Читать книгу Before the Sun Goes Down - Elizabeth Metzger Howard - Страница 7

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This late August afternoon Lillian Albright was ten years and eleven months old and Prissy Sargent was ten years and seven months old. Lillian was a tall, slim little girl who, like her mother, had shadowy gray eyes, straw-colored curls, and a complexion, Dan Field called golden, which was darker than her hair. Prissy Sargent was short and plump, with brilliant black eyes under sweeping lashes like her father’s, dimpled rosy cheeks, and a thick brown pigtail.

From the Albright lawn the two little girls could hear the hammering on the new school, and they were both thinking the same thing. Excepting themselves and Ginny Price, who was only seven years old, and Margaret and Dorothy Taylor, who were seventeen and sixteen, soon all the children would be going to the new school. Even Rufe, Sammy, Bert, and Alexander would be going, because best-family boys could do lots of things best-family girls couldn’t do. Why, at the moment Rufe and Sammy were playing on the vacant lot with some town children, though Rufe was fifteen and too old to be playing children’s games.

Lillian and Prissy enjoyed carrying their little noses high. Still, they were lonely at times; there was not a single other best-family little girl their own age. Today they’d rolled their hoops around and around the yard and they’d dressed and undressed their big wax dolls.

“Sometimes I wish I was a boy,” Lillian sighed.

“Why?” Prissy demanded.

There she goes, Lillian thought, acting like she doesn’t know what I mean when she always knows what I mean, like I always know what she means. Like now she knows I want to be a boy ’cause boys can play with town children and have fun.

“What do you want to be a boy for?” Prissy went on. “Boys are grubby.”

“Rufe’s not grubby,” Lillian defended.

“Bert’s not grubby either.” Prissy giggled. “But look at Sammy.”

Lillian flushed: that mean Prissy, saying Sammy was grubby. But how could she answer Prissy? Even Mama said Sammy was never clean.

And Prissy announced loftily, “You ought to be thankful you’re born who you are and not common, Lillian Albright.”

Lillian sighed once more. “I suppose so.” Then her heart missed a beat. “Oh, here’s Alexander.”

“I see him,” Prissy said. Her heart also missed a beat.

Alexander was a frail, brown-haired boy of twelve, who had a rose-leaf complexion and timid brown eyes. Before entering the Albright gate he could see the children playing on the vacant lot. And the sight of the children and the pounding of the hammers on the new school made him quake inwardly.

Alexander’s mother continually told him that if he trusted in God he’d nothing to fear. On the very day his father died, she told him over and over, his father had said, “I have trusted in God and I’ve nothing to fear.” Alexander kept telling himself that he really did trust in God so he’d nothing to fear. But the town boys and Sammy Albright, too, made his life a misery. And now he’d not be going back to Miss Fisher’s school with Lillian and Prissy but to the public school.

However, coming up to the little girls, he tried to speak lightly. “Guess the new school’s pretty near done.”

“Do you think you’ll like going, Alexander?” Prissy asked.

“Of course,” Alexander lied.

And there goes Alexander, Lillian thought, making believe we don’t know he’ll hate the new school, like he lets on he don’t know we hear when the other boys call him “sissy.”

A voice from next door called, “Prissy.”

“Oh dear,” Prissy fussed, “Mama’s calling. I’ll have to go home. You’d better go, too, Alexander. Auntie Pris will be calling Lillian, soon.”

“You don’t have to go, Alexander,” Lillian announced. “Mama’s out.”

Next to his mother Alexander loved Lillian and Prissy more than anyone. However, until today he never could decide which one was his favorite. But sitting propped against the trunk of a big maple tree, Prissy gone and his eyes on Lillian, he suddenly knew. It was Lillian he loved best, Lillian with her gray eyes and fair curls. Maybe after he grew up he’d find words to tell her how much he loved her.

This day the best he could muster was, “Well, Lillian, I’ll miss not being at Miss Fisher’s with you.”

Captain George entered the yard.

“Hello, Papa,” Lillian called.

“Hello, dear.” He came along. “How are you, Alexander?”

“Well, thanks,” Alexander gulped. He always felt fearful of the great handsome figure who was Lillian’s father.

“Better run along home,” George instructed. “Time Lillian came indoors.”

Alexander ran as fast as his legs would take him.

“Where’s Mama?” George asked Lillian.

“She’s out,” Lillian answered, hoping Papa wouldn’t mind. He always wanted Mama home to greet him.

Today he didn’t seem to mind. His blue eyes crinkled and his white teeth flashed the way they did when he was quite pleased. Wondering, Lillian picked up her wax doll and followed him into the house.

