The Oxford Book of American Short Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  "Well, little one," said the man, "where are you bound, you and your dolly?"

  "I am going to the store to buy some salt for grandma," replied Lily, in her sweet treble. She looked up in the man's face, and he fairly started at the revelation of its innocent beauty. He regulated his pace by hers, and the two went on together. The man did not speak again at once. Lily kept glancing timidly up at him, and every time that she did so the man smiled and her confidence increased. Presently when the man's hand grasped her little childish one hanging by her side, she felt a complete trust in him. Then she smiled up at him. She felt glad that this nice man had come along, for just here the road was lonely.

  After a while the man spoke. "What is your name, little one?" he asked, caressingly.

  "Lily Barry."

  The man started. "What is your father's name?"

  "Nelson Barry," replied Lily.

  The man whistled. "Is your mother dead?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "How old are you, my dear?"

  "Fourteen," replied Lily.

  The man looked at her with surprise. "As old as that?"

  Lily suddenly shrank from the man. She could not have told why. She pulled her little hand from his, and he let it go with no remonstrance. She clasped both her arms around her rag doll, in order that her hand should not be free for him to grasp again.

  She walked a little farther away from the man, and he looked amused.

  "You still play with your doll?" he said, in a soft voice.

  "Yes, sir," replied Lily. She quickened her pace and reached the store.

  When Lily entered the store, Hiram Gates, the owner, was behind the counter. The only man besides in the store was Nelson Barry. He sat tipping his chair back against the wall; he was half asleep, and his handsome face was bristling with a beard of several days' growth and darkly flushed. He opened his eyes when Lily entered, the strange man following. He brought his chair down on all fours, and he looked at the man—not noticing Lily at all—with a look compounded of defiance and uneasiness.

  "Hullo, Jim!" he said.

  "Hullo, old man!" returned the stranger.

  Lily went over to the counter and asked for the salt, in her pretty little voice. When she had paid for it and was crossing the store, Nelson Barry was on his feet.

  "Well, how are you, Lily? It is Lily, isn't it?" he said.

  "Yes, sir," replied Lily, faintly.

  Her father bent down and, for the first time in her life, kissed her, and the whiskey odor of his breath came into her face.

  Lily involuntarily started, and shrank away from him. Then she rubbed her mouth violently with her little cotton handkerchief, which she held gathered up with the rag doll.

  "Damn it all! I believe she is afraid of me," said Nelson Barry, in a thick voice.

  "Looks a little like it," said the other man, laughing.

  "It's that damned old woman," said Nelson Barry. Then he smiled again at Lily. "I didn't know what a pretty little daughter I was blessed with," said he, and he softly stroked Lily's pink cheek under her hat.

  Now Lily did not shrink from him. Hereditary instincts and nature itself were asserting themselves in the child's innocent, receptive breast.

  Nelson Barry looked curiously at Lily. "How old are you, anyway, child?" he asked.

  "I'll be fourteen in September," replied Lily.

  "But you still play with your doll?" said Barry, laughing kindly down at her.

  Lily hugged her doll more tightly, in spite of her father's kind voice. "Yes, sir," she replied.

  Nelson glanced across at some glass jars filled with sticks of candy. "See here, little Lily, do you like candy?" said he.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Wait a minute."

  Lily waited while her father went over to the counter. Soon he returned with a package of the candy.

  "I don't see how you are going to carry so much," he said, smiling. "Suppose you throw away your doll?"

  Lily gazed at her father and hugged the doll tightly, and there was all at once in the child's expression something mature. It became the reproach of a woman. Nelson's face sobered.

  "Oh, it's all right, Lily," he said; "keep your doll. Here, I guess you can carry this candy under your arm."

  Lily could not resist the candy. She obeyed Nelson's instructions for carrying it, and left the store laden. The two men also left, and walked in the opposite direction, talking busily.

  When Lily reached home, her grandmother, who was watching for her, spied at once the package of candy.

  "What's that?" she asked, sharply.

  "My father gave it to me," answered Lily, in a faltering voice. Sally regarded her with something like alertness.

