Nathan Coulter

by Wendell Berry

  The weather had changed a little toward fall at the end of the first five or six days—the mornings cool and brisk and clear, baking-hot in the middle of the day, and cool again late in the afternoons. Morning was the best part of the day, when we worked the sleep and stiffness off, and joked and laughed around the wagons, loading what we’d cut the day before and left in the patch overnight to wilt, and riding the loaded wagons down the ridges to the barns. The heat built up toward noon, and we stopped a half hour or so for dinner. Then the long hot afternoon when we just stood it, driving ourselves to quitting time. After supper was over we sat and talked around the table until we couldn’t put off sleep any longer, then slept to daylight, when Grandpa called us out of bed. After the first days, when our tiredness had got to be more than a night’s rest could cure, we dreamed of work, moving through the ripe and golden rows in our sleep until morning. During the day we’d begun to notice the little whirlwinds full of dust and dried tobacco leaves that were a sure sign it was getting close to fall.

  We’d worked almost an hour past dinnertime, Daddy pushing us, trying to make up the time we’d lost when he let his team jerk a load off the wagon early in the morning. He stood on the wagon, cursing, mad at himself and at us and at the team, and grieved because what he’d done could have been avoided and because the sun wouldn’t stop to let him make up the time, building the load again and calling on us to move faster than we could move. And he pushed us through the rest of the morning, until we quit and ate green beans and potatoes and fried ham and corn bread at the big table in Grandma’s kitchen.

  Daddy finished eating before any of us and slammed out of the house again, and Grandpa picked up his hat and followed him, hurrying to catch up. Grandpa had been like Daddy once; and now he was old and could only do a boy’s work—drive a team or carry water or do the other odds and ends of jobs that saved time for the men who were stronger, cursing the walking cane that he had to depend on a little more every year. He hated to be old and was ashamed of his weakness, because he was work-brittle; what had driven him to work all his life had used up his strength and outlasted it. And even though he was proud of Daddy for taking his place as well as he had, you could tell sometimes that he grieved.

  He sat on the edge of the wagon bed while we drove back up the ridge to the tobacco patch, holding his hat in his lap, looking out over the river valley.

  We stopped the wagon under a walnut tree at the edge of the patch, and sat down in the shade to sharpen the cutting tools. Uncle Burley used the file and handed it to Gander, then he rolled a smoke and sat looking at the sun beat through the hot air outside the shade.

  “You know,” he said, “when the first fellow that owned this cut the trees off of it and dragged the logs and brush away and grubbed out the stumps and plowed it and planted a crop on it and an Indian came along and shot him, that son of a bitch was better off.”

  Gander stopped filing and snickered, his whole face tilting up in the direction of the eye that was out. He filed again, saying over to himself what Uncle Burley had said, and passed the file on to Daddy.

  Daddy set the blade against his knee and ran the file across it carefully, stopping to feel the edge with his thumb. “Well,” he said, “you work on this damned old dirt and sweat over it and worry about it, and then one day they’ll shovel it in your face, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  Grandpa prodded the cane into the ground between his feet, looking out at the sun. “Ah Lord,” he said.

  Brother used the file and passed it to me, and I used it while the rest of them stood up and began to move out of the shade toward the patch.

  Daddy turned around and looked at me. “Come on, Nathan. You’ll file the damned thing right down to the handle.” He was half joking, wanting the others to hear too, wanting to make it up to us for losing his temper that morning; but still not able to spare any of us.

  I laid the file on the wagon and followed them.

  Daddy picked up the first stick in his row and stuck it in the ground. “Take a row, boys. Move fast, but be careful.” He leaned and cut a stalk and speared it, then another one. “Do your damnedest. That’s all a mule can do. I wouldn’t ask a man to do more.”

  He warmed to it, talking himself and us into the work, talking against the dread of heat and sweat and tiredness that always came after dinner and that he felt too. We took a row apiece and followed him toward the other side of the patch.

