The Time of Man

by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

  A drouth came, hard and brittle in the soil and in the sturdy little pasture herbs, but soft and pliant in the hazes that gathered over the far hills. A hot wind blew out of the southwest and the raincrow would cry his cl-uck, cl-uck, cow, cow, cow, cow. All the people of the farms knew the state of the air and the weather, knew just how the growing things met or resisted the drouth, of the swiftly ripening corn and the blight appearing on the tobacco. They would feel the deep satisfaction of the rain, yearning for it before it came and accepting it afterward as their due – rain at last, it was time. During the dry season Jonas passed often through the farm road, intent upon some errands, for the work on the land was delayed. Sometimes he would stop at Ellen’s gate or linger a little on the porch before the cabin. Then he would offer bits of news about the farms, sitting negligently on the edge of the step or leaning on the fence beside the gate, faintly smiling. Or his voice would fall away after each saying and they would sit quietly together, watching the little brown horse he had ridden paw the turf beside the gate. Sometimes Ellen would bring the horse a stalk of green corn from the garden. In those days she delighted in her own sweetness and kindness, and a smile lay always close behind her eyes, long after Jonas had gone. ‘It’s no matter,’ she said, when Nellie told her she had taken all her money from the teacup to buy a skillet from the peddler, ‘It’s no matter, Mammy.’

  Or when Jonas leaned forward and she saw that a button was gone from his overalls and that he had fastened the suspender to the garment with a nail, then a pang of amused compassion flowed over her mind. She knew that he had forgotten the nail and her cruel eyes would keep wandering back to it. Then she would listen to his slow, half-dreaming speech and look out across the pasture and remember his eyes and their smile, and remember his look when he caught her eyes and that he had singled her out to walk beside her or to sit beside her on the stone wall. Or sometimes when he leaned over his cigarette she would look at his shoulders hanging loosely under his coat and a momentary pang would arise within her, a pity for his thin back and his flat-boned shoulders. But he would arise again, lifting his hands from his tobacco, and sit with his wrists crossed between his knees, his head thrown lightly back, and she would know a joy in the fall of his hands, in the droning of his voice, in the quiet of his careless words, in his nearness. With the coming of the rain the work in the field was resumed. The pasture was quickly green again and the tobacco put out new vigour. The labour multiplied, teeming toward the harvest, and Jonas was busy from one week’s close to another, but on Sunday when he found her in the crowd as they walked down the river lane and kept beside her she knew that he had not forgotten her.

  Sebe would often stop as he passed going to the grist mill with the corn, or sometimes he would come in his buggy, stopping casually, warily keeping his seat in the vehicle, gathering up the lines from time to time as if he meant to be off at once. He had bought the buggy from a farmer beyond the river.

  ‘Hit’s a right pretty turnout,’ Ellen said, teasing the buggy with a willow switch, twiddling the spokes of the wheels, twiddling Sebe’s pronoun before his eyes. ‘Hit is now. You look like you was fatched up in town.’

  ‘You could ride along with me if you are of a mind to, maybe; if you happen to be a-goen my way.’

  ‘Which way you aim to go?’

  ‘I aim towards Fairhope Church and back around by Fox Creek. Or some other way if you’d rather.’

  Sometimes Ellen would climb in beside him and ride down the pike. Then he would talk about his corn crop and his tobacco. In another year he expected to be able to rent a place. He knew a good strip of bottom over beyond the creek, fine corn land. A body could make the store bill off the ducks and geese alone. It was a prime place for ducks, right on the water before the door. He knew a man used to live there and his wife made the store bill every year off the ducks and chickens. He knew a fine breed of ducks, Indian Runners. He could get a setting of eggs for little or nothing and in a year, look how many you would have. A body could do a sight with ducks, a good thrifty woman could. And look what you could do with chickens. Take a good breed like the Rhode Island Reds and say you had twenty hens to start, you could raise two hundred or three hundred frying-sizes in no time, and even say corn kept to eighty cents you could make. He knew a man had a wife made enough to buy a disc plough, just off the egg money alone. And there would still be the geese to pay the store bill.

