House of Earth (26 page)

“He already looks tough as leather, doesn't he?” Ella May's talk already had that deeper sound. “Except that his skin is all wrinkled up. Is there anything the matter with him? Look there around his knees and his neck and everywhere. He looks more like a Cap Rock lizard, with his skin all dried up and wrinkled, than like a son of mine.”

Blanche's hands held him. Her eyes roamed up and down all over him. He kicked, he elbowed things out of his way, he made secret signals to the ships lost in the summer mirages. He clenched his two fists and thrashed them in the air. “It seems like all of us are born to look like canyon lizards, monsters, snakes, or fishes of some kind, baby elephants, or something. But it's going to be your job, Mrs.
Hamlin, to see that he grows up out of all of this, and grows into a man.”

“You know, Blanche, there while I was under that ether or chloroform …”

“Chloroform.”

“Whatever it was. I had the craziest dreams. Visions.”

And both of them could hear through the outside wind the ring of Tike's long-handled shovel against the earth, frozen hard as granite.

“Yes?”

“I saw this little old crazy rotten room just whirl, and whirl, and then it blew up. Blew up. Like a big firecracker. And then I saw Tike. He was running his self crazy trying to chase down all of the blown-up pieces and bring them all back together again. And I said to him, ‘Tike, you are the craziest man living, it's already blown up and knocked sky high and crooked and it's in a million billion pieces. Let it go. You're just crazy to try to chase all over the plains for nothin'. But we don't have any other house to go into,'” Ella May said as she continued to talk about her vision in a disjointed way. “And so, I guess that this junk pile is still just one inch better than having the baby outside in the ice of the blizzard. Listen. Listen. Hear that? That is Tike's hammer, I mean, Tike's shovel ringing on the ground. That will give you a very good idea of how hard that soil is frozen. Hear?”

And in the four walls of the room the breath of Blanche, the heavier breathing of Ella May, the whipping, flying sounds of the storm, mixed, stirred, and blended with the
ringing of the shovel, the flicker of the lamp, the noises from the mouth of the grasshopper.

“Just how any such a flimsy rickety trap as this can stand up in the weight of such a wind and snow is a mystery, a mystery I never will be able to figure out. The good Lord must be holding it up there on the south side with His right shoulder.”

“I don't know about the Lord.” Blanche sat as easily as she could on the edge of the bed near Ella's feet. She smiled because the cry of the boy already sounded clearer, healthier, his mouth and throat had spat out some of the phlegm, spit, slobber, saliva, that had caused him to rattle and to hiss. Blanche was proud of her job. She always felt as great a weight lifted from her as was removed from the stomach of each mother. She rubbed her fingers lightly on the fuzz of the top blanket and kept her eyes on the shape of the boy. “I think that the Lord, or Jesus, would have already knocked this shack down with one slap of His hand. And He would already have told Mister Woodridge to let you build your house of earth here on this spot. If the Lord had His way about it your baby would not have to be born in this hole of sickness and death, but in your new warm healthy house built out of earth.”

“But what would Woodridge say if Jesus was to reach down out this blizzard and slap this shack down?”

“I guess that Woodridge would call the deputies and the police and the city hall and Coxley's Army and all of the alligators and yellow dogs and have them track Jesus down
through the ice and the snow and lock Him up for a year or two. And if Jesus tried to help you build this other house you talk about, I don't know, but I think that they would lock Him up for fifty years, ninety-nine years.”

“Surely they wouldn't. Why, this hull isn't worth two drops of my baby's spit. And a house made out of earth bricks like we intend to build, really the actual money it would take to put it up would be even less than the amount that it took to build this one-room outfit. Do you think anybody would get mad at the Lord if he was to help us put up our new place? Who? Why, the money isn't really enough for anyone to get mad about. It's not that.”

“It is that.” Blanche touched the tip of her finger to cover over the baby's knee. “It is just that.”

“Just what?”

