This was the academic department. The classroom buildings were heated by wood-burning stoves placed in the hallways. There was no heat in the dormitories. Out behind each building were the outhouses, one for women and one for men.
The road on which Professor Taylor lived sprouted from the horseshoe bend and curved down a steep hill behind the science building. Here were the frame houses of most of the faculty members; the Pattersons at top, the Sherwoods next, then Professor Taylor, the Hills on the other side and the Williamses farther down. There, the low clay road, muddy all winter and dusty all summer, took a bend and a half-mile on was the general store, privately owned.
At the top of the hill, leaving the campus grounds, was the road to the railroad station, nine miles distant. Along this road, a mile out, were the barns and sheds housing the livestock and farm equipment, the cannery and silos, and the mechanical building, which comprised the agricultural and mechanical departments. Beyond, as far as the could see, extended the thirty-six hundred acres of farm land owned and cultivated by the college.
The mechanical building was the only modern structure at the college. It was a one-storied brick building with tall windows and modern lighting and contained several power saws and lathes driven by belts and pulleys from overhead shafts. Here the wagons were built, the horses shod, the tools and equipment made and repaired for all the rest of the college. This was Professor Taylor’s department.
All of the students boarded. They matriculated upon finishing the country grade schools. There were no intermediate schools. The college provided the equivalent of a high school education. Most of the men studied agriculture, the women domestic science. They were grown, eighteen and older, when they arrived. And only a very few could afford to remain four years.
The summer school was attended by country teachers. It opened shortly after Mrs. Taylor and the children arrived. Professor Taylor was away at the shop all day. Mrs. Taylor, with the help of Lizzie and several men students whom her husband sent over, got her house in order. Professor Taylor outfitted the fireplaces and made cabinets, tables and chairs. Their furniture arrived and was brought from the station in the school wagons. When all their familiar possessions had been put in place the house took on a homey atmosphere. When their piano was first unpacked, Mrs. Taylor sat playing it for hours, unmindful of all else, as if visiting with an old dear friend. It made her feel civilized again.
Her chief concern was with the children’s food. She was appalled by the diet of the natives. For breakfast Lizzie would eat fried side meat, boiled rice and sorghum molasses, scorning the milk and cereal, eggs and toast which she served the Taylors.
Fresh meat was the great problem. They had no way of keeping it. When the stock was butchered the faculty members got the choicest cuts. But it was mostly pork and Mrs. Taylor distrusted it. She didn’t eat the fresh pork herself, and only rarely fed it to the children. She ordered most of her meat in cans from Memphis and Chicago.
Ice was out of the question. A bit was made by the school, but it was scarcely enough for the mess hall. They had a rare treat when Professor Taylor brought home a cake of ice for lemonade or making ice cream. First it would be crushed in a crocus sack; and then carefully packed into the freezer, a layer of ice, then a layer of salt. Afterwards would come the children’s job, turning the handle. They’d turn and turn and turn, it getting harder and harder as the ice cream froze. Their strong little arms would ache. But they got to lick the dasher. Freezing ice cream was related to Sunday dinner, fried chicken, fresh linen and visitors.
There were vegetables in abundance. All of the faculty had land to cultivate. Professor Taylor had nine acres around his house. The field behind the sheds was planted in corn. But there was a large truck garden beside the house which he had inherited from the former resident. Already it was yielding English peas and butter beans, squash and greens and Kentucky wonder string beans. Tomatoes, carrots, radishes, spinach and scallions grew like weeds. Professor Taylor added okra, eggplant, cantaloupes and several vegetables unheard of in those parts, such as kohlrabi and artichokes.
The children filled with energy like bursting seeds. Professor Taylor laughingly said the sap had just come up in them. They longed to be out of doors, digging in ground, running through the fields. She dressed them in denim overalls and wide straw hats such as the natives wore. She couldn’t make them wear their shoes. They’d take them off the moment they got out of sight. They found birds’ nests and garter snakes and tiny terrapins and toad-frogs, all of which they brought indoors. Their lather took them to the barns to see the sows and pigs and cows and calves and mares and colts. They saw the little stud jacks and were amazed to learn that a mule had an ass for a father. There was no end to the excitement.
