3stalwarts

by Unknown

  “Thanks.”

  Staring right and left, he walked slowly back to the fence. He paused astride the top rail and bit off another mouthful. “It’s pretty good sugar,” he called, and then ducked down for home.

  “My, ain’t they daisies, though? Look at the red in them!” Ma Halleck held the trout up. “I’ll wrap them in corn and fry them fresh. They’ll just make our edibles complete.”

  And she bent over vigorously… .

  “I can see the Reverend acrosst the meadowland,” said Esther. “It’s time you was dressing, Mary. The sun’s setting deep down, now.”

  Far away the barking of a dog, taking a herd out, echoed faintly. A cowbell tinkled.

  Mary stood up.

  “We shouldn’t rightfully touch you, being married women,” said Angy.

  She and her sister hoisted themselves on the seat, and the flap closed over Mary.

  All alone in the stuffy wagon, she stood still a moment. Then her hands went slowly to the laces of her dress. Slowly, she undid them, and slowly let the dress down about her feet. Slowly, as if it hurt her, she took off her petticoats and let them fall. She bent again, and her undershift of rough wool slid down her knees. She straightened her back as if a pain were there. And she stood alone with herself, white and still.

  The sisters had left the bucket accessible under the seat. Mary went about her washing with a quiet stealth. Scarcely breathing outside the flaps, they yet could not hear her. Their faces sobered, even Esther’s, and suddenly they looked away.

  There was a hush in the air that even the twitter of roosting small birds did not break. Only a wagon rumbling far down the road made an undertone in the silence, as though the earth had begun to breathe.

  Mary heard it as she plaited the blue ribbon through her hair. Her hands stopped in the task, and she stood with white arms uplifted. In the dusk of the wagon her skin shone dimly with the beauty of her approaching time; and her eyes, half fearful, veiled themselves with lids grown heavy. “Reverend’s coming. He’s crossing over the ploughed land now”— Esther’s voice. And the voice farther off of George hailing Mr. Atterbury, and his voice coming near and replying, and the two of them fixing the spot for the wedding. Jerry being called, and the low mutter of the minister talking to him. Rumbling of the wagon wheels approaching down the pike, growing louder. Scents of cookery, and the hush in Ma Halleck’s chatter. Angy’s whisper: “Near time, Mary. Are you ready?”

  Mary stooped her head through the gathered red-brown dress, settled it over her body with half-dead hands that trembled. She put the shawl across her shoulders and the silver chain round her throat. She stood up, and as Angy parted the flaps her eyes became still.

  They helped her down over the wheel, adjuring her softly not to falter. Their plump faces were sober now, and they walked with a stiffness in their knees.

  Dimly, down the slope of ground, past the fire, as she walked, Mary saw the movers; beyond them, Jerry, red-faced, set-lipped, his dark eyes on hers; and her blood began to stir. She saw the white head of the minister, his blue benign eyes, his gentle mouth to say the everlasting words. Two dead mullein stalks rose up, one either side of him, against the fence rails; and she wondered if the legend were true that bees drowsed out the winters in the dark, hollow rods. Beyond lay the ploughed land, broken, brown, and heavy, making its preparation for the seed. She tried to see it as it would be in its abundance— gentle with grain, swaying to the touch of heaven.

  She was aware of the girls halting stiffly behind her; and now she advanced alone. She felt Jerry’s strong, lean hand in hers, and hers in his. But she did not see anything but the vision of barley, and she felt only the breath-taking life in her heart… .

  The minister talked softly. He had been by the river, and he had seen on the high banks the painted pictures of the Indians, older than the remembrance of the oldest settler, and a little of the mystery of earth clouded his soft voice. …

  But Jerry woke to the singing blood, and he took out the ring he had fashioned from a horseshoe nail, and put it upon her finger, and he bent forward to kiss her, with the minister’s eye upon him, and her lips were cool, and living.

  A flock of crows that straggled across the sky hushed their vaunting bedlam at the uncommon sight. The stillness of evening mantled the valley, and the first planet made a spot against the afterglow.

