the village once a month. When he wasn’t collecting junk Mark was selling pigweed to the neighbors, all of whom kept at least one pig, or in season he would pick berries and sell them. None of the rest of the family knew exactly how much Mark was worth except Olivia, who had discovered his hoard one day underneath the mattress in a Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco container. She had counted five dollars and eighty cents, his life’s earnings and savings. Olivia worried about him. She could never figure out what was going on in his head.
By now Olivia had quieted Pattie-Cake, who was satisfied that Matt would not go to hell and leave her behind. Olivia was starting back to her place at the foot of the table just as Donnie leapt headlong from his high chair. Olivia shrieked at the top of her lungs and so did the children as they all rushed to the spot where Donnie lay quiet, white and unmoving.
Olivia seized the baby and held him in her arms but he did not respond. His little head lolled drunkenly to one side.
“Oh God!” screamed Olivia. “He’s broke his neck.”
All the children burst into tears and milled around the room screaming and crying.
“Run for the doctor, Clay-Boy,” shouted Olivia.
Clay-Boy scrambled over the weeping children, the benches, the table and out the screen door. Going up through the back yard he fell over an exposed root of an old oak tree and cut his hand on a bed of white flintrock. Across the hill he could see the light of the doctor’s house, and he decided to take a short cut through Luke Snead’s pasture even though Luke kept a vicious horse pastured there. Clay sprinted through the high broomsage and through little clusters of Scotch pine, tearing his clothes and his skin on barbed wire and cornstalks and blackberry vines.
The local doctor, maintained by the company, was Dr. Amos Campbell. He was a kind, able gentleman as well as an excellent doctor. He had come to the village from Amherst County, where his family had been original settlers. He was greatly respected by the men of the village, and the women held him in such esteem that they would do everything humanly possible to hold onto their babies until he returned from vacation rather than allow someone else to deliver them.
Reaching the house the company maintained for the doctor, Clay-Boy found it empty. On a note pad which hung outside the main door Clay found penciled, “Am delivering the Bibb baby. Leave word if you need me and what the trouble is.”
His hands were trembling but Clay-Boy managed to write: “Please come to Clay Spencer’s. Donnie has broke his neck.” He dropped the pencil and ran back along the path he had come by. His anxiety increased with every churning step and by the time he reached the kitchen door he was sure the baby would be dead and that he would find the house in a frenzy of grief.
The kitchen was empty of people and the house completely quiet as Clay-Boy opened the screeching old screen door and walked in. All the supper dishes had been washed and put away and the kitchen was spotless.
As the screen door slammed shut he heard his mother’s voice from the living room, “That you, Clay-Boy?”
“Yes ma’am,” he answered. He walked into the living room and there sitting in a rocking chair was his mother holding Donnie, who was wide awake and, from the way he was holding his head up, showed no signs of a broken neck. The baby’s face broke into a grin as Clay-Boy walked in.
“Looks like I sent you on a wild goose chase, boy,” said Olivia. “You hadn’t been gone two minutes when Donnie came to. All he had was a bad knock on the head. I tried to call you but I reckon you didn’t hear me.”
Relief flooded the boy’s face for a moment, then it changed to anger. His face and hands and clothes were torn from the briers and barbed wire he had run through. His breath was still coming in long panting gulps, and seeing the cause of his condition he walked over to the grinning baby and said, “You scrawny little pup, what do you mean by scaring me that way?”
“Clay-Boy!” Olivia exclaimed, “Don’t you ever let me hear you talk like that in this house again.”
“Mama, I’m just tired of it,” Clay-Boy complained. “All I do around here is run for the doctor and go to the store and wash the dishes and dress the children and churn the butter and do a
little homework after everybody else is in bed.”
“You’re the oldest, son,” said Olivia.
“I’m tired of being the oldest,” he replied.
“I can’t help that,” said Olivia. “What you get in life is what you’re stuck with and you’re stuck with being the oldest. You had just better make the most of it.”
“I’m goen away from here, Mama,” the boy said with a sober voice.
“What are you talken about?” demanded Olivia.
“I’m goen away. That’s why Miss Parker and Mr. Goodson are comen here tonight. To ask you and Daddy to let me go.”
