‘I’ll go somewheres far out of hearen of this place. I’ve done little that’s amiss here, but still I’d have to go. I couldn’t see my way to stay here and that’s what I studied out all day. I aim to go far, so far that word from this place can’t come there or is not likely. The strongest man in the place, I was, vigorous to lift above the rest, but they sneaked in on me when I was asleep and tied me with a rope. If I could ’a’ got one hand free. It wouldn’t be in reason to ask a man to stay on here now, and I aim to start when the moon rises, although I done little amiss here, God knows. I’ll be a long piece off by sunup. Walk, I will, and leave you the horses, and you and Hen can make out right well. Afterwhile I’ll send for you-all if you’re of a mind to come where I am, but I got to go now. You and the rest better stay where you got a roof over your heads and no man can take it away from you. I paid the rent ahead as you know. Don’t let any man tell you different, but they won’t trouble you, Ellie. If they do there’s men up around Pike’s will take your part, and I’ll come back, God knows, and come fixed to fight with the law on my side or maybe a weapon. But I’ll be gone at moonrise. I can’t see e’er other way, every man’s arm raised against me.’
Ellen was sitting in her stiff little chair across the hearth rocks, receiving his words, staring at the floor where the footmarks of the mob still stained the boards although she had swept them. Then she said:
‘No, I’d go with you, Jasper, wherever you see fitten to go. I couldn’t nohow see my way to stay behind. I’d go where you go and live where you lives, all my enduren life. If you need to go afore sunup, why then I need to go afore sunup too. I couldn’t make out to live on here with you gone. I’d have to go where you go and when.’
They sat in silence for a time, repeating their decisions, approaching each other. He would go far, to the Beech-grove country or perhaps further.
‘Whatever this country feels to you, why it feels the same to me,’ Ellen murmured. ‘I’d have to go.’
Then they held the thought together in mind, altering it and repeating it until it became a plan. They would load all onto the wagon, as long as it would hold, and leave the rest behind. ‘I’d want my plough and my axe, Jasper said, ‘but the balance of the wagon room could be for the house plunder. The team is strong and we can load on as long as e’er thing more can stick. We’d take the pigs and the chickens. It wouldn’t be right nohow to leave them here to starve.’ The plan lost its strangeness as they talked of it, mellowed it, and presently it became inevitable. They would lie down awhile to sleep but when the moon rose they would awaken and prepare to go quickly.
Jasper awakened when, at midnight, the moonlight began to pale the air outside. He brought the wagon near the door, hitched for the departure, and Ellen called Hen and Nannie and Joe to help. Then the furniture was loaded onto the wagon, set snugly together, and as many of the utensils as could be taken, but the rest were left behind. Joe put the hens and the pigs into a coop together and this was secured. Then Ellen gathered all the food that she had and all the foodstuffs, murmuring, ‘They did me harm, those men with the black rags on their faces,’ for the food was in no great quantity and there were seven to feed. Jasper made a warm seat of the feather beds and quilts near the front of the wagon, a place for the smaller children and Nannie to ride, but Hen and Joe sat near. By the time the moon was well above the trees they were on the road, the horses stepping briskly, for they must be far from the reach of this country before the night was done. They hurried down hillroads and over mire, or they turned at crossings without waiting to dispute of ways or to talk of destinations. The damp of the frost arose from the ploughed fields that had been set in readiness before the spring. The stony fields and the rough hills lying around Rock Creek began to recede but they did not slacken the pace of their journey.
‘Where are we a-goen, Mammy?’ Nan said.
‘I don’t know. Somewheres…’
‘Some better place,’ Hen said. ‘Rock Creek is a poor country to settle in.’
‘A hard country, not gentle like you’d want,’ Ellen said.
Then Nannie began to talk about the sky, looking out upon the stars. ‘They are wide apart tonight, the stars, and they’re a few, only bright ones.’
‘It’s the moon sets the stars off and away like that, if you ever noticed,’ another said.
‘I heared it said one time that all stars have names. Wouldn’t it be a thing to do now, to walk out of a night and to say, “there’s this one and there’s that”, a-callen by name?’
‘You could learn that in books,’ Dick said, ‘and that I’m sure. You could learn the names of all the stars maybe.’
‘Where are any books? We got no books,’ Hen said.
‘And all the sky and how deep it goes, and whe’r it’s got an end or not?’
‘You could learn that too in books, it’s said. I got a heap of books to read and ne’er a one have I read yet but two or maybe three. You could never read all the books in the world, I reckon, if you read all your days until you’re old.’
‘I don’t aim to get old. I wouldn’t. Grow up is all I aim.’
‘But the wisdom of the world is the dearest thing in life, learnen is, and it’s my wish to get a hold onto some of that-there. It’s found in books, is said, and that’s what I know. I couldn’t bear to settle down in life withouten I had it. It means as much as all the balance of life, seems like. Books is what I want. In books, it’s said, you’d find the wisdom of all the ages.’
‘Another year and I aim to have a crop all my own, share and share on some good land. I’m big enough to set out for my own self by now.’
‘Where do we think we’ll go now, Mammy, and where will we stay tonight?’ one asked.
‘I don’t know. A far piece from here.’
‘God knows!’
‘Some better country. Our own place maybe. Our trees in the orchard. Our own land sometime. Our place to keep…’
‘In them you’d find the answers to all the questions you’d ever ask and why it’s so…’
‘I wonder how deep it goes and whe’r it’s got an end and what the end is like…’
‘And nohow I couldn’t bear to settle down and not…’
‘How blue it is, even of a night, and a little whiter round the moon, but deep in, as far as you can see…’
They went a long way while the moon was still high above the trees, stopping only at some creek to water the beasts. They asked no questions of the way but took their own turnings.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Elizabeth Madox Roberts (1881–1941) was the second of eight children born to Simpson Roberts, an engineer, and Elizabeth Roberts, a teacher. She was raised in Springfield, and after leaving school spent most of her twenties teaching elementary school. She first began writing poetry after moving to Colorado in 1910, and enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1917, at the age of thirty-six, to study literature.
After graduating Roberts returned to Springfield. Her first novel, The Time of Man, was published to widespread acclaim in 1926, and she went on to publish a further seven novels, as well as poetry and two volumes of short stories. In 1936 she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but continued to write during her last few years. She died in Florida in 1941, and is buried in Springfield.
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Copyright
Published by Hesperus Press Limited
28 Mortimer Street, London W1W 7RD
www.hesperuspress.com
The Time of Man first published in 1926
First published by Hesperus Press Limited, 2013
This ebook edition first published in 2013
Designed and typeset by Fraser Muggeridge studio
All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–1–78094–191–2
The Time of Man Page 34
