She dried her face on her torn skirt and, knowing what she must do now, set about it. Working quickly, she gathered up the charred sticks from the fire and carried them in to the kitchen stove. Back in the lot, she scattered the ashes and carefully brushed sand over the blackened earth. When all trace of the fire was removed, the skillet and dishes put away, she took a spade and went far down in the pasture. There above the branch she dug a deep hole and buried the blue satin ribbon. The ribbon was clean and pretty, lying there. She saw the damp earth fall over it and she cried. Then she raked leaves over the spot and walked back home.
When she was washed and had changed her clothes, she went over the barnyard once more and all around the yard. Assured that no sign of him remained, she breathed easier. She would tell Matthew, but it could wait now till tomorrow. Tomorrow night when he came home from school, she would say, “It happened this morning.” By that time, the peddler should be two days away.
Long before sundown she began to watch the road, longing to see him, hoping some miracle would send him home early. At dusk she gave the children their supper and put them to bed. The cows came jingling up from pasture, their udders swollen. Taking pity on them, she went out and milked. It was dark when Matthew drove in.
She ran out to greet him. “I’m glad you’re home!”
“What’s wrong?” he said sharply.
“Nothin’s wrong. I’m just glad to see you, that’s all. I was gettin’ worried.”
He climbed down, avoiding her. “It takes forever, driving the buggy. Did the girls get home all right?”
“They walked. You go on in. I’ll unhitch.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
“But you’re tired,” she urged. “Go on, honey, your supper’s waitin’.”
“I want to get the milking done first.”
“I already done it.”
“What’d you do that for!” he said irritably. “You’ll keep on till you make yourself sick, that’s the way you do.”
“But you were so late gettin’ home—”
“I was busy!” he snapped. “Now don’t throw that up to me. I get home as soon as I’m able.”
“All I said was—”
“All kinds of things come up that I can’t foresee. You ought to know that. I’ve tried to explain it. But you never take any interest in my work.” He gave the horse a slap on the rump and strode off angrily.
Callie leaned her head against the buggy. No matter what she did or said these days, he found some fault. It seemed like he was looking for it, hoping to find it. Anything to excuse himself. He felt guilty, that’s why. There was somebody else, all right. She struck the wheel softly with her fist. But then (remembering the morning), she was not free of blame, herself; perhaps she had done Matthew more wrong than he did her. “I didn’t mean to, though,” she said. Maybe he didn’t either. Some things happen in spite of you. She was sorry for him. She started toward the barn, then thinking better of it, she turned back.
He came in presently and sat down to supper. She watched him across the table. He had lost weight. The bones stood out in his cheeks; he looked hollow and big-eyed. It became him, somehow. He was beautiful like this. But pitiful, too; he looked troubled. If it was what she thought it was, he deserved to be troubled. Just the same, she was sorry for him. Her resentment shifted subtly from him to the woman. What kind of a woman was it who would do this to him, torment him till he was half crazy and couldn’t sleep or eat!
“You look tired,” she said.
“I am.” He crossed the knife and fork on his plate and leaned his head on his hands.
“I’ll be glad when school’s out, so you won’t have to do two things at once.”
“Well, yes…”
“Be nice when you can stay home all day.”
“Yes.”
“Nice for me, too. I get afraid sometimes, here by myself.”
“No need to do that,” he said. “You have the gun if you need it.”
“It ain’t much company, though.”
There was a pause. “I ought to go to school again,” he said.
“This summer?”
“I’ve got to keep up.”
“But you’ve been workin’ so hard—you need to rest!”
“Well, Callie,” he said severely, “I can’t neglect my education, not if I’m going to get anywhere.”
“I know you can’t.” She sighed. “But Clarkstown’s so far away.”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “I’m not sure I’d go to Clarkstown this time.”
Something tingled in her, a struck nerve. “Where would you go?” she said, watching his face.
“Oh, I don’t know…” He looked up innocently (as guilty a look as she ever saw). “I’d thought about St. Louis.”
“St. Louis? How ever come you to think of that?”
“They have fine schools up there, big universities. And then the cultural life of a city, the atmosphere and association—it’s just as important as classroom studies.”
“Would you—would we go with you, me and the children?”
“Well,” he began, apologetic, “it would be expensive, I’m afraid. I don’t know if I could afford for all of us to be there. I might just have to go by myself and batch for the summer.”
So that’s what he had in mind! Someone was pushing him. He never made a rash move in his life unless someone kept at him.
“I’d be lonesome,” was all she said.
“It would only be a few weeks.”
“What about the work?”
“Around here? I thought your brothers might help out. Thad and Wesley, maybe they could come and stay while I’m gone.”
He had it all worked out.
“But I don’t know,” he said, rising. “Maybe I can’t do it. We’ll see.” He took the lantern and started out. “I’m going to throw down some hay for the stock.”
“Careful with that lantern in the barn,” she said.