At the time the brides were brought to Willowspring, George the First and Rufus the First already had built the identical great gray stone houses standing far back under the spreading branches of tall sugar maples. And until the grandchildren were well grown the outsides of each place remained the same—the pump on the back porch; the gray stone icehouse covered by rambler roses; the outhouse with one room for the family’s use and one for the hired help; the tall trellis between the yard and garden where the Concord grapevines grew; the lilac-lined path along the flower garden to the chicken coop, barn, and vegetable fields; the apple trees and the plum and cherry and peach trees around the far fields, where the cows were pastured and the hog sties stood and where violets and daisies grew in springtime.

Within each house was a wide entrance hall and a wide winding stairway. Double doors on both sides of the hall led left to the thirty-foot parlor and right to the sitting room, dining room, and kitchen. The second floor had five bedrooms and in 1880 a bathroom. And the third floor had three rooms: the playroom, the hired girl’s room, and a storage room. The walls of the first and second stories were fifteen feet high and the walls of the third story were twelve feet high. While, if the furnishings of the two houses were not uniform, there was such a similarity about them that any piece in one house might be taken to be a counterpart of one in the other—massive oak chairs and tables and huge walnut beds and bureaus and washstands and marble-topped pedestals to hold the big lamps. Even the great square pianos were alike.

Entering the Albright house Lillian went upstairs. Captain George hung his hat on the hall rack, stepped through the portieres into the sitting room, and settled himself in an easy chair. At forty George had gained some weight and his yellow curls were a bit gray, but his eyes were as blue and his teeth as fine and white as they’d ever been.

He took a copy of the Philadelphia Public Ledger out of a pocket and his eyes rested upon a certain item. All right, he thought, for perhaps the third time since the paper had been delivered. “Progressive Mayor of Willowspring, Pa.,” the column began, and it went on to say that although Willowspring was a small town it was one of the most progressive places in the state because of a mayor like Captain George Albright, through whose influence a modern temple for the education of its youth was being erected.

As he had done many times before, George wished his father might have lived to see how he was carrying on. Although Pa, George speculated, would be aghast at his grandsons playing with town children, not to mention their going to the new public school. How he’d worried because Tim couldn’t be kept away from the rabble! But George himself felt his boys would be the better off for having played with and gone to school with men they must later meet in the business world. And he also felt it wasn’t a bad idea if Rufe and Sammy associated a bit with the town girls. Until he’d attended college he’d never had a girl ... and then he’d met Viola Larsen. Vi ...

Still, his father would be proud of him, George knew. And Uncle Rufus would be proud of Rufus, no doubt. Rufus’s only trouble was never being satisfied to let well enough alone. Now his arc-light scheme ... Rufus didn’t seem to understand tradition was what counted. George shrugged, remembering that upstart Ralph Pettigrew who’d run against him last election. Why, since the days of their fathers no one had ever held the mayoralty except an Albright or a Sargent. What was more, no one ever would hold that office while there was an Albright or Sargent of proper age upon the horizon.

Lillian entered the room. What a lovely little girl she is, George thought fondly. And fine boys, Rufe and Sammy. And Pris ... George’s eyes grew tender. There was a wife, lovely and dutiful. The only time he could ever remember Pris being obstinate was when she would name their first baby Rufus, after her father. Yet Pa had been living then and the first Albright baby should by all rights have been George the Third. But Pris had absolutely defied him. And the second baby, named George, lived a short four months.

But where was Pris?

“Lillian, where is your mother?”

Lillian, who had seated herself, bent over some embroidery, began wiggling. “I—I—said Mama’s out, Papa.”

Finally the front door opened and Pris came breathlessly into the room. Lillian sighed, relieved. Pris, at thirty-seven, was quite as lovely as she’d ever been—her gray eyes shadowy, her straw-colored curls fairer than the skin Dan Field called golden but which was more the color of pale honey, and her figure slimmer than the day George had married her, excepting the roundness of her breasts. Today she’d been hurrying and her cheeks were a bit flushed, making her look all the lovelier.

“George, I’m sorry I’m late,” she panted. “I was over helping Mrs. Lanning pack the missionary box, the one we’re sending our missionary in Africa. There was quite a stack of things and we started packing and the time fairly flew.”

He smiled. “Perfectly all right, my dear. Have a look at this.”

He handed her the Ledger. Her eyes ran down the column.

“Splendid, George. It really is.... Where can Rufe be?” she wondered out loud.

