“Are you?” said Mr. Halstead.
“Why, yes. Yes I am.”
Still Mr. Halstead did not ask him in. Feeling strange, sensing something which he could only call unfriendliness in Mr. Halstead’s manner, feeling very conscious of the day and wishing to make amends for his pride by some gesture of self-depreciation, he said with a laugh, “It’s my dance, but I don’t know how to dance. Libby is going to have to teach me.”
“Is that so?” said Mr. Halstead. “And what are you going to teach her?”
“Sir?”
But instead of repeating his strange question, and still without asking him in, Mr. Halstead turned and crossed the hall, shuffling along in a noisy old pair of run-over carpet slippers with broken backs that flopped against his heels, and climbed the stairs. Amazed, Theron stood for a moment at the door. He stepped inside, and catching sight of himself in the mirror, shared his bewilderment with his reflection. He could hear Mr. Halstead slopping along the upstairs hall, then heard a door overhead slam—not just close: slam. What was the matter with Mr. Halstead?
A minute passed; two minutes.
The evening had turned out so fine that Theron had decided to walk rather than drive. Now catching sight of himself in the mirror again, he thought of the ribbing his clothes and the corsage had brought him from the hunting men still picking over the food out on the lawn. They had shaken their heads over the change; another good woodsman gone wrong, they said. They had thought he was proof against it.
Well, he was, he assured his reflection. He had other things to think about. He had seen, in this past week about town, when it would have been anti-climactic to go hunting, the other fellows his age and had compared himself to them. Some, though full-grown, bearded, were in high school still; others had taken jobs in town. Some were home from college for Easter recess—lounging about the nickelodeon in the confectionery in saddle oxfords carefully scuffed, shirts with detachable stiff collars, and those loud, double-breasted waistcoats that were popular on the campuses that year. All, however, spoke the season’s slang, cracked the same sort of jokes. By way of lamenting the after-effects, they boasted of drinking sprees, finely compared the gaiety of honky-tonks scattered the length of a dozen long highways, exchanged notes on just how far the various girls of their acquaintance would go. He was in no danger of becoming like them, he thought. He did not mind their puzzlement over him, their pity for his simplicity. He felt himself not truly a member of his own generation, but in spirit one of his father’s.
While he waited, he filled his mind with a memory of the afternoon. The door of the den had stood open and as he approached he had heard voices from within. He recognized one of the voices as Chauncey’s. There was nothing in this to stop him, but he did stop. There was a quality in Chauncey’s voice that stopped him, something both familiar and strange. Even before he could make out any words he recognized that tone. It was Chauncey’s old storytelling chant.
“One of his dogs was dead but he still had that little ole hound an he had ole Deuteronomy. So he pushed aside them bushes an stepped out into the clearin.”
“Was he scared, Mr. Chauncey?” asked a small, high, excited voice.
“Scared! Who, Theron? Why, of course he was scared! Wouldn’t you be? But there he was. Wasn’t no gittin out of it now, even if he had of wanted to. Anyhow, wasn’t much time to be scared. He no sooner had stepped out than that big ole pig forgets all about them two dogs pesterin him. ‘Uuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!’ he go. ‘UUUUUUUUUUUUUgh!’ an he makes for Theron like a bullet. So Theron th’ow his gun up to his shoulder—”
“Which one was it, Mr. Chauncey? This one?”
“’At’s the one.”
Theron peeped around the doorjamb. There were three of them, but only one was talking—much to the annoyance of one of the other two. They were all about eight or ten years old. Chauncey, still in his chef’s hat, sat in the chair by the gun cabinet, the three boys on the floor at his feet. “Be quiet, will you! Let him go on,” the one who was holding on to Chauncey’s right hand said to the curly-headed one pointing at the guns. But the one who caught and held Theron’s attention was the silent one, the dark, thin little boy nearest him. He was too intently absorbed even to protest the interruptions. He was living the story, and for him it had not been interrupted. His jaw was clenched, and he stared at Chauncey with big unblinking black eyes. Theron had listened until Chauncey tricked them just as he had used to trick him in telling the story of his father’s exploits, stopping abruptly at the climax, leaving them to gasp with frustrated suspense.
