Nobody ever knew what happened to the Streeter boy. He went away when he was twenty years old and never came back. Evelyn said she didn’t care if she never saw him again.
(First published in American Earth)
It Happened Like This
FOR FIVE YEARS before I put on long pants we lived just far enough away from the Mississippi River to be above flood level. Yet even there the creeks would back up after a big storm up the river and flood the pastures and corn lands. But as long as we lived there the Mississippi never touched us.
This was a queer country, all full of deep red gullies and low round hills with never a rock in sight. The earth was dark brown like delta silt, and it grew cornstalks so tall we had to break them down before the crop could be harvested. There were two or three Indian mounds near by, but nobody ever took the trouble to dig into them. People said they were filled with tomahawks and snake teeth and such things.
We lived on a small farm and had a Jersey cow, a big white horse, and a flock of Rhode Island Red chickens. My father got up early every morning and milked the cow and fed the horse six ears of corn before he took me to school. We drove the big white horse to the buggy and I was away until midafternoon. Then my father came for me and we went home. When we got there, we always had a hundred things to do. There was stovewood to chop, hay to throw down from the barn, water to pump, and dozens of other chores that had to be done every day.
We raised corn for the horse and chickens. For the cow we stripped the cornstalks of fodder and carried it to the barn in tight little bundles tied with binding twine. My father and I plowed the corn. The garden, though, was a different matter. We did not have the right kind of implements ourselves; so we hired Mr. Kates to cultivate the garden. Mr. Kates lived over the hill on his own farm. He had a daughter about my own age and her name was Lucy Kates.
Mr. Kates would come over and cultivate the garden and I would plow in the cornfield, while my father walked around to see if everything was going just right. Lucy came over too sometimes, with her father, and watched me plow the corn. She was a big girl with red hair and sunburned neck. She always wore low-necked dresses, and on a hot day in summer her breasts would be as red as fire. I said something to my father about Lucy getting sunburned.
“Why doesn’t Lucy Kates cover up the front of herself as we do?” I asked him. “Why does she want to get sunburned like that?”
“She’s getting to be a woman,” my father said, “and women do all sorts of fool things.”
I did not see that being a woman had anything to do with getting sunburned like a beet, but I never asked about it again.
It was shortly after this that our cow went dry and we were without milk for almost a year. My mother got mad at my father and did not speak to him for several months. The fact is, she did not speak to him until the cow began giving milk again. Just before she stopped speaking to him, she told him all she thought of him for letting our cow go dry. It was my father’s fault. He let the cow go dry.
Going back just before this, Mr. Kates owned a fine bull. The bull was pastured on the creek land next to ours. There was a barbed-wire fence separating the two farms and an old gate that had once been used when both farms belonged to Mr. Kates’ father. My father had bought a hundred-acre tract and built a house on it, and Mr. Kates nailed the gate up tight.
The dryness of our cow was due to trouble between my father and Mr. Kates. It was like this: Mr. Kates wanted twenty-five dollars for the services of his bull and my father thought fifteen dollars was about right. Mr. Kates stood firm at twenty-five.
Every time we saw Mr. Kates we asked him how much he wanted for the services of his bull, and it was always twenty-five and not a penny under. In the meantime, our cow was dry and getting fatter and lazier every day. My father missed his two glasses of milk every night for supper, but he did not say a word. My mother spoke only to me. When she had to have something of my father, I carried the message and returned the answer. They had never been like that before, and it was all because our cow went dry.
Finally my father could bear it no longer. It was bad enough not having two glasses of milk for supper, but my mother refusing to speak to him was too much. So, when he got the next opportunity with the cow, he went down to the pasture after supper one night and helped her into the next lot. He came home and went straight to bed. Early next morning he went down and helped the cow home and nailed the gate back as it had been before he took it down. The cow slept under a tree all that day and the following night.
Every morning when we left for school and when we returned in the afternoon, my father told my mother that we would have all the milk we wanted as soon as the cow got around to giving it. My mother looked at him as if to say she would not speak a word until the cow was actually giving milk twice every day.
Mr. Kates came over and plowed in the garden and asked my father if we wanted the services of his bull and my father shook his head. Mr. Kates went home wondering if he should let the bull’s services go for fifteen dollars, but he could never make up his mind.
When our cow calved and Mr. Kates heard about it, he came over running. He knocked on our door and said he wanted to speak to my father. We went outside on the porch.
“I hear your cow calved the other night,” he said to my father, still out of breath from running over.
“Yes, she calved the night before last, Mr. Kates,” my father said proudly. “Do you want to take a look at them?”
Mr. Kates said he would like to see them. The truth was that was why he came over in such a hurry.
We got a lantern and went down to the barn and looked at the cow and her calf. Mr. Kates walked all around the calf, even climbing over the feed trough to get a better look at him. Mr. Kates was trying his best to trace the markings on the calf to see if they were anything like the ones on his bull.
