Читать книгу Now in November - Josephine W. Johnson - Страница 11

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THE ninth of April came on a day of corn ploughing. We had battered about all night scarcely asleep, and so heard Dad get up as he always did at four, and supposed that his heart was pounding like ours. It was a queer day outside, I remember—thunder-storms and a hot sun coming between them and a wind shifting to the north with coldness, and there were long streaks of light across the wild plums that were about to flower. . . . The cake was beautiful and high, and the icing dripped out from the layers. Kerrin ate the part run out around the plate but did not break at the crust, and it looked like the tower of Babel with its layers dwindling into a muffin on the top.

At six that evening Dad came in and shouted out, “Where’s the food, you women?” and sounded so young and cheerful that we climbed on him as we had not done in weeks. Mother looked suddenly younger, too and Cale barked loud as he would at some stranger. She brought in the ham stuck about with cloves, and the brown-sugar smell filled the room and moved out the dark spring coldness that had crawled in through the window cracks. “I’m going to put soybeans up in the north field,” Father said. “They’re cheap and nourishing.”

“You ought to hire a boy to help in the planting,” Mother said, “—someone with more sense than these around.” Father looked at her as though she were one of us talking. “Max Rathman’s good enough,” he said. “What’s wrong with Max? A man doesn’t need to plant by textbook, Willa.” I saw him looking at Merle, and saw she was feeding Cale with a piece of ham, shoving it down his mouth with her fat rough hands; and there were words in Dad’s throat ready to come charging up, but they stayed in his mouth and did not come this time. “Max is good enough for a while, I guess,” Mother said very fast. She shook her head at Merle, but not till he’d looked away. “Let’s bring the cake in now,” I whispered. I wanted to light the candles and help her to carry it in, because I had made a part—not much, but sprinkling raisins on here and there. Merle kept watching me to know if it was time to say the poem, and her eyes kept following me about with the question. Then I saw Kerrin take a big piece of uneaten bread and sneak it down to Cale, and I looked at Father and saw the words that he hadn’t said all ready to rush out on her. He got red, but only a heavy sigh came out. “What’s the matter?” Mother asked. She was out in the closet where the cake was hidden, but heard the sound and silence that came after. “It’s a crumb got stuck,” I said. I was trembling inside and afraid, but nothing happened. Then we let Merle bring the cake in on its platter, and her face looked like a big candle itself, looming above the little flames, and Dad grinned but didn’t shout as we thought he should.

He cut us big slices, firm and wedge-shaped like the tall pieces of a pie, and a bigger one for Mother, and then we thought it was time for the presents to be given. Merle jumped up and looked at me eager, with her mouth all shaped and ready to begin, but I shook my head because I thought maybe Kerrin would like to be the first, and besides I was tormented with curiosity to know what it was that she’d been doing. And afterward I wished that God had sewed up my mouth, because of the look on Merle’s face, trusting and disappointed. “You be the first one, Kerrin,” I said. Father looked pleased but puzzled and wondering what was to come. Kerrin got up, fierce and excited in her eyes, and pulled a small heavy thing out of her sweater pocket. She held it out toward him but kept her fingers still on it, and we could see that it was a folded knife tipped with silver on the end. “This is supposed to be your present, Dad.” She sounded excited and full of pride. “Watch what I’ve learned to do—taught myself how to do it!” She opened the knife and aimed at a brown spot on the wall, a little spot hardly big enough to see and high up across the room. “Look out!” Dad shouted. “Stop!” He shoved back his chair and tried to snatch the knife, but jerked at her arm instead. Merle and I screamed out, and the knife went wild, straight at old Cale’s blind head, and slashed across his nose. “God damn you!” Father shouted. He grabbed at Kerrin and knocked her back against the wall. Merle started to cry and Kerrin screamed out some horrible things. Only Mother had sense enough to run to Cale and slop at his nose with water. But he growled and snapped at her with his mouth full of red foam, so that she couldn’t get near enough to help him. Then Father grabbed him from behind and held his mouth so he couldn’t bite her. The cut was deep and slashed back in his head, and it bled as if every vein were opened. I stood holding on hard to Merle and trying to stop her howls, and Kerrin was on her knees by Mother, trying to sop up the blood, but Dad knocked her away and roared at her to get out and leave the room. It was terrible—the way she went out in a black rage, crying, with her hands clenched and her eyes—I was scared and Merle screamed when we saw her eyes and the awful hate in them. She slammed the door and rushed out in the dark, though it was beginning to rain and a cold wind had come up. I stood there dumb, not knowing what to do or say, and Merle kept on crying. Then Dad said, “It’s no use.” He picked Cale up and started out toward the door. “The girl’s killed him,” he said. They went outside, Mother still holding the cloth around Cale’s mouth, and we heard her tell Dad that it was he who had shaken Kerrin’s arm. But the door slammed after and we could not hear his answer except as a loud and angry sound.

Merle and I stayed, looking at the broken-up cake and the blood, and after a few minutes she stopped crying and was quiet. Then we went to the door and listened, and over the wind heard two thumps of a gun and then only the sound of rain running down the gutters. . . . “Let’s go shut the chickens up,” I said. I took the lantern down, and Merle put Mother’s sweater on. She looked so sad and patient with the sweater hanging down around her ankles and her fat cheeks streaked with tears and icing that I thought my heart would crack.

It was cold and quiet out in the chicken house, and the new straw had a clean smell to it. We could hear the chickens moving and churring in their sleep. There was a pile of weed hay in one corner, and we sat there with the lantern down on the floor in front. Rain made a slow and washing sound on the window glass, and we heard a small rustle of mice. We felt tired and sick, but out here in the dark with only mice sounds and the slide of rain things seemed less terrible and vile.

“Where do you think that Kerrin went?” Merle whispered to me after a while.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But she’ll come back sometime soon, I guess.” I was empty of tears and could not cry even when I thought about old Cale. I hoped that they would not bury him out in the pasture or in some bare and ugly place. And I thought about poor Kerrin, too, stumbling and hiding somewhere in the rain, angry and sick and raging like the devil.

“I guess there won’t be any more party,” Merle said. She sat pushed up tight against me, her round hands clasped together looking like mittens in each other.

“No more tonight,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow or some other day we’ll finish.” But I knew it would never be the same. And after what seemed a long time to us because the dark was so still, we picked up the lantern and crept back to the house.