The Time of Man

by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

  Beyond the tobacco field she saw that there was a graveyard set beside an old church. She came upon it from the rear, walking down a path through brush tangles, and when she had climbed a high rail fence she stood among the abandoned graves. She parted the growth and twisted her body through the brush snarls until she came to the part that was grassy and well kept, some of the mounds adorned with blossoming flowers. There were no trees and thus the graves and the gravestones were open to the sun and were blown over by the wind. The sun came down more freely here than in the fields for it had the stones to play over, white and shining marble. The wind swayed the grass and the sun vibrated over the white monuments. ‘Erected to the Memory of,’ she read. ‘To the Memory of,’ or some held simply the legend of a family name, as Wakefield, in large stiff letters blocked out of the stone. On one a high winged creature stood holding a lily and a book.

  ‘How would you buy a tombstone, now?’ her mind chattered within itself. ‘Would you go to the store and say… But it would have to be some other kind of store beside Kelly’s at the road corners. Say it’s a tombstone store somewheres, and say he has a sign out, “Tombstones cheap today”. You go inside the store and there the tombstones are all up and down the big counters, counters made big on purpose, and on the big shelves. You say to the man, “I want to buy a tombstone” and he says, “Would you like one that says ‘To the memory of’ or would you rather have ‘Erected to’? Here’s one that you can have cheap if you taken it offen my hands today. It’s nicked a little at the corner and it says ‘Pray for the soul of’ and that’s not the latest style. But if you don’t care so much about style and if you want something that’ll wear you long, you’ll never be sorry for a-buyen this-here one.”’

  She laughed a little at the thought and walked about in the swaying grass and felt the hot waves of air as they rolled back off the large marbles. She came to a tall stone marked Gowan. It glittered in the sun where the small flecks like fine silver lay under the surface that shone in some places like glass. She read the legend slowly:

  JAMES BARTHOLOMEW GOWAN

  Born August 3, 1839

  Departed this life May 17, 1906

  An honoured citizen, a faithful husband, a loving father, a true Christian… Five times elected judge of the County Court… Fulfilling all trusts with…

  ‘That’s Judge Gowan,’ she whispered, awed by the personality erected by the legend against the tall stone. ‘He owned the Gowan farm and the Gowan horses and the Gowan peacocks… across the road from Mr Al’s place… and he left Miss Anne, his wife, all he had when he died, and people a-goen to law about it big in court. And when he died there was marchen and white plumes on hats and a band a-playen, and his picture is a-hangen up in the courthouse, life-size, they say… And when he was a-liven he used to ride up to town in a high buggy with a big shiny horse, a-steppen up the road and him a-sitten big, and always had a plenty to eat and a suit of clothes to wear and a nigger to shine his shoes for him of a weekday even. Ben told me. And he was a-willen money big to his wife when he died and always a-sitten judge in court. A big man, he was. That’s you.’ Her voice was whispering the words. And then after a long pause she added. ‘He’s Judge Gowan in court, a-sitten big, but I’m better’n he is. I’m a-liven and he’s dead. I’m better. I’m Ellen Chesser and I’m a-liven and you’re Judge James Bartholomew Gowan, but all the same I’m better. I’m a-liven.’

  The sun came down white on the gravestones and beat back upon the hot air. The wind blew down from the west field and bent the grass. Ellen’s eyes shone brighter when a new memory came to her mind. She lifted her head suddenly and her sunbonnet fell back, swept off by the breeze. She was calling aloud now, her shout growing into a song.

  ‘Up in town on court day, it is, and a mighty big crowd is a-comen in the roads and horses are a-rampen up the street, and such a gang you can’t stir withouten you watch where you go. And sheep a-bawlen and cows, and a man says loud and fast…

  Fifteen fifteen who’ll make it twenty

  Fifteen now come on with the twenty

  Who’ll make it twenty

  Who’ll make it twenty

  Fifteen now come on with the eighteen

  Fifteen fifteen

  Come on with the eighteen…

  ‘And bells a-ringen and banners go by and people with things in pokes to sell and apples a-rollen out on the ground and butter in buckets and lard to sell and pumpkins in a wagon, and sheep a-cryen and the calves a-cryen for their mammies, and little mules a-cryen for their horse mammies, and a big man comes to the courthouse door and sings out the loudest of all:

  O yes! O yes!