  Ellen saw in her mind the little farm beyond the creek with ducks floating out in a stately procession on the water holes and the hens cackling their high barbed songs in the bright mornings, and a quick woman, herself perhaps, gathering in the eggs and selling them for coins, gathering in the coins and spending them for a disc plough or a binder or a horse rake, and the wind blew brightly, sprightly in clear mornings, cool bright mornings, and the little house would stand off in the bottom among cornfields, crisp cornfields. She thought of the woman as always gathering in eggs and trading them for coins and spending the coins for bright new machines that would go clickerty-click across the sparkling meadows.

  ‘How much is a setten of duck eggs worth now?’ she asked.

  ‘I know a man would give me two settens for a dollar.’

  She saw the woman hurrying in and out across the yard with a pan of corn mush in her hand to feed the little ducks, hurrying in and out of hen houses, her apron full of eggs and her pocket full of coins, in and out of coops, in and out of barn sheds, hurrying, all easy and light and free-going on oily wheels. Or, to make the picture more real, let there be a sick chick, sick with gaps or the roup. Then she would – say it had gaps – twist a bit of bluegrass top down into its throat and swab out the worms, drawing them up clinging to the grass brush; or if it were sick with the roup perhaps, drooping about and getting no better, its head swelled up and its tongue hard, eyes all bunged up, then knock its head against the henhouse door, one sharp blow, and bury it out behind the barn. All the chicks were well again, laying eggs and hatching young, eating, crowing, growing up to frying-sizes, fattening in the coops and sold to the peddler, the money jingling in her pocket and the bright new disc plough, red and gilt, would go clicking all the while across the bottom field. One day Sebe slipped his arm around her as she rode beside him and then she drew herself up into a stiff spear and said, ‘Mr Sebe Townley, do you want me to jump outen this-here buggy and walk home? I’d as lief walk as not and a little rather.’

  The pictures Sebe made stayed in her mind and grew brightly definite, neat farms lying beside running creeks where ducks spread out in thrifty processions, brightly whitewashed hen-yards where fowls snapped up nourishing corn and turned it into profits even when it sold for eighty cents a bushel, neat tenant houses with bright dooryards full of hollyhocks whose culture took nothing from the care bestowed upon the chicks. She seldom went inside the house, her life moving outside among the poultry and the shifting coins, viewing the clockwork of the barnyards and the plenty of the cribs. If she went inside the house it was Jonas who came there. Sebe kept remote in the picture as the mere organiser and mover of the pageant, for she could not endure the sight of his ears, and if they came within the scope of her vision she looked away quickly or dropped her eyes in half-amused disgust; or if they persisted in holding a place, then she smote the pageant with light words, tore away hencoops and barns with gusts of laughter, desecrated the bright disc plough with derision, and sent the geese and ducks scurrying with her hard scorn. But most often Sebe’s offending members kept out of the picture or retreated humbly, having been caught overstepping, and then she helped build back the barnyard she had demolished by asking the price of ducks or the annual yield of feathers.

  All the signs of the autumn came, the heavy plush-like asters, buck-berries and frost-flowers, everlasting and chicory – all the last tokens of the living year. The mockingbird would sing a few notes, reminiscent of spring after the quiet of the late summer, and on moonlight nights the cocks would crow all night long. Ellen bought a fresh ribbon for he
r dress and a bit of lace for her throat and blossomed anew with the frostweeds and the last of the chicory that lingered far into October. The abundance of autumn was again in the air, the summary of the growing season. Elmer had ceased to tell her of Dorine or to recount Dorine’s sayings, but his ways toward her were ways of gentle friendliness, sometimes unmindful and detached. She stood in a third place, no longer a medium between them, no longer a current flowing with them, and, alone, she grew into a greater strength when the flow turned back upon herself and pooled deeply within. They brought her gifts, a great basket of nuts, a bucket of fresh cider from MacMurtrie’s press, but they went away together. Leaving her, while she stood alone in the doorway, already forgotten, they would merge as one in the confusion of her thought and share her momentary hate.

  In the time of the great autumn moon the people of the Glen met to fish on the river one Saturday afternoon, the Townleys, O’Shays, Prathers, with others to share the feast; for the catches were cooked over open fires, the women cooking while the men tended the lines. After supper a place was scraped clear in the sand and there was dancing in the twilight and later under the risen moon. The older men would sit in groups talking about the corn or about their fattening hogs, or they told boasting stories of other years. The young men scurried the dust here and yon with their measures, and Mr Townley sang the dance figures, beating time with his guitar strings, his voice small and flat before the out-spread river.

