The Fires of Spring

  He thought: I’ll get out now. It’ll be almost the same as if I had ducked.” So he retired to the bank, but immediately felt ashamed of himself, so he splashed back into the water and submerged. Chattering, he regained the bank and shivered in the sunlight. He felt tingly. A venturesome bullfrog, thinking no one was about, garrumphed onto a log, saw the boy, and dove far into the pool. “That’s nice!” David laughed.

  At lunch he whispered to Tom, “Went swimming this morning!”

  Tom asked, “Footsie or all the way under?”

  “All the way!” David said belligerently. He could tell when each man at table got the news, for each one stopped eating and stared at him, shivering their shoulders as if they were cold. David shook his head and said, without making sounds, “It wasn’t so cold.”

  After the noonday meal he and crazy Luther Detwiler went down to the highway to mark off the cars. David would read the license plates as they whizzed by. When a state like Montana or Nevada appeared, the men would talk about it for weeks. It didn’t matter to Luther what the licenses were, because for some inexplicable reason he thought that all cars came from Delaware. David said, “That one was from Ohio.”

  “That’s in Delaware,” Luther replied.

  “The dogtooth violets are out,” David gossiped.

  “Wery nice, dogtooth wiolets,” Luther agreed. “Yellow.”

  At two-thirty Luther jumped up and down and pointed to three cars turning into the drive. “The Quakers is coming!” he shouted. “Got to get our hats!” Long ago he had been told that Quakers did not mind if a man wore his hat to church, and now he tore up the lane so that he would be ready for worship.

  Each Sunday some religious group came to the poorhouse to conduct services. On this Sunday in April the Quakers from Solebury Meeting had come. The Quakers, David had noticed, always came a little early. They talked with the poorhouse people, not bending down a little as others did, but straight up. Women would look right at Toothless and say, “Tom, thy old farm looks very good,” and Tom would say, “How’s the winter wheat?” and nobody looked away in embarrassment because that farm was no longer Tom’s. The Presbyterians and Baptists were more fun than the Quakers, because they sang, but the Quakers came earlier and looked right at you.

  When church started David and Luther wandered in as if it were to be any Sunday in the world, but this day was to be different. In the first place, Luther forgot to put his hat on until fifteen minutes of silence had passed. Then he glared defiantly at the tall Quaker on the facing bench and slapped his torn hat on his head. This Sunday was different, too, because David had a penny for collection. Toothless Tom had given it to him. And finally, there was a girl at services this day, a young Quaker girl about David’s age. She sat with her father on the facing bench and looked very solemn.

  Marcia Paxson was taller than David, even then, more sure of herself, darker, quicker when she turned her head than he. Through the long service David sat in rich silence, clutching his penny and staring at the girl. Across the poorhouse church she stared back. Twice her father nudged her not to be so rude, but her flashing eyes came again and again to rest upon the snub-nosed face.

  David would never forget that quiet Sunday. Sometimes the Quakers spoke at meeting, sometimes not. On this day no one spoke, and a fly, drowsily awakened from winter, droned more noisily than all the Quakers. A mad woman who spent some days in the mad row and some days semi-free was free this day. She rocked back and forth, and suddenly began to hum a whispery, airy chant. The fly flew past and she was diverted. The ghostly singing stopped.

  Now sunlight from the glowing spring day moved across the hall as it had when Troy burned. The Quakers from Solebury pondered in their hearts the will of God and found no reason to speak aloud, so the pregnant silence continued, and David stared at the strange girl. Finally, after an hour, the girl’s father leaned over and shook hands with a white-haired woman. The meeting was over and men began to talk. Luther said, “Hmmm! No singin’. No sermon. Hmmm!” He tried to drag David out with him, but the boy lagged behind.

  He had no clear reason as to why he stayed that day, but he was very glad that he did, for the girl’s father and mother came up to him and said, “Thee is David Harper. Miss Clapp told us about thee.” They reached down and shook hands with him as if he were a man. The man said, “I’m Richard Paxson. This is my daughter, Marcia.”

