The Collected Stories of William Humphrey (6 page)

“You might get that thing to churn butter,” she urged in a shout.

Harold was disgusted but Laura thought it might work and promised herself to try it. Now the grandmother wanted to shut it off and give it a rest and rest herself. She rubbed a finger over it as tenderly as over a sleeping baby.

“A thing like that must cost a heap of money,” she said.

Laura swelled with pride. “I should think it does.”

Her mama stood with her question on her face but the amount was almost too much for Laura to be proud of. She said, “We bought it on the installment plan, of course.”

“Well,” said her mama, as though she had been taken for some kind of a fool, as though she didn't know a fine piece of machinery when she saw it, “I never thought you could buy such a thing outright,” and in fact she couldn't really see how they had made the down payment. “How much was it?” she asked hungrily and cocked her ear around to receive some astounding figure.

She looked ready not to resent the price but to admire it. Laura couldn't think of another woman anywhere around whose husband had spent so much money on her at one time, so she told. Her mother flinched as if somebody had suddenly blown in her ear. She had prepared herself for the limit; now her face turned sour and she looked at the washing machine with distaste. She thought she had raised a more sensible daughter and one not nearly so trifling. She had washed work clothes and dirty diapers on her seventy-nine-cent washboard for forty-odd years and it was good enough for anybody. She began to take notice that Laura's dress had a hole under the arm and that Harold had on pants too small for him and needed a haircut. Well, she never thought she would see the day when Laura would let her family go to seed and put her man in debt for years because she was too lazy to wash his clothes, and she said as much.

Laura said, “Well, I don't know as it will keep him in debt all that long.”

“However long it is, looks like you'll sure be ragged but clean.”

“Well,” said Laura, standing sharp, hands on her hips, “if I am it'll be no change from what I always was at home. Except maybe cleaner,” and she turned the machine on with a clatter and stuffed it with practically every stitch the family owned.

Grandmother recalled the bag of candy she had brought and fished it out of her purse. She took one herself and called Harold over and gave him one.

Laura snapped off the washer and said, “Don't feed him that junk this near dinnertime.”

“Let him have it,” Grandmother insisted, and with a look at the washer, “I don't suppose he got much while you was saving up for that thing.”

“I declare, Mama, I never thought I'd see the day,” said Laura, “when you'd envy your own daughter a little comfort and not like to see her come up in life.”

“Comfort,” said her mama, “is for them as can afford it.”

“Well, you just let me worry about affording it. And this is only the first. I mean to have a lot of nice things and I'm looking around now to decide what I'll get when the crop's in.”

“Yes, I've seen a new player piano,” her mama sighed, “and a new second-hand car come to our house and seen the men come and take them away when they was half paid for.” She shot the bag of candy at the boy; it was giving her a toothache. “Probably the last you'll see for some time,” she mumbled.

Harold looked at his mother to have this denied.

Laura snapped at him, “I reckon you get enough candy.”

“I don't either,” he appealed to his Granny. “I've never got enough candy in my whole life.”

Laura sent him out the door and no buts about it. The old woman called after him, “You just come over to your Granny's. She's always got a little candy for her boy.”

“You better send that thing back,” she said. She was serious now. “You never know what's going to happen to keep it from getting paid for.”

“You're just mad,” said Laura, “that Dan wants me to have a few nice things when Papa never bought anything nice for you.”

“Never mind that kind of talk. You just better get rid of it.” She clamped her bonnet on and gave the washing machine a scampering look.

“I was going to say you could bring your wash over and use my new machine,” said Laura, “and to show you how big I can be, you still can.”

Her mama replied with a lift of her nose to show that she wouldn't be caught dead doing it, “No, thank you. Thank you just the same. I've come this far without it and I reckon my rub-board will see me the rest of my way. You as much as said I keep a dirty house. Besides we ain't got as much clothes as all that,” and she gave Laura's wash pile a look that said as plain as day: But it's a good deal more than you all have.

