3stalwarts (174 page)

He stopped and looked down.

“Then I went inside and told her, T guess they have built it and you was right all along.’ She said she was glad. Seems something in me gave out then. She said we’d best go home. I said it was all right, we would. She died on me a week later. So I come out. My farm, it was half covered over.”

“Didn’t you file for damages?”

“Damages? I don’t know. I didn’t appear to consider anything. But I come out here to notice the canal. I seen them starting this-here house. I asked them what for, and then I got the job.”

A rat slopped into the water.

They sat silent.

The man looked over at Jerry’s plate.

“Ain’t much of a supper,” he said. “I don’t usually have visits. Sometimes the cobbler drops in. Generally folks go by. But when I seen you, I thought maybe I’d ask you.”

“Cobbler?” Jerry asked. “A friend of yours?”

“Kind of a friend, mister, by the way I look at it. He’s a lonesome man. He’s got a girl, but she won’t marry him.”

“He don’t come by often?”

“No, not often. But once in a while he drops in. He was by here last week. He was going up to Lockport, but he come back the same day. Seems like he’d scarcely gone afore I heard his wagon squeaking back along the towpath and looked out and seen his horse.”

The night, for Jerry, became very still. His hands lifted slowly until they grasped the table edge. He felt his heart beating and the blood rising against his ears. His lips were stiff, but he framed the words distinctly.

“A white-blind horse?”

The tender lifted his slow eyes.

“Yeanh. He drives a white-blind horse. Do you know him?”

“What’s his name?”

“Falk, he calls himself, I guess, mister. I never asked him.”

“Harley Falk?”

“I’m not positive. But I wouldn’t say it wasn’t, neither.”

Jerry forced his voice to be casual.

“Does he circuit hereabouts?”

“Here and there, I guess. I never asked him. Once in a while he would drop in.”

“Did he ever talk about this girl?”

“Sometimes he would, mister. Not often. Sometimes he’d talk about her. Told me she was beautiful. Told me how she was beautiful, he did. One night over and over. Seemed to me he was going to cry on me. But I didn’t say nothing. I don’t say nothing when a man gets that way. No, not any more.”

“Did he ever say her name?”

“Seems to me, he might have said her name. I wasn’t listening. Once in a while he would drop by and visit with me.”

“Tell me,” said Jerry. “I’ve got to know. Did he say where she was staying?”

Birdnut passed his hand over his eyes.

“Seems to me you’re curious about him,— or her, maybe,— mister?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Well, I’ve felt kind of partial to you, mister. But it’s hard for me to recollect things. Seems as how she was staying down south of Newport, maybe, with some folks. Folks of hers? No, I don’t recall. Not their names. He said it was a big farm, mister. Four farms together. Whereabouts I wouldn’t dasst to say. I though he was going to cry on me, so I didn’t ask him nothing. I felt kind of sorry for him. Loving her so long. He took her away from a man misused her, but she didn’t love him, he said; she wouldn’t go off with him. Women, he said, was feared of him. He said I was his only friend. Sometimes it made him riley. It gave him misery, sometimes.”

Jerry waited. He held his breath. The tender was regarding him with a queer, sidewise glance.

“Mister, you ain’t the man misused her, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Was you her husband?”

“Yes.”

“I guess that’s why I felt partial, then.” He dropped his eyes to his hands. “Mister, I can’t recall names or places very good. But I recollect he said she lived in Range two. Queer to remember. Range two. There’s a list to the post office in Newport. Maybe they’d have some idea.”

He looked up again.

“Feeling sickly, mister?”

“No. Not that way. I’ve got to go. Thank you for supper. If you ever need anything let me know in Rochester. Jerry Fowler, of the Six-Day.”

“Grey boats. They’re nice-looking, mister. No. I won’t be bothering you, I expect. Good night, and welcome, mister.”

A dog was scratching for fleas on the porch. His leg thumped steadily. Then he lay down on his side and closed his eyes and sighed. In the store, Philetus Bumpus measured off some calico. He had a yard mark painted on his counter, and his practised fingers stripped the cloth.

“It’ll make you a nice Sunday apron, Mrs. Jordan. It’s a new pattern and will show up well in meeting.”

Mrs. Jordan dabbled in her purse.

“Seventy-five cents a yard, Mr. Bumpus? Three yards. Dear me. Figures do twitter a person.”

The storekeeper took a chalk from behind his ear. Stooping forward, he made figures on the counter.