  “Show it to me, boys,” he was saying. “Make me know it.”

  I watched him out the corner of my eye, working himself into the motion of it, his shoulders swaying in the row ahead of us. He worked without waste or strain, bending over his movement.

  “Ah boys, when the sweat runs it quits hurting.” The sound of his voice had changed—not talking to us anymore, but a kind of singing his own skill and speed and endurance.

  I quit watching him and let myself into the work. Sweat stuck my shirt to my back. And a wide swath opened behind us to the edge of the patch.

  The afternoon went on, hot and clear, the ground soaking up the heat and throwing it back in our faces. We cut one row and went back and started another. When we ran out of water Grandpa took the jug to the house and filled it. We stopped to drink, and worked again. The rows were long, and the tiredness wore down into our shoulders and backs and legs.

  It was lonely to work that way, bending over your own shadow, without energy enough to talk or listen or do anything but push yourself into the row. Uncle Burley and Gander and Brother and I worked along together, not to talk, but for what little comfort it was to hear somebody working next to us, and so we could walk back together to the starting end and joke a little at the water jug.

  And Daddy led us. He gained a row, and passed us again, not stopping to drink as often as we did, and not saying much. Only now and then he’d sing out to us, “Follow me, boys—you’ll wear diamonds,” or, “It won’t be as long as it has been.”

  By five o’clock we could see it was the best day’s work we’d done since we started. That made us feel good, and we worked faster, looking forward to quitting time when we could talk about what we’d done and brag on ourselves a little.

  Daddy finished a row ahead of the rest of us and came back to where we were. He stood there with his hands on his hips, grinning at us and watching us work.

  “Well,” he said, “the old man’s laying right in there, right there in front all day long. When the sun comes up in the morning and when it goes down at night he’s right there, laying ’em in the shade.”

  It was a challenge, not so much to Gander and Uncle Burley because they had their pace and stuck to it and wouldn’t pay any attention to him, but to Brother and me.

  He joked sometimes about how one day we’d be able to do more than he could. “One of these days they’ll go by the old man,” he’d say. “They won’t even look at him. They’ll say, ‘We’re coming, old man,’ and there won’t be a thing for me to do but get over.” And he usually wound up, “But, by God, they’ll have to have the wind in their shirttails when they do it. I’ll tell them that. When they go past me they’ll look back and know they’ve been someplace.”

  And Brother and I had thought about it and talked about it between ourselves. In a way passing him would be the finest thing we could do, and the thing we could be proudest of. But in another way it would be bad, because it would kill him to have to get out of the way for anybody. We’d told each other that we might never do it, even when we were able, because of that. And both of us knew that if the time ever came it would be a hard thing to do, and a risky one. Once we’d passed him we could never be behind again. We’d have to stay in front, and it was a lonely and a troublesome place.

  But once or twice a year, and nearly always during tobacco cutting, he’d have to challenge us. He’d tease us into it. He’d stop and wait for us to get close to him, the way an old fox will sometimes stop to wait on the dogs; then race with us for the love of it, and beat us for the love of i
t. He had to have somebody pushing him to really feel himself ahead. And always one of us would have to try him. After the race started we forgot what we’d thought about it and went after him for all we were worth; and he’d hold his lead, working as if he had to stay in front forever.

  He stood there grinning, waiting to see if one of us would answer him. Then he looked at Brother and said, “Did you notice how that gap between us keeps widening?”

  “You’d better go on back to work and be quiet,” Uncle Burley told him. “One of these days you’ll ask for it and they’ll give it to you.”

  Daddy said, “They’ve got to move faster than they’re moving now if they do it.” As he started away he looked back and said, “When the old man’s dead and gone I want you all to walk in front of the coffin so you’ll know what the country looks like out in front of him.”

  He went on to the other side of the patch then and got a drink out of the water jug and sat there smoking, watching us.

