Chapter 25

The square dances at Silvers Farm were held every year before the main hay crop was gathered. Dan and Ellen, Sudduth and Adele, were going together in the old Dodge. Ellen was in the front seat close against Dan. Adele was saying, “We used to go to Silvers when Sudduth was courting me.”

“Time sure flies,” Sudduth said.

“Are you positive I don’t show too much, Sudduth? To go to a public place? What do you think, Ellen? You know how girls can be. They’ll all be saying, is it September, October or November.”

“You look real nice, Adele.”

When they had pulled out of the Wasilewski drive, the children had shouted goodbye, Pop went to count the roses the damask bush had borne this year, and Mom called, “You young folks enjoy yourself.”

Mom was resigned to Dan’s rupture with Star but where she had once been warm and friendly toward Ellen, a coldness was now in her air. Where she had used to gossip freely, she was constrained. Ellen would try to please her, to think ahead, doing the tasks before Mom could assign them. “But I already picked the bush beans this morning, Mom. There’s near a bushel. I reckoned you’d want it done.” And all the time there was joy because of Dan. He would come to where she was scrubbing the baby chick brooders or polishing windows, seeking her out when he was free. “Oh, this is a woman I’ve found.”

At the Silvers barn the first cutting of hay was stacked at one end of the loft, its honey permeating the air. Wire cables had been stretched from automobiles and tractors below, and from them colored lights were strung along the rafters, and paper lanterns. On a platform near the door a fiddler and a banjo-player were busy. “Sometimes,” Dan told Ellen, “he’ll take steel knitting needles to those banjo strings.”

“All he ever does,” said Sudduth, “is play that banjo.”

“Pigeon wing,” Mr. Silvers called, his fleshy face in a sweat, his barrel stomach shaking with covert laughter.

I had an old hat with a flop down brim It looked like a toad frog Setting on a limb

“Double shuffle,” he was roaring.

“I told you I can’t dance, Dan,” Ellen protested. “Pa’d ne’er let us go.”

“I’ll show you.”

Adele went to talk with her friends and Sudduth merged into a group of men. “Any borers in your corn yet, Wasilewski?”

“A few.”

“My cow throwed twins.”

“God damn. Better look if one’s a freemartin.”

“Wrenched my back in the spring.” Sudduth put his hand on it.

“Tarred my corn this time. Crows got pesky.”

“Sounds gummy.”

“No. Roll in it wood ashes.”

“God damn. Where’d you hear that?”

“County agent.”

“God-damn bull-shitter.”

“No crows.”

“Um.”

And the women were questioning Adele avidly, “Who’s that with Dan?”

“Why that’s our girl, Ellen.”

“Never saw her before. Is she from around here?”

“She’s from Kentucky.”

“Thought Dan was courting the Webster girl. I was looking forward to seeing them. They made a cute couple.”

“Star’s real sweet.”

“What happened with Star, Adele? You can tell us.”

“He simply broke off with her. I don’t know.”

“Now, Adele, we know how these things can be.”

“Why’d Dan bring your hired girl?”

“She was there. Maybe he felt sorry for her.”

“She’s good-looking, Adele.”

“Right young, too.”

“She’s not as young as she looks,” Adele pleaded. “Told me she was thirty.” Ellen had said twenty-seven, but thirty slipped out against Adele’s will.

“Now that just shows you what the night will do for a woman.”

“You might have a new sister-in-law one of these days, Adele.”

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Now when are you expecting it, Adele? Late September? Does Sudduth want a boy or a girl?”

The floor of the hayloft was dusted with chaff. The people were spinning in the pattern of the dance.

Oh five times five are twenty five And six times five are thirty Seven times five are thirty five And eight times five are forty

Ellen was handed from one partner to the next. There were spindly angular boys caught by the music, feet tapping and shoulders springing in an extra beat. There were jovial men, worried ones, dumpy ones, old and young. Dan was across the floor, his dark face above the red shirt bending taut to a girl with curly hair. Jealousy touched in Ellen so she flinched, laughing up to her partner. Then when Dan came by, following the step, he whispered, “You’re having such a good time I’ll have to kill all your partners, honey.” And the roiling had vanished. Dan belonged to her.

