3stalwarts

by Unknown

  Lying in the road, Jerry listened to his broad feet treading back. He seemed to feel the blows they made in the mud against his cheek. His back was aching in slow waves of pain that began at his heels and rose and rose until they lapped his neck, and then went down. And the going down hurt more than the rising.

  His head was like a stone. He tried to lift it; but his neck had lost strength to bear the load. He let it fall again to draw his breath. He tried again. This time he got his hands beneath him, thrust his knees forward. He swayed on hands and knees trying to lift his head. At last he got up.

  He began to walk. At first it was hard for him to keep the road. But as he went on, his feet walked for him. His head kept saying, “Mann’s Mill.” And something further back said, “Two miles… .”

  A light had been left burning in the miller’s house. He opened the door and leaned against the post.

  “Good God in Heaven!”

  Mr. Bates and the man who had ridden. in with Borden sat at the kitchen table with a pile of papers between them. A lamp burned on the table, and a moth with rosy splotches on his wings was fluttering round and round the pricked brass shade. The pricks made spattered patterns on their staring faces.

  “Where’s Dancer Borden?”

  “Dancer!” Mr. Bates looked blank.

  “Where’s Dancer Borden?”

  “What happened to you, boy?”

  “Where’s Dancer Borden?”

  The second man looked annoyed.

  “He lit out. He said he wanted to get back to Victor. He lit out at ten o’clock.”

  “Wait a minute!”

  Mr. Bates came to the door. He blinked his eyes against the falling rain.

  He said: “What happened to him?”

  “He’s had a fight,” said the dry voice. “I’d say he got licked.”

  “I’ve got to get him back.”

  “Come inside. We’ve got to settle up the yards of earth.”

  “To hell with your embankment!”

  But Jerry had vanished in the rain.

  He struck into a path to keep away from Bates. He heard him pass along the road. His voice came thickly through the rain. He waited until he had gone back. Then he himself went on.

  He took the backward road. The rain kept falling. It came now more heavily and drops were things to feel. He lost the road awhile and moved along through underbrush. His face was whipped by twigs. Sickness be-gan to grow in his stomach. It crept up in him.

  The dawn was pallid in the rain. Along the road he began to meet wagons. The men were driving with set faces. They had their women on the seat at their sides and their children back of them in the boxes.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  “You’re heading wrong, young man,” the man said. “Henslow’s woods lie west.”

  “Dan, look at his face.”

  The man swore under his breath.

  “Hey, wait a minute.”

  A man came riding on a leggy bay with slatted ribs. The rain ran off the brim of his tall hat and spattered on the white hands folded on the horse’s withers.

  “Which way?”

  The exhorter lifted wet grey eyes that showed red half-moons for the underlids.

  “At Henslow’s. West of Pittsford.”

  “Which way?”

  “Set your face to the path of the sun. The sun sets in the lap of God.”

  His eyes did not observe, but he made a blessing in the air.

  A tinker drove by clattering his pots. His woman was clad in rags and snatches of bright colors.

  Jerry struggled to think.

  “Which way?”

  The woman looked at him.

  “Stop a minute, Rafe. The boy’s been hurted.”

  The man yanked at his pony.

  “What are you looking for, boy?”

  “A girl.” He said it stiffly. “A man on a black horse.”

  The woman looked at the tinker. The tinker laughed.

  “The both of them on one black horse? We’ve seen them, boy. We seen them afore sunrise riding out of Victor. She rode behind him on a blanket pillion with her arms around his middle. She looked at us— and laughed because his horse shied at our rattling load.”

  He seemed to take pleasure in the telling. Then he spoke to his pony. But the woman grabbed the reins.

  “Where do you live, pet?”

  Jerry stared stupidly at her. His tongue was thick between his teeth. It filled his jaws when he tried to answer.

  The woman said, “We’d better take him with us.”

  The tinker cursed.

  “You’ve gotten me eight miles off my route to tend camp-meeting. What do you want now?”

  “He needs tending, Rafe.”

  She jumped over the wheel. Her legs flashed bare. They were round and hard. She came back to Jerry and took his swaying shoulders in hard hands.