IV

When the cotton was in the ground they all drew a deep breath. He was only a week or so behind with it, and then he started seeding his corn. That went so well that Dan spoke of taking off to go fishing. Laura looked forward to it and had it on her mind as she carried whey to the chickens. What a pity Harold was in school, she was thinking, when Dan came over the hill on Daisy.

Laura poured the whey in the trough and went out to meet him. He looked disgusted with something, so the fishing trip fizzled out.

“What happened?” she asked, holding the reins. Then she stooped under the mule's neck and she saw where Dan's leg dangled down and floated stiffly inside his bloody pants. Just above the knee his leg took a sickening jump to one side, like a pencil seen through a glass of water.

Laura crept out from under Daisy's head and started to look up, when she fainted. Dan slid off Daisy and got his good leg under him. But there he was stuck. He thought, Daisy might take it into her head any minute to make off for oats in the barn. Then what would he do? The nearest support was a fence post he could never reach. He couldn't possibly get on her back again. How long would she stand still? How long would it take Laura to come to? How long could he stand the sun without keeling over?

“Laura!” he shouted and Daisy shied. He licked the sweat from the corner of his mouth and called her more softly. Hanging around Daisy's neck, he inched his good leg out and gave her a shove, waited a second, and when she didn't stir he kicked her. Laura, with a groan, rolled over and buried her face in the dirt. Dan could feel himself going and decided it would probably be best to fall a little to his left and forward.

Laura got propped on her elbows and shook herself down and got to her feet. Dan moaned as she tried to raise him. Maybe moving him would make things worse. She looked around, half-expecting someone to see the trouble she was having and come over to give her a hand. She went to the house and got a quilt. She wrapped him in it and started for the car to go to the neighbor's phone.

Laura's papa sat at the table and steadily cropped the shreds of his cigarette, his coffee saucered and blowed, being careful to swill it quietly, stiffly respectful, which consisted in not hearing anything that was said to him and looking as if, under the circumstances, words just didn't reach him, trying to keep his own two good legs out of sight and not look any too well himself. Laura's mama worked quietly over the stove and Harold sat in the corner he had hardly left all day, trying to make himself as small as possible, scared to death. He would not go into Dan's room and Laura didn't insist. The sight of him could only have made Dan feel worse.

Laura pulled her hands out of the bucket of plaster and scrubbed them thoughtfully in the washpan. She picked up the heavy bucket and her papa looked like he would offer to carry it but he had had his own reverses lately and too much must not be expected of him. He rubbed a hand along a tender kidney and looked wistfully away.

The doctor plastered the leg. “Well,” he said, “we might have waited till a little more of the swelling went down, but I don't think it will matter too much.”

It didn't matter much to Dan. He looked at the leg with only the top layer of his eyes. He brought himself up with a bitter sigh and said, “He says I'll be in bed six weeks,” and gave Laura a long defiant stare.

She had already told herself it would be a long time but now her surprise showed and so did her pain. Dan's tone hurt her. He didn't have to throw it up to her like that. She hadn't asked.

“That at least,” the doctor said. “What I said in fact was six to ten weeks.” He gathered up his tools and laid them neatly in his bag, taking out a bottle of pills. “Give him these to sleep but never more than three a day. I'll come out every day for a week or so. I don't know just what time of day but I'll get here.”

“What I don't know,” said Dan, “is when you're going to get paid.”

“Well, I'll worry about that.”

Out in the kitchen the doctor washed his hands, rolled down his sleeves, and drew on his coat while everyone watched. Laura's papa nodded sagely at his movements and her mama stopped setting the table to pat her hair in shape and smooth the ruffles of her dress.

“I wouldn't leave him too much alone,” said the doctor. “Keep his mind occupied. Just don't make too much over it. Course you can't exactly act like nothing happened,” he smiled broadly, “but remember, it could have been worse.”

How? How could it have been any worse, Laura wanted to know. He said that to everybody without thinking. Her papa registered with a snort that he thought it was bad enough.

The doctor settled his things in his pocket and turned to the old man. “Well, John, how've you been coming along lately?”