  The four of them walked out into the brilliant sunlight and stood between the two gray buildings. Mrs. Paxson said, “Some day thee must come to visit us,” and David felt that a very important thing was happening to him. He was assured of this when Mrs. Paxson went to their car and produced four books: Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coast was one of them. He held the books in his hands, but Luther Detwiler, who had been watching, rushed up and took the books.

  “Did he say thank you?” the mad Dutchman demanded.

  “No,” Mrs. Paxson replied truthfully. Luther kicked his little friend.

  “Thank you,” David said. “I like books.”

  Then Marcia spoke. “I want thee to visit us, too.” She held out her hand. It was longer than David’s, and stronger.

  But when their car rolled down the lane, Luther threw the books on the ground and started cuffing David about the head. “Daniel tells you! I tell you! When you get somethin’, you say thank you!” David recovered the books and took them tenderly to his room.

  The Krusens were different. They were like no other couple that ever came to the poorhouse. They arrived one evening about five. It was not the manner of their coming that was unusual. A truck drove up to the women’s building, and two bundles of meager belongings were tossed onto the porch. The driver—like all such drivers—was most careful to explain that he wasn’t related to the Krusens. “Not me! They ain’t my kin! I drove ’em up here for a friend.” The driver shivered as he saw the poorhouse doors open, and then he was gone with a memory that would plague him whenever he spent a dollar.

  Mr. Krusen was a tall man, very bent in the shoulders, rheumy-eyed and unhappy. He was put in Door 11, across the hall from David. At first the boy noticed nothing peculiar, but at dinner on the second night David saw that Mr. Krusen was different. The boy had grown accustomed to watching married men when their wives first came through the women’s door. There was a terrible wrench that even David could understand. Here was the woman this man had sworn to protect, and because of his faulty judgment she would die in the poorhouse. It seemed to David that married women took the poorhouse in their stride, but to their husbands it was agony.

  Mr. Krusen wasn’t that way. When Mrs. Krusen entered the barren hall she put her hands on her hips, surveyed the room, and said, “It could do with some flowers.” Mr. Krusen looked across the hall at her as if she were no concern of his, and then he never looked at her again. He kept his eyes on his plate and as soon as the meal was over he hurried back to Door 11, where he locked himself in and spoke to no one.

  Three days later Mr. Krusen got a letter. David took it up to him. It was from Lancaster, and the old man eagerly ripped away one corner, then hurried into his room. Even in the half hour when men and women could visit he remained locked in his room.

  Mrs. Krusen was in the visiting area, however. She was apparently waiting for her husband. When he did not appear, she sat on a bench with two old women. David walked near them, and they called him over. He was reluctant to go, for he did not like old women. Mrs. Krusen smiled at him and asked, “Have you seen Mr. Krusen?”

  “He’s up in his room,” David said.

  “Will you please be a dear little boy and ask him to come down?”

  “He knows you’re here,” David said loudly. “He was looking at you a minute ago.”

  Mrs. Krusen’s head snapped back as if he had struck her. The other old women were ashamed and looked away. Finally Mrs. Krusen licked her lips and asked, “What is he doing?”

  “He’s reading a letter,” David replied. “I took it up to him.”

&
nbsp; Mrs. Krusen gave a sharp cry and put her hands to her face. Now her two friends turned back to her and said, “There, there.”

  “Was it from … Lancaster?”

  “Yes,” David said, and Mrs. Krusen began to cry. At first David thought she was crying for herself, but apparently she wasn’t, for she said many times, “Jonas, Jonas!”

  That night Mr. Krusen refused to look at his wife. She stared at him throughout the long meal, but he would not look up. When he was through eating, he wiped his mouth furtively and sneaked back to Door 11.

  Next morning Mrs. Krusen waited by the messhall door so that her husband must pass her on the way to breakfast. “What’s the matter, Jonas?” she whispered.

  “Nothin’,” the man grunted, pulling himself away from her.

  “They wrote to you, Jonas. I know.” He rudely thrust his way past her and David heard her cry. “I’m not sorry for me, Jonas. It’s for you! They’ll kill you, Jonas.”