She sat at the table, staring into the lamp flame. He was willing to leave her. Whatever she was up against, it was more than she’d reckoned on. This was no idle, silly country woman; it was someone from off, and someone of Matthew’s kind, who read books and talked his kind of talk. Someone educated. She passed a dazed look around the kitchen. This was the only thing she didn’t know how to fight.
She could have learned to read! She was smart enough, she could have learned. “I will!” she cried out. “Matthew, I will!” But it was a little late for that. By the time she learned how to read, she could lose him. And she could not lose him now. She wanted him. He was not perfect, but she would rather have his faults than any other man’s virtues. More than that, she needed him. She was in trouble. And maybe that was good, she thought suddenly. Trouble brought people together sometimes. Maybe it had happened for the best. She rose, eager to tell him, but reaching the door, she drew back. She had better wait, give the peddler a chance. Tomorrow would be time enough.
She had covered the peddler’s tracks thoroughly. No trace of him remained, or of any stranger. In the morning, however, after a dream-weary night, she woke with a start, realizing that she had forgotten one small thing. The small thing was Leonie. Yesterday Leonie went to school. Today she would be at home. If a stranger came to the house, Leonie would know it. If no one came, she would know that, too. Callie despaired of her stupidity. Somehow now she had to be rid of the child. An hour would be long enough, a half hour even; but she had to have time alone, with Leonie out of earshot.
Any other time, she could have managed. The children often played away from the house, far enough that if someone came, they wouldn’t know. Today, however, Leonie had a cranky spell. She was cross and whiny, worn out by the previous day’s delights. Callie could do nothing with her. She set up a playhouse deep in the orchard; Leonie followed her back to the house. She sent the child to the pasture to pick spring beauties; Leonie was back in ten minutes. Sent to the hayloft, she was back in five. Callie suggested a picnic i
n the walnut grove, mudpies by the branch. Leonie would not go by herself. In a spectacular tantrum, she refused to take a nap. No one was fooling her—she knew when she wasn’t wanted. In retaliation, she did nothing the livelong day but dog her mother’s footsteps. Callie was frantic. Her nerves already strained to the breaking point, she lost her patience and spanked the child. Leonie looked up at her with a sad, red little tear-stained face, and Callie gathered her into her arms and cried with her. It wasn’t the baby who had done wrong.
By the time Matthew came home that night, one of her sick headaches had struck, leveling all memory of peddler and remorse, guilt and fear. Nothing remained but triumphant nausea and the steady hallelujahs of pain.
She slept that night in utter exhaustion and didn’t wake up till late the next morning. Matthew had fed himself and the children and gone on to school. Leonie, frisky as a kitten, was dabbling around in dishwater, intent on helping Mama. She helped Mama all day, aggressively. Callie hadn’t the heart or the strength to cajole her out of the way.
Two days and two nights had passed now, and her dread was doubled. The longer she waited, the more impossible it became to avoid telling the truth. She could not say it happened today or yesterday; it had to have taken place when it did. And what excuse was she going to give for waiting? Perhaps, she thought, lit by a desperate hope, she needn’t tell him anything. But it was a false hope, as meaningless as lightning in a drought. With a moan, she clutched herself, as if pain had already struck in her womb. It could not be! But it could be, to punish her. She could not be sure for a whole week yet. Before that, she had to tell Matthew.
But when he came that night—late again, scowling and withdrawn—her courage failed her. They sat at the table together in silence, and she watched him. If he had once looked at her to see that she was troubled, if he had bothered to ask why, she would have blurted out the story in gratitude. But he sat with his eyes down, his thoughts far away. The clock ticked loud and ominous. Time was passing, and she was afraid.
It was strange and awesome how her fear had changed him in her eyes. Always before, she had viewed him from a position of virtue, from where she was unassailable. Now, in her distress, feeling to blame, she began to see him from another angle. It distorted her vision of him, diminished his humankindness, and enlarged the intolerance in him. It no longer seemed possible that he would forgive her—especially as he no longer loved her. She kept coming back to that. He was ashamed of her, because she was ignorant.
“Matthew?” she said timidly. “Soon as I clean off the table, why don’t I practice my writin’ again? You haven’t give me a lesson in a long time.”
He glanced up with a frown. “Oh, it’s so late. I’ve been teaching all day.”
“But I’ve been wantin’—”
“I’ve got to get to bed. Some other time, maybe.”
He went upstairs. After a while she followed. She tiptoed into the room. “Matthew?” she said softly. There was no answer.
They lay with their backs to each other. He was no more asleep than she, but for the life of her and the peace of her soul, she could not make herself speak. Toward midnight she heard him rise and go outside. It was a bright, moonlit night, and she could see him from the window. He stood there for a long time, just standing, looking all around. Then he passed slowly through the gate, across the barnlot, toward the pasture. Taking her shawl, she followed him.
She found him in a clearing, near a hawthorn in full bloom. She could see him from the shadows. She stood for a moment with her hands against her pounding heart. It was a chance she took.
“Help me, Lord,” she said and stepped out into the moonlight.
Having loved the peddler for one moment, she loved Matthew as she never had before. With all her heart she wanted the child to be his. Long before its birth she named it for him.