  The honourable judge

  James Bartholomew Gowan

  (It must ’a’ been)

  Is now a-sitten…

  ‘That’s just what he said, that man in the door of the courthouse that time.

  O yes! O yes!

  The honourable judge

  James Bartholomew Gowan

  Is now a-sitten…

  Come all ye…

  And you shall be heared.

  ‘Powerful big county court today, they said. But I’m better’n he is. I’m better’n you. I’m a-liven and you ain’t! I’m a-liven and you’re dead! I’m better! I’m a-liven! I’m a-liven!’

  CHAPTER THREE

  By autumn the turkeys had grown almost to maturity and they filled the lot with their dark, bronze-brown waves of motion. Ellen fattened them with corn which she and Ben shelled by hand, a labour which required half the afternoon. They worked sitting on a rough bench not far from the watering trough where the mules came to drink, a wire fence dividing them from the runway leading down to the trough. Inside the barn a great drove of mules stood all day before the high feeding platforms, and sitting outside on the bench Ellen could hear the grinding of teeth, for the mules could never have done with eating from the tables which were never empty. Mr Dick scattered more and more fodder before them, working all day, and they daily grew more sleek and round. Later he would take them away to the south and sell them to the sugar plantations. Ellen felt the mild sting of the dry autumn air on her face as she sat with Ben over the shelling of the corn. Not far off was a flaming sugar tree. In a little while the mules would go south to plough the cane lands. She remembered cotton fields where men and women and children were bending over white flowers that puffed out raggedly into down, in a great ragged field of white down. A white field went off a long way over a flat country, and the road went sandy and wet under wheels, all almost forgotten now.

  ‘Them-there mules is a-haven a good time if they only knowed it,’ Ben said.

  ‘There is a place on a road down past somewheres in Tennessee where a little house stands off in bushes and trees, a lamp a-shinen out one the windows, after sundown. A youngone is a-cryen little tired cries. You cross a bridge, a rocky road and a little up-hill way to go, I recollect, and then the house and a tired little child a-cryen for to be put to bed. It’s a sweet sound, now. You want to take it up in arms and put it in its little place.’

  ‘They’ll go a long piece past Tennessee, them mules, and they’ll never see another such a time, a-eaten their fill and a-doen not one God’s thing all day.’

  ‘Or you hear music come down the road and you run as fast as your long legs can take you to catch up with it, and there he is, a foreigner, dark almost like a – like a black man, but straight hair and a different smell. And a-hangen on the front of him is a music box and down in the road is a little monkey with a coat and a cap on, a-looken for all the world like a man, long fingernails and all, a-scratchen his head and his leg, just like a man, his little old nose and his big mouth. And his forehead a-frownen down on the people and a-looken up at the sky like he was a-searchen it out for something, looken out from under his eyes to try and see.’

  Ragged hens went about the barnyard to pluck at the scattered corn. The despoiled cock walked unevenly down the yard, his tail feathers gone, plucking aside the hens he had fed in th
e spring. An odour of drying tobacco came across the pasture. Henry had cut the last of the crop and had hauled it on a slide to the tobacco barn over in the farm where the cut plants hung yellowing now, filling the entire building. Ellen had seen the plants hanging from the sticks, great inverted yellow waves, for she had been to the barn the day before. ‘Not very good quality,’ Mr Al said, turning away from the barn door. She felt the sting of the grains of corn through the rough glove she had made to protect her right hand and she saw Ben’s bony old hand reaching for another ear. Ben was dark yellow fading away to brown. His little beard grew in knots of spiral hairs. He had a dirty rag tied around his throat and his shoulders seemed strangely knotted as he bent over the corn. Out of his wavering, double-jointed voice came a scurry of words:

  ‘And he says “Who’s that-there fine looken gal you see out after the turkeys?”’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘A white man said it, a nice fine fellow. He says, “Who’s that-there fine looken gal over at Wakefield’s?”’