‘Well, Mr. Kates, what do you think of him?” my father asked, slowly wiping his face with a handkerchief.
“You got a pretty sturdy calf there, but it’s a pity you didn’t use my bull. My bull has got the best line of blood in this whole country, he has. Now, that calf won’t make nothing but butcher-shop meat. Whereas, if you had bred to my bull you would have a calf worth a lot of money.”
“I guess he’s all right,” my father answered, still holding the handkerchief over his face. “His sire is a prize-winning Jersey. He is one of the best bulls in this part of the country, they tell me.”
Mr. Kates was trying his best to find out where our cow had been bred without coming straight out and asking point blank. He seemed to have a suspicion that his bull had been used, but he was not certain about it.
“Did you take your cow a pretty far piece to breed her?” he asked, looking straight at us.
“No, not far,” my father answered. “Just a little distance away.”
“Well, the next time you want to breed your cow you had better bring her to my bull. He’s the best in the country.”
We left the barn and walked up to the garden.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt your young vegetables any if I was to come over tomorrow and run a cultivator over the rows lightly, would it?”
“You had better do that, Mr. Kates,” my father replied. “The earth needs loosening after that shower we had yesterday.”
“Well, I’ll be going home now,” Mr. Kates said, opening the gate. “And I’ll be over the first thing in the morning to give those young vegetables a little cultivation.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Kates,” my father said, holding out several bills. “I owe you about this much for some work I haven’t paid you for yet.”
Mr. Kates took the money and counted it in the lantern light.
“There’s fifteen dollars here — what’s it for? I haven’t got this much coming to me.”
“Yes, you have. I’ve figured it out and — found that I still owe you that much for services I’ve never paid for.”
My mother came out on the front porch and called
us in to supper. My father and I washed up and sat down at the table. There was a big pitcher of milk at my father’s place.
“Is Mr. Kates coming over to cultivate the garden tomorrow, Henry?” she asked my father.
“Yes, he’ll be over early in the morning,” said my father.
“Well, I’m glad of that,” she said. “The potatoes need cultivation badly.”
“Yes,” my father said. “I’ll tell him to plow the potatoes the first thing.”
He poured himself two tumblers of milk and drank them down while he looked at me in a funny way over the rim of the glass.
(First published in American Earth)
Wild Flowers
THE MOCKINGBIRD THAT had perched on the roof top all night, filling the clear cool air with its music, had flown away when the sun rose. There was silence as deep and mysterious as the flat sandy country that extended mile after mile in every direction. Yesterday’s shadows on the white sand began to reassemble under the trees and around the fence posts, spreading on the ground the lacy foliage of the branches and the fuzzy slabs of the wooden fence.
The sun rose in leaps and bounds, jerking itself upward as though it were in a great hurry to rise above the tops of the pines so it could shine down upon the flat country from there to the Gulf.
Inside the house the bedroom was light and warm. Nellie had been awake ever since the mockingbird had left. She lay on her side with one arm under her head. Her other arm was around the head beside her on the pillow. Her eyelids fluttered. Then for a minute at a time they did not move at all. After that they fluttered again, seven or eight or nine times in quick succession. She waited as patiently as she could for Vern to wake up.
When Vern came home sometime late in the night, he did not wake her. She had stayed awake waiting for him as long as she could, but she had become so sleepy her eyes would not stay open until he came.
The dark head on the pillow beside hers looked tired and worn. Vern’s forehead, even in sleep, was wrinkled a little over his nose. Around the corners of his eyes the skin was darker than it was anywhere else on his face. She reached over as carefully as possible and kissed the cheek closest to her. She wanted to put both arms around his head and draw him to her, and to kiss him time after time and hold his dark head tight against her face.
Again her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably.
“Vern,” she whispered softly. “Vern.” Slowly his eyes opened, then quickly closed again. “Vern, sweet,” she murmured, her heart beating faster and faster. Vern turned his face toward her, snuggling his head between her arm and breast, and moving until she could feel his breath on her neck. “Oh, Vern,” she said in a whisper.
He could feel her kisses on his eyes and cheek and forehead and mouth. He was comfortably awake by then. He found her with his hands and they drew themselves tightly together.
“What did he say, Vern?” she asked at last, unable to wait any longer. “What, Vern?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her, fully awake at last. She could read what he had to say on his face.
“When, Vern?” she said.
“Today,” he said, closing his eyes and snuggling his head into her warmth once more.
Her lips trembled a little when he said it. She could not help herself. “Where are we going to move to, Vern?” she asked like a little girl, looking closely to his lips for his answer.
He shook his head, pushing it tightly against her breasts and closing his eyes against her body.
They both lay still for a long time. The sun had warmed the room until it was almost like summer again, instead of early fall. Little waves of heat were beginning to rise from the weatherworn windowsill. There would be a little more of summer before winter came.
