Chapter II: Part 2

He kicked at the grass turf, idly flexed his arm muscles, feeling them with his broad hands, one and then the other. “You know what Mr. Brinker does, Ellie? He pens his pigs under the horse barn where it’s raised off the ground. And he puts chickens in batteries up in the loft by the hay. Beats me. I never saw the like.” Christian was plucking a grass stalk to chew. “Made his boys a windmill. A little one. Grinds real corn for their banties and rabbits.” The young man was excited by the girl. There had been her coarse words thrust at him in spite when he jostled her as they first met. And now her ease, snuggled in the grass by the strawberry bed, her face slightly flushed. “It beats me, that way Mr. Brinker does.”

In the silence that drew down, the hum of bees working the young weed blooms vibrated. The dog scented an animal trace and darted away in pursuit. The careless voice of a male thrush was dropping like liquid pebbles in the sweetened air, then it ceased. Ellen was holding clover leaves for the rabbit to chew; she was content.

“I thought you’d like a rabbit, Ellie. It wasn’t much bother getting it for you,” he bragged. Christian had inquired of Brinkers about her family, heard they were unfriendly, cut themselves off from most of their neighbors. Mr. Gaddy kept a close hand on his two daughters. That was what Mr. Brinker had claimed. I’ll bet she’s never been kissed.

Ellen was lifting her eyes, gray, gold-flecked. “I’m beholden for it.”

He spoke as though he had practiced what he said, deliberate. “I’m kind of sweet on you, honey.” He tossed aside the grass blade quickly, leaning down, his tan face darkened. He was laying a hand on her soft cheek, putting his mouth taut and firm against hers.

Surprised, wide of eye, she looked at his closed lids. The strangeness was repellent but for a moment curiosity snared her. Then she remembered Maria’s veiled hints and Anton’s heavy predictions. She spilled the rabbit from her and shoved the young man so he stumbled back. “Now get away.”

“Come on, Ellie,” he was crying, “bet you’ve never been kissed.”

“Yes, I have,” she lied.

“You got a boy friend?”

“No.” She was getting up. “And rabbit’s lost. Jack’ll get him.”

“Let him go. I heard your daddy won’t let you out. Is that so?”

“I’m going to find rabbit.” She hunted in the brush, coming on the tame creature nibbling timothy by the grapevine posts. She lifted and caressed it, stony-featured.

“Goodbye now,” he was calling.

She breathed, motionless, “My pa would so let me out.” She turned to see him walking to the fence, watched while he laid his hand on it. She called suddenly. “Here he is. I found him.”

Christian leaped the fence and laughed, shouting, “Should I come next Saturday?”

“I don’t care.” He waved as he was disappearing, and she shrugged. “Who cares?”

* * * * *

The week moved forward. She asked Anton, “Could I trade some of the strawberries to Grady Love for a dress-goods piece? I’d like a new one. Of dotted Swiss.”

He frowned. “What foolishness, girl.”

“I’d make Frankie one, too. With ruffles. For mass.”

Anton was caught and reconsidered. “I suppose you could. Crops are doing well without hit don’t get dry. When you pick, hold back five-six baskets.”

The next Saturday a thunderstorm held sway. Ellen was pacing restive about the house, at last ran through the storm to curl up drenched by her three goats. “I don’t care if he doesn’t come. What’s he to me? And we need this gully-washer for the fields.” Rain thrashed afresh on the woodshed roof. “Reckon he might walk down next week, Penny? If he’s not forgot by then.”

The storm cleared in the early evening. As she was hurrying through the delayed feeding a rainbow emerged, spanning the hills. She stopped in her chores, forgetting all but the opalescent arch in the setting of summer green. “There. That’s a sight. I set my bow in the cloud for a token between Me and the earth. Everlasting, He said.”

In the moist heat that followed the downpour, the strawberries began to ripen quickly. Ellen bartered with Grady Love and showed Frankie the ribbons the storekeeper had thrown in to match the two lengths of cloth. “That’s a dollar forty cents worth if you had the cash.” Ellen cut and stitched, Frankie set up the ironing board to press.

That night Anton nodded as the younger girl was standing before him in a yellow-dotted dress, a deep ruffle flaring around the boot tops, a yellow ribbon plaited into the round neckline. Anton pulled her to his lap. “This redheaded poppet’s so fair. Makes me wish I was her beau come courting.”

And Ellen, holding the image of Christian, felt a lesser pain as she watched them frolic. The next day though, she was wearing her drab gingham. “He won’t come. It’s been two weeks. He’ll ne’er think to come.” She walked out to the berry patch. “I’ll just see if they’re still plentiful.”

Christian was astride the rail fence. He waved, “Got rained out last week.”

“I came but to look at the berries.” She was approaching the fence.

He had a red-painted can that held a plant, the heart-shaped leaves mottled white along the veins, the flowers purple. “Here.” He was offering it. “Old lady Brinker grows them. She called it a primrose. Her kitchen’s full of flowers and vines. Too many for me. She even had her old man and me to nail up boxes outside the windows and fill them with rotted manure. And us with hay to cut. And corn to work.”

Ellen was undone by the gift. “It can live in my loft window.”

“I never saw such folks for decorations.”

“It calls to mind the shooting-stars that grow in swamp spots. You know them?” The flush lay upon her.

He jumped down from the fence, began to tell stories he’d gleaned over the past days. While he was speaking he looked away and took her hand in his. She kept her hold on the red can. They leaned back against the wood rails. He was telling about the studhorse Brinker had just purchased. “It’s a red roan Belgian. Stands near eighteen hands. I never saw a stallion to beat him for class. And light on his feet like a little filly.”

