The Handsome Road

by Gwen Bristow

  Mr. Gilday’s little black eyes narrowed as he studied her and his mouth stretched in a sort of smile that he made without parting his lips. After a moment he asked, “Where’d you ever learn so much, Corrie May?”

  She was getting to her feet. “I ain’t never been accused of having nothing the matter with my head, sir.”

  “Nor have you,” said Mr. Gilday. He looked her over as she stood whisking the trash from her dustpan into the wastebasket. “You sure are getting to be a nice-looking young lady, Corrie May,” he remarked.

  “Mighty kind of you to say so,” said Corrie May without turning. She got out her dustcloth and began wiping off the chairs. She did look well, she reflected, in her blue gingham dress and white apron, with her yellow hair brushed and braided. Wearing nice dresses and shoes she had bought herself was far more pleasure than it had ever been to dress up in the patched magnificence of Ann’s cast-offs. Mr. Gilday added,

  “You satisfied with your wages, Corrie May?”

  “Yes sir, thank you,” she responded without raising her eyes from the chair-rungs.

  “Well, maybe before long we can be giving you a raise.”

  “Don’t put yourself out. I’m getting on.”

  He chuckled. “I won’t be putting myself out. It’s the government you’re working for. Just like me.”

  “The government sure pays us fine,” Corrie May observed.

  “Ah, get along,” said Mr. Gilday pleasantly. “The government don’t care about us, Corrie May. You got to look out for yourself whether you work for the government or anybody else. But you now, you got brains in your head, like me.”

  “Thank you sir. You’re right smart.”

  “Smart?” repeated Mr. Gilday. “Sure I’m smart. Smart enough to do—well, maybe not quite what you said, but hit the rich where it hurts, all the same. See this here book, Corrie May? Come read what it says on the cover.”

  She went on dusting. “I ain’t much good at reading, Mr. Gilday.”

  “Well, well,” he said. “But I expect you know more than some that is. This here’s a tax book, Corrie May.”

  She raised her eyes. “I been hearing you government men put up the taxes. Only I ain’t complaining. I don’t pay no taxes.”

  He laughed. “No, and you won’t either, if you stay around here and act pretty. It’s the folks you were talking about, the Larnes and Sheramys and St. Clairs and Purcells and them, they’re doing the paying these days.”

  She chuckled involuntarily. “Well sir, all I can say is it’s about time.”

  “Sure, somebody’s got to pay for the war. And they started it, didn’t they?”

  “Why of course,” said Corrie May. She paused in the dusting. This was beginning to sound like a reasonable conversation.

  “Sure,” repeated Mr. Gilday. “Three cents tax on every pound of cotton that goes to the gins, for instance. Who pays that?”

  “Why, the plantations,” she returned. She began to smile, wonderingly.

  “And two cents a pound on sugar?” persisted Mr. Gilday.

  “Well, well,” said Corrie May with admiration. “That’s a fine idea.”

  He nodded. “Right. And that ain’t all. Land taxes—who pays them? Sure, Corrie May, and it’s about time.”

  Corrie May stood up slowly. “But Mr. Gilday, don’t that tax money go to Washington? What do you and me get out of it?”

  “Why Corrie May,” he returned, his eyes on her intently, “you get a job at the best wages you ever made, and me—”

  “Yes sir?”

  He opened a drawer and took out a paper with a seal on it. “And me, I get a big fat contract to work the river road.”

  “Why yes sir, that’s just fine. You deserve to get paid good for working the roads.”

  He settled back in his chair and started filling his pipe. “Ah, Corrie May, that there river road don’t need working.”

  “But it does!” she exclaimed. “They say it’s full of ruts.”

  “Well, who uses it?” Mr. Gilday inquired coolly. “I ain’t got no reason to go out to the plantations. Nor you. The folks that use the river road are the folks that live in houses along it. Let them fix the ruts if they object to ’em.”

