Between the Flowers: A Novel

  In May when time for setting the tobacco came she watched Marsh a time at the tedious bending work, the sort of thing he hated.

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  Then almost before she knew it, was at it herself. He quarreled a bit, said the work in the hot sun would maybe not be good for her, but she only laughed and went on setting the tobacco. She could see he was pleased to have her there with him.

  Late in the afternoon as she was cooking supper she heard his angry troubled call from the field as he passed it on his way to get the cows. "For God's sake look at th' damned stuff," he mourned when she ran up to him. "It's dead." And he nodded sorrowfully toward the rows of tobacco, each freshly set plant fallen with its head on the ground.

  Delph smiled at his foolish worries. "Pshaw, Marsh, recollect Juber an' me we raised chewin' tobacco for him in th' garden all th' time. It always fools a body like that. It'll be up straight as you please in th' mornin' Just you wait an' see."

  "I hope to th' Lord you're right," he said with more hope than certainty.

  Next morning before she was scarcely dressed she heard him below her window calling in the blue misty dawn, "Delph, oh, Delph. Th' tobacco's lookin' fine. You ought to come an' see it."

  Then it seemed that scarcely a week had passed before full summer and hay making time had come. What with the tobacco, a larger field of corn, a good hay crop to be gathered in and more stock to tend, Marsh was busy as it was possible for any man to be, and must often get Sober and others to help in the press of work. Still, for all his tiredness at times, he was not the harassed angry Marsh of the previous summer, uncertain that he could farm, uncertain of everything. He seemed happiest in the fields, and the only time that trouble touched his eyes was when he looked at Delph sometimes. She would smile at him, praise the promise of crops he had, cook and fetch and work for him, be everything to him except his wife.

  The summer was a season of good growing weather, hot still days when the moist air lay close and silent over the land; a time for men to sweat and corn to grow. Marsh, though his first and best loves would always be clover and corn, never tired of looking at the tobacco, of walking through it day after day on his way to and from the corn fields. More than one farmer came down to see it; a prettier patch they'd never seen they said. It stood even and straight in the field, and by late July the lug leaves touched each other across the

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  rows. Delph loved the tobacco as she would have a crop of flowers, for it was curious stuff with dainty, womanish ways. It was she who showed Marsh the cunning of tobacco leaves when it rained; come a shower and the broad leaves stiffened and lifted themselves until they were like gutters, sending all water down the stalk to the roots of the plant.

  It was Delph who found the first pale green, half formed cluster of flower buds in the top of a plant. She went hunting, and found others until it looked as if the whole patch were ready to bloom. That meant that topping time was near, for Marsh had decided on late high topping when the plant was ready to flower so that there might be as little suckering as possible.

  It seemed no more than a day or so before Delph awoke one morning to look and find half the field dotted with wide clusters of opening bloom. She and Marsh were out long before the sun had touched the valley, breaking and cutting out the pink flowers. And it seemed a sin to throw them on the ground, such pretty things they were. Delph worked at cutting out the flowers until it was time to carry Marsh his snack and visit Burr-Head.

  Marsh had had to leave the tobacco to go lay by a small piece of late field corn in a swaggy bit of bottom that could not be planted as early as the rest. He worked with an impatient haste unusual with him; it was pleasanter to be in the tobacco field with Delph, hear her call across the rows, "Look, Marsh, here's th' widest tobacco leaf I ever saw," and he would turn and look around, or maybe hold up an especially pretty cluster of flowers for her to see.

  When she came with his food he smiled to see that the crown of her bonnet was decorated with tobacco bloom. Burr-Head, seeing the flowers, would snatch and reach for her bonnet, she said, for now he was getting to be a mighty one to grab for things. Marsh wished he could leave off the plowing and go with her as he often did, but thought of all that tobacco crying to be topped, held him back.

  He had scarcely finished the last of his meat and cornbread, before he saw with some surprise Delph coming hurriedly back across the fields. The most of the upper half of her was hidden under an enormous black cotton umbrella which she carried slightly forward as if afraid of the least bit of sun. He wondered if she had had

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  a touch of the heat to be going about in such fashion, and stopped the mules and called to know what ailed her.

  She lifted the umbrella a bit and he saw Burr-Head riding on her hip, his red bonnet, borrowed from Emma's little Lurie, nodding and bouncing as Delph strode down among the corn. "It's Burr-Head," she called, all out of breath from hurrying with such a load.

  "God almighty if he's sick this hot sun'ull do him no good," Marsh cried and dropped the plow lines and started toward her.

  Delph laughed and tried to show a proper unconcern. "Law, Emma made me bonnet an' umbrella him like he was an ice cream cone. Nothin' ails him. It's just that he's cut a tooth, silly.I just thought you'd kind a like to see itmaybe."

  "Tooth? You mean he's cuttin' teeth little as he is?"