“There. I’d love to see him,” Ellen whispered. She let her hand lie soft in his.

As if it were a usual thing he put his arm on her tanned neck, under the yellow hair. She stirred restless, the plant in one arm. “Tell me about your folks, Ellie. Where they come from?”

“My great grandsir was from o’er the waters. My Uncle Garland tells how he traveled across the east Kentucky mountains. He killed elk that lived in the forests there in olden days. He saw giant eagles too, and poison scorpions.”

“What’s your old man like?” He withdrew his arm, threw himself on the grass, his head against the lowest rail. He was frowning.

“Oh I don’t know. Say, I near forgot. I made my sister and me each a new dress this past week.” She looked down at him. “They turned out proud.”

“Why didn’t you wear yours?”

“I didn’t want to. Pa might see. I’ll wear it to mass though, tomorrow.”

“What’s your old man like, Ellie? Does he still spank you?” He slid down in the grass, staring skyward. “I’d just like to meet him. Sometimes those crabby old fellows make me sick.”

She saw his eyes that were gazing at the clouds angrily, his fair hair and new-shaved face. She sighed.

“I could have killed my father,” he was saying, “trying to chain me to his store. Before I’d run that place for him, I tell you I’d go to jail.”

There was his stubborn wide mouth.

“There’s a circus coming to New Hope next week, Ellie. I heard it’s got an elephant. Want to go? Mr. Brinker’ll give me the pickup to use.” He stood up from the grass. “Let’s go ask your daddy now. I’m set on going,” he warned.

“We’ll ask Ma,” she said quickly. “Pa’ll likely be in the field at this hour.”

“Wait a minute.” He was reaching for her hand again. “Look, what’s the matter with one kiss?”

“Well.”

“You’re afraid. It’s true. You never have been kissed.”

“Yes, I have too.” So she let his rigid wide lips bear upon hers. His nose was in the way, and her arm that hugged the primrose. He pressed against her. She was staring at his eyelids, cold. I don’t see as that’s such a great thing. To write songs about and to whisper on.

“Now you like me, Ellie. Don’t you?” He was triumphant.

“Oh my, yes.” But she felt cheated. He thinks it’s a great thing.

They were crossing the field to the farm lane, walking up to the house. Maria was inside the screen door, peering at them. “I thought it was peddler. He’s past due,” she muttered and turned to go.

“Wait, Ma. This is Christian Ay. He asked me to go along with him and the Brinkers to a circus at New Hope next Saturday. Can I go, Ma?”

“As far as I care you can.” Maria was disappearing into the house recesses.

Christian looked at Ellen, demanding in a low tone, “Why’d you say Brinkers were going, Ellie? I’m taking you.”

“I’ve got to own I was afraid she’d say no.” Her eyes glowed.

* * * * *

When Frankie learned Ellen was going on an outing, she waited until they were undressing for bed. She spoke in the fluttering candlelight, her voice a child’s, “You got a beau?”

“No.”

“Yes you have, Ellie.”

“I’m just going along with the Brinkers.”

“Pa ne’er liked Brinker.”

“I know.” It was a spear of pain.

“What’s that boy like?”

“What do you mean?”

“What does he do?”

“He talks to me.”

“I hate there being boys and girls and e’er a thing jumbled. Why can’t it be smooth and all the same?”

“I don’t know. It’s the way of it. Like the priest says, God made it so.” They sat on their beds rebellious, disturbed. “I don’t like it either.” But Ellen was looking over at the new plant in her window.

In her heart a small edge of terror would reign throughout the week. But Anton paid her no heed; he ignored her proposed trip in his concern with the successful cutting and hauling in of the first hay, with the sows that each farrowed a basket of tiny piglets. When Christian drove the pickup into the yard, her father was at the barn. Ellen sped down the porch steps, Jack barking wildly. Christian wore a red shirt, store-creased, and black pants held up with worn green suspenders. His hair was slicked damp, the strong artificial odor of violet pomade pervading the cab. His face was haughty and alien. He seemed somehow shorter and broader. She sat back with a satisfied sigh, smoothing the fullness of the new blue-speckled dress. Her shoes were buffed and had new laces. She had on her best white stockings. Her hair hung down loose and in her handkerchief, scented with sweet fern and balsam needles, was a small comb. They spoke little. Christian kept his arm on the window ledge. He said, “That your new dress?”

“Yes.”

“You sew good there.” He wheeled the truck into a great dusty lot. They drove under a pasteboard sign, CURCIS PARKING HERE. Christian paid an old man a nickel. They hurried toward the huge colorful entrance arch. “Let’s go, Ellie.” He strode to the ticket booth, she followed, and they went in.

Through the noisy carnival air, hand in hand, they were wandering. Christian was devouring peanuts, sack after sack. Ellen licked a mound of pink spun sugar in a paper cone. “It’s like eating a cloud. It melts to nothing.”

He was laughing at her, glad he was with Ellen after all. They went to see the tent show, sitting on hard benches in the close-packed crowd, the dust soft under their feet. He held her hand in his lap. In the ring horses thundered by, rifles cracked, the King of the Cowboys on a graceful white horse, waved his flapping hat. A baby elephant followed by a tall one with a torn ear and an odorous camel, ambled around the ring and out again, their progress accompanied by spasmodic hand-clapping. A cage with a sleeping lion was trundled by a pair of brown oxen. The ringmaster bawled through a megaphone. In smoldering heat aerialists soared and swung as band music softened and swayed the crowd’s amazement. Ellen leaned forward.