  Cage the bird and three arms around,

  Bird hop out and hoot owl in,

  Three arms around and hooten agin,

  Right and left and shoo-fly wing…

  Sometimes between dances the young people would walk away along the road in the moonlight or stop under the dark trees to hear the hunters and the hounds off among the hill fields. The women sat by the smouldering fire, indulgent, too heavy in body and mind for dancing but glad enough for the girls to have their day. Old Dan O’Shay told a long story that droned endlessly among the men as they sat beside their fire. When the young people had wandered away to the lane or to one of the fires, Mr Townley would presently call them back with his sudden strumming. Dorine danced with Elmer and Rosie with Eli, Maggie with Erastus or Sebe, Ellen with Erastus or Sebe. The moon was a small white disc in the sky accompanied by an incredibly vast light, widely spread. As she danced Ellen’s thought went widely with the moonlight, but deeply underneath in the roots of sense it drew toward the secret shadows. Jonas would pair the couples for the sets, giving Ellen to Sebe or to some of the O’Shays, but never taking her himself. The sky was clear like glass and their faces were clear, clearly discerned, each one telling its like with the candour of the moonlight. Dorine was quick and slender, her back daintily curved in the dance, and Ellen put flowers in her hair and hung her own chain about her neck, a chain Maggie had made by threading bright red haws, wanting to reward Dorine and endow her grace and her quick laughter. Then Jonas kissed Maggie and gave her to Erastus for a partner and went to sit among the men while the dance went forward. Some of the older men joined the revel. They would stare at the girls and then contend with the young men for places, dancing languidly as if but to fulfil the obligation or the dance pattern, as if they held the dance but lightly beside the matters of their days, the hogs and their slop, the tobacco and the corn. Jonas would continue to pair the couples for the sets or he would stand beside Mr Townley and call the forms or sit beside the elder O’Shay, smoking quietly.

  Then Ellen left the dance and went to sit among the women about the dying fire, but she came upon them from the shadowed side and they were unaware of her. One or two smoked quiet pipes and others chewed dip sticks. Their voices arose out of their meditations, arising aimlessly, gathering into a saying or falling away into drowsy quiet. A hard voice from a thin withered throat:

  ‘If the girls only knowed what they wanted, they’d take the fellow that could make, that had property.’

  Another voice, high pitched: ‘And easy-goen, not stingy.’

  ‘When I was a gal they was six horses tied to Pappy’s fence of a Sunday. But I set my head on Joe and looked like I never see any the rest.’

  ‘If gals only knowed one is as good as another, but you couldn’t tell a gal e’er a word.’

  ‘A good provider is what you want.’

  ‘When I was a gal they was six horses tied to Pappy’s fence and one of them was Sol Beemen’s. He lives over in Nelson now and look, he owns a fine farm. His wife gets ten dozen eggs a day, they say. Sol Beemen.’

  ‘Over and above that, one man is as good as another, and all about alike, if gals only knowed.’

  ‘But lands sake! I must have Joe. I never see Sol when Joe is by.’

  ‘I ain’t never been sorry I took Dan, though. I never see the day I’d take anybody else.’

  ‘Hear Lute O’Shay talk!’

  ‘When they say, “Come see the bride,” I always say, “I’d rather see her in ten year. I’ll wait my time,” I say.’

  ‘Yes, teeth all gone. Back crooked.’

  ‘I say I’d rather see her in ten year from now.’

  The dance went hurrying over the sand and the voices of Mr Jim and Jonas rolled forward the measures. Ellen sat by the fire of the women, unmissed, hearing their speech.

  ‘I saw Lenie May over in Nelson a while back, this summer it was. You remember Lenie May?’

  ‘Pretty as a picture, I remember. Shiny eyes and round cheeks. Ne’er other girl could hold a candle to Lenie. I remember one time…’

  ‘I see Lenie May last summer. Three a-cryen around her feet and the least one in arms, hardly got hit’s eyes open. And Lenie dragged out as thin as a fence rail, her cheeks hollow and her eyes, oh, my Lord!’

  ‘That’s what the gals want, fast as they can. Can’t wait to get in Lenie’s shoes.’

