by Thomas Wolfe
"I said to myself, 'I'd hate to git mixed up in any trouble with him,'
I says, 'I'll bet a feller like that could hit you an awful lick if you git him mad....' How much do you weigh?" she would then say, still smiling, but with those cold, narrowed, grey eyes measuring the unhappy stranger up and down.
And when the wretched man had stammered out his weight, she would say softly, in a contemplative fashion: "Uh-huh!" And after going over him a moment longer with those merciless and slitlike eyes, she would say, with an air of hearty finality: "Well, you're a big 'un, sure enough! I'll bet you'll be a big help to your paw an' maw when you git your growth--har!--har!--har!--har!" And the choking scream of laughter would then burst from her Atlantean breasts and bull-like throat.
When she spoke of her husband she always referred to him as "Lampley," and this was the way she always addressed him. Her tone when she spoke of him certainly had in it nothing that could be described as affection, for such a feeling would have had no more place in her nature than a swan upon the breast of the flood-tide Mississippi, but her tone had in it a note of brutal and sensual satisfaction that somehow told plainly and terribly of a perfect marriage of savage and limitless sexual energies, and of a mate in the battered figure of that little bullock man who could match and fit this mountain of a woman perfectly in an epic, night-long bout of lust and passion.
Mrs. Lampley spoke constantly, openly, vulgarly, and often with a crude, tremendous humor, of the sexual act, and although she never revealed the secrets of her own marriage bed--if a union so savage, complete, and obvious as the one between herself and her husband could be called a secret--she did not for a moment hesitate to publish her opinions on the subject to the world, to give young married couples, or young men and their girls, advice that would make them flush to the roots of their hair, and to scream with merriment when she saw their confusion.
Her son, Baxter, at this time a youth of eighteen, had just a year or two before taken a young girl by force, a well-developed and seductive red-haired girl of fourteen. This event, so far from causing his mother any distress, had seemed to her so funny that she had published it to the whole town, describing with roars of laughter her interview with the girl's outraged mother: "Why, hell yes!" she said. "She came down here to see me, all broke out in a sweat about it, sayin' Baxter had ruined her daughter an' what was I goin' to do about it!--'Now, you look a-here!' I said. 'You jist git down off your high horse! He's ruined no one,' I says, 'for there was no one to ruin to begin with'--har!--har!--har!--har!"- the full, choking scream burst from her throat--"'Now,' I says, 'if she turns out to be a whore, she'll come by it natural'--har!--har!--har!- har!--'an'Baxter didn't make her one,' I says. 'What do you mean?
What do you mean?' she says--oh! gittin' red as a ripe termater an' beginnin' to shake her finger in my face--'I'll have you put in jail fer slander,' she says, 'that's what I'll do!'
'Slander!' I says, 'Slander!
Well, if it's slander,' I says, 'the law has changed since my day and time. It's the first time I ever knew you could slander a whore,' I says, 'by callin' her by her right name.'
'Don't you call my daughter no name like that,' she says, oh, madder'n a wet hen, you know--'Don't you dare to! I'll have you arrested,' she says. 'Why, God-damn you!'
I says--that's just the way I talked to her, you know, 'everyone knows what your daughter is!' I says, 'so you git on out of here,' I says, 'before I git mad an' tell you something you may not like to hear!'- and I'm tellin' you, she went!" And the huge creature leaned back gasping for a moment.
"Hell!" she went on quietly in a moment, "I asked Baxter about it and he told me. 'Baxter,' I says, 'that woman has been here now an' I want to know: did you jump on that girl an' take it from her?'
'Why, mama,' he says, 'take it from her? Why, she took it from me!' says Baxter--har!--har!--har!--har!"--the tremendous laughter filled her throat and choked her. "'Hell!' says Baxter, 'she throwed me down an' almost broke my back! If I hadn't done like I did I don't believe she'd ever a-let me out of there!'--har!--har!--har!--har!--I reckon ole Baxter figgered it might as well be him as the next one," she panted, wiping at her streaming eyes. "I reckon he figgered he might as well git a little of it while the gittin' was good. But Lord!" she sighed, "I laffed about that thing until my sides was sore--har!- har!--har!--har!--har!"--and the enormous creature came forward in her creaking chair again, as the huge laughter filled her, and made the walls tremble with its limitless well of power.