Rufe Albright was fifteen. Much too old to be playing with the children on the vacant lot, but he couldn’t keep away when Mollie Reynard was there. Strange the effect Mollie Reynard had on him, common, noisy little thing that she was, and only twelve years old, Sammy’s age. Rufe knew Mollie liked Sammy more than she did him. Well, why shouldn’t she? Sammy was her kind, noisy, rough, even if he was an Albright. But there was something about Sammy made you like to look at him. Maybe it was his yellow curls which Gramma Albright said shone like Grampa Albright’s used to shine.

There was nothing worth looking at about himself, Rufe felt. Too tall for his years, he walked with a slouch, his chest caved in. His nose was too big, and his lashes were too long for a man’s. Lately, though, he’d tried to straighten up, to act like a man. And he’d been shaving the fuzz off with his father’s razor and putting grease on his hair to keep the cowlick back.

And here he was playing silly games he hated—I spy and kick-the-stick—to be near Mollie. But his mind wouldn’t stay on the games. His thoughts were driven by the hard young body of Mollie as loose leaves by a wind: Mollie’s black curls bobbing ... Mollie’s blue eyes dancing ... Mollie’s slim legs flying. Girls shouldn’t be allowed to play games, Rufe speculated bitterly, with their legs flying so everybody could see—Buzz Standing and Walt Butler and Perse Hershberger and Sammy, too. Suddenly Rufe wanted to kill them all, Sammy included. And he wanted to kill Mollie’s parents; they ought to know better than to let Mollie run with boys, no matter if Mr. Reynard was only a common carpenter and his wife did her own work.

“First chooser for prisoner’s base,” Sammy cried. “I choose Rufe.”

No loyalty about Sammy, Rufe knew. Sammy chose him because his legs were long and he could run. He wished he could run now, so he’d never see any of them again, Sammy included.

“Second chooser,” Mollie cried. “I choose Helen.”

Soon they were lined up, the teams across the lot from one another. At a given signal each team would try running past the other to the opposite side of the lot without being tagged. Across from him Rufe saw Mollie. You little devil, he thought, I’ll show you.

“Go,” Sammy yelled.

Mollie was coming. Rufe lunged. He had her. You weren’t supposed to hold a person, just tag, but Rufe held Mollie in his arms, against his breast. You little devil, I’ll show you.... His arms crushed her closer and closer against him.

She was struggling. “Let me go. It ain’t in the rules to hold.”

“Rules,” Rufe choked. “Who cares about rules?”

She broke loose. She was the stronger and he knew it now. He hadn’t been able to hold her. His face flamed and, facing him, her face flamed.

“I hate you,” she screamed.

“I despise you,” he snarled.

This was the end. He’d had all he could stand. He wanted never to see her again. He threw back his shoulders and tried to walk the way a man should walk.

Moving away, he heard Sammy’s voice, loud, furious. “You, Mollie, now you’ve went and made Rufe mad.”

Mollie yelled, “He cheated. He held me. It ain’t in the rules to hold. But I’m stronger’n him. I got away.”

“You’re a liar,” Sammy bawled. “I’m stronger’n you and Rufe’s stronger’n me. Then Rufe’s stronger’n you.”

Loyal Sammy, lying to save him. Sammy knew he was stronger than Rufe, and three years younger. But what boy wants to admit he’s stronger than his big brother? Rufe choked.

He went on up Maple Street. There was the new school house being built. In another month school would begin and he’d be going. No more lessons at poky old Miss Fisher’s beside a bunch of babies and Dorothy and Margaret Taylor who thought they were so much because they were sixteen and seventeen. There’d be boys of his own age in his class—Tom Leonard, whose father ran the hotel, Ben Smith, whose father owned the livery stable, Jack Sturdevant, whose father was a plumber. Until a few months ago these three boys had been his friends. Then all of a sudden they had stopped coming around and if he looked them up they acted as though they didn’t want him. Rufe didn’t know what had happened to make the boys act like this. Still, they’d been his friends and maybe they’d be again, once they were going to school together. And it would be a long, long time before he’d not be able to recognize them socially.

Papa had told him that himself. “Of course, I was never allowed to associate with the rabble,” he’d said. “But you go ahead and make friends among the village boys and girls. It will be time enough, after you’ve finished college, to let them see you can’t recognize them socially.”

Papa had outlined Rufe’s future quite clearly too. After he had graduated from the new school here he would go to the University of Pennsylvania and eventually take Papa’s place in the bank, the way Papa had taken Grampa Albright’s and Uncle Rufus had taken Grampa Sargent’s.