Now he heard a door open upstairs. But it was only Mr. Halstead again: he heard the slap of the carpet slippers on the floor.
Mr. Halstead appeared at the head of the stairs, where he paused for a moment, peering over the rims of his spectacles.
“Elizabeth’s taken sick,” he said.
“Sick?” said Theron. “Why, what’s the matter?”
But all Mr. Halstead would say was that she had taken sick all of a sudden. He came downstairs.
“I hope it’s nothing serious,” said Theron.
Mr. Halstead replied evasively. “With a little rest …”
It was something, Theron guessed, a little embarrassing, not quite proper for him to be specific about. But it could not be serious. He was sure he heard her step just that second upstairs.
With his hand on the door, he stole a glance up the stairwell. Then he became aware of the box containing the corsage in his hand. He put it in Mr. Halstead’s hand. “Please give her this,” he said. “And would you say I hope she feels better soon. And—” he felt himself color a little—“tell her not to worry about me being disappointed. And that I’ll call tomorrow to see how she is.”
“She’ll be feeling just the same tomorrow,” said Mr. Halstead.
He felt the corsage box in his hand, and then the door was shut in his face.
23
He stood staring at the door and hearing those slippers pad away, and after their sound had died, still remained staring, dazed and stultified. His mind was still a blank when finally he turned and crossed the porch.
He went down the walk and opened the gate and turned and closed it, all in a kind of shocked stupor. He gazed up at the second-story windows. The shades were drawn, and no shadow fell upon them. He turned and started down the sidewalk.
His mind began to function. Thoughts found words. He had been turned out. Shown the door. He. It was staggering, it was stupendous, it was impossible—and in fact could not be. He stopped, quite certain that it had not happened, that he had made some mistake, that his mind was playing a trick on him. To someone else, maybe—not to him. Not today, of all days.
He re-enacted it in his mind, his feet meanwhile setting themselves going again, hoping to find some flaw in the thing that would discredit the reality of it all. He saw very plainly Mr. Halstead’s unwelcoming look, heard his challenging tone, “Have you? Are you?” and remembering with a shudder for the ignominy of it, the feel of the corsage box returned to his hand, felt it in his hand now, looked down and saw it there, and dropped it as though it burned. The weightless thing fell upon the pavement without sound. He kicked it into the hedge alongside the walk.
Now he wished passionately not to go over the scene in his mind, wished to erase it from his thoughts forever, and now it forced itself upon them in all its details. Especially insistent was Mr. Halstead’s teasing question, “And what are you going to teach her?” and suddenly, with a jolt that stopped him cold, that brought the blood pounding to his brain, he knew what it meant. For whose sake, Libby’s or his own, his resentment came first, he could not distinguish, but he burned with indignation for them both.
He wheeled about and, clenching his jaw and his fists started back. This, he thought, was the most incredible part of the affront. Even now, when it had been so aspersed, he shrank from preening himself on his honor; yet surely he had a right to feel he deserved such a suspicion as little as anybody. He wa
s not going to take this insult. Maybe it was not his place to point out to the man the respect he owed his daughter, but he would set Mr. Halstead straight damn quick on what he owed him.
He had come three blocks. Now in the middle one on his way back the porch lights of a house up ahead on his side of the street came on. The trees in front of the house started up in the sudden illumination, and he saw a car at the curb that he had passed without noticing before. Now the door was opened and a carpet of brighter light was flung out across the porch and Theron heard laughter and gay words spoken in young voices. A boy and girl came out on the porch, he tugging her by the hand while she, waving back into the house, squealed with pleasure. The girl wore a white evening gown, and at her throat was pinned a dark corsage. They were going to the dance—his dance. They came down the steps and down the walk. He could not brazen out a meeting with them, in these clothes, wave, pretend he was just now on his way to call for his date, perhaps have to refuse an offer of a lift. He recoiled from the headlights that sprang up, into a redbud bush at the edge of the walk. The car leapt away from the curb and sped past. The windows were down, and he heard their bright happy voices with a pang of envy.