They roamed the grounds later, eating grilled hot dogs, drinking mugs of high-foamed root beer drawn from an orange barrel. They stood before the limp-maned lion’s cage. “Sure looks mangy, doesn’t he, Ellie? He’s twenty years if a day.”

A group of boys came up to throw stones and poke through the metal bars with striped circus canes, after a while meandering noisily away. “Poor soul,” said Ellen, “those youngens shouldn’t ill at him that way.”

“Now there’s the midway, Ellie. Come on.” He was pulling her with him to the wide grassy passage bordered with peep shows and circus sights. A sinuous middle-aged woman was wriggling on a platform beneath a glaring sign, EVENING IN PARIS. A barker coaxed, “Ten cents. One dime! See the girlies. Imported from Pah-ree. Ten cents to see them revealed in their natural beauty. Hurry. Hurry! One dime. They take it off. The Parisian beauties.”

“Let’s see the strip tease. I dare you.”

But Ellen was shaking her head. “Double dare you to see the two-headed baby instead.”

“Double dares go first. All right.”

They viewed an albino raccoon, a six-legged sheep, the tallest dwarf, a mass of twining poisonous snakes. They stopped before the India-rubber man and the fat lady. “Oh Christian, my teacher, Talithie Gentry, was bigger than her. Easy.”

Christian paid the armless man a penny to write their names on a card in elaborate script, holding the pen in supple toes. Christian was pocketing the card. “This’ll remind me, Ellie, after you’ve gone.” He hitched his suspenders cockily.

Then they were in the high-seated cab of the truck again, the narrow tires jouncing in the hot dust. Christian was whistling above the racket of the motor. He was warbling, partly off pitch:

When the m-m-m-moon shines
On the c-c-c-cow shed
I’ll be waiting for you by the k-k-k-kitchen door

His spirits were high.

I’ve got a cute little husband
Who’s just twenty-three
He’s just three years older than me
He goes out every night
And gets on a tight
And leaves the dear baby with me

He was pulling her to his side, driving with his arm about her. He was caressing her hair and moving a hard palm from her throat to her breasts, yielding and white under the stiff cloth. She was leaning into the comfort of his body in the heat as they droned over neglected clay roads. Clumps of black-eyed susans lined the ditches, and butterfly weeds bearing ragged clusters of orange flowers. No birds sang in the hot afternoon sun. Her thoughts began to drift. Without fear she considered, Pa’ll beat me, it’s away past time for chores. “Is it late, Christian? Penny must be watching for me.”

“Is that your sister?” He spoke, absent, his hand pressing upon her breast.

Ellen shook her head. “It’s hot.” She drew away from his hold, moving to lean out the window.

After a pause he said, “You tired, Ellie? Want me to stop in the shade along the roadside?” It came thickly. He reached for her hand, slowing the truck. In back of them a horn sounded and a red automobile with an open top swerved around them to disappear in swirls of dust.

“You better take me home. My chores are waiting.” Her face was a soft oval, her hand lay snared in his, feeling the rough calluses.

“All right, then. I only asked on account of Brinker milks late. Said he wouldn’t look for me back till after six.” There was silence. Then he said, “Naturally you do what you please.” He laughed, dropping her hand. “Sure do like Mr. Brinker. Not a whit like my daddy. The other day I hollered down from the top of the silo, how much feed do I give them and he says, fork her down till you get tired twice.” He spoke animated, striking the window ledge.

“Why don’t you like your pa?” Ellen asked.

“He’s a skinflint. You bet we had a fight when I said I was going to work for Brinker. Had to promise him half my pay.” He snorted. “Me, a man grown. Over twenty and turning a part of my pay to him. That sonofabitch.” He lapsed into thought. “Say, I didn’t mean to swear before a girl.”

“That’s all right.”

The truck was stopping before the yellow farmhouse. Ellen opened the door. “I’m obliged, Christian. I won’t forget the strange beasts and the people on the high swings. And everything.” She sensed the finality of the afternoon.

He had her hand all at once. “Look, I’ll walk down to see you Saturday, Ellie.” He was tender again suddenly, as if the magic of the day moving already toward nostalgia smote him.

She went to the house, that final gesture lingering. The spotted thrush winged to the grapevines where it hid its nest. Jack came bounding up, tail wagging, neck arched in pride over the wild rabbit in his mouth. “I see you caught your supper,” she whispered.

The town teacher’s buggy was in the lane, his mare hitched to the post by the well. Every Saturday he came to give Frankie a piano lesson. Anton had gone to his rooming house two years ago, waited in the hall, a round black hat atop his balding head. “I be Anton Gaddy,” he had mumbled. “I’ve heard there are ladies that make a name for themselves playing before crowds that come to her. I’ve heard tell those kind are honored and not deemed lightly in the eyes of rich folk. My daughter is to play a piano I bought her in such a wise. Can you give lessons? I got the money.” The town teacher had found his task difficult. The girl was contrary in a sly way and had but small talent. She simply obeyed her father’s will.

Ellen was listening to the piano as she mounted the steps. From the kitchen wafted the acrid odor of pot greens Maria was canning. Ellen stepped within the screen. Anton’s figure towered from out of the fawning shadows. “To your room, girl. Hum.”

“Am I late, Pa?”

She was ascending the stairs, flagging, slow. The man’s footsteps coming after were soft as the sweep of an owl’s wing, gentle in pursuit. “You’re late.”

She stalled halfway. “Pa?” The pain was there, starting, in her throat.

“Thou shalt beat them with a rod. I’ve said it. Mind, girl.”

“You knew I was going.”

She went up. He was closing the door. He gripped a belt, the wide leather strip dangling by a brass home-fashioned buckle. He would wear this belt on Sundays with his black suit. “There. Town teacher met the Brinkers trading in Bethel.”