Rufe sat down on a pile of boards beside the new schoolhouse, supposedly to watch the carpenters at their work, but his mind was hardly upon them. Although once he had wanted to be a carpenter.... But that was before he was old enough to know that gentlemen didn’t build things with their hands. What he was really thinking about right now was that one of the men pounding away was Mollie’s father, the one with the black curls and the long mustache.... Mollie’s father, a common carpenter. Rufe thought of Mollie’s mother, a nice, neat-looking little woman, but she did her own work. And Mollie’s family ate in the kitchen. One night at suppertime Rufe had walked by their place. The front door was open and Rufe could see clear through the house to the kitchen, where Mollie and her father and mother were sitting around the table.

What would his own father and mother think if they knew the way he felt about a girl who had a family like Mollie’s? Of course Papa’d said to make friends among the village boys and girls but what if Papa and Mama, too, knew the way he felt about Mollie? That nothing else mattered, nothing else in the whole wide world.

Suddenly Rufe realized the carpenters had gone. Bert Sargent moved along the pavement toward home, so it must be nearly dinnertime. Bert was only nine years old, yet he walked as if he’d never be afraid of anything, his head high and his shoulders square. Funny how different cousins can be.... Rufe could think of just one thing to be thankful about: at least his voice didn’t crack any more.

Back on the vacant lot the other children had regarded Sammy aghast. No one could remember seeing Sammy mad before.

“You, Mollie,” he yelled, “if you wasn’t a girl I’d beat you.”

“Beat her anyhow,” Buzz Standing sneered. “I’d just as lief beat a girl if she made me mad.”

Terror filled Helen Boyd’s lovely, gentle Jewish eyes. “No, Sammy, you mustn’t hurt a girl.”

Sammy fled toward home and the three girls started down the street: Helen, like a little brown dove; Mollie with her black curls and blue eyes; and fat, jolly Bertha Richards, who was a Catholic. These three were the same age, twelve years old, and since babyhood had been inseparable.

“That Rufe!” Mollie spluttered, ignoring Sammy’s wrath.

Bertha trembled. “I never knew Sammy could be like that. He might of killed you, Mollie.”

Mollie shrugged. “I wouldn’t care.”

Helen said, “I’d care.”

Prissy had picked up her dolly and made her way home sullen-faced. Lillian was mean, letting Alexander stay if Prissy couldn’t, trying to make Alexander like her best, that’s what Lillian was doing. And if he did, Prissy knew she’d die. For she loved Alexander more’n anybody ’cept Mama and Papa and Bert. And she felt so sorry for Alexander—no father (Mr. Jennings, who’d been the Methodist minister, had died a long time ago) and his mother delicate and poor as a church mouse, but a best-family anyhow. They lived in a tiny little cottage way at the end of Maple. The church gave Mrs. Jennings thirty dollars a month and Papa and Uncle George had paid Alexander’s tuition at Miss Fisher’s, and Mama and Auntie Pris called on her and invited her to their big parties. But the town children and that Sammy treated Alexander terrible, called him sissy and everything.

Prissy went into the sitting room where her mother sat knitting. “What did you want, Mama?”

“It’s after five o’clock. Time you came in.”

Lou Sargent was only a few inches over five feet tall. Approaching thirty-five, she had become a bit plump but there was a certain beauty about her. Straight, glossy chestnut hair rolled in a shining coil at the nape of her neck. Her eyebrows were arched and black. Her nose was fine and her lips bowed, if her chin was square. But Lou’s eyes were her most dominant feature, deep hazel; she could turn them on a person and keep them fixed minutes without batting a lash. Now they were fixed upon Prissy.

Lou wasn’t thinking about Prissy; she was wondering where Bert could be. Prissy, however, sank uneasily into a chair—Mama’s eyes upon her always gave her a guilty feeling. Still, Prissy thought Mama was a wonderful person, maybe because she’d been born near Philadelphia. She could settle almost any question simply by saying how in Philadelphia they do it this way.

Even Papa listened to Mama, although Mama pretended Papa decided matters. When Prissy asked Mama might she do something, Mama’d say, “Ask Papa,” but Papa never answered until he’d consulted Mama.

Only once a long time ago Prissy had asked Mama if she could go in her bare feet and Mama said to ask Papa and he said it was all right.

Later Mama found her running around the lawn in her bare feet and fairly shrieked, “Prissy, what do you mean by being outside in your bare feet?”

“You told me to ask Papa,” Prissy choked, “and he told me I could.”

Mama had taken her by the hand and led her to Papa.

