Chapter 2

Mist was steaming up from the land before the hot ball of sun would drag through. Ellen was carrying the fluffy brown kid to the kitchen to show the family. “This is the least one. Penny doesn’t know I robbed her of it. She’s busy eating.” Ellen stood the kid on the floor. It looked about, gave a sidewise spring into the air, cocking its head, waggish. It leaped again, pattering on stiff hoofs to Maria who pulled at her apron and drew back with a low noise. “Oh look, Ma. She’s so pretty. If I hadn’t been there last night she might have died.”

“Haw. That’s what you claim,” Anton said. “They get born all the same.”

Frankie had relaxed, seeing her father was in favorable mood. She let the yeanling suck on her finger, stooping over it. “Say.”

“Don’t you want to hold her, Ma?” Ellen insisted. She knew it worried Maria if an animal was in the house; on cold nights she would slip downstairs to take Jack up to bed, creeping down again to let him out early. But this wasn’t the same as a dog for its breath was gently perfumed and it cried like a bird. “Come on, Ma.”

“Fetch the little thing away, Ellie. I don’t want hit to touch me. I can’t abide the fur against me.”

Anton supported her. “Your ma’s right. Hit belongs at the barn with the nanny. Your chores redded up, girl?”

“I did them real early.” Ellen was cradling the kid in her arms; she carried it to its dam at the woodshed. As she was going back to the house, she saw her father ahead on the path, striding from the barn. He shouted over his shoulder to Sam and continued his way to where Frankie was waiting on the steps. He was cutting the end from a twist of dark red tobacco leaves with his knife. He was clad in everyday garb, faded blue overalls and black sateen shirt.

Anton Gaddy was still winter-fat; by fall he would be lean. He was a short thick-set man. His flewed lips hung loose, his chin was long and heavy-jawed. When young his head had been heavily red-thatched, now at forty-eight was balding. His face was freckled and the sun already had burned his skin, despite the protection of a straw hat, toward the high bronze he would wear all summer. He was one of three brothers born and raised on this farm. He possessed it fiercely as he did all he made his own. In a similar fashion his mother had once ruled, driving her husband and denying her two youngest sons that the eldest might prosper. She had sent this favorite, Marc, to college to fulfill her plans for him. But he had run away, disappeared. Then she was notified he had died, and she had brought back the body. This son’s failure had broken Nell Gaddy. When Anton would think about his mother he sometimes confused her with the Virgin Mary. After her lingering death his passivity had evolved into violence, his brooding silence into action. He had taken over the farm and bought out his living brother’s share. His father, stringy, worn from a life of toil, had dropped dead behind the team one fall, his passing scarce noted.

“Want to ride the mare out to the rye field, Frankie?” Anton was folding his knife. “You can let the foal run alongside. You can play with it in the daisies and feverfews while I’m mowing.”

Sam was bringing up the horses, the bay mare Moll, and Blueberry, the buckskin gelding. A six-week colt trotted alongside, shy at the noise of harness on its dam.

“All right, Pa.” Frankie nodded and went toward the team. Her slight form in the shapeless green dress was moving listless.

“Pa,” Ellen said. “I’m going to Love’s now. I’d be glad to get you somewhat.”

“You can pick up two-three plugs for me. Get Brown Mule.”

“I will, Pa.” At the well she rinsed her face and hands in the rushing stream, ran dripping to the house. She dried with the porch towel and sped upstairs to change her dress.

The crow is black, my love you know It will surely turn to white If e’er I do forsake you Bright day will turn to night

She was taking from its hanger a dress patterned with huge white dots. “It was a sad day for us Gaddys when peddler came to the door with this polka-dot goods that took Ma’s eye. And it purely wears like iron.” She pulled on stockings, laced her shoes, slipped into the long-waisted dress. She unbraided her hair and combed it. She tied it with a string, careless, as she was stepping down to the kitchen.

Maria had packed butter and cheese with the eggs in a big basket. She was calling in her reedy voice from the cellar, “There’s a list on top of the eggs, girl. Trade careful, mind. Watch Grady doesn’t cheat me, for he’ll try.”