The music ceased and the fiddler was leaning back. The banjo-player wiped his brow. “Hell, it’s hot.” Dan and Ellen came up to sit on the platform edge. Dan was smoking. They watched the crowd at the bench where a barrel of cold beer was rolled on its side next to tin pitchers of Mrs. Silvers’ iced lemonade.

“You sure can handle those strings,” Ellen was telling the fiddler.

“Been doing this off and on since I was ten. Maybe this child will die this away. Maybe I’ll be like that Callahan.”

“Who’s he?”

“It’s a song. Fiddler Callahan killed somebody so they were about to hang him. Says if anyone would play his fiddle while he was being strung up, they could keep it. He begged at the crowd for it was a notion he had. Nobody’d do it, so when they were fixing to trip the gallows he quit pleading, and busted it to pieces over the coffin they had ready for him.”

“Look,” Dan stood up, grinding his cigarette on the floor. “Could you play ‘Lord Lovel’ for her to sing?”

“Sure thing.” The fiddler was taking up his bow.

Ellen looked past the swaying lanterns into the June night.

Lord Lovel he stood at his castle gate Combing his milk-white steed When up came Lady Nancy Belle To wish her lover godspeed

Lord Lovel went away then, vowing to return. But when at last he did, the Lady Nancy had died.

He mounted on his milk-white steed And he rode to London town And there he heard the death bells ringing And the people mourning all round

He ordered the grave to be opened wide And the shroud to be turned down And there he kissed her clay-cold lips And the tears came trinkling down

“That was keen,” the banjo-player said. “You two want to try a Hound-and-Dog?”

“Come on, Ellen.”

“All right,” she was whispering. “I want to be woven into a part of all you undertake to do.”

“That’s why you’re my girl.” His shaven hard cheek was on her hair, the red-checked shirt was tight against the white dress. And the people were all about but far away.

Summer put her hand on the earth and all things flourished. In early hours earthworms coupled on damp paths. Grain fields turned yellow. Mowers and reapers hummed busily across the countryside. Mulberries and cherries ripened. The children spread an old sheet under the trees and shook the branches. They gathered the corners and ran to the kitchen. “Berry pieth and cherry pieth,” chanted Hannah and Grace.

Now that school was out, Simon was given a string of cows. He put his arm about their necks and the light of possession and love gleamed. One of them had leaped the fence and got to the bull when too young. Her teats were small and short. Simon’s hands were coaxing them patiently.

“We’d have sold that one if it wasn’t for you, Simon,” Dan shouted from his milking stool.

“Can’t abide a short-teated cow,” Sudduth said. “Come on, Lady, let those big bubbies down for me,” Sudduth was nudging the heavy udder with his fist; the cow chewed, serene.

Simon told Ellen, “Dan might let the colt be mine if Pearl got caught with one.”

“Colts are worth a lot.”

“Well, so Dan said,” the boy insisted.

They were driving over to the Doughertys. Penny gave Simon Little Tiny’s kid. It was brown with white stripes on its face and legs. “The daddy’s a Toggenburg,” Penny said. “It ought to milk proud.”

The boy was entranced. “Hey, Clate. Hey, Anse. This be a fine yeanling.”

Anse stood aside and said nothing, but Clate swaggered. He began to tell Simon how to care for the kid.

“Oh shut up, Clate. I know about burnt flour when she gets the scours.”

“You named it yet, Simon?” Penny asked.

“April.”

“That’s a fair name.” Ellen could see Penny was pregnant again. She’s liable to have another as puny as little Jess is.

Then they were waving from the truck windows as they went down the narrow winding lane. “Seems I’m always saying goodbye to Penny, Dan.” He smiled at her across Simon who held the little doe on his knees. Used to be I worried over the past, how it clutched at me. Now that’s fallen away and I’m looking ahead, making this foreign place mine.

The days were dropping, one upon one. Ellen and Dan would seek each other out. Their gladness was contagious, so that Sudduth was gallant with Adele, and Mom more attentive to Pop. Sometimes in the evenings they would sit on the board seat nailed between two oaks in the yard. “Ellen, we ought to get married now. We don’t have to wait till fall.”

