Lamb in His Bosom

by Caroline Miller

  With all her body trembling, Cean went to the loft and climbed and stooped, gathering her hands full of soft, dusty webs that friendly gray spiders build, bringing good luck to a house.

  Blood kept on running from Lonzo’s foot. Cean set a knot on the inside vein of his ankle, and swathed the gash with clinging spider webs. They will ever stop bleeding when nothing else will.

  When the bleeding had stopped, they set a pot of old cotton rags on the fireplace and lit them from the fire, and held Lonzo’s foot in the thick smoke so that it might kill any poison that might be in the wound. Coppers tied on a wound will take out poison, too, but how many coppers would be needed to hide this gash!

  Lonzo held his foot in the smoke till noonday, when Cean washed it with hot water and drenched it with clear turpentine; but that started the bleeding again and she had to use more spider web to stop it. She poulticed the foot in tallow and turpentine, and wropped it in a clean rag.

  Lonzo lay down, first time ever he could recollect staying in bed in broad-open daylight. He had to bear the healing pains the best way he could. Dicie and Cean did all they could for him, but they knew no cure for healing pain.

  Anyhow, it is well known that if one can but bear them, healing pains will purify a body better than physic salt.

  It was not for lack of care that Lonzo’s foot did not heal. For four days Cean slept but little, and that little in a chair by the fire where she could keep meal and water and poultices hot for treatments. She did all she knew to do, and all that Dicie could tell her.

  If Ma were here, she would know what to do.…But Ma was not here. She was six year dead; her hands that had a way with sick folks were gone back to the clay and water and dusty bone that made them. There was only Dicie here, complaining that Cean must not have used the remedies right, making them too hot or too cold or too suchaway; else Lonzo’s foot would surely get better….

  But his foot did not get better; it swelled to twice the size of his head, and stunk. Proud flesh came along the edges of the gash, puffy and white and puckered; Cean burnt it away with burnt alum, but it came back. The meat of his foot turned purple and then green; red streaks went reaching up his leg to his groin. His fever ran so high now that he had no sense, and when he had sense he was wild with pain. Cean gave him fever tea and broke him out in sweat, but before she could change his shirt he was burning iron-hot again. Once when she was burning out his foot with turpentine, he groaned like a bull and looked hard into her eyes, and begged her:

  “Cut hit off…er let hit be…fer God’s sake…!”

  Cean could not chop it off, though in her own mind she thought that would cure him. That foot was mortified already; it was carrion fitten for the buzzards; if it stayed like that and reached upwards he would die.

  The poison reached upward, bloating his knee and thigh, turning the meat into purple, stinking putrefaction.

  In a black dawn of February Lonzo died, plunging in spasms, when Zilfey Trent was less than two months old. So it was that Cean bore him no more children.

  Never did one of her children see Cean weep for Lonzo’s passing. Ever she had felt contempt for loud grief from a woman. She had wept quietly when her father died, and she had wept when her mother died; now her grief was bound in her heart by some restraint that was hard and strong as the iron rim that a cooper sets about the head of a cask to make it hold its shape and serve its purpose. She could not cry now, not with all these children gathered about her, a-feared of something which they could not understand. Solemn-mouthed, still-tongued, they stood about their mother, waiting to see how they must act in this emergency.

  Dicie began to wail and to wring her hands and to beat her breast. Her voice shivered, high and thin, and descending in mournful monotony like a screech-owl’s.

  Cean’s eyes hunted about the room; she could not think what to do, now that she had loosed Lonzo out of her arms to death. The baby, Zilfey, waked in the cradle and squacked in short, sharp, hungry cries. Cean took her up and suckled her quiet. No, Cean must not cry, for tears poison a mother’s milk for her child. The baby’s clothes were wet all the way up its back. Cean motioned for Kissie to hand her a dry hippen from a chest in the corner of the room.

  Maggie, slim and straight and proud-faced, stood behind her mother’s chair. She was twenty and pink-cheeked as a mayhaw, bright-eyed as a young ’possum. She was crying softly, and the sound of her breath catching distractedly in her throat disturbed her mother. Cean thought: “She can cry, but I must not. Hit’s only her pa, and she hain’t but twenty year old last Christmas mornin’. Now I am going on full thirty-and-nine. That’s old enough fer a woman to be able to hold her tears….”