Ellen put the list in her pocket.

thred, white and black, elastik, small sack salt and coffee. if enough money, sack sugar small, also tatted lace for sunday collar. cinnamon and clove sticks, pepper and spice for pikles. save back for Mr. Gaddy wants apple baccy. dont you forget. and ask Stacey Love if she has some east. Mine is worn out.

She petted Jack, told him to stay. He sat back on his haunches to watch her swing down the dusty road. Grady Love’s store, on the outskirts of Millville, was two miles away.

Have you seen the green grass Trampled under foot Arise and grow again Oh love it is a killing thing Did you e’er feel the pain

The sky was blue banners and white. Young breezes were soughing in the trees’ leaves. Her trading basket was light. A mocker-bird was quavering in a cottonwood and ahead a baby rabbit was loping down the side of the clay road. A buggy passed, whirling red dust into eddies. She crossed the plank bridge that spanned the Sweetincreek. Some of the heavy boards were loose and shifted as she walked across, her footsteps hollow. She inspected a group of lanky red flowers on the bank across the ditch. “I don’t even know your name. You got one, you know.” As she started on her way again, she half paused, as though she were losing something precious, quitting a thing but partly experienced. She wandered along, her face dreamy, the basket swinging idle. As if she were seeking something. “Everything, be it bird or flower or star, has a name of its own. No matter how small it be.”

She was nearing a faded frame store, set before a stubbled field of goldenrod and chicory. Out in front were benches where customers whiled away time or waited to hitch a ride on the milk truck going to New Hope or Bethel or away down to Seven Mile Run. Ellen pulled open the screen door and squinted at the dim interior. She entered and rested her basket on the counter. A few flies were snoring lazily in the air. There were open barrels and grimy shelves, and meal, rice, bran, seed, had sifted into the knotholes and poorly joined planks of the puncheon floor. Grady Love, spare-framed, Jay-voiced, bartered with her. “How’s this lace for your ma, Ellen? Seven and a half cents.” Grady had known Ellen all her life. He pitied the poor Gaddy brat and would favor the trade on her side.

“It’s kind of ratty, Mester Love. Haven’t you got a stouter grade?”

She was stowing the spices, lace, tobacco and kitchen goods in her basket. She consulted her list. “Does your wife have some starter yeast to spare? Ma’s bread isn’t rising so good.”

When Grady returned from his quarters in the rear with a cloth-wrapped jar, Ellen was gazing at dusty bolts of yard goods stacked on a shelf. He offered to lift some down. Her wistful fingers lingered over a filmy white cotton with tiny woven points of blue. “I’d love a length of this. What do you name it?”

“That’s dotted Swiss, Ellen.”

“If Pa’ll let me trade some strawberries, would you hold a piece back for me? We’ll be picking soon.”

“Sure, Ellen. You just send word.”

“Bye now, Mester Love.” She took her basket from the counter and pushed open the door. A fluff of cotton was pinned to the wire mesh to keep off flies, but they swarmed in the blaze of sunlight as she went out. Half blinded, she bumped into the hurrying figure of a young man. She was thrown back with such force that she dropped her basket, the contents spilling.

“I’m sorry. Are you hurt, ma’am?” He was grasping her bare arms.

Ellen pushed him from her, confused. “You plaguing bastard.”

She was kneeling, but he was swifter, retrieving the thread spools before her hands could reach them, setting straight the sack of coffee beans, the yeast jar, laughing.

“I never saw you, ma’am, in the sunlight.”

He was fair-complected with ash-blond hair. His eyes were the color of the miniature blue flowers the country folk call innocence. “You’re foreign,” she stammered. “I don’t know your face.”

“I’m the new hand at Brinker’s farm on Sweetincreek Road. I’m Christian Ay. You know of Carl Brinker?”

Dutchman Brinker was a Lutheran and a heathen. When Frankie was in the first grade of the public school, Pa had got in a brush with Brinker over the prayer the youngens recited before class. Pa withdrew Frankie and put her in a parochial school, though it meant the family had to scrimp more.