“No.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’d like to wait.”

“Your family’s Catholic. You want a priest?”

“I don’t care about that, but I’d like to see Adele and the children moved. Then I want to wash the walls and wax the floor. I’d as soon have a proper wedding.”

“I see.” He was kissing her, and her earnestness faded as she made herself to him.

But the next day she said, “I thought I’d write Frankie and my uncle and aunt. And even my pa. I’d like them to come here if they can and stand as my family when I marry.”

“All that nonsense.”

“I’d like it that way.”

“Suppose I’ll have to wear a flower in my buttonhole?”

“Yes. And Simon has to have a suit.”

“Does he get a flower too?”

“Yes.”

“What’s next?”

“The minister. We can have Adele’s Presbyterian. That little sad one. I’ll have flowers in vases standing about. And the minister should have a flower too.”

“He doesn’t have a buttonhole.”

“I thought he did.”

“Well, if you change your mind, we’ll get married now. It’s up to you, honey.”

That was in August. In mid-September the roof struts of Sudduth’s house were in place. The boards and shingles were nailed and fitted. Adele was moving laborious, the child big in her, sighing, “All my plans to leave this house so orderly for you, Mom.”

“Don’t you worry, Adele. Things are good enough.”

Ellen went out often to see how the building was progressing. Every nail driven was bringing the day nearer. Mrs. Daniel Matthew Wasilewski. I’ll write Ma, too. The nurses could read it to her. She might know what it said. I’ll go see her this winter. You can’t tell, in a year or so we might even be having a youngen. I could walk out to Dan where the corn was ripe, “Here’s your son I just happened to have.”

The morning was bright and moist. The wind was drifting steadily from the southwest. Ellen had been picking tomatoes since breakfast and she was walking down to meet the men before the noon hour. They had been cutting hay in the field next to the new house. It was edged by a row of heavy-trunked willows. Long ago when posts had been cut and set, they had rooted in the easy way of a willow, and made heads, sprouting in summer rains. “What do you call those fence trees, Dan?” she was calling. Simon waved boldly as he clattered past her with the team and mower, heading for the barnyard. The men dropped their forks and came up to meet Ellen.

“Those are golden osier willows,” Sudduth explained. “Pop planted them before we were born.”

“Dinner ready?” Dan took Ellen’s hand as they were walking through the sweet-odored drying alfalfa.

“I don’t know. Mom’s getting it. I’ve been in the garden.” The air was lightly misted though the sun was bright. There were cumulus clouds in the sky. The south wind continued to blow.

“Hope we get this hay in all right,” Dan said.

“This has been the best year yet,” Sudduth said. “Good and dry. Not a load lost.”

“I don’t think we’ll lose this one. Knock on wood. The storm’s way off. The hay’ll be cured by early afternoon. We can get it in quick. Simon’s a help. He’s fast and he’s got the hang of it.”

“It’s not twister weather, is it?” Ellen asked.

“You’re not afraid of a wind?” Dan’s yellow eyes laughed, so she knew he was thinking of the day in the barn when he first kissed her, and she him.

“I’m not.”

In the afternoon, Ellen was in the middle of the tomato canning. At the kitchen door were four full bushel baskets; depleted ones were stacked outside. She was scalding the fruit, packing it into hot Mason jars. Rows of empty jars waited upside down on the table, the filled ones were boiling in the canner. Mom came in. “I’ll help out for a spell.” She fanned herself with her ample apron. “Sakes, the air’s close.”

Ellen could feel how the wind had stopped. A piece of fear plucked at her. “Isn’t the hay in yet?”

“They’re going at it real hard. They even gave Dennie a fork. He’s out working alongside Sudduth. Land, the rain’s not too far off.” Mom frowned. “Sudduth says the last cutting of alfalfa is like grain, it’s so high in protein.”

“I know.” Ellen was pausing. “Mom, is this twister weather?”

“It’s a little early for them. Doesn’t feel like it to me. We’ll know if Sudduth comes tearing in.” She turned to the sink. “Now, let’s get this mess put up.”

They worked swiftly. But their minds were with the men who strove to save the hay.