She waited then, mute, and the hurt was high in her throat. She had trained herself to silence since she was a small child, pitting herself against his spirit, persuading herself he did it for love. He wants me to be good.

“So they weren’t at that gauded circus. It’s e’er so. You be a liar.” He was striking her, whispering harsh, gray eyes narrow, “Be you whoring so soon, girl? Here’s a generation not washed of their filthiness. I’ll set the priest at you. Hear?”

The door shut sharply. He had gone. Ellen was standing anchored as her throat ached. His violence directed against her, aside from the cut of the strap, would make her sicken and she was ruling it down until she would be at peace with herself. She waited, finally moving to hang her crumpled dress on the ridgepole and put aside her dust-grimed shoes. Her stockings like white moss, were in a heap on the floor and she caught sight of the pale pillar of her body moving in the mirror that was fastened to the door.

She was hurrying to the barn then to linger over the pair of suckling kids and tend the round of her chores. Clouds were lowering in the moist ether that rumbled before an advancing evening storm. She remembered lines from a song Christian Ay had said people sang in Louisville.

When I go toot-toot-tooting
Down the street
In my little Ford automobile

All that night rain fell on the receiving earth. The morning was humid and portentous. In the earth’s vitals, seeds were bursting in slow presage and primeval animal movement was rife. Above ground, bees were snoring, working their hoards, minute midges piped thinly, bottle-flies glutted at dung heaps or in company with spotted orange butterflies savored rotten things. In the pond the duck had struck and killed a fragile peeper frog, while from the woods edge a red dog fox looked on at her, his button eyes bright with greed.

In the kitchen while dawn faded, Ellen was slicing bacon with a long knife whetted to a narrow blade. She had brought the molded slab in from the smokehouse. Peeled potatoes were boiling in a pot, a pan of biscuits rose and browned in the oven. She started bacon frying in a spider and measured coffee out of a jar unscrewed from the grinder on the wall. She spooned it into water bubbling in a chipped tall pot. Frankie laid out plates, plum preserves, buttermilk, ketchup, a stone jar of butter. Both girls wore sleeveless petticoats, white stockings and church shoes. Later they would get into the new dresses. “Ellie, did you notice if that camel swallowed like a horse or chewed a cud?”

“There, I forgot to look.” Ellen went to the well for water. She met Anton coming from the barn with Maria’s pail of milk. She held her hand over the dark welt on her upper arm though his eyes weren’t on her. She followed him to the kitchen, lifting out the bacon, breaking eggs into the iron spider. She crumpled an eggshell in the coffee to settle the grounds and dumped the hot potatoes into a brown bowl. The Gaddys and Sam Offut grouped themselves at the stout table. They poured ketchup on the potatoes and eggs, drank steaming cups of coffee, ate heavily, for the workdays were arduous. They would arise by candlelight, seldom were done by nightfall with the wheel of chores.

Then Sam brought the buckwagon around, Blueberry and Moll hitched to it. “Hurry up, ooman,” Anton was saying to Maria, “we’ll be late to mass.”

His wife climbed up to the narrow seat edged with an iron rail, and sat beside him. The girls were hiking themselves on the end of the wagon bed, sitting on a rug, backs to their parents, feet dangling. As they swung out onto Sweetincreek Road Anton spoke over his shoulder, “Your nannies can go to the meadow and graze with the cows, girl. Those yeanlings are old enough now.”

“I’ll take them down tomorrow, Pa.” Joy surged within her at his words, and the hotness of the season swung in to ripen grain in the favored fields and bring flowers to bud and bloom as the fragrant undulating grace of the farm lands moved toward harvest.

4

The sun beat down like a scourge. Men moved listlessly, driving themselves and their draft beasts. Fowl with panting beaks crouched in dusty bowls they fashioned in yard corners with their fanning wings. By flickering lantern light before the sun rose, the milking was completed. Ellen and Frankie were called upon to help at stripping the udders of the overabundant animals. The first streams on the pail bottom would whine high, the tone lowering as the pail filled, becoming deep and sonorous until foam ran down the pail sides. Then it was time to pour the milk through squares of flannel into ten-gallon cans that would be placed in the hewn-log water trough to cool, awaiting pickup by the dairy truck. In the half-dark the cows shuffled to pasture, Jack nipping their heels. Ellen would follow and close the gate. The sides of the bovines were oily, their breath fragrant, eyes moist. By early morning their stomachs would be distended with lush summer grass. Then throughout the sweltering day they would lie in the shade of the woods, chewing their cuds.

Anton and Sam would down a heavy breakfast, eat plates of eggs, Ellen cracking a dozen in the skillet for them. They reached for more coffee cake and bread and slabs of cold meat. After they ate they walked stolid to the fields, working corn rows with cultivator and team, mowing and raking and hauling in towering wagonloads of timothy and soybean and clover hay. They mended fence lines, repeatedly repaired harness and machine, sharpened saw, adz and ax, scythe, knife and cutting blades. They would throw from the fields the larger stones that cropped up under the bite of the share. Some fields had a rock outgrowth too large to be removed and it must stand bared and alone, machines and men circling it. At mid-morning and afternoon Frankie would search until she found the men in a field. She brought them a stone pitcher of water spiced with vinegar or a ginger stick. They mopped their rough-bristled faces with red kerchiefs, and drank. Sam was shirtless, his overall straps cutting his scrawny sunburned shoulders. Anton, powerful upper body covered to protect his freckled skin, had soaked his black sateen shirt with perspiration. His large arms shone red and glistening. The odor of sweat and earth rose strong about the men.

