Short Stories of the New America Part 18

No; they didn't quite get it. They could not grasp its significance, but clung humbly, instead, to the mere glorious fact of his presence.

He stayed two days and a night; and summer was never lovelier. Maw was like a girl, and there was such a killing of pullets and extravagance with new-laid eggs as they had never known before. At the last he gave them all presents.

"Tell the truth," he laughed, "I'm stony broke. 'Tisn't mine, all this stuff you see. I got some kale in advance-not much, but enough to swing me; but of course, the outfit's the company's. But I'll tell you one thing: I'm going to bring some long green home with me, you can bet! And when I do"-Nat had given Maw a prodigious nudge in the ribs-"when I do-I ain't goin' to stay an old bachelor forever! Do you get that?"

Maw's smile had faded for a moment. But the presents were fine-a new knife for Tom, a book for Luke, and twenty whole round dollars for Maw, enough to pay that old grocery bill down at Beckonridge's and Paw's new invoice of patent medicine.

They all stood on the porch and watched him as far as they could see; and Maw's black mood didn't return for a whole week.

Evenings now they had something different to talk about-journeys in seagoing craft; foreign countries and the progress of the "Ee-ropean"

war, and Nat's likelihood-he had laughed at this-of touching even its fringe. They worked it all up from the boiler-plate war news in the _Biweekly_ and Luke's school geography. Yes; for a little s.p.a.ce the blackness was lifted.

Then came the August morning when Paw died. This was an unexpected and unsettling contingency. One doesn't look for a "chronic's" doing anything so unscheduled and foreign to routine; but Paw spoiled all precedent. They found him that morning with his heart quite still, and Luke knew they stood in the presence of imminent tragedy.

It's all very well to peck along, hand-to-mouth fas.h.i.+on. You can manage a living of sorts; and farm produce, even scanty, unskillfully contrived, and the charity of relatives, and the patience of tradesmen, will see you through. But a funeral-that's different! Undertaker-that means money. Was it possible that the sordid epic of their lives must be capped by the crowning insult, the Poormaster and the Pauper's Field? If only poor Paw could have waited a little before he claimed the spotlight-until prices fell a little or Nat got back with that "long green"!

Maw swallowed her bitter pill.

She went to see Uncle Clem and ask! And Uncle Clem was kind.

"He'll buy a casket-he's willin' fur that-an' send a wreath and pay fur notices, an' even half on a buryin' lot; but he said he couldn't do no more. The high cost has. .h.i.t him too.... An' where are we to git the rest? He said-at the last-it might be better all round fur us to take what Ellick Flick would gimme outen the Poor Fund-" Maw hadn't been able to go on for a spell.

A pauper's burial for Paw! Surely Maw would manage better than that! She tried to find a better way that very night.

"This farm's mortgaged to the neck; but I calculate Ben Travis won't care if I'm a mind to put Paw in the south field. It hain't no mortal good fur anything else, anyhow; an' he can lay there if we want. It's a real pleasant place. An' I can git the preacher myself-I'll give him the rest o' the broilers; an' they's seasoned hickory plankin' in the lean-to. Tom, you come along with me."

All night Luke had lain and listened to the sound of big Tom's saw and hammer. Tom was real handy if you told him how-and Maw would be showing him just how to shape it all out. Each hammer blow struck deep on the boy's heart.

Maw lined the home-made box herself with soft old quilts, and washed and dressed her dead herself in his faded outlawed wedding clothes. And on a morning soft and sweet, with a hint of rain in the air, they rode down in the farm wagon to the south field together-Paw and Maw and Luke-with big Tom walking beside the aged k.n.o.bby horse's head.

Abel Gazzam, a neighbor, had seen to the grave; and in due course the little cavalcade reached the appointed spot inside the snake fence-a quiet place in a corner, under a graybeard elm. As Maw had said, it was "a pleasant place for Paw to lay in."

There were some old neighbors out in their own rigs, and Uncle Clem had brought his family up in his car, with a proper wreath; and Reverend Kearns came up and-declining all lien on the broilers-read the burial service, and spoke a little about poor Paw. But it wasn't a funeral, no how. No supper; no condolence; no viewing "the remains"-not even a handshake! Maw didn't even look at her old friends, riding back home between Tom and Luke, with her head fiercely high in the air.

A dull depression settled on Luke's heart. It was all up with the Hayneses now. They had saved Paw from charity with their home-made burial; but what had it availed? They might as well have gone the whole figure. Everybody knew! There wasn't any comeback for a thing like this.

They were just no-bodies-the social pariahs of the district.

IV

Somehow, after the fas.h.i.+on of other years, they got their meager crops in-turnips, potatoes and Hubbard squashes put up in the vegetable cellar; oats cradled; corn husked; the buckwheat ready for the mill; even Tom's crooked furrows for the spring sowings made. Somehow, Maw helping like a man and Tom obeying like a docile child, they took toll of their summer. And suddenly September was at their heels-and then the equinox.

