She turned and walked swiftly away, and went again through the familiar alleys where she had walked in the summer while caring for the little Andersons. She realized she was close to the place where the cactus woman lived—maybe her man was well and working; and they would meet and the woman smile. She might even buy a doll.
She frowned in puzzlement when, upon entering the alley and looking toward the other end, she saw a great stack of junk by the woman’s coalhouse. She went closer, and saw that it was furniture. She stood looking, shaking her head, furniture out like this when it looked like rain, though a body could not tell what waited in the sky on such a still and smoky day.
She walked again, but more slowly, remembering only when she was halfway down the alley to jiggle and bounce the jumping-jack doll. She stopped behind a woman carrying a tricycle up her steps and asked, “Want tu buy a doll?”
The woman turned and shook her head, “We gotta take up a collection,” she said, and nodded toward the pile of furniture, “Eviction.” She waited, studying Gertie an instant before speaking again. “Her man got hurt—way back inu summer—inu head. His milling machine exploded; but th company doctor, when e put um out a th hospital, said his eyes was jist still swoll’ from th lick on his head, was why he couldn’t see. He never did see; stone blind, an cain’t git a penny. He signed some papers, couldn’t see wot he signed, an they didn’t tell him; he hadda learn it hisself. His unemployment run out a long time ago. We was taken up a collection.”
Gertie fished in her pocket, felt the strange smoothness of new money; she went deeper and her fingers touched coins. The dime or the quarter? She held out the quarter.
The woman shook her head. “When I toldcha about u collection I wasn’t hinten none. Don’tcha man work at Flint’s? They’re talking around that th strike’ll last till Christmas.” She hesitated again, her eyes on Gertie’s shoulder. “Somebody saidcha didn’t have no insurance when yu—Yu keep yu quarter.”
Gertie shoved the quarter into the woman’s hand gripped on a tricycle bar. “I’ll be maken money frum my whittlen. Where’ll they go?”
The woman glanced uneasily toward the piled-up furniture, whispered: “She’s over there kinda in behind th coalhouse. We divided um up last night—kinda crowds a person, butcha gotta do somethen—them little kids, an it cold. They’s a shelter place run bydu welfare; an th man next door—he’s out on strike—he’s took her man there now to see if they’s room.”
Gertie walked on. She saw the woman huddled behind her furniture in a rocking chair with a blanket-wrapped baby across her knees. “I been wanten tu see yu,” the woman said. “Ain’tcha du one wot grows such pretty flowers? I been t’inking—couldcha keep mu cactus? I’ve had it su long; it’s older’n mu kids. Yu’d unnerstand wot it needs better’n most around.”
“Sure,” Gertie said. The woman was going to cry, she thought. But the woman made no sound as she, still holding her baby on one arm, got up and went for the cactus, placed carefully under the stoop, safe from running children. “You’ve got nice furniture,” Gertie said, wanting to comfort.
“Yeah, an all them payments finished,” the woman said, but looking only at the cactus, fondling it with her eyes, “but u icebox. They come an got that a good while back, but not su quick as they got th car—onie three more on it and we’d been through—I’m afraid it got stunted last night; it was so cold.”
“It’ll be all right,” Gertie said. She dropped the doll into the basket, and reached with both hands for the cactus, hurrying, for one of the woman’s tears had fallen on a leaf. “I’ll take good care uv it, real good,” she said.
“Keep ut warm an not too wet,” the woman begged.
Gertie was past the next unit before she remembered to say, calling over her shoulder: “You know where I live. I like it—allus did love potted plants—but you come er send eny time when you git a place fer it.”
“Yeah,” the woman said, sobbing, rocking the baby again.
Gertie was going up her walk with the pot, large and wrapped in silver foil, held carefully in both hands, when she remembered the scrap-wood place; she’d been on her way there when she passed the cactus woman. She stood a long time, holding the pot, looking at her door. She went in at last, and Clovis, listening to her explanation of how she came by the cactus, looked hard at her, started to speak, hesitated, but interrupted at last, “Gert, you look—funny—kinda pale. You don’t want tu be gitten sick again—not now.”
“I’m all right,” she said, but sat down in the middle room by the block of wood. She sat a long time looking at it while Clovis talked; he had good news. Bunkin had been around; there was a guy—a real honest-to-goodness farmer—had about two days’ work for a good mechanic. His stuff was old and he’d run it so hard it was all breaking down. He wouldn’t pay more than five or six dollars a day; he’d want about fifty dollars’ worth of work for twelve; right now he wanted somebody to help rig up a stump-pulling machine. He was cleaning up an old apple orchard. Bunkin had wondered if Gertie wouldn’t like some apple wood for her whittling.