  Brother led us to the end, and when we started back Daddy got up and took the next row. Uncle Burley and Gander and I went to get a drink, and by the time we got to the jug, Brother was already in the row next to Daddy’s, starting after him.

  Uncle Burley unscrewed the top of the jug and handed it to Gander to drink first, then squatted on his heels watching Daddy and Brother. “There they go,” he said.

  “It’s bad enough to have to work,” Gander said, “without trying to kill each other at it.”

  Daddy glanced over his shoulder and saw that Brother was after him. “Well, look who’s coming. If it’s not old Tom. Going to put it on the old man today. Look at him come.”

  It was an old song. We’d been hearing it ever since we’d been big enough to threaten him. Sometimes when we raced with him he’d talk us into a mistake, and then just loaf along in front of us, talking and laughing at us, until finally we’d have to quit. But it didn’t seem to be bothering Brother. He was holding his own.

  “Brother’s staying with him,” I said.

  “He’s getting more apt to beat him every year,” Uncle Burley said. “And it’ll never stop until he finally does. It was the same way between your daddy and grandpa. For a while there it got to be a race between them just to be breathing.”

  “Look at the boy coming on,” Daddy said. “Look at him lay it on the stick. He don’t talk about it, but he’s thinking it. Thinking, ‘Go ahead and talk, old man. Your day is done. I’m coming after you. Just go ahead and talk while I’m coming on.’ Ah, the old man knows. And the old man’s going on. The boy may be coming. But the old man’s going. Right out in front where he always is. Nobody been to the end of the row ahead of him. And damn few can get there very soon afterwards.”

  I put the top back on the jug and followed Uncle Burley and Gander into the next rows. We worked along behind them, watching them in the corners of our eyes. They held together, the distance between them strained tight, until sooner or later it would have to break and go one way or the other.

  The strain of it suited Daddy. He was happy in it, as if he’d just made the world over to suit himself, feeling the demand on his strength and endurance close to him, and feeling himself good enough. He’d had to work hard for so long, pushed by creditors and seasons and weather, until now it was a habit. That had made him what he was. That was the way he knew himself, and he needed it.

  We could hear him, working up the row ahead of us:“He ain’t the boss, he’s the boss’s son,

  But he’s going to be boss when the boss is done.

  “But I tell you, boys, it’s going to be a long time yet. The old man’s going through the middle of a lot of days yet with the whole pack behind him. I tell you, boys, when he’s dead and gone they’ll be standing in line to see what the country looks like without him wheeling and dealing in the middle of it. And it’ll be a sight they never saw before.”

  They finished their rows and went back and started again. Brother couldn’t gain any ground, but he wasn’t losing any either. That was beginning to bother Daddy, and he quit talking so much. Brother was just coming up to the pace that Daddy had been working in since noon, and that was in his favor. But watching from where we were, it didn’t look as if Daddy was even hurrying. He’d made every movement so many times that he could do it almost without thinking about it, as naturally as he walked. It was like watching a machine that could go on at the same speed until it got dark and the lights went out in the houses at bedtime, and on through the night until the lights came on again before sunup. The race had lasted longer than it ever had before, and I began to dread the finish of it.

  Uncle Burley straightened up and watched them for a minute, wiping his face with his sleeve. “They’re getting serious about it, ain’t they? I’ve seen friendlier dogfights.”

  “I wish they’d quit,” I said.

  He laughed. “The last one to drop dead is the winner.”

  It was getting on toward sundown, and turning cooler. The sun slanted red across the green and gold of the tobacco, filling the spaces between rows with shadows.

  Then I heard Brother cursing. He’d made a mislick and it took him three tries to fix it.

  “That looks like the end of it,” Uncle Burley said. “He’s let himself get flustered.”

  Daddy took up his song again. “Some people just can’t work without floundering and falling around at it. But there’s always one who can do it all day long and never miss a lick.” He kept talking and kept working, and we could see that he was beginning to move away from Brother.