Ellen was brushing dust from her dress. “Pleased to meet your acquaintance, Mester. Reckon I’ll get on my way.” Her shoes were gritty with dirt; she was pushing the unkempt hair from her hot cheeks.

“Wait a second. Where do you live? I’m going back down the road.” He was persuasive. “Be glad to give you a lift in the pickup, ma’am.”

“Well.” She accepted and stepped lightly into the high seat of the battered truck. Leaning against the sun-hot leather, she waited while he did his errands. Idly she noted manure clods on the floor and baby shoes dangling by a pair of soiled laces from the dashboard. Musty farm smells permeated the cab.

Then he was back, sliding into the seat and pressing the starter. The motor refused to turn over. “Be just a minute. She likes to be coaxed.” He took a crank from under his feet and jumped down.

“Now, Pa sure would have raised sand,” she whispered to herself.

The motor had caught. He was climbing back while the engine puttered and gasped and the cab shook. He spit on his hand where a fresh cut bled. “Every time that crank slips I slice myself. Can’t get the hang of it somehow. My old man never had a car.” His cheekbones were broad and high, his mouth wide. His laughter was showing even white teeth. These with his tow hair made his face appear darker by contrast than it was. His legs were rather shorter than average, his torso powerful.

“Daddy owns a store in Louisville. It’s like Love’s place only lots bigger.” He made a grimace. “And it’s in the stinking city.”

“I ne’er been to a city yet.”

“Well, they stink. I hate the store. My sister does too.”

“Oh?”

“That Rose. She’s wild to leave, only Daddy won’t let her. They need me too, but I send money every week so they can pay a boy. What a gyp.” The truck was rattling over the bridge. Christian blew his horn at a hound trotting in the center of the road, “Oooo-ga!” It slunk into the weeds of the ditch, nose low. “Once the revenuers came in our place looking for Jake. If you drink too much it’ll kill you. We never sold hooch like some did in back.”

“Pa says Mester Bilberry hired two men who drained the rotted ferment from the bottom of his silo. Till he found out. To get drunk of a Saturday night.” Her voice trailed away.

“Well me, I always wanted to work on a farm. It’s the life.”

“Yes.”

“I’m strong as a bull. Just by luck I got this job. Mr. Brinker’s last man quit and he happened to come by our store. So I wrote him, not thinking I’d get hired.”

“Oh?” Ellen was awkward in her loss of words.

“My sister carried on when I went. She thought she’d get to leave home first. My old man told her he’d tie her up before he’d turn her loose in that sin-ridden city. That’s the way he talks. So I’ve been with Mr. Brinker a month now. Some day I’ll have a farm like his of my own.”

A bump in the road made her clutch the basket on her lap. The little shoes bounced.

“Aren’t they silly? Brinker’s crazy for his kids. Always got the littlest one riding on his shoulders.”

“I’ve got a goat,” Ellen was blurting, “named Penny. She dropped me a pair of kids last night.”

“A nanny? Gosh, Brinkers don’t have a goat. Maybe he’d buy one of yours. His boys could drive it to a wagon. Want me to ask?”

“No, I’d ne’er sell one. See, they’re mine.” She wondered whether this stranger could understand the value in which she held the sloe-eyed beasts.

At the yellow farmhouse Christian halted the truck. Dust was floating disturbed in the air above the beaten roadway. The pattern of the midday sun was weaving and shimmering in the shade of the cottonwoods. “See you, ma’am.” He laughed like he couldn’t help it, like a great joke had come to his mind. “Ellie, that is.”

She made no reply, watched the truck grow small, rumbling toward Brinker’s farm, three miles down the road. She moved to the house. Jack was thrusting his head into her fingers and she stroked it. She smiled as though she understood. “See you, Mester.” She took the cuts of tobacco from among the goods in the basket, slipping them into the pocket of her dress. Maria stood vigilant just within the doorway. “Here’s your basket, Ma.”

“Your dish be setting in the pantry, girl. Soon as you eat, there’s ironing. Hit’s dampened down in yonder basket.” The woman had hung the wash at dawn-dusk, gathered it quickly at mid-morning, wearing an outsize sunbonnet. “This trading sure looks poor, Ellie. Hit pleasures Grady to short me, knowing I can’t go trade myself.”

