Robby did not know what he was thinking. The aftertaste of marmalade was gone, even the stickiness; he was out of Resounding Rhetoric. There come times when one thinks nothing, and this was Robby’s first. Resolve, Fortitude, Duty were made of the same alphabet as Fear, Cold, Hunger. He had followed Reason, he had followed Instinct, and he had no idea Where He Was. Literally and figuratively, Robby was freezing where he stood.
* * *
He had stamped down the snow in the patch where he stood but outside that patch the snow had accumulated to just over the soles of his shoes.
Then around the corner near the drugstore came the most marvelous, the shortest and the least tall parade he had ever seen. Flags flying, bands playing, horses prancing and pipes singing could not have struck Robby as half so marvelous.
First around the corner came a large, heavy woman who waddled like a duck. Cradled in each arm was a large, brown grocery bag, necessarily held out against her ample bosom as if even foodstuff, the growing things of this earth, potatoes and carrots and onions, whatever was in the grocery bags, needed to press against her vitality to improve, to take sustenance from her. As the bags were obviously heavy and the sidewalk was slippery her head bobbed between the bags with every step. Her feet were not webbed but even from where Robby was standing he could see they were large and flat. Despite their large size there was something extra about them that made them appear to flap. He was to see that she walked in the snow in red cloth bedroom slippers which were so variously torn it was a wonder she kept them on. The ripped sections of the slippers flapped as she walked.
Behind her came a giggle of little kids in two loose lines like ducklings. They jumped up and down and bowed to make snowballs and waddled backwards and detoured and returned and yelled and laughed and caught snowflakes on their tongues and held hands and stuck snow down each other’s backs and punched and tickled. One doing a cartwheel slipped in the snow and landed hard on the sidewalk and yelled “Ow!” and even that did not impede the merry line. They punched and tickled. Last in line soberly walked a girl wearing glasses, reading an open book the bottom part of which was propped against her hip bones.
Robby’s previous efforts to find a school not having been very successful, this new method presented itself to him. Here, he decided, is a school going somewhere to happen.
He crossed the road to them and ambled along beside them, joined their formlessness, and the various ducklings looked at him, and saw him of course, and in less than a moment Robby felt the friendly splat of a light snowball against his forehead and he said, “I say!” and he said, “Right!” and bent over to make his own snowball and was attacked from the rear, snow was tucked into his shirt collar and melted and slid all the way down his spine which gave Robby’s snowball a worthy target, which it missed.
The children were dressed more in country wear, Robby thought, than city, and more in summerwear than winter. Their shoes were plimsoll sneakers, little good in the snow. Their trousers and skirts were light cotton, little good in the cold. And their pullover sweaters, those who had them, and windbreakers were too big and too small depending on who was wearing them.
The line turned a corner, frisking, and another. Then it turned up a long flight of cracked stairs leading to a tall, crumbling brown building.
Robby stopped on the bottom step.
At the top, still holding her bags, the woman held the door open with her rear while the ducklings passed into the building.
The woman squinted down the steps at Robby. “What you doin’, bo’ weevil, out this late all by yourself? You want to get snatched up by them what makes dog food?”
“No, ma’am.”
It was then Robby saw her red, torn cloth slippers. They were very wet.
“You been followin’ me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lordy Lord, you do make ’em.”
The last in line, the girl who persisted in reading her book in the dark, stumbled through the doorway.
“You get yourself home, little bo’ weevil,” the woman said. “You don’t belong ’round here.”
She stepped farther into the vestibule of the house, letting the door go. The door swung shut.
A snowflake landed on Robby’s nose.
He turned around. He sat on the step. He was warmer from having played with the children. He began to think again.