  ‘For all Lenie’s got one man’s as good as the next one.’

  ‘Under their shirts they’re all just alike, as I see.’

  ‘In the dark you couldn’t tell one from e’er other one.’

  ‘But the gals, they can’t wait to get in Lenie’s fix, fast as they can. Three a-cryen under foot and one in arms. And Lenie dragged out till she looks like a buzzard. Up by sunup to cook for Tom and up till midnight with the youngones, off and on, one and another always sick, teeth and bad colds and the least one colicky from the first.’

  ‘And not much to do with, Lenie May. Tom is right poor shucks at maken money.’

  ‘That’s hit. Tom can’t make no sight of money. Barely gets on.’

  ‘A good provider is what a body wants first and last. A man that’s got it in head to own a place and some property.’

  ‘Tom was a master hand at sweethearten though. That’s what caught Lenie May’s fancy. A regular bantum rooster. Tom could ’a’ had his pick of all the gals. Sweetheartenest man I ever see.’

  ‘Sallie Minervy wanted him. Remember?’

  ‘And Maudie Beam and Josie. Josie, oh, my Lord! She called Maudie a sight of hard names over hit. I recall how upset Josie was. Ready to gouge and fight that-there time over at Bethel Church.’

  ‘A man’s that got it in head to own a place… got get-up in his hide… Beyond that under their shirts they’re all just alike. In the dark you couldn’t know one from the next.’

  Mr Tom was calling for a new dance, ‘Swing your partners!’ and couples were standing in place. Ellen was missed from the group and voices called to her, her name leaping from the huddled throng, and then the throng broke and swept toward her, Dorine, Eli, Sebe and Elmer dragging her back across the shards to the moonlit space of the dance. But when Jonas did not come to dance with her but lingered back of Mr Townley, leaning against a tree, she gave herself to Sebe and danced the set with him. The new dance caught up all the vigour of every former one and raced with wild frolic over the loamy sand which had been packed to a hard floor. The dance ran away from the music and interposed steps of its own, and now and then Mr Townley would add a line or a refrain and make
a rhyme.

  Kiss the gal that’s on your arm.

  Forward and back and home you go,

  Kiss her Sebe don’t be so slow.

  In the dance Ellen turned her cheek to the men unless they fought roughly and gained her mouth, and then her whole being rushed upward to her lips, but above, far above, her lonely anger flashed for she wanted only Jonas.

  A wind began to blow, arising among the hills to the west, beyond the river. The dance swept forward more wantonly, the men circling around the girls, scraping a foot as cocks woo. Sebe kissed Ellen over and over, but she hardly knew who held her or who released, or who carried her around the circle in arms. Jonas stood against his tree. She would not care if the dance had her or if it carried her away into the dark of the woods or over the river. She gave herself up to the dance not caring if the end of it never came. It swirled around her confusion and plucked it into greater chaos. She let the dance do what it would, and if it asked for her mouth she gave that, now careless and willing, or if it wanted her laugh or her smile or her arms. The wind blew and she felt as if she turned about in the centre of a great wind, the other persons of the dance being but arms of the wind or limbs or the wind’s ribbons or clothing. Her own mouth was in the wind, blown with its currents, ready for any gale, curving to any kiss that came to it. Then the wind was fraying the beech sand and blinding her eyes. It blew out the lantern that hung on the tree beside the fire of the men, leaving Jonas in the dark. The women were gathering up the utensils and calling, were stamping out the fire, and some of the men ran toward the horses. A great cloud rolled over the sky and the moon went out. Dust and dead leaves poured across the air. The dance had melted away into the certainty of the wind. Mr Jim slipped his guitar into its sack und ran for his horses. Then Jonas’s horse took fright at the deep bolts of thunder and pulled back upon its bridle until the leather snapped and it was free to run, but Elmer caught it before it was away. Ellen was taken into the wagon with Dorine and several others, and the horses set swiftly off up the hill lane, the wagon jolting over the stones. There were few goodbyes and these were lost in the crackling of broken twigs and the pelting of dust and the rolling of the thunder. A cooler wind came with the storm and the girls shivered in their thin dresses. Ellen scarcely saw the others depart for the dust was heavy in her eyes, but she knew when Jonas swung on his wild little horse and went leaping off under the swaying trees.