“Rufus,” she said, “Prissy said you told her she could go in her bare feet.”

“I suppose I did,” Papa answered.

Mama groaned, “Rufus, if you can’t take enough interest in your own daughter to see that she acts like a lady, please remember such conduct reflects on me.”

Then Mama explained how if in Philadelphia a little girl went in her bare feet no other nice little girl would ever speak to her again. Prissy had cried and Mama had told her to forget all about it now, it was all over.

But it wasn’t all over. Ever afterward Mama’s eyes upon her gave Prissy a guilty feeling, because she’d loved running bare footed, and what was more, she had dreamed she and Alexander were running in their bare feet together on a lawn which was so big there wasn’t any end.

“Prissy, don’t sit idle, dear. Get your embroidery.”

Prissy jumped guiltily. Still, she knew she was silly. Mama’d never find out the truth. Why couldn’t she look at Mama the way Bert did, his eyes unflinching too? Suddenly it occurred to Prissy, Why, Bert treats Mama like Mama treats Papa. Mama asks Papa might she do something, knowing all the time he’d never tell her no and that’s the way Bert asks Mama, knowing she never says no to him.

Bert Sargent was nine but he was a big fellow for his years, almost as tall as Prissy, and far wiser. Sturdy, straight-backed, with a sleek black head, deep hazel eyes, and a large mouth, Bert went his way. A determined way it was, Lou knew.

Lou had never known happiness until Bert was born. Not that she had ever been unhappy, merely indifferent. She did not realize the fact herself that, despite her small stature, she should have been a man—free to shape a personal destiny. Only a sense of discipline, generated by her Quaker upbringing, had made her a dutiful daughter and a conscientious wife. Her father had died before she was eighteen, a few months after Rufus Sargent had requested his daughter’s hand in marriage. But the wedding did not take place until 1867, the year following her mother’s death. Whether she loved Rufus or not Lou did not consider, and the marital relation was another duty she schooled herself to accept.

But when the baby Bert was in her arms Lou’s life took on a different aspect. For, although she did not realize this fact either, he was the little boy she might have been. He was not only her son, he was herself. And truly he was herself. As a baby his hazel eyes could look longer at an object without batting a lash than Lou’s own hazel eyes could look. Lou had a great affection for an only brother, Bert, after whom she named her son. He had been studying medicine at the time of her marriage and had later joined the navy. But Bert Walton, who was two years her junior, had been under her thumb, so to speak, and she had never respected him a great deal.

Bert Sargent was another story. He is just like me, Lou told herself. From early babyhood he defied her authority. Not aggressively, however; if she tried to force him to eat a dish he disliked, Bert simply clamped his small jaws and kept them clamped until Lou surrendered. Or if he didn’t want to sleep, he’d not fuss, merely lie wide-eyed until all hours. Bert was never really naughty, but if he made up his mind, nothing could change him. Fearless, was the way Lou thought of him. For more than a year now he’d been starting out early every morning (excepting Sundays and school days), often not returning home until evening.

“Bert dear, where have you been all day?” Lou would question.

His unflinching eyes always met hers. “All over, Mama.”

“Can’t you tell Mama one place?”

“No one place. Lots of places.”

“You didn’t come home to lunch. Weren’t you hungry?”

“If I was hungry, Mama, I’d of come home to lunch.”

Where he spent his time Lou couldn’t imagine, although she knew it was some place or places perfectly all right. Blood would tell and Bert could do no wrong. But the truth was that for more than a year Bert had been hobnobbing around Mudtown.

At the corner of Broad the dwellings on Maple Street ended. Along the east side, from there on to the creek, was a woods where lovers often met. On the west side, directly before coming to the covered bridge, stood an old house whose door opened upon the walk, and over the door hung a sign:

M. A. WOODWARD—CABINETMAKER

However, M. A. (known as Ma) Woodward’s specialty did not happen to be cabinets. During the past thirty years he’d been making coffins (and better coffins never were, fashioned of sound seasoned pine boards held together by hand-turned wooden pegs) and Ma’s coffins had incarcerated most of Willowspring’s dead. In 1880 Ma was a plump, white-haired, white-bearded old fellow who would have looked exactly like Santa Claus if he’d worn a red suit and boots, instead of blue jeans and boots. His workshop, right off the house, was set back from the walk and before it a number of tombstones of various sizes and shapes always stood on sale.

Across the covered bridge a left turn led to the depot. If no turn were made, a mile due north, past the colored graveyard, was the Greenhill Cemetery where George the First, Rufus the First, and Baby George Albright (as well as the rest of Willowspring’s white dead) rested. But the right turn, a couple of hundred yards off the covered bridge, past the lime kiln and beyond the railroad trestle, led to Willowspring’s last street—Limestone Avenue.