  “You’re sick, pet. Come get into Rafe’s wagon.”

  Rafe grumbled.

  “The pony’s overloaded as it is.”

  “I’ll walk, then.”

  Rafe cursed.

  “Where’U we take him to? We can’t turn up at camp-meeting fetching anything like him.”

  “We’re not going to camp-meeting. The boy’s got fever. We’ll stop him at the first house along the road.”

  “There ain’t no houses on this road.”

  “We’ve got to get him shelter from the rain.”

  Rafe grumbled.

  He got down slowly.

  “You are the damnedest bitch at altering things.”

  He helped her shove Jerry into the box. She spread a blanket over him. Rafe climbed aboard and cut the pony viciously.

  “You needn’t change your mind. Get on.”

  He hunched himself against the rain. The woman bent over Jerry. The rain was running in her hair, down her brown cheeks. She had brown, slanting eyes and a long nose with curving nostrils. Her clothes smelled of leaves and stables, and her skin gave out a musky, overpowering, sweet scent.

  She said to the tinker, “If you’re sick of me, you can go on to meeting. I’ve got no trouble finding me a man.”

  The man croaked raucously.

  “There, pet,” she said to Jerry. Her voice was high-pitched when it grew gentle.

  The little pony trotted doggedly. The rain slanted down on Jerry’s face like grey, blunt-headed arrows. Trie boles of the trees showed black sides to the rain. Their branches drooped with the weight of rain. But the woods were alive with traveling people.

  Wagons came up behind the tinker’s rattling cart and passed with a whisper of wheels along the muddy road. The people in their bright best huddled under the rain, but their faces looked straight ahead to where the sun would set in the lap of God. Some were excited; and their words tossed over Jerry like bright-colored birds.

  “Preacher Eddy’s coming up from Cincinnatus to exhort.”

  “He is a powerful exhorter.”

  “He uses his hands powerful in exhorting. Seems like he puts his hands upon the Devil’s tail to twist him out of my breast. He lays right hold of the Devil in everyone that hears him, causing the Devil to howl, Preacher Eddy does. …”

  “I listened to a minister in Oaks Old-Stand. Deacon Gandy hired him. A notable breather this man is. He breathes into a person’s eyes to clear them for the sight of God.”

  “He breathed into my sister’s eyes. She said she saw the Jesus crucified, and angels on a ladder, climbing up to God like painters, only for buckets each one carried a Commandment set in gold.”

  “That’s right, I guess. She said she heard the Israelitish trumpets clear as Pennsylvany Bells.”

  “It’s going to be a powerful endeavoring against old Satan. Fifteen ex-torters will be there.”

  “Captaining against the Devil.”

  “I feel my soul get heavy with the Devil now.”

  “Exhorter Marcy will deliver you, sister. I put store in Marcy. He’s got acquaintance with the saints.”

&n
bsp; They passed on and the pony trotted his jingling load in silence. The rain gained force. The tinker swore.

  “You are the most bedeviling bitch I ever ditched with, Besy. I won’t go on no more.”

  “All right, then. Then I’m done with you, Rafe.”

  “I wasn’t going to turn you off. There’s a cabin used to stand here— a trapper’s cabin. I’ll turn up to it.”

  “Has it a roof left?”

  “How do I know? It used to have.”

  The pots clashed together as the wagon tilted over the ditch. The pony’s hoofs, pastern deep in loam, struck into a steep grade. Bushes scraped under the box.

  “An old man named Lager. I mended him a fry-pan once. He aimed to start out west. He headed out to Mackinaw, he said, endeavoring to join the Pacific Company.”

  “It’s a dismal-looking place, Rafe.”

  “Feared of ghosts again? For a lusty bitch you have got strange fearings.”

  “Who said I was feared?”

  Rafe pulled the pony up beside the door.

  “Who in hell is here?”

  “What are you seeing, Rafe?”

  “There’s a horse behind the cabin. Hear him?”

  “There is, Rafe.”

  “Hey, there!”

  “Rafe, there’s another wagon coming up from the road.”