  ‘Quit a-foolen, Uncle Ben. I don’t believe e’er word of it.’

  Mr Al called the hounds in from the fields and fed them sparingly of coarse bread, keeping them lean for hunting. Sometimes he and MacMurtrie would ride away at sundown with twenty hounds around their horses’ feet, but now the dogs were fastened in a room off the barn. Mr Al was gone away somewhere now, gone to buy stock. He would come back with a great brown Jersey bull and a new cow or two. They would have blue ribbons on their horns.

  ‘A nice fine fellow said it, I swear ’fore God he did. He says “Who’s that-there fine looker?”’

  The cows waiting about the gates spoke to each other with low mutterings, rumbling into deep notes that sank off into mere vibrations and shook coarsely on the air. The thought of Mr Dick lay formless in Ellen’s mind, gathering back of all the pictures of the farm, a remote voice accompanying quiet unseeing eyes. He rode away somewhere almost every day at sundown; his shining brown horse made little steps on the gravel of the drive, but he was always back among the mules in the morning. The mules crunched their fodder all day and all night, trotting down to the watering place to drink, rolling back to the high tables down which someone often went with more food. The grinding of the great jaw could be heard halfway down the pasture. Sitting on the bench outside Ellen could feel them crowd at the feedings and make the barn tremble – fifty or sixty great animals tearing at corn. In a few days the mules would be fat for the market, and then Mr Dick would go away with them, and she thought faintly of the many things he must know in his quietness, of his going away at sundown.

  ‘And he says “Who’s that-there good-looker you see over in Wakefield’s place?”’ Ben was droning on.

  She stared down at the dry ground where the surface was broken in uneven cracks. The ants were gone; they were never seen running in and out of the soil. The little wisps of fodder that lay about changed places now and then in the sudden breeze that swept the lot floor. She was pushing grains of corn off the cob with her thumbs, two or three grains at a time, feeling the spring of the grain react to her wrist, feeling the grains yield and fall. The autumn cries of the peacocks came, wild screams from across two hills. She had found a shed peacock feather in the pasture, blue and gold and green, bold design lying in the frail mesh of feather. All day she had worn it in the bosom of her dress and at night she had pinned it on the wall of the room below stairs over the fireplace. Nellie had looked at it wonderingly, turning it over and over. Blue and black and green and gold and peacock blue, brass and pale purple… Suddenly it seemed that there was a baby in her hands, a little baby in the crook of her arm. Her baby, it was, and a great wave of power went over her. She was strong at once with a great strength. A wave of tenderness ran up her face and sank deeply into her eyes that closed to hold it. Her back felt its power to curve protectingly over a defenceless little thing and her breast reached out to it. Her shoulders were large and strong and her breast was deep… It was nothing. It was gone and forgotten in the moment of going, and there was the ear of corn in her hands. A jointed voice was mumbling words close at hand, ‘The time of they lives if they only knowed so.’

  Two young men came one morning in late autumn to help Ben drive the turkeys away to town. The air was full of frost. Ellen threw the turkeys great handfuls of corn and their feathers made a low thunder as they swept down upon it. The flocks still kept together in general, five groups flowing in and out of one another. One of the men beat his hands together in the November cold and called out, ‘Let ’em come on. They’ll drive just like hogs against they get out on the pike.’ Ellen stood back with Miss Tod and watched the fowls go, five groups to the last, never entirely lost, the pattern of the flock still printed upon them, the mark of the nest. Her bonnet blew down into her eyes and the cold of the morning stung her throat. The flocks went down the front pasture following Ben who dropped corn before them, flowing in and out and creeping forward over the ground, their ways of keeping together went, the little hurt one, now grown large and strong, all went. Ellen bent her bonnet down over her face and brushed off tears. Why, she wondered, should she be liking a flock of anything, flocks, things nobody ever could have forever? She turned away from the fence slowly and walked back through the lot where a few fowls stood about. ‘You can have one of them that’s left,’ Miss Tod said.

