3stalwarts

by Unknown

  “New-wedded folks don’t get tired, I calculate it. Will you come in for a sup to fresh you with, mister?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’ve got a cozy tap. I offer good trade,” she nodded at the sign above her head; “but you’re new-wedded.”

  Jerry read the sign, and flushed. It showed a beehive in yellow on a green ground, and underneath a jingle in red letters.

  Sugar is sweet And so is honey Here’s the place To spend your money.

  Isabella Huney, Proprietor

  “That’s me, mister. But I reckon you’re well chosen.”

  She began elaborately plaiting a wisp of her red hair, and made staring eyes at Jerry. He looked uncomfortably at her red mouth; and he noticed lines coming down from her nostrils.

  “Can we get through?” he asked stiffly.

  She gave a silent nod, and he and Mary went through the picket. They did not speak any more. The blood was up in his face. But once he surprised Mary’s glance as if she had found something new in him, and in a way it made him proud.

  A hundred yards farther on they overtook George Halleck trudging in the dust and reading from a book. Jerry missed something in the line, and for a moment he did not realize that it was the minister who had gone.

  “Where’s Mr. Atterbury?”

  George closed the book, but kept his finger in his place.

  “So you’ve caught up,” he grinned at them. “I don’t know what’s happened to the Reverend. I guess he just drifted off. He’s a strangely-minded man. Seems his preaching must have disconnected him somewhere.”

  Jerry wondered if the ninny mule had spied some tempting pasturage. He could well imagine the little creature browsing while the black-clad Reverend on her back closed his vague eyes to his vague thoughts.

  He looked down at the book that George was carrying and asked, “What have you got in that book?”

  George held it up.

  “It’s kind of a guide,” he said. “I bought it off Mrs. Huney at the gate. An outright woman, ain’t she— she and her sign together right on the road?”

  Mary had gone round the sheep to overtake Ma’s wagon, and he grinned as he watched her quick walking.

  “Did she try to persuade you to tarry, Jerry?”

  “Yes.”

  George laughed.

  “She did me, too. Brassy, right there in sight of wagons. But you —new-wedded! I’d told her, too!” He poked Jerry’s ribs. “I reckon you’ve a kind of bait for women, Jerry!”

  Jerry didn’t answer the grin, and George lifted the book once more as if he had just remembered it.

  “I was just looking up where we were. Right ahead to northward’s Herkimer Village. A post town. It says there’s a gristmill up the creek back there— West Canada by name. And a sawmill up above it. That-there stone church you see was fortified against the Indians in the Revolution war. South of the river lies the German Flats. Rich land. You can tell that by the farms. It’s plain to see where we are— fifteen miles from Utica.”

  He traced the words on the page, then closed the book and grinned at Jerry again.

  “Ma wants to talk to you and Mary. …”

  “Did you have a nice time walking with your man, dearie?”

  Ma Halleck’s red face wore a friendly grin as Mary adroitly swung herself onto the moving wagon. She nodded as she took her place on the high seat.

  “I believe we’d better camp soon. We’ve had a fine spell of weather, but there’s rain coming. I read it in my almanac and I expect it tonight. I like to get my dinner cooked afore it rains.”

  She shook the lines and bawled at the slacking leader.

  “Git, Joe! Lord, I’d like to leather you. He’s been slacking back all day, dearie. He always was a lazy. Git, you!”

  The leader for the moment bent industriously into his collar and Ma turned to Mary.

  “How does it feel being a woman four days wedded?”

  Mary smiled against the sun. To the southward dark clouds were piling up, their bellies beginning to catch fire. Mary watched them with unseeing eyes, and suddenly the fat woman put her hand over the girl’s wrist.

  “Come rich or poor,” she said, “God wish you children, dearie.”

  Her eyes softened as she watched the tranquil face. If she were a man, she thought, she would read the wealth in the girl, wealth to steady a man and make him comfortable; but she sighed— men did not see the things a woman saw. They valued even dollars differently. She eyed the face again, and tried to see it with a man’s eyes. The bloom in the skin— it had a clarity and freshness that younger girls in this land seemed to lack; she noted the curve of the ear and jaw, and the throat line sweet as a filly’s; the grey eyes nearly blue; and the quiet mouth with its awakening curves. Any man could see those things; and a wise man could read deeper.