75

X3

225

“Multiplying, carry your dots straight down. That makes two dollars and a quarter, federal money.”

“I didn’t know it was so high. How multiplying does mount up in figures! Three separate seventy-fives wouldn’t look half so large.”

But she nodded and smiled and bustled out.

Groaning as he rose, the dog turned his other side, and began scratching again. His leg bumped on the floor.

“Well, mister, what can I do for you?”

“I came in to see if you had a lot map of Range two.”

Mr. Bumpus pushed his spectacles up.

“Well, mister. It’s likely I have. You moving in to buy?”

“No.”

“Well, if you ain’t intending to move in, I don’t see what you want to look at a map for.”

Little knots of muscle bulged along Jerry’s jawbone.

“What’s it to you if I want to see the map?”

Mr. Bumpus scratched the back of his neck. It was stuffy and dark in the store; the door made a blinding spot of sunlight framing the scratching dog.

“Well,” said Mr. Bumpus, “it’s a walk back to my house if you got to see that map, and it’s a hot day, and I wasn’t intending to go back till noon. Now, if you was to wait till noon, I’d take you up and glad to do it.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

Mr. Bumpus ran a finger round the inside of his shirt band. He took a cotton handkerchief from his pocket, looked at it, wiped his forehead, blew his right nostril. The dog stopped scratching to eye a rooster on the bridge that carried the Oak Orchard road over the canal. A woman came in to trade some butter for cotton backing for a quilt. Mr. Bumpus wiped his nose and said apologetically to Jerry, “Well, I guess it will be handier if I just match this up for Mrs. Losey, and then we can get back to talking.”

Jerry seethed as he watched the interminable yes-and-noing going on at the counter over the shades of thread needed to match the backing. A wagon rattled away over the bridge. An oxcart loaded with white-wood boarding lumbered up to a waiting boat. The boatman and the driver of the cart started a chain from cart to boat, and the boards went up and down between their hands, like inchworms walking. The dog roused himself with a kind of moan in his nose and began to scratch, thumping his leg endlessly.

Mrs. Losey satisfied herself she had the right shade.

“For God’s sake,” Jerry cried as she went out, “let me see that map, before she comes back again.”

“Now don’t get worried,” said Mr. Bumpus tolerantly. “You’re going to look at that map, mister. But while I was helping Mrs. Losey match up I was thinking.” He rubbed his sandy hair upward on the back of his head. “Yes sir. I was thinking that if you told me your business maybe it would save me the trip back to my house. And anyways,” he added contentedly, “I don’t see as how I could get up there afore noon— with nobody tending the store for me.”

Jerry cursed.

“It’s too bad,” said Mr. Bumpus. “But I figger we can be comfortable here a-talking things over until noon.”

The dog’s thumping picked up a beat; then they heard him groan as if hope were lost. He sighed as he lay down. Jerry felt sorry for that dog; he knew how he felt.

Mr. Bumpus took a seat in a rocker that had one leg too short; but he rocked it just the same and fanned his face with an old turkey wing.

“Reckon it’s hot out. Makes a man feel kind of dozy right in here.” He pulled his spectacles down and eased his pants where they needed easing and looked across at Jerry. “If you don’t intend to buy and you want to look at that map, it ‘pears to me you must be looking for somebody.”

“You’ve got it exactly right, Mr. Bumpus.”

“Oh shucks. If a man has time to think… . But that being so, why didn’t you tell me just who you wanted to see?”

“That’s the trouble,” Jerry said. “I don’t know.”

Mr. Bumpus rocked his chair, squeak as it went forward, bump when it came back. He fixed his eyes on the door. He had the short, round nose, a little swollen, of the man who deals with small ideas in a large way. In the door the dog sprang up joyfully to try under his chin. His leg thumped.

“If you don’t know the folks you’re looking for, mister, I don’t see as how looking at a map is going to help.”

Jerry said patiently, “I don’t know it will help. But I’ve been thinking that if I could see the names, maybe I’d have some idea.”

Mr. Bumpus sighed. “I guess maybe then you’ve got to look at that map, eh?”

“That’s the idea.”

“But look here.” The rocker stopped in the middle of a squeak. “Why don’t you ask me the names? I know everybody.”

“Everybody?”

“Yes sir.” The rocker continued. “Just as good as a map myself. Who do you want to know first?”

“I don’t know. Wait a minute. Is there any especially big farm?”

“Lansing’s is big, but that’s mostly on the corner of Range three. Let’s see, Range two. Why, there’s Halleck’s.”

