Sometimes he would see a morning glory flower, freshly opened and beaded with dew. The next time he saw it, the flower would be gone with a brown seed pod in its place, or again a bud would be a flower, or the pale green tips of climbing tendrils that when he went
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away were even with his bed, now rose almost to the top of the window. He saw the earlier leaves grown brown and fall, and seed pods grow plump, turn gray and burst with a scattering of the small shining seed. Now and then an uneasy wonder would come to make him think that maybe he would never see the seed spring up as other morning glory vines. Yet, he seldom wasted his life on fear and wonder.
He knew the battle he fought. The fever was like the drought and the flood and an early frost, something that came and could not be changed, but he would live and it would pass as the drought had passed. He was patient. When conscious he never moaned in pain or cursed the consuming fire of the fever. He struggled, not for the privilege of drawing breath for some long vague period of years, but thought of foolish things, like walking up the hill again to see the sunset, or hauling wagon loads of corn on a clear December day. He seldom thought of his life; he thought of Delph and Burr-Head and his cows grazing in the clover fields, and how good it was to begin the spring plowing in a fine April dawn, when fog lay on the river, and the smell of the earth and of blooming plum trees hung about him as he plowed.
Most often he simply lay and watched the passing of the days. He knew morning and noon and afternoon and twilight through the changing patterns of yellow-green light above his head. He knew sunrise from the crowing of the roosters and twilight from the mockingbird that sat in the trumpet vine and sang and sang as if the songs were seed for a harvest of song. He was proud of the mockingbird. His was one of the few places about that could boast a mockingbird, and the only one to have a hummingbird. The hummingbird never sang but it was a pretty thing to watch. It came mostly to the trumpet vine which was a little distance from the window, but sometimes, early, when the corn rows lay still in the white fog of the morning, the hummingbird would come to his vine, and hang spinning above some purple flower.
There was a whole life in the morning glory vine. He liked it when there came a sudden summer shower, and he could watch the slow falling of drops from the heart shaped leaves, and think that maybe some day he could get cool again from standing in the rain.
Sounds from beyond the morning glory vine told him many things. He knew milking time, and Sober's time of returning from
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the fields, and the days that Caesar and Burr-Head were careless and left the sly Prissy to roam in the pasture. Then would Delph go calling, and her long drawn cry of, ''Suke, Prissy, S-u-u-uke," would come faintly down through the twilight, and was a pretty thing to hear, better than the mocking bird or the katy-dids or the whip-poor-wills crying from among the little cedars on the hill.
There was a time of day that he liked best, and that was dusk when the nurse went away to have her supper, and Emma left him to feed Sober in the kitchen and he was alone. Marsh saved himself for that time of day, struggled steadily against the rising night tide of delirium until his child had come and gone. "How you comin' Marsh?" Burr-Head would ask in a whisper from the other side of the morning glory vines.
And he would answer in a whisper, too, "Fine, son, fine."
"Still buildin' that stone house?"
"Yes.There's not another rock needed on th' big chimney."
Burr-Head would sometimes linger by the window, silent, crouched on the grass with Caesar, or other times he would ask questions in a soft whisper. The questions were sometimes answered; often they were not. "Marsh, th' clover leaves they fold their hands an' shut their eyes when th' sun goes down, but th' sunflowers now, they hang their heads. Why is that, Marsh?"
"They're sleepy, son."
"Marsh, where does th' corn pollen go?"
"Into th' silkit makes seed."
"How?"
"I'm busy, sontryin' to think about th'back north room."
"I'll sleep there an' see th' lights from Hawthorne Town, won't I?"
"Yes, son."
"Let Delph sleep there, too. She likes th' Hawthorne lights better than th' sunset."
"Delph likes th'sunset, tooan' th' stars."
"But she likes th' lights better. I heared her say so to Sam when me an' her an' him went to th' high knoll to look at the sunset.Marsh, how is Broadway?"
"Delph willhave to tell."
"She don't know. I heared her ask Sam."
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"Maybe she'll tell yousometime. Run alongnow, th' stone houseI need to be."
Burr-Head would listen a time and then go away. Sometimes he sang as he walked up the hill, unafraid of the early summer darkness, "For he has gone to fight th' foe of King George upon th' throne." Marsh would be alone except for Caesar stirring under the window, whining a little at times with a soft pup-like cry. Almost every night Poke Easy came and stood a time in silence on the other side of the vines. Roan would come sometimes and say, "Don't let 'em make you think you're goin' to die, Marsh. You'll live to plow sixteen hours under a hot June sun in knee-high corn for many a day." Mr. Elliot would come and look at him; Brother Eli came to pray for him; Dorie read him a letter from Johnhe was to call on him in case of need; and men from miles around would come, farmers in heavy brogan shoes with sweat stained hats in their hands would tiptoe awkwardly up to his bed and look at him, and then go away, silent as they had come. And their eyes were sorrowful when they looked at his wide fields of dark rich corn.