  “Why Mr. Gilday!” she gasped. “But that—it ain’t honest! You getting paid and not doing the work.”

  “Give me one of them matches on the table,” said Mr. Gilday.

  As she brought it to him he looked across his pipe into her eyes. “Corrie May, I’m just telling you. You got no reason to be standing up for those people. And me, I’m gonta be a right rich man if this keeps up. And you and me, we could get along fine if you’d quit acting so uppish.”

  Corrie May moved backward from the desk. “Mr. Gilday, I ain’t never had nothing, but I been raised honest. And you’re just a thief.”

  “Well now,” he said, “I don’t know why I don’t fire you right out of this here courthouse.”

  She didn’t know why either. She hadn’t meant to say that, but it just said itself out of her astonishment. But he was still watching her with that look of amused summing up.

  “You better get along,” he said, “before you make me real mad.”

  “Yes sir.” She picked up the wastebasket and dustpan, but at the door she paused. “People come to call on that lady I rent a room from,” she said. “They talk about you and the other Northern gentlemen around the courthouse. And they call you names.”

  “Tell me,” he prompted without resentment.

  “They call you carpetbaggers,” said Corrie May.

  Mr. Gilday blew out a puff of smoke. “Well now, ain’t that rude of them. What makes them call us that?”

  “They say there ain’t one of you government agents down here that had more than what could be put into a carpetbag when you came,” said Corrie May, “and now you’re getting rich.”

  “Hm,” said Mr. Gilday. “Damned if they ain’t right, I expect.”

  He did not seem at all annoyed. He seemed to think it was funny. She added, “I didn’t know what they meant till you just told me that about your contract. Are all the Northern agents doing such things?”

  “Oh no,” he replied genially. “Just the smart ones.”

  Corrie May went out.

  She was glad when she had some leisure to go sit out on the back steps with Jed. She couldn’t complain to Jed about the carpetbagger gentlemen, because Jed came from up North too and it might not be tactful, but he was so simple and jolly that it was refreshing to be with him. He gave her some more apples his mother had sent him. She was liking Jed better all the time.

  “Your mother sho sends you a heap of apples,” Corrie May commented.

  “She ain’t got much else to send, poor old lady,” said Jed. “I’d sure like to do something for my mother sometime. She ain’t got nobody but me.”

  “I wish I could have done something for my ma,” Corrie May said regretfully.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s dead. All my folks is dead.”

  “That’s a shame. But it’s smart of you, taking care of yourself so good.”

  “I ain’t smart,” said Corrie May.

  “Yes you are,” said Jed. “I sure do admire you, Corrie May. I ain’t very smart myself.”

  Corrie May glanced sideways at him. No, he wasn’t very smart. The smart ones were fellows like Mr. Gilday. It was the simple honest folks like her and Budge and Jed that never got any place. “Jed,” she asked, “do you reckon good people really go to heaven when they die?”

  “Why to be sure,” said he. “Of course they go to heaven.”

  “Well, I sho hope they do,” said Corrie May. “They ought to get something somewhere.”

  “Corrie May,” he ventured after a silence, “I been thinking. When I get back to Indiana, I think I’ll open
me up a store. Congress has voted that partly disabled soldiers like me is to get pensioned fifteen dollars a month, but a man can’t hardly live on that, and besides, I don’t want to just sit around all my life.”

  “That’s right,” she approved. “You know how to run a store?”

  “Well, I know them farmers around there and what they need. I mean a store where you sell everything, you know, ribbons and pins and plows and feed for the stock. Sometimes you can get the postoffice at one side, if you know your Congressman. They don’t seem to have stores like that around these parts.”

  “No, I ain’t never seed one where they sold pins and plows both. But I reckon things is different up North.”

  “Everything is different up North from what it is down here,” he said stoutly. He looked down and flecked a scrap of mud off his shoe. “Er—Corrie May—” he hesitated and got red.

