The Grass Harp, Including a Tree of Night and Other Stories

  All this time at the tree-house there was a terrible situation. During our absence Sheriff Candle had returned backed by deputies and a warrant of arrest. Meanwhile, unaware of what was in store, Riley and I lazed along kicking over toadstools, sometimes stopping to skip rocks on the water.

  We still were some distance away when rioting voices reached us; they rang in the trees like axe-blows. I heard Catherine scream: roar, rather. It made such soup of my legs I couldn’t keep up with Riley, who grabbed a stick and began to run. I zigged one way, zagged another, then, having made a wrong turn, came out on the grass-field’s rim. And there was Catherine.

  Her dress was ripped down the front: she was good as naked. Ray Oliver, Jack Mill, and Big Eddie Stover, three grown men, cronies of the Sheriff, were dragging and slapping her through the grass. I wanted to kill them; and Catherine was trying to: but she didn’t stand a chance—though she butted them with her head, bounced them with her elbows. Big Eddie Stover was legally born a bastard; the other two made the grade on their own. It was Big Eddie that went for me, and I slammed my catfish flat in his face. Catherine said, “You leave my baby be, he’s an orphan”; and, when she saw that he had me around the waist: “In the booboos, Collin, kick his old booboos.” So I did. Big Eddie’s face curdled like clabber. Jack Mill (he’s the one who a year later got locked in the ice-plant and froze to death: served him right) snatched at me, but I bolted across the field and crouched down in the tallest grass. I don’t think they bothered to look for me, they had their hands so full with Catherine; she fought them the whole way, and I watched her, sick with knowing there was no help to give, until they passed out of sight over the ridge into the cemetery.

  Overhead two squawking crows crossed, recrossed, as though making an evil sign. I crept toward the woods—near me, then, I heard boots cutting through the grass. It was the Sheriff; with him was a man called Will Harris. Tall as a door, buffalo-shouldered, Will Harris had once had his throat eaten out by a mad dog; the scars were bad enough, but his damaged voice was worse: it sounded giddy and babyfied, like a midget’s. They passed so close I could have untied Will’s shoes. His tiny voice, shrilling at the Sheriff, jumped with Morris Ritz’s name and Verena’s: I couldn’t make out exactly, except something had happened about Morris Ritz and Verena had sent Will to bring back the Sheriff. The Sheriff said: “What in hell does the woman want, an army?” When they were gone I sprang up and ran into the woods.

  In sight of the China tree I hid behind a fan of fern: I thought one of the Sheriff’s men might still be hanging around. But there was nothing, simply a lonely singing bird. And no one in the tree-house: smoky as ghosts, streamers of sunlight illuminated its emptiness. Numbly I moved into view and leaned my head against the tree’s trunk; at this, the vision of the houseboat returned: our laundry flapped, the geranium bloomed, the carrying river carried us out to sea into the world.

  “Collin.” My name fell out of the sky. “Is that you I hear? are you crying?”

  It was Dolly, calling from somewhere I could not see—until, climbing to the tree’s heart, I saw in the above distance Dolly’s dangling childish shoe. “Careful boy,” said the Judge, who was beside her, “you’ll shake us out of here.” Indeed, like gulls resting on a ship’s mast, they were sitting in the absolute tower of the tree; afterwards, Dolly was to remark that the view afforded was so enthralling she regretted not having visited there before. The Judge, it developed, had seen the approach of the Sheriff and his men in time for them to take refuge in those heights. “Wait, we’re coming,” she said; and, with one arm steadied by the Judge, she descended like a fine lady sweeping down a flight of stairs.

  We kissed each other; she continued to hold me. “She went to look for you—Catherine; we didn’t know where you were, and I was so afraid, I …” Her fear tingled my hands: she felt like a shaking small animal, a rabbit just taken from the trap. The Judge looked on with humbled eyes, fumbling hands; he seemed to feel in the way, perhaps because he thought he’d failed us in not preventing what had happened to Catherine. But then, what could he have done? Had he gone to her aid he would only have got himself caught: they weren’t fooling, the Sheriff, Big Eddie Stover and the others. I was the one to feel guilty. If Catherine hadn’t gone to look for me they probably never would have caught her. I told of what had taken place in the field of grass.

