Chapter 17

In that fall Ellen had a dream of Christian Ay. It was her first thought of him in many months’ time. His figure was unclear, touched with gentleness and warmth; it was apart from her. She fancied he was hurt. He was calling, his voice as if through water. When she awoke she could hear the echo of her own cry. She was musing at the power of the nightmare’s image. “There could be a meaning. Like the Prophet Ezekiel seeing the dreadful wheels. A wheel whirling in the middle of a wheel. And there was a meaning there that certain men read.”

She went downstairs to sit wakeful while the dream was still fresh, in the balmy fall moonlight. Fog steamed in the air, blurring the rims of trees and the porch roof. There was a rustle in the drying grass and though no wind stirred a fallen leaf seemed to move on itself, and presently another, and then the shadow of an embryonic mouse was darting, vanishing before the eye could catch the shape. The shrews were harvesting for the winter ahead; their tiny gray piglike bodies sped soundless; through the movement in their wake one was aware of them. “Sam says folks will dream of a body when they’re in danger. Or when they’ve died. Wonder if a trouble’s come to Christian Ay?” Dwelling on the dream Ellen forgot the curse she had laid once on the man. She buried her injury, turning the old love over gently, painfully, alone on the step.

Winter was casting her days off, one by one. Spring had arrived. Anton’s worrying of Simon had become less pronounced. Ellen heard the child’s high voice repeating the tuneless song his grandfather was teaching him.

It was our William Jennings Bryan Who told them Adam was there first When he fought the battle With those sons of darkness At the trial of John T. Scopes

Anton was lifting the big boy onto his knee. “Shaw. Now, here’s this poppet. You know I had a son once. If he’d have lived, I’d been minded to give him my name.” Simon sat stiff at the favor granted. Ellen watched through the door from where she worked, pleased at this new way of Anton’s. “How come you called him Simon, girl?”

“The Doughertys named him, Pa.”

“Anton’s a good name. I don’t favor Simon. There was a Simon in the Bible tried to buy Peter.”

“Oh, Pa. There are lots of Simons in the Bible.”

“Well.” He was turning to the boy again. She had never heard her father sing, and was glad.

They said our ancestors Were monkeys Now can’t you see, folks That’s quite absurd?

And then the days were passing, made of long hours. The months were lengthening into years. The winter following the drought was the first Ellen knew when the table wasn’t amply laid. She had to learn how to stint in the cooking and to curb her generous hand. When weevils got in the meal she would strain them out and mix the meal with water to make a corn pone. In the old days she would have tossed it easily to the hens. The market for the milk and produce worsened. Every fall Anton and Dyke made two or three trips up to Louisville to the sales. They took pigs and steers, chickens, geese and ducks, small grains and root crops. Through the years the Gaddys would manage, for they depended on varied harvests. The one-crop farmer suffered the most. Many of them were driving away from their plots of land, their families and goods piled on wagons and trucks, hoping to find jobs in factories and foundries of the cities. When Anton saw a loaded vehicle go down Sweetincreek Road, he articulated his scorn, “I’d set and eat clay before I’d leave my farm. Those fellows are oomen-farmers, farting with a patch of tobacco. Putting on fertilizer and then burning it off. Laying cheesecloth strips like a ooman.”

“What for, Granddaddy?”

“I vow I don’t know. Then they go to the auction and hit don’t sell for nothing. They buy moon from the patent medicine man and come back with their pockets empty. So go on,” he shouted at the retreating wagon, “and don’t come back.”

“And don’t come back,” cried Simon shrilly.

Anton turned to the boy, his eyes hot. “You stay on this farm, Poppet, and some day maybe it’ll all belong to you.”

Anton slowly was transferring the fervor he used to spend on his younger daughter, Frankie, to this boy, Simon. He was taking him over. As time passed he judged Ellen’s guidance of the child. “You be a fool, girl. You’ll spoil him rotten.”

When the boy remembered and did as bid, Anton was pleased; when he disobeyed, he whipped him, stolid. “Thou shalt beat him with a rod, so it’s said. I’ll take no sass. You do as I say, Simon.”

