Between the Flowers: A Novel

by Harriette Simpson Arnow

  Brother Eli put the Gregory family into his regular Sunday prayers in Salem Church; was thankful for their presence in the county, prayed that they might be prosperous and fruitful, and asked God to give them strong backs and stout hearts to bear their troubles and their burdens.

  He preached then, one of his usual gentle sermons, more eloquent than fiery, for Brother Eli since his return from China, a failure ousted by the Board of Missions, a man saddened by the death of his wife, and saddened, too, by the loss of something else, whispered by some to be the loss of his faith, had dwelled but little on hell fire and damnation. He married the young ones, visited the old and the sick, buried the dead, and grew flowers, and fruits and vegetables on a fertile but rocky hill farm above Burdine. Today, his sermon was little different from those he usually delivered to the farmers of Salem: "and the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety."

  Marsh sat and watched his nodding beard, and listened to his talk of the struggles of those other men for peace and safety and security, and a bit of land and a way of life in which they had had some hand in the shaping. Brother Eli caught his steady, intent gaze and looked more often at him than others in the congregation, and the eyes of the listeners gradually followed the preacher's glance. Marsh grew unpleasantly conscious of them; the doubt in some and pity in others, but worst of all there were the eyes that called him a fool and those that looked upon him as a strange oil man and nothing more. He dreamed of the day when he could sit in Salem church

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  and all the congregation could look at him in respect; a respect built on the knowing that he could farm and hold his own in their world with the best of them. It wished it were spring, time to begin the plowing. He hadn't plowed since boyhood; and he forgot the watching eyes in the cold fear of wondering if he could.

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  It was Sunday again, afternoon, and Marsh rowed Delph over the Cumberland to their new home, ready now. Delph had been gay and full of talk as they ran down the river hill, with her eyes laughing like the eyes of a woman going to a dance, but now in the boat she was silent with Caesar in her lap and her arms about her drawn up knees. Marsh looked at her, and wished as he had wished many times for a smooth quick tongue not given to halting and stumbling, to be able to tell her that this was maybe more than a boat ride over a river.

  But she sat and watched the coiling yellow river water, and seemed to notice for the first time that blue hill shadow had touched the valley. "Sundown comes early here," she said.

  But th' twilight's long," he answered, "an' th' cool of th' evenin' comes early, an' there's a high knoll in th' pasture where we can see th' sun go down."

  She brightened at that, but was silent again as she listened to the oars creak in their locks and water lapping and whispering against the boat. "It'll be awful quiet down here," she said, and shivered a little and pulled her coat more closely about her.

  Marsh smiled and looked at the sky as he lay back on the oars. "There'll never be anything to bother us. Not even stormsthey can't strike full around this curve in th' river. Not many places so sheltered as this."

  She nodded, and was silent while he fastened the boat, and while they walked up the river bank and across the stretch of bottom land, muddy and pulling at their feet under the snow. Though Delph had

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  visited the place and worked in the house several times with Dorie and Katy, it seemed strange now as she walked up to it. She swept her eyes over the land, and saw the house, gaunt and ugly in its mistreated yard. Past the house were gray sheds and outhouses, and a great barn set on the highest bit of bottom ground, so that the windows of the house seemed to stare up at the barn and the encircling arm of the river hill in a frightened beseeching way. She saw what had been the garden, rows of last year's bean stalks black and ugly against the snow, and farther away in the open fields lines of leafless cornstalks standing like skeletons of the summer. And worse than such things, the steep river hill towering above everything; its sheer limestone crags, red clay banks and stunted cedar trees striking against her eyes when she would look out and away as she had used to do at home.

  She was glad when they came to the house, and could go into their own kitchen and shut the door against the dreary, snowy twilight. Marsh smiled at the kitchen and praised her for her clever ways. The windows were gay with red striped curtains and the furniture and dishes looked much at home in the large square room, almost as large as Fronie's kitchen. Marsh had never really looked at the house since Delph, with Katy and Dorie and Perce's wife helping her, had papered the downstairs rooms and arranged the furniture. They made a circuit of it now; the four rooms below and the two above, all plain and square and large, like boxes tacked together.

  Though Marsh praised everything he saw, and declared she was a fine one to make such a showing for the little money spent, Delph was disappointed in her work. The house seemed bleak and lonesome, not gay and filled with life as she would have it be. Last week while she lived in the overflowing, overfurnished Fairchild house, her future home in the bottoms, because of its very difference, had seemed gay and exciting; the way a secret play house deep in the woods or on some hidden spot by the creek had used to seemsomething all her own where she could do as she wished. Still, after a day spent in the play house she had always been glad to come home. Now, as she stood by the stove and listened absentmindedly to some talk of Marsh's about the work he would do tomorrow, she looked at the bright curtains and the little makeshift stove, and wondered how it would be to live with them day after dayat least for a while.