Sam no longer paused by the window. Delph came less often than in his early sickness; and she no longer brought fruit or flowers or ears of corn. Sometimes he would think of Delph and Sam; wonder what she saw in him, why he seemed finer to her than other men. Still, he seldom tortured himself with foolish imaginings. Most often he would only wonder if Delph wore her white sunbonnet, lined with blue, and tied with a blue bow under her chin. He hoped she did not. In that she looked prettier than when she sang in church.
Nights when she came to sit a time by the foot of his bed, he would look at her sometimes, find her face haggard in the dim light from the low lamp flame, see the torture in her eyes, and be glad that Sam was home. He, Marsh, had caused the sorrow and the torture in her face through his careless ways and stubbornness, just as he had made the faint thread of scar on her forehead, and caused her the long sickness after the coming of Burr-Head. That first summer it was because of him she had worked so in the fields and garden, peddled in Burdine, churned and worked from summer daylight to summer darkness. He owed her so much. If Sam could in any way make pleasant the little time she spent away from him, he, Marsh, should
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be grateful. Sam only told her stories, talked to her, told her of things from away. He would reason so in his saner moments, but in his delirium he sometimes begged for herand she was never there. Both Mrs. Redmond and Dorie agreed that it was best she stayed awaymost likely Marsh would not have known her at such times, and she was an unhandy person to have around in case of sickness.
Other times Marsh would think of the brick house, and wonder if Delph knew that it was to be sold. He feared that Mr. Elliot with his booming tongue had let her know. He wanted to tell her himselfin his own way. Nights, he wished, when he could wish, that she would smile at him or come to his bed, or sing a little. But Delph when near him never smiled and never sang.
The morning glory vine made other buds and others flowers, and slowly Marsh grew less conscious of bud and flower and leaf. The vine was only a greenness that promised a never-brought coolness. There seemed more life in the room. There was another woman in white, but she was dim and of little account like Mrs. Redmond. He knew Delph's eyes, and Dorie's voice, and black Emma's hands, and the rest were mostly shadows and echoes flitting between the morning glory leaves. Once, he roused to hear Dr. Andy's voice and his dry sharp cackle. "His fever's goin' down. It'll break one a these days." A
nd Dorie saying, "Yes.It's got to break." And Delph's voice, hollow and strained, ''that, that's th' worst time?" And Dr. Andy's cackle again. "Buck up, girl. It's all bad time.'' And one of the nurses saying, "Really, Mrs. Gregory, wouldn't you be more comfortable outside?"
Sometimes he heard Katy's quick light steps, saw her flying yellow hair, and knew that tobacco cutting time was maybe past, else Katy could not have left the hired hands and come away. That would mean late August, almost time for the Fair. He wished Poke Easy could take Jule and Solomon. One night he tried to tell him, but he could not make his whisper carry through the morning glory vines.
He knew he was no good for talking. Still, he could see and understand. He liked to look in Katy's eyes. They showed many things, sorrow, and a fear of death, but stronger than those was hope with no resignation. He could not say that of Delph's eyes; in them there was sorrow, but stronger than that was the waitingwaiting geven in sorrow was waiting.
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At last the promised coolness came, slowly as if his feet and his hand trailed in an ice cold flood. Then gradually the morning glory vine changed to a green ice mountain that crushed and froze and ground him down; he was ice against ice sinking slowly into ice like earth. Most things were dim and faint and far away behind the green ice mountain.
He wandered through the Rockcastle Country where all the trees were tall and fine and green, but there was a coldness in the air, and snow sifted through the leaves. Delph was lost and he was hunting her. Burr-Head came calling and crying through the trees, and Sam carried him away, hid him behind rows of cold white lights. He wandered and wanted to plant a crop of corn, but he had no heart to cut the fine tall trees. He saw a high mountain crowned with pine trees, and below it there was a holly bush thick with berries red as blood. He wanted to climb up the high dark bluff but there was Azariah with his blue, blue far seeing eyes, and his hair black, long down to his shoulders, and Azariah stood frozen faced and silent, looking past him to a country he could not see; and he turned away and did not climb the mountain.
Sounds from another country would sometimes call him away, Burr-Head piping through the pasture fields, "for he has gone to fight the foe of King George upon the throne," the mocking bird at sundown; the ringing of the school bell, and then another day there came the church bells. There was Big Salem and Little Cedar Stump, the Burdine bells, the cracked bell of the Golden Lily Colored Church; all rang and rang, and when their ringing died the room was very still.
The church bells rang for him he knew. They asked all people in the countryside to pray. They prayed for him as they had prayed for Garfield long years ago, when Garfield lay shot and dying. He had heard Dorie tell it. Garfield, he was a president, and he had died, but he, Marsh, was a farmer. The church bells they might ring for him, but they would never toll for him.
