3stalwarts (128 page)

And the harp:—

Towdy-owdy, dil-do-dum… .

Angy and Esther and Prue and Ma Halleck had stolen away to Ma’s wagon. Jerry saw the hood bulge as they moved here and there. They were fixing.

Stroking aside his pale moustache, Abijah Judson tilted his head:—

” ‘Hi!’ said the little mourning dove, ‘I’ll tell you how to regain her love. Court her night and court her day, Never give her time to say, O Nay!’ “

What were songs when the land was ploughing and the dew fell and spring was just beyond the southward hills?

Tol-lol-liddy, dil-do-day.

Jerry stood close to her, his eyes saw her eyes drooping, the bend of her neck, the ripple of the fire through her hair. The skin in the notch of her shawl was creamy and warm. The past was fading, for the time was coming. And all he brought with him out of the past was a remembrance of bloom in the spring. He saw the firelight through darkness and heard the whisper of cows over their cuds. Mist was on the river and starlight on the mist.

Ma Halleck was coming back with the girls; now she was sitting down. Her voice in her stout throat bubbled over:—

” ‘Hi!’ said the woodpecker, sitting on a fence, ‘Once I courted a handsome wench; She got scary and from me fled, And ever since then my head’s been red.’ “

The girls were round about Mary. She was going away to the wagon. Her head was bent, and her shoulders curved. Quietness and lowliness were in her walk; and beside her the girls’ faces wore a strange abashment of mirth that struggled with the time, as if they dared not let it loose. But Jerry’s head lifted; and left alone he became aware of himself: how his hands moved on the wrist joints; how his heart beat against his ribs and his lungs swelled with breathing; and his feet were light on the ground.

Tol-lol-liddy, dil-do-day.

Now the girls were coming back, and the men were standing up. He felt them beside him, leading him, and the night was growing still. But ahead of him was stillness beyond the world, and the wagon was sleeping against it. They were taking him round to the far side of the wagon. They were unlacing his boots, removing his coat. Now they were leaving him. And he was alone. He did not hear, he did not see. Prue’s voice singing softly to herself by the fire was beyond his scope, for the past was behind him, and his being was his own.

With a swift arrogance he poised himself before the flaps. And now his ears could hear the littlest sounds and his eyes see the smallest things.

He could hear a trout rise far away in still water, and see a spider laying an anchor thread from the hub of the wheel to a dried clover stalk; he could feel the dew; and the breathing of darkness was in his ears; and only the wagon was still.

And then, as his hands reached for the flaps, he felt them tremble with the uprising of his being. But he hesitated no longer, for the time was now.

5

“A northwest wind means clearing’

In all his life, Jerry had never suspected there could be a road like the Mohawk Turnpike. It seemed to him that all the world was moving on it. He was standing in the middle of the roadway on top of a rise of ground. It was afternoon, and Mary had come back from Ma Halleck’s wagon to walk with him. There was no wind that day; the night had been cold, carrying a hard frost; but the sun now shone full on them, filling the world with a bright glitter so that even the new green of the meadows glanced against one’s eyes and the river shone like blue fire.

“We’d better be getting after the wagons,” he said.

The road led them downward toward the flat land that stretched out ahead as far as they could see. The hills drew back from the river here, their slopes more gentle, and the river itself began meandering back and forth across the valley. The road seemed closer to the land, and the travel on it less rapid.

Marigolds were blooming in the wet spots, skunk cabbage was unfolding its bright green leaves. In strips of drier pasture, quaker-lady flowers were sifted through the grass like a pale fine bluish snow. The trees were coming into leaf, the maples hazy pink and lilac in the wood lots, the elms a soft golden olive, like tapestry trees.

Jerry caught some of the peacefulness, and, as they were alone in the road, he reached shyly for Mary’s hand. His eyes shone with a light of possessive pride. And her grave glance was tender. They did not notice the man harrowing beyond the fence; they did not see him stop and grin at them; but when he started his team once more he whistled a tune.

“Mary,” Jerry asked suddenly, “what would you like to have best in all the world?”

Her brows puckered and for a long time she was silent.

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought,” she said at length.

His voice was slightly impatient.

“What would you like most to have me be?”

She said, “I hadn’t thought, Jerry.”

“You’re a queer girl.”