In his way Simon tried not to make errors that would aggravate his grandfather. He had developed a spasmodic pain in his chest that would come at odd moments. He told no one of it but sometimes when he thought about it, believed he would die. Then he lay vacantly staring upward as he had done in the Dougherty shed in the vague days before he came to live here. At times he dreamed of Anse Dougherty pinching his arm, whispering, “Gaddy brat. Gaddy brat.” He awoke struggling and muttering. When Ellen questioned him, he couldn’t remember the details of the dream. She would sing, soothing, until he slept.

Dear mother, I said, come and bind up my head You ne’er shall bind it any more Sweet William he died of the wound that he bore And Fair Ellen, she died also

In 1934 another drought smote the farm. This time the condition was prevalent over the Midwest, involving dust storms and soil erosion. Over these depression years there were no visits from Garland Gaddy. At Christmas he would send a package through the mail. It would be placed on the parlor table. Ellen’s parents went straight to bed when they returned silent from midnight mass. On Christmas morning the family would find cigars for Anton, and for Maria and Ellen mittens or a wool scarf. Garland was unsure of Simon’s age. When he was six, Garland sent him the book Ben Hur, and when eight, a set of ABC building blocks. Ellen wrote to thank him, urged him to come at the next holiday. “Some time,” she told Simon, “I’ll show you Chicago. And your great-uncle who lives there.”

“Don’t I have an aunt there, too?”

“Yes. Some day maybe you’ll meet her. Don’t ne’er say her name to Granddaddy.”

“I know. That’s Auntie. She brought me a yellow hat one time.”

Ellen never heard from Frankie, but once Garland put a card in her package of fur gloves: “Love from Uncle and Frankie.” So she knew that they saw each other and it was a comfort.

The years were sweeping by. In 1935 the Federal dole was stopped and the national relief program got under way. Anton was told that for twenty-five dollars he could have a WPA privy constructed. Since the old one was in ramshackle state, he decided to go ahead. “Christ, Sam, hit must be fifteen feet down.” They stepped within the new-painted door, looked into the openings. “It’ll take a hundred years to fill that hole.”

“More, Mester Gaddy.” Sam paused. “I recollect Pa. He hung the door on the last shithouse we Offuts had. Swung it in by mistake. Said it e’er plagued him after that, for when he sat out there he liked to have a door swing out, so he could watch the neighbors go by along the road. He’d call out to them if he had a mind, friendly-like.”

“Well, I’ll take the cow barn any day. For a fact. It’s a sight more natural.”

Simon was growing. He was nine, stocky and strong, heavy for his age. The bones of his shoulders were knobby so he would appear undernourished when shirtless. Ellen laughed at him for his diffident ways. “You’re shy as a field-raised calf, Simon.” If the boar broke loose though, or if a new heifer kicked because her udder was hot and tender, Simon was fearless. He laid his hands on her when she kicked out, vicious, or walked up to the great angry seed-hog.

Once Anton thrashed the red horse with the lines. It was harnessed with another and when the load began to move, it reared, balking in the traces. Anton whipped it. The boy loved the red horse—he hurled himself before it so the lines were lashing him. Anton saw the white stripes. “What foolishness now?”

“It’s the blinders, Granddaddy.”

And it was true. This horse had always worn the bridle with blinders. The wrong bridle had been put on and he saw things in a new way, frightening him. Simon was sent for the other bridle and then the horse pulled squarely with its mate. “Beasts are plagued fools sometimes,” the man said. But the boy’s eyes were gazing straight ahead, as red welts rose on his cheek and arm. He grit his teeth against the familiar pain searing his breast.

Anton went into Millville to the priest one afternoon and had Simon baptized. When they returned, he told Ellen. She protested, “Pa, it doesn’t matter. But you could have said you were going.”

“And he’s riding to mass Sundays too, along with us, proper pious. I can’t hinder you from being a heathen, but I’ll save my grandson.”

Ellen glanced down at Simon. The man was pressing him, “You want to go along with me, don’t you, boy?”

“Yes, Granddaddy.”

“Well, all right, Simon. You know your mind, I reckon.” She watched them go, saw Simon running to bring the cows and start the feeding.

Ellen was twenty-six. She was quite handsome but there was a coldness in her bearing. Her oval face was sober, gray eyes austere, she wore her hair plaited tightly and pinned in a circle around her head. She never knelt in the honeyed grass at night as she once had, weeping over the lost love and her restive longings. It was as if a scar had formed, protective, and a part of herself was sealed off underneath. She moved quietly through the days as if waiting. And she seemed satisfied.