The first thing each morning they’d explore the garden to see what had grown overnight. They ate anything. Then they’d examine the wigglers in the rain barrels at the corners of the house. From there they’d wander to the field, always inching toward the road which was forbidden. Once Mrs. Taylor found them almost to the general store, all by themselves, walking down the middle of the road, the hot dust squishing delightfully through their toes. They loved the feel of the hot powdery dust on their feet and the taste of the mud in the road after a heavy rain.
She was at wit’s end trying to restrain them. The countryside was interlaced with deep ravines and bayous, the ground crawled with poisonous snakes, the woods abounded with delicious-looking berries and fruits that made the stomach ache. She was worried sick whenever they got out of her sight. But she couldn’t watch them every moment. And the moment she turned her gaze they were gone. Professor Taylor assured her no harm could come to them. And in the next breath he’d tell of how some full-grown student had been seriously injured.
But the children didn’t know enough to be frightened of anything. They ate worms and caterpillars on each other’s dares. Once Tom showed them how to stuff a bullfrog with bird shot. The frog would lap up the shot with his long darting tongue as if it were fish eggs, until it grew so heavy it couldn’t move. The children were anxious until Tom dangled the frog by its hind legs and shook the shot from its mouth.
They ate green persimmons from the tree in Pro! Patterson’s yard and made ugly faces when the tart brackish juice drew their mouths. One day they saw a snake fighting a lamper eel in the shallow drain beside the road. The snake and eel were tightly entwined, thrashing in the muddy water. The children got sticks and poked at them.
In front of the general store was a wild cherry tree which they soon learned to climb. One of the summer students told them that the wild cherries would make them drunk. They’d eat the cherries and pretend they were falling from the tree. Soon their mother would come running the long dusty mile, her hair undone and hanging loosely down her shoulders, her eyes harried and distraught, looking like some dusty apparition. She’d switch them all the way home. The neighbors would see them running ahead of her, William screaming as if she were killing him and Charles gritting his teeth and biting back his tears. It fretted his mother that Charles never cried.
But most fascinating of all was going with their father to the general store. If they promised not to tell their mother, he’d give them a nickel to spend. Off they’d race, peeping first into the pickle barrel, and then into the barrel containing salted mackerel floating in dirty brine. They’d filch a cracker from the cracker barrel as they saw the grownups do. And at last they’d stand before the tiny candy counter, eyeing the delicious sweets. William loved licorice sticks and Charles rock candy. They’d stand entranced by the strange formations of the rock candy in the large glass jar.
Or they’d tag along behind their father and watch him wring the chickens’ necks for Sunday dinner and put the watermelon down into the well for cooling. Once he took them with him to the mill. They rode through the country in one of the small school wagons. Professor Taylor gave the miller a bushel of corn for a bushel of meal. He explained to them that a bushel of corn made more t
han a bushel of meal and that the miller kept the excess for his profit. But they were too interested in the water wheels to listen.
When the sugar cane ripened their pockets were always stuffed with dirty joints which they pretended were chewing tobacco. They’d take a bite and spit out the juice as they’d seen their father do. Tom brought home some bamboo canes and their father made them whistles and pea shooters. Tom was too busy with his own activities to give them much notice. He was either off fishing with the fellows or catching frogs and bringing home the skinned white legs for his mother to cook. As much as she detested them, she’d cook them for him.
One day Charles was bitten by a copperhead while playing in the back field. He cried, “I’m snake-bit,” and started running for the house. William sped alter him. Their father was at the shop. Mrs. Taylor had gone to the store. I didn’t know what to do. They ran through the house bawling for Lizzie. But she was out. The inch-long gash on Charles’s leg was open like painted purple lips. They ran out on the porch, screaming.
Luckily, an old Negro vagrant, known about the campus as Billy Goat, was passing in the street. He was barefooted and clad in ragged overalls, with long white kinky hair bushed atop his head and a nappy white beard stained brown with tobacco juice.
“I’m snake-bit,” Charles cried, and ran out in the street and clutched him by the leg.