  "Your father?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Where did you see him?"

  "In the store."

  "He gave you this candy?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "What did he say?"

  "He asked me how old I was, and—"

  "And what?"

  "I don't know," replied Lily; and it really seemed to her that she did not know, she was so frightened and bewildered by it all, and, more than anything else, by her grandmother's face as she questioned her.

  Old Woman Magoun's face was that of one upon whom a long-anticipated blow had fallen. Sally Jinks gazed at her with a sort of stupid alarm.

  Old Woman Magoun continued to gaze at her grandchild with that look of terrible solicitude, as if she saw the girl in the clutch of a tiger. "You can't remember what else he said?" she asked, fiercely, and the child began to whimper softly.

  "No, ma'am," she sobbed. "I—don't know, and—"

  "And what? Answer me."

  "There was another man there. A real handsome man."

  "Did he speak to you?" asked Old Woman Magoun.

  "Yes, ma'am; he walked along with me a piece," confessed Lily, with a sob of terror and bewilderment.

  "What did he say to you?" asked Old Woman Magoun, with a sort of despair.

  Lily told, in her little, faltering, frightened voice, all of the conversation which she could recall. It sounded harmless enough, but the look of the realization of a long-expected blow never left her grandmother's face.

  The sun was getting low, and the bridge was nearing completion. Soon the workmen would be crowding into the cabin for their promised supper. There became visible in the distance, far up the road, the heavily plodding figure of another woman who had agreed to come and help. Old Woman Magoun turned again to Lily.

  "You go right up-stairs to your own chamber now," said she.

  "Good land! ain't you goin' to let that poor child stay up and see the fun?" said Sally Jinks.

  "You jest mind your own business," said Old Woman Magoun, forcibly, and Sally Jinks shrank. "You go right up there now, Lily," said the grandmother, in a softer tone, "and grandma will bring you up a nice plate of supper. "

  "When be you goin' to let that girl grow up?" asked Sally Jinks, when Lily had disappeared.

  "She'll grow up in the Lord's good time," replied Old Woman Magoun, and there was in her voice something both sad and threatening. Sally Jinks again shrank a little.

  Soon the workmen came flocking noisily into the house. Old Woman Magoun and her two helpers served the bountiful supper. Most of the men had drunk as much as, and more than, was good for them, and Old Woman Magoun had stipulated that there was to be no drinking of anything except coffee during supper.

  "I'll git you as good a meal as I know how," she said, "but if I see ary one of you drinkin' a drop, I'll run you all out. If you want anything to drink, you can go up to the store afterward. That's the place for you to go to, if you've got to make hogs of yourselves. I ain't goin' to have no hogs in my house."

  Old Woman Magoun was implicitly obeyed. She had a curious authority over most people when she chose to exercise it. When the supper was in full swing, she quietly stole up-stairs and carried some food to Lily. She found the girl, with the rag doll in her arms, crouchin
g by the window in her little rocking-chair—a relic of her infancy, which she still used.

  "What a noise they are makin', grandma!" she said, in a terrified whisper, as her grandmother placed the plate before her on a chair.

  "They've 'most all of em been drinkin'. They air a passel of hogs," replied the old woman.

  "Is the man that was with—with my father down there?" asked Lily, in a timid fashion. Then she fairly cowered before the look in her grandmother's eyes.

  "No, he ain't; and what's more, he never will be down there if I can help it," said Old Woman Magoun, in a fierce whisper. "I know who he is. They can't cheat me. He's one of them Willises— that family the Barrys married into. They're worse than the Barrys, ef they have got money. Eat your supper, and put him out of your mind, child."

  It was after Lily was asleep, when Old Woman Magoun was alone, clearing away her supper dishes, that Lily's father came. The door was closed, and he knocked, and the old woman knew at once who was there. The sound of that knock meant as much to her as the whir of a bomb to the defender of a fortress. She opened the door, and Nelson Barry stood there.

  "Good-evening, Mrs. Magoun," he said.