  Maggie was to have stepped off last October with Will Sandifer, the oldest boy of Dorcas and Zeph Sandifer’s. But Cean was then heavy with this last child, puny and hardly able to go, so Lonzo had persuaded Will and Maggie to wait until spring. It was a pity, for Maggie was already nigh onto an old maid. Now that Cean was well again, and Lonzo’s last illness was past, Maggie would marry and move off yonder to Dicie Smith’s place, for Dicie had willed her place to the first of Lonzo’s children who should marry….

  Cean clutched suddenly at Maggie’s hand that lay on her shoulder. She stared grimly into the fire; she thought, “If Lonzo’s ma would hush her screeching, I could think what to do….”

  But Dicie would not hush, and all that Cean could think of was Maggie’s hand there on her shoulder: “Oh, you little girl-child hand that will soon be patting a hoecake on a hot spider for William Sandifer’s belly, don’t go off now…not now!…with Lonzo gone.…I named ye fer a magnolia blossom.…Lonzo thought hit’mought be a likely name….”

  The word that was her oldest child’s name reeled crazily through her head, repeating itself like the sound of a loom’s treadle: Mag… nol…ia.…Mag…nol…ia.…It was a maddening sound….

  Cean found herself standing there in the middle of the room with a desperate cry gone out of her mouth across the still form of Lonzo. The baby, Zilfey, was there in her arms, waking and pulling again on her breast for milk. Cean walked to Cal, bearing the baby in her arms, and shook his lean shoulder with a free hand:

  “What ‘r’ ye a-standin’ there a-starin’ at me fer? Why hain’t ye done gone frum hyere fer yore uncle Jasper and yore aint Margot?”

  Cal hurried out, glad to be told something to do. Cean turned harshly on Maggie and Kissie:

  “You gals! Don’t ye know dinner’s got to be got fer the folks that’ll come? Looks like yere old enough not t’ look t’ me fer every blessed move ye make!…”

  Cean drove the children out into the passage and across to the other big room. She threw more wood on the fire, and went up to the back of Dicie Smith’s chair.

  “Now, Ma, you know and I know that hit hain’t a grain o’ use to cry….”

  Cean spoke to Dicie as she might have spoken to Zilfey. Dicie stiffened her back and hushed her weeping.

  “Oh, let me be!…Ye younguns don’t know what hit is t’ be left here withouten nobody…nobody…nobody….”

  Cean led the old woman out across the passage to the other room, where another bright fire burned in the chimney at the other side of the house. The children would comfort Dicie. It is a hard thing to grieve when children are about.

  Cean went back to Lonzo’s room to lay him out. Her fearful children heard the wooden bar slipped home on the other side of the door on the other side of the passage, and knew that their mother was alone with their dead father. No, she was not alone with him; little Zilfey, his last child, was in there, too.

  Here in this room whispered talk rose among the children. Dicie, as is the way of some women, talked to ease her grief. She began to relate this or that account of Lonzo when he was this or that many years old. Ever he had been a mild-tempered child, she said; never had he caused his mother worriation, as some sons do….

  Maggie carried Bethany on her arm as she measured and sifted meal for the hoecakes for dinner.
Bethany was just old enough to toddle and whine at Maggie’s heels. Maggie had no notion of hearing her whine now, for she could hardly keep from crying, herself, so she carried Bethany on her arm.

  The little twins, Jamie and Johnnie, grabbed the tongue of a little wooden wagon out of Aryadne’s hands and caused her to fall and crack her head on a chair post; it was Aryadne’s wagon, in the first place, for her pa had made it for her. Kissie slapped the twins so hard that the palm of her hand stung; then she shook them till they hushed, and sent them for firewood, to get them out of the house. They were a troublesome age—four-and-a-half—good for nothing but to make a fuss and tote in firewood. Vince was going on seven now; he could feed the pigs as good as any man. Wealthy was eleven, and Lovedy was fourteen—buxom, fat-cheeked, sweet-tempered girls.