  And then Mrs. Halleck cried, “Oh, I do love a wedden!” She swooped down the alleyway between her children and gave the wedded pair great hearty smacks of kisses, and the others clapped, and all at once the late afternoon stage went whirling by for Albany. The driver cried and tootled his horn, and handkerchiefs were waved, and laughter came back to them.

  The lid lifted on the kettle and Ma gave a shriek, and in the midst of the others Mary and Jerry were ushered up to the fire. They were sat down side by side and given plates piled high. The minister was served.

  Tea was offered for the womenfolks, but Joe passed out glasses of whiskey for the men. As the daylight drew downwards into the west, the firelight sought out their faces, George with his arm round his wife’s waist, the two other couples paired off.

  “Come, Ma,” said Joe. “It’s you must take a bachelor man, if the Reverend won’t have you.”

  His mother slapped his cheeks.

  “Don’t be naughty, Joey.” But the minister had not heard. And Ma’s stout face beamed in spite of herself, and she edged against his output arm and dipped her corn cake in Joe’s whiskey glass and giggled as she ate it down.

  “‘Pears to me that married couple over there ain’t eating hearty.”

  “Married pairs ain’t given to food, I’ve noticed. Not new-married.”

  Jerry grinned.

  “Food’s for to comfort,” he said. “And I’ve been comforted already.”

  Abijah laughed and clapped his calloused hands.

  “By the Lord, I wisht there was a floor for dancing. Every time I look at those two married-person faces I feel my feet get lightsome.”

  “Your feet lightsome!” Esther laughed. “Seems my ears still ring with your feet stomping down below at my own wedden.”

  “Abijah’s a great dancing man,” Angy said pridefully.

  “Wish we had music. I like weddens with some music. I wish there was a fiddler hereabouts. I’d walk a mile to hear some fiddling.”

  “Joe,” said George, “where’s your harp?”

  Joe grinned up from beside his mother.

  “Right in my pants’ pocket, George. Do you calculate on a tune?”

  George nodded.

  “Now we’ve finished eating. First, though, we’ll drink this couple with some wine.”

  Ma Halleck was gathering the whiskey glasses, rinsing them in the water pail. Now George took out the yellow-sealed bottle.

  “Don’t break the shield!” cried Ma, as he started to break it. “Maybe Mary will want to keep it for a remembrance. It’s so pretty.”

  Mary, who had sat quiet, chin on hands, spoke gently.

  “I won’t need no remembrance.”

  Jerry eyed her sidelong. Beauty was in her eyes. He had seen Joe glancing at her again and again, had seen the eyes of the other men admiring, had seen Angy’s eyes with a touch of envy. His own face felt stiff and circumspect to himself. But he felt that he had done well. He was proud of her. It made him strong and masterful. He was his own man now, a masterful man.

  And then he looked again at Mary, and reading the quiet in her eyes he was jolted back into the intimacy of the present, and he became aware of the overarching shadows of the old grove, of the grey vague rain-stained shapes of the wagon hoods and the ritualistic coils of flame. For a brief space his brain saw clearly. He was conscious of his own unease, a sense of darkness between himself and the fire, and, as he sought to struggle through it, all he could see was Mary’s face,— himself a shadow,— and from her self -containment, like a little boy, he drew assurance.

  It seemed to him that he was growing in that flitting time:
he remembered himself in the pantry of his father’s house in Uniontown, stealing from the sweet-pickle jar, and his nose was alive to the remembered smells, the cream and butter smell, the dry odor of ageing hams and flitches, the mixed scent of tansy, and tarragon, and camomile, and may-weed, and boneset; the woodshed was clear in his brain with its scent of chips, and he heard his father’s stern words and the swish of the strap, but he did not feel; and a voice was saying, “Love apples are for birds,” and he remembered being sick; and he saw himself going to school under old Jeptha Harris; and he remembered his agony as he stole behind the sleeping old pedagogue and tied the tail of his wig to the chair back, and he saw the red stolid faces of the schoolroom regarding him dispassionately under the old man’s voice; he saw himself later walking through the pine woods with Nancy Van Tripp, the miller’s daughter; he saw the miller’s threatening face; and then his father was saying, “Critters behave in spring, but a man makes his own way,” and yet his father had withstood his seeking his own future; he saw himself going away, his brother waving after him, his mother walking to the gate at his side; his own man at last— he heard the Shaker preacher’s voice, “Money don’t usually buy”; and his strength returned. But the sense of time in him was divided into three parts, and now he listened in the past, and he looked in the future, and he felt the blood in his body, and the time was near.