  “What was you about to say?” she inquired politely.

  “Er—you want another apple?”

  “Why yes, thank you kindly. You’s right nice to me.”

  “You’re a nice girl,” said Jed. “I mean—well, you sure are a nice girl, Corrie May.”

  She looked down too, turning her apple in her hands. “It’s mighty handsome of you to say so,” she said.

  “You sure would like it up in Indiana,” said Jed.

  “I reckon I would,” said Corrie May shyly.

  Jed shuffled his feet on the step.

  At that moment Mr. Gilday came out of the doorway with one or two of the other agents from up North. Mr. Gilday greeted her in as friendly a fashion as if she hadn’t just called him a thief.

  “Why hello, Corrie May. How’re you doing?”

  She turned her head. “I’m doing all right, thank you, Mr. Gilday.”

  “Thought we might go down to Pallet’s and pick up some dinner,” said Mr. Gilday. “You like to come along?”

  “No, thank you. I ain’t got time.”

  The other gentlemen chuckled as they glanced at Mr. Gilday. He laughed too, a short little laugh. “Well, that’s too bad. Thought we might get some bouillabaisse.” He pronounced it bullybass. “Sure you can’t come?”

  “No sir. I got to work.”

  “I get it,” said Mr. Gilday. “Well, come along, you fellows.” It seemed impossible to make him mad. He just laughed at everything, as though he was having so good a time here down South he couldn’t be ruffled. Corrie May got to her feet.

  “I reckon I better be getting back to my work, Jed.”

  Jed got up too. “Er—Corrie May.”

  “Yes?”

  “That Gilday fellow. Don’t you let him start no funny stuff with you.”

  “Oh Jed, he don’t bother me none.”

  “I hope not,” Jed said uneasily. “But he’s just a lowdown cuss, Corrie May.”

  She smiled. “He ain’t so bad. Just out to get anything he can. I know how to look out for myself. Don’t you worry.”

  “It ain’t right,” insisted Jed, “a nice girl like you having to work for them men.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” said Corrie May. “Well, I reckon I better be getting in.”

  She went back indoors and began sweeping the corridor. It required sweeping three or four times a day if it was to be kept anything like clean, what with Negroes and the carpetbagger men throwing papers and cigars and banana peelings all over the floor. They sure were a messy lot. But she was glad to be busy. It gave her a chance to think.

  She thought hard. Jed. Indiana. There was no denying Jed was getting fond of her. He’d been about to get very serious when Mr. Gilday appeared. But when Mr. Gilday did appear she had had a sense of relief that surprised her, and now she went on from there; it had dawned upon her that if she gave Jed any encouragement she could probably marry him, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. He was a good fellow very much like Budge, honest, thrifty, hardworking, and arm or no arm he’d always make a living and not ask charity from anybody, and she could probably boss him around the way she realized now she had always bossed Budge. She was just brighter than either one of them, that was all there was to it. Mr. Gilday had said she was smart, and she was too.

  That evening she avoided Jed on purpose when she was leaving, and made her way home. After her landlady had given her supper Corrie May went to her room. She wanted to be alone and figure things out—did she, or didn’t she want to marry Jed?

  She lay across her bed, her head on her hands. Marrying Jed would mean security. They would live in Indiana and open up that general store and in her spare time between doing the housework and bringing up children she would sell things over the counter. They would send the children to school so they could get education. It would be good to live up North where there was justice for rich and poor alike, and where you wouldn’t have to wait for the transformation that was coming in the South. And Jed would be a good husband. They could doubtless get along, though in verging toward affirmation she knew she was being more attracted by the golden equality of life up North than by Jed’s personal charms.

  But she decided to marry him if he asked her. It would be good to have peace and quiet after these stormy years.

  When she went to work the next morning Jed was on duty at the back door. He stopped her.

  “I brought you a little thing,” he said shyly.

  “Honest?” she exclaimed. “Well now, ain’t that sweet of you.”