In the far field, Simon was perched on the load that towered, dwarfing the two dappled grays. Dan was throwing great forkfuls to him and Simon laid it deftly back, stepping it down, his small arms muscled and brown. Sudduth was unloading the truck at the barn, stacked with the previous load. The farm buildings were like toys in the distance, sharp-edged in the air which had a peculiar transparency. The movements of the man and boy quickened. Dan pitched up the last of the hay. “Whip them if you have to, Simon.”

The youngster clambered into the driving seat, gathered the leather reins. The team pawed, rattling the harness. “I will, Dan.”

“Get it in the loft fast. Sudduth’ll pitch it up.”

Simon, overworked, sweated heavily, drops running down his face. His bleached hair curled damp, his shirt and pants clung to his skin. He shrilled, “Get in there. Major. Pearl!” The wagon was lurching through the stubble.

Dan began to stack the hay that remained. By now the nimbus rain clouds were hovering low in the bruised sky. The man worked at a rapid pace. The temperature was falling, dusk descended, the air was dense. He was bent into his tool, trying to beat the rain in the race.

A greenish-gray cloud tumbled slowly on the skyline to the west. Suddenly the wind came up, crying. Dan lifted his head, feeling the heat. The cloud had begun to spin. “Holy God,” he muttered. The stout willow fence teetered and creaked, the hay was swept wild, swirling. A purplish tongue licked downward, hunting, moving toward the hay field.

Dan shook his fists at it, rearing lean in his high leather boots. “Dammit. Turn!” The long thick line veered crazily and then sucked back into the wounded cloud. But it was slipping down again, howling. “Turn. Turn!” His voice was nothing, his throat rended. The menace was swerving below the neighboring farm where it had come through in the spring. He was tearing his throat again, his loins on fire with fear. “Now, dear God. Turn!”

Objects were fluttering, grotesque, like bugs in the dark pulsing. They were dying pigs and turkeys and a broken cart, small barns shattering glass, boards, dust, manure. Pieces of houses and ripped posts. Ravaged fruits from gardens. Drying hay, dust, chaff, dirt. Over Dan’s head a drove of birds winged abruptly, disappearing to the north. The heinous rhythmic humming was constant.

The world was as if under water, green-blue, unreal, glowing. Simon was in the far barnyard, tiny on the stacked child’s wagon, attempting to pitch the hay to the loft alone. The three women, like dolls, were fluttering into the yard. Dan plunged into the shallow ditch bordering the field; he flattened himself, cowering. The ugly dancing shadow advanced. “No.”

Then the roof of Sudduth’s bare unpainted house was rising weirdly. In deliberate motion it was wheeling above the field. The man stumbled up from the trench in rage, disbelief, clawing the air dazed, with his powerful hands, as if to replace the mighty shower of timber where he had nailed it with sweat and struggle. The roof was engulfing the field and the golden osier willows were breaking. The noise was tremendous.

When they rode out to the hay field, Ellen was beside Sudduth in the truck. Warm silent rain blew gently against the windshield. Lumber and rubble were scattered and Sudduth had to drive around the larger planks, skidding in the mud. The prone figure was stretched face up amid the litter. Sudduth braked and Ellen was tearing at the door. She ran, believing him dead. She lifted the two-by-four from his body. She knelt, uncertain. His eyelids were flickering and they opened. “Hi.”

“Sudduth,” she called evenly. “Get a doctor. Hurry.” She was touching the wet dark face, leaning over to keep off the constant rain.

“You came.”

“Dan?”

“It didn’t turn,” he whispered. The rain was streaming from his carven face, his soaked black hair.

“Where do you hurt?”

“Dying. You know that?” He was moving narrow wood lips.

“No, Dan.”

“Sonofabitch,” he was sighing.

“Don’t die.”

“I won’t.”

“The doctor’s coming. Do you hurt somewhere?”

“Damn wind.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“Never comes twice.”

“Dan?”

“Never. No.” His mouth was thickening, his body was broken and when he heard her voice he came back through an effort of will. “Ellen?”

“I won’t let you.” Her cheek against his, she cradled him in her arms. “Holy Mary?” The rain was pouring sweet and hot, releasing the sun-baked alfalfa odor. Her lips clung to his wet cool face.