Gertie looked at him, and he repeated what he had said, then added: “Gert, don’t look so—well—like you’d lost th last friend you’d ever had. We’ll git by till you git some money frum that whittlen. I’ll git credit in a department store. Zedke’ull carry us fer groceries. Main thing’s th rent; these gover’mint places give credit fer so many days an no more—but we’ll borrie—er somethen.”
“Yes,” she said, and continued to sit by the block of wood until even Clytie was home from a late class and Enoch in from Cub Scouting. She roused then and got supper—spaghetti covered with a can of tomato soup, and smeared on top with a little dab of cheese. It didn’t look too good, she thought, and never ate any—A good thing, she decided later, for the children and Clovis ate it all. Nobody complained of the scanty supper, and when Amos asked for a second glass of milk Enoch chided him: “Don’tcha know, kid, yu pop’s on strike?”
Amos did not ask again, and Gertie did not offer; the milkman wouldn’t come again till next day noon, and there was hardly more than a pint left for the breakfast mush. Eggs for breakfast instead of mush or oatmeal ran the grocery bill up so.
She hurried through the dishes, and without waiting for the children and Clovis to be out of the way, began work again on the block of wood, the unfinished palm of the uplifted hand; working so steadily, so swiftly, that Clovis complained, “You’ll wear yerself out on that, Gert,” and when she made no answer, added, “You ought to be worken on them patterns, so’s we’ll be all ready.”
“They’s time,” she said, not looking away from the wood as she crouched, head tilted, knife swiftly bringing out a line in the down-curving palm. The one line finished, she moved on to another with no stopping, as if time were running out and this were the one thing she must do with her time.
The children went to bed and Clovis went to bed, but she worked on. Victor went to the steel mill, Whit came home from the bowling alley, the fast passenger that had always used to waken the children with its long screech for the crossing, passed, and still she worked, her face gray now and lined with tiredness, her legs stiff from the long kneeling; for though she had put him in a chair she still must, on the empty head, work kneeling, crouching with uptilted head.
The late autumn dawn was still far away, but the dead time of night had come when the traffic on the through street was thinned to single cars passing and the streetcars far away had the lonesome sound of emptiness, before she rose slowly from her stiff knees, dropped the knife into her pocket, and went to bed.
She could not sleep, but lay and watched the red steel-mill light behind the drawn blind pale, then change slowly into gray dawn. She got up, made coffee, but it still wasn’t time to waken the children. She went into the living room, and sitting by the block of wood, took down her hair, dropping the pins into her lap, widened by her knees, outspread a little. She combed her hair a long time, pausing now and then to touch the block of woo
d—the head, the hands, the cloth about the shoulders.
Clovis wakened, grumbling because she had not got him up; he’d wanted to be through town by daylight. He looked at her as he ate the breakfast mush. “Are you all right, Gert? You look kinda big eyed an peaked.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
Clytie asked her the same as she fixed margarine sandwiches to take to school, but when her mother answered, “Fine,” the girl continued to study her.
“You’re bad worried, Mom,” she said. “Would it help if I give yu my carfare? This week’s already in tokens, but I’ve got money laid by fer next week in case I don’t git no baby sitten.”
Gertie smiled. “Honey, th shoe leather you’d wear out on that long walk ud be worth more’n th money.”
“Mebbe I can sell a doll atter school,” Enoch said, “an I know that soon’s it gits a little closer tu Christmas I can sell a heap.”
“We’re all right,” Gertie said. “Better off than lots. Recollect I’ve got a big order fer whittled goods an yer pop’s got some work.”
The older children were gone, and she dressed Amos and washed his face and combed his hair. “We’ve got tu take a trip,” she said, “an you’ve got tu be neat an clean.”
“Th graveyard?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Jist th—” Her tongue fumbled, and he stared at her; his mother’s eyes were bright and somehow twisting like her hands, “jist th scrap-wood lot,” she said at last, adding as she put on her coat, “an I’ll need tu borrie yer wagon.”
Amos brought the wagon out of his room, and she carried it down the steps and onto the walk. Wheateye, eating a carrot, racing down the alley on a borrowed scooter, saw, and called, “Where yu goen?”
“Th wood lot,” she said; and to Amos, “Wait, now; we’ve got to take a load.”
She went into the living room, and stood for a moment smoothing the wood and looking down at it, then took it in her two arms as if it had been a child, and carried it to the kitchen door. She stopped there and looked back at the room; it seemed empty now—of what? A block of wood could not make such emptiness.
She turned quickly through the door, and the children, who had gathered to Wheateye’s crying, began asking:
“Whatcha gonna do, Miz Nevels?”
“Lookee, lookee, ut’s a man.”
“It’s a woman.”
And a little Daly, running up, cried, “It’sa virgin,” but the stove wrecker thought it was a saint.