“Before God, Sam. Can’t figure how a little fart like you can put in a day’s work alongside me. Haw.”

“E’er watch a banty cock, Mester Gaddy? It’ll outlast your Barred Rock rooster any day of the week. Not so much of me to get wore out.”

The Gaddy women were laboring too, bringing in grapes and berries, beans and tomatoes by the pail and bushel. They canned and dried and sugared down the procession of largess that moved through the kitchen. There was more milk than the dairy would buy and Maria would skim the surplus for cream, send Ellen to trade the butter she churned. It was dirt cheap in this season. The remaining thin milk was thrown to squealing young pigs in wood troughs, foul-smelling in the reek of heat. Milk would sour swiftly, spots of yellow-green milkstone forming on the sides of pails. Ellen was directed to scrape it clean with a knife. Cheeses were made, some to cure amber and hard, hanging in the smokehouse, others to be stirred daily in stone crocks until the white curd turned yellow, the strong odor left, and it became bland. There was an abundance of cottage cheese with clabber cream and chopped green onions stirred in, or a seasoning of herbs that grew by the houseside. Maria had a lavish hand when it came to seasoning.

“I reckon I got such a heavy hand because my mam always was put to it to get enough for us to eat. She’d dig chicory roots for coffee and gather wild thyme and herbs. Pap cut lumber to sell to the railroad and worked tobacco. He saved e’er a penny he was paid and gave her none.” Maria sighed, “Mam found out I ate stones once. Seemed there was a satisfaction when the food was gone, to a white pebble, smooth like a bit of lard. I just recollect.”

Christian would come on Saturdays at dusk. Ellen met him covertly at the usual place and they ate a few lingering strawberries from the burned-out plants, then went to lie in the shade. He was boasting about the gigantic machine that Brinker had rented to harvest his wheat. “That combine’s some invention. Finished the whole field in a day. The bags are stacked in the crib. By heck, Brinker grows good wheat. We counted twenty grains on some ears. That’s forty bushel to the acre.” He was browned, his white teeth were flashing and he swaggered. “In the afternoon old lady Brinker drove the pickup out to the field with a freezer can of ice cream and three new-made cakes. Tell you, that woman’s my ideal of a wife. Spread a white cloth and brought silver and plates and a tin can of lemonade. We sure polished it off.” He reflected. “In the lemonade she had a chunk of ice floating.”

“Wish I had a piece of ice big as my head. Purely I do.” Ellen looked away, sighing in the stifled air scarce cooled by the setting of the sun. “It seems like all that’s to be garnered is trying to ruin before we can get hold of it to store it against the winter.”

Christian would stay with her only a short while because he was roused now while it was yet dark to begin the long day. Ellen spoke softly with him but when he laid his hand in the hollow below her throat or upon the dress over her thighs as he had done in the truck, she was afraid and made him laugh with her foolishness and coaxed him from his wont.

Sam Offut had failed to appear for milking one morning. Sam lived with his wife a short way down the road in a shack he owned; he would take his first two meals with the Gaddys and supper at his own table. Anton was hard put this morning, even with the help of the girls, to finish the chores on time, and sat down late to breakfast. As he was arising, the hired man appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed, with an air of not having washed or slept. Sam was saying evenly as he took the chair across from Anton, “Ran my old ooman off last night. Those two were laying there still when I came home. On my bed. That whorish Eadie. I ne’er saw that particular peddler before. I could have killed them but I only ran them off.” He speared a slice of ham with the sharp knife. “I’ve doubted many a year now, since my youngens are grown and gone, if I be the daddy to more of the six than the first-born.”

Anton said shortly, “If you’ve got a mind after this, Sam, you can take supper here. Come on to the barn when you’re done.”

“I’m beholden.” Sam was eating like one famished.

During that day Ellen marveled at little Sam Offut, middle-aged, leathery-skinned, smoldering as he went through the days at his wife Eadie, bedding with other men. She wondered at how it took the white heat of August to kindle him into action.

When Jack was driving the cows in from the pasture one night, the white kid was missing. Penny and her young would always be in the lead in their anxiety to reach Ellen, who would have an evening tidbit set out for them in the woodshed—apple peels or bread crusts or carrots. Penny and the brown kid were standing in wait at the woodshed door. As pangs smote her, Ellen bolted down the lane to the field. The dog barked, running ahead. She searched the fence lines, from afar spied the bit of white, the buckling strangled in the fence where he had tried to slip through. He had hung himself. Ellen, extricating the stiffened body, met death for the first time intimately. She fought over her loss in the solitary field. “Oh you were my dear droll poppet that followed me.”

Ever in coming weeks when she thought of the clownish yeanling, tears came and her throat caught in anguish so complex it was nearly joy. She never forgot the death of the white kid. Its impact made a mark on her like scars she could point to on her body. “Here the sickle cut into my leg when I cleaned the path one day. And here that spotty hound bit my wrist when he had that fight with Jack.”

In her new-found anxiety for her two remaining goats, she kept them from the field, penning them in the barnyard and bringing them kitchen scraps and meadow grass. In their cleverness, though, they slipped through the fence to nibble in the garden and wander at will. Anton discovered them girdling bark from a stripling peach tree with their sharp teeth. He threatened, “To pasture with those tormented creatures where they belong. And if they be the cause of further botherment, girl, I’ll knock their heads in gladly and butcher them. Mind now.”