Up at the brick house Delph stood by a window and listened to the bells. She was alone in the room, an upstairs room above the garden, opening on a wide view of the valley and the farther hills. Sometimes, she looked down at the asters and dahlias and other late August blooming flowers, but mostly down into Marsh's corn lands,
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or up past the river bluff and into the farther hills. There was something sad about the earth and sky today. The leaves were green, it was summer still, but the air was cool with no wind; and the sunlight sickly white and little warm, falling like a dead thing out of the deep, cloudless, blue-green sky, with the shadows dark and sharp.
The leaves of the trees by the window and the yellowing iris leaves in the garden glittered as if painted with ice. Maybe they looked that way because they knew they were going to die. They died gaily with no pain, dressed in bright red and gold, and for a moment before they died it was the lot of some of them to be lifted above the valley and whirled against the sky. They diedand all things died, and maybe it never hurt so if sometime in their lives they could have that one moment of glory, of feeling themselves lifted above all ugliness and sorrow and misery, and knowing the feel of the sky.
Marsh, she thought, had known more of the sky than most men. The sight of a clover field in June or the smell of his ripening corn could make him forget so many things, the mud, and the work, the ugliness and pettiness of life in a river valley. He had never wanted her pity; and with her sorrow he would not have it now. The church bells rang again, and she hoped Burr-Head never knew why they rang.
The hill shadow touched the river, and still she sat and looked into the valley. Mrs. Elliot came, and some of the neighbor women came, but she sent them all away. When Dorie or Dr. Andy or any one of the nurses watching by Marsh sent word to her that it was time for her to come and watch him while he died, she wanted to be alone. They would pity her and comfort her and never know that she had borne the pain of his dying through weeks and weeks, and the hardest part of it was gonenow. There was only so much sorrow, and she had spent that when she watched Marsh wither and change like a corn plant through a drought. She would sit by the hideously pitiful thing on the bed, but it would never know her, or speak, for Marsh was gone a long while ago.
June, with the Memorial Day and then the beginning of Marsh's sickness were back in some dim, long gone time; she had lived the whole of a life since thenlearned and found and dreamed and suffered more than in all her other life together.
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It was late afternoon with the shadow creeping up the hill across the Cumberland when she heard a man's feet coming down the hall. She turned away from the window and waited, knowing it was Sam; she knew his feet, light they were like a dancer's. Dorie had sent him to tell her. She called, "Come in," when his feet stopped by the door. He opened the door, closed it, and walked a few steps into the room before he looked at her. He hesitated, then came on with great eager strides, his hands reaching for her, and his eyes hunting her eyes.
"You've come to tell me," she whispered, and cried in his arms with her head on his shoulder. But through her grief she felt his arms; and they were not the arms of a cousin or a childhood friend, but those of a man with a man's heart and a man's body. He was silent, holding her tight against him, as if she were the one dying, and he would with much holding never let her die.
She felt his face on her hair, then heard him begging, "Delph," in a scarcely audible voice, but with a wild, wild calling under the voice.
"You don't have to say all th' things you have saidnot any more. I'm not afraid, an' I'll be bravenow," she said, and drew slowly away and smiled up at him, a slow sad smile, but sad for a sorrow worn by many tears and tired.
"Delph," he said again, and stood holding her, just holding her as if he didn't want to speak or move, and looking down into her face, caressing it with his eyes.
She tilted her head and studied him. "You look tired," she said.
He nodded. "I was always one to find waiting hard."
"Youyou've been waitin' down by th' house all day?"
He nodded again, and the black forelock trembled above his eyes. "Most all day I sat under the box elder tree." His face twisted, as if he might have had a sharp memory of watching something die. "Don't think hard of me, Delphplease. There've been others watched and waited, too, for lots of thingsthat never mattered so I never hoped or wishedI just thought on ahead, I think. Then when Dr. Andy came and saidthe worst was overI knew there was no need to waitany more, everfor anything.They say he is an uncommonly strong man." He bent and kissed her on the mouth, gently took her arm from about his shoulder, turned sharp about and left the room.
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Delph stood and watched him go; and her arms dangled loose and limp by her sides like those of a wooden doll.
She was standing so, looking at the nothingness beyond the door when Mrs. Elliot came, running and calling up the stairs. Delph listened in silence while the woman laughed and cried and babbled. She had just talked to Dr. Andy. It was amazing the way Marsh's heart had reacted to his treatment and the treatment of a specialist he had called down from Lexington. The
re was no reason now in the world why Marsh with proper care shouldn't get well. Maybe the prayers of the people had helped. She just couldn't, couldn't believe it, and Mrs. Elliot started to cry, but screamed instead.