  “Are you happy, dearie?”

  As she met the grave, level glance, she sighed.

  “No need to ask,” she said, lifting her voice a note. “I mind me of my own wedden morning. I wasn’t then so stout— more Esther’s build— but wilder than she. I felt let loose. I felt like a filly in spring pasture. I was bold then— I wasn’t ever a timorous woman— but them days I would cock up my heels at a man, skitterful.” Her glance became abstracted and one stout hand was lost under her breast. “My Halleck was an oldish man, sober in years. I was wild loving him. Nonsensical, I mind me. Not a sober girl like you, dearie. Aye-oh! but I was young!”

  Suddenly her big body sagged.

  “I hate to think of parting from you two. I’ve got fond of you, dearie. And Jerry’s so young. You’re both young. I’d like to keep my eyes onto you both.”

  “Jerry can look out for me,” said Mary softly.

  “So he can, I make no doubt. It’s me I’m thinking of, missing you.”

  At that moment, Jerry’s voice called up from the road, “Hey, there! Can I have a ride?” and in spite of herself Ma grinned. For a breath she imagined herself young and skitterful again.

  “It’s loading my horses shameful, but if so be you’re tired walking.”

  He jumped over the wheel, stepped over the seat, and leaned forward between them.

  “George said you wanted to talk to me and Mary, Ma.”

  Ma Halleck gave the reins another shake. Her round cheeks grew even redder and she fixed her eyes on the off leader’s ears. Her voice, when she found utterance for her words, was offish in its tone.

  “Well, here it is. I’ll out with it straight and you can take it or leave it as you’re minded. My land’s lot ten, township fifteen, in range two. I’ve got the papers here,”— she pointed over her shoulder to the wooden chest, —“but I don’t know what it’s like, beyond it’s wooded and holds fourteen acres of swampy ground. It means hard clearing, and it ain’t noways settled round it. That’s how the boys are figuring to take land close by. But I ain’t got but Joey to work my land. So I’m offering you, Jerry, a job at working for me. And ‘stead of wages you can work for an interest in my farm. That’s what it is.”

  She expelled a gusty breath, as if her stout being had been eased; and for the first time since she had started speaking she turned her eyes to see how Jerry might consider her proposition.

  She could see that he was pleased— Mary, too. And suddenly a kind of giggle forced itself out of her mouth.

  “Think of me!” she cried. “Getting halfway westward afore I ever considered my farm help!”

  Jerry said softly, “Thank you, Ma. But you’ve got Joey.”

  “That roosterish brat-boy! He ain’t no more reliable than hen’s peckings. Like as not, the first spring, he’ll take a notion for a girl and sashay out to prairie country. No, there’s no dependence in Joey.”

  Jerry said nothing. He was looking out ahead of the horses’ ears.

  “It would be a good thing for you, and for Mary,” continued Ma, warming to her own idea. “You don’t know a single body out this westward. It’ll be hard getting started. And you could come out with
us, and if it didn’t suit you in a year, why, you could move off.”

  Jerry dropped his eyes to his hands, that were folding themselves carefully.

  “If it’s the boys you’re thinking about, or Angy and Esther, you can put it right out of your mind. They’re well fixed. They’ll be all the gladder not to have to work for me. I’ve talked with them about it, Jerry.”

  Jerry said, “It’s nice. It’s a nice idea. I was figuring, though, on stopping off in Utica a spell.”

  Ma Halleck turned to Mary, to persuade her over Jerry; but she changed her mind. Mary was looking at her husband, and her face was utterly tranquil. Ma Halleck twitched her shoulders. It wasn’t right a boy his age should have a complete say.

  “You don’t need to answer right this minute,” she said.

  “It’s tempting to me,” Jerry said. “And I’m real grateful, Ma.”

