Gradually, she grew conscious of the sounds around her; she heard what she knew was a telephone ringing; the nurse would come and talk in another room and the ringing would for a little while be still. She heard often the words “doctor” and “busy,” and once the nurse said, “He’ll get there in time—her pains are still five minutes apart.” In between times she heard groans from the room she had come past, and now and then, smothered and low through the walls, the cries of babies, the low-voiced talk of the waiting sick people, the opening and closing of the outside door as more came in; and with each opening of the door there came, like the splatters of rain on the window, loud dance music from the juke box across the street.
The nurse was constantly hurrying back and forth, and once, when she passed with a bottle in one hand, a stand in the other, rubber tubing dangling down her shoulder, Gertie heard her through the open door: “There’s a boy outside wants you to come to his father—pneumonia, they think; bloody vomit, pain, out of his head with fever, sick about a week, about six miles east of Sweet Gum in a bend of the Cumberland. He offered to bring a mule to the end of the graveled road. Dr. Barnett, he said, had made it in his Model A with chains even in muddy weather. I told him you couldn’t come; but he won’t go away.”
“Dr. Barnett’s somewhere in the Pacific studying up on tropical diseases—hadn’t touched a patient, the last I heard,” the doctor said, and then sighed, a long shivering sigh that seemed to begin at the bottom of his belly. “I guess maybe we’d better send some sulfa pills. Pills,” he said, and there was silence between them as they worked with Amos; and then, like a man finished with one thing and able to think of another, “How’s the Osgood business?”
“They’ve telephoned twice for you to come, but she’s not had convulsions.”
“I don’t like her blood pressure,” he said.
“But she was like that the other time,” she said.
“But this time the baby’s been dead so long.” He was moving toward the door, and Gertie hurried toward him. He looked away from Amos, and if he saw the questions in her eyes he made no move to answer them, but asked, “Up all last night and worked all today in the rain?”
She nodded.
“Sleepy?”
She shook her head.
“You’ll have to sit all night by his bed and watch that tube. Don’t let it plug up; if you doze and it plugs he’ll choke. Don’t go into the waiting room—half the children in this county haven’t been immunized. I’ll look in again, maybe around midnight.”
The nurse lingered an instant and smiled a tired smile. “There’s a place across the street sells coffee—some time later maybe I can stay with him long enough for you to run get a cup, or if I get a chance, I’ll bring you some.” And she was gone after the doctor.
Gertie leaned a long time over Amos, looking down at him in the tent. She studied the needle in his arm, the bottle hanging above him, frowned over the new tube in his neck; such a flimsy little thing it looked to hold the windpipe open. After a while there was a drop on the end of it, and she reached through the tent flap and wiped it away; then quickly and with a guilty air she felt his pulse, but it was only for a moment; almost at once she took her hand away and smiled a faint but joyful smile.
She sat by the bed, stiff and still in the straight-backed chair, twisting her head at times, or shielding her eyes with her hand against the white down-beating light. She watched and listened to the child, but her empty hands were restless; they smoothed back her hair, straightened her coat, touched Amos, and at last began to pick the Spanish needles off the faded apron. The picking was too slow, and without looking away from the child she let one hand go into her apron pocket and bring out the knife, swiftly, already open and ready for work.
However, the knife, instead of scraping on the Spanish needles, hung idle above her lap while she reached in her pocket with the other hand and brought out the officer’s change from the five-dollar bill, forgotten until now. She began to unfold the tight little wad with the thumb and finger of her left hand, but hardly was it half unfolded when the knife dropped into her lap and she seized the money with both hands. She unfolded the four bills quickly, staring hard at each. She sprang up. The forgotten knife slid to the floor and lay there while she held a bill under the light. She turned the bill over and over, felt it between thumb and finger, rubbed her eyes, looked again. Turn by turn she examined each bill, but always each showed a ten in one corner on one side, a ten in the middle on the other.
She stood a long time holding the money, looking about, glancing now and then at the child as if to make certain he was asleep. The man in the next room groaned, and someone spoke to him, a soft whispering, the words lost in the wall. Gertie glanced uneasily toward the door, hesitated; but like a mother whose eyes and hands cannot get enough of a newborn child she smoothed each bill between her hard palms, whispered the letters of the name, “H-a-m-i-l-t-o-n.”