“Go where?”
“To Richmond.”
“I didn’t have my babies to send them off to all corners of the world. What do they think they’re doen putten ideas like that into your head?”
“They think they can get me a college education, Mama. They think they can get me a scholarship at the University of Richmond. I wasn’t supposed to tell you but that’s what they’re coming here tonight to talk about.”
“I vow,” said Olivia wonderingly. “Sometimes I think educated people have got less brains than us fools.”
“Wouldn’t you like to see me go to college, Mama?”
“Clay-Boy, I rather see you go to college than fly to the moon, but where do they think we’re ever goen to raise that kind of money? It costs money to go to college. Didn’t you ever see those boys over there at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville? Them boys is rich boys. Their daddies have got money or they wouldn’t be there in the first place.”
“But with a scholarship you don’t have to have money. Miss Parker and Mr. Goodson think they can get me one.”
“I’ve read enough to know what a scholarship is. That don’t take care of half the expenses. You’ve still got to eat. You’ve got to have clothes on your back. You’ve got to have books and pencils and ink and a fountain pen. We’re poor people, son. Where we goen to get money for things like that?”
“Miss Parker said chances are I could find a job of work on the side. She and Mr. Goodson got it all planned out.”
“Clay-Boy, you know I’d love you to go to college. If anybody in the world ever deserved an education you do, but it’s wishen for the moon to even think about it.”
“Mama, all I want to ask you and Daddy to do is listen to what Miss Parker and Mr. Goodson have got in mind.”
“If they’ve got in mind to foot all the bills for getten you a college education then I’m all for it, but if they’re just comen down here to put foolish ideas in your head then they can just say their piece and go home early.”
“That’s all I want you to do, Mama—listen to them.”
“I’ll listen,” declared Olivia. She rose to take the sleeping baby to his bed. As she went up the stairs she called, “Clay-Boy, come here and take care of Pattie-Cake.”
Clay-Boy went into the hall and there, seated halfway down the stairs, holding her head in her hands and looking forlorn, was his three-year-old sister.
“Get back in bed,” Clay-Boy scolded. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” she said mournfully.
“Why not?”
“I got to wee-wee,” she explained patiently.
“Then go do it,” he said. “You know where the bathroom is.”
“Will you lift me up, Clay-Boy?”
“All right,” he said impatiently. Pattie-Cake descended the stairs, procrastinating by pretending to find each rung of the banister so fascinating she could hardly bear to leave it. Clay-Boy followed her wearily to the bathroom, took off her pajama bottoms and set her on the toilet.
“Now, you go out and wait in the hall,” she directed. “I want to be by myself.”
“Oh Lord,” mourned Clay-Boy loudly, “You’ll be in here all night.” He went out into the hall and was heading for the kitchen sink where he planned to wash his face and hands when there came a polite knock at the front door. He went to the front-porch door, turned the switch that connected with a naked bulb that hung in the center of the porch and saw Miss Parker and Mr. Goodson.
“You-all come in,” Clay-Boy said, and held the door open for them. As he ushered the visitors into the living room, he explained that his mother was putting the baby to bed but would be down in a moment.
Miss Parker sat down and smiled reassuringly at Clay-Boy. She was an institution in the community. Some of the people regarded her with mirth, but those parents who had any concern about their children’s education had high praise and respect for her. She was in truth a dedicated and gifted teacher and gave a dignity and purpose to learning that most of the children in New Dominion would never have known otherwise. The reason she was laughed at by some of the people was that she dyed her hair to keep the gray from showing and every time she dyed it it came out a different shade. That she was a spinster others found amusing simply because there were no other spinsters in the community. A girl grew up and found herself a husband. There was no other way.
Mr. Goodson, after his unfortunate introduction to the community, had succeeded in only a short time in winning the favor of his congregation. He had proved to be an agreeable, intelligent and pleasant man and the God he brought to his followers was a softer, more forgiving deity than the harsh and ever-watchful, ever-stern Saviour his predecessor had presented for their worship.
Now Miss Parker, Mr. Goodson and Clay-Boy sat in the living room and groped for something to say. Finally Miss Parker’s eyes fell on the ferns that Olivia kept on stands underneath each window. They were rich, full plants that Olivia had dug up in the woods and brought indoors last fall to provide some greenery through the winter.