“Am I?” She lifted her face with an effort. “I’d like a farm. I’d like a small farm, maybe, with a brook beside it and a spring house. I’m a fair hand at dairying.”

“Are you? But you’re a queer girl for a man to marry. Wanting a small thing always. I can’t figure it out.” His keen eyes, restless again, went roaming.

“It’s a funny thing, Mary. But since I got onto this road, and since I got wedded to you, I’ve kind of lost my hankering to farm. Money comes slow in farming. Everything’s bound in acres. I’d rather have money. I want to be rich. I’d like to make you rich, with hired girls to help you in the house.”

She smiled behind her eyes.

“I don’t need helping, Jerry. I’m willing to work.”

“I guess you’ll have to for a while, Mary. But on this road I’ve got to feeling something different will come. I feel as if I could lick the world.”

Her eyes lost their self -contentment; the lids drooped submissively. Her voice became husky.

“I’m not very good at things, Jerry. But I’ll help you all I can.”

Jerry put out his hand with a swift gesture and caught hers.

“It don’t seem I could get it out of my head that we are wedded.”

His face was set straight forward as he walked, his cheeks reddened.

“I wisht I could have give you a better ring. I couldn’t think of anything else to fashion it with. But when I get rich I’ll buy you a gold one.”

“No, no.”

He looked at her in amazement.

“Wouldn’t you like a gold ring better?”

“I like this one.”

“But, Mary …”

Her mouth and eyes became firm.

“No. I’ll always want this one.”

He walked ahead a pace, his eyes downcast and troubled. Then, as she caught up, he said, “I’ll have it plated with gold, then.”

She drew a quiet breath, and he said, “You like it because I fashioned it?”

She nodded.

“That’s nice,” he said warmly. “That’s nice.”

He was happy once more.

The road swung round a curve, and at the end of the next straight stretch they saw a tollgate, and a village beyond. The gate had a house beside it, and a bridge upon the near side led up to the upraised grating across a wide creek. The slats of the gate glistened white against the sun, and their shadows made blue bars upon the backs of the Hallecks’ driven beasts. They saw George standing under the gate, pointing back at them, and a blowzy woman nodding her head.

As they approached she went about her business of winding down the grating, and then she sat down under the signboard of her little taproom, and folded her hands on her skirt of scarlet calico. She was smiling broadly.

“You’re of that party?” she greeted them, and Jerry nodded.

“New-wedded folks will linger. Ain’t you tired a-walking?” she asked Mary.

“No, ma’am.”

“New-wedded folks don’t get tired, I calculate it. Will you come in for a sup to fresh you with, mister?”

“No, thanks.”

“I’ve got a cozy tap. I offer good trade,” she nodded at the sign above her head; “but you’re new-wedded.”

Jerry read the sign, and flushed. It showed a beehive in yellow on a green ground, and underneath a jingle in red letters.

Sugar is sweet And so is honey Here’s the place To spend your money.

Isabella Huney, Proprietor

“That’s me, mister. But I reckon you’re well chosen.”

She began elaborately plaiting a wisp of her red hair, and made staring eyes at Jerry. He looked uncomfortably at her red mouth; and he noticed lines coming down from her nostrils.

“Can we get through?” he asked stiffly.

She gave a silent nod, and he and Mary went through the picket. They did not speak any more. The blood was up in his face. But once he surprised Mary’s glance as if she had found something new in him, and in a way it made him proud.

A hundred yards farther on they overtook George Halleck trudging in the dust and reading from a book. Jerry missed something in the line, and for a moment he did not realize that it was the minister who had gone.

“Where’s Mr. Atterbury?”

George closed the book, but kept his finger in his place.

“So you’ve caught up,” he grinned at them. “I don’t know what’s happened to the Reverend. I guess he just drifted off. He’s a strangely-minded man. Seems his preaching must have disconnected him somewhere.”

Jerry wondered if the ninny mule had spied some tempting pasturage. He could well imagine the little creature browsing while the black-clad Reverend on her back closed his vague eyes to his vague thoughts.

He looked down at the book that George was carrying and asked, “What have you got in that book?”

George held it up.

“It’s kind of a guide,” he said. “I bought it off Mrs. Huney at the gate. An outright woman, ain’t she— she and her sign together right on the road?”

Mary had gone round the sheep to overtake Ma’s wagon, and he grinned as he watched her quick walking.

“Did she try to persuade you to tarry, Jerry?”

