Callie had come out to the gate looking for them. “Where have you children been? I was beginning to worry.”
“We rested awhile in the shade,” Jessica said. It was the truth. They had rested a minute, after their dash from the creek.
“You had a mighty long rest, seems to me. You didn’t get any blackberries, I see. Weren’t they ripe?”
Leonie shot Jessica an alarmed glance. They had forgotten to look. “I didn’t see any ripe ones,” she said.
“Well, I guess they won’t come on proper till the Fourth of July. You girls come on now and help get supper. Papa’ll be in before long and he’ll be hungry. Mathy, baby, get a bucket of water for Mama, will you? Oh, Jessica, I’ve got a nice little job for you!”
Jessica was edging toward the stairs. “What is it?”
“While Leonie peels potatoes, why don’t you and I go plant a few rows of pole beans? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Well, I thought I ought to write Miss George. You know, my English teacher? She wanted me to.”
Her mother looked disappointed. “Oh. Well, go ahead, if you want to. I thought it’d be nice, out in the garden this time of day. We could plant a few rows before supper. It’s cooler out there now. And the sweet peas smell so good. I just thought you might enjoy it.”
Jessica sighed imperceptibly. “All right. I’ll help.”
“Good! Put your bonnet on, though, honey. There’s still a little sunshine down there and you don’t want to get black.”
4
Jessica saw him first, whistling up the road from the east, a neat bundle slung over one shoulder. He wore dark trousers that looked too small and a blue shirt and no hat. His brown hair was very curly. He came past the garden fence, and as she stared at him from under the bonnet, he turned and saw her. He stopped, the whistling stopped, his face broke into a friendly smile, and he waved.
“Howdy!”
Callie, bending over the furrow, straightened and turned around.
“Afternoon, ma’am.” He came over to the fence and rested his bundle on a post. “Nice day.”
“Yes?” said Callie.
“I’m a stranger ’round yere. Just come in on a freight train. My home’s down south of here. Down below Cabool? That’s a ways east of Springfield—maybe you know where that is.” Callie nodded. “Wondered if you’d know where I could git some work.”
“Well,” said Callie, shifting the hoe.
The young man smiled. “I may not be the best help anybody ever had, but I’m willin’. He said “hep” for “help.”
Callie shifted the hoe again. Though she knew that Matthew needed help, she didn’t want to say so. But the stranger was boyish and friendly and she hated to be too brusque. “Maybe my husband could tell you if there’s anybody around here needs a hand,” she said. “He’s out in the field right now, though.”
“I’d be much obliged to talk to him.”
“Well—” Callie hesitated. “Reckon you can wait here if you want to.”
“That’d be mighty fine.”
Mathy, hearing the voices, came out into the front yard. At the sight of the stranger her mouth fell open. He turned and smiled at her.
“Afternoon,” he said politely.
“Hello.” She darted back into the house.
“I’ll tell you now,” Callie said, “you can come around back and wait. There’s the gate down there.” She waved toward the lane that led from the main road into the barnlot. She was not going to have a stranger just off a freight train come through her front gate.
“Thank y’, ma’am.” The boy tucked the bundle under his arm and walked off toward the lane.
“You get in the house,” Callie said to Jessica. “I hope Papa gets here pretty soon. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him Papa wasn’t here.”
“He doesn’t look very dangerous.”
“You can’t never tell by that. Sometimes the ones that looks it the least are the worst.”
While Callie put the hoe away, Jessica went into the house. She found Mathy and Leonie glued to the front windows.
“That’s him!” said Mathy.
“I know it,” Jessica said. “Be quiet. He’s looking for work. Mama told him to wait here till Papa comes in.”
“We may all be dead by that time!” Mathy said happily, her black eyes smoky with excitement. “He may cut our throats and burn the house down!”
“Oh, that’s silly,” Leonie said. “I’m not afraid of him.”
“He seemed very polite,” said Jessica.
“Hmph. He’s a hired hand.”
“Well, he can still be polite.”