Frozen tundra. His nanny had read to him about both deepest jungle and frozen tundra and it was a good thing she had, as Headmaster had known about neither place. People in frozen tundra built houses of snow and lived in them although how they could had always been a puzzle to Robby as he couldn’t figure out how they ever lit their fireplaces without turning their houses into bathwater. His shoe scuffed the snow on the lowest step. It seemed a poor building material but he could understand people in the frozen tundra building their houses of snow if that was all they had. It was all he had. Never again would he climb into the back of a truck thinking he had found shelter for the night. The once he’d done so the truck had moved and brought him to a place to see what he had not wanted to see. All the buildings he saw had doors on them and all the doors were closed. Surely this was not enough snow to commence construction. He looked at the sky. There seemed to be plenty of snow falling, more than enough, by the looks of it.
He reasoned that all he had to do was wait until there was enough snow and then build himself a house. Snow would keep the snow out. He wouldn’t worry about how to heat his snow house until after he had built it.
The door behind Robby opened.
A duckling stood in the doorway on one bare foot.
“Mrs. Clearwater said if you’re such a dumb boll weevil you don’t know where you belong you’d better come in out of the night.”
“Oh,” said Robby. “Right.”
* * *
The building appeared to be nothing more than caked dust.
Robby followed the duckling up two flights of broken wooden stairs, down a short corridor and through an open door into a bright room.
A large, single, shaded light bulb hung from a cord in the center of the room. The walls were a bright yellow. In the room was a large brown rocking chair, with a curved back, curved arms, and a curved seat. In one corner was a sink with its pipes exposed; next to it was a brown wooden table with a hotplate, boxes of cereal, two bottles of milk, a few bowls, spoons, glasses. Next to the table a blue curtain hung in a narrow doorway. In the other far corner was a tall, neat stack of folded green blankets.
Otherwise on the floor—almost everywhere on the floor—were mattresses. Thin, gray, black-striped mattresses.
And on the mattresses, in various states of undress, was the full giggle of children. One girl, her back leaning against the stack of mattresses, read. In the nearest corner two boys wrestled. Four sat cross-legged playing cards. One boy lay propped on an elbow singing a song with the words “Don’t trouble me, Harry/You’ve seen better days.” Each looked up at Robby when he entered, even the reading girl, even the wrestling boys, and each saw him.
The boy who led Robby up the stairs went to the wrestling match and jumped on it.
Mrs. Clearwater was at the brown table mixing cereal and milk in a huge bowl. She, too, was barefooted.
“Lordy Lord, bo’ weevil, don’t you know where you belong?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
Robby took off his wet shoes and crossed the mattresses to her.
“You ain’t got no home?”
“No, ma’am.”
“No mama, no papa, no one to take care of you?”
“Not right now, ma’am.”
“What happen to your folks, bo’ weevil? They up and leave you, or you up and left them?”
“They got killed in the war, ma’am.”
Robby watched her crumb bread into the mix.
“There ain’t no war ’round here.”
“I’m not from around here, ma’am. I’m from England.”
“’Cross
the Land o’ Goshen?” Mrs. Clearwater smiled at herself.
“Across the ocean, yes, ma’am.”
“How’d you get here? Bo’ weevils can’t swim that far, usually.”
“A terrible ship, ma’am. Called the Scarey-Much.”
“Hunh! A ship called the Scarey-Much brought you to my door. I never heard such a story.” With strong forearms and a thin tool she opened a tin can of peaches. She glanced at him sideways. “How come you’re dressed that way?”
Robby looked down at his clothes.
“You been in a play?” She dumped the peaches into the mixing bowl. “Hunh! Overcoat and short pants. What folks dressed you that way?”
“Yes, ma’am. They were white.”
Slowly she stirred the mixture in the bowl. “You got a shirt, jacket and coat coverin’ up your elbows but your knees are stickin’ out as if each one had an eyeball and the job of seein’ where you’re goin’.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your knees are almost as blue as your eyes. Don’t think they’re supposed to be, though.” In the bowl things were turning into a thick, yellowish paté. “That picture on your hat and on your coat. Doesn’t seem a good enough picture to have sewn all over you. Why’s that cow got her horns stuck in that tree?”
“It belongs to the school.”
“What does, the cow?”
“No, ma’am. The cow doesn’t have a school. I mean, the school doesn’t have a cow.”
“You sure talk funny, too. What folks taught you to speak that way?”