“Yes.”

George laughed.

“She did me, too. Brassy, right there in sight of wagons. But you —new-wedded! I’d told her, too!” He poked Jerry’s ribs. “I reckon you’ve a kind of bait for women, Jerry!”

Jerry didn’t answer the grin, and George lifted the book once more as if he had just remembered it.

“I was just looking up where we were. Right ahead to northward’s Herkimer Village. A post town. It says there’s a gristmill up the creek back there— West Canada by name. And a sawmill up above it. That-there stone church you see was fortified against the Indians in the Revolution war. South of the river lies the German Flats. Rich land. You can tell that by the farms. It’s plain to see where we are— fifteen miles from Utica.”

He traced the words on the page, then closed the book and grinned at Jerry again.

“Ma wants to talk to you and Mary. …”

“Did you have a nice time walking with your man, dearie?”

Ma Halleck’s red face wore a friendly grin as Mary adroitly swung herself onto the moving wagon. She nodded as she took her place on the high seat.

“I believe we’d better camp soon. We’ve had a fine spell of weather, but there’s rain coming. I read it in my almanac and I expect it tonight. I like to get my dinner cooked afore it rains.”

She shook the lines and bawled at the slacking leader.

“Git, Joe! Lord, I’d like to leather you. He’s been slacking back all day, dearie. He always was a lazy. Git, you!”

The leader for the moment bent industriously into his collar and Ma turned to Mary.

“How does it feel being a woman four days wedded?”

Mary smiled against the sun. To the southward dark clouds were piling up, their bellies beginning to catch fire. Mary watched them with unseeing eyes, and suddenly the fat woman put her hand over the girl’s wrist.

“Come rich or poor,” she said, “God wish you children, dearie.”

Her eyes softened as she watched the tranquil face. If she were a man, she thought, she would read the wealth in the girl, wealth to steady a man and make him comfortable; but she sighed— men did not see the things a woman saw. They valued even dollars differently. She eyed the face again, and tried to see it with a man’s eyes. The bloom in the skin— it had a clarity and freshness that younger girls in this land seemed to lack; she noted the curve of the ear and jaw, and the throat line sweet as a filly’s; the grey eyes nearly blue; and the quiet mouth with its awakening curves. Any man could see those things; and a wise man could read deeper.

“Are you happy, dearie?”

As she met the grave, level glance, she sighed.

“No need to ask,” she said, lifting her voice a note. “I mind me of my own wedden morning. I wasn’t then so stout— more Esther’s build— but wilder than she. I felt let loose. I felt like a filly in spring pasture. I was bold then— I wasn’t ever a timorous woman— but them days I would cock up my heels at a man, skitterful.” Her glance became abstracted and one stout hand was lost under her breast. “My Halleck was an oldish man, sober in years. I was wild loving him. Nonsensical, I mind me. Not a sober girl like you, dearie. Aye-oh! but I was young!”

Suddenly her big body sagged.

“I hate to think of parting from you two. I’ve got fond of you, dearie. And Jerry’s so young. You’re both young. I’d like to keep my eyes onto you both.”

“Jerry can look out for me,” said Mary softly.

“So he can, I make no doubt. It’s me I’m thinking of, missing you.”

At that moment, Jerry’s voice called up from the road, “Hey, there! Can I have a ride?” and in spite of herself Ma grinned. For a breath she imagined herself young and skitterful again.

“It’s loading my horses shameful, but if so be you’re tired walking.”

He jumped over the wheel, stepped over the seat, and leaned forward between them.

“George said you wanted to talk to me and Mary, Ma.”

Ma Halleck gave the reins another shake. Her round cheeks grew even redder and she fixed her eyes on the off leader’s ears. Her voice, when she found utterance for her words, was offish in its tone.

“Well, here it is. I’ll out with it straight and you can take it or leave it as you’re minded. My land’s lot ten, township fifteen, in range two. I’ve got the papers here,”— she pointed over her shoulder to the wooden chest, —“but I don’t know what it’s like, beyond it’s wooded and holds fourteen acres of swampy ground. It means hard clearing, and it ain’t noways settled round it. That’s how the boys are figuring to take land close by. But I ain’t got but Joey to work my land. So I’m offering you, Jerry, a job at working for me. And ‘stead of wages you can work for an interest in my farm. That’s what it is.”