The Big Rock Candy Mountain (27 page)

But it was Bruce she was after. “Eat your oatmeal, Bruce Mason,” she said. Chet felt her there, one foot going, her lips as close over her golden teeth as she could get them. He smelled the faint flowery smell of her lavender beads, and heard her breath coming and going in her nose. Brucie would catch it if he didn't start eating his oatmeal.

“I don't like it,” Bruce said.

Mrs. Mangin's hand came down across Chet's shoulder and took hold of Bruce's. “Eat it!” she said. “You know what I told you.”

“I don't like it,” Bruce said.

“Nonsense. It tastes good.”

“It don't either.”

“Bruce Mason!” Chet ducked until his chin was almost on the table, as Bruce was whisked out of the chair beside him.

“We learn to eat what's put before us,” Mrs. Mangin said, “or we do without.”

“I want some bread!” Bruce said. His voice started low and ended high and loud.

“Eat your oatmeal.”

“No,” Bruce said flatly. He started to bawl as Mrs. Mangin hustled him out of the room.

“Get out,” she said. “Leave the room! Finicky, stubborn, insolent child ...”

The storm cloud moved off and Chet straightened a little. He stole a grin at Win Gabriel, on the other side of Bruce's empty chair. Win was a year older than Chet, and could swear, and knew how to braid shoe laces into watchfobs.

“Damn old crab!” Win said, out of the corner of his mouth.

“Damn old stink!” Chet said.

They snickered, their eyes wary to spot Mrs. Mangin moving like a thunderhead along the back of the girls' table. Chet saw her stop behind Helen Murphy's chair.

“Comb your hair before you come to the table after this!” she said, and moved on.

Across the two tables Helen caught Chet's eye, and hunched over to clap her hand across her mouth the way she had done in bed. Chet looked away. When he looked back she was still watching him. She winked rapidly several times. Both eyes.

With his mouth full of bread and butter, Chet leaned over to Win and whispered, “I saw Helen Murphy without any clothes on.”

“You're a liar,” Win said.

“I ain't a liar. I did so.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“I don't believe it.”

“All right,” Chet said. “Don't believe it then.”

The bell rang to end breakfast, and they grabbed their plates to carry them to the kitchen. Just before the bread and butter plate was taken away Chet hooked a piece for Bruce. Ignoring Win, who trailed along behind him, he went to the door and out into the back yard, where he leaned against the wall and watched for Helen Murphy. Bruce was nowhere around, and before he thought Chet ate the bread and butter. He discovered his loss just before the last two bites, but there was no use saving two bites, so he finished them and licked his fingers.

“I don't believe you seen her at all,” Win said at his elbow.

“Did so.”

“Well, how?”

“Up on the rafters this morning. She just pulled up her nightgown and showed me.”

At that minute Helen came out and went by as if she didn't see them, swinging her hands against the sides of her skirt.

“Shame shame double shame everybody knows your name,” Win said. Helen jerked her head and went around the corner toward the teeter-totters.

“You're just a big liar,” Win said. He stared at the corner where Helen had disappeared. “What's she look like?” he said.

 

A ten o‘clock Mrs. Hemingway came to the door with the brass bell in her hand and waved it up and down,
ka-dang, ka-dang, ka-dang.
In the half minute during which she turned back inside to put down the bell and pick up the big granite dishpan, children materialized from everywhere. Up from the basement, pouring out of the sloping half-doors, stumbling and sprawling on the upper step; out of the orchard where they had been searching for left-over apples; up from the gully behind, where the bigger boys were digging a cave; around the corner from teeter-totters and sandpiles, they came like Indians from an ambush, forty of them in pell-mell haste, three- and four-year-olds galloping, six-year-olds with chests out and fists doubled, girls of all ages shrieking, their pig-tails whipping behind.

Chet had been digging in the cave. He was the first one up the bank, and as he ran he saw figures streaming from orchard and yard. Breakfast was pretty early at St. Anne‘s, and the oatmeal and bread-and-butter didn't hold you long. You were always hungry before Mrs. Hemingway came out on the step to
ka-dang
her bell.