  He stood up to thank them and they cried to him and to Mary to drink glasses together. Mary rose at his side, slowly, without awkwardness. They drank to each other, for it was a thing of instinct, in which they had no need of speech. He was aware of the others clapping, and the twanging of the jew’s-harp as Joe’s hand began to fan. Abel Marcy raised his hoarse voice in the courting song:—

  ” ‘Hi,’ said the blackbird, sitting on a chair, ‘Once I courted a lady fair; She proved fickle and turned her back; And ever since then I’ve dressed in black.’ “

  The jew’s-harp caught up a beat:—

  Towdy-owdy, dil-do-dum, Towdy-owdy, dil-do-day, Towdy-owdy, dil-do-dum Tol-lol-liddy, dil-do-day.

  George’s voice, sonorous and true: —

  ” ‘Hi!’ said the little leather-winged bat, ‘I will tell you the reason that, The reason that I fly by night Is because I’ve lost my heart’s delight!’ “

  And the harp:—

  Towdy-owdy, dil-do-dum… .

  Angy and Esther and Prue and Ma Halleck had stolen away to Ma’s wagon. Jerry saw the hood bulge as they moved here and there. They were fixing.

  Stroking aside his pale moustache, Abijah Judson tilted his head:—

  ” ‘Hi!’ said the little mourning dove, ‘I’ll tell you how to regain her love. Court her night and court her day, Never give her time to say, O Nay!’ “

  What were songs when the land was ploughing and the dew fell and spring was just beyond the southward hills?

  Tol-lol-liddy, dil-do-day.

  Jerry stood close to her, his eyes saw her eyes drooping, the bend of her neck, the ripple of the fire through her hair. The skin in the notch of her shawl was creamy and warm. The past was fading, for the time was coming. And all he brought with him out of the past was a remembrance of bloom in the spring. He saw the firelight through darkness and heard the whisper of cows over their cuds. Mist was on the river and starlight on the mist.

  Ma Halleck was coming back with the girls; now she was sitting down. Her voice in her stout throat bubbled over:—

  ” ‘Hi!’ said the woodpecker, sitting on a fence, ‘Once I courted a handsome wench; She got scary and from me fled, And ever since then my head’s been red.’ “

  The girls were round about Mary. She was going away to the wagon. Her head was bent, and her shoulders curved. Quietness and lowliness were in her walk; and beside her the girls’ faces wore a strange abashment of mirth that struggled with the time, as if they dared not let it loose. But Jerry’s head lifted; and left alone he became aware of himself: how his hands moved on the wrist joints; how his heart beat against his ribs and his lungs swelled with breathing; and his feet were light on the ground.

  Tol-lol-liddy, dil-do-day.

  Now the girls were coming back, and the men were standing up. He felt them beside him, leading him, and the night was growing still. But ahead of him was stillness beyond the world, and the wagon was sleeping against it. They were taking him round to the far side of the wagon. They were unlacing his boots, removing his coat. Now they were leaving him. And he was alone. He did not hear, he did not see. Prue’s voice singing softly to herself by the fire was beyond his scope, for the past was behind him, and his being was his own.

  With a swift arrogance he poised himself before the flaps. And now his ears could hear the littlest sounds and his eyes see the smallest things.

  He could hear a trout rise far away in still water, and see a spider laying an anchor thread from the hub of the wheel to a dried clover stalk; he could feel the dew; and the breathing of darkness was in his ears; and only the wagon was still.

  And then, as his hands reached for the flaps, he felt them tremble with the uprising of his being. But he hesitated no longer, for the time was now.