“Poor Ellen.”

“Don’t talk.”

His face was gray and seamed. It twitched, wounded. A red dot was appearing at the side of his mouth.

“Don’t,” she breathed.

His dulled greenish eyes were seeking her. For a few minutes she wasn’t sure he was gone. A thunderbolt tore exultant about the field, rolling passionate. A new torrent of rain swept like an enfolding blanket. She wasn’t aware. She lay upon the lifeless body reciting Hail Marys over and again. Pray for us sinners now. Amen.

The truck sped down the drenched slick mire of the lane. The doctor jumped out, pried Ellen from the body. “Is he dead?” she asked. Sudduth was leading her to the truck cab. They wrapped a rug about the limp figure and laid it in back on soggy hay chaff. She looked at it through the rear window.

“I’ll ride out here,” the doctor called, climbing over the rear bumper.

Sudduth was driving through the field, avoiding the litter of boards and shingles. “Jesus.” He wagged his head, aimless. “I don’t know what we’re going to do, Ellen.”

She watched the two men carry the body upstairs. Then she went into the kitchen, still in her wet hay-flecked dress, clinging. Vaguely she knew Mom was crying and the doctor was using the telephone in the sitting room. She lifted one of the heavy bushels by the door and set it down by the sink. She dipped tomatoes, peeling, packing them hot in jars, measuring teaspoons of salt out. No one paid her any mind. Sudduth called the children, shrilling, insistent. He took them all, even the little girls, to the barn with him while he did the chores. Upstairs, Adele began to cry aloud, and soon moaned at regular intervals. Mom was hurrying back and forth, hair wisped, mouth unsteady. She looked in at the kitchen door. “Land. I’m glad you’re finishing them, Ellen. Like the doctor says, the living come first.”

Adele’s premature baby died in the night. Adele turned her head and wept into the pillow. She believed an all-seeing God was punishing her because she had tried once to rid herself of it. At breakfast Mom asked Ellen if she could stay at home to care for Adele while they went to the funeral. “I can’t, Mom. I would, but I have to go see him.”

“Well, the boys can get Adele what she needs, I guess.” Mom moved her body cautiously; she had not grasped the two deaths yet. She was turning to Ellen. “Sakes. I really did want you and him to marry, Ellen. I know you’d have been to him what Star Webster never could have.”

“Well, Mom,” Ellen shrugged, “want me to make up the rest of the bacon or fry ham?” She was dry-eyed.

“Finish the bacon.”

“Simon,” Ellen was asking at the table, “did you get that last hay in before the rain?”

“No, it’s bad soaked, Ma. We can spread it in the yard. Reckon it’ll dry good enough.”

“You-all do that. Even if it’s leached, it’ll still make horse feed.”

“Jesus, I got a back this morning,” Sudduth said. “I don’t know.”

Ellen appealed to Mom, “You got a black hat?”

“You can wear Adele’s.” Mom patted Ellen’s shoulder. “It’s even got a veil. At least I think it has.”

When she had dressed, Ellen came into the sitting room. Sudduth was pacing the floor, tears coming steadily down his thin face. Pop sat shriveled and fragile in his overlarge Sunday suit, his bony hands protruded from the sleeves like bird legs. The sun stretched itself over the room, catching the luster of the stuffed red-and-black tanager under the glass bell on the table. I hate the sun and I hate the prying light. “It’s a beautiful day,” she was saying. She had watched dawn unfolding out of dark, felt the dry thickening in her throat.

“Let’s go on out and wait for Mom,” Sudduth said, stiff.

Ellen walked with them, getting into the back seat with Pop. She folded her handkerchief, unfolded it. Sudduth started the motor and let it idle. After a while, Mom came to the house door, a fleshy large figure in black, veiled. The children stared, circling her, restless. “You be good and do what Adele says,” Mom told them.

“Don’t punch me, Grace.”

“I never touched you.”

“Where’th everybody going?”

“It’s the funeral of Uncle Dan,” said Grace. “He’s dead. And they’re going to plant him in the ground.” They watched the car go down the road, milling in a group, close to each other.