Only the kids who had been playing in the basement beat Chet to the step. He rushed up, tiptoeing, crowding, to get his hands into the dishpan full of buttered crusts, pieces of dry bread left over, sometimes with single bites taken out of them, sometimes whole and untouched and precious. He jammed in close, tramped on a girl's heel, and edged ahead of her when she turned to yell at him. His right hand found the edge of the pan, and he felt Mrs. Hemingway brace herself backward to keep the whole thing from being torn out of her grasp. His first grab netted only a nibbled crust that someone had left under the edge of a plate. Dropping it, unable to see over the packed heads and reaching arms, he felt around frantically, feeling other hands, edges, the soft oily smear of butter. His fingers closed on a large piece of something and he caught a glimpse of it through the tangle. A whole half piece, un-bitten. Before anyone could grab it from him he jerked his arm . down and ducked out of the press, nibbling, smelling the breadbox smell of bread and faint mold and rancid butter.

There were still children hopping up and down, crowding to get close, when Mrs. Hemingway lifted the pan upside down to show that everything was gone, and disappeared inside. Chet stood against the wall with his slice, and as he nibbled around the edge delicately, like a rabbit, he saw Bruce. Bruce hadn't got anything. Chet watched him somberly. In a minute Bruce would start to blubber, prob‘ly, and want a bite. Chet bit into the slice, deeply, just as Bruce saw him.

“Gimme a bite,” Bruce said.

“Go on,” Chet said. “You should of got here sooner.”

“George Rising pushed me,” Bruce said. “I was here early as anything, but he pushed me.” He came close, his eyes steady on the bread in Chet's hand. “Just one bite, Chet,” he said, and reached out. Chet pushed him away.

“You big pig,” Bruce said. “Gimme a bite!”

“Go on, or I'll bust you one in the nose,” Chet said. He turned to avoid Bruce's lunge, and made a threatening motion with his fist.

Helen Murphy, brushing crumbs from her hands, came swinging across the back of the house, humming to herself. She looked right through Chet, smiled as if at something she had thought of, and paused at the cellar doors. Chet watched her, pushing Bruce off with one hand. Win Gabriel was hanging around at the corner.

“Let's see now,” Helen said, her finger against her cheek. “I'll play house, I guess.” She smiled the vague smile that included Chet without recognizing him, and skipped down the stairs.

“I'll tell Ma,” Bruce was saying. “I'll tell Ma you wouldn't give me any.”

“Oh, for the love of Mike,” Chet said. He shoved the remains of the slice at Bruce, wiped his hand across his mouth and went downstairs after Helen. He was on the bottom step when he heard Win Gabriel behind him.

They stood in the doorway a while watching Helen play house with two other girls. Helen was bossy, and she paid no attention to Chet and Win. “I'm the mama,” she said. “You've got to be my two kids, and when I come home and find you messing up the kitchen, I spank you and then we get supper and then I'm the papa, and I come home ...”

“You can't be mama and papa both,” one of the girls said. “I want to be papa.”

“You will not,” Helen said. “First I'm mama, and then I'm papa.”

Win looked at Chet. “My God,” he said, .like a grown man, and spit on the floor.

They climbed on boxes and jumped for the pipes running along under the floor. Win caught a pipe that was hot, and let go with a yelp. He hit a box and sprawled halfway across the floor.

“You're terrible,” Chet said. “Watch a great acrobat.” He jumped and caught a pipe and hung warbling, his eyes on Helen and the girls. But they still squabbled. Helen had a rag-plugged basin they were playing was a kettle, and another girl was tugging at it.

“I'll tell Mrs. Mangin,” the girl said.

“Go ahead and be a tattle-tale.”

“I
will!”

“Go head. Go on and tattle.”

The other girl started to cry and fight, and Helen pushed her so she fell down. Then both the other girls went out, the one crying and saying she was going to tell Mrs. Mangin and Mrs. Hemingway and everybody.

“Bawl-baby titty-mouse

Laid an egg in our house!” Helen said after her.

Win jumped and swung beside Chet, swinging with his knees bent, making faces. Helen put down her basin and put her hands behind her back. “You two are silly,” she said.

Win dropped down, and Chet followed him. “I know what you did this morning,” Win said.