She remembered her knife, picked it up, and dropped it into her pocket. She sat down, watched Amos, but still her glance went often to the money as she spread it widely in her lap so that all of each bill showed. Now and then she looked uneasily over her shoulder, and always she listened. She heard cars on the highway, slithering in the rain. Twice they stopped, and there were feet running up the steps, then knockings on the doctor’s door. Sometimes a train whistle blew, and once again there came a faint spattering of music.
Clutching the money, she got up to wipe another drop from the tube, and then was restless, pacing back and forth in the tiny room. She had stopped to watch the maple bough swinging, tapping the window in the spattering rain, when she heard a truck, loud, the motor coughing a little, coming down the highway from the south. She waited, her face tense with listening while the truck stopped and feet came up the steps, across the porch; there came then a loud, insistent knocking. Somebody answered at last, and this time the feet did not go away. She heard them over the linoleum in the storeroom. Swiftly she shoved the money down into the secret place below the tornness of her coat pocket, shook the coat, gave the cloth a swift critical glance as if to make certain it kept its secret well, then stood straight and still and watched the door.
It opened slowly part way, and a man’s voice, troubled for all its slow softness, asked, as if afraid of the answer, “Well, how is he?”
“Better,” she said, not moving toward the door, but looking again at the coat pocket, then quickly at Clovis, his tall thin body stooped a little, his forever hunched shoulders hunched still more as they always were when he stepped through a strange door, for he was as tall as she, but without the bigness of bone or width of shoulder.
He continued to hesitate in the doorway, throwing his worried glance first at her and then at the tent over Amos with the half emptied bottle of yellowish liquid hung above it. The fright grew in his eyes. “He’s a goen to be all right,” she said, her voice reassuring, gentle as if speaking to a troubled child.
He drew a long shivering breath, came through the door, straightened, and tiptoed toward the bed. “I figgered everthing ud be all right when old Dock come home jist as I was pullen in with th truck. I lowed you’d been lucky an got a ride quick.”
She nodded. “Yes, I got a ride—quick.”
“Your mom wouldn’t give in fer me tu leave her bed. I stayed till th worst uv her fainten spells was over. An anyhow I didn’t have gas enough tu git all th way in—I had to go to th Valley an beg em fer gas like I was asken fer my life an …” His jaw dropped, and he gave a low whispered, “I’ll swan,” as for the first time he saw the cut neck. His long hand went to her shoulder, gripped it. “I knowed he was bad er you wouldn’t a gone runnen off to th doctor an yer mom a needen you so—but I didn’t low he was that bad er I’d a left yer mom an come.”
Gertie’s voice came kind and comforting. “I’m th one ought to ha knowed—sooner. I was bad worried but kept a thinken all day—I’d run back ever little while to look at him an ask Clytie how he’d been—but
I was still a worken in th corn a thinken it was croup when Aunt Sue Annie come an told me. ‘Git on thet mule an go,’ she said.”
Clovis’s hand did not leave her shoulder. “I hope you didn’t have to stand an watch that doctor cut that hole.” He turned away, gagging, paling.
She hesitated, studying Amos, then slowly shook her head. “I didn’t watch.”
He stood half in and half out the doorway, bothered by the rough whistling breath as the officer had been bothered. “I’ll have to think up somethen tu tell yer mom. When I left her she made me promise to send you back to set out th night with her. I never had th heart to tell her Amos was kinda sick.”
“Whyn’t you tell her th truth? The hawgs was in th corn an I had to save it.”
“Tell her that you was a worken when you’d jist heared your onliest brother was … I told her you was plum broke down with grieven.”
She looked away from him to the maple bough, tapping again. “I felt better worken out in th rain—when old Uncle Ansel come riden an told me th word that Red Cross woman brung I couldn’t set still. She’ll know, or leastways Pop’ull know it was a tale you told. I never did break down.”