The turn leading to the depot chanced to be uphill, while the turn into Limestone Avenue was a sharp descent. When the spring freshets came the creek seeped and sometimes rushed over Limestone Avenue. Often the water reached higher than a man’s knees. Of course it went down eventually but it took a long arid spell to dry up the mud. Hence the section was called Mudtown.

Twenty shanties cluttered Limestone Avenue, seventeen of them inhabited by Negroes, the other three by whites—the Stoddard family; Red Tatem, who’d fought Indians and killed buffalo out West, and his two daughters, Dolly and Belle; and Lottie Lawler, Willowspring’s one professional whore, called the “Widder Woman,” and her three children, Ella, Wilbur, and Calvary.

Bert knew Lem and he knew Red and he knew Lottie. He played with Lem’s and Lottie’s children and with the little Negroes, who, thick and busy as traveler ants, swarmed around among hogs, chickens, dogs, cats, a couple of mules, and an occasional cow. Shaddock Stanwick, called Shad, a round-eyed, rangy black boy of thirteen, was Bert’s shadow. During a single day Shad taught Bert more about life than he could have found out in years among his own class.

After the birth of the last Stoddard, Lem had gone staggering along Limestone Avenue.

“How come Mr. Stoddard he gets drunk, Shad?” Bert had inquired.

“Mr. Stoddard he git drunk fer plenty of fers, Bert. Most any fer’s good nuff fer Mr. Stoddard ter git drunk. But Mr. Stoddard’s gittin’ drunk now ’cause they git nother young’un.”

“If they don’t want young’uns, how come they get ’em, Shad?”

Shad rolled his round eyes. “Mr. Stoddard he jest probably can’t help goin’ after the missus.”

“What you mean, Shad, going after the missus?”

Shad told him.

“Shad”—Bert’s eyes widened—“do best families get babies that way too?”

“Mighty likely, Bert. I never did hear tell of gittin’ young’uns no other way.”

Shad told Bert about Lottie Lawler, the Widder Woman, too, about men sneaking into her shanty.

“If the men do that, Shad, how come she lets them in?”

“They gives her money.”

And Shad told about the colored gentleman over at Pleasantburg whom the mob got. “See, Bert, them men kivered theirselves with long white sheets and kivered their horses and in the middle of the night they catches that thar colored gen’leman and they lynches him.” Shad chuckled appreciatively. “Yes sir, Bert, they puts a rope round his ol’ neck and string him up on a tree and then they shoots him chock-full of holes.”

“What did the colored gentleman do, Shad?” Bert demanded. “The colored gentleman he done aplenty all right, Bert; he rapes a white lady.”

“What’s rapes, Shad?”

Shad gave a graphic delineation of this act of violence. Bert accepted all the information according to his own philosophy. He couldn’t understand, he didn’t try to understand; all these things just were. But this knowledge made Mudtown’s people all the more fascinating. If Lem happened to be sober enough to talk, Bert would sit hours on the shanty steps listening, Shad lurking somewhere near, and the three oldest Stoddard children—Harry, Rita, and Ray, aged twelve, eleven, and ten respectively—perched around ready to burst into peals of laughter at any witticism on their father’s part. Usually a baby or two or three toddled about the porch. Always from within the shanty came the sounds of fretting or screaming babies, Myrtle’s ceaseless harangue, and a stench, which was a mixture of dirty diapers and unwashed flesh and scorched turnips. If the weather were cold Bert would join Lem and family in their kitchen where the turmoil and stench were far worse.

Lem, usually shirtless, his hairy chest and arms displayed, his eyes bloodshot, a black stubble on his chin, his mouth tobacco-juice-smeared, was willing enough to talk to Bert. He found few listeners.

His stock stories concerned the fine family he had come from and the inferior family his wife had come from. Between long spirals of brown juice—which from the porch were directed at and missed any objective, and in the kitchen were directed at and missed the coal pail—Lem would begin:

“Jesus Christ! Was my folks refined. My mam she wouldn’t think-a lettin’ us young’uns call a pee pot a pee pot. A chamber’s what she called it.” Here were always peals of laughter from Harry, Rita, and Ray. “And by God! Us young’uns had ter call the pee pot a chamber or git our God damn necks wrang. I recollects oncet when I was a-goin’ on ten or, now, maybe I was a-goin’ on twelve—now let me think ...”