  Old Woman Magoun stood before him, filling up the doorway with her firm bulk.

  "Good-evening, Mrs. Magoun," said Nelson Barry again.

  "I ain't got no time to waste," replied the old woman, harshly. "I've got my supper dishes to clean up after them men."

  She stood there and looked at him as she might have looked at a rebellious animal which she was trying to tame. The man laughed.

  "It's no use," said he. "You know me of old. No human being can turn me from my way when I am once started in it. You may as well let me come in."

  Old Woman Magoun entered the house, and Barry followed her.

  Barry began without any preface. "Where is the child?" asked he.

  "Up-stairs. She has gone to bed."

  "She goes to bed early."

  "Children ought to," returned the old woman, polishing a plate.

  Barry laughed. "You are keeping her a child a long while," he remarked, in a soft voice which had a sting in it.

  "She is a child," returned the old woman, defiantly.

  "Her mother was only three years older when Lily was born."

  The old woman made a sudden motion toward the man which seemed fairly menacing. Then she turned again to her dish-washing.

  "I want her," said Barry.

  "You can't have her," replied the old woman, in a still stern voice.

  "I don't see how you can help yourself. You have always acknowledged that she was my child."

  The old woman continued her task, but her strong back heaved. Barry regarded her with an entirely pitiless expression.

  "I am going to have the girl, that is the long and short of it," he said, "and it is for her best good, too. You are a fool, or you would see it."

  "Her best good?" muttered the old woman.

  "Yes, her best good. What are you going to do with her, anyway? The girl is a beauty, and almost a woman grown, although you try to make out that she is a baby. You can't live forever."

  "The Lord will take care of her," replied the old woman, and again she turned and faced him, and her expression was that of a prophetess.

  "Very well, let Him," said Barry, easily. "All the same I'm going to have her, and I tell you it is for her best good. Jim Willis saw her this afternoon, and—"

  Old Woman Magoun looked at him. "Jim Willis!" she fairly shrieked.

  "Well, what of it?"

  "One of them Willises!" repeated the old woman, and this time her voice was thick. It seemed almost as if she were stricken with paralysis. She did not enunciate clearly.

  The man shrank a little. "Now what is the need of your making such a fuss?" he said. "I will take her, and Isabel will look out for her."

  "Your half-witted sister?" said Old Woman Magoun.

  "Yes, my half-witted sister. She knows more than you think."

  "More wickedness."

  "Perhaps. Well, a knowledge of evil is a useful thing. How are you going to avoid evil if you don't know what it is like? My sister and I will take care of my daughter. "

  The old woman continued to look at the man, but his eyes never fell. Suddenly her gaze grew inconceivably keen. It was as if she saw through all externals.

  "I know what it is!" she cried. "You have been playing cards and you lost, and this is the way you will pay him."

  Then the man's face reddened, and he swore under his breath.

  "Oh, my God!" said the old woman; and she really spoke with her eyes aloft as if addressing something outside of them both. Then she turned again to her dish-washing.

  The man cast a dogged look at her back. "Well, there is no use talking. I have made up my mind," said he, "and you know me and what that means. I am going to have the girl."

  "When?" said the old woman, without turning around.

  "Well, I am willing to give you a week. Put her clothes in good order before she comes."

  The old woman made no reply. She continued washing dishes. She even handled them so carefully that they did not rattle.

  "You understand," said Barry. "Have her ready a week from today. "

  "Yes," said Old Woman Magoun, "I understand."

  Nelson Barry, going up the mountain road, reflected that Old Woman Magoun had a strong character, that she understood much better than her sex in general the futility of withstanding the inevitable.

  "Well," he said to Jim Willis when he reached home, "the old woman did not make such a fuss as I expected."

  "Are you going to have the girl?"

  "Yes; a week from to-day. Look here, Jim; you've got to stick to your promise."

  "All right," said Willis. "Go you one better."