“Yes, ma’am. They were white.”
“Never saw a worse-dressed bo’ weevil than you. Whoever sends you out in this weather in those clothes is punishin’ you, bo’ weevil. Take off your coat, ’slong as your shoes are off.” Robby took off his coat and cap and dropped them on a mattress. Mrs. Clearwater glanced at him again. “Lordy Lord there’s another cow with her horns stuck in a tree. Must mean somethin’ important where you come from. Likely your people aren’t partial to cows. Or trees.” She kept breaking up the mixture in the bowl with the edge of her spoon, and stirring again. “I know I haven’t got a pair of pants for you. Maybe tomorrow in the Baptist poor box I’ll find some. Franklin had a pair of pants, but Arthur’s wearin’ ’em, and I don’t think he’s done wearin’ ’em yet, are you, Arthur?”
“Done wearin’ Franklin’s pants?” answered one of the wrestlers, the one momentarily on top. “This boy ain’t never goin’ to need to wear pants again! Ow!”
“Bo’ weevils,” said Mrs. Clearwater. “They’re everywhere! Aren’t they just?”
“Yes, sir, ma’am.”
“Seein’ your folks gave you so little, at least did they spring a name on you?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I got lots of those.”
“Try a few on me.”
“Robert James Saint James Burnes Farhall, I mean, Walter Farhall-Pladroman, ma’am.”
“Phew-ie! Did I hear James twice in that string?”
“No, ma’am. James once and Saint James once.”
“Like that cow all over your clothes. Once your folks decide on somethin’, they sure do stick to it. What does anybody want with all those names?”
“My father once said they had to load me up with names to satisfy the families.”
“Well, I hope they’re satisfied. Bo’ weevil, they set you out with near a dozen names and cold knees. I’d rather have one good name and a pair of pants, if I were you.”
“I saw you out in the snow in slippers, ma’am.”
“I got snowshoes. Somewhere. But an old woman’s feet aren’t impo’tant. No one’s supposed to be responsible for an old lady, see?”
“No.”
“Well, you are a nice boy. Did I hear Robert start that string of names you rattled off to me?”
“Robert James Saint James—”
“Robert will do just fine. More than fine. You ain’t slept in a while, either, have you, bo’ weevil?”
“I spent last night in a rubbish barrel.”
“’Course you did. You ain’t the first, you ain’t the last, and you ain’t the only.” She indicated the world with her spoon. “There are bo’ weevils out there right now, in this snowy night, hunkerin’ down in rubbish barrels. Hunh! Think of a world that can afford wars and can’t feed the children. Hunh! Don’t you never spend no night in no rubbish barrel while I’m alive, Robert. You hear me?”
“I certainly won’t, ma’am.”
“Say what?”
“I’ll never spend no night in no rubbish barrel while you’re alive, ma’am.”
“You know what else I think, Robert?”
“What, ma’am?”
“I think it’s been too long since I had a huggin’.”
Robby looked at the bigness of her.
“Can’t go too long without a huggin’,” Mrs. Clearwater said. “Makes me worry.” She put down her spoon and took Robby’s hand. “You come he’p me out.”
At the rocking chair, Robby hesitated.
“Now don’ you worry ’bout the other bo’ weevils,” Mrs. Clearwater said. “I’ve about taken all the huggin’s from them they can stand for just now.”
Both her arms were out and when Robby climbed into her lap they folded around him. He drew his knees up onto her. Through his right ear he could hear her heart beat. The skin of his face could feel her breath.
The chair began to rock, slightly.
Robby said, “It’s snowin’, ma’am.”
“I hear you, bo’ weevil.”
“I was going to build a snow house.”
“And I know you would have built a fine snow house, Robert. Just fine.”
“You see, I was sent to America…”
“You’re here, li’l bo’ weevil. I’m America. Lordy Lord, I got black blood in me, and white blood, and yellow blood, and red-Indian blood, all in me. You’re in the lap of America, bo’ weevil. You go ahead and cry. I’m America; there ain’t no mo’: I’m just an ol’ cow with my horns stuck in a tree.”
