She laced her fingers and studied them. "Just this once, I'll stay at home. You can have as good a time without me. We wouldn't be together anyhow. In church you'd be with Dorie an' I'd be in th' choir, an' when we're at Dorie's you'd be out in th' barn with her or Angus, an' I'd be listenin' to Katyor readin'."
"Aw come on. Th' weather's worse to look at than be in. I'll take you for a little boat ride down th' river, an' maybe catch some fish for supper. There's a family of muskrats on our side you ought to see."
She smiled and shook her head, and he came and caught her hands, teased her, said she was lazy, and was Marsh again, smiling his dark bright smile. His rare mood of playfulness was hard to resist, but in the end he went alone. Delph stood in the door and waved, and he turned and waved until the brush near the river swallowed him. She closed the door quickly, and hurried to the fire, shivering a little, less from the sharp spring cold, than the dreary stretch of the sodden corn fields.
She felt half guilty in having sent him away alone. Still, he wouldn't miss her, not with Dorie; and it was a treat to stay at home just once and read. Brother Eli's sermons, though less harsh and more learned than those of Big Cane Brake Church, were always dull. She cared little for the after service talk of Salem Church when farmers' wives lingered by the stove or in the aisles and talked of sickness and birth and death, work and food, children and young things growing on their farms.
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She built up the fire in the cook stove, popped a skillet of popcorn, then arranged herself with her feet on the stove hearth, a book on her knees, and a pan of popcorn within easy reach. Soon it was as it had used to be at home in her own room when her own world dropped away, and she built a land of her own from printed words. The book was one that Katy had loaned herThe Count of Monte Cristo. She read greedily, swallowing whole sentences at a gulp, never pausing at the end of a chapter, but rushing right on, reaching blindly now and then for a handful of popcorn, nibbling it grain by grain, chewing sometimes slowly, but most often very rapidly as the story became more and more involved.
A loud insistent knocking at the back door caused her to spring up, then stagger and clutch the chair when her feet and legs, numb from sitting still so long, refused to support her. She was unpleasantly conscious that it was long past dinner time, that she had intended to slop the hogs and had not, and that her youngest chickens had not had their noon meal. She rubbed her numb knees and tired eyes, pulled off her apron, and hurried to the door, hoping that since she had to be bothered with somebody it could be Katy or Lizzie Higginbottom, wife of Perce.
Instead she found Sadie Huffacre, wife of a farmer living on the other side of the school house. Delph had heard Katy speak of the woman, say that she was a mighty one for talking, and that she wasn't overly particular of what she said. She stood stooping now with her broad back to the door, scraping mud from her overshoes, but straightened slowly and turned about when Delph had stood a moment on the step. "I was beginnin' to think nobody was home, an' I'd had all my walk in this mud an' wet for nothin'," she said in a loud, nasal voice, meanwhile looking closely at Delph with her pale blue, marble-shaped eyes. She was an uncommonly big woman, both fat and tall with a wide loose mouth and a large fat face that looked larger than it might have, surrounded as it was by masses of stiff, straw-colored hair. "I'm Liz Huffacre," she explained, and held out one fat, sweaty hand, then asked before Delph could answer her greeting, "Sleepin'? I'll bet I waked you from a nap. You look like it."
"I've been readin'," Delph said, and shook hands as heartily as she was able. She invited her in, sat her to warm by the stove, and after picking a few grains of popcorn from the floor and building up
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the fire, sat down and began the not very promising task of entertaining the woman. Mrs. Huffacre at first talked but briefly, while her eyes fingered first this thing and that, and her head busily twisted on her shoulders in order to get as wide a range of vision as possible. Delph watched her with a growing anger; she would not apologize for the bareness of her kitchen with its three kinds of wallpaper, bargain lengths from Mr. Cheely's store, nor would she explain that since she could not safely have fire in the living room fireplace, she must on a cold day receive all company in the kitchen.
The visitor's hunting eyes found her book on the kitchen table, and when she had craned her head and read the title, asked, "You like to read?"
Delph nodded. "More than almost anything."
Mrs. Huffacre's answer was a heavy sigh and a drooping forward of her shoulders. "Aye, child, you'll not be findin' much time for readin' with a big place like this on your hands." She seemed to find a greater cause for sorrow, and sighed again, more heavily than before. "But then it's like I was tellin' Tobe th' other night, they'll no more'n get fairly settled till he'll find out what farmin' isno pay check at th' end of ever' week in farmin'an' he'll be off an' gone. He'll sicken a mud an' weather too wet for plantin', then maybe a summer too dry for growin' He'll find out just you wait an' see." She stared fixedly at Delph, then nodded knowingly. "An' you with him to my mind."
Delph's shoulders stiffened with anger at the woman's hint that Marsh couldn't, if he wanted to, do what any fool could dofarm. But she tried to keep her tongue civil as she answered, "Oh, he could stay if he wanted to. But mostly he just plans to get th' place in shape. When business in this country picks up he means to go back to th' oil fields. He'll make lots more money there."