Towards her own daughter, however, whose name was Grace, and who was fifteen at this time, Mrs. Lampley was virtuously, if brutally, attentive. In both the children the inhuman vitality of their parents was already apparent, and in the girl, especially, the measureless animal power of her mother had already developed. At fifteen, she was a tremendous creature, almost as tall as her mother, and so fully matured that the flimsy little cotton dresses which she wore, and which would have been proper for most children of her age, were almost obscenely inadequate. In the heavy calves, swelling thighs, and full breasts of this great, white-fleshed creature of fifteen years there was already evident a tremendous seductiveness; men looked at her with a terrible fascination and felt the wakening of unreasoning desire, and turned their eyes away from her with a feeling of strong shame.
Over this girl's life already there hung the shadow of fatality. With out knowing why, one felt certain that this great creature must come to grief and ruin--as one reads that giants die early, and things which are too great in nature for the measure of the world destroy them selves. In the girl's large, vacant, and regularly beautiful face, and in the tender, empty, and sensual smile which dwelt forever there, this legend of unavoidable catastrophe was plainly written.
The girl rarely spoke, and seemed to have no variety of passion save that indicated by her constant, limitlessly sensual, and vacant smile.
And as she stood obedient and docile beside her mother, and that huge creature spoke of her with a naked frankness, and as the girl smiled always that tender, vacant smile as if her mother's words had no mean ing for her, the feeling of something inhuman and catastrophic in the natures of these people was overwhelming: "Yes," Mrs. Lampley would drawl, as the girl stood smiling vacantly at her side. "She's growed up here on me before I knowed it, an' I got to watch her all the time now to keep some son-of-a-bitch from knockin' her up an' ruinin' her. Here only a month or two ago two of these fellers down here at the livery stable--you know who I mean," she said carelessly, and in a soft, contemptuous voice--"that dirty, good-fer-nothin' Pegram feller an' that other low-down bastard he runs around with--what's his name, Grace?" she said impatiently, turning to the girl.
"That's Jack Cashman, mama," the girl answered in a soft and gentle tone, without changing for a second the tender, vacant smile upon her face.
"Yeah, that's him!" said Mrs. Lampley. "That low-down Cashman- if I ever ketch him foolin' around here again I'll break his neck, an' I reckon he knows it, too," she said grimly. "Why, I let her out, you know, one night along this Spring, to mail some letters," she went on in an explanatory tone, "an' told her not to be gone more'n half an hour--an' these two fellers picked her up in a buggy they was drivin' an' took her fer a ride way up the mountain side. Well, I waited an' waited till ten o'clock had struck, an' still she didn't come. An' I walked the floor, an' walked the floor, an' waited--an' by that time I was al- most out of my head! I'll swear, I thought I would go crazy," she said slowly and virtuously. "I didn't know what to do. An' finally, when I couldn't stand it no longer, I went upstairs an' waked Lampley up. Of course, you know Lampley," she chuckled. "He goes to bed early. He's in bed every night by nine o'clock, and he ain't goin' to lose sleep over nobody. Well, I waked him up," she said slowly. "' Lampley,' I says, 'Grace's been gone from here two hours, an' I'm goin' to find her if I have to spend the rest of the night lookin' for her.'--'Well how you gain' to find her,' he says, 'if you don't know where she's gone?'--'I don't know,' I says, 'but I'll fi
nd her if I've got to walk every street an' break into every house in town--an' if I find some son-of-a-bitch has taken advantage of her, I'll kill him with my bare hands,'" said Mrs.
Lampley. "'I'll kill the two of them together--for I'd rather see her layin' dead than know she's turned out to be a whore'--that's what I said to him," said Mrs. Lampley.
During all this time, the girl stood obediently beside the chair in which her mother sat, smiling her tender, vacant smile, and with no other sign of emotion whatever.
"Well," said Mrs. Lampley slowly, "then I heard her. I heard her while I was talkin' to Lampley, openin' the door easylike an' creepin' up the stairs. Well, I didn't say nothin--I just waited until I heard her tiptoe in along the hall past Lampley's door--an' then I opened it an' called to her. 'Grace,' I said, 'where've you been?'--Well," said Mrs.