So Ellen went down the lane, Penny solemn at her heels, the doeling trotting last. Laughing at their comical air, the girl began to run. They snorted and sprang after her abandoned, striking their little hoofs sharply on the dry ground, unconscious of dignity or the heat of August. She left them blatting disconsolate at the meadow gate. In days to follow she would go to the barnyard fence, straining her eyes for a glimpse of the two small does amid the drove of cows.

* * * * *

There came the hour when Christian and Anton met. Though Ellen would slip out to see Christian when he walked down the road on his afternoon off, she had not mustered the boldness to bring him to the house. Anton never spoke of the young man though he knew Ellen met with him. One time he had watched them for a while from behind the oak by the berry patch. He saw his daughter talking while she switched flies with a branch of leaves, and the young man, brooding, leaned upon the fence. Anton could see nothing amiss and pulling on his pipe, went to listen to his favorite practicing at the piano.

Ellen had joined Christian in the orchard near the brook. Her goats finished browsing and lay back to back in the grass chewing their cuds in their rapid dainty way. Ellen was sitting on a fallen log. She wore an old dress that fitted her budding form too tightly. She laid in her hair white meadow rue and yellow oxeye daisies. She bowed her head to one side over the field flowers in her hands and knew, dreaming, how fair she was.

Christian lay on his stomach in the grass by her, catching her mood, knowing he’d never seen the girl so fetching. The lines of her long face were soft in a frame of flaxen hair. He spoke suddenly, “I got another letter from Mama.”

“Oh?”

“She mad again. My sister had a chance to get married and she turned it down. Mama says Rose wants bigger fish.”

“Fish?”

“Mr. Johnson’s only got a house and money. That’s not enough for my sister. He’d have to be a millionaire.”

“Well.”

“And she says Daddy gets pains nowadays. Has to lie down. He won’t see a doctor.”

“He’ll be all right, don’t you reckon?”

“He hates to pay a doctor bill.” He reached over to cover her bare foot with his palm. “You’re so sweet, Ellie.”

“Sweet as Miss Sabatha Withers, boy?” Anton was standing before them in the long grass. His overalls were ragged, the sleeves to his black shirt had been cut below the shoulders so his heavy biceps showed. His chin was thrust out, his body pulled erect in the habit of short men. A straw hat was settled upon his sparse hair. He was chewing a quid of tobacco.

Christian jumped to his feet. The two of them were the same height. “Hello, Mr. Gaddy. How do you do? I’m Christian Ay.”

“So hit seems.” The man spat, looked about as though searching for someone. “Hum. You didn’t bring your lady friend with you?”

“What’s that?”

Anton tilted his head. “And how be Dutchman Brinker these days? Haw. He still got the notion to stall his beasts on all the storeys of his barns? I heard he penned some shoats to fatten in his loft and they grew so grand and big they broke clean through the planking. Is that a fact?”

“I never heard of it, sir,” Christian was cold. “Mr. Brinker’s a fine farmer, I can tell you. But you got a nice place here, sir.” He was nodding, appeasing, as he flung his hand in a rude movement.

“This place was here, boy, being worked by my sir when Dutchman’s pa was setting on his ass in the old country.”

Ellen dropped her head, repeating over and again the Nicene Creed for her lover snared in Anton’s rough hand. Like an enchantress she evoked the only charm she knew. From whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

Anton squirted the brown juice again and was moving away. “Feeding is in an hour, girl,” he threw over his shoulder.

“All right, Pa.” She closed her eyes. Holy Virgin it had worked.

Christian eyed her, rebellious, scorn in his young face. “What a dirty crabby guy even if he is your old man. I’d just like to push that bristly smart-aleck face of his in. I can’t stand a bossy fellow like that.”

“Hush.” Ellen got up with sudden despair. “Now what’s he talking of Sabatha Withers for? Who’s she?”

“A girl I happen to know in Bethel. I’ll go see her or anyone I want.” He shouted it, striking at her father. And at himself for his intimidation. “And any time I want.”

A quarrel had uncoiled before they were aware. Ellen leaned back on the log, whispering, gray eyes slitted, “I don’t give a neinse. Run to that poor-trash thing.”

His short legs spread, his high cheekbones pale, he was storming, “And if I never see you or your stupid old man again, it’ll be too soon. I’m going to see someone who appreciates me.” He threw back his head and stalked away, cutting across to the road.

Ellen stayed awhile in the tall grass. As she wept the fury shed itself. Bereft, she went up the hill through the field where the boar was now penned. Her goats and Jack were trailing after. The old red boar regarded her from a little distance, his distrust palpable. “There’s a mean hog, Jack,” she whispered.

She neared the barnyard and heard Anton, “Hitch Blue and get him out here, Sam.” A spotted heifer was stretched neat a group of slender walnuts, bawling intermittently. Anton was bent over her. She had been due to bear her calf any day, was a daughter of his best milker, a pride to him. While Ellen watched, her hand resting on the yard gate, Sam was running from the barn, leading Blueberry. The harness jingled as the buckskin came at a trot. “Whaw,” Sam cried roughly.

The two conferred. The horse waited on them, head down, hipshot, a hind leg at rest on the tip of the hoof. They hitched the tugs to a rope looped about the head of the unborn calf just within the dam. Anton drove the horse forward slowly, dragging the cow. Then he halted, took off his straw hat, scratching his head. “Hell, hit’s drying out. I vow, Sam, the first one’s always too tight. It’s like the wine corks in the kegs. Once get them started and they come out easy. Let’s try those trees o’er there, now. Gee-whup.” Again the traces tightened and the tired young cow was hauled through stones and red dust in the broil of heat. They untied the lines, rehitched them through a gap between two walnut trunks. “Haw-there,” ordered Anton and while the beast bellowed, wedged upon the tree boles, her calf was torn from her womb, limp and wet.