  It was a piece of blue ribbon to tie up her hair. She thanked him, and almost felt tears coming into her eyes as she bound the ribbon around her braids.

  “Say,” added Jed, “the boys from the camp are going to have a barbecue Sunday. Come with me?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Corrie May.

  “That’ll be fine,” said Jed.

  He smiled at her with a touch of possessiveness, as though he had already proposed and been accepted.

  Corrie May felt a glow as she went in and set about her morning’s work. He was so very good. It was comforting to feel that somebody was going to belong to her again. She hurried into Mr. Gilday’s office to be done with her cleaning there before he came in, him with his smirks and thievery.

  But he arrived while she was still dusting his desk. “Hello,” he greeted her airily as he spun his hat toward the rack. The hat fell on the floor and she picked it up and brushed it off and put it where it belonged.

  “Nice morning,” he said as he sat down.

  “Kind of chilly,” she responded, without pausing in her work.

  “You’re mighty busy,” observed Mr. Gilday.

  “I got lots to do.”

  “Well now, no reason to be in such a hurry.”

  She glanced around at him, noticing what fine clothes he was beginning to wear, highclass broadcloth like the gentlemen who used to call at Ardeith. Mr. Gilday had laid a parcel on the desk and was undoing the strings.

  “Look here, Corrie May. Like this?”

  He was shaking out a shawl, wool printed with big red and brown flowers and edged with knotted silk fringe.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. She advanced toward the desk and felt the fine texture of the cloth. “It sho is lovely.”

  Mr. Gilday smiled across it at her. “Like it, do you?”

  “It’s just beautiful,” Corrie May said wistfully. “A present for a lady?”

  Mr. Gilday nodded. “For you.”

  “Me?” She started. The shawl fell out of her hands to the desk. Mr. Gilday leaned back.

  Corrie May picked up her duster again. “No thank you, Mr. Gilday.”

  He reached across the desk and stroked her hand. “Oh, come on. Try it around your shoulders.”

  “No thank you,” repeated Corrie May. She turned around and went to the door. “I don’t need it, Mr. Gilday.”

  Before he could answer she had shut the door behind her
. She ran to the back entrance, and stood there a moment holding the duster. Jed was giving directions to a group of Negro men who wanted to see one of the government agents. She looked at Jed’s ruddy honest face, and when he saw her and grinned it was as if somebody had lit a lamp.

  “Gee, you been running?” he inquired. “You’re all flushed up in the face. It’s right becoming.”

  The Negroes were ambling into the courthouse. Corrie May stood where she was. She had several more offices to clean, but she wanted to talk to Jed; it didn’t matter what about, but just to get a reminder of his friendly respectfulness. It didn’t matter either if she neglected her work. She was probably going to lose her job anyway.

  “I got a letter from my mother,” Jed was saying. “She says it’s mighty cold up home now. Snowing.”

  “Sho ’nough?” said Corrie May. “I ain’t never seen it snow.”

  “It’s right pretty,” said Jed. “Gets all over everything, and freezes. We ride in sleighs.”

  “What’s a sleigh?” Corrie May asked.

  “Well, it’s like a carriage, only it’s got runners instead of wheels, and bells. It’s fun. You’d like it.”

  She leaned back against the wall. “You make it sound so nice. I reckon I’d like everything up there. Don’t you miss it?”

  He smiled and sighed at once. “I sure do. Been about three years now since I left home.”

  “Then you wasn’t in the army from the beginning of the war?”

  He shook his head. “No. Truth is, I didn’t see much use for me to be in it at all. I didn’t know nothing about this part of the country, and I had to make a living for my mother. But then, you know how it is.” He grinned sheepishly. “They got me in the conscription.”

  “Oh, they had conscription up there too?” She was surprised. With their wonderful ideal of freeing the slaves and making the country liberal she shouldn’t think they’d have needed any conscription for Northern soldiers.