by Maureen Daly
One of the boys suggested we sing for a while but the suggestion died away without an answer. We talked quietly and Jack sat close beside me with his knees hunched up, staring at the flames. He had been silent all evening long, and several times I caught him looking at me strangely, as if he were just going to say something and had suddenly changed his mind. Swede came over to sit on our blanket, too, and Dollie curled up beside him with her head on his knee. He bent over to whisper something to her, laughing and tangling his fingers in her hair.
Someone had picked up an old wooden wagon wheel in the woods and laid it over the glowing embers of the fire, and we all sat watching till it burst into slow flame. “Looks like a big Fourth of July pin wheel, doesn’t it?” Swede whispered down to Dollie.
The trees stirred restlessly and the night was filled with a sense of uneasiness that made me feel uneasy myself, almost afraid of the darkness around us. The firelight sent shifting shadows onto the bushes and tree trunks so that the whole forest seemed to be full of silent things, watching. I couldn’t tell what was wrong with me. It sent a queer panicky beating in my throat and my hands were hot and dry. Above us the sky was a dark velvet with pale small stars. The trees hid the moon.
The night was torn between the comforting warmth of the fire and the weird, restless shadows beyond the circle of light, but the others didn’t seem to notice it. Only Jack was moody. He sat breaking up bits of twig and flipping them into the fire, his eyebrows knit together in thought. Once he looked at me and then ran his hand over his hair with a tired, unhappy gesture. The fire was burning low now and the wooden wheel lay flat in the ashes, the spokes still glowing red. The burned wood crumbled and settled down into the embers with an eerie sound like a soft sigh. As the fire burned low, the darkness closed in silently around us and a night wind blew over the coals, turning the ashes gray. Jack flipped the last twig into the fire.
“Someone want to go look for more wood with me?” Swede suggested.
Jack jumped to his feet. “Let Angie and me go, will you? I feel like a little walk anyway.”
“In the darkness?” Something inside me went suddenly alarmed, cautious, and sent a chill around my heart. I didn’t know of what I was afraid but there was something there. It seemed almost as if the darkness beyond was listening, waiting. My mind warned again and again with quick, sure thoughts not to go out of the protective circle of the firelight, out past the bushes where the trees grew close. I wanted suddenly to stay very near Swede and the others, away from the gentle, dark sway of the bushes and the quiet shadows that lay beyond. But yet there was something about Jack’s voice that made me go.
“You aren’t afraid to go with me, Angie,” he said insistently, his voice warm with persuasion as he took my hand to help me to my feet.
At the edge of the circle of firelight he turned to call back to the others, “Better put on what wood you have there. This may take us a long time … in the dark.”
We went out of the clearing and the bushes brushed against me as we passed, stretching out and touching my legs with their cool, damp leaves. Dead leaves were silent beneath our feet and trees leaned together like tall dark pillars, the light between them thin and eerie. I held tight to Jack’s hand and stumbled after him. “Jack,” I said. “Jack, this is silly. Please, please let’s not go!”
He pulled at my hand, almost pleading, “Come on, Angie,” he urged. “Oh, come … I really want you to!”
So I hurried along with one hand in his and one hand before me to feel for the trees in the darkness, and the bark was dry and rough beneath my touch. Once I tripped over a vine and it coiled around my ankle like a wet rope. “Jack,” I cried, “Jack!” I was really frightened now and I didn’t know why but I couldn’t keep the fear out of my voice.
“I’m with you, Angie,” was all he said.
We walked on cautiously, feeling between trees, stubbing against stones and breaking through bushes that scratched against our legs and cracked under our feet. Over our heads was the almost soundless hush of the wind in the heavy foliage, uneasy with the secrets of darkness, and the rest of the night was so quiet we could hear ourselves as we breathed. The firelight was far behind by now and the darkness had closed in around.