  Delph nodded and Burr-Head nodded, and Caesar trotting behind looked aloof and wise. Delph held the umbrella while Marsh took Burr-Head and saw the marvel for himself. Burr-Head clearly showed that he knew what it was all about; he did not cry or offer resistancemuch, to the probing finger, but laughed and wrinkled his nose and grabbed for the copper buttons on Marsh's overalls. When both had examined the tooth to their satisfaction, Delph took Burr-Head, but after remaining a time silent, suggested somewhat hesitantly and with a guilty glance in the direction of Creekmore's place, that she take him to the house and let him see the pink tobacco flowers, He had liked the ones on her bonnet, but she had given them to little Lurie in exchange for the loan of her bonnet for Burr-Head.

  Marsh looked out across the wide stretch of corn where heat waves trembled in the hot still air, then squinted at the sun from under his hat brim, and reckoned that it was no more than an hour until dinner time anyhow. He thought he'd knock off early and take the mules in, and he could ride and carry Burr-Head. Delph agreed, and then she was sorry. It was a fearsome business to sit on Ruthie Ann, watch Marsh on Charlie with Burr-Head on one arm, the umbrella and the bridle in his hands as he rode bareback down the rows of tasseling corn. Now and then she glanced over her shoulder half expecting to see all Emma's children running after her with maybe Emma too. It had taken a deal of persuasion to get Burr-Head for just a little while; the sun was hot and the corn pollen might

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  make him sneeze, and there were a lot of reasons why he should stay with Emma.

  Still, the dangers of the trip were well repaid. It was a wonder to see Burr-Head wave and reach for the tobacco flowers, and when they sat him under a great wide leafed plant he took a bit of the yellowed flyings in his hand and studied it with bright admiring eyes, then bubbled and crowed and waved it around. It was clear he knew his father could grow fine tobacco. "Aye, he'll be home in time to help with th' strippin'," Marsh said.

  Delph was suddenly silent, no longer bragging about her child. Marsh bent and searched out her face shadowed under the deep hood of her sunbonnet. "Why, Delph, there's tears in your eyes. What's th' matter?"

  She wiped her eyes on her apron. "Nothin'Just thinkin'," she said.

  "About th' floodan' all that time we thought we'd mebbe never keep him. Well, that's over now," he reminded her gently.

  She only nodded to that, but soon she was laughing again at Burr-Head who scooted to his father's feet and was searching out any treasures of dirt or weed leaves he knew were sometimes found in the turned up cuffs of his father's overalls. Both forgot Emma and treated Burr-He
ad as if he were their own, and were caught red handed by Emma's oldest girl who slipped to the back porch door and peeped through the screen to see Burr-Head with cow's milk on his chin.

  And that afternoon, Marsh must quit work early again. He just happened to recollect that yesterday morning at breakfast Delph had wondered if she had coffee enough to last until Saturday. It was only Tuesday; still there was no use in taking a chance on running out of coffee. Delph, he knew, would insist on going on Maude to save him the time and trouble. So as not to bother her he left Charlie in the shade of a sycamore by the river, and rode Ruthie Ann bareback.

  He crossed the creek and went by a roundabout way that did not lead directly to the store, but passed Huffacre's place. Much to his delight, Sadie sat on her front porch, mending a suit of Tobe's overalls, and in between times directing the work of her two middle sized girls as they hoed some late beans in the garden. She hailed Marsh and invited him in for a drink of fresh water, cold from the well. He declined her invitation, but stopped to agree with her that it was a

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  mighty hot day, and that such weather was hard on everything and everybody except green growing stuff. He nodded again when she added with a heavy sigh that it was especially terrible on young babiesespecially ones that were not over strong. Sexton's youngest had the summer complaint, and she'd heard that over in Salem some little baby had died of thrush or hives.

  She studied him a moment in silence, and when he seemed loath to give any word on the condition of Burr-Head, she sighed again and hoped that he would pull through, but if he lost a good bit of weight and was sick and fretful it was no more than could be expected from a baby born too soon and not overly strong at that. She ended by thanking God that all her young ones had been born well and strong, while she looked at Marsh with pity in her eyes.

  Marsh mopped his face again and fiddled a time with the bridle. "Aye, it is a pitiful thing to see a youngen sick an' weakly like," he said.

  Sadie nodded in sympathy. "An' I reckin you know how that is, Mr. Gregory."

  Marsh pushed his hat back and pondered until Sadie sat on the edge of her chair in her eagerness to learn just exactly what ailed the Gregory baby. "Aye, Burr-Head's mebbe a bit cross now an' then," he said when he could no longer be silent, "but then fat as he isfatter than when you saw him lastan' teethin', an'."

  "Teethin'," Sadie cried, and then smiled in pity at the ignorant ways of men. "Pshaw, Emma's just told you that in case he gets sick or somethin' He couldn't be teethin', hardly six months old, an' born too soon."

  "Emma told me nothin'. I saw an' felt for myselfa jaw tooth about here.But th' little devil crawled away before."