23
The Charitable Lady
“Hunh! Look at that snow.” In the morning Mrs. Clearwater stood, hands on her hips, looking out the window. “The charitable lady will never get here.”
Breakfast was a more orderly procedure than supper had been. Blankets were folded and stacked in a corner of the room. Teeth were brushed at the sink with four toothbrushes. At the brown table Mrs. Clearwater put together another cereal mix. Heddy braided Ugly Mary’s hair while Ugly Mary continued reading her book. Traffic to and fro the toilet alcove, behind the brown curtain, moved efficiently. The children pulled on their clothes and tied their laces. The bigger children helped the smaller children.
During supper the night before the games had continued. The card game changed players several times. Ugly Mary, cereal bowl in her lap, continued reading. Robby and Franklin and Arthur and Wellmet raced cockroaches along a narrow strip of floor, a raceway they made by separating two mattresses. After many races it was not established which cockroach was the fastest. Starting them over again and again and cheering them down a whole mattress-length wore the cockroaches out though, made them dizzy and stagger and try to escape under the mattresses. One cockroach clearly had more stamina than the others.
“Time to get the blankets, Franklin.” Mrs. Clearwater had cleaned the bowls and glasses. “Hunh! We got nine mattresses and blankets and thirteen humans. Lordy Lord, if you’re goin’ to send me more children, please send me more mattresses and blankets with ’em!”
With the sole of a sneaker Franklin exterminated all the cockroaches except the one which had shown the most stamina. That one he told Arthur to put in a jar for safekeeping.
Then Franklin and Wellmet dealt out the blankets.
Ugly Mary finally put down her book. She looked at Robby and blinked. Her eyes shone with an extra vitality, an extra understanding. Robby knew that in touching her smooth, clear skin he would feel her vibrancy.
“That Mary,
” Mrs. Clearwater said to herself. “She has all the life there is or ever was or will be, all in that brain of hers. Hunh! Hasn’t she, though?”
When they were all in their underwear Robby got a blanket and followed Ugly Mary to a mattress and they laid down together under it. All the while Ugly Mary’s eyes were laughing. Under the blanket she punched Robby once, in the stomach, and giggled.
“Now you bo’ weevils get under your blankets and pretend you’re asleep, and soon you will be,” said Mrs. Clearwater.
Under the blanket Ugly Mary smelled like the binding of a book.
Mrs. Clearwater turned off the overhead light. Robby fell asleep.
During the night, Robby felt something moving among them, and woke up. In a robe, Mrs. Clearwater stepped lightly among the bodies, stooping over again and again, tucking a blanket up to a chin, collecting an arm here, a leg there to replace it under the blanket.
She covered Ugly Mary’s panties with the blanket.
“You awake, bo’ weevil? You go to sleep, hear?”
“Yes, sir, ma’am.”
“Your skin sure do show in the dark, bo’ weevil.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She covered Robby’s legs, which he felt were cold.
Mrs. Clearwater continued through the room, stepping and stooping, like a gardener tending her flower bed.
Robby watched her settle down then, on her own mattress on the floor, a great mountain seen from any perspective, seen now over a considerable range of hillocks, only some of whose names Robby knew.
In the dark Robby put his hand on Ugly Mary’s arm, then on her shoulder. Then he put his cheek on her shoulder. The weight of his head did not wake her. He felt the magic of her vitality. He breathed in the smell from her. He fell asleep again.
“Robert will come to help me clean the church today,” Mrs. Clearwater said during the busy breakfast. “Maybe we’ll stop and register him at the school on the way home.”
Some (Randolph, Franklin, Arthur and Wellmet) were insisting there was no school that day, because of the snow. They shouldn’t even bother going down to the school to check, they said. Instead they should all go out and play in the snow before the plows came. Others (Heddy, Toby and Ugly Mary) disagreed strongly and said they should hurry up and leave for school earlier than usual, as the snow would slow them down. Mrs. Clearwater said, “You hurry up to school, and no playing in the snow on your way. You want to sit in wet skins all day?”
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