Watching them approach, Jane lifted her voice to them. “Dan, have you noticed how Leon has grown since the Fourth of July?”
Daniel, who hadn’t, said agreeably, “Sure has.”
“Haven’t I grown?” Bobby Lee wanted to know.
“Maybe,” Jane said. “I see you so much I don’t notice.”
“How about me?” Davy pled.
“No bigger than a flea,” Sarah said.
“I’m going to Savannah a whole month by myself,” Bobby Lee threatened, “and when I come back home, I’ll be a foot taller, I bet you, and you’ll say, ‘Hooee, look how big he is now!’”
Davy hissed derisively.
Sarah said, “I’ll hear no nos; everyone is staying for supper. Josephine, not me, says so. There’s no going against her when she makes up her mind. That includes you, Benjamin; and I want you to insist on Priscilla’s coming down too. You tell her I want her specially.”
“She won’t come,” Benjamin said.
“Try her.”
“I’ll go help you persuade her,” Jane offered.
“All right.”
As the two set off, Davy said he wanted to go, and Bobby Lee ran to join them with his brother. Compelled to look around, Benjamin found Leon gazing at him, so he said, “Come on, boy.” The brother and sister and their children disappeared into the shadows of trees that followed the old trail up to the Glade.
Daniel came and sat down beside Sarah. After a moment he said, “It’s like old times. Remember Aunt Nell and her rocking chair?” She smiled. “I wonder if God kept a record of her number of rocks; must have been a million or two.” They rocked to and fro with no further exchange until Casey came out on the porch and surprised them. Their heads were almost hidden by the high backs of the chairs. He tiptoed behind Sarah’s and caught it at the height of its rock. Pulling it to him, he kissed her on top of the head. When she turned her face to him, he exclaimed, “Good gracious me, I thought you were Jane!”
Daniel whipped his chair around and started to rise, only to find Casey laughing at him. Resuming his seat, he said, “You’re only funning, Casey.”
Casey said to Sarah, “I’m going to show it tonight. Yes, madam. Months in the doing, it is finally done.”
“Casey!”
“That’s why I put Josephine up to the party.”
“I wondered what got into her. She loves a party more than ants do, but never thinks one up. You’ve been secret about it.”
“Sneaky as a hound sucking eggs,” he admitted.
Sarah smiled in anticipation. “You like it.”
Casey nodded. “I finished it two weeks ago; I’ve even varnished and framed it. But I was waiting for things to settle down.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You wouldn’t have let me wait, and I wasn’t having people traipse in for a glance one at a time, between the cotton picking and the wood chopping and the hog slopping and the chicken feeding. No, sir and ma’am. It is to be unveiled. It is covered with a sheet at this minute, safe from chance intruders.”
“What the devil are you carrying on about?” Daniel asked mildly. “Some kind of picture?”
Casey said, “One that will have you bowing your head and wiping your eyes and blowing your nose.”
Daniel grunted. “Picture of somebody with a bad cold.”
Casey said, “Why, you’re funning, Dan.”
At the same time Priscilla too was being surprised on her porch, but less happily. Velma was out by the brook with the baby after bathing and dressing her to show her off to her father when he returned from his day’s work. As the walkers from Beulah Land came up the hill, Benjamin took the child from Velma and kissed her chest through her muslin frock to make her laugh. Then he squatted so that the boys might see her. Jane went on to the porch, joining Priscilla.
“She smells like vanilla,” Bobby Lee volunteered.
“Milk,” Davy said.
“You want to hold Bruce?” Benjamin asked Leon.
Leon poked out his arms as if they were to be loaded with stove wood for the kitchen fires. Benjamin gave his daughter to his son. Bruce lifted fat fingers to investigate the face she did not know.
Velma said flatteringly, “Never see her do that with nobody; did you, Mister Ben?”
“Milk,” Davy repeated decisively.
Priscilla called sharply from the porch, “Benjamin! Give that baby back to Velma!”
Velma looked to Benjamin, and when he nodded, took Bruce from Leon, who looked relieved.