When the child came, perfectly formed, with her own look stamped unmistakably on it, she gave thanks to the Lord. “…the woman being deceived was in transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing.” The Lord had sent her a token of His mercy.
It was not until later, when the little girl’s nature began to reveal itself, that she was once more plagued with doubts. Yet in her heart she had made it Matthew’s daughter, and she would hold to that. And ever after, there was nothing she would not do to please him, nowhere she would not go, nothing she would not—however reluctantly—forgive him.
The years passed, and the small events of everyday sifted down like leaves and snow. Buried beneath them, the memory of her guilt lay quiet. Then Mathy died, and it rose savagely to haunt her. The Lord had bided His time and sent His punishment at last.
But then as she studied about it (wandering alone, standing long moments lost in thought), she came to the conclusion that this was not so. We do not die for each other’s sins; Christ alone did that, and that was not to punish but to save. For the rest of us, death is a natural occurrence, like the falling of the leaves or a fire going out. Mathy’s death was not a punishment of anyone, any more than her life had been. She had given them joy. Though her death hurt them, she had not died for that purpose. That was not God’s way. God is mercy, He is love. It said so in the Bible.
“And I don’t care what else it says, I know that’s the way it is.”
She was sitting on the grass, near the old crumbling chimney. She drew a long breath and looked up. “I wonder where that old hen was!” she said. And she rose and went home, easy in her soul.
4
That was a long time ago.
Now on this August morning, with seventy years behind her and eternity just ahead, she was troubled again. She was thinking that perhaps, after all, her God and Matthew’s differed. She had made hers up in her head. But Matthew was smart, he could read; perhaps his God of wrath was the real one and every word of the Bible true, though some were as bitter as gall. If this were so, then Mathy’s death had indeed been the warning which she would have done well to heed. Perhaps it was not enough to confess to the Lord—she should have confessed to Matthew. Told him everything and suffered the consequences, even to losing him.
Instead, she had taken a nip and a tuck in God and made Him fit her needs. She stayed in her green meadows. She kept her husband, her comfortable home. She held the love and respect of her children.
“I have been happy!” she cried woefully.
She had been, and she was. Though much had been taken and much had not come, she was happy.
“Is it a sin, Lord, considering what I did?” She stood in remorse on the pasture path, holding the berry bucket.
A flicker of white through the trees distracted her. She peered down the slope to where the branch spread into rivulets and drained into the slew. In the green light of the willows stood a large white bird. A heron, she thought. A white heron, the first she had ever seen. She stepped forward eagerly, careful to make no noise. The bird stood with his neck arched to the shallow water and took no notice of her. She moved on until she came within a few feet of him. Strange, humpbacked creature, how big and white and proud he was! He minced along, lifting his finicky feet and setting them down like a woman crossing a puddle. He was looking for frogs and little fish. Presently he lifted his head, the long neck arranged in an S, and seemed to listen. He sees me, she thought; birds didn’t need to turn their heads. They stood like this for a long moment, she and the heron, contemplating each other. Then slowly he lowered his foot and spread the wide white wings. She thought he was going to fly away. Instead, he folded the wings snug to his sides and, arching his neck again, picked his way toward the slew.
What a splendid sight he was. She thought him a good omen. It would be a good day. She climbed back up the path and, recalling all the day held in store, she felt giddy with happiness. She wanted to caper on the path, cut a shine. She sang aloud in her thin old voice,
“If a tree don’t fall on you
You’ll live till you die!”
Looking about her, she thought
how beautiful it was. For God so loved the world! She turned the words around—For God loved the world so! So much, so very much, as a child is loved, in pride and hope, and in pain, too. God’s love is infinite, past all understanding. How great then, beyond man’s comprehension, must be God’s suffering. For when His children erred, it must hurt Him, as all of us are hurt.
“O God,” she cried out in compassion. She had hurt Him. She had done wrong, and to tell the truth, she was not sorry. (And she had not learned to read.) What must she do now in recompense? How could she comfort Him?
She thought about it for a moment. “I love your world,” she said simply. It was what she could do.
She looked around at the good things she was granted—green fields, good pasture, shining weather. The air was fresh, the birds sang, and she had seen a white heron. Matthew was waiting for her. The children were coming home. And they would watch the moonflowers bloom. Oh, if she never got to heaven, this was enough, this lovely earth with its sunlight and its mornings and something always to look forward to. (Earth had that over heaven!)
She looked up at the clear sky. “Thank you,” she said and went home to breakfast.
About the Author
JETTA CARLETON (1913–1999) was born in Holden, Missouri, and earned a master’s degree at the University of Missouri. She worked as a schoolteacher, a radio copywriter in Kansas City, and a television advertising copywriter in New York City, and she ran a small publishing house with her husband in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Moonflower vine is her only published novel.
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Credits
Cover images: morning glory (color engraving) by Pierre Joseph Redoute (1759–1840) Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library; couple by George Marks/Getty Images
The Moonflower Vine Page 37