Old Billy Goat looked down at the gash. “‘Tain’t nuddin, boy. Y’all jes cum on now an ole’ Billy Goat’ll fix it.”
He took Charles back to the porch and widened the gash with his rusty knife. Then he put his old tobacco-stained lips to the opening and sucked out the poison. He spat and bit a chew from his dirty plug and when his saliva was rich with the juice he spat into the wound and covered it with dirt.
“Gwine back tuh play, boy,” he said. “W’en y’all gits snake-bit agin jes holler fuh ole Billy Goat.” Cackling at his humor, he slapped Charles on the rump and wandered off.
The boys sat for a time and looked at the dirty wound. Then they got hoes from the tool shed and went looking for the snake to kill it. But the snake was gone. They didn’t tell their mother until suppertime.
Charles stuck out his leg as they were eating. “See that, Mama,” he said.
She looked at the dirty, runny sore and jumped from the table.
“That’s where I was snake-bit.”
“Oh, my God!” she wailed, almost fainting. “Run for the doctor,” she ordered Tom.
“Wait a minute,” his father said. He turned to Charles. “When were you snake-bit, son?”
“This afternoon.” Charles was enjoying the commotion.
“Ole Billy Goat sucked out the poison,” William said. “He cut Charles with his knife and then he sucked the blood.”
Mrs. Taylor slumped into her seat, too weak to move.
“When did all this happen?” their father wanted to know. ‘
“When Mama was to the store,” William said.
“We’d better get the doctor anyway,” Mrs. Taylor finally said.
“Now, honey, just wash it out with peroxide and tie it up.” He laughed indulgently. “If it was going to kill him he’d already be dead.”
But that was the end of their adventures. After that the only time they were permitted to leave the yard was Sunday morning. Professor Taylor always took the children to Sunday school, and afterwards Mrs. Taylor joined them for the church services. They took their baths Saturday afternoon. The children took theirs first. They’d place a tub of water out in the sun and a half hour later it would be hot enough to bathe in. The children bathed on the back porch. But Professor Taylor and his wife bathed in the kitchen.
On Sunday they had an early breakfast so Lizzie could go home and dress for church, and it gave Mrs. Taylor time to dress the children. At the first ringing of the bell the father and sons set forth. Twenty steps up the road their freshly shined shoes were covered with dust, and sweat was running in rivulets down their freshly scrubbed faces. Sunday school was held in the classrooms beneath the assembly hall. Professor Taylor taught a class of older students and the children sat with them. There was no class for tots their age, and Tom didn’t want them tagging along with him.
After Sunday school, Professor Taylor took the younger children home and returned to church with his wife. Most of the students were deeply religious. Young men and women ofttimes shouted as enthusiastically as did their elders, jumping from their seats and flapping wildly, as if to fly posthaste to heaven, when the spirit moved them. Frequently the spirit commanded them to beat the devil from their neighbor. There would ensue such bloody fights that the faculty members were hard put to protect the sinners from immediate doom. Mrs. Taylor was afraid her children might be called to their glory before time, so she never took them to church.
Tom went with an older group on Sundays. And he was out visiting most of the weekdays. The other campus children were in awe of him because he’d lived up north in Missouri. He lorded it over them in his strange northern clothes. But he was well liked and was always being invited to dinner by their parents. The popular game fol his group was hide-and-go-seek. It was an ideal game for the surroundings. The various trees and culverts and ravines and buildings made wonderful hiding places. In the early summer evening all but the very youngest children could be heard running and screaming and shouting as they played.
Their mother never let the little children out to play. Sometimes they would swing on the gate and listen wistfully. But it was pleasant on the porch in the cool of evening with the breeze stirring in the vines. Professor Taylor would be home for the day and dinner would be finished. He and Mrs. Taylor would sit quietly in the rocking chairs while the younger children swung recklessly on the porch swing. Other professors and their wives, out for an evening walk, would stop at the picket fence or come in and sit on the steps and chat.