  After the turkeys were gone Ellen was asked to help with the milking at the barn while Josie was kept in the house. Often she went to the tobacco barn to help Henry strip the tobacco where they worked in a little room which was heated on cold days by a small stove. The dust of the tobacco would hang in the air and make long beams before the small window. Henry would stoop over his task, muttering from time to time, telling himself things he had long known, working very slowly. One day a girl and a child came passing through the farm by the road which led over the hill toward the river. Ellen heard strange voices outside and her breath leaped with joy. Some hand opened the door of the stripping room and a girl pushed a crying child before her saying:

  ‘Could we come in and warm? This-here chap is a-cryen.’

  Henry stuffed more wood into the little stove and presently the boy took down his small hands which he had been holding up to the warmth and looked about with drowsy eyes. The girl stayed by the door, refusing a seat on a wooden box by the stove. She said her name was Effie Turpin. She answered the questions asked her with meagre half-phrases, eyeing Henry and Ellen minutely. She lived down the river, a long way to go. She had been to see if Miss Tod wanted any weaving. She did not come often. The boy was seven. She must go. Yes, it was cold. She had told Sam it would be cold. He had grown out of his overcoat. Ellen looked at her from time to time as she stood by the door, swaying as she stood, wavering against the brown wood. Her flesh was dull and life crept slowly under her sunburnt skin, but it was there, moving her eyes and staring in her face that searched out the ways of the stripping room, probing Henry and Ellen for ways. The girl said she must go but she lingered on. Ellen saw herself in Effie Turpin’s body, as it stood by the door wavering. She saw herself standing there, half of her afraid, unable to go when she knew she must, held by the other persons until she was unable to reach up her hand to the latch string, the other half of her bold, jerking out brief bold answers. The flesh under Effie Turpin’s eyes was her own flesh and Effie Turpin’s rough cold hands were her own as they shrank from the latch and lay over each other jerkily before the brown coat that was pulled tightly across the girl’s chest. Ellen tore off the leaves carefully and laid them in their piles, a joy in her being because someone had come, another, almost herself but separate in body, a girl her own age. Wanting the girl to stay, she asked her a question now and then to keep her. Finally the girl went uneasily out at the door, jerking through the partly opened doorway quickly, and the child ran in fright after her.

  Or Ellen sat in the house by the open fire drying her wet shoes. Around the house outside was mud, wet, and dripping eaves. Inside clothes we
re drying by the fire and the cabin was filled with soapy steam in which floated the odour of human bodies. Up the stairs, and the walls were wet from the leaking roof and the figures on the wall sank away into darker brown as in a fog, the procession endlessly going – trees, women, letters, women, crosses, unfeathered birds, swords, demons. Out of doors there was slop and mud to the ankles, cow dung and slush, deeper in the low places by the pond and deeper again in the cowpens. In the morning she would go up the hill in the dripping wet and her feet would sop in and out of the slow mire. She would help milk the cows under the shed and another day would be upon her, more mud, more wet, days endlessly going alike to every other, each one. Suddenly out of the still air of the dusk she felt a kiss on her face and arms gathered close to her shoulders.

  The apparition was gone, forgotten in the warmth of the fire. She held her damp feet to the blaze and felt the drowsy heat on her face, watching the sycamore log that burned with a soft liquid light. She was hearing pleasantly the remembered tones of a voice she had heard many days back, a shout that had come to her from the pasture road. ‘No use to plant beans till you hear a whippoorwill!’ She had been digging potatoes in the garden, turning up the half-frozen soil to the deep warm inner part where they were buried safe from the frost. A voice had cried out to her from the pasture, ‘Not safe to plant beans. Have you heared e’er whippoorwill?’ A boy was teasing her across the winter pasture, calling out from the road. He had been riding a plough horse, a great sack of something across before the saddle. She would not even know him if she should see him again, for he had been too far away to be seen clearly. Now a smile straightened her lips and quivered in and out of her eyes as she looked at the sycamore flame.

  ‘A-teasen and a-foolen. Beans and whippoorwills in a winter time. “Have you heared e’er whippoorwill?” December it is, right at Christmas, and he says to me, “Not safe to plant beans till you hear a whippoorwill.”’