The young man climbed over the big farm gate and started up the lane. The girls rushed to the kitchen so they could see him better. Callie was watching him from the yard.
“You can wait there,” she called. “Mr. Soames will be here just any minute now.”
He came toward the fence. “Could I chop some wood for you, whawl I wait?”
Mathy jigged up and down. “I hope Mama doesn’t let him have the ax! He’ll chop our heads off!”
“No, thank you,” Callie said firmly. She came into the house. “You girls get away from that window.”
“Why didn’t you let him chop wood?” Mathy said. “Were you afraid to let him have the ax? Is that why, Mama?”
“Oh, mercy no! I never even thought of that!” Callie paused, as if she should have thought of it. “I just don’t want him to feel like we’re obliged to him, that’s all. He might get to thinkin’ because he done something for us, he could get familiar around the place. You girls come on now and help me finish supper. Get away from that window!” She washed her hands in the enamel wash-pan. “He seems like a nice boy. Don’t see how he can look so clean, comin’ off a freight train like that.”
She went out to the back porch. The girls rolled their eyes at each other and choked with laughter. “He ought to be clean!” Leonie whispered. “He just had a bath!” When Callie came back, all of them had their backs turned.
Matthew came in on the hay wagon a few minutes later and they saw him talking with the boy as he unhitched. The boy helped. After a while, Matthew left him sitting on a stump by the barn and came into the kitchen.
“Mama,” he said, “I think I’ll let this boy help me here for a few days. How would you feel about it?”
“It’s up to you.”
“Well, I could use a little help right now, and seems like the boys around here won’t stay home any more. Always running off to Kansas for the wheat harvest or somewhere.” (Boys were always chasing off somewhere after money or girls.) “All the neighbors have their hands full, too,” he went on. “Even if we trade back and forth, we still have plenty of work. This boy seems like he’s honest. He’s courteous, and he seems willing.”
“He’s kinda frail-lookin’.”
“Well, I’m not going to kill him with work.”
“I know you aren’t. But my goodness, where’s he going to sleep?”
“In the hayloft. We talked about that. It’s all right with him. It’s clean up there, and we can give him a quilt. It’s not the worst place you could sleep.”
“Well, Papa, if you want him, it’s all right with me.”
His name was Tom Purdy. He was one of six children born and raised on an Ozark farm. “I took out when I’s sixteen,” he said at the supper table. “That’s about four years ago. I already been down to Little Rock and up to St. Louis. I go home ever’ now and thin and stay with my folks awhawl. We have a lot of fun, all us kids. We don’t always eat too good, but we have a good time.”
“Have some more potatoes,” said Matthew.
“I b’lieve I will. I sind my folks money sometimes—when I have any.” He grinned, showing his white, slightly crooked teeth. His eyes were large and blue, with long curling lashes that gave his face an oddly angelic look. “I decided this year I’s goin’ out west to wheat harvest. I got an uncle out in western Kansas—he’s got a big wheat farm out ther
e, don’t raise nothin’ but wheat! That’s where I was headin’. I was goin’ up to Kansas City and take out from there. You git lonesome, though, ridin’ a freight, and dirty. I’s ridin’ along there this mornin’ in that open box car, and I felt so dirty and hot. I looked out at thim green fields and the woods and ever’thing, and I couldn’t stand ’er no longer. I jumped out and rolled down the embankment and started walkin’. Boy, when I come to that creek, I sure jumped in! Sure had me a good ole swim.” He laughed. “I thought somebody throwed a rock at me, though, about the time I’s through.”
Jessica and Leonie and Mathy stared at their plates, chewing hard.
“Didn’t see nobody, though,” he said. “Maya been a big bullfrog.”
“I bet it was!” said Mathy and nearly died laughing.
Callie frowned at her and gave Jessica a suspicious glance. “Please pass the bread,” said Jessica.
“You’ve got bread.”
“I mean the butter, please.”
The boy laid his knife and fork neatly across his empty plate. “Never did work for a schoolteacher before,” he said, and added modestly, “but I’m goin’ to marry a schoolmom.”