It was no time to feel well when a doctor was talking to you free, so the old man dug out his cigarette and got ready to give details. “Well, when you get my age, you know, Doctor, ever' little thing—”

The doctor pulled up his watch and glanced at it impatiently. He has other calls to make, thought Laura with some surprise, other bones to set. She got a glimpse of her papa rubbing up his rheumatic knee as though to polish it for show. She saw the fright in Harold's eyes over all these broken bones and aching knees and cut hands. She saw her mother reach over and set the turnips aside to simmer and look at the doctor as though she would like to ask him to stay for a bite but was ashamed of what her daughter had to offer.

Laura slammed the door and buried her face in Dan's arm. He let her cry and then raised her to him. She hugged him and sobbed. He stroked her head gently and gently eased her back a little. She had shaken him and the pain in his leg was awful.

V

Mr. Johnson hung soggily on the barnyard fence while Dan stood stiff and uneasy before him, not knowing what to do with his hands that he was keeping respectfully out of his pockets. Not far away Mr. Johnson's car rested in the shade of a tree, with Mr. Johnson's wife in the front seat. Mr. Johnson took out his cigar, shot a stream of juice onto a flat stone, and watched it sizzle.

“I ain't been mean, have I, Dan?”

“No, Mr. Johnson,” Dan replied, “you been mighty patient and I appreciate it. But, Mr. Johnson …”

“Now, Dan,” he interrupted, “you know as well as I do, not many men would have strung along with you as far as I have.”

“I know it, Mr. Johnson. You been mighty patient.”

“Well, these things just happen. I reckon everybody has a stretch like this some time or other.” Mr. Johnson waved a large chunk of charity at him. “I don't want to be mean. I ain't forgot you done well here before all this begun to happen. I don't forget them things. But now, you see, prices is good. This here's a good piece of land and with proper work we'd have us a whopping big crop off of it. Everybody else is doing good this year. You got one of the best sixty acres in the county right here, Dan, and you and me could both be making a killing if it was going right.”

Mr. Johnson removed his big lazy Panama and mopped his forehead and the back of his neck with a sopping handkerchief. Dan shifted the weight from his aching leg slowly, trying not to wince. What was the good of all this? Why stand out here in the sun and jaw about it? He hadn't done it on purpose, for God's sake. Didn't he know it was a good year, and who stood to lose the most, him or Johnson?

“You've got a good head on you, Dan,” Mr. Johnson was saying. “You ain't wild. You're about as settled a man for your age as I ever seen. I knew your papa and I could see his boy would make a good farmer. I just mean to say I got faith in you, Dan. But you can see the fix this puts me in.”

Dan nodded wearily and followed Mr. Johnson's eyes down along the length of his stiff leg.

“Jesus, it ain't your fault. But it ain't mine, either.” Mr. Johnson was getting hotter and his eye acknowledged an impatient stir from his wife.

“Well, I don't know what to say. We'll just have to let things go on like this for a while, I guess. I don't see nothing else we can do.”

Neither did Dan. He stood helplessly, wishing Mr. Johnson would go on and not stop at those awkward spots.

“I can bring in a team and make another alfalfa cutting. And we might get a stand of soybeans if the weather holds. But if anything else happens, God help us. Dan, you just got to be more careful.”

Careful! It made him so mad he heard the insides of his ears pop. Careful! He raised his head, raised a forefinger, raised his leg to set it out before him in a stance, then thanked the Lord for the pain it caused him. Johnson would never know how near he had come to a good round cussing.

Mr. Johnson turned to go. Reaching into his pocket he brought up a lighter for his guttering cigar. At a gesture Dan went closer. Mr. Johnson, with a show of lighting his cigar, slipped a bill into his hand and signaled his wife that he was coming, that only the lighting of his cigar was keeping him.

VI

When Harold's summer vacation began Laura bent over backwards being nice to him. He'd been through so much, poor little fellow, had taken Dan's accident so serious and she had scrimped him on so many things he needed. Most of all she was ashamed of being sorry to have him home. She even refused to call him down when she knew he was bothering Dan with his racket. And Dan was being so nice, even softened her when once or twice she did fly off the handle at the boy.