  “You don’t need to feel that way. It’s business to me. Come on, now. Say you’re going to close.” She hesitated, seeing his face making up to answer; and then she added diffidently, “You know, Jerry, we all feel fine to you. And you’re hard put against it, having used your money.”

  Jerry looked up swiftly.

  “I’ve got plenty, Ma.”

  But his eyes swung from her to Mary and back. His jaw set, and for the first time Ma Halleck noticed the bones in his face.

  “I’ve thought, Ma.” His voice was slow. “Me and Mary are real grateful to you, but we’re stopping off in Utica.” And suddenly, as her fat face fell, he added, “I don’t know how we would have got along if you hadn’t been so good to us. I don’t, really.”

  Ma turned and grinned at him, but her glance was for the girl. There was no readable expression in her face. She was slightly flushed and her eyes were downcast as though she had read some disapproval in Jerry’s face.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Jerry. I’ve got a hankering for you two.”

  She spoke to the horses again, sharply, and eyed the roadside.

  “Wouldn’t that look like a likely spot for unhitching?”

  Jerry looked.

  “It appears a good place. Them trees would break a south wind rain. And there’s room this side the fence.”

  Ma lifted her voice.

  “We’re camping, George.”

  The sun was going down sullenly, its fire damped in the clouds. The cattle were taken in and tethered to the fence and the men used the wagons and lengths of rope to make a kind of yard for the sheep.

  Ma worked industriously at the supper. She made no comment on Jerry’s decision, even while she and Mary were alone; but she talked of her house back in Vermont. “Halleck was the youngest son,” she said. “We had a hillside farm and it was giving out. But I liked the house. I had an oven there could golden a loaf like none you ever seen.” And she talked about homey things her mother had taught her.

  It was twilight when they had finished eating, and the rain was a visible shadow across the river. They could see the pucker coming into the quiet surface, the first drops, and the wind, and then the rain itself. A drop struck Ma’s stout cheek. She said, as she wiped the last dish, “I feel real lonesome, sort of. Tomorrow night we won’t have these new-wedded folks along.”

  George looked at her understandingly.

  He said, “I’m sorry, too.”

  Jerry— who had been silent all through the evening— looked down.

  “You’ve been real good to us.”

  “Shucks,” said George, as he shooed Prue to her wagon. His lean face offered no comment. And before the heavy rain had reached them, the people were in their beds.

  Jerry listened to it, drumming on the wagon hood above their heads. Outside a horse was crunching the grass. He could hear the small sharp sound of tearing roots.

  “Mary.”

  “Yes, Jerry.”

  “Did you tell Ma about us?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why did you tell her that?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Why?” he said again.

  She spoke brokenly, as if the words wrenched her.

  “I couldn’t help it. Seems as if I had to tell somebody about you and me.”

  He lay a long while, stiff on his back. He had an idea that she was crying; but she was so quiet in all the things she did, he did not know.

  “I don’t blame you. Only, I wouldn’t like for you to tell anyone else.”

  “I won’t again.”

  Her voice was very low.

  “Of course, with Ma and them it doesn’t matter so. In Utica nobody will know about it.”

  She said nothing more, but he could hear her making her breath even. Far away, thunder rolled into the valley… .

  The movers went silently about their morning chores. Rain still was falling; and the sunrise was no more than a dim spot behind them in the notch of hills. It was cold, with the wind veering to the northwest. Through the drizzle, harder showers spat slantingly. Sight of the country was shut off. Other wagons, starting their morning’s haulage, appeared inexplicably in the murk and passed with a sludge of horse-hoofs. The surface of the road became a kind of paste that opened under the tires and closed its lips behind them, leaving no trace.

  Jerry walked with Abijah Judson. The man’s pale moustaches dripped rain against his chin; he had turned up the collar of his shirt to protect his throat, round which Angy had tied a strip of black silk half an inch wide to guard against the quinsy. Vermonters, he informed Jerry, were inclined to get the quinsy when they traveled out of their valleys, and for a strong man he himself had always been extraordinarily partial to disease.