  5

  “A northwest wind means clearing’

  In all his life, Jerry had never suspected there could be a road like the Mohawk Turnpike. It seemed to him that all the world was moving on it. He was standing in the middle of the roadway on top of a rise of ground. It was afternoon, and Mary had come back from Ma Halleck’s wagon to walk with him. There was no wind that day; the night had been cold, carrying a hard frost; but the sun now shone full on them, filling the world with a bright glitter so that even the new green of the meadows glanced against one’s eyes and the river shone like blue fire.

  “We’d better be getting after the wagons,” he said.

  The road led them downward toward the flat land that stretched out ahead as far as they could see. The hills drew back from the river here, their slopes more gentle, and the river itself began meandering back and forth across the valley. The road seemed closer to the land, and the travel on it less rapid.

  Marigolds were blooming in the wet spots, skunk cabbage was unfolding its bright green leaves. In strips of drier pasture, quaker-lady flowers were sifted through the grass like a pale fine bluish snow. The trees were coming into leaf, the maples hazy pink and lilac in the wood lots, the elms a soft golden olive, like tapestry trees.

  Jerry caught some of the peacefulness, and, as they were alone in the road, he reached shyly for Mary’s hand. His eyes shone with a light of possessive pride. And her grave glance was tender. They did not notice the man harrowing beyond the fence; they did not see him stop and grin at them; but when he started his team once more he whistled a tune.

  “Mary,” Jerry asked suddenly, “what would you like to have best in all the world?”

  Her brows puckered and for a long time she was silent.

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought,” she said at length.

  His voice was slightly impatient.

  “What would you like most to have me be?”

  She said, “I hadn’t thought, Jerry.”

  “You’re a queer girl.”

  “Am I?” She lifted her face with an effort. “I’d like a farm. I’d like a small farm, maybe, with a brook beside it and a spring house. I’m a fair hand at dairying.”

  “Are you? But you’re a queer girl for a man to marry. Wanting a small thing always. I can’t figure it out.” His keen eyes, restless again, went roaming.

  “It’s a funny thing, Mary. But since I got onto this road, and since I got wedded to you, I’ve kind of lost my hankering to farm. Money comes slow in farming. Everything’s bound in acres. I’d rather have money. I want to be rich. I’d like to make you rich, with hired girls to help you in the house.”

  She smiled behind her eyes.

  “I don’t need helping, Jerry. I’m willing to work.”

  “I guess you’ll have to for a while, Mary. But on this road I’ve got to feeling somet
hing different will come. I feel as if I could lick the world.”

  Her eyes lost their self -contentment; the lids drooped submissively. Her voice became husky.

  “I’m not very good at things, Jerry. But I’ll help you all I can.”

  Jerry put out his hand with a swift gesture and caught hers.

  “It don’t seem I could get it out of my head that we are wedded.”

  His face was set straight forward as he walked, his cheeks reddened.

  “I wisht I could have give you a better ring. I couldn’t think of anything else to fashion it with. But when I get rich I’ll buy you a gold one.”

  “No, no.”

  He looked at her in amazement.

  “Wouldn’t you like a gold ring better?”

  “I like this one.”

  “But, Mary …”

  Her mouth and eyes became firm.

  “No. I’ll always want this one.”

  He walked ahead a pace, his eyes downcast and troubled. Then, as she caught up, he said, “I’ll have it plated with gold, then.”

  She drew a quiet breath, and he said, “You like it because I fashioned it?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s nice,” he said warmly. “That’s nice.”

  He was happy once more.

  The road swung round a curve, and at the end of the next straight stretch they saw a tollgate, and a village beyond. The gate had a house beside it, and a bridge upon the near side led up to the upraised grating across a wide creek. The slats of the gate glistened white against the sun, and their shadows made blue bars upon the backs of the Hallecks’ driven beasts. They saw George standing under the gate, pointing back at them, and a blowzy woman nodding her head.

  As they approached she went about her business of winding down the grating, and then she sat down under the signboard of her little taproom, and folded her hands on her skirt of scarlet calico. She was smiling broadly.

  “You’re of that party?” she greeted them, and Jerry nodded.

  “New-wedded folks will linger. Ain’t you tired a-walking?” she asked Mary.

  “No, ma’am.”