Suddenly ahead of us the trees parted, and beyond I could see a flat, rolling field high with wheat. And ahead we could see the moon that had been hidden in the trees and it hung very low, yellow and solemn, as if it were too heavy for the sky. Along the edge of the field ran a low wooden fence and we broke through the woods, leaving the darkness behind us. Jack held apart the last bushes and I stepped through them into the little clearing. The woods behind us was like a black wall. My breath came short and quick from running and I sat down on a fallen fence rail while Jack stood beside me, lighting a cigarette, but neither of us spoke.
Around me the weeds grew tall, almost up to my knees and cool with a night dampness, and reaching down I felt the leaves of one, knowing by the hairy softness and the fine duster of tiny that it was wild foxglove. All around the plants grew thick and lush, with a late-summer richness, and I crushed a dark leaf between my fingers. Almost instantly there rose in the air the cool, sharp smell of mint, its fragrance startlingly eerie in the darkness. Jack moved toward me and then stopped.
Along the fence rails vines grew heavy, covered with thick, flat leaves shining broad in the moonlight.
“Look, Angie,” Jack whispered. “Those are wild grapes.” I walked toward him, brushing through the weeds, and we felt through the grape leaves, our fingers quick in the darkness, till we found the hidden grape bunches. They were hard to pluck, and cool dew from the leaves shook down around our legs as we pulled them. Curling vine tendrils touched my arm like cold fingers. Some of the grapes were still green and hard but the earlier ones were ripe and soft to touch, the purple bunches oddly black in the moonlight.They were bitter in our mouths as we ate them, with a strange, wild taste, and the seeds were hard against my teeth. But I plucked them and plucked them till both my hands were full and they fell to the earth and purple stains were dark on my arms. Jack was standing back from the fence now, near the trees, and suddenly I knew he was waiting for me. And all the strength seemed to run out of me and the grapes felt cold and heavy in my hands.
Very quietly I stood. Everything around us was waiting. I could feel the tenseness of the bushes, the hushed expectancy over the grass tops, and behind us the wheat field was still in the moonlight. Great webs of silence seemed to hang, dark and heavy, swung low from tree to tree. The great treetops above leaned together, waiting with hushed whispers. I wanted to speak but the words were dry in my throat.
I could feel Jack’s thoughts straining toward me and then I heard his voice, so low, so tense that I wasn’t sure for a moment if I heard it at all. “Angie,” he said, “Angie, please! Let’s get married…. I don’t want you to go!”
Once it had been said, the night came suddenly alive, pulsing with it; catching up the words and echoing them over and over, singing like chimes in my head. For a moment, only a brief moment that slipped by so swiftly that it meant nothing at all, desire laid warm, tremulous fingers along my throat. But it was only a moment and then the whole night melted away around me. Everything was so calmly and painfully clear. I could remember my mother standing in her bedroom looking at my clothes in neat piles, ready to be packed for school, and saying in her soft, confident mother-voice, “We’ll have no last-minute worries at all, Angie,” and again I realized how much she meant it.
And then Jack was standing beside me with his arms tight around me, pleading, “Don’t, Angie. Oh, honey, don’t do that now. I only asked you because … oh, Angie!”
And I was crying with my face tight against his shoulder, standing in the tall weeds that were cool and damp against my bare legs.
Back in the firelight the others had already gathered up their things and were ready to leave. Swede kicked at the heap of glowing embers till they were scattered in the grass in a shower of spa
rks like fireflies; and when Jack leaned over to gather up his car robe Swede patted him on the shoulder saying quietly, “That’s okay, fellow.”
The cars were still parked at the roadside and we put the picnic basket in the back seat again and Fitz got in first so Margie could sit on his knee and Swede and Dollie got in next. Jack opened the door for me and I stepped in carefully, trying not to look at him. He swung round to his own side of the car and slammed his door shut. My breath was still short in my throat and my hands were trembling, so I had to fold them together to keep them still.