"Lord, but you'd be th' lucky one to get away, now, go before th' spring a th' year. I always dread th' spring, work from mornin' 'til night, an' seems like th' youngens are punier then, an' all th' meat an' canned goods run low, an' a body hates to run up a bill at th' store, never knowin' whether they'll raise enough by fall to pay it off or not."
Delph fidgeted uneasily in her chair, and tried not to look out the windows. The black twigged plum bushes with their frozen flowers and past them the ugly corn fields made the woman's words
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seem drearier still, yet true somehow. She glanced longingly at her half finished book, twisted about sometimes and looked at the clock on the cupboard, and even hinted that the sky promised rain, but Mrs. Huffacre noticed nothing.
Mostly, she discussed the neighbors. Perce Higginbottom wasn't tight enough on his boys, and Lizzie, his wife, was dumb and easy minded, not tight enough on Perce. She mourned a time for the school. She had wanted her children to get good educations and learn to be something better in the world than one horse farmers like their father, but they would never learn anything in Cedar Stump School. Perce Higginbottom was trustee; the teacher he hired was always partial to his children and neglected the others.
Delph ceased to look at the clock, gave the afternoon up as lost and sat and listened with what poor grace she could summon. Mrs. Huffacre warmed to her subject, and after a time of discussing the general weaknesses of various of the neighbors, hitched her chair nearer, put her face so close that Delph could smell her breath, and launched into a long series of specific examples of the shortcomings of each, dropping her voice so low that the ticking of the clock sounded above it.
There were some who saidshe was never one to call names and carry talesthat Big Jim Burnett beat his wife, or at least tried it, and she was practically certain from all signs that Mrs. Cowan was going to have another baby. The last time she saw her, her eyes were red like she'd been crying. She claimed to have a cold, but it was an uncommon funny cold; that would make four in less than five years, and the last one not paid forso she had heard.
Of course Delph mustn't misunderstand her; she was only trying to he helpful because Delph was young and new in the community and didn't know her way aroundbut, well, she oughtn't to be overly friendly with that hired girl of Mrs. Elliot's; Vinie, the one that did the house work, not the cooking. Oh, yes, she was mighty friendly and harmless as a dove, but, Lord, she'd hate to have to tell what she saw going on one day between her and a certain neighborman. Vinie had never been much,
but after going away and working a time in Cincinnati then living with high steppers like the Elliots shebut then she, Mrs. Huffacre, was never the one to talk about defenseless young girls.
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Delph in order to get the conversation away from Vinie, a buxom, laughing black-eyed girl whom she liked, inquired after the health of Big Jim Burnett's new baby. She regretted the question in a moment. Mrs. Huffacre went off on the subject of its birth in particularshe had been there. Finished with that she entered upon a perfect orgy of childbirth stories. Told fearful and gruesome tales in whispers of the terrible times this one or that one had gone through. So-and-so had chewed her tongue till it was black and blue, another had had to have her childa great overgrown monstertaken from her in pieces. So-and-so had nearly died from a miscarriage at four and a half months, and some said she had done it on purpose, but Lord, she was never the one to handle such talk. Still, it looked mighty funny the way she acted and all. Delph sat with her hands clenched in her lap and her toes gripped in her shoes, and wished Lizzie or Katy or Vinie or somebody would come. She had always shunned and hated the morbid tales of childbirth, stories filled with pain and smelling of blood, making the mere business of being a woman ugly and beastly.
When she could stand it no longer she sprang from her chair and dashed to the stove for a square of cornbread in the warming oven. "I just happened to think," she hastily explained to the surprised Mrs. Huffacre, "that I have to go feed my little chickens. They'll be yipping their heads off." And without giving her caller time to follow, she hurried out the door.
In the chicken run she crumbled the cornbread slowly down, squeezing it hard between her fingers. She tried to count the fluffy black balls of chickens, but could not. The mother hen clucked peacefully, secure in her coop from the other chickens, and Delph thought of Juber with his, "Easy now easy," clucking somehow like the hen. He would laugh at that fool woman and go away and play a fiddle tune.
She gave a great "Shoo," flapped her skirt at the gathered hens, and ran back to the house, ashamed that she had been such a poor hostess. She felt a flood of guilt and contrition when she saw Mrs. Huffacre at the door, looking inexpressibly mournful as she balanced on one foot and drew an overshoe on the other. "Not goin' so soon?" Delph asked cheerfully.
Mrs. Huffacre gave her a long sorrowful, forbearing glance, accompanied by a slow shake of her head. "Pore child," she sighed.
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''I didn't know or I wouldn't a talked soabout babies I mean. But then you're married. You'll get used to such in time. More's th' pity." And she sighed and drew on the other shoe.
Delph's small store of patience drained away like water spilling from a bursted paper bag. She turned on the woman with blazing eyes. "I guess, puttin' it in straight words, you're sayin' I'm goin' to have a baby. It's kind of strange for you to know it before I do. Butbut I can't see that it's anything to be ashamed ofor cry over either. I'm not afraid. I can do what others can."