  And before long Brother made another mistake.

  “Yes sir,” Daddy said, “these little boys just barely weaned come out and try the old man. And they want to put it on him so bad, and they work at it so hard. But they just can’t quite make it.”

  Brother threw down his tools and went for Daddy. Daddy turned and met him. We heard them come together, the thump of bone and muscle that sounded as if they’d already half killed each other; and then they went down, gripped together and rolling in the dirt. We could hear Brother cursing, nearly crying, he was so mad and hurt over losing. And Daddy was laughing; from the sound of it I knew that he was in a mood to fight everybody in the world one at a time and would enjoy doing it.

  We laid our tools down and started to them. But Grandpa was nearer them than we were. He was in the middle of the patch, counting the rows we’d cut. And he got there first. He waded into the dust they were raising and tried to prod them apart with his cane, but they rolled under him and knocked him down. He sat there with his hat twisted around on the side of his head, cursing and flailing at them with the cane.

  We hurried to him and picked him up. Gander brushed some of the dirt off his clothes and led him down the ridge toward the house. By that time Daddy had Brother down on his back and was straddling him, slapping him in the face. He was laughing, his teeth gritted and his face caked with sweat and dust, breathing hard.

  Uncle Burley locked his arms around Daddy’s shoulders and dragged him away, and I helped Brother up. Daddy stood there with Uncle Burley still holding him, laughing in Brother’s face.

  “You God-damned baby,” he said.

  “Go to hell,” Brother said. And he turned around and followed Grandpa and Gander down the ridge.

  Uncle Burley let go his hold on Daddy, and the three of us walked back across the patch to where we’d left the team and wagon. We didn’t say anything. We tried to act as if we’d just quit work and were going home.

  When we got to the other side, Uncle Burley picked up the water jug and he and I climbed on the wagon. Daddy started across the hollow to his house.

  “Good night,” he said.

  We said we’d see him in the morning.

  Uncle Burley and I didn’t talk after that either. It had got quiet all of a sudden, and there was only the jolt and rattle of the wagon and the knowledge of what had happened. Daddy and Brother had fought. It had happened, and it was over. We couldn’t think of anything to say.
>
  I felt sorry for both of them. Brother had been beaten and insulted until it would be a long time before he’d know what to think of himself. And I knew that in the night, when he was by himself in his house, Daddy would lie awake thinking about it, and be sorry.

  While we drove home the sun went down.

  Uncle Burley and I unharnessed the mules and put them in their stalls and did the feeding and milking. It took us until nearly dark. When we finished the work and started to the house, Brother was coming out the yard gate. His face was cut up a little and his lower lip was swollen. He had a bundle of clothes under his arm.

  “Boy, are you going?” Uncle Burley asked him.

  “I guess I am.”

  “You’re going to let us know about you?”

  “I will.”

  Uncle Burley took some money out of his pocket and put it in Brother’s hand. And then we told him good-bye.

  A few stars were out. We stood in the gate a long time after Brother was out of sight, dreading to believe that he was gone.

  We worked on through the tobacco cutting. Daddy was easier to get along with after Brother left. He joked with us more, trying to make himself pleasant; and even though we were shorthanded he started giving us time to rest before we went back to work in the afternoons. Nobody talked about Brother’s leaving when Daddy was around, but we could tell that it was on his mind and that he hated what he’d done. He didn’t push us so hard anymore, but he drove himself harder than ever. There were a good many days when he worked in the field by himself until it was too dark to see, after the rest of us had quit and gone home.

  Brother’s leaving was harder on Grandma and Grandpa than it was on any of the rest of us. They grieved over him most of the time, and it made them seem older. We hadn’t heard from him; and every morning Grandma talked about how she expected to get a letter from him that day, and at night when no letter had come she wondered where he was and if he was well and why he hadn’t written to us. Sometimes at the supper table she’d remember things he said and did when he was little, and then she’d cry and have to get up and leave.