Simon spent his hours with the beasts of the farm or trailing his grandfather. When he felt the need for Ellen, he sought her out, standing near her. They were alike in many ways, shy, spare of words. She taught him songs, and read to him from the Bible and the almanac. He brought home an average report card and she signed it, “Mrs. Ellen Gaddy.” He queried her, “How come I got no daddy?”

“He’s dead, Simon.”

“Tell, what was he like?”

“I can’t rightly remember. Like you, I reckon.”

“If more comes to you about him, will you tell me, Ma?”

“I will.”

“Granddaddy says he be the same as a father to me.”

“Well.”

Ellen saw her old friend Lily again one day. She had not visited with her since Lily had become Mrs. Craig Hedrick five years earlier. If they met, Lily would walk away, turning her head aside. It was late August. Ellen and Maria were making apple butter, the spicy fragrance filled the kitchen. There was a gentle knock and Ellen put down her wood ladle, wiping her hands on the brown-stained apron. “Yes?”

“Don’t you know me, Ellie?”

“Lily.” Ellen opened the door wide. “Come on in.”

“I was just hankering to see you. It’s fierce lonesome at home. I ran off.”

“What do you mean?” Ellen was taking the old tone with her at once. “Hush your crying.”

“Craig sent me to hoe the truck beans. Hit seemed I couldn’t bear it any more. I up and walked away.” Lily’s blond curls that she had always taken such care with, were pulled into an untidy knot at the nape of her neck. She was stouter. “I’m afraid to go back. Craig was running the tractor in the corn and his man was working the mules. He told me I must clean the bean patch.” Her small mouth was puckered, unhappy.

“Why are you afraid? He’s your husband.”

The woman heaved a breath. “He’s taken to whipping me like Papa did. So I told him I was carrying a child to make him stop.”

“Well, then?”

“I’ve got no child. I can’t seem to get caught. Craig wants one as bad as me.”

“Let’s have some coffee.” Ellen was going to the kitchen. “Ma, you know Lily. She’s Mrs. Hedrick, remember?”

“Hey, Mrs. Gaddy.” Lily was eager.

“Hey there, Lily. How’s Mester Garrett’s bees?”

“Oh, my husband says Papa’s making a sight of honey this year. He’s got o’er twenty hives now. I’ve not been to see him myself these many months.” Ellen laid cups on the table while the water came to a boil. She put out a dish of hot apple butter, slices of fresh bread. “It’s like coming home here, Ellie. We used to have fun, you and me and Frankie. I always loved fun.”

“You know,” Maria spoke up from her thoughts, “I had another girl, named Frankie. I dassn’t say her name. Mester Gaddy won’t brook it. She’s dead.” Maria was wagging her head, knowing.

“Here’s your coffee, Ma,” Ellen said.

“Is Frankie dead?” Lily whispered.

“No, and Ma knows it. It’s a way she has, like a child, sometimes. She can’t seem to keep it straight.”

“She can’t?”

“You e’er think of seeing Doc Trumbo, Lily? Maybe he could help you and Craig to have a child.”

Lily’s eyes were trailing Maria, breaking bread and spooning the brown preserves. “Reckon we could try that, Ellie.”

“I always thought a heap of Craig,” Ellen said, “for taking o’er like he did when old Mester Hedrick was killed so sudden.”

“He doesn’t have to beat me.”

“You e’er think about how it was for him, Lily, back then?”

“No.”

Maria broke in, “But there’s a little boy lives here now. Named Simon. I’m his granny.”

Lily spoke slowly, “I can’t even go to see my papa and mama any more. I’m not allowed to go home.” Grave, she was watching Maria.

“Craig’s a good man.”

“I know, Ellie.”

“You have to stop being a girl some day. And think on the ways of a woman.”

The three drank their coffee. Presently Lily was pushing back her chair; she spoke deliberately, “Reckon I’ll get back to my house. I have work to do. It’s a long walk. Bye, Mrs. Gaddy. Ellie.” Her retreating steps were heard on the stones in the yard.