Where concerning Myrtle’s lineage Lem would begin: “Her! Why, God damn me soul, if’n her folks didn’t use the same can fer a chamber and cook pot.” Again peals of laughter from Harry, Rita, and Ray, and Myrtle would interrupt the subject she’d been haranguing upon long enough to snort, “Black liar” or “Bastard.”

Often Lem would orate about how the country, not to mention the town, should be run. “Now, Bert, I ain’t a-claiming yer pa and yer uncle ain’t smart. But fellers like ’em ain’t had a chance ter know what’s what, like a feller what’s had fer ter make his own way. Fer instant, who’s President of the United States? Rutherford B. Hayes, a man of the people. But what kin he do? He ain’t got a chancet with all them rich bastards a-fightin’ over gold and silver and greenbacks, and what with industries. Let me tell yer what I’d do....” Lem’s solution was equal distribution of wealth.

The Widder Woman didn’t nonplus Bert either. Another day he took Shad to play with Lottie’s three children, Ella, Wilbur, and Calvary. Ella, aged eight, and Wilbur, aged six, were filthy, lousy-headed children. But Calvary (whom Lottie, some thought, had named Calvary because the euphony pleased her ears rather than from any bitter symbolism, Lottie being incapable of such) was a silver-headed, blue-eyed baby of three, whose pallid skin miraculously appeared almost clean.

“Know sumpin, Shad?” Bert said. “Cal he’s a pretty baby.”

Shad nodded. “They says Cal’s papa he’s a preacher.”

“Here?” Bert asked.

Shad shook his head. “Nope. Four or five years back the Widder Woman she git run out’n town.”

“Run out of town?”

Shad rolled his round eyes. “See, Bert, they’s some figgers whores is downright bad, and they was some church folks tells the Widder Woman if’n she don’t git out’n town they was a’gonna tar and feather her, so she had ter git.”

Bert nodded. “I see.” But he didn’t see at all. “They let her come back afterward, though, didn’t they, Shad?”

“Nope. She jest come back and brang Cal ’long. And, Bert, he never did cry a-tall. My mama she says Cal he never did cry a-tall.”

The Widder Woman’s place was the last one on Limestone Avenue before you came to the woods leading to the mountains. It was a stone’s throw beyond the next place, and verily a little meaner-looking than any of the other shanties; perhaps because its once vivid orange paint had become faded and streaked, giving it beyond the meanness and dilapidation a jaded tawdriness. Ella, Wilbur, and Cal ran to meet Bert and Shad. They were glad to see the boys. Even the little Negroes shunned them generally.

“We us playin’ so’jers,” Cal lisped.

“All right,” Bert said.

They began marching up and down before the shanty, along the road ankle-deep with powdered dust during the dry season, sticks over their shoulders for guns, Shad leading because he was the tallest, little silver-headed Cal bringing up the rear. Lottie came out of the shanty. She was no cleaner than Ella and Wilbur, her infested, greasy hair hanging over her shoulders, a dirty stained wrapper around her.

“Hey, yer nigger,” she called to Shad, “git going. Who yer guess yer air playing with my young’uns?”

“Listen what that old whore’s saying,” Shad whispered to Bert. “Telling me not ter be playing with her bastards.”

Bert fixed his unflinching eyes upon Lottie. “Know sumpin, Mrs. Lawler? I brought Shad here.”

“Who the hell air yer?”

“Bert Sargent.”

Lottie sneered. “Bert Sargent, air yer? So yer brang Shad, did yer? Wall, I ain’t having my young’uns playing with the likes of yer nohow neither. Yer git going and stay on yer own side the crick now and after yer growed too.”

Laughing uproariously at her implication, she grabbed the stick Ella had been playing was a gun and whacked her sharply over the head. Wilbur dodged but Cal received a clip across his tiny shoulders. The three of them ran back of the shanty, Ella and Cal sobbing from pain.

Lottie shrieked after them, “God damn yer! I’ll larn yer ter play with niggers.”

Shad had ducked behind a tree, legs ready to fly if Lottie came near him. Bert had not moved. Lottie struck him across the face. Still Bert did not move and still his unflinching eyes were fixed upon the Widder Woman.

“Hit me again if you want to,” he said. “But know sumpin? The more you hit me the longer I’ll stay. And Shad he’s going to stay too.”

Suddenly Lottie threw the stick away and began laughing. The God damn little brat ain’t skeered, she was thinking.

Bert seldom laughed aloud and seldom even smiled. But hearing Lottie’s laughter, one of the occasional smiles crossed his serious little face.