  "Crawlin'," Sadie exclaimed, but Marsh gave her no more time for questions. He left her sucking a pricked finger and looking after him while he dug his heels into Ruthie Ann's sides and galloped toward the store. He knew he had lied a little. Burr-Head was toothing, not teething, and he scooted instead of crawled. Late last fall, when Marsh had made a payment on the mortgage, the surprise of Andy Rankin at the bank when he learned the bushels of corn he had raised had sweetened his life for weeks, but Burr-Head's tooth was better yet. Plenty of men could, with good seed, grow corn on river bottom land, but not many had sons as fine as his own.

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  20

  The days passed and the lug leaves of the tobacco showed signs of ripening and the flyings gleamed yellow white above the field. Marsh's corn was laid by, the hay crop in, and except for the tobacco the hardest part of his summer's work was done; and from the look of things his work would not be wasted.

  He felt free and light hearted in spite of having a wife who seemed more housekeeper than wife. He wished as he had wished many times that he had someone to share his gaiety. Dorie loved him like a son, Lizzie Higginbottom was always telling Perce what a fine man he wasso Perce said, Vinie, the hired girl, sometimes said things to him with her eyes that almost made him forget he was a father and a respectable farmer instead of a roving oil man, and Mrs. Elliot praised him always; but none of them were Delph. He came upon her late one afternoon as she leaned on the barnyard fence and stared at the tobacco, and when he had looked at her closely, he saw there were tears in her eyes. Now, when he had the finest tobacco in the country, even if it didn't bring as much as a poor crop last year, all she could do was stand and cry.

  That afternoon she gave the falling tobacco prices as an excuse for her tears. "I did so want you to have a good fine crop an' make lots of money this fall," she said with more sadness than she had shown all last summer when the drought threatened to kill every green thing on his land.

  "Hell, if I don't come out clear it's nothin' to bawl about," he said. "One timethree years backPerce didn't make enough out

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  of his tobacco, a bigger patch than this, to pay his expenses, an' so far as I know neither him nor Lizzie cried."

  "But it'll be different with youthis fall," she said, and as if afraid she might weaken and let him so much as kiss her she fled to the house.

  The tobacco market opened in South Carolina, and the prices from being low fell lower. Men who visited the bluegrass country predicted a bumper crop; Roan who was good at forecasting prices, offered scant encouragement. And the tobacco, as if in defiance of all laws of supply and demand, continued to grow. It was contrary stuff. The long red and the short red refused to ripen for cutting, suckers would leap out two inches long over night, and in the meanwhile the lower leaves, the most valuable part of the plant, were dead ripe and would soon in the hot rainy weather show signs of rot.

  Marsh cursed the stuff and cursed the good growing weather that would rot instead of ripen cut tobacco in his barn. He went one morning to have a consultation with Perce, who had grown tobacco for twenty years and was on to all its trickeries. He found Perce in the barn hunkered on his heels and busied with darning needle, coarse thread, and tobacco flyings. In similar positions and so occupied in different corners of the barn were all Perce's children including Little Lizzie, six years old, a beautiful child with great brown eyes and yellow curls, and so petted she could not tie her own shoes. But today Little Lizzie sat by her mother and strung tobacco leaves. Marsh watched a time, and envied Perce with such a family.

  However, he did the best he could. He bought carpet warp and darning needles at Lewis's store, borrowed all Sober's family including Emma and the babies, and returned across the fields with his army, wondering what Delph would say to such a funny business. He found Delph with Katy in the tobacco patch, stripping off the trash and flyings and the yellowest of the lug leaves. None of the Fairchilds had had time to get down for a week or so, and Dorie had worried for Marsh's tobacco. The price at best would be low this year, so he had better make the highest priced leaves as good as possible, else he wouldn't make any money at all. Such was the advice she had sent by Katy, and further deputized her to demonstrate. Katy had had plenty of experience; the Fairchilds had leaf strung a good bit of their own.

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  During that day and for several of the next, Marsh's barn took on the appearance of a factory, though Delph who had read of such things said it was more like a sweat shop. Dorie came down to help and Emma's five year old, though he could not string for sticking his fingers, learned to measure string on the nails of a board.

  Marsh cursed the day he had ever heard of tobacco and counted the days until corn cutting time; some work at least half worthy of a man and not this constant fiddling with leaves and strings that the women could do better than he. His one comfort was Burr-Head. He could crawl like a beetle now, and must forever be watched. He feared nothing, and would as soon have crawled between the mules' hind legs as on his proper pallet. Once Delph was thrown into a panic of terror when she found him attempting to chew a bit of especially bright tobacco, but Emma only laughed and said that Burr-Head was too sensible to start chewing tobacco at his age; he only wanted to get the taste of it.

  Katy came one morning, fl
ying across the fields before Delph had finished the breakfast dishes. She had great news to tell. Her sister had come home last night and surprised them. She had a new job; a better one in New York with the head store of the chain for which she wrote advertising copy. She was most likely coming down with Dorie sometime during the day.