“You’re like Mom,” he said, “a waiten fer word on Jesse. Hearen this on Henley has kind a chirked her up. ‘They won’t git two frum a little place like Deer Lick,’ she says. An it takes more’n I’ve got tu let on to her that a six-months-old telegram that says missen in action is about th same as—”
“It ain’t,” Gertie said, and asked, “How’s Pop?”
“Holden up fine, I recken; to tell th truth I didn’t see much uv him. Somebody said he’d done th barn work an was whittlen away on a ax handle.”
“White oak?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
“He allus took to oak when somethen bothered him er his leg hurt bad. Anybody give him any supper an did he eat?”
Clovis was getting impatient with her questions. “I tell ye, Gert, I never was away frum yer mom’s bed. Somebody cooked. Ann Liz Cramer brung me an yer mom both big plates a grub.”
“Mom eat?”
He nodded. “It tuck a heap a beggen, though. We all told her to eat an keep up her strength. She was mighty weak but she cleaned up her plate pretty good.”
“She ain’t so bad off then, I recken.”
“Now, Gert, you know how weakly yer mom is. Why, this trouble ull lay her up most a th winter—she was a wonderen when you could git down to do th washen. It ain’t like,” he went on after Gertie had wiped another drop from the tube, “Henley was saved. She cain’t git reconciled to him a goen without salvation. She’s sent fer Battle John Brand tu come an pray.”
“Prayen cain’t help Henley—now.”
“Yer mom wants Battle John to pray to God to give her peace. She cain’t git reconciled,” he repeated, patient as if he talked to a child, but irritated by her lack of understanding. “She cain’t git reconciled,” he went on in a lower voice, glancing at Amos as if afraid he might hear. “She cain’t never meet Henley in heaven when he ain’t been saved.”
“Mom could backslide an go to hell if she’s so certain Henley’ull be there.”
Clovis looked at her an instant in silent horror, then gave a mournful headshake, his large light brown eyes troubled. “Gert, you’re so riled up with all this trouble at one time you don’t know what you’re a sayen.”
She was silent, her head bowed against the down-beating light as from a rain, her hands twisting as when she had stood outside the door while the doctor worked on Amos. “Clovis?” she asked, her voice hesitant, apologetic. “Couldn’t you set with Amos fer a little minute while I run git me some cawfee.”
“It’s a pouren th rain.”
“I know, an I cain’t smell it er hear it. It’s—it’s like bean buried alive—an it’s so hot in here. Somewhere’s hid away they’s mighty big fire; th doctor’s gone, th place could be a burnen down.”
Clovis smiled at her ignorance, moved toward the door, and stood with one hand on the knob. “Take yer coat off, then. Th doctor’s got a furnace down in th basement, fancy kind with a stoker. Many’s th load a stoker coal I’ve hauled fer him. You need more’n cawfee. You ain’t never in your life had a hamburger. I’ll git you one; they’re real good.”
She shook her head. “I ain’t hungry. I jist want cawfee.” She hesitated, then went on in a low, half ashamed voice, “It ud be kind a nice to listen to that music while I drunk …”
“Music,” he said, and was horrified and troubled again. “Music at a time like this—dance music. Gert, they’s no use a diggen up old troubles—what’s done is done—but, well, if’n you’d never a heared dance music you’d a been a lot better off—an—an Henley, too.”
“I recken,” she said, plucking Spanish needles from her apron, “Mom’s been a recollecten that time I danced in th square dances when Pop played his fiddle at Clem Sexton’s—close to twenty years ago—a couple a years fore we was married, an that’s fifteen.”
“Henley’s goen brung it all to her mind afresh,” he said, half apologetically. “Him a loven dancen an fiddle music an … Aw, Gert, you’re all wore out an half out a yer head with grief an trouble. You know it was yer arguen an hunten through the Bible an a quoten what it said about dancen, stid a taken th preacher’s word an asken forgiveness an repenten like a body—”
“Lemme go, Clovis, git out a this place fer jist a minute.”
He went through the door, saying over his shoulder, “Gert, honey, you’d better let me go. You ain’t looked in a looken glass lately; you’ve got mud splashes all over an yer hair’s straggeldy.” He looked down at her feet. “An you fergot to put on your Sunday shoes.”