When he stepped back onto the pavement, he found that his resolution had vanished. His anger was replaced with utter bewilderment. He stood numbed by the force of it, and for a moment could not even turn his feet about.
But no sooner had he taken a few steps than resentment once more boiled up in him. He stopped again while anger and incredulity strove within him. His head was bent, and as he stood his eye caught a dim glitter on the ground in the shadow of the hedge. It was the cellophane box that he had kicked there. At the same moment he saw that in stepping off the walk he had muddied his new shoes.
His hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, he wandered vaguely in the direction of home, finding only after it was done that he had taken the right turn at the corners. He could not shake from his thoughts the memory of Mr. Halstead’s look as they had stood together at the door, a look of disapproval, of mistrust. “It’s Theron Hunnicutt,” he had said, and Mr. Halstead had replied, “I see it is.” But how could he have seen it was, and then done what he did? Didn’t he know who he was? Had someone been telling him lies about Theron Hunnicutt? Who would do that? Didn’t Mr. Halstead know he had been insulting and unfair to the boy whom everybody liked and admired?
“Some people just don’t know people as soon as they get dressed up, do they?”
These, as in themselves they showed, were the first words he had heard, the “Hello, Theron,” which had been spoken before having passed as unnoticed as the girl who spoke it or the boy on whose arm she walked. The irony of the remark, his clothes being the mockery they were to him now, made Theron laugh hollowly.
He turned on to his street and plodded up the hill, leaving the lights of town behind. Here the walk was dark with the drip of dew off the overhanging elms and sycamores that were the pride of upper Main Street. His mind was in a welter, between his smouldering sense of injury, his regret and his dismay. He had forgotten the dance. Now he heard jazz music coming down the hill, and looked up and saw the lights of his house. He knew there was nothing to reproach himself for in the matter, that he had been wronged; but he was more ashamed of having endured a wrong than he would have been of inflicting one. He dreaded facing the guests, and his hatred of Mr. Halstead reached its peak when he realized that he would have to repeat Mr. Halstead’s lying excuse to save his own face.
The dance was in the den, which had been converted, bared for the occasion; the fishing net hauled down, the hides removed from the walls, the rugs taken away. Now from the rafters instead of duck decoys hung colored tissue-paper lanterns inside which electric bulbs softly burned. In this muted light, colors deepened; a dark luster shone in eyes, a soft sheen on the tossed hair of the dancing girls and on their silk and satin skirts, which, as they swirled, lifted from the floor twinkling amber puffs of powdered wax.
The band had been rounded up in niggertown. The cornetist could not have been more than fifteen, the slide-trombonist not less than seventy. There was also a clarinet, a banjo, drums, and a bass, the leader, whose heavy foot laid down the beat with machine-like regularity, who, just as Theron entered, started a new number with a loudly whispered Now! and whose rough, throaty voice could be heard above the music calling chords and keys and bestowing praise on the players, himself included, for a pretty passage, a long-sustained note.
One of the couples on the floor was his mother and father. They danced in his direction, and when he saw him his father gave his mother a gay twirl for Theron’s benefit. “Where’s your girl?” said his father as they went past.
Fortunately his entrance had not yet been generally noticed, and no one was near to overhear the question. He saw the dancing couples and those not dancing but engaged in conversation as they sat close together on the benches, and the irony of his situation became incredible. That he alone should have no date! And to add to the bitterness, that the one he was to have had—a vivid picture of her sprang now into his mind—was so much prettier than any of these girls.
He was joined by half a dozen of his guests, girls and boys his age. He had to endure their thanks for the party. Then they appeared to be waiting for his date to join him from the powder room. The memory of his ignominious rejection and his refusal to be indebted to Mr. Halstead for an excuse overcame him. On an impulse, despising himself for it and hating Mr. Halstead more than ever, he said, “Well, I hope you all have a good time. I don’t dance myself.” Which explained why he had no date.