Suddenly Ellen was caught in a burst of tears. She put her hands to her face, sobbing hoarsely. She ran up the steep stairway, her bare feet noiseless. “I vow at that girl.” Maria took the ladle to stir the mixture, thick and hot in the iron kettle.

Upstairs, Ellen was standing in the middle of the room, shaken, uncontrolled. She turned abruptly to the trunk along the wall and dragged open the heavy lid. She rummaged through the contents until she came on the two undelivered letters she had written Christian Ay. She ripped them into shreds in a heap on the floor. “I hate Lily and Craig and all the ugly ways of folks.”

When she came down, her face appeared smoothed and untouched. But she was holding her head in such a way that when Anton saw her going to the woodshed, he crossed himself and muttered, “There, I thought it was you, Ma.”

Simon was in the fourth grade. Every morning found him trudging three miles to the school on the Millville Pike. Until the weather turned cold he would go barefoot, for catalog shoes cost a dollar thirty-nine. He went down the lane in the flat morning sunlight, talking to the dog. He carried his lunch in a lard bucket. Holes were punched in its tin lid and it contained a bunch of concord grapes and biscuits spread with jelly. “Stay, Jack.” The dog’s movements were stiff. He settled on the bank amid blue-flowered chicory, head on forepaws, brown eyes fixed on the retreating figure. A tufted titmouse whistled in a cottonwood along the road. “Peet-O. Peet-O!” It joined the chickadees and nuthatches that trooped in the upper branches.

In the afternoon Simon returned late, scarcely recognizable, upper lip swollen, dry blood caked on his face. The skin was puffing out around one eye, the sleeve of his shirt was torn. Anton caught sight of him coming up the lane and ran shouting, “What is it, Poppet?”

Simon halted, scuffling his feet; he began to whine.

“Speak up, son.”

“That fellow mocked me.” Simon was sniffling and as he was led to the house, his voice rose to a wail.

Ellen called from the window, “What ails him, Pa?” She came out the door, shading her face, hurrying down the steps in the sweet-scented fall air.

“He’s not going back to that school.” Anton’s face was hot, his breath thick as he passed her, leading the child. “Crapping bastards are about to kill him.”

Ellen followed into the kitchen. Anton was lifting Simon to the table. “Get a pan of water,” he told Maria. He removed the boy’s shirt, examined his lip.

“Pa. You can see he’s been fighting. Let’s find what happened.”

“We’ll send you to the parochial school. Like decent Catholics. Your ma’s let you run amuck.”

“Please, Pa.”

“The heathen can kill him before you give a care.”

“Simon.” But the boy had fastened his frightened eyes on his grandfather, clinging to the harried look on the man’s face. Ellen turned away, inarticulate. Later, she was in the shed, milking her goats. Simon shuffled in, stood at the pen gate. The goats nibbled his shirt buttons and rubbed against him as he was stroking them.

“I slopped the pigs and watered the team, Ma.” She waited. He was speaking again, “Reckon Leona’s least kid will have horns or not?”

“Simon, what happened today at school?”

“Looks to me like she’s a muley one.” He bent over the kid, moving the skin on the top of its head with his finger. “If horns were sprouting, it wouldn’t move free like that.”

Ellen got up from the stool to strain the milk into a can. She began to draw the white streams from another doe.

The boy said suddenly, “Granddaddy takes care of me.”

She looked at him to see his eyes cold upon her. He was fingering his enlarged lip. She was startled. He’s turning from me. Pa’s getting hold of him. She put her head against the soft warm side of the spotted doe.

“Granddaddy frets about me.”

“Tell how you got in the fight, or I’ll whip you for a fact.”

His eyes were down. “There’s a game at recess. We use a ball belonging to that Penn Hamm. He stores it in the drawer of his desk. Time and again I asked him could I take it home for one night. But he wouldn’t say yes.” Simon looked up. One eye was nearly shut, the bruised skin blue.

“So?”

“I studied on it and hankered after it. Yesterday I slipped it from his desk and put it in my pocket. After school was out.”

“You could have had a ball if you’d told me.”

“I wanted that ball.”

“What then?”

“Penn said I snitched it, and I said I didn’t. He sat under the tree and called me bastard Gaddy brat.”

“You stole his ball, Simon. He was angered. And folks used to call me a Gaddy brat. Some still do, and I don’t care.”