She flushed; Clovis as always was neat and clean, for, as he said, he couldn’t go around looking like a tramp when he hauled coal. The overalls of her starching were ironed to the smoothness of glass, cuffed neatly above his clean and mud-free shoes, and the new red and black checked woolen shirt he’d bought only three or four weeks before was clean with all its buttons. She looked from him to her own rough, muddied clothing, just as it was when she’d worked in the corn. She sighed. “Don’t be a wasten good money on fancy grub fer me. It’ll take a heap fer this sickness.”
He smiled, half pleased, half troubled. “You’re fergitten I’ll be goen on Uncle Sam’s pay roll in a few weeks—you’ll have money regular ever month.” And when he returned some time later, he brought two hamburgers in a paper bag as well as a mug of coffee. She took only the coffee, pushing the grease-stained bag away.
“You eat it,” she said, and with a last glance at Amos took the coffee and hurried out the back door. She walked slowly along the cement walk that led to the front porch, lifting her face to feel the rain, for after the bright whiteness of the hot little room, the cold rain and the dark were like old friends. She tried an instant to look into the sky to find the north star and so find herself, but the lights were bright and the clouds an even gray so that as she sat on the top porch step and drank her coffee she knew not where she was.
She drank the coffee slowly and tried to find the music underneath the rain and the passing cars, but if it came at all it was faint and far away as thunder when the clouds are lost behind the hills. The coffee was almost finished when a car stopped with a quick slithering squeal and a man got out and hurried up the walk, followed by a woman. She had risen and stood a little to the side to let them pass before she saw in the half darkness that it was the doctor and his nurse. “How’s the little one?” he asked, not bothering to look at her face but glancing once at her great size and then moving on.
“A sleepen like a lamb,” she said. He was past her, opening the door into the waiting room before the question in her head could begin to shape itself on her tongue. “Doctor, tell me—how is it in th Army when a man—gits killed? In battle, I mean.”
He was opening his office door before she had finished. He turned slightly and looked at her. “It all depends,” he said. “In th
is war they kill men by different methods in different places; most, I suppose, die by …”
She came very close to him, the forgotten coffee mug held tightly in her hand. “Oh, I don’t mean, Doctor, if he was shot—or—or tore up in little pieces by a bomb or killed by his own gun a goen bad; but jist before he died did they pick him up—an take him to a—a hospital.”
The nurse was speaking behind her, speaking in a bright, reassuring tone, quickly, as if she had already said the same thing to lots of other people. “All our fighting men when wounded get better care than any other soldiers in any other war. Stretcher bearers come almost at once and carry them to little hospitals right behind the lines. They give them—”
“Not always,” the doctor said. He had stopped and was looking at her, measuring her size and the jut of her nose and the way her forehead rose high and straight above it. “Sometimes, when the stretcher bearers know they are dying, they leave them alone—outside—they don’t bother them. Your maiden name was Kendrick, wasn’t it?”
When she had nodded, he said, looking into her face that searched his own for bright, smart lies, “When we heard about it, I remembered him—he was here several times to get medicine for your mother—and when I saw you, you made me think of somebody but I couldn’t think just who. We’d talked sometimes of hunting and farming.”
She nodded. “People allus said we looked alike. He couldn’t abide bein shut up like—back there,” and she motioned with the mug toward the little white room. But he was a doctor again, hurrying away with no time to waste on the dead. She made the bit of coffee last a while, then suddenly afraid Clovis might forget to watch the end of the tube and Amos would choke, she hurried back; but Clovis was by the bed, smiling down at the sleeping Amos.
“That doc give him some shots, an said he was a comen along jist fine, an said sean as how he was doen so good I could mebbe take you all home in a day er two—wrap him up good. He sure is a funny-turned man,” he went on, all his early terror given way to a gay talkativeness. “When I told him I bet cutten that hole in a human’s neck wasn’t so easy, he give me th quairest look, an finally he kind a nodded his head an said, ‘Under th circumstances, it would be hard, very hard.’ Wasn’t that a funny answer frum a doctor? They like to cut holes in people er they wouldn’t be doctors.”