Jack waited a moment before starting the motor. Just sitting beside him made my heart pound again. He took a cigarette from his pocket and bent over to light it, striking a match. I noticed his hands were trembling, He held the match with both hands to steady it. In the small glow of light his face was very young and very sad and I saw that his lips were still stained purple from the wild grapes.
And the next morning the swallows were there. I came downstairs early with my eyes small and tired and my heart aching with a weariness that went through me right down to my hands, leaving them limp and heavy on my wrists. I wondered what Jack was thinking then. His thoughts must have dragged as slowly and listlessly as mine with the same painful dullness. The whole night through, lying in bed, memories had corkscrewed through my mind till my head throbbed with thinking and now, in the morning light, everything was still as drab and dismally hopeless as I had dreamed.
The kitchen was filled with the usual fresh smell of morning coffee and my mother was sitting by the window, looking over the garden. “It’s the first day of real fall we’ve had,” she said. “We could almost stand a bit of fire.” I poured a cup of coffee for myself, hoping the warmth of it would really get inside of me. It was such a dull morning that the grayness of it spread over my thoughts like mold. For the first time I could see brown sticks bare in the hedges and there were a few stiff-petaled zinnias, dull, heavy red, standing alone in the corner of the flower bed, the leaves curling. I tried not to look at the swallows but they were there.
Year after year and every year, we had watched the first flowers drop their petals, the squash turn orange between the corn rows, and leaves thin in the trees but no one would admit the summer was over until one morning we would wake and the swallows would be there. It never failed. The swallows would come, lining the telephone wires, and from that day on it was fall. The wind would have frost on its breath and the grape leaves would curl and fall from the vines and the dew would be white patches frosted on the grass in early morning. Soon, lonely killdeers would be winging across the sky, their wistful cries hanging in the cool, misty air.
And that morning, sitting by the kitchen window with my cup of coffee, I saw the telephone wires across the foot of the garden dotted with swallows, perched on the black lines like long-tailed notes—a bar of music, stark and sad against the gray fall sky.
It seemed so incredible I couldn’t keep the surprise of it out of my voice, “How could it happen, Mom?” I asked. “How could it end overnight?”
She looked at me oddly and said, “It’s always been like that, Angie. You just haven’t been old enough to notice before.”
We spent a long time over our breakfast, talking about school, planning; just loitering because there were only two days left and we wouldn’t have breakfast together again for a long time.
And then suddenly my mother brightened. “Run up and wake that lazy little sister of yours while I straighten the kitchen. She and I have to go downtown this morning. I keep forgetting that you aren’t the only one who is going to school. Kitty needs new shoes!”
I was just waving good-bye to them from the front window when the phone rang. I let it ring twice and then again before I answered it, because I knew it was Jack and it takes a moment or two to get your thoughts in order and to make sure your voice is calm. His voice on the other end of the wire sounded as tired as I felt, as if he had just got out of bed and wished he hadn’t risen at all.
“Hi there, Angie,” he said glumly. “Just called up to see how things were going with you this morning.”
“Fine, Jack. How about you?”
“Pretty good, I guess. But we’re packing some stuff—that’s why I called you. I’m home here with my mother wrapping gunny sacks around some of the upstairs furniture and tying it with rope to ship down to Oklahoma. She wants to get as much of it out of the way as she can.”
“Lot of work?” I asked lamely. There was a scratching on his end of the line as if he were scribbling with a pencil on a piece of paper—an aimless, annoying sound and I could tell he was thinking of something else as he talked.
“It’s not so much work but I don’t think I’ll be able to get over to see you today.”
“Why not, Jack?”
“’Cause my mother wants me round to help her. She’s got her hair tied up in a dust cap and is really going at it. I can tell by the way she’s working herself that she wouldn’t like it if I took time off….”
“Does she know I’m going away the day after tomorrow, Jack?”
“Yeah, I told her about it, Angie. And she said to say good-bye to you for her—even if she has never met you.”