“She don’t smell as bad as most babies,” Bobby Lee said to Davy. “You smell your own lip.”
“Sour milk,” Davy insisted.
Benjamin left them. As he stepped up to the porch, Priscilla was saying to Jane, “The last several Sundays after church Betty stops to talk to you, and when she does, Tom Cooper comes and joins in. Mama wants to know what they talk about—if there’s something peculiar about it.”
“How could there be?” Jane said coolly. “They’ve always known each other.”
“She means special and particular.”
“I can’t say as to that.”
“It wouldn’t be suitable.”
“You mean because he’s older?” Jane smiled. “He was one of my beaux before I married, but not a very earnest one, and that doesn’t make him elderly.”
“He’s a farmer,” Priscilla said. “Mama doesn’t want to lose Elizabeth.”
“His farm is little further from town than ours.”
“It would break her heart to have us both living in the country.”
“It hasn’t anything to do with me, has it?” Jane pointed out.
“If you would watch her and let me know what you think—”
Jane said shortly, “I shall not do that.”
“Elizabeth is young and unsteady—”
“Think what you’re suggesting,” Jane said.
“Mama is anxious,” Priscilla said, “and asked me to ask you.”
“She’d do better to ask Betty.”
“She’s done so, but she doesn’t trust her to tell the truth.”
“Then she shouldn’t trust me either.” Jane looked to Benjamin for help, only to see that he was looking to her the same way, wanting her to present their grandmother’s invitation. Welcoming the deflection, she said, “I came up with Ben because Grandma wants all of us to have supper tonight with her and Casey. Especially you. It’s a family party, a family evening.”
Priscilla laughed uncertainly. “I couldn’t even sit down before one of Josephine’s gargantuan meals. It’s been so hot again today.”
“I want you to come,” Benjamin said.
“I’m sure you do,” Priscilla said blandly. She hesitated, as if considering going for Jane’s sake. “Better not. Freda has already— she wouldn’t like it, I know.”
“I’ll speak to Freda,” Benjamin said.
“I know how well you manage her, but don’t,” Priscilla said, “for I’m not going with you.” Priscilla shifted her eyes from them to the children at the brookside. “Your boys are surely—oh, look. The big one pushed the little one in.”
“Bobby Lee!” Jane called. “You stop that, you hear, or I’ll make you learn the names of the books of the Old Testament by next Sunday.”
Priscilla said, “Is it wise to use the Bible as a threat?”
“It’s the only way I can get him to mind,” Jane said unrepentantly. “He hates it worse than washing his feet before bedtime. Davy! Are you wet?”
Velma answered for him. “Just his legs. I felt him and the rest of him is dry as a pine cone.”
“Change your mind,” Jane coaxed. “You don’t have to change your clothes. Look at me wearing what I had on.”
Priscilla said, “Mrs. Troy must excuse me from the welcome for her visitor. I’m surprised you approve him as a playfellow to your children.”
Jane made herself smile. “They like him as much as they do each other. Perhaps more.”
&
nbsp; “Why won’t you come?” Benjamin said to his wife.
She looked directly at him. “You know good and well.”
Pretending not to notice the bitterness in Priscilla’s voice, Jane smiled again and strolled away to the brook.
Priscilla said, “Take that boy out of my sight. How dared you bring him up here?” Benjamin continued to look at her a moment longer before leaving the porch to rejoin the group below. Priscilla picked up the sewing basket she had set on the floor when Jane came. Then she turned her chair deliberately so that it faced away from the visitors.
26
Daniel’s head was bowed, his eyes wet. He then did what they would later say was an extraordinary thing. He went to Casey and embraced him. Everyone applauded. Although he himself had come to Beulah Land a Union deserter in the last year of the war, he had resented Casey as an outsider Yankee and grudged Casey’s admission to Beulah Land as Sarah’s husband; and he had been jealous of every man Sarah or Jane smiled upon.