Slipping through the gate, Ellen skirted the barnyard and hurried to the house. She changed her dress and spoke quietly to Maria, “Spotty had her calf. Pa had to take it from her. It’s a pretty one.” She returned, saw the heifer was on her feet, placenta hanging. Delicate head down, tossing her well-formed tiny horns, she guarded the calf she licked nervously.

That night the heat lifted slightly. Ellen was wakeful within her loft-room. She slipped downstairs into the sultry dark. Barefoot, she walked with Jack to the woodshed, freeing Penny and Rhodie. They wandered across the fields, through gates to the orchard. She sat on the log again. In the night sky the blue whiskers of cloud were backing off. And the moon in absolute radiance was speeding forth. There was not a sound anywhere.

* * * * *

As the year moved on, the heat abated and winds started out of nowhere, rushing. Christian stayed away from Ellen over two long Saturdays. Then one evening she was standing beyond the low garden wall watching the bees work the hives. He appeared, jaunty in a blue shirt freshly pressed by Brinker’s wife, his blond hair damp, comb-marked. “Hey, Ellie. A penny for your thoughts.”

“Not wasting them on you, I’ll say.” Her temper shifted in her and she colored. “I’m thinking Sam will be robbing the poor bees soon.”

“Come on, take a walk with me, Ellie. Down to the woods. Say, you’re blushing.” He grinned.

“Go to your true love in Bethel.”

“No.” His blue eyes were bold. “I broke off with that one.” They were starting down the hill. When out of sight of the house, he took her hand.

She pulled away, unwilling. “I don’t care for you.” But in time he won her from her anger and it was with Ellen as though the quarrel had never been.

They were hand in hand in the dry reeds by the pond where the lone duck was paddling in circles. He was vowing strongly, “I’ve left Sabatha Withers for good, Ellie.”

“Well.”

“She’s cheap.” He laughed angry, for the young fires lay hot in him still. “You never have seen Brinker’s place, Ellie.”

“No. I’ve heard tell he’s got fancy barns.”

“You’d get a kick out of them. Want to go there next week? I could show you Baker, that Belgian stud. He’s a sight. Like I said, he beats anything I ever saw.”

“I’ll come, then.”

“Kiss me, Ellie.”

“Listen at that sound, Christian.” The faint cry of geese was audible, “Kwonk, honk, honk, kwonk.” Far above the earth the long-necked wild birds were heading for northern nest grounds, their massive bodies two wavering lines of dots making the letter V. The call of the leaders sounded shrill, and as they moved overhead there came the deep responses of the rear guards. It seemed to Ellen that she had no desire for the way of the roused child-man beside her. Ahead stretched the long filament of her life; she was pierced by the pain of the earthbound that is made up of longings. She was voiced vicarious from the throats of the wild birds. She turned to Christian, dissatisfied. Their eyes were almost on a level; she was crying, intense, “Don’t you wish you were that leader?”

“Say, I’d rather be me than some bird.” He laughed at her, pressed her hand. “Come. Kiss me.”

* * * * *

In the last week of September Ellen slipped down Sweetincreek Road to where Christian had brought the truck around. The Brinker family were in Bethel doing their weekly buying, and Christian acutely felt his proprietorship. He drove up his employer’s graveled drive and into the huge garage. He led her to the farm buildings, proud. “Take a look.”

The great white barn was trimmed in red, a gigantic portrait of a black-and-white Holstein bull had been painted across the expanse of one side. There was an iron bull weather vane centered on the roof; it wheeled with the breeze. “I ne’er saw such furbelowing, Christian.”

“This isn’t the half of it.”

In the shed just off the chicken house he was showing her round-bellied puppies. She fondled them while the gentle bitch watched alert-eyed from a straw bed. “Nothing smells as soft as a little whelp, Christian.”

He was pointing to a miniature windmill, and to bantam chickens and white and gray rabbits in screened hutches. Out in the pasture were shining Belgian mares. Ellen was stroking their sleek faces. Christian caught a cobby black filly by the halter and led her to the girl. “This one’s Doll. She’s pedigreed. She’s to be bred to Baker as soon as she comes in heat. Mr. Brinker’s ordered it. We’ve been watching out for her.”

“Look at those dark eyes, Christian. Here, Doll.” Ellen was offering a handful of oats. But the mare threw up her head, nickering toward the farm buildings. There was a responding whinny from the distance. The mare swished her tail, holding it high.

Christian’s eyes kindled. “You know, Ellie, I think she’s in season. Let’s try her. See if she’ll take him.”

“You’d best wait for Mester Brinker.”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not. Only I’d wait. If she’s a thoroughbred, he’d lay the blame to you should it go amiss.”

The mare was shaking her head so the halter rings jangled; she cried again, shrilly. Christian was opening the gate. “Come on, Ellie. Look, you want to ride her down the lane? I’ll lift you to her back.”

“You dassn’t ride her. Sam told me,” she said, dallying, “that a mare in the heat mustn’t be ridden till she’s been bred.”

“All right. But come on,” he urged. He led the prancing Doll through the gate and down the lane toward the stallion’s paddock. Ellen was following, reluctant. “You hold her while I lock up Baker,” he called.

She came to take the mare’s headstall from him. “Well.”

At the yard the huge seed-horse was observing them, restive, aware of their business. He squealed, striking at the fence bars with his huge hoofs. Christian laughed, catching Ellen’s eye. “What you scared of, honey? I can handle him easy.”

“So what?” she whispered to the mare, who was tossing her mane, jerking.