  The two were playing at cards in the old parlor, once magnificent, now squalid, of the Barry house. Isabel, the half-witted sister, entered, bringing some glasses on a tray. She had learned with her feeble intellect some tricks, like a dog. One of them was the mixing of sundry drinks. She set the tray on a little stand near the two men, and watched them with her silly simper.

  "Clear out now and go to bed," her brother said to her, and she obeyed.

  Early the next morning Old Woman Magoun went up to Lily's little sleeping-chamber, and watched her a second as she lay asleep, with her yellow locks spread over the pillow. Then she spoke. "Lily," said she—"Lily, wake up. I am going to Greenham across the new bridge, and you can go with me."

  Lily immediately sat up in bed and smiled at her grandmother. Her eyes were still misty, but the light of awakening was in them.

  "Get right up," said the old woman. "You can wear your new dress if you want to."

  Lily gurgled with pleasure like a baby. "And my new hat?" asked she.

  "I don't care."

  Old Woman Magoun and Lily started for Greenham before Barry Ford, which kept late hours, was fairly awake. It was three miles to Greenham. The old woman said that, since the horse was a little lame, they would walk. It was a beautiful morning, with a diamond radiance of dew over everything. Her grandmother had curled Lily's hair more punctiliously than usual. The little face peeped like a rose out of two rows of golden spirals. Lily wore her new muslin dress with a pink sash, and her best hat of a fine white straw trimmed with a wreath of rosebuds; also the neatest black open-work stockings and pretty shoes. She even had white cotton gloves. When they set out, the old, heavily stepping woman, in her black gown and cape and bonnet, looked down at the little pink fluttering figure. Her face was full of the tenderest love and admiration, and yet there was something terrible about it. They crossed the new bridge—a primitive structure built of logs in a slovenly fashion. Old Woman Magoun pointed to a gap.

  "Jest see that," said she. "That's the way men work."

  "Men ain't very nice, be they?" said Lily, in her sweet little voice.

  "No, they ain't, take them all together," replied her grandmother.

  "That man that
walked to the store with me was nicer than some, I guess," Lily said, in a wishful fashion. Her grandmother reached down and took the child's hand in its small cotton glove. "You hurt me, holding my hand so tight," Lily said presently, in a deprecatory little voice.

  The old woman loosened her grasp. "Grandma didn't know how tight she was holding your hand," said she. "She wouldn't hurt you for nothin', except it was to save your life, or somethin' like that." She spoke with an undertone of tremendous meaning which the girl was too childish to grasp. They walked along the country road. Just before they reached Greenham they passed a stone wall overgrown with blackberry-vines, and, an unusual thing in that vicinity, a lusty spread of deadly nightshade full of berries.

  "Those berries look good to eat, grandma," Lily said.

  At that instant the old woman's face became something terrible to see. "You can't have any now," she said, and hurried Lily along.

  "They look real nice," said Lily.

  When they reached Greenham, Old Woman Magoun took her way straight to the most pretentious house there, the residence of the lawyer, whose name was Mason. Old Woman Magoun bade Lily wait in the yard for a few moments, and Lily ventured to seat herself on a bench beneath an oak-tree; then she watched with some wonder her grandmother enter the lawyer's office door at the right of the house. Presently the lawyer's wife came out and spoke to Lily under the tree. She had in her hand a little tray containing a plate of cake, a glass of milk, and an early apple. She spoke very kindly to Lily; she even kissed her, and offered her the tray of refreshments, which Lily accepted gratefully. She sat eating, with Mrs. Mason watching her, when Old Woman Magoun came out of the lawyer's office with a ghastly face.

  "What are you eatin'?" she asked Lily, sharply. "Is that a sour apple?"

  "I thought she might be hungry," said the lawyer's wife, with loving, melancholy eyes upon the girl.

  Lily had almost finished the apple. "It's real sour, but I like it; it's real nice, grandma," she said.

  "You ain't been drinkin' milk with a sour apple?"

  "It was real nice milk, grandma. "

  "You ought never to have drunk milk and eat a sour apple," said her grandmother. "Your stomach was all out of order this mornin', an' sour apples and milk is always apt to hurt anybody."