  Angrily the big man hurried from the messhall without waiting for breakfast, and that night it was clear to see that Mrs. Krusen had been crying. But her husband would not look at her.

  On Saturday there were two visitors to the poorhouse, and they affected David deeply. The first was Mr. Paxson, from Solebury, with his daughter Marcia. They drove into the circle and asked for David. He was in the barn helping Tom, and when he appeared he was well dusted with the fine, smelly dust of hayseed.

  “Hello, farmer!” the tall Quaker said. “Thee’s been hard at it, eh?”

  “I help out on Saturdays,” David explained.

  “Is thy aunt about?” Mr. Paxson inquired.

  “She’s in there,” David pointed. “I’ll get her.” He ran for his aunt, and that lonely, antagonistic woman came out into the spring sunlight. Mr. Paxson introduced himself and his daughter and said, “I’ve come to ask thy permission to take thy nephew to Quaker Meeting in Solebury some Sunday.”

  “Hmmm!” Aunt Reba snorted. She quickly saw that this was some kind of trap.

  “His father, you know, was a Quaker.” The words fell heavily upon David, for he had not known this about his father. He looked quizzically at his aunt and she took his gaze to be condemnatory.

  “I don’t want Daywid traipsing about the country, yet,” she said stolidly, and the vast difference between her penuriousness of spirit and the calm dignity of Mr. Paxson was so great that David blurted out, “I’d like to go.”

  But Mr. Paxson was not to be so trapped. Bowing gently he asked Aunt Reba, “Then I don’t have thy permission?”

  Now Aunt Reba was cornered and she scowled at David. “All right,” she said and stomped back to her quarters.

  “I’ll call for thee some Sunday,” Mr. Paxson said, and shook hands with David, as if the boy were a man, but even as he spoke David stared into the car at the dark, confident girl who stared speculatively back.

  When the car left, Aunt Reba darted out in the areaway and shouted for her nephew. Reluctantly David went to her and she dragged him into her room. “Look here, young fellow,” she snorted. “You leave them Paxsons alone! Don’t go gettin’ ideas.”

  “I didn’t know my father was a Quaker,” David protested.

  “There’s lots you don’t know,” she snorted. “Less you know about your father the better.”

  David was inclined to fight with his aunt. Seeing her beside calm Mr. Paxson had shown him how much he hated her, but his attention was diverted by a black car that came into the areaway. He dashed away from his ugly aunt to see what was happening.

  “They’ve come for the Krusens!” Toothless reported joyfully. The men on the long hall, all of them, were glad when one of their members escaped. Quickly David bounded up the stairs and into the hall. He banged noisily into his own room and then tiptoed back to Door 11 to eavesdrop.

  “You told me that before,” Mr. Krusen whined.

  The visitor replied, in an unpleasant, nasal voice, “I told you. Erma told you. That woman would bring you nothin’ but disgrace.” He spoke with a complaining Dutch accent: tawld and nawthin’. “But oh, no! You wouldn’t listen yet. Now see where you land.”

  “All right,” Mr. Krusen snapped. “You knew best.”

  “If you had only listened to me ’n’ Erma when we was up to Sellerswille …” The monitory voice droned on while Mr. Krusen stuffed his clothes into a bag.

  David had long before noticed a peculiarity about people who came to take other people away from the poorhouse. Young men who came could always explain exactly what mistakes their old relatives had made. Young men knew how to keep out of the poorhouse. But when old men came to take their friends away, there was no preaching.

  When Mr. Krusen and the unpleasant young man came out into the hall, David was lounging by Door 8. “What’s he doin’ here?” the young man snapped. “He ought to be in some decent home.” And the way he said those words, “decent home,” made David hope that he never got forced into such a place.

  In the driveway below, the black car waited. Mr. Krusen hurried to it and quickly sneaked into the back seat, where he hid himself in a corner. Erma sat grimly in front, staring straight ahead. Her jaw stuck out and she was dressed in black. The engine started and David realized to his horror that Mrs. Krusen was being left behind.

  At this moment the old woman banged open the screen door of the women’s building and rushed over to the black car. “Jonas!” she cried. “You mustn’t go away like this.”