Lampley with an air of admission, "she told me. She never tried to lie to me. I'll say that fer her, she's never lied to me yet. If she did," she added grimly, "I reckon she knows I'd break her neck."
And the girl stood there passively, smiling all the time.
"Well, then," said Mrs. Lampley, "she told me who she'd been with and where they'd been. Well--I thought I'd go crazy!" the woman said slowly and deliberately. "I took her by the arms an' looked at her.
'Grace,' I said, 'you look me in the eye an' tell me the truth--did those two fellers do anything to you?'--'No,' she says.--'Well, you come with me,' I says, 'I'll find out if you're telling me the truth, if I've got to kill you to git it out of you.'"
And for a moment the huge creature was silent, staring grimly ahead, while her daughter stood beside her and smiled her gentle and imperturbably sensual smile.
"Well," said Mrs. Lampley slowly, as she stared ahead, "I took her down into the cellar--and," she said with virtuous accents of slight regret, "I don't suppose I should have done it to her, but I was so worried--so worried," she cried strangely, "to think that after all the bringin' up she'd had, an' all the trouble me an' Lampley had taken tryin' to keep her straight--that I reckon I went almost crazy.... I reached down an' tore loose a board in an old packin' case we had down there," she said slowly, "an' I beat her! I beat her," she cried powerfully, "until the blood soaked through her dress an' run down on the floor.... I beat her till she couldn't stand," cried Mrs. Lampley, with an accent of strange maternal virtue in her voice, "I beat her till she got down on her knees an' begged fer mercy--now that was how hard I beat her," she said proudly. "An' you know it takes a lot to make Grace cry--she won't cry fer nothin'--so you may know I beat her mighty hard," said Mrs. Lampley, in a tone of strong satisfaction.
And during all this time the girl just stood passively with her sweet and vacant smile, and presently Mrs. Lampley heaved a powerful sigh of maternal tribulation, and, shaking her head slowly, said: "But, Lord! Lord! They're a worry an' a care to you from the moment that they're born! You sweat an' slave to bring 'em up right--an' even then you can't tell what will happen. You watch 'em day an' night -an' then the first low-down bastard that comes along may git 'em out an' ruin 'em the first time your back is turned!"
And again she sighed heavily, shaking her head. And in this grotesque and horribly comic manifestation of motherly love and solicitude, and in the vacant, tender smile upon the girl's large, empty face there really was something moving, terribly pitiful, and unutterable.
Whenever George thought of this savage and tremendous family, his vision always returned again to Mr. Lampley himself, whose last, whose greatest secrecy, was silence. He talked to no one more than the barest necessity of business speech demanded, and when he spoke, either in question or reply, his speech was as curt and monosyllabic as speech could be, and his hard, blazing eyes, which he kept pointed as steady as a pistol at the face of anyone to whom he spoke or listened, repelled effectively any desire for a more spacious conversation. Yet, when he did speak, his voice was never surly, menacing, or snarling.
It was a low, hard, toneless voice, as steady and unwavering as his hard black eyes, yet not unpleasant in its tone or timbre; it was, like everything about him save the naked, blazing eyes--hard, secret, and contained. He simply fastened his furious and malignant little eyes on one and spoke as brief and short as possible.
"Talk!" a man said. "Why, hell, he don't need to talk! He just stands there and lets those eyes of his do all the talkin' for him!" And this was true.
Beyond this bare anatomy of speech, George had heard him speak on only one occasion. This had been one day when he had come to make collections for the meat he had delivered. At this time it was known in the town that Mr. Lampley's son, Baxter, had been accused of stealing money from the man he worked for, and that--so ran the whispered and discreditable rumor--Baxter had been compelled to leave town. On this day when Mr. Lampley came to make collections, Aunt Maw, spurred by her native curiosity, and the desire that people have to hear the confirmation of their worst suspicions from the lips of those who are most painfully concerned, spoke to the butcher with the obvious and clumsy casualness of tone that people use on these occasions: "Oh, Mr. Lampley," she said, as if by an afterthought when she had paid him, "say--by the way--I was meanin' to ask you. What's be come of Baxter? I was thinkin' just the other day, I don't believe I've seen him for the last month or two."