  Cal must be a man now, whether he was full-grown or not. Maggie must put off her marrying for a while longer, and if Will Sandifer would not put it off, then he must find him a wife of another name than Smith. Kissie must stop her traipsing around to cane-grindings and pinder-b’ilings and candy-pullings; she must stay at home and help her ma make a living. Lovedy and Wealthy must take more of the work on their shoulders, and not play yonder most of the day with the younger children under the trees by the wash-place. These children’s pa was gone, and they would all have to move in closer together, trying to fill the gap where he had been….

  For Ma was in yonder, grievin’ alone over Pa….

  Kissie set her teeth as she washed the brown rice for dinner; she’d get her a handful of switches and she would tan the meanness out of Jamie and Johnnie, if it took her till Christmas. They must learn to quit their impishness; they must learn to watch after Aryadne and Bethany and little Zilfey while the others worked.

  Maggie diddled Bethany on her knee beside the fire, stooping every now and then to rake coals in or out beneath the pot of greens or the hoecake-spider or the oven set on the trivet.

  Aryadne leaned on Dicie Smith’s knee, sucking her thumb; her eyes were set on the fire that licked the fluttering tags of soot on the back side of the chimney. She laid her head on her grandmother’s lap and her eyelids drooped in the warmth of the room. Dicie lifted her and rocked her, talking all the while of some doing of Lonzo when he was her age. She hushed her talking to weep, and hushed her weeping to talk of him who was the only son she had ever borned, the only soul that bore her name, save these little ones that he had begotten of Carver blood.

  Cean opened the door and came to the fire. She gave Zilfey to Kissie, saying:

  “Her dress tail’s wet ag’in. Change hit ’fore she ketches cold….”

  Cean stood with her face turned down toward the fire. Maggie grieved to see her mother’s face so hard and full of sorrow.

  Cean did not turn her face to any of them, but they all knew that her words were for Lonzo’s mother when she said:

  “Well…I’ve fixed him up the best way I could…with his leg like hit is….”

  She laid her arms on the mantelpiece to hide her face. They saw her shoulders shake a little, but she stared steadfastly into the fire that was busy making coals to cook his children’s dinner.

  They held silence, save for Aryadne’s sucking lips that caught a fresh hold on her thumb every now and then. Now Grandma was quiet, too, for there hain’t a grain o’ use to cry when a dead body is washed and laid out in another room and a-gittin’ cold.… Lonzo was not now absent at the Coast, nor at Jasper’s, nor at a neighbor’s. He was gone forever through a dark door. Never till the last dawn broke would she see his face, or hear his voice, again. Cean’s teeth chattered if she did not hold them carefully shut to; the leaders in her neck strained as though they held up a heavy weight. Her flesh trembled in its struggle to hold itself serene in the face of this grievous soul’s hurt. Her mind seemed sluggish and ponderous; it was laboring to encompass a thing too vast to be encompassed in mortal thought. She dared not even imagine the depths of this grief. He was gone through the door that opens into darkness. Hardly any soul is so brave that it does not shudder when it hears the door opening softly and knows that it must go out into the frightening dark; for the door will close as softly as it opened, will close upon the light of a sky set with hot sun or tremulous stars, upon the unlovely human face of a soul’s beloved. Lonzo was gone, and to see him again, after an unknown length of years, Cean must follow him through the dark door. Shaking heart and uncertain feet! Where is Lonzo and which way did he take? No Solomon could tell her.

  Margot and Jasper came to help Cean make plans for the buryin’.

  But they could hardly grieve with Cean, for they were but a month since married; and no single sorrow outside themselves can come betwixt two lovers who have been but lately joined one to the other.

  Never a line had come from Lias’s hand in going on eight year since he had deserted his wife. When the elder came through in January before Lonzo died, Jasper put the matter before him, and the elder was willing to pronounce Lias Carver dead and to join Margot to Jasper as his lawful wedded wife. A congregation assembled in Jasper’s house and agreed to Lias’s death. They heard the whole matter, and any man was free to speak his thought. In the end, the elder raised his voice and said, as though to notify Lias: “I now declare Lias Carver dead!”

  So Margot was a widow.