“Just what you said. Because the earth house is so strong that it will stand for two hundred years. Because it has walls eighteen inches thick. Because it is warm in the winter, cool in the summer. Because it is easy to build and does not require any great skill to build it. Because it does not eat nickels and drink dollars, and because it needs no paint, because you do not have to work your heart and soul away and carry every penny into town to lay on the top of Mister Woodridge's desk. Because of this. Because of all of these things. Because your house could be six rooms instead of this eighteen feet of disease. Because you could pay out the earth house in a year or two and it would belong to you. Because it would not belong to them. After all these years they
are still bleeding the people for rent, payments, this kind, that kind, on these rusted-out, rotted-down, firetrap wood skeletons. If Jesus was to help you to get free from their trap, they would lay Him away behind bars.”

“I just can't, cannot, to save my soul, bring myself to believe that any earthly human could possibly do such a mean trick. I think that old Woodridge does what he does because the Lord tells him what is best for him. Maybe the Lord told him that it is right and good to keep all of this land in one big block and not to build any houses on it. It would be easier to work in one big block. He could make better use of his tractors, save fuel, save on seed bills, and, after all, the house of the families that work on the land can just as easy be built over there on that Cap Rock cliff where the wheat don't grow. This is wonderful wheat land right here under this old shack, and I think Woodridge is absolutely right in saying that he wants to tear it away and till this land. This one little acre here will feed many a hungry mouth every year.” All during the talk, Ella moved the baby closer against her side, and with her arm she squeezed him lightly with each word. “In fact, I was just intending to ask you to take my two hundred dollars to Woodridge's office in the next day or two and buy that acre over there on the Cap Rock.”

“You know that I will be glad to do it.” Blanche spoke softly and quiet. All of this conversation was not too beneficial to Ella's nerves right at this point. “Woodridge is possibly doing what he thinks is best. And to buy the Cap Rock acre for two hundred dollars is not wrong—no, I did
not say that it was. But this is just where your troubles will start. It will be a hard fight. A fight with the lumberyard, a fight with the loan company, because you will find out that no bank will even lend as much as one dollar with which to build your earth house.”

“I'm not afraid of the hard part.” The noises of the boy made her eyes smile. Ella's face plowed itself into long furrows as she thought deeper. “But Blanche, we have mortally got to get our little grasshopper out of this old crate. And into our other house. And I know how to fight, if it comes to that.

“I sometimes wonder,” Ella continued. Blanche wanted to cut the talking as short as she could. Ella needed rest, not speeches. Blanche got up and busied herself with the buckets and pots of water on the stove. “I wonder if it will ever come to an out-and-out fight. I sometimes hope so. I wish that the families of people that live in debt all of their lives in their trash-can houses would all get together and fight to get out of the miserable stink and mess. I wish they could know as I know that they work and pay out their good money just for the privilege of living in a coffin.

“A coffin?” Ella moved in bed. “A good coffin would cost more than a dozen of these shacks. A graveyard spot would cost more. Oh, it is just so expensive to die these days. This is the reason why I want to keep on staying alive. And I want to show just a few people around here that there is a way to come out of this mess, to build a better house, and not pick up and run away down the highway. I'll be one
that'll never take to that road that goes nowhere. I can stand out there in this yard on a clear day and see the spot where I was born, see the old spot where Tike was born, I can see the old spots where all of our folks were born. And I just feel like I would go out of my mind entirely if I had to wake up every morning somewhere, away off in a place where I would get up and look out and not see all of these old spots. I don't know what shape it will take, work or fight, or burn or freeze or what, but I do know this one thing. I am put here to stay.”

To quiet her a bit, Blanche said, “Shh. What is that?”

Ella was still. “Tike singing. He always gets to singing when he hears iron or steel ringing.”

“Listen.”

“Listen to him make that shovel ring right in with his singing. If you would call that singing,” Ella said. “But the only thing is, it sounds more like he was dying or something.”

Blanche smiled over her work at the stove and listened.

Tike's song seeped in through the cracks of the boards and in under the wallpaper with a frozen brittle tone. His shovel struck against the icy dirt, and Blanche noticed that he sang in pretty accurate pitch with the ringing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

B
ringing
House of Earth
alive has been a strange and wonderful experience. Because Woody Guthrie has such a distinctive writing style, it sometimes seemed as though we were communing with the ghost of the typewriter-banging Okie himself. His spirit is very much alive in these pages. Those who decide to enter Woodyland, as we did, never come out the same. There is an old house in the desert near the Chisos Mountains where Guthrie once holed up with his father, brother, and Uncle Jeff. If you visit the ruins, you can almost channel this novel in full.