Christian had skillfully snared the halter of the red roan beast and secured him in his stall. “Turn her in the lot now, Ellie,” he was shouting.

But she tarried and cried, “I’ll wait for you in the truck.”

“Come on, turn her in. It’s only Baker.” He was flushed and he laughed at her from the half door of the stable.

Ellen loosed the black mare in the paddock where she curved her neck and cantered like a gust of wind. The stallion could be heard clamoring angrily, rearing and knocking the walls. Christian turned the handle of the stall door to release him, and then vaulted the fence. He came to stand with Ellen. “Why did you want to go to the truck?”

The magnificent horse was trotting out, neighing. He minced past the filly who was dwarfed by his size. He lifted his shaggy fetlocks high without effort and his tawny mane streaked. He wheeled, snuffed noisily at her neck, bit it softly and pawed it in a dynamic graceful gesture. Then he leaped the mare, falling on his side with powerful elegance. He recovered, mounted her again. His beauty was like a thunderous battle, his piercing voice rose and fell on the stilled air, waking the valleys of the farm, rushing through tree boughs.

Christian was turning, urgent, “Ellie?”

“Let’s go to the truck, Christian. I’m going to wait there.” She turned.

He grasped her arm. “Come on, Ellie.”

“No, Christian.”

He was shoving her under the lean-to by the stable where summer wheat straw was stacked for the stallion’s bedding. He was struggling with his clothing, bruising her. The coolness dwelled in the shadows there, it was quiet and made itself separate from the noise in the dust of the lot outside. His youth was adamant and awkward, his knee entreated silent between her virgin thighs.

Surprised, she was fighting. “Liar,” she gritted.

He held her in the straw. “You’ve led me on, Ellie. I won’t wait.” His arms were muscled from a hard summer, his blood thrusting purposed.

She had read of Absalom, how none was so much praised as he for his perfection. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. So the Bible said, and so she had dreamed of Christian moving in a lawful pattern she laid. She was unprepared for the painful shattering of it, betrayed. “No,” she was weeping. “Liar.” It whistled in the coolness against the pant of him.

“I have to, honey. Take it easy. I’ll be careful. I can’t wait.” His voice was blurred and hot, stabbing, overridden by the tramping hoofs and shrill neighs like a storm without.

Ellen closed her eyes. They ran tears because of the hurt there was, the receding terror.

He spoke softly then, “Don’t cry.”

“Go away.”

He stood up and went into the sun. He led Doll back to the pasture, threw a forkful of hay to Baker who was docile now, obedient. After a while he came back and looked at Ellen. “Don’t be mad.”

She wouldn’t hear him.

“Come on, Ellie. We’ve got to get back.”

She was rising, brushing back her hair. He leaned toward her, tender, and pulled a straw caught in the yellow strands. She struck, savage, at his fingers. In the truck seat she remained unspeaking until he reached for her hand. Then she unleashed at him, injured, “You think I’m that Sabatha Withers. I ne’er want to see you again. Hear?”

Christian was resting his elbow on the window; he looked down the road. He gunned the truck so dust eddies rose like a whirlwind in the wake. He slammed the brakes on the road just above the Gaddy entrance. “Come on, Ellie. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad. Please.”

But she hurled the cab door shut. Her head was high. For her world that had had a sort of ingenuous beauty had disappeared. And it was never the same again.

5

October came to pass in fog and tones of droning rain. Muffled trees stood in wet leaves along farm paths. Ellen, a gray shape in the mist, was moving from clinking house lights to the obscurity of the woodshed and barns. Christian had not come for three weeks. At first she had waited in profound anger, eager to renounce him. But in the autumn sun of following days, while the two ringing notes of the partridge called back and forth, loneliness tempered her wrath and she loved him indulgently as the source of her pain and its witness.

Today she was going again to the rail fence along the road where joe-pye-weeds drooped coarse-toothed leaves. She was wearing a red stocking cap, her long coat had pendulous lapels and a wide belt that fastened on her hips with two heavy buttons. As she passed the grapevines where leaves hung chilled, a flock of crows arose, making nasal resentful barks. She waited an hour. Unending rain was falling and small gusts wove about. Finally she went to the work Anton had set, sorting and shucking corn. Later she absently stroked the alert ears and silken hair of the kid Rhodie, nearly as large as its dam now. “Reckon he’s with Sabatha Withers. Pleasuring as he did with me.” She clothed her wrath, embellished it. “Happen she’ll drag him to a priest. All his days he’ll dwell on me and what he forfeited.”

Her mind turned to when she was nine or ten and, living in fantasy and wishes, would try new ways to walk through the sun-washed fields where grass stood high. It would seem that crowds of people lined both sides of the way she took. They came to see how grand she held her head and to talk among themselves of the noble way of Lady Ellen. “I aim to hold me high and wed a rich man.” She spoke aloud in the stable. But she didn’t believe it and the anger burned. She went to the house where lamps flickered in the gloom, and Anton stacked a fire in the parlor, filled the woodbin and split lighter-wood with a deft hand.

Ten days passed. On a splendid windy morning in November, Ellen was clearing garden debris and gathering cabbages and root crops in heaps for winter storage. She faced her dilemma, rebellious. “If it be so, I’ll drown myself or it in the pond when it’s born. And if he’s run off, I’ll seek him out. I’ll knife him, I will.” She piled cabbage heads in a bushel basket and dumped them in the cellar storage bin. Her secret dwelled within her like a hidden wound. “I say, Jack, what will I do?”

That afternoon Amanda York came up the porch steps and knocked. “Hickory mast is laying thick in Bailey’s Woods, Mrs. Gaddy. Can Ellie and Frankie come nutting?”