Ellen went upstairs, came down barefoot. She took her plate from the pantry, ate the fried piece of duck, the boiled potato, curd cheese, biscuits and honey. She was dipping from the blue pail. “I declare this water’s sweet, Ma.”

Maria was sorting the contents of the basket in the pantry. “You ne’er got the pickling spices.”

“There wasn’t enough to trade.”

“Well.”

“I want to stir up a cake this evening, Ma. Can I have white sugar for it?” When their taste for sweets became strong, Ellen and Frankie would ask for store-bought sugar to cook with, although they could get along with sorghum or honey. Flour and meal ground from the farm grain was ready for their use, plentiful as a rule, and drippings and lard, eggs and milk. “I’ll bake that white cake Pa likes.”

“Say,” Maria was frowning. “You remember Mester Gaddy’s tobacco?”

“Yes. I’ll run down to look at my new goats. If Pa’s in the barnyard I’ll give it to him.”

“There’s ironing, girl,” warned Maria. She was holding the new lace in her thin hands.

“I’ll hurry.” Ellen brought an armful of last year’s brown hay and an ear of corn to her goat. “This is all he’ll let me have, Penny. But I’ll gather purple vetch this evening, and before long your yeanlings will be grown enough so you-all can run with the cows.” The doe dug into the corn, using her lower row of teeth against the pad of upper jaw to tear the kernels loose. Her amber pupils stared distant. She seemed oblivious to her young repeatedly butting the new-swelled udder and sucking the moist teats.

“His name’s Christian Ay. Reckon he calls some girl his may? Reckon a man’ll e’er be partial to me, Penny?” She dropped the cob and went to the barnyard. “I don’t see Pa, Jack. And I’ve got to iron.”

In the kitchen she was placing the sadirons on the stove to heat. She brought out the ironing board, patched with bleached feed sacking, and laid it crosswise on the end of the table. She spit on the irons to test them, went about her work with familiar hands. The floor was cool to her dusty feet. Her mind roved to one of the songs she had learned from Penny Dougherty.

All on one summer evening When the fevers were dawning I heard a fair maid make a mourn She was weeping for her father And grieving for her mother And thinking all on her true love John

Without the square-paned windows, the musky earth lay under the hand of summer’s sun. Garden rows were in view, rabbits and woodchucks fenced out by a wall of stones that mounted each year as more were turned from the ground. Blooming flowers were crowding outside the barrier, begonias, love-lies-bleeding, marigolds and sunflowers, cranesbills and honesty. Later sweet peas and corn poppies would flower, and nasturtiums and youth-and-old-age. Beyond were nestled the beehives, pale apple-blossom and maple honey already stored in the bottom super. In fall the hives would tower high and the men would rob them, carrying a pan of smoke. The topmost honey would be red-black, taken by the bees from buckwheat blooms. Anton would relish the high flavor, but Ellen would find it turning her stomach, like milk when the cows had eaten wild garlic.

Maria entered the kitchen, set about mixing bread, kneading and thumping the mass of dough on the long table, flour drifting to the floor. “That was good yeast Stacey gave me. It’s raring.”

“Grady said it was new.” Ellen carried starched dresses and folded clothes up to the attic room. She put them away, then combed her hair in front of the oblong mirror that hung on the door. She made her mouth soft. “Pleased to meet your acquaintance.”

She looked down. Her feet were bare, her brown ankles grimy, the dress with the big polka dots was crumpled and her hands were rough. “There. You are an ugly brat.” She flung the door ajar to hide the glass, braided her hair swiftly, binding the ends. Slowly she went down the stairs.

“Come here, girl. Slop those sows. The two that’s due to farrow. Mester Gaddy said to feed them up.”