Casey was a clever and accurate portraitist, and sometimes more, but all were agreed that his painting of Jane was his finest work. It realized every feature; no finger or eyebrow was in question, not the angle of an elbow wrong. It showed the blooming beauty of the woman, and it showed what she was. Her directness and calm were there, her humor, her capacity for love, her strength that could occasionally become impatience and pride. There too were shadows of the past, acknowledged but not allowed to predominate.
So, when the normally reserved and distrustful Daniel Todd, seeing the portrait for the first time, was surprised into making his feelings known, Casey thought that he had never had a better compliment to his work, or one harder earned.
“I wish,” Sarah said to Benjamin, “Priscilla had come.”
“You think people alter, given the right impulse at the right moment.” Benjamin shook his head.
She considered him. “You don’t seem unhappy.”
“No.”
She looked a question, but he offered no answer.
It was a happy evening. They ate heartily of the supper Josephine and Mabella set before them, and talk ran free, from recent harvesting to speculation on next year’s prices, from the day’s town gossip to family stories, most of which were known to all except Leon. Funny incidents and grim times were recalled, and everyone was true, or had started so and still retained basic truth, whatever shading the teller imposed. The lighter recollections were not favored over the dark; all had a place in the family heart, and there seemed nothing incongruous in remembering the hunger at the end of the war as they enjoyed the present rewards of their labors.
After supper Jane went to the piano and played for the others to sing, and when she complained of their being lackadaisical about it, they blamed Josephine for feeding them too well, and gave their attention to the albums of photographs Casey brought out to show them, one leading to another and taking them back to the wedding pictures of Sarah’s sister Lauretta to the Union Colonel Varnedoe. That had been in 1865. They paused longest over the collection of family poses Casey had made on each January first after his marriage to Sarah.
They went back to the portrait; they could not have enough of it. Even Jane, in whom there was little of Narcissus, stared long at it, coming to her own terms with what had been set down of her. There is no face stranger than one’s own.
When Davy began to doze, Bobby Lee kicked his foot. Josephine came to ask if everyone wasn’t hungry again, and everyone said no; but Mabella followed immediately with a cake tray and teapot and a pitcher of milk for the boys. It was then Leon enjoyed the third quarter of his chocolate pie. Bobby Lee and Davy watched him soberly as they swallowed more walnut cake. They weren’t resentful of his not offering them a share; they understood each other’s rights and ownership. Davy began to yawn again when he finished the cake, and Jane said they would be heading home, but no one got up to go until Mabella returned to say a last good night and to announce that she had never seen such a moon as was in the sky and she wished they would all go out and look at it.
They did so and praised her for bringing it to their attention. They’d never known such moonlight and wondered why it was so bright and if it meant anything and lost themselves in admiration of it. “It’s not even full,” Benjamin commented.
“As near as never mind,” Sarah decided. “It’s the harvest moon, the same every year, only we forget, and it surprises us.”
They went their ways at last, Casey promising Daniel he’d deliver the portrait tomorrow morning after he doubled the wire on the frame. He wanted to hang it himself when they decided where it was to go. Daniel carried a son on either shoulder, for they claimed they were unable to walk a step. Jane declared they were simply lazy and administered a couple of slaps to their behinds to let them know that was the end of indulgence for the night. When Sarah kissed Leon and told him to go to bed, he shook hands formally with Casey and Benjamin. Sarah had settled him in the room that had been Nell’s. All her furniture had gone to Bianca’s cabin and the room had been refurnished with a piece borrowed from here and another subtracted from there. Nothing at Beulah Land was thrown away, merely shifted or set aside until someone discovered a new use for it. The room was already being called Leon’s. His clothes and toys were there, and Sarah and Benjamin had decided in brief consultation to take him to town tomorrow to buy him new ones.
Benjamin took his leave, and Sarah and Casey went to their room, where they would dawdle over undressing in order to savor the evening again by recounting bits of it to each other. Benjamin was tired but not sleepy. He lingered in the side yard enjoying the cool night until one of the barn cats ran past him, making him start. As if that were a signal, he turned toward the Glade. He had gone only a few steps when he heard Leon’s voice. “Good night, sir.” Benjamin went to a window to find the boy leaning on the ledge. “I blew my lamp out and got in bed,“ Leon began to explain, and got no further.