“He called me that. He laid for me coming home. I wrestled him for it but he got his ball back.”

“Why, Simon?”

“I wanted it.” His eyes were like small empty caves. “And I lost my lard pail too.”

The night meal was pregnant with unspoken words. Then as Anton was leaving the kitchen he told Ellen, “I’ll take him to the sisters tomorrow.” She looked at him from where she was sitting. His short body leaned against the door casing. “Why I even got to jump on him to say the Lord’s Prayer right.” He cut a slice of apple tobacco with his slender knife. “Trespasses, he says, like heathen. The school taught him that. The Lord said debtors. Forgive us our debtors.” He walked softly into the other room.

Simon was sent to bed. Ellen came into the parlor. “Pa, this isn’t right. Simon stole that Hamm youngen’s ball. He’s got to learn. He should go back and own up. He’s nine and he knows right from wrong. You’re always preaching the Bible and this is the time to stand by what it says.”

“Haw. I’ll say a thing here, girl.” He was speaking fast, harsh. “He has no daddy, since you begot him in whoredom. Now I let him come here like a son. I look on him so. Don’t stand against me.”

“It was the same with Frankie. You pulled her out of school too. You know it.”

“You’re mourning because I didn’t take you out.” Anton rolled the quid in his mouth, continuing gently, “You know, this boy’s a good bit like my brother, Marc. Minds me of him.” He settled into a chair. “Some way Ma favored Marc o’er Garland and me.”

“I know why.”

“What do you know?” he drawled.

“He was handsome. Not ugly like you.”

“How come you say that?”

“I know somewhat else.”

“Speak hit.”

“He wasn’t your full brother. Nell Gaddy ne’er wanted you or Uncle. That’s a fact.”

“What?” he roared.

“She married your sir because she got caught. Like me with Simon.” Ellen moved to stand over him, by his chair. “She ne’er wanted you, I say. She loved Marc for his daddy’s sake.”

The man rose like an unleashed bull. He struck her so she reeled against the sofa. “I’ll kill you for that lying tongue.”

She slipped from his hands, ran outside, down the path through the hill field to the orchard. She stopped running there. Night fog was drifting in low spots, the sky was clouded. She leaned against a twisted apple tree until she seemed composed. Her face became like the glass of the pond where there was no wind and mist was caught above. Later she wended up to the house to sit on the damp garden wall, waiting until the kitchen and the bedroom candles flicked out.

In the morning, as she was pumping water into the blue pail, Anton went by to the house. He looked past her as if she were not there. She had told Simon earlier that he must go back to the Millville school, knowing Anton would refute her word. But she went through the motions, she hunted for a lard pail in the pantry, made up the lunch. She saw her fingers were shaking. The boy pushed his chair back and took the lunch pail. Anton said, “You and me are going to the Catholic school, boy. Did you forget? Let’s go harness Moll and Red.”

Simon looked at him. Ellen knew the child was pleased and yet would hide this from her. He said like a question, “Bye now, Ma? I’m going now, Ma?”

Sam was already in the field when Anton came back late in the morning. He was cutting cornstalks, making tall shocks that would cure until the long white ears were garnered. Anton joined him, swinging the heavy blade. “Put my boy in a proper school, Sam.”

And Ellen was planning. She scrawled a letter quickly.

Dear Uncle Garland,

This is a thing I should have done long ago. I have to leave home. Could you find a farmer who would hire me? My boy is 9 now. Wages as deemed fair. Please answer by return post. And obliged.

Ellen

The next few days she moved pallid-faced, watching for the mail car. She gathered honey, lulling the bees with smoke. She cut the combs into a galvanized washtub. The soft stuff oozed and mingled, yellow, black, and amber, in a heavy pool. Some of the comb she let drip free, and laid it in a tree fork for the bees to use again. She fastened the lids back on the hives. While she was doing these things, it was as if her bones might break were her movements too sudden. Then the RFD car was leaving a letter.

Dear Puss,

This is delightful. You know I have opened my Redding Street house again on the north side. I’m a married man now, you see. Are you surprised? Violet and I would be glad to have you and Simon visit with us until you can get a job. You might learn my wife a few things about housework! I am sending ten dollars herewith. Come soon.

Uncle Garland

She put the paper in her pocket. O my strength, deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth.