“Is that right!” said Matthew.
“That’s nice,” said Callie.
“I and her’s engaged, I reckon you call it. We’re goin’ to git married when I go back home.” He leaned his chin on his hand. “Reckon she’s goin’ to have to teach me how to talk good, when we’re married. I never did learn how. I went through the eighth grade and then I had to go to work. I never did git around to goin’ back.”
“Well, you should try to do that,” Matthew said kindly.
“Reckon I’m a little too old now.”
“Oh no, never too old to go to school. Why, I was your age or older when I started to high school—Mrs. Soames and I were married!” He took Tom off to the porch and told him all about the good old days.
Callie and the girls cleared away the dishes. “Where did you girls go this afternoon?” she said casually.
“You didn’t get this plate clean,” Leonie said to Jessica.
“Well, I can’t see very well. I’m in my own light.”
“I thought you might have gone down to the creek,” said Callie, “when you went after the lettuce.” She waited. “Well, one of you answer me.”
Jessica turned around from the dishpan. “Yes, Mama, we were down there. Just for a minute.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Callie. “And I reckon you saw that boy taking a bath.” Again no one answered. “I told you not to go down to that creek this afternoon.”
“No, you didn’t, Mama!” said Leonie.
“Well, I told you to come right on back when you’d picked your lettuce. It’s the same thing. What made you go to the creek, anyway?”
“We wanted to catch a fish for supper, that’s all.”
“So you went down there and saw something you shouldn’t.”
“But Mama, we didn’t know he was there!” Leonie said impatiently.
“Well, you had no business down there anyway.”
“We had more right than he did. It’s our creek.”
“But I told you not to go down there today!”
“No, you didn’t!”
“All right, Leonie, that’s enough out of you! If your Papa finds out you were down there, you won’t feel so smart.”
“But Mama,” Jessica said, “we didn’t mean to see him!”
“Well, I know, but— Which one of you threw the rock?”
“I did,” said Mathy.
“Whatever possessed you to do that?”
“I thought it was funny.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s very funny.” Callie sat down and fanned herself with her apron. “Bad enough you lookin’ at him, without lettin’ him know you were!”
“He thought we were a bullfrog!” Mathy threw herself in a chair in a fit of laughter. “He doesn’t know it was us.”
“I don’t want him to know it, either. He might get the wrong notion about you girls. I want you to be awful careful with a boy around. Keep your dresses down and behave yourselves. And don’t let your Papa know anything about what happened this afternoon. If he finds out he’ll be so mad he’ll pout for the rest of the week. He’ll be mad at me for letting you go.”
Jessica said, “It wasn’t your fault, Mama.”
“Well, we won’t fuss over whose fault it was. But I wish it’d never happened. You’ve been bad girls and I want you to go right upstairs and ask God to forgive you.”
“Can’t we sit on the porch a little while first?” said Mathy.
“You may not. You go right upstairs and go to bed. All three of you. Mathy, you remember to wash your feet.”
As Jessica sat at the dresser brushing her hair, Mathy wandered in in her long nightgown.
“Jessica?”
“What, honey?”
“I don’t know what to ask God to forgive me for.”
Leonie, sitting on the bed with her New Testament (she read a chapter a day), said, “Neither do I. What did we do that was so awful?”
“Well,” Jessica said slowly, “Mama said to come right back and we didn’t do it. I guess that’s what we did wrong, really.”
“Is that all!” Mathy fell backwards onto the bed and waved her feet in the air. “That’s such a little bitty old sin. Leonie, you were the one that wanted to go. Why don’t you ask God to forgive us all, then Jessica and I won’t have to?”
“Oh, don’t think you can get off that easy!” said Leonie. “You went, didn’t you? I just thought of it first, that’s all.”
“We’ll all ask him to forgive us,” Jessica said. “Just say, ‘Forgive us for our sins, whatever they are,’ and that ought to take care of it.”
Mathy went off to her own room and after a moment called back, “I said ’em.”
“What?”