  But Dolly really wanted not to hear. As though scattering a dream she brushed back her veil. “I want to believe Catherine is gone: and I can’t. If I could I would run to find her. I want to believe Verena has done this: and I can’t. Collin, what do you think: is it that after all the world is a bad place? Last night I saw it so differently.”

  The Judge focused his eyes on mine: he was trying, I think, to tell me how to answer. But I knew myself. No matter what passions compose them, all private worlds are good, they are never vulgar places: Dolly had been made too civilized by her own, the one she shared with Catherine and me, to feel the winds of wickedness that circulate elsewhere: No, Dolly, the world is not a bad place. She passed a hand across her forehead: “If you are right, then in a moment Catherine will be walking under the tree—she won’t have found you or Riley, but she will have come back.”

  “By the way,” said the Judge, “where is Riley?”

  He’d run ahead of me, that was the last I’d seen of him; with an anxiety that struck us simultaneously, the Judge and I stood up and started yelling his name. Our voices, curving slowly around the woods, again, again swung back on silence. I knew what had happened: he’d fallen into an old Indian well—many’s the case I could tell you of. I was about to suggest this when abruptly the Judge put a finger to his lips. The man must have had ears like a dog: I couldn’t hear a sound. But he was right, there was someone on the path. It turned out to be Maude Riordan and Riley’s older sister, the smart one, Elizabeth. They were very dear friends and wore white matching sweaters. Elizabeth was carrying a violin case.

  “Look here, Elizabeth,” said the Judge, startling the girls, for as yet they had not discovered us. “Look here, child, have you seen your brother?”

  Maude recovered first, and it was she who answered. “We sure have,” she said emphatically. “I was walking Elizabeth home from her lesson when Riley came along doing ninety miles an hour; nearly ran us over. You should speak to him, Elizabeth. Anyway, he asked us to come down here and tell you not to worry, said he’d explain everything later. Whatever that means.”

  Both Maude and Elizabeth had been in my class at school; they’d jumped a grade and graduated the previous June. I knew Maude especially well because for a summer I’d taken piano lessons from her mother; her father taught violin, and Elizabeth Henderson was one of his pupils. Maude herself played the violin beautifully; just a week before I’d read in the town paper where she’d been invited to play on a radio program in Birmingham: I was glad to hear it. The Riordans were nice people, considerate and cheerful. It was not because I wanted to learn piano that I took lessons with Mrs. Riordan—rather, I liked her blond largeness, the sympathetic, educated talk that went on while we sat before the splendid upright that smelled of polish and attention; and what I particularly liked was afterwards, when Maude would ask me to have a lemonade on the cool back porch. She was snub-nosed and elfin-eared, a skinny excitable girl who from her father had inherited Irish black eyes and from her mother platinum hair pale as morning—not the least like her best friend, the soulful and shadowy Elizabeth. I don’t know what those two talked about, books and music maybe. But with me Maude’s subjects were boys, dates, drugstore slander: didn’t I think it was terrible, the awful girls Riley Henderson chased around with? she felt so sorry for Elizabeth, and thought it wonderful how, despite all, Elizabeth held up her head. It didn’t take a genius to see that Maude was heartset on Riley; nevertheless, I imagined for a while that I was in love with her. At home I kept mentioning her until finally Catherine said Oh Maude Riordan, she’s too scrawny—nothing on her to pinch, a man’s crazy to g
ive her the time of day. Once I showed Maude a big evening, made for her with my own hands a sweet-pea corsage, then took her to Phil’s Café where we had Kansas City steaks; afterwards, there was a dance at the Lola Hotel. Still she behaved as though she hadn’t expected to be kissed good night. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Collin—though it was cute of you to take me out.” I was let down, you can see why; but as I didn’t allow myself to brood over it our friendship went on little changed. One day, at the end of a lesson, Mrs. Riordan omitted the usual new piece for home practice; instead, she kindly informed me that she preferred not to continue with my lessons: “We’re very fond of you, Collin, I don’t have to say that you’re welcome in this house at any time. But dear, the truth is you have no ability for music; it happens that way occasionally, and I don’t think it’s fair on either of us to pretend otherwise.” She was right, all the same my pride was hurt, I couldn’t help feeling pushed-out, it made me miserable to think of the Riordans, and gradually, in about the time it took to forget my few hard-learned tunes, I drew a curtain on them. At first Maude used to stop me after school and ask me over to her house; one way or another I always got out of it; furthermore, it was winter then and I liked to stay in the kitchen with Dolly and Catherine. Catherine wanted to know: How come you don’t talk any more about Maude Riordan? I said because I don’t, that’s all. But while I didn’t talk, I must have been thinking; at least, seeing her there under the tree, old feelings squeezed my chest. For the first time I considered the circumstances self-consciously: did we, Dolly, the Judge and I, strike Maude and Elizabeth as a ludicrous sight? I could be judged by them, they were my own age. But from their manner we might just have met on the street or at the drugstore.