  Her husband hid lower in the back. The driver leaned out and snarled, “Watch aht, there!” He jammed the car into reverse and continued to shout, “Watch aht!”

  “Jonas!” Mrs. Krusen implored. “Don’t let them do this!”

  “I’m comin’ for’erd!” the driver warned.

  “They don’t love you,” Mrs. Krusen wailed. “You’ll die with them. They’ll kill you, Jonas.”

  “Stahnd clear!” the driver bellowed. Three old men came forward and took Mrs. Krusen by the arms. The car gained speed and started toward the road. Erma looked straight ahead.

  In wild energy, Mrs. Krusen burst free of her reluctant captors and dashed into the roadway. Her old skirts flashed in the dust, and she seemed to fall ever forward toward the retreating car. “Jonas, Jonas!” she pleaded.

  As the car made its last turn before it was free of the wailing woman, Erma leaned out, her neck swathed in black, and hissed justification of herself: “She ain’t one of us. Dirty old whore.”

  David had not heard this word before, but the manner in which it struck across the faces of the poorhouse people lived with him for many days. But to Mrs. Krusen not even the word mattered. She made a last effort to reach the car and stumbled finally to the roadway, covered in dust.

  Luther Detwiler picked her up. David saw that even in the Dutchman’s strong arms the woman struggled and wept. Luther carried her over to the women’s porch, where Aunt Reba was waiting. “Lay her dahn!” Reba commanded with bitter contempt. Luther did so, and three old women gathered about their stricken friend, but Aunt Reba was relentless. “Let her be!” she warned. “She wasn’t married to him.”

  That night it became apparent to the men on the long hall that Old Daniel was dying. The pains that racked him had become so frequent that no man of seventy could long resist them. David, having yet had no real experience of death, could not interpret the signs, but he noticed that from the day Mrs. Krusen was left behind, Old Daniel lived and spoke with a sense of great urgency.

  When David asked, “Why was Aunt Reba so mad at Mrs. Krusen?” he replied. “Your aunt’s not a bad woman, David. It’s just that she wants to be good. And she doesn’t know how.”

  “But why does her wanting to be good make her mad at Mrs. Krusen?”

  The old man became quite eager in his explanation, and he explained the anomaly this way: “You must talk to Mrs. Krusen some time. Tell you what, David! You get up real early tomorrow morning and pick the biggest bunch of flowers you can find. Then you take them up to Mrs. Kruse
n’s room.”

  “Aunt Reba would beat me,” David protested.

  “So what does that matter?” the frail old man asked. “David, it’s important to you and to Mrs. Krusen both.”

  “How could it be important to me?” the boy asked, and then something in the thin face staring at him warned David that he must ask no more questions.

  Early in the morning he rose and sneaked out of the long hall. In the damp woods he collected a large bouquet of spring flowers. Joe-pye weed and violets and lilies-of-the-valley filled his arms when he crept back to Daniel’s room. The old man had found an empty jar that could almost have been a vase, and he got Toothless to arrange the flowers so that they looked large and important. Then mad Luther Detwiler was sent to ask Aunt Reba a question while David slipped into the women’s building through the back.

  “Where’s Mrs. Krusen’s room?” he asked in a whisper. The old women, pleased with any conspiracy against Aunt Reba, led him to the right door. He knocked softly and a low voice said, “Come in.”

  David stepped into the room, and he was unprepared for what he saw. Mrs. Krusen had lived there only a few days, but already it was a fine, clean room, different from any he had previously seen. There was no smell of bedbug juice. Instead, some kind of sweet smell dominated. About the windows were small strips of colored cloth, tied back in bowknots. Over the bed there was cloth of another color, and on it rested a pillow with a knitted cover. The bed was very neat, and above it on the wall were four colored pictures from the Ladies’ Home Journal.

  “I brought you some flowers,” David said.

  The little old woman rose and curtseyed. “Thank you,” she said. With three or four touches of her fingers she made the flowers look different, more spread out, perhaps.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday,” the boy added. “I’m sorry for you, left behind.”