“Halleck’s! Four farms. Of course. I’ve been a complete damned fool, Mr. Bumpus.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, mister.”

“A damned fool— for three years.”

“Why …”

“I never asked George Halleck, and he didn’t tell me nothing.” Jerry grabbed his hat. “Whereabouts do Hallecks live?”

“Why, their land lies mostly in township fifteen, mister. They’ve got a pile of land to wheat, and the old woman sells fancies, sugar and such things. I sold her a wagonload of butter firkins myself last spring. Don’t get impatient, mister. I’m coming round, all right, and if you use up to-day you’ve always got tomorrow. Well, let’s see. You might take the canal footpath, but I guess you’d do better by the road. Yes, you take the Oak Orchard road. Cross that bridge there and keep a-going. When you come to the swamp causeway you’ll see a road off your right. Take that, mister, and keep right on straight as your nose until you come to a big frame barn and a couple of houses. That’s Halleck’s.”

“A red barn?”

“Yes, no, I think it’s white. Funny to paint, a barn white, but Mrs. Halleck’s notional, they say. Leastways it’s the first barn you come to.”

“Thanks, Mr. Bumpus.”

“No trouble.”

The dog got over to give Jerry free passage. He sat down to watch him across the bridge. It was hot beyond the porch steps. Inside the store Mr. Bumpus watched too. Then a strained look settled in the dog’s eyes. He began scratching.

But Jerry went quickly.

“I’ll walk fast,” he told himself. “I won’t stop to think. I’ll just walk right there. I’ll say, Where’s Mary? and they’ll tell me and I’ll just go up to her, and she’ll say, Jerry! and I’ll say …” Wheat stubble covered the land with golden bristles. It showed the shape of the land with its even trim, the little curves and hollows that the eye would never trace in grass; and in itself it showed the sweeps of the sower’s hand, sweeps like the curve of the scythe blade where the seed had fallen, taken root, made milk and grain, been reaped— a cycle for the eye to grasp in a single glimpse. “Walk fast, Jerry Fowler. Three years is a long time. Walk fast. They’ll say she’s in the cow barn watering the calves. They’ll look queer at me. Maybe they’ll stand off; but who cares for that? So long as her eyes light on me. Mary, I’ve been sorry. For three years I’ve been sorry. It was my fault, Mary. And she’ll say …” Fox grapes showing their clusters, the hard green softening with blue; the crinkled leaves lifting their whitening edges, and the tendrils like silver springs. The dust lifted behind his feet. The roadside shrubs were dusty. The chokecherries wore a film of it. “I’ll just go in if they’re at dinner. Mary, I’ll say, and they’ll look up at me. Her eyes will light on me… .” The road ran through a point of the old oak forest that gave it its name; and then it turned a little west through broad country. To the left the causeway stretched into the swamp. In places it rose up on islands; in places it floated on the water. Tamaracks showed ashy green. Way off a sycamore lifted immense white limbs, like the living ghost of a tree. But there was a road branch on the right that turned back into the rolling wheat stubble. It led behind low oaks. “Maybe I turn here.” …

A wagon rumbled over the causeway. Four horses dragging early threshed wheat to Ingersoll’s warehouse, the driver said.

“Does this road lead past Halleck’s farm?”

“Yes, it does. Betsey Halleck. And her children and her grandchildren. Settled down in a tract like Jemima Wilkinson and her Universal Friends. But these Hallecks are proper Christians. They’re a tribe to see. A half mile, mister, and you’ll see a white barn on your right.”

“Thanks.”

“Welcome to you, mister. Hot day for foot travel or hauling wheat. But it’s been a good season.”

“It’s been a fine season.”

“Never knew a better myself.”

“Nor I.”

“Git there, Trip. ‘Bye to you, mister.”

“Good-bye.”

4

‘A man that cuts his own pie”

With almost painful clearness he saw the farm. One mighty barn dominated the wheat and cornfields. Its sheer white walls, unpierced with windows, stood square to the four compass-points. Just off the road was a large house with a great brick chimney; next to it the log cabin it had supplanted; between them and the barn, wagon-sheds, tool-sheds, corncribs, a poultry house, and smokehouse made the square complete. Jerry could see hens dusting themselves in the yard. The herd-run leading back to pasture was laced deep in cowpaths. Two old horses dozed against the paddock rails. Pigs were grunting lazily somewhere out of sight. It was still with the midday stillness.