Ellen took the pail, crossing the lane to the hog lot. “Soooooeee,” she shouted, “pig-pig-pig-pig!” Grunting and sniffing, the two laden red beasts approached, eying her under horny lids. Shoulders pushing, they vied for the whey, potato peelings, crumbs of dough and flour. Ellen watched them root around for scraps and, still squealing and shoving, move off. She rinsed the bucket, filling it afresh to carry with her. The drowsy odor of green grape blossoms drifted languid from the vines. In the garden she stooped and moved, her toes grasping the earth, her nimble fingers pulling among sprouts, making small piles of weedlings. She transplanted sorrel and mustard, poured water on them, made beds of onion sets, black radishes, corn and squash to stagger the summer yield for the table.

Later on in the afternoon Frankie came to the stone wall. “Pa thinks I’m practicing. I vow it’s hot.” Her sunbonnet was shading her face, her forehead was moist. “Sam’s at the barn drenching Maisie with coal oil. She took sick. Sam says it’s the clover. Hit’s too rich for the cows.”

Ellen stretched her arms and left her work. She washed at the pump, splashing her feet, face and arms, wetting her dress.

“Hurry,” Frankie urged, “you’ll ne’er get a cake baked before evening chores, Ellie.”

“If you’ll keep your eye on the stove, we’ll make hit. How’s Pa?”

“He’s plagued about Maisie getting the bloat. But the rye’s cut and drying good.” She was plaintive. “Wish Pa’d let me go with you sometime to trade at Love’s. Why won’t he, Ellie?”

Ellen was touching the packets of tobacco in her pocket; she would use them to bribe an approving glance from her father. “Hit’s his way.” She sensed the familiar stab of rejection.

They stood idle a moment before Frankie started. “Ellie, we’ll ne’er make it.”

They sped to the house light-footed in the dust and heat. “Oh yes, we will. I’ll use Tinie Bilberry’s rule for a white one. You beg Ma for more sugar to frost it.”

They laughed breathless. The younger girl swung her sunbonnet in her hand. “Show me how that one’s stirred up, Ellie.”

The kitchen was cool, the shades half drawn. Ellen lit the burners under the oven. Frankie went to wheedle sugar from Maria, who was in the bedroom making a new shirt for her husband from a bolt of stiff black sateen. The woman was hunched over, concentrating on perfect stitches in the light from the small windows. In this room two babies had been born and one miscarried. Over the gray-painted iron bedstead hung a heavy crucifix. At the farther wall loomed a commodious wardrobe closet, smelling of camphor and holding Maria’s Sunday dresses and Anton’s black suit. “I’ll spare a teacup, Frankie. I’d rather you’d use sorghum. You girls are wasteful.”

Frankie measured the sugar and was sweeping the kitchen. Ellen was leaning back in her father’s chair, the long apron draped over her stretched-out legs as she turned the batter. “Did you heed what went in, Frankie?” The enthusiasm of her young years lifted her so the breath nearly knotted in her throat.

My true love Is a blue eyed daisy She won’t work And I’m too lazy

The batter had been poured into the pans and they were set in the hot oven when into the kitchen their father’s voice rapped, “Feeding time. Where’s that girl?”

“Keep your eye on the oven, Frankie. Don’t forget.” Ellen was running out the door and down the steps after Anton who strode toward the barn. “Here’s your tobacco, Pa.”

He stopped to take it from her. “Now can’t you e’er get to your chores, girl, without me hunting you out?”

Inside the house, Frankie was turning quietly to the parlor. Soon scale notes rang precise against the ancient paper-covered walls. Maria put her sewing aside, went to the kitchen, pinning a sack apron about her. She kneaded down the bowl of warm raised dough, forming loaves and biscuits, greasing them with soft butter. She put them near the heat of the oven to rise.

In the hills about the farmland the sun-drenched late afternoon air filled with Sam Offut’s voice pleading full and deep, “Sooo-cow. Sooook, sooook, sooo-cow.” Winding up the lane came the line of milkers, chewing cuds, dispassionate, hip-bones swaying, udders distended. Jack tailed them, head down. When one halted to crop a clump of grass, his sharp bark sang and he nipped the bony fetlocks. The old duck flapped its wings, splashed the pond water so crawfish and turtles dove to the muddied bottom. It was lifting its heavy body from the pond, and then circling Ellen on the hillside.