Before the services, in the carpeted stuffy room, Ellen went up on the dais to look at the body. The casket was heavy. There was satin and white and purple cloth about him. He wore his brown suit. His hands were folded on each other, they had lost their sun color. Those men had their will with his body. Their prying hands. The almond tree shall blossom and the caperberry shall fail because man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets. There was a slight reek of incense. His eyes were shut, his face puffed out so the familiar creases hardly showed. His hair was combed flat. They drained off his blood and pumped somewhat in his body, didn’t they? To keep back the death smell? He had a false look; it was the birthmark, they had hidden it with paste. Reckon he heard death bells in the air when it roared to him? Or the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken or the pitcher at the fountain. And the dust return to the earth as it was. That’s the husk of Dan. All I’ve got is a memory. I can’t recall him. I forget. She struggled, throat tight, to bring to mind how he moved and laughed, how he would be grease-stained from working under the machines, how he was alert and strong and moved quicker than the others. How he was awkward when he ran his fingers on her hair. But the statue slept, its hawklike features impassive.

The organ struck up like breaking soft boulders. She moved as if she was of glass. For who knoweth what is good for man in his life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? She was going down the steps to sit by Mom in one of the blue plush chairs. The carpet made footfalls noiseless, the organ pushed her. She sat in the bruised music. Dan would be proud of how quiet I am. She didn’t feel tears pouring until she discovered her wet hands; she wiped them dully with the handkerchief. She knew she had been robbed once more. Praise ye the Lord. He telleth the number of the stars. He calleth them by their names.

The minister was walking up onto the dais, patting his head where hair once flourished. He stared at the floor and straightened his coat. The head undertaker nodded. The organ hushed. “Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand. Yes. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom. Yes. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to pay our last respects.”

What I can’t understand is why Dan didn’t see it coming and go to the barn on the wagon with Simon. When we ran out to look, I waved and called. But he just kept shocking the hay up. I can’t understand why he never saw it making there in the south sky. He should have come in with Simon. I don’t know why.

“Dust to dust. Yes. Ashes,” the preacher intoned. That man was going to marry us. Daniel Wasilewski took Ellen Gaddy in marriage. So it would have been written. “Lord, make me to know mine end. Yes. And the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am. Behold, Thou hast made my days as a handbreadth. Oh yes.”

The service was done, the organ was rolling muted hymns over plush upholstery. The undertaker bent his head in a gentle unctuous way to Mom. They walked out to where the sun dazzled the trees in a gilt sheen. They were rumbling slowly down flat roads toward the cemetery. Ellen asked Pop, “Why must they go so tormented slow?”

“It’s the custom, Ellen.”

“I’d rather put him straightaways in the earth. Fast. I got no use for all this furbelowing.” She looked through the windows to the bright day. Under her black veil, water ran down. “Why’d he die, Pop?”

“He was in the way when it struck.”

“I told him to come in,” Sudduth cried out. “I told him.”

“Shut up,” Mom flared, and sighed.

At the open grave, the metal-bound box was lowered. Now they’ll wait until we go away. They’ll take down the purple canopy and fold the green grass rug. They’ll drive off, leaving a man to cover the hole. He’ll throw dirt on the box with Dan in it. And it’ll be all over.

Simon came to her that evening where she sat by the windows in the cold lavender air of dusk. The silence was delicate, like ringing. The family had taken the noise away. They were with Adele or in their beds. The boy touched her shoulder. “Ma?”

She started, striking his hand from her. Then she spoke quickly, penitent, “What is it, Simon?”

“Don’t grieve. Here, I brought you one of the kittens.”

And because he was so kind and tender in his youthful shy way, all the walls she built broke suddenly. She bowed her head and wept.

“Oh, Ma, I loved him too. He wasn’t afraid of ne’er a thing.” The boy’s voice was laden. He began to cry. Holding the kitten in his arm, he was putting his head in her apron.

“Don’t weep, Simon,” she sobbed on his hair.

Later she cradled in her hand the tiny black kitten. Through the window she was watching the north wind blow as autumn cast itself on the cringing landscape. I shall go softly all the years in the bitterness of my soul.