“Did you tell him —?” Nellie said. She stopped and looked down at Vern’s face. “Did you tell him about me, Vern?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Vern did not answer her. He pushed his head against her breast and held her tighter, as though he were struggling for food that would make his body strong when he got up and stood alone in the bare room.
“Didn’t he say anything, Vern?”
“He just said he couldn’t help it, or something like that. I don’t remember what he said, but I know what he meant.”
“Doesn’t he care, Vern?”
“I guess he doesn’t, Nellie.”
Nellie stiffened. She trembled for a moment, but her body stiffened as though she had no control over it.
“But you care what happens to me, don’t you, Vern?”
“Oh, God, yes!” he said. “That’s all I do care about now. If anything happens —”
For a long time they lay in each other’s arms, their minds stirring them wider and wider awake.
Nellie got up first. She was dressed and out of the room before Vern knew how quickly time had passed. He leaped out of bed, dressed, and hurried to the kitchen to make the fire in the cookstove. Nellie was already peeling the potatoes when he got it going.
They did not say much while they ate breakfast. They had to move, and move that day. There was nothing else they could do. The furniture did not belong to them, and they had so few clothes it would not be troublesome to carry them.
Nellie washed the dishes while Vern was getting their things ready. There was nothing to do after that except to tie up his overalls and shirts in a bundle, and Nellie’s clothes in another, and to start out.
When they were ready to leave, Nellie stopped at the gate and looked back at the house. She did not mind leaving the place, even though it had been the only home she and Vern had ever had together. The house was so dilapidated that probably it would fall down in a few years more. The roof leaked, one side of the house had slipped off the foundation posts, and the porch sagged all the way to the ground in front.
Vern waited until she was ready to leave. When she turned away from the house, there were tears in her eyes, but she never looked back at it again. After they had gone a mile, they had turned a bend in the road, and the pines hid the place from sight.
“Where are we going, Vern?” she said, looking at him through the tears.
“We’ll just have to keep on until we find a place,” he said. He knew that she knew as well as he did that in that country of pines and sand the farms and houses were sometimes ten or fifteen miles apart. “I don’t know how far that will be.”
While she trudged along the sandy road, she could smell the fragrance of the last summer flowers all around her. The weeds and scrub hid most of them from sight, but every chance she got she stopped a moment and looked along the side of the ditches for blossoms. Vern did not stop, and she always ran to catch up with him before she could find any.
In the middle of the afternoon they came to a creek where it was cool and shady. Vern found her a place to lie down and, before taking off her shoes to rest her feet, scraped a pile of dry pine needles for her to lie on and pulled an armful of moss from the trees to put under her head. The water he brought her tasted of the leaves and grasses in the creek, and it was cool and clear. She fell asleep as soon as she had drunk some.
It was late afternoon when Vern woke her up.
“You’ve been asleep two or three hours, Nellie,” he said. “Do you think you could walk a little more before night?”
She sat up and put on her shoes and followed him to the road. She felt a dizziness as soon as she was on her feet. She did not want to say anything to Vern about it, because she did not want him to worry. Every step she took pained her then. It was almost unbearable at times, and she bit her lips and crushed her fingers in her fists, but she walked along behind him, keeping out of his sight so he would not know about it.
At sundown she stopped and sat down by the side of the road. She felt as though she would never be able to take another step again. The pains in her body had drawn the color from her face, and her limbs felt as though they were being pulled from her body. Before she knew it, she had fainted. br />
When she opened her eyes, Vern was kneeling beside her, fanning her with his hat. She looked up into his face and tried to smile.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Nellie?” he said. “I didn’t know you were so tired.”
“I don’t want to be tired,” she said. “I just couldn’t help it, I guess.”
He looked at her for a while, fanning her all the time.
“Do you think it might happen before we get some place?” he asked anxiously. “What do you think, Nellie?”
Nellie closed her eyes and tried not to think. They had not passed a house or farm since they had left that morning. She did not know how much farther it was to a town, and she was afraid to think how far it might be even to the next house. It made her afraid to think about it.
“I thought you said it would be another two weeks . . . ?” Vern said. “Didn’t you, Nellie?
“I thought so,” she said. “But it’s going to be different now, walking like this all day.”
His hat fell from his hand, and he looked all around in confusion. He did not know what to do, but he knew he had to do something for Nellie right away.
“I can’t stand this,” he said. “I’ve got to do something.”
He picked her up and carried her across the road. He found a place for her to lie under a pine tree, and he put her down there. Then he untied their bundles and put some of their clothes under her head and some over her feet and legs.
The sun had set, and it was becoming dark. Vern did not know what to do next. He was afraid to leave her there all alone in the woods, but he knew he had to get help for her.
“Vern,” she said, holding out her hand to touch him.
He grasped it in his, squeezing and stroking her fingers and wrist.
“What is it, Nellie?”
“I’m afraid it is going to happen . . . happen . . . happen right away,” she said weakly, closing her eyes before she could finish.