But when the dance was finished and his mother joined him and asked where Libby was, he said she had suddenly been taken sick. No, nothing serious.
He could see that it did not displease his mother that he was apparently so little disappointed.
24
Rain came on the day’s breeze. By midnight the breeze had become a wind, out of the south, and, taking leave on the porch, the older people, all of whose livelihoods depended nearly or remotely on the weather, commented on the clouds piling up. It would rain before morning, all said, and sure enough, the wind swelled, and at a little past two there came a thud on the roof like a tree falling on it. It was the thunderous East Texas floodtide, a deluge of solid water.
Yet at dawn robins and mockingbirds began to warble, and at the first glimmer of daylight jays began to scold the world for oversleeping. That was spring in East Texas, too: seasonal shifts of weather in a matter of minutes. The sun rose rapidly in an immense and spotless sky, and at seven a country man, emboldened by the sunshine, dared invade upper Main Street and disturb the quality’s rest so early, his mule clop-clopping on the bois-d’arc bricks and he chanting in a nasal, backwoods, but not unmusical voice, a real turpentine twang:
Ooooh, I got.…
Fresh tomaters, fresh tomaters, fresh tomaters.
Yes, ma’am.…
Fresh tomaters, fresh tomaters, fresh tomaters …
“Green ez a gourd an bout ez big roun ez yo finger, I’d take a vow,” was Melba’s comment, not to Theron, but to herself, as, rolling up her apron and reaching down her kitchen-money crock from off the shelf behind the range, she prepared to sally out and inspect and thump and pinch and shake her head and jew-down, and have herself a marvelous fifteen minutes before returning laden.
Scallions too, an English peas,
Mustard greens,
Salad greens,
String beans an redishes.
Aaaaaaand
Fresh tomaters!
Yes, I got …
It was the sort of day that brought people out to wash and polish cars, spade the flower beds, pack picnic lunches. And it was Saturday. Saturday is the day of the week in a small Southern town, a kind of pagan sabbath. It feels different from the minute you wake up. There is a hum of activity in the air, and, if it is summer, and there is a good chance it is, since that includes what in other places is spring and fall, a quickening of
excitement and expectation in the blood. To be down on the square, that is what you live for, and a feeling comes to you that all over the county people are making preparations or setting out or already on the road, having got up in the dark of the morning and milked the cow and fed the chickens and slopped the hogs and hitched the team or cranked or pushed the jitney and loaded in the kids, the week’s eggs and cream, and set out for town, for the square—there to walk round and around and around, perhaps a hundred revolutions, or go to the picture-show and sit through six complete showings of the western and the serial and the pie-throwing comedy while eating a whole week’s hoarded appetite for Crackerjack and pink peanut patties. The stores are crowded with farm women converting the egg and cream money into bolt goods, packets of flower seed, new Butterick patterns, until around noon it comes time to go and sit in the car and watch the people go round and around, give the baby titty, and receive visits from ladies from the other parked cars, pay a few such visits themselves. And the men make for the corner of the square to squat and whittle for eight or ten hours, but for a trip or two out to the backalley for a snort, until the picture-show lets out and the biggest boy is sent by his mama to come say it’s time to go home again—bringing with them their violent, crude and childlike tales:
“Won’t you sit, Thetford?”
“No.”
“Why won’t you sit, Thetford?”
“Cause I don’t want to, that’s why, and mind your own damn business.”
“Hee! I guess he don’t want to.” This from Thetford’s pa, Clarence. “I guess he don’t want to.”
“Aw, shut up, Pa.”
“I guess you all know Miz Missouri Maclntyre,” says Clarence. “With her peculiar ways.”
“Peculiar. Haw.”
“Well, you orter seen Thetford when she lit into him one day last week. Laff, I thought I’d die.”
“I never seen you laffin when she got thoo with me and started in on you.”
Home from the Hill Page 13