“What?” Helen said, daring him. “You don't know anything.”

Win jerked her pigtail and they wrestled. In a minute he had her backed against the cement wall, penning her in with his arms. She giggled. “Chet ran away,” she said.

“Aw, I did not,” said Chet. “I heard Mrs. Hemingway coming.”

“I bet you we wouldn't run away if you did it again,” Win said. She stuck out her tongue at him, but she was smiling, watching Chet.

“I bet you would. I just bet you would!”

“Like fun,” Win said. “I double-dare you.”

Helen watched them both. She sucked her thumb briefly, looking up from under her eyelashes. She winked both eyes. “Not for nothing,” she said. “You have to too.”

Win looked at Chet, fished uncertainly in his pockets. “You're scared,” he said.

“I'm not either scared,” she said. “You do it and I will.”

Win promptly slipped his overall straps down and let the overalls fall around his ankles. He was not wearing any underwear. Helen looked at him slyly, two little white teeth hooked over her lower lip. “Chet too,” she said.

A glaze was over Chet's eyes. He moved jerkily, afraid and ashamed and shaken with excitement. “You first,” he said.

“No. I won't till you do.”

Through eyes strangely misted, Chet looked at her shining eyes, her red cheeks, her teeth hooked over her lip. Her breath whistled a little out-of the corner of her mouth. “You're afraid,” she said.

“Oh, I ain't either afraid!”

“Well, do it then.”

“Come on,” Win said, standing in the puddle of his overalls. “You're both a-scared. I'm the only one ain't a-scared.”

Excitement grew in Chet until he could hardly breathe. Just as Helen was tossing her head and turning away in scorn he whipped down the overall straps and fumbled at the buttons of his underwear. He saw Helen reach up under her dress and pull her black drawers down, saw her hands gather the skirt and lift. Then he saw her face change, her eyes fix in a frightened stare. Her hands still helplessly held up the skirt, but her mouth dropped as if she were going to yell. Win jerked around with a squawk, grabbed for his overalls and started to run, and Chet did the same. But there was nowhere to run to. There was only one entrance to the basement room, and Mrs. Mangin was standing in that.

 

He was glad they had sent him out into the hall. He didn't want to stay in the company parlor and have Mrs. Mangin look at him as if she could just barely keep from vomiting, and he didn't like to see Ma sitting there. He hated Mrs. Mangin. That morning after she caught them she had taken them all up into the kitchen, just dragged them up with their clothes still hanging off them, and turned them up one by one and beaten them on the bare bottom with a yardstick. Chet wished he'd had as much nerve as Win, to fight her, even if he had got beaten over the head with the stick the way Win had. He wondered where Win was now, and Helen too. Prob‘ly still locked up, the way he had been all day without anything to eat.

The hall still held the smell of supper, and he swallowed. He wished he had a belt to cinch tight, the way Indians did. Or he wished he had, right in his overalls pocket, a great big chocolate bar with peanuts in it. The vision and the taste came together, so delicious and overpowering that he felt in the pocket almost hopefully. There were only four slingshot rocks, a rubber band, a couple of carpet tacks he had been saving to put on seats in school, and an empty brass cartridge case.

Sitting on the hall seat in the dark he took the cartridge and blew in it experimentally. It made a thin, breathy whistle. He wished he had a gun. He'd put in this bullet and aim it right through the wall at where Mrs. Mangin was sitting inside talking to Ma, and he'd shoot it off and shoot a hole right through Mrs. Mangin. He aimed the cartridge, squinting. Bang, he said. Bang, bang, bang! There ... I guess you won't ever lick me again, you old stink of a Mrs. Mangin.

His bottom was still sore from the whipping, and he shifted to get comfortable. He would be an Indian, and some morning he would come to the door with his gun under his blanket and say to Mrs. Mangin, “Last week you spanked Chet and Win and Helen right in the kitchen in front of everybody, and you're always going around thumping kids with your pencil. Well, I'll fix you.” Then he would shoot her with his cartridge and whip out his scalping knife and snip off her scalp, zing, and pull out her gold teeth and sell them and give the money to the kids to buy marbles and candy with.