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  Then Marsh was bringing her coat, begging her to come outside and see the many things he had done. They made a brief circuit of the lower farm with Caesar scampering at their heels. In all the buildings there was the air of age coupled with solidity that made her think of Costello's Place in the Little South Fork Country. The main barn was a mighty thing, high with a great loft for hay, stout cobwebby rafters, and halls and stables separated by log walls. ''Most a this barn was built before th' Civil War,'' Marsh said with pride. Signs of his rebuilding and mending were everywhere, strongly and securely fixed with good timber and new nails as other men built. He apologized for not having had time to mend the underpinning of the house, or fix the chimney of their living room, but Delph laughed away his apologies. She didn't mind not being able to have fire any place except in the kitchen; there was precious little furniture in their pretended living room anyhow, and mostly she thought she'd rather stay with him while he worked than in the house.

  They returned to the yard, and Marsh pointed out what looked to be a leafless twig stuck in the snow by the gate. "Look, that's th' first thing I plantedpear trees by th' gate, an' more fruit trees by th' road across th' pasture hill." And he smiled down at the little twig as if he could see it as a great tree, holding boughs of yellow pears high above his head.

  Delph smiled and praised everything she saw; the pussy willows planted by the spring house, and a box elder that was to grow at the corner of the yard where the spring branch trickled. She thought with him of the spring when the plum bushes by the window would bloom, and was the first to suggest that then the river hill would be less ugly when the dogwood and red bud and mock orange bush flowered.

  She forgot the flowers in the excitement of cooking supper, the first meal she had ever prepared for Marsh. She was flustered and awkward with him watching her, strolling about the kitchen, and never knowing that he was in the way. She felt as she had used to feel at school when the county superintendent came and the teacher had her diagram a sentence on the blackboard or work a hard arithmetic problem.

  She was almost glad when he took a milk bucket and went whistling away to do the barn work. Left alone, she discovered soon

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  that, though she was held to be a good cook by all who knew her, the preparation of a whole meal seemed for the moment a hopeless t
ask. Heretofore she had always had Nance at her beck and call or Fronie handy in case of trouble, but now when the potatoes threatened to burn and the coffee boil over at the same instant, there were only her two hands to stir the potatoes, shift the coffee pot, look at the bread, turn the bacon, mix flour and milk for gravy, and keep the stove stoked with wood. The stove in spite of its diminutive size gave proof of a large and stubborn disposition. It browned and threatened to burn the bread on top while it left it raw on the bottom, so that the baking of it must be finished on top of the stove. It was not without a sense of triumph that, when Marsh returned from the barn, she announced supper as ready and waiting.

  She told him nothing of her cooking troubles, for he was gay and full of talk about the animals in the barn, especially Prissy and her calf, and Maude, already bred to Perce Higginbottom's big black stallion. He praised Caesar who had shown no fear of any animal, but little as he was, had driven Ivy, the new cow, the length of the barn hall. Now he insisted that Caesar instead of Piper, the gray cat they had found in the barn, should have the good warm foam when Delph strained the milk.

  Delph laughed and teased, "Marsh, you're like a little boy with his first dog."

  Then she was sorry she had spoken so. Marsh looked red and miserable as he mumbled with all the glibness gone from his tongue. "I guess I do carry on like a fool. ButwellCaesar is th' first dog I've ever had."

  They sat down to supper then, and Delph could not eat for watching Marsh. She was anxious and a bit fearful of what he would think of the first whole meal she had ever cooked for him. He studied the blue checked tablecloth and the bright, though unmatched dishes, and said, "It all looks mighty nice, Delph."

  But she thought some of the pleasure left his face when his glance happened upon the platter of fried eggs. "Don't you like eggs?" she asked.

  "Y-e-e-s, but I thought we'd maybe sell a few. Mrs. Elliot up at th' brick house wants some, an'." He stopped, angered by the apologetic note in his voice. It was foolish to begin so, apologizing for his

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  plans to sell the things that other farms sold. The startled, puzzled look in Delph's eyes both hurt and worried him. But he ate heartily of the food, and praised everything, especially the cornbread. "This couldn't be beat, Delph," he said, and helped himself to another square.

  She flushed with happiness and answered, "That's good yellow meal."

  "I thought you wouldn't mind cookin' with yellow meal," he said, his eyes intent on his plate. "It'sit's a little cheaper than white."

  "Oh, it's just as good whenwhen you know how to mix it," she faltered, and wondered that such a little lie could hurt so. It was so little it was hardly a lie at all. It was just that she had remembered in time that eggs maybe cost more than meal, and he might not like it if she should say that yellow meal was good when mixed with eggs.

  "I bet you're thinkin' hard on Juber an' th' ones at home," Marsh said when she had remained some time silent, picking at her food instead of eating.