The conversation was empty, meaningless—there are times when two people can’t really talk together without seeing each other. I could just imagine Jack at the other end of the wire, tapping his pencil on the table, his eyes thoughtful, not wanting to hang up and still not knowing what to say next. “I’d better get back to my packing too,” I suggested. “There are still little things that have to be sorted out. I want to bring so much but it won’t all fit in the bags.”
“Okay, Angie,” he answered. “But I’ll see you tonight, won’t I? I may even get a chance to drop round this afternoon but I really don’t think so. But we’ll have a good time tonight. We’ll make it fun, Angie.” His voice was warm and almost happy again and after he had hung up I sat holding the phone, as if by doing so I could still hold onto the sound. In two days, I thought, I won’t be able to hear his voice anymore.
Margaret didn’t come home for supper that night so my mother and Kitty and I were alone. The gray sky of the day was melted into the darkness of a night sky and outside there was a wind that rustled in the bushes.
“I heard downtown that they expect to have a frost tonight,” my mother told me. “It’s unusual to have it come so early but they say this is going to be a very cold winter for us. The man in the shoestore said that already there have been hunters out after the ducks over the lake.”
Kitty was quiet and contented after the day of shopping and she was eating placidly, her eyes already soft with sleep. “This year when it snows I’m going to make Daddy help me with a snow hill in the garden for my sled,” she remarked, half to herself. “We’ll build it with boards and put snow over it.”
My drawers had all been emptied and my trunks packed and now we were all just marking off minutes till it was time to go down to the train. Now that the day was almost here there was nothing left to say; almost nothing left to think. But we sat and sat at our supper until it was dark outside and the tea kettle had steamed the windows opaque and inside the house seemed very warm and bright. Outside, the wind blew high in the trees, swaying just topmost branches and sending a few leaves floating down to the gutter.
“Not even two days left,” kept running through my mind, keeping pace with the other more commonplace thoughts, trying to crowd them out. I was still sitting comfortably in my own kitchen and already my throat ached with lonesomeness and there was a queer, soundless crying inside of me. My mother was just finishing her supper tea and her face was very calm and happy, with her hair brushed up high, just showing white at the temples. I felt there was something that I wanted very much to say; some little words that would come out warm and shaky because they had been shut up inside of me for so long. But they must have been shut up inside too long, for when I tried then to say that I was sorry that summer was over and that I was going a
way; when I tried to say that I would miss them—no words came out at all!
And then for the last time Jack came. He came in the front door rubbing his hands together and his cheeks were red with cold. “Did you ever see such a change in the weather, Mrs. Morrow? This is regular football weather.” He clapped his hands together and his voice was loud, having come in out of the wind. He had his basketball sweater on, buttoned up tightly, and everything about him had a crisp, fresh-air look.
My mother laughed, just looking at him. You couldn’t help laughing at someone so brown-skinned and healthy who brought fresh air in with him when he came. He seemed taller to me that night.
“You wouldn’t believe that just this time last week Kitty was running around in play suits. We’ll probably have weeks of Indian summer yet but it feels like real fall tonight,” she said. “I was telling Angie that I heard downtown that we may have a touch of frost.”
“I heard that too,” Jack told her. “My dad told me he heard a warning on the radio to farmers and there was a notice in the weather report in the paper tonight. From the feel of that wind there could be!” and he laid the palms of his hands against his tingling cheeks.
“You’re red, Jack!” Kitty laughed up at him and he pulled one of her braids.
“You’re a little red yourself,” he said.
My mother was worrying away under her breath. “I certainly do hate to have them go to waste when I could can them just as easily as not. A good frost will spoil them for sure.”
“You’re worrying about the tomatoes, aren’t you, Mom?” I asked. Having to gather in the tomatoes before a frost was a yearly occurrence with us. It was all part of having winter come. We were never prepared for that first frost, for we could never quite believe that summer was really over.