  “Hell’s perdition! You’ve got me into this …”

  “Put up your sticker, Rafe. These ain’t no sheriffs.”

  “Hey, mister?” The tinker’s voice was surlily polite. “We’ve picked a young lad up, bad hurted, and brought him here as nearest shelter.”

  “What’s happened to him?”

  Rafe shrugged and spread his hands.

  Somebody lifted Jerry. He could not open his eyes, but he heard them talking.

  “Easy, you tinker. Don’t knock in his head against that door. There’s an old bed in the corner. Lay him there.”

  He smelled dusty needles, felt them sticking against his wet clothes. A fire was roaring near by. The woman was stripping him. He opened his eyes.

  The man said, “Here’s somebody else. Who’re you, mister?”

  A dark-clad figure loomed over Jerry. A hatchet face looked down.

  “Jerry! I’ve been looking for you all night and day.”

  His eyes swam.

  The gypsy woman looked up.

  “He’s fainted. He’s got the fever. Who’s Mary?”

  “Mary’s his wife,” Bennet said.

  “Do you know him?” asked the tinker.

  “Yes.”

  “Come along, Besy. There’s no call for you now.”

  “All he needs is tending, mister. He’s healthy. Read your hand, mister? Read the born hand for a fip; the both, for past and future, for a shilling?”

  “No, thanks. Here’s a shilling for tending the boy. You’re a kind-hearted woman.”

  “Get moving, Besy. We’ll be late for meeting.”

  6

  “So long as her eyes light on you’

  August was nearly spent when Anna came home from the camp-meeting. She waited on her husband with a blank but attentive eye. To Jerry she was peculiarly kind, in her stolid fashion; two or three times a day she might have been seen going into the woods to seek him herbs. She brought them in in a little basket, jealously covered with fern leaves to keep them fresh, and she brewed them in a stone pot— a crudely shaped thing that she told Jerry had come down through her family. She used it exclusively for medicines.

  The fever had left him thin and taken the color from under his burn. But six days after she told him that his blood was sweet again, Bennet had announced that he was heading eastward.

  “I’m taking the Victor road to join the pike at Waterloo. If you want to get back to Montezuma, you could ride along with me to the east end of the Cayuga Bridge.”

  Jerry accepted gratefully. He was not yet fit for all-day walking, but he wanted to get home.

  Anna came stolidly to the door and handed them up a luncheon.

  ” ‘Bye.”

  They stopped at the mill to shake hands with Corbal. He hardly noticed them. Daker had sowed some Russian wheat and he was absorbed in the flour.

  “I think it ought to have a finer grind than my stones can give.”

  He took a pinch.

  “Look here.”

  He put some in their hands.

  “What’s that?” He cupped a hand behind one ear. “Oh, you’re going? Come again sometime. Now this here wheat …”

  Before they had got out again to Daisy, Corbal had kicked in the trundle and the mill was roaring. As they drove through the woods their ears still sang from the stones. Bennet laughed.

  “He leads a good life for a man, I think. His deafness shuts him in and he doesn’t give an earthly dang for anything in the world but wheat. You ought to see him grinding buckwheat. Dumps it in and drags it out. Coarse or fine, whichever way the stones are set. But wheat’s a misery on his soul. He’s always figuring about wheat.”

  He eyed Jerry aslant and chattered on.

  “All foreign seed comes bad here in three years. The German’s been no good at all. I was talking to Mr. Clinton about it, and he’s interested. North of Rome two years ago it seems he’s discovered some native growing. Whether from foreign seed originally or a native article he didn’t know. But he took seed and he’s trying it. Tall straw he says, and a crisp beard, and short kernels. If it’s a blight-free wheat it will be the greatest thing that ever happened to our farmers.”

  Jerry, he saw, was not listening. It didn’t matter to Issachar. He talked that Jerry could think out his thoughts in peace. Himself, he didn’t care a hang for wheat. His long face was kindly. He clucked at Daisy.

  Daisy stepped high. She was frisky with the valley grass; and to-day was cool for an August afternoon. A brisk northerly wind was shivering the poplars, and drawing chords from the oaks and balsams. The road was hard from the dry weather; the clear sun patterned it with leaves; and as she trotted, light and shade passed over her sleek back, making her seem to trot the faster.