It seemed to Luke that it had never rained so much before. Brown vapor rose eternally from the valley flats; the hilltops lay lost entirely in clotted murk. By periods hard rains, like showers of steel darts, beat on the soaking earth. Gypsy gales of wind went ricocheting among the farm buildings, setting the s.h.i.+ngles to snapping and singing; the windows moaned and rattled. The sourest weather the boy could remember!

And on the worst day of all they got the news. Out of the mail box in the lane Luke got it-going down under an old rubber cape in a steady blinding pour. It got all damp-the letter, foreign postmark, stamp and all-by the time he put it into Maw's hand.

It was a double letter-or so one judged, first opening it. There was another inside, complete, sealed, and addressed in Nat's hand; but one must read the paper inclosed with it first-that was obvious. It was just a strip, queer, official looking, with a few lines typed upon it and a black heading that sprang out at one strangely. They read it together-or tried to. At first they got no sense from it. Paris-from clear off in France-and then the words below-and Maw's name at the top, just like the address on the newspaper:

Mrs. Jere Haynes, Stony Brook, New York.

It was for Maw all right. Then quite suddenly the words came clear through the blur:

Mrs. Jere Haynes, Stony Brook, New York.

_Dear Madam_: We regret to inform you that the official _communique_ for September sixth contains the tidings that the writer of the enclosed letter, Nathaniel Haynes, of Stony Brook, New York, U. S. A., was killed while on duty as an ambulance driver in the Sector of Verdun, and has been buried in that region. Further details will follow.

The American Ambulance, Paris.

Even when she realized, Maw never cried out. She sat wetting her lips oddly, looking at the words that had come like evil birds across the wide s.p.a.ces of earth. It was Luke who remembered the other letter:

"_My dear kind folks-Father, Mother and Brothers_: I guess I dare call you that when I get far enough away from you. Perhaps you won't mind when I tell you my news.

"Well we came over from England last Thursday and struck into our contract here. Things was going pretty good; but you might guess yours truly couldn't stand the dead end of things. I bet Maw's guessed already. Well sir it's that roving streak in me I guess. Never could stick to nothing steady. It got me bad when I got here any how.

"To cut it short I throwed up my job with the firm yesterday and have volunteered as an Ambulance driver. Nothing but glory; but I'm going to like it fine! They're short-handed anyhow and a fellow likes to help what he can. Wish I could send a little money; but it took all I had to outfit me. Had to cough up eight bucks for a suit of underclothes. What do you know about that?

"You can write me in care of the Ambulance, Paris.

"Now Maw don't worry! I'm not going to fight. I did try to get into the Foreign Legion but had no chance. I'm all right. Think of me as a nice little Red Cross boy and the Wise Willie on the gas wagon. And won't I have the hot stuff to make old Luke's eyes pop out! Hope Paw's legs are better. And Maw have a kiss on me. Mebbe you folks think I don't appreciate you. If I was any good at writing I'd tell you different.

"Your Son and Brother, "Nat Haynes."

The worst of it all was about Maw's not crying-just sitting there staring at the fire, or where the fire had been when the wood had died out of neglect. It's not in reason that a woman shouldn't cry, Luke felt. He tried some words of comfort:

"He's safe, anyhow, Maw-'member that! That's a whole lot too. Didn't always know that, times he was rollin' round so over here. You worried a whole lot about him, you know."

But Maw didn't answer. She seldom spoke at all-moved about as little as possible. When she had put out food for him and Tom she always went back to her corner and stared into the fire. Luke had to bring a plate to her and coax her to eat. Even the day Uncle Clem and Aunt Mollie came up she did not notice them. Only once she spoke of Nat to Luke.

"You loved him the most, didn't ye, Maw?" he asked timidly one dreary evening.

She answered in a sort of dull surprise.

"Why, lad, he was my first!" she said; and after a bit, as though to herself: "His head was that round and s.h.i.+ny when he was a little fellow it was like to a little round apple. I mind, before he ever come, I bought me a cap fur him over to Rockville, with a blue bow onto it. He looked awful smart an' pretty in it."

Sometimes in the night Luke, sleeping ill and thinking long, lay and listened for possible sounds from Maw's room. Perhaps she cried in the nights. If she only would-it would help break the tension for them all.

But he never heard anything but the rain-steadily, miserably beating on the sodden s.h.i.+ngles overhead.

It was only Luke who watched the mail box now. One morning his journey to it bore fruit. No sting any longer; no fear in the thick foreign letter he carried.

"It'll tell ye all's to it, I bet!" he said eagerly.

Maw seemed scarcely interested. It was Luke who broke the seal and read it aloud.

It was written from the Ambulance Headquarters, in Paris-written by a man of rare insight, of fine and delicate perception. All that Nat's family might have wished to learn he sought to tell them. He had himself investigated Nat's story and he gave it all fully and freely. He spoke in praise of Nat; of his friendly a.s.sociations with the Ambulance men; of his good nature and cheerful spirits; his popularity and ready willingness to serve. People, one felt, had loved Nat over there.