“Somebody has got a green thumb around here,” observed Miss Parker. “Did you ever in your life see such luxurious ferns, Mr. Goodson?”
“I never did,” said Mr. Goodson.
“Mama likes to grow things,” volunteered Clay-Boy.
“I certainly must ask her the secret of her success,” said Miss Parker.
“It’s cow manure mostly,” explained Clay-Boy. “She says it’s the best kind of fertilizer.” Clay-Boy bit his tongue. Cow manure was something you just didn’t say in front of Miss Parker. She glanced away, but the first signs of a blush were beginning at her throat.
“Sunshine is the biggest thing with plants, though,” continued Clay-Boy in desperation.
“Sunshine is the salvation of us all,” said Miss Parker. “I am looking forward so much to sunshine once the spring finally decides to stay with us.”
“Is your father going to be with us this evening, Clay-Boy?” asked Mr. Goodson.
“I hope so,” said Clay-Boy. “Sometimes he has to work late.”
At that point Olivia walked in the room. She had changed into her good dress, the green silk one she had made herself and wore only to church or for special occasions. She had used no lipstick or rouge, but she had combed her hair and powdered her face and looked so young and pretty it seemed impossible for her to have borne and raised her enormous brood of children.
“I’m glad to see you,” Olivia said to the guests, shook hands with both of them and sat down. “I’m sorry Clay-Boy’s daddy can’t be here. He had to go down to Howardsville to see a man about some pigs he’s buyen.”
Clay-Boy cringed and wished that he and his mother had agreed on a story beforehand, but then he forgot his original embarrassment as the source of an even greater one strode into the room. Pattie-Cake, her pajama bottoms in her hand and her little rear bare, walked into the center of the room and looked around uncertainly.
“I did a big wee-wee, Clay-Boy,” she announced. “Now, can I go to bed?”
Clay-Boy could have gladly shaken the meat from her bones, but instead he picked her up firmly and marched into the hall. At the foot of the stairs he stopped long enough to put her pajama bottoms back on and then started up the stairs only to find his way blocked by Matt, Shirley, Becky, Luke, Mark and John.
“Wha
t are you doing out of your beds?” he whispered ferociously.
“Listenen,” said Becky.
“Go to bed. Every one of you.” His anger frightened them and each child scampered off to his room. He laid Pattie-Cake down in her bed and said, “If you get up another time tonight I’m going to spank your behind so shiny you can see yourself in it.”
“I want you to kiss me good night, Clay-Boy,” was Pattie-Cake’s answer. He bent over the bed, gave her a quick kiss and then descended the stairs.
As he walked into the room he saw that the business of the evening was at hand. Miss Parker had just turned to his mother and said, “Did Clay-Boy tell you anything about our talk today, Mrs. Spencer?”
“A little bit,” answered Olivia. “Mostly he just said that you and Mr. Goodson would be comen by tonight.”
“I won’t embarrass him by telling you in front of him what an exceptional boy Clay-Boy is,” said Miss Parker, “but his record at school has been something to be proud of.”
“Well, Clay-Boy’s always been just as smart as a tack,” his mother answered. “These others I nearly have to take a broom to ’em before they’ll do their homework, but Clay-Boy just sits down and does his. Always has.”
“Do you and Mr. Spencer have any plans for him after graduation?” Miss Parker asked.
“Well,” said Olivia, “his daddy has spoke to some people over at the DuPont Company in Waynesboro. His daddy worked over there for them during the Depression when the plant closed down here, and he always thought high of the DuPont Company. You see, we’re both hopen he won’t have to go to work in the mill. There must be somethen better he can do and still make a liven.”
Miss Parker nodded her head vigorously. She herself was at constant war with the mill. All too often she had watched some promising child, some boy with a quick inquiring mind, and had waited for him to reach her class only to have him snatched from her hands to take some menial job at the mill. And it would break her heart to go past the place and see the boy in later years, pushing a wheelbarrow or bent over a stone-cutting machine or else snickering with the other workers over some joke she was well aware concerned herself.
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