There were as yet no grownups about in the alleys, but there were many children, for the weather was warm for November; still, with a low weak sun in a pallid, smoky sky, so that the children came running as always to anything strange. Many followed after her, fussing at times over who should have the privilege of helping Amos pull the wagon, for the load was a heavy one. Wheateye left the scooter and pushed; a little Schultz and a Daly helped her, so that there was a little procession with Gertie walking in front, the Josiah basket on her arm, a doll in her other hand. She stopped at times to match her pace to that of the children, but never seemed to hear their questions: “Watcha aimen tu do wid dis? Yu gonna sell um? Don’tcha like um eny more? Why don’tcha fix his face?”
And when she did not answer, Wheateye and the others fell to talking to the block of wood.
“Whatcher name?” they’d cry.
“Where yu goen?”
“Why’s yu face all covered? Yu shamed tu show yu face?”
“Lemme see yu face.”
The little Schultz reached high and struck the down-bent head, but others cried, “Aw, don’t hit him; he ain’t done nutten.”
Gertie turned, and her voice was supplicating, “Don’t be hurten him, now.”
She heard the saw in the scrap-wood lot, and stopped and stood, her head bent; but the pushing and pulling children bumped her, and she walked again.
The saw was singing loudly so that the scrap-wood man did not hear their coming. It was only when he chanced to look up that he saw them all, watching him, waiting, the block of wood in the wagon, in front of Gertie now. He stared at the wood, studying it, then stopped the saw, and came round to the hidden face, turned away from him toward Gertie. He bent and studied it a moment, then looked up at Gertie. “Christ?”
She shook her head. Her eyes were wide and black under her tightly pulled-back hair, and they fondled the wood an instant, the hands, the head, the covered face. “Cherry wood,” she said at last, slowly, loudly, as if he had been deaf. “I want him—it—sawed into boards fer whittling.”
“Oh,” he said, and looked at her, then back to the wood. “They’s a lot—a lot a work in ut.”
“Jist pastime,” she said, not moving, steadfastly looking past the wood. “I’d like it sawed—now.”
“Yu’d oughta put a face on him,” he said, still studying the wood, “ud been nice tu seen ut.”
She was silent, her lips tightly shut together, her hands clenched a little, the forgotten basket slipped down her arm, but her eyes were now unable to stray from the wood, the hands and hair so clear out here in the pale sunshine, the wood so bright under the pallid sky.
He studied it, and shook his head. “It’s too big,” he said. “Th way it is, yu’ll hafta split ut.”
“Oh,” she said, the “oh” like the beginning of a cry, but smothered at once, and she was still, considering; while the children, troubled, gathered round, and looked first at the wood and then at her. She was so still; it was as if by steadfastly looking at the wood, she, too, had changed into wood.
She took it from the wagon at last, and looked about for a level spot.
“Quarter it,” he said. “That’ll be enough.” He reached for an ax, lifted it, hesitated, looking at the wood, his glance long on the bowed head, the empty uplifted hand. “Yu’d better do ut,” he said, and handed the ax to her.
She stood above it, the ax lifted, her eyes on the top of the head. She hit it, and the man laughed as the ax leaped back from the swirling hair.
“Yu’ll hafta do better’n that, lady,” he said.
She swung the ax in a wide arc, and it sank into the wood straight across the top of the head; and she stood so, the ax motionless, deep in the wood. She breathed heavily, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead.
He brought a wedge, and a large hammer he used for knocking down heavy crates.
She struck the ax with the hammer, but weak she seemed, her sweat-slippery hands sliding from the hammer, her hands forever fumbling; but at last the wood cried out, opening a crack wide enough for the wedge. She brought the great hammer hard down upon the wedge, again on the ax. The wood, straight-grained and true, came apart with a crying, rendering sound, but stood for an instant longer like a thing whole, the bowed head, the shoulders; then slowly the face fell forward toward the ground, but stopped, trembling and swaying, held up by the two hands.
A great shout went up from the children.
The man reached for the fallen face, righted it so that she might strike the head again, but his hand did not immediately come away. He touched the wood where the face should have been, and nodded. “Christ yu meant it tu be—butcha couldn’t find no face fu him.”
She shook her head below the lifted ax. “No. They was so many would ha done; they’s millions an millions a faces plenty fine enough—fer him.”
She pondered, then slowly lifted her glance from the block of wood, and wonder seemed mixed in with the pain. “Why, some a my neighbors down there in th alley—they would ha done.”
HARRIETTE ARNOW WAS BORN in Wayne County, Kentucky, in 1908. From her father, a former teacher who later worked in factories and oil fields, and her mother, also a teacher, Arnow inherited the rich storytelling tradition that inspired much of her written work. She published her first short stories in 1935 under the pseudonym H. L. Simpson, alongside a photograph of her brother-in-law to disguise her gender. Her acclaimed novels were Mountain Path, Hunter’s Horn and The Dollmaker, the last considered her masterpiece
and a landmark of American fiction. She died in 1986 at age seventy-seven.
Harriette Simpson Arnow, The Dollmaker
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