Mrs. Huffacre straightened and drew her coat about her hips with short vicious jerks. "I must say some people in this world are mighty knowin' to be so young. But then when they're old an' wore out an' broke down with baby tendin' like methey'll know. They'll know," she repeated and marched stiffly toward the gate.
Delph stood uncertainly and watched her go. She ought to run after her, beg her pardon and say that she was sorry; insulting a visitor in her own yard was going back on her raising she knew. But in the end, she turned away, comforting herself with the thought that she wouldn't have to live always near such a woman.
She walked slowly to the barnyard, and was slopping the neglected hogs when Marsh came, whistling as he walked across the muddy corn fields. He looked rested and happy, she thought, not troubled and constrained as when he went away. She threw down the slop bucket and ran to him, threw her arms around his neck and whispered, "Oh, Marsh, I wish I'd gone with you."
"Lonesome?" he asked, while visions of the second hand disc he planned to buy fled, and concern for Delph took its place.
She frowned and kicked at a soggy clod. "I wish I could ha been.That Sadie Huffacre cameth' awfulest woman."
He laughed. "She's harmless. Nobody believes her anyhow. She's your neighbor. Tobe's a good man. We'll have to treat 'em halfway right." He glanced at her flushed face and unhappy eyes, and asked cautiously, "I hope you didn't say anything to make her mad. It's better to keep on her good side."
She tossed her head impatiently. "What's she to us that I must waste a whole afternoon listenin' to her gossip?"
"She's a neighbor," he repeated in such a way that Delph asked a question she had never taken courage to ask, but of late had wondered more and more about the answer.
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She tried to keep her voice light and unconcerned as she said, "Tell me, Marsh, how long do you expect to stay here?"
He looked past her to the wide flat fields, wet but waiting for his plow and seed. "I don't know," he said, and they walked together to the barn, but Marsh was not whistling now.
Days later Delph remembered his cheerful whistling as he had walked across the fields that Sunday afternoon, and wished for the sound again. Though continuing cold, the weather turned dry enough for the turning of corn ground, and the most she had of Marsh was his brief presence noon and night and morning. Even then she had nothing more than the sight of his body; impatient he was to be at the plowing of mornings, tired at night, hunched over his food, the lamplight brightening his sweat soaked hair, his eyes intent on his plate, his thoughts on the land he had that day plowed and the land he would plow tomorrow.
About ten o'clock of mornings and again in the afternoons she went to him in the fields with a jar of hot coffee and a bite of food, usually cornbread and bacon, for that he liked better than pie or cake or cookies. He would hunker on his heels by the furrow and eat hastily, taking great mouthfuls of the bread and meat, gulping the hot coffee, saying sometimes a word of this or that, and always looking with pride to the strip of ground he had plowed since sunrise, great clods and ridges of the rich brown earth, fresh turned and glistening. Usually Delph smiled and praised him, but one day late in April when he had worked especially hard because he had to knock off early and go up to Lewis's store, she tried a bit of gentle remonstration. "Marsh, you're workin' too hard. Why th' mules they're beginnin' to show it."
He laughed and his white teeth glistened in his wind tanned face. "Aye, Delph, it takes a good man to sober down a big young team like Ruthie Ann an' Charlie. You'll see I can plow with th' best of 'em."
She pulled her coat more closely against the cold dry wind. "But what's th' good, Marsh? Sober Creekmore, that big nigger down by your lower land, they say he can outwork any man in th' countybut what of it? You're not that strong."
He sprang up, impatiently wiping cornbread crumbs from his mouth with the back of one hand. "There's a hell of a lot to it. He's
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a niggerbut he's gettin' himself a farm," he answered as he heaved the plow into the furrow then slapped Charlie with the reins.
"You'll kill yourself," she said, and hesitated, unwilling to go away. "It's not like you didn't know how to do somethin' else, an' had to take it so serious like. Some a these plain dirt farmers about would give their hearts to know as much about oil as you do," she pointed out, and followed him a step or so down the furrow.
"Oh Hell, Delph, forget once that I worked in th' oil fields won't you?You got your list made out for th' store?" he called over his shoulder without looking at her.
"Couldn't I go on Maude, an' save you th' trip?" she asked hesitantly. "You'll be so tired," she went on when he continued with the plowing and gave her no answer.
"Delph, I wish to God you'd quit worryin' after me. To hear you talk a body would think I'd never done a day'a work in my life. I'll go to th' store; there's some business I have to see to.You'd better be lookin' after your chickens 'stead a worryin' after me. They're yippin' their heads off."
S
he stood a time and looked after him; followed him a step or so, then turned abruptly about and went to her chickens, crying from the untimely cold. But at the barnyard gate, she stopped and looked after him again. He and the mules looked small, lost in the wide dark fields. And he seemed so far away; no closer somehow than if he had gone to South America.