“My prayers. I said ’em.”
“That’s good.”
“I just said a little one tonight, because I couldn’t think of very much to talk about. It’s too hot. I wish we could sleep in the yard.”
“Go to sleep and forget about it. You’ll cool off pretty soon.” Jessica went on brushing her hair. Through the warped mirror she could see the picture on the opposite wall, a gift from her parents. It showed a girl clinging to a stone cross in a stormy sea. Whenever she looked at it, her conscience bothered her. She braided her hair in one long tight braid and got into bed.
Leonie finished her chapter, blew out the light, and knelt down by her side of the bed. Jessica didn’t quite want to pray. Not down on her knees, anyway, saying real words, as Leonie was doing. She stretched out on the feather mattress and tried very hard to feel sinful.
At last Leonie finished and climbed into bed. “All that trouble just for a hired hand!” she said. “My land, they’re still talking down there. I wouldn’t think Papa would care much about talking to anybody so ignorant.”
“He’s not ignorant.”
“He is too. You heard the way he talked.”
“Well, Mama talks kinda like that, and she’s not ignorant.”
Leonie didn’t answer. They lay in the dark, listening to the voices from the front porch. The scent of tobacco smoke rose through the window.
Leonie said haughtily, “He smokes!”
After a while, Matthew and Callie came upstairs to bed, and they heard the boy go through the gate to the barn. The house grew quiet. Suddenly Jessica raised herself on one elbow. “What’s that?” she said.
Leonie lifted her head. “Somebody’s playing a French harp!” The sound came from the barn, faint and sweet and far away. “It’s him!”
They sat up and listened. It was a sorrowful tune, made more so by the lonesome tones of the harmonica; and played in the boy’s simple manner, it was as ungrammatical and beguiling as his speech. The sound rose and fell, lost now and then under the scrape of the crickets or the snuffling of a horse in the barnlot, but emerging again
to drift in softly on the warm air. Jessica thought it was the loneliest sound she had ever heard. She lay back on the pillow, melting with sympathy—for the boy, for herself, for Marvin bereft of her, and for all the lonely, wandering, homeless souls in the world. It was a nice sorrow. She fell asleep at once.
5
Tom’s few days stretched into two weeks, and still Matthew said nothing about his leaving. Though Tom had his faults (he stacked hay carelessly, forgot to lock the corncrib door, and had to sit down in the shade now and then and smoke a cigarette), he was as good-natured as the day was long and took orders as if they were some sort of special dispensation. He behaved himself around the girls. His attitude toward them was avuncular, and he paid them no special attention except a harmless teasing. The schoolmarm, looming vaguely in limbo, consoled both Matthew and Callie.
All of them admired Tom’s cleanliness. Callie had set him up a washstand against the house, just outside the back door: a wash-pan on an upended box, a nail for the towel, and a cracked saucer for a cake of soap. Tom added a toothbrush and a razor. Every morning he borrowed Callie’s teakettle for hot water so he could shave. And every night when he came in from the fields, he stripped to the waist and scrubbed away till Callie said it was a wonder he had any skin left on his bones.
One day Mathy found a piece of broken mirror in the smokehouse and propped it up on Tom’s washstand. He thanked her kindly and occasionally chipped a little piece off the edge, just to prove that he was ugly enough to crack a looking glass.
Of all Tom’s virtues, there was one which particularly endeared him to Matthew. Tom loved music. And aside from a natural aptitude and a good ear, he knew nothing about it. Matthew loved to teach. They began, therefore, in the evenings after supper, to have music lessons in the parlor. Sweating by lamplight, Matthew taught Tom to read notes. Leonie assisted at the piano. Leonie played without much inspiration, but she was very correct; she planned to be a concert pianist. With haughty patience, she went over and over and over the simple exercises with Tom. Tom blew diligently on his harmonica and sometimes, with Leonie’s help, played the piano. After a while he was able to read a little, and they played duets. Matthew beat time with his hands like a conductor, singing an occasional do re mi or a fa fa sol to keep them in line.
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