  The Judge said, “Maude, how’s your daddy? Heard he hasn’t been feeling too good.”

  “He can’t complain. You know how men are, always looking for an ailment. And yourself, sir?”

  “That’s a pity,” said the Judge, his mind wandering. “You give your daddy my regards, and tell him I hope he feels better.”

  Maude submitted agreeably: “I will, sir, thank you. I know he’ll appreciate your concern.” Draping her skirt, she dropped on the moss and settled beside her an unwilling Elizabeth. For Elizabeth no one used a nickname; you might begin by calling her Betty, but in a week it would be Elizabeth again: that was her effect. Languid, banana-boned, she had dour black hair and an apathetic, at moments saintly face—in an enamel locket worn around her lily-stalk neck she preserved a miniature of her missionary father. “Look, Elizabeth, isn’t that a becoming hat Miss Dolly has on? Velvet, with a veil.”

  Dolly roused herself; she patted her head. “I don’t generally wear hats—we intended to travel.”

  “We heard you’d left home,” said Maude; and, proceeding more frankly: “In fact that’s all anyone talks about, isn’t it, Elizabeth?” Elizabeth nodded without enthusiasm. “Gracious, there are some peculiar stories going around. I mean, on the way here we met Gus Ham and he said that colored woman Catherine Crook (is that her name?) had been arrested for hitting Mrs. Buster with a mason jar.”

  In sloping tones, Dolly said, “Catherine—had nothing to do with it.”

  “I guess someone did,” said Maude. “We saw Mrs. Buster in the post office this morning; she was showing everybody a bump on her head, quite large. It looked genuine to us, didn’t it Elizabeth?” Elizabeth yawned. “To be sure, I don’t care who hit her, I think they ought to get a medal.”

  “No,” sighed Dolly, “it isn’t proper, it shouldn’t have happened. We all will have a lot to be sorry for.”

  At last Maude took account of me. “I’ve been wanting to see you, Collin,” she said hurrying as though to hide an embarrassment: mine, not hers. “Elizabeth and I are planning a Halloween party, a real scary one, and we thought it would be grand to dress you in a skeleton suit and sit you in a dark room to tell people’s fortunes: because you’re so good at …”

  “Fibbing,” said Elizabeth disinterestedly.

  “Which is what fortune-telling is,” Maude elaborated.

  I don’t know what gave them the idea I was such a storyteller, unless it was at school I’d shown a superior talent for alibis. I said it sounded fine, the party. “But you better not count on me. We might be in jail by then.”

  “Oh well, in that case,” said Maude, as if accepting one of my old and usual excuses for not coming to her house.

  “Say, Maude,” said the Judge, helping us out of the silence that had fallen, “you’re getting to be a celebrity: I saw in the paper where you’re going to play on the radio.”