During all the time she spoke, the man's blazing eyes never faltered in their stare upon her face, and they neither winked nor wavered as he answered.
"No," he said, in his low, hard, toneless voice, "I don't suppose you have. He's not livin' here any more. He's in the navy."
"What say?" Aunt Maw cried eagerly, opening the screen door a trifle wider and moving forward. "The navy?" she said sharply.
"Yes, ma'am," said Mr. Lampley tonelessly, "the navy. It was a ques tion of join the navy or go to jail. I gave him his choice. He joined the navy," Mr. Lampley said grimly.
"What say? Jail?" she said eagerly.
"Yes, ma'am," Mr. Lampley replied. "He stole money from the man he was workin' for, as I reckon maybe you have heard by now. He done something he had no right to do. He took money that did not belong to him," he said with a brutal stubbornness. "When they caught him at it they came to me and told me they'd let him go if I'd make good the money that he'd stolen. So I said to him: 'All right. I'll give 'em the money if you join the navy. Now, you can take your choice- it's join the navy or go to jail. What do you want to do?' He joined the navy," Mr. Lampley again concluded grimly.
As for Aunt Maw, she stood for a moment reflectively, and now, her sharp curiosity having been appeased by this blunt and final statement, a warmer, more engaging sentiment of friendliness and sympathy was awakened in her: "Well, now, I tell you what," she said hopefully, "I believe you did just the thing you should have done. I believe that's the very thing Baxter needs. Why, yes!" she now cried cheerfully. "He'll go off there and see the world and meet up with all kinds of people, and learn to keep the proper sort of hours and lead a good, normal, healthy sort of life--for there's one thing sure," she said oracularly, "you can't violate the laws of nature. If you do, you'll have to pay for it some day as sure as you're born," she said solemnly, as she shook her head, "as sure as you're born."
"Yes, ma'am," said Mr. Lampley in his low, toneless voice, keeping his little blazing eyes fixed straight upon her.
"Why, yes," Aunt Maw cried again, and this time with the vigorous accents of a mounting cheerful certitude, "they'll teach that boy a trade and regular habits and the proper way to live, and you mark my words, everything's goin' to turn out good for him," she said with heartening conviction. "He'll forget all about this trouble. Why, yes!- the whole thing will blow right over, people will forget all about it.
Why, say! everyone is liable to make a mistake sometime, aren't they?" she said persuasively. "That happens to everyone--and I'll bet you, I'll bet you anything you like that when that boy comes back-----"
"He ain't comin' back," said Mr. Lampley.
"What say?" Aunt Maw cried in a sharp, s
tartled tone.
"I said he ain't comin' back," said Mr. Lampley.
"Why what's the reason he's not?" she said.
"Because if he does," said Mr. Lampley, "I'll kill him. And he knows it."
She stood looking at him for a moment with a slight frown.
"Oh, Mr. Lampley," she said quietly, shaking her head with a genial regret, "I'm sorry to hear you say that. I don't like to hear you talk that way."
He stared at her grimly for a moment with his furious, blazing eyes.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, as if he had not heard her. "I'll kill him. If he ever comes back here, I'll kill him. I'll beat him to death," he said.
Aunt Maw looked at him, shaking her head a little, saying with a closed mouth: "Huh, huh, huh, huh."
He was silent.
"I never could stand a thief," he said at length. "If it'd been any thing else, I could've forgotten it. But a thief!" for the first time his voice rose hoarsely on a surge of passion. "Ah-h-h!" he muttered, stroking his head, and now there was a queer note of trouble and bewilderment in his hard tone. "You don't know! You don't know," he said, "the trouble I have had with that boy! His mother an' me done all we could for him. We worked hard an' we tried to raise him right- but we couldn't do nothing with him," he muttered. "He was a bad egg." He looked at her quietly a moment with his little, blazing eyes.
Then he said, slowly and deliberately, and with a note of strong rising virtue in his voice, "I beat him, I beat him till he couldn't stand up--I beat him till the blood ran down his back--but it didn't do no more good than if I was beatin' at a post," he said. "No, ma'am. I might as well have beaten at a post."