  She smiled into his tender troubled eyes. "I'm thinkin'that you've started out a farmer right. Th' boxes you've fixed in th' side room for cabbage an' tomato plants are ten times big enough for th' few we'd need."

  Once again he thought of trying to explain, of telling her that in Burdine there might be a good sale for fresh vegetables, but he hated to see her puzzled or worried so he only said, "You're already more farmer than I amthinkin' on th' farmin' when I was thinkin' on you."

  She laughed at that, and was light hearted again, pleasantly flustered when supper was over, and Marsh insisted on helping her with the dishes. Men in the Little South Fork country never did the work of women, and she didn't want him to begin in any such fashion. It would scandalize the neighborhood.

  In the end Marsh must content himself with letting her do the dishes alone. He stood uncertainly by the stove a time, and then went to one of the upstairs rooms where he had stowed his government bulletins. He came down soon with a good sized stack on his arm, which, after glancing hesitantly at Delph a time or so, he laid near the lamp on the kitchen table.

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  Delph turned about and asked, with a good bit of curiosity, "What is all that, Marsh, magazines?"

  He shook his head. "Bulletins," he mumbled, and watched her face and hoped she wouldn't be as most others had been. His collecting and reading of bulletins on farming had, in his oil field days, caused him many a fight with those who ridiculed. But worse than the fights had been his embarrassment before the wise ones, usually settled farmers with land of their own, who had smiled knowingly and pitied the roving oil man reading up on how to farm.

  But Delph, when she saw what he had, forgot the dishes and came on wiping her soap sudsy hands on her apron, eager to see first one and then the other. "I didn't know you ever read anything, Marshbut papers now an' then," she said, and he could see that she was pleasedand surprised, too.

  "There's one I'm tryin' to find. It's about graftin' fruit trees," he explained. "I'll not have any time this spring, an' it's too late to do much anyhow, but I thought tonight I'd kind of like to try my hand with a few plum switches."

  Delph let her dishwater get cold while she hunted the bulletin he wanted, and then when she set the pans on the stove to heat she let the water get too hot while she leaned on the back of his chair and helped him by reading the directions and advising now and then. When she had finally finished the dishes, she sat with him by the table and watched the work closely with her head over his shoulder.

  He worked slowly, his bowed head close under the lamp, and absorbed completely in the work, as if the little cuts he made on the twigs mattered more than anything else in the world. His square hands lost their blunt hard look, and became gentle things, careful not to bruise the bark he cut, skillful and quick with the small sharply pointed blade. Delph smiled at his patience, his pausing to examine each incision, then trying again, choosing a proper bud, cutting it and gently slipping it between the edges of the loosened bark, sighing with satisfaction when the work pleased him, swearing under his breath when the knife went too deeply.

  Now and then one was so perfect that he must stop and have Delph take it in her hands. He would smile to hear her praise; and agree with her that the work was good, and say that if the shoot were properly finished with grafting wax and thread, it would grow when

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  put into the ground. Even though the work seemed tedious and unimportant, more suited to an old womanish soul like Juber with his love of fiddle tunes and flowers, Delph was generous with her praise. Marsh's interest gave it importance, just as the mere being alone with him here made the barren kitchen and the ugly house fine and goodthings she would remember always. There by the kitchen table with Caesar sleeping between their feet, and the fire in the kitchen stove crackling and whispering, there was no feeling of being shut away from the world as in John's quiet house. When Marsh smiled or their hands touched over the grafting, it seemed to Delph that she could never dream over or hunger after anything not found there in that one room.

  With the practice grafting, the popping of a skillet of pop corn and Marsh's round with the lantern and Caesar to see that all in the barn was well, they were late in going to bed, and later still in falling asleep, especially Delph, haunted as she was with the fear that she would oversleep in the morning and Marsh would think her a lazy wife.

  But next morning, though the winter dawn was yet a long while away, Marsh came to the kitchen with a sheepish air when he learned that Delph was up before him, and had not only built the fire but had a breakfast waiting to be eaten. It was a busy day for him, he said, and hurried through breakfast and the barn work and was gone with ax and saw to get firewood before the dawn had scarcely lost its look of blue. Delph did her morning chores, singing as she worked. She straightened the house, baked a cake, set a kettle of pintos to boil, and still the morning was not half gone. She could see the sun on Dorie's roof tops, but the river valley lay in cold blue shadow with a c
urious look of sleep or of waiting for something to come and bring it to life.

  She heard the ringing of Cedar Stump school bell, whistles of the Burdine lumber mills, trains blowing lonesomely for the Cumberland bridge and tunnels, two miles or more up the river; but always the sounds were faint and muffled, never loud enough to smother the ticking of the blue tin clock she had bought from Mr. Cheely. She thought of Juber and the ones at home, and was lonesome with that restlessness that had used to seize her in the Little South Fork Country when she would ride and ride or go running down through the beech grove.