“Please go on back in the house, Mrs. Lawler,” Bert said, “and don’t mind if Cal and Wilbur and Ella plays with Shad and me.”

The Widder Woman went back into the house.

The sun was going behind the mountains on the late August afternoon in 1880 when Bert made his way across the covered bridge from Mudtown. His sturdy legs dragged wearily but he wasn’t aware of the fact. This afternoon he and Shad had been hunting rabbits with Red Tatem.

Next to Shad, Bert had a higher opinion of Mr. Tatem than of any other inhabitant of Mudtown, Mr. Stoddard included—Mr. Tatem, who’d fought the Indians and shot buffaloes out West. Mr. Tatem could line bottles along a fence and fifty yards away show how he’d made redskins bite the dust; and every rabbit he potted seemed a buffalo to Bert.

“Come on, m’ lads,” Red had said, tossing a gunny sack to the boys and whistling to Duke, his liver-spotted hound dog.

He shouldered his musket (the very one he’d used to shoot Indians and buffaloes) and started toward the woods leading to the mountains, Duke at heel and Bert and Shad a safe distance behind, swinging the gunny sack between them.

In the woods Red said, “M’ lads, watch me every move and walk likes I walk, the way I larnt ter walk a-scouting Injuns—nary a sound.”

Soon Duke trotted ahead, nosing the underbrush, his long ears flapping forward and his long tail flapping sideways, but with nary a sound. Wonderful the way Red moved, too, Bert thought, with nary a sound over stiff stubble and dry branches and twigs. Stealthily Bert’s square feet crept, imitating Red.

Duke yelped. A buffalo (Bert had been hoping an Indian would be uncovered) scuttled from the brush. Red raised the musket. Bang! He had him.

“Fat as a bugger,” said Red, sticking the rabbit in the sack.

He reloaded and they were off again.

By the time they returned to the Tatem shanty there were eight rabbits in the sack. Red took it from the boys and dumped the rabbits on the ground. Bert looked at them, at their soft brown hair, blood-streaked. One moved.

Bert leaned over and picked it up. He could feel the little heart beating. “Know sumpin, Mr. Tatem? This one’s still breathing.”

Red was already skinning another. But he reached out a bloody hand. Bert knew he would crush the live rabbit’s skull between his fingers, easy as most people could crush an egg. Bert had seen him do it before.

Bert stood back. “Know sumpin, Mr. Tatem? I’m going to keep this here little rabbit. You got seven others and me and Shad we toted the sack.”

“All right,” Red agreed.

Shad smacked his lips. “It’ll taste mighty good in stew, Bert.”

“We ain’t going to kill it, Shad. Come on.”

Reaching the Stanwick shanty, Bert went on, “Shad, I’m going to keep this here little rabbit alive.”

Shad wrinkled his nose. “How come, Bert?”

“To see if I can. You fetch me some hot water and the littlest knife your mama’s got.”

Shad entered the shanty and came back carrying a kettle full of simmering water and a paring knife.

Shad’s mother stuck her head out of the door. She was a fat Negress with round rolling eyes like Shad’s.

“What you boys doing, taking my kittle and paring knife fer?” she demanded.

“We’ll give ’em back,” Bert told her. “Know sumpin, Mrs. Stanwick? I’m going to save this little rabbit’s life.”

“What’d anybody want ter save a rabbit’s life fer? Rabbit makes mighty good stew.”

Shad nodded vigorously. “That’s what I tells Bert, Mama.”

Bert didn’t hear the conversation. He was examining the rabbit more closely. The shot had only cut through the flesh of the breast. Bert washed the wound and probed as gently as possible with the paring knife.

“There it is, Shad,” Bert said finally, rolling the bloody ball between his fingers.

Mrs. Stanwick picked up her kettle and paring knife, rolling her round eyes and shaking her head. Mrs. Stanwick’s private opinion was that Bert Sargent might be addlepated.

Bert took the rabbit into the woodshed behind the shanty and fixed a nest of straw between some blocks of wood.

Going home, Bert forgot how tired he felt because he was thinking about the rabbit. He had saved its life. Bert had never seen his uncle Bert, who was a doctor on a boat, but Bert resolved to be a doctor like him when he grew up and he wished now there’d be a wounded rabbit every day to make well. It occurred to Bert that Red’s dog, Duke, had sores. Tomorrow he’d find some salve and find out what could be done about Duke.

By this time Bert was passing the school. Rufe was sitting on a pile of boards. Rufe didn’t speak to him, mighty likely didn’t see him. But Sammy always saw Bert.