  Her breaths quickened, and Jasper leaned his weight on his other foot where he stood beside Margot, facing the elder. As Jasper changed his weight, his sleeve lay close against Margot’s sleeve. They were comforted at the touch. Though they hid the fear from one another, each was afraid that somehow Lias would come betwixt them yet; Lias was mean as a very devil, when he wanted to be. If he knew that Jasper was marrying Margot, he would come back and take her away from Jasper.

  With hardly a pause after he declared Lias dead, the elder married Margot to Jasper. Jasper did not like the elder’s hurrying into the marriage. Somehow, in Jasper’s mind, Lias’s name was mingled with the marriage words; somehow Lias thrust himself between Margot and Jasper, cheating them of proper intimacy. To spoil this sweet marriage, there rose in Jasper’s mind an ugly memory—I once cut blood out of his head, and he bled into my face; likewise to Margot there came a memory—He put his arms about me all the time I was being married to him, how long ago at the Coast.

  Now, at Cean’s house, making ready for Lonzo’s buryin’, Jasper could hardly let Margot out of his sight; he was forever straightening her shawl on her shoulders, or stroking her sleeve as though it were rumpled. And Margot, for her part, could not sit beside Jasper without resting her hand lightly upon his long thigh, as though she laid new claim upon him whenever she came near him.

  Cean did not note these little things, but curious neighbors at the buryin’ wondered that Margot and Jasper could not hide their feelings, for God knew that they were plenty old and stable to know better than to flaunt their ardor at such a time as this.

  To Cean, the bitterest thing in Lonzo’s dying was the letter that came to him after he was eight months underground and could never read it with mortal eyes.

  In the fall, Cal went to the Coast to do Cean’s trading, and found a letter for Lonzo waiting in Villalonga’s counting-room. Cal brought it home for his mother to read, fearful of its consequences, once he had seen its mark of the post. Cean took the letter from Cal’s hand; it was sealed with a little wafer that she found hard to pull away, for her fingers were rough with trembling. It was a letter demanding much postage. Villalonga had handed back only seven-pence out of a silver dollar. Oh, the way it had come by ship and by stage, across stormy water and high hills and mayhap deserty places. For the letter was from Californy, and it told them that Lias was alive and well, that he wished Lonzo to make peace for him with his family.

  Tell Ma [he wrote in a tall, mannish scrawl] that I have got her a vermilion-dyed merino dress picked out and linnen cloaths aplenty to dike herself out in Tell Fairby that her Pa has got boughten for her a silk dress and a book of needles for her to sew it with fo
r he would like to see her sew it up her own self being as she must be a big girl in this time Tell her that she shall have a red head shawl to boot if she be a good sempstress by the day I come For my son Vincent the rascal I will try and rickollect a polished rams horn and a jews harp and a bord shotgun to kill molly cottontails by but if he is hard to make mind and is give to sassing of his mother I am apt to disremember Tell little Cean to get her a hole ready for a Californy plumb tree I will bring her For yoreself Lonzo you lousy old buckkiller I will try and manage a jug of wisky to warm yore innards Look out for me when you see me coming But I swear that you will hardly know me when you see me coming home.

  At the bottom of the sheet there was a line for Margot:

  Tell my wife if she be willing I should wish to take up where I left off and give her such a bridal party as she will not be ashamed of.

  Cean’s face had a cruel look from the tears which she would not allow herself.

  I submit myself respctfully yr brother Lias Carver.

  That letter! It brought Lias before Cean’s face as though he were standing there. Never would Lias follow a letter-form, nor pen his letters precisely, saying, “This leaves me well truly hoping it finds you the same.” No, it took Lias to make a sheet of fool’scap talk.

  Cean did not know but that she would do better to burn the letter. But she shut up the children’s questions over Uncle Lias’s letter, made Cal hitch up the ox-team, and rode to Jasper’s to tell him. She did not know what else to do. She might ’a’ knowed Lias would do a fool thing like this, thinking to ride up some fine day, feeling proud as Lucifer, and rubbing his fine fortune in on them all. So Lias thought to bring whisky to warm Lonzo’s in’ards when they were rotted away! And a merino dress for Ma’s pore old body under the ground! And a needle-book to please Fairby, now that a dozen needle-books would not make her smile; her finger bones could not curve to the learning of stitches now; now she could not run out to greet her father if he rolled up in a gold coach pulled by white horses.