“You’re not hungry, are you?” Benjamin asked.
“No, sir,” Leon said, and they both laughed. In spite of the brightness of the night Leon could not see Benjamin’s face clearly because it was toward him, away from the moon. That made it easier for him to say, “Can I go with you tomorrow?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“I don’t know what I’ll be doing.”
“I won’t get in the way.”
“Are you sure you hadn’t rather play?”
“I can play with Davy and Bobby Lee any time.”
“All right.”
Benjamin started to say more and then thought he’d better not. Instead he said, “Go to bed now. I get up early.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Benjamin turned away, hesitated, and turned back once more. “Good night, son.”
“Good night, Pa.”
Leon rose early next morning, as he was to do every morning of his stay at Beulah Land. He woke to the sound of crowing and wings flapping. He saw from his bed by the window the first stretching and yawning of the farm dogs as they set out on tours of the grounds, which darkness and dew had made mysterious and new. When he heard Mabella in the kitchen starting the cooking fires, he dressed to join her, enjoying the sound of her talking to the stove, flattering the wood into catching, scolding the smoke, and adjusting the damper. Josephine allowed herself “not best pleased” to find him in the kitchen a quarter hour later when she arrived to begin her day. Josephine liked a quiet time in the morning, followed by a muttered monologue concerning the flaws in Mabella’s character and her shortcomings as a kitchen helper. Instead, she had to listen to Mabella’s being appreciated and thanked again for making the chocolate pie. The stove fired, Mabella began to set the table in the dining room for breakfast, Leon following her back and forth as they chattered until Josephine found herself, as she was not slow in telling them, “nearly distracted.” Distraction did not, however, keep her from pounding steaks and sifting flour and mixing in lard and beginning to roll dough. W
hen the new milk was brought from the barn, Mabella strained it and set it to cool and then skimmed the cream from last night’s milking to churn butter.
Sarah appeared soon after, and when she’d had some words with Josephine and Mabella, she and Leon visited the back yards and the nearer barn, where they found four kittens lapping milk from an old blackened pie tin that had been set down for them. The mules and horses were stamping in their stalls and whisking their tails, as much to announce that they were awake and restless as to discourage flies. The hogs were lined up before the dry troughs of their pen outside the barn grunting metronomically as they waited for the first feeding of the day.
Benjamin met them in the yard, having already spoken to Zadok about the day’s work and holloed to Daniel across a field. The three went in to breakfast, ready by then for steak and biscuits, grits and gravy, peach preserves, and for Leon the last of the chocolate pie. After eating, the man and the boy walked to the pasture where Zadok had started three of the men digging postholes for new fencing. When Benjamin continued talking to Zadok, Leon climbed a pear tree to examine a bird’s nest and was pleased to find that his fist fitted exactly into its soft deserted cup. When he came down, Benjamin and Zadok were counting in unison as they paced off a section of earth in measuring strides; and then Leon and Benjamin walked down to the lowest, wettest field, where the sugarcane grew. There, half a dozen men were busy cutting it for grinding into juice to make syrup. Benjamin took a knife from his belt and cut off a section of a stalk, stripping away purple rind and notching pieces of the cane, which he and Leon then broke off to chew for the sweet juice.
It was midmorning that they went back to the big house and found Sarah ready to go with them into Highboro. Brian Sullivan was glad to see them, and as he fitted Leon with “the best navy blue all-wool cassimere reefer suit a boy can have,” he consoled himself for the loss of favors from the boy’s mother by reflecting that he should never, at any rate, have to pay for the clothes of the brat she was carrying in her belly. Let the high and mighty of Beulah Land do that, if it pleased them to acknowledge their transgressions. He sold them two pairs of shoes, two pairs of knee pants, and another suit, a four-piece combination consisting of jacket, two pairs of pants, and matching cap. Their next stop was Mrs. Bascom’s candy store, where Leon was allowed to choose peppermint sticks for himself and the Todd boys. Then they went to the post office for mail. Finding no letter from Bessie, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
The Legacy of Beulah Land Page 16