The sun would set at the end of the long summer day, painting the sky with fantastic, brilliant colors; and then the fiery reds and yellows would deepen to a purple-orange. Twilight would come and the crickets would begin to chirp. Slowly the mosquitoes would come out, buzzing about their ears, and keep them slapping at their arms and legs. Charles would leave the swing and go sit on the bottom step and listen to the changing of the earth. He would feel so happy and joyous and excited that his heart would pound against his ribs. And yet it always made him sad. While he watched, the outlines of the buildings and the fence and road would change and grow vague in the deepening dusk. He would sit entranced as a phantom fairyland took shape and the elves and dragons and fairies came out. Twilight affected him with a passion so poignant he’d sit crying inside with ecstasy. Then the fireflies would come out and the spell would be broken. He and William would dash about the yard, shouting gleefully, and catch the lightning bugs. They’d rub their faces with the yellow, phosphorescent tails and pale yellow spots of light would shine where they had rubbed. Mrs. Taylor would watch them absent-mindedly, marveling at their growth. They’d stop for a moment to listen to the shouting of the older children playing tag. After a while they’d slip off by the gate and stand there silently, hoping their mother would forget that they were out. They dreaded the moment she would “It’s time to go to bed, children.”
6
THE OPENING OF THE fall term was an exciting time. The male students met the first wagonload of women out at the entrance to the college, unhitched the team, and themselves hauled the wagon the remainder of the distance to the dormitory. There was always a circus of joshing and buffoonery and many of the faculty members took their families out to witness the event. It was something of a tradition and took place rain or shine.
It was a beautiful day and Professor Taylor stood in the crowd of men, holding the hands of his younger children, watching the wagon come down the dusty road. As soon as they came in sight the women stood and waved. A roar went up from the welcoming men. But none went beyond the old wooden arch that marked the entrance, for it was at this point that the ceremony took place
.
When the wagon finally came into the college grounds, pandemonium broke loose. The men climbed aboard and kissed the women at random. Most of the women wore gingham dresses and had their carefully straightened hair tied in bright bandannas to protect it from the dust. Their black and yellow faces gleamed with sweat and their dark eyes sparkled as they put up their faces to be kissed. The big rough country men milled about the wagon, hanging on the sideboards and jumping to the hubs to get a kiss and see what girl was new. Professor Taylor’s children pulled at his arms, trying to get closer to see what was going on. The men and women laughed crazily, carrying on conversations that had begun the spring before, as if the summer hadn’t happened. The children didn’t understand it. But the excitement was contagious. They danced up and down.
“Johnny jump! Johnny jump! Johnny jump!” Charles screamed, adding to the din.
“Hush!” William cautioned. “Hush up! You don’t know what you’re talking ‘bout.”
Their father chuckled. Finally the students had the teams unhitched and a long, strong rope attached to the wagon tongue. Then they started running down the road, kicking up so much dust the wagon was enveloped.
In the excitement a woman fell and before the laughing, straining crew could be halted she was run over by the wagon. Charles was standing near enough to see her ribs flatten beneath the heavy iron-tired wheels, and the blood start surging from her mouth and nose. She wore a gray buttoned sweater over a calico dress and her body seemed thin and undernourished. He saw her face with stark clarity. She was a light-complexioned, homely girl with a longish pimply face and her hair was tied carefully in a blue bandanna. He saw her hands grope desperately for the spokes of the first wheel, and then fall limply, jerking spasmodically in the dust as the hurt came overwhelmingly into her bulging eyes. It seemed to come from her in such intensity as to be communicable. He felt her hurt down in his own throat and chest, and he felt as if his ribs were being crushed by the heavy wheels also. The sharp brackish sensation of ruptured blood vessels filled his head as if blood was spurting from his own mouth and nose. His mind could not contain it, and could not throw it off. He couldn’t cry or scream or breathe. He felt himself going down-down-down with the dying woman into the cool dark valley of death. He fell gasping to the ground, trembling in the dust. His father fought desperately to keep him from being trampled by the panic-stricken mob. The screams and the wails of the women came into his ears as if he heard them from the grave, and strangely his mind identified the sound of William crying hysterically, but nothing penetrated the incomprehending trance that held him paralyzed. Now, in the cool, dark deep, away from the shock and horror, it was no longer terrifying.
The Third Generation Page 6