  Jerry did not answer. His hat brim sagged with wet. His close-buttoned coat was stained with seeping rain; and he could feel sorry for the sheep whose thick fleeces dragged them down like sopping mops. The dogs splashed in the ruts, their tempers savage. It was a dreary day for a man who was arriving westward.

  He now felt doubtful of his wisdom in refusing Ma Halleck’s proposition. Last night she had conveyed an impression of hurt feelings. With George it didn’t matter; he could take yes or no and let it go at that. But women were queer in their business; and he wondered if Mary had been crying in the night.

  She looked fresh and bright as she sat beside Ma Halleck on the high seat. She had a gift for keeping her clothes from looking draggled. Be-side her every morning, Angy and Esther were frowzy creatures; and even Prue was wan. Travel didn’t agree with George’s wife; she kept turning eastward, Jerry noticed. At each halt she looked backward even if George was with her on her wagon; and at nights, as they sat at supper, she always seated herself to face the road they had traveled during the day. She seemed to fear the westward prospect. She was a frail little woman, with small hands, lost in her own transplanted being.

  At eight o’clock they came to Sterling’s gate; and there they had to draw up while two teamsters hauled through. The bells over the wheelers rang with a choked note; and as soon as they were past, a gust of wind swallowed the sound of their going. Up ahead, George paid out the toll, and Sterling, in unlaced boots, a little man with a crooked back and twisted face, threw back his wet black hair with one hand while he ran over the silver in the other palm. Banging crazily over his head, the signboard of his bar shed sprays of wet. On the eastward side it had a picture of a teamster walking on a snowy road, with his team at his shoulder; and underneath were the words,—

  Teamster’s Travel

  And on the other side the same teamster was depicted before a red-hot stove. A couple danced behind him on one side, and on the other a black man fiddled, and the teamster held on his right knee a tankard of blue earthenware, and on the left a bouncing hussy in a yellow dress with bright green ribbons in her hair. And underneath this picture the artist had painted,—

  Teamster’s Rest

  The wind grew in power as the first wagon rolled hollowly under the uplifted palings. Its top was shuddered with rain. And Jerry and Abijah herded the sheep closer for Sterling to check
his count.

  While they stood there the rain barrel at the corner filled suddenly, and the sound of rain from the pouring eaves’ troughs was choked off and then a new gush of the overflow began to spatter into the stone gutterway beside the road. “Nasty weather,” said the little man, as he backed into the shelter of his open door.

  Neither Jerry nor Abijah answered him. They had a glimpse inside of a woman bending down in front of a stove and a girl with a blank, sleepy face coming in with spring water in a pail. A smell of stale liquor floating out unsettled Jerry’s stomach. Behind him Sterling let the gate thud into the mud and reentered his house. The door slammed dully.

  Then the road was curving southward over flat land and the full blast of the wind came sidewise at them. The old lead cow shook her white ears and bellowed. She would have balked but for the dog snapping her heels.

  “I don’t blame you wanting to stay in a town,” shouted Abijah.

  “Hey?”

  “I don’t blame you wanting to stay in Utica. This eternal travel.”

  “I can’t hear.” Jerry moved across the road.

  “To hell with it!” said Abijah, and he drew some water from one side of his moustache.

  The land was level, but the fields were lost in rain. Once they passed pastured cows, tails turned to the wind; and once they saw a farmer in his barn door staring helplessly at the sky… .

  Up on the leading wagon Ma Halleck was valiantly recovering her spirits.

  “Rain afore seven,” she quoted to Mary. “And a northwest wind means clearing, though I calculate on colder weather. Brisk for traveling.”

  Mary was eyeing across the flat land under wetted lashes.

  “How far do you think Utica is, Ma?”

  “Too near by half. I reckon on its being only four miles more. I’m going to miss you, dearie, after all these days.”

  Mary smiled.

  “We’ve come a long way. How far have we come, Ma?”

  “From Albany?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ninety miles or so.”

  “It seems far.”

  “It seems far to usn, coming from Rutland County. It can’t seem but a piece to you, all the way you’ve traveled.”

  “I expected the ocean travel to seem long. But this seems such a big land we’ve been across.”