  From Victor the land opened up in farms, and men were cradling grain while their women and the children followed them to bind the sheaves and shock them. The wind bowed the grain before their scythes, and cloud shadows swept on them endlessly.

  As they came into Manchester, Bennet said, “It’s high time I was getting back to Lebanon. They’ll be wondering what’s become of me and the letters I’m to bring them. I guess between here and Albany I’ll have to invent me an excuse.” He expelled a humorous sigh. “But traveling with a story on your mind makes a long trip. I’ll just forget about it till I reach Schenectady. That’s a town the sight of which always brings me back to sober fact.”

  He glanced again at Jerry.

  Jerry was slouched upon the seat. He was still pale. His eyes looked unseeingly at Daisy’s ears.

  Bennet touched his knee.

  “What’s bothering you, boy? You haven’t said three words since we left Corbal’s.”

  Jerry looked miserably round at him.

  “I’m thinking what a blasted fool I’ve been.”

  “Is that all?” asked the preacher.

  “Isn’t it enough? I’m wondering how I’m going to go back to Mary.”

  “Devil it, boy! Walk in on her. She ought to be so glad to see you she won’t think of one thing else. Once she’s shown how glad she is a man can always ride out a woman after.”

  “I can’t just walk in on her.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t know how she is. She’s unspoken for a girl. She’s quiet. But she looks at me sometimes. Seems as if I could see her looking at me now, this minute.”

  Issachar rubbed his nose.

  “Well, I’m blessed if I can see what else there is for you to do. It seems kind of late to take yourself with qualms.”

  Jerry did not answer.

  “If you can’t just walk in, then tell her the whole business and ask her to
forgive you. It’s awful hard for a good woman to hold out against forgiving someone she is fond of.”

  “But how am I going to tell her? It doesn’t seem to make no sense when I look back at it. All the time now, it seems I was just wanting to get back to her. This last time before I came out here she’d kept herself so secret from me. …”

  “Don’t say nothing about that,” said Bennet sharply. “Don’t do that, boy.”

  His eyebrows drew together in perplexity.

  “I think,” he said slowly,— “and you’ll recollect I only seen her once, Jerry,— but I think the way she was looking at you that one time, she wouldn’t say no to you, no matter what you did, so long as her eyes lit on you.”

  “Do you think so?”

  Some of the haggardness seemed drawn from Jerry’s eyes.

  “I do for a fact,” said Bennet, solemnly.

  It seemed that the thud of Daisy’s hoofs grew dimmer for a while; and the mile markers on the roadside fences came back to Jerry with insufferable slowness.

  He said aloud, for Bennet to hear in witness:—

  “I’ll move her out to Rochester this fall, and I’ll build her the kind of house she’s wanted so bad, for her own, not too close to town. I’ve got the money now to do it. And enough left over to take in business with me joining Roger Hunter. I will do it.”

  Issachar solemnly nodded his head.

  “A good thing to do, Jerry. It seems to me you might owe her that much.”

  They drove along in comfort for a little way. But as the afternoon drew on and they passed Manchester and the Geneva crossroad, Jerry felt his head growing lighter. He was still weak from the long bout with fever.

  Yet the Shaker’s kind voice had planted a little seed of gladness in his brain. “So long as her eyes lit on you.” That was what he had to do— get back to her, to see her, and to hear her speak. The time he had been away became one long silence she had imposed against him. He thought, “I’ll quit the canal for good. I’ll live along with her from now on.” He remembered things between them— things that made him blush to think of. Once he had promised to buy her a spinning wheel. Now he would make that right. As soon as they got to Rochester, he would take her to a store and let her pick the one she fancied— never mind the cost.

  The sun went down at their backs before they reached Waterloo; but Bennet pressed the mare forward through the village. It was supper time along the street. People were inside eating, or if they had finished they were out on the stoops to watch the road in their comfort. Daisy’s hoofs tossed beats against the walls and brought back echoes. The rattle of the wheels was duplicated by the high brick courthouse with its new, white, staring windows.