  As though dreaming aloud, she explained the broadcast was the finals of a state competition; if she won, the prize was a musical scholarship at the University: even second prize meant a half-scholarship. “I’m going to play a piece of daddy’s, a serenade: he wrote it for me the day I was born. But it’s a surprise, I don’t want him to know.”

  “Make her play it for you,” said Elizabeth, unclasping her violin case.

  Maude was generous, she did not have to be begged. The wine-colored violin, coddled under her chin, trilled as she tuned it; a brazen butterfly, lighting on the bow, was spiraled away as the bow swept across the strings singing a music that seemed a blizzard of butterflies flying, a sky-rocket of spring sweet to hear in the gnarled fall woods. It slowed, saddened, her silver hair drooped across the violin. We applauded; after we’d stopped there went on sounding a mysterious extra pair of hands. Riley stepped from behind a bank of fern, and when she saw him Maude’s cheeks pinked. I don’t think she would have played so well if she’d known he was listening.

  Riley sent the girls home; they seemed reluctant to go, but Elizabeth was not used to disobeying her brother. “Lock the doors,” he told her, “and Maude, I’d appreciate it if you’d spend the night at our place: anybody comes by asking for me, say you don’t know where I am.”

  I had to help him into the tree, for he’d brought back his gun and a knapsack heavy with provisions—a bottle of rose and raisin wine, oranges, sardines, wieners, rolls from the Katydid Bakery, a jumbo box of animal crackers: each item appearing stepped up our spirits, and Dolly, overcome by the animal crackers, said Riley ought to have a kiss.

  But it was with grave face that we listened to his report.

  When we’d separated in the woods it was toward the sound of Catherine that he’d run. This had brought him to the grass: he’d been watching when I had my encounter with Big Eddie Stover. I said well why didn’t you help me? “You were doing all right: I don’t figure Big Eddie’s liable to forget you too soon: poor fellow limped along doubled over.” Besides, it occurred to him that no one knew he was one of us, that he’d joined us in the tree: he was right to have stayed hidden, it made it possible for him to follow Catherine and the deputies into town. They’d stuffed her into the rumble-seat of Big Eddie’s old coupé and driven straight to jail: Riley trailed them in his car. “By the time we reached the jail she seemed to have got quieted down; there was a little crowd hanging around, kids, some old farmers—you would have been proud of Catherine, she walked through them holding her dress together and her head like this.” He tilted his head at a royal angle. How often I’d seen Catherine do that, especially when anyone criticized her (for hiding puzzle pieces, spreading misinformation, not having her teeth fixed); and Dolly, recognizing it too, had to blow her nose. “But,” said Riley, “as soon as she was inside the jail she kicked up another fuss.” In the jail there are only four cells, two for colored and two for white. Catherine had objected to being put in a colored people’s cell.

  The Judge stroked his chin, waved his head. “You didn’t get a chance to speak to her? She ought to have had the comfort of knowing one of us was there.”

  “I stood around hoping she’d come to the window. But then I heard the other news.”

  Thinking back, I don’t see how Riley could have waited so long to tell us. Because, my God: our friend from Chicago, that hateful Dr. Mor
ris Ritz, had skipped town after rifling Verena’s safe of twelve thousand dollars in negotiable bonds and more than seven hundred dollars in cash: that, as we later learned, was not half his loot. But wouldn’t you know? I realized this was what baby-voiced Will Harris had been recounting to the Sheriff: no wonder Verena had sent a hurry call: her troubles with us must have become quite a side issue. Riley had a few details: he knew that Verena, upon discovering the safe door swung open (this happened in the office she kept above her drygoods store) had whirled around the corner to the Lola Hotel, there to find that Morris Ritz had checked out the previous evening: she fainted: when they revived her she fainted all over again.

  Dolly’s soft face hollowed; an urge to go to Verena was rising, at the same moment some sense of self, a deeper will, held her. Regretfully she gazed at me. “It’s better you know it now, Collin; you shouldn’t have to wait until you’re as old as I am: the world is a bad place.”