Courageous, she went to Anton. “Simon and me are taking the train to Chicago to visit Uncle Garland for a spell. He’s got married and he wants us to come.”

“You will not.” He ravened. “No.”

“By the law, Simon’s mine.”

The child was coughing; he clutched his chest. But the two who fought over him didn’t see. Their eyes narrowed, and the pale gray irises of father and daughter were glinting in the same way. Ellen said they would leave in the morning. She ordered Simon to his room after the night meal. He went, meek.

Anton strode out to the corn field, tearing off his shirt. He dragged aside the standing shocks just built. Furious sweat drops were forming on the hairs of his chest. He snapped off the soft unseasoned ears, hurling them in great piles until dark engulfed the field. Reaching for the next stalk, he stumbled, falling. He lay panting a moment before getting to his feet, and came to the house to lie emptied and exhausted beside his sleeping wife.

Sam and Ellen milked without him in the morning. They breakfasted and then Ellen went to the door of the bedroom. She was looking across at the unkempt bent figure on the bed under the crucifix, elbows on knees. At length she turned away, taking Simon’s hand. He held his other over the buttons of his shirt. “You’re not afraid?” he queried, timid.

But Ellen was speaking to Maria. “I’ve got to go, Ma. You see that?”

“Where you off to? Is Mester Gaddy going?”

“No. Just us two.” Ellen kissed her. “It’s all I know to do, Ma.”

Maria went to gaze at her husband. “Why’s he setting there?”

Ellen fled with Simon. They were overtaken down the road by Dr. Trumbo, who gave them a lift in his rattletrap Nash to the station at New Hope. A north wind blew up, keening in the corners of the unheated station. It struck down dry autumn leaves and herded them into desolate piles. They boarded the train at noon. Simon mounted the iron stair before her. He turned and peered from the windows at the retreating town.

“Don’t put your feet on the clean seats, Simon.” Ellen did not look back.

Anton had shaken his head at the noon meal his wife proffered him. He stared at the floor. In late evening he arose at last from his position on the bed. Maria was in the parlor poring over her gilded Bible. Anton took a long thin butcher knife from a kitchen drawer. He went onto the half-dark porch, taking down the lantern that hung on a bent nail and lighting it. He was making his way then with measured gait to the woodshed. Wind coming out of the north chattered in the branches of the hackberry. The yellow light was shedding over the pen of goats lying in oat straw. They blinked up at him. Rhodie, who was skittish, arose and snorted. As the man was fumbling with the gate latch the other beasts got to their feet, one at a time, sensing an outsider, Leona’s pair of three-week kids turned to her warm side when she stood, seeking her udder. Feverish, Anton was seeking a peg, feeling with his fingers. He hung the lantern, his breathing quickening.

The first doe he grasped was Penny. When he bent her old neck back by the beard and the red ran down into the fur, she died almost gently. The clever ones saw his game. Rhodie was rearing upon the furthest stone wall; her hoofs made a subdued pattering. Leona’s white throat came next, for she was foolish and made no play at running away. Her two kids were dispatched too, uttering feeble birdlike sounds. And then Jenny and Babs, baaing low, were snared by their shaggy beards. Their taut silken throats were bending to the knife. The hot blood spouted on the straw and the man’s boots. He was lunging for the spotted Pie, powerful and large, catching her by a hind leg. She pulled loose, and bleating, kicked out, striking him on the neck, making a dark bruise. “Haw. Come here now.” He threw his body at her, encouraged the struggle. He took a pleasure in the battle, prolonged its ending, letting her heave, crying in alarm beneath his weight. Then he was dragging her along the straw to the knife he had dropped. Rhodie was the last. In a silent crazed way she was still leaping against the far wall. This doe had always been apt to startle since she had been left untended over a winter and spring as a yearling when his daughter Ellen had been away in Illinois. Rhodie’s small hoofs were beating again and again upon the wall. Anton trapped her by the collar. She made no sound, dropping slowly to the bedding.

He breathed loud, threw his hand as if he had spoken and were justifying himself to someone. He walked out of the shed leaving the gate ajar, the lantern flaming. He strode to the bedroom and knew his wife. In the frost of the following morning Sam would come upon the stiffened bodies of the animals and bury them in a near field.