Part 2

“Believe I had a plenty, Annie.”

“Gimme ’nother cup er coffee.” Will held his cup back toward the stove without turning. Annie filled it for him. She had finished her breakfast and she went slowly about the kitchen, testing the water in the iron kettle and scraping the dishes clean. She gathered them into a pile and carried them to a table nearer the stove.

Henry tilted back his chair and lighted a pipe. Will sucked noisily at his second cup of coffee, his arms propped on the table, one hand supporting his head.

“Going to do Four Acre?” Henry asked presently in a voice he meant to be conciliating.

“Yeah.”

“It sure is goin’ to be a hot day.”

“You’re dam’ right!”

“Can’t yer put it off?” Henry went on.

“Naw!” Will got up and stood with his hands on the back of his chair, looking down at him. “You got a purtty sof’ snap sittin’ ’round all day doin’ nothin’.”

“Trade you!” Henry said quickly.

“Like hell, you would!” He gave the chair a sudden push that sent it against the table. “Whar’s them milk buckets?”

Annie pointed to them and he took the two empty pails and went out. There was a little space of silence as Annie poured the greasy dish water out through the open window on the ground, where it ran off in a rainbow streak down the slope of the yard. “Will oughter milk before brekfast,” she said to Henry as she hung the pan on its nail.

“Well, it’s purtty hard on him, doing all the work for bothen us.” Henry shook his head solemnly.

“You can’t help it!” Annie said fiercely. She went through the door carrying a bucket of scraps--more food for the pigs. When she came back she swept the kitchen, took the ashes from the cooling stove and covered the table with a cloth, then she darkened the room and went out. She swept the two bedrooms, beat the knobs out of the shuck mattresses and spread them with yellow sheets, yellow from having been washed in river water. When all this was done she returned to the kitchen, strained and set away the milk Will had left for her on the table. She carried it out to the wire-covered box nailed high up on the porch, to keep away the swarming flies. Then she put on a slat bonnet, took a knife and basket and went out into the garden.

III

The Sherrod house stood on a rise of ground above the river. The spring freshets never reached it, not even the famous one of ’98. The front of the house faced the long red dirt track that led up to the crossroads, and the back of it looked down on the river. The house had never been painted, the clapboards had weathered an even gray, and here and there patches of green moss clung to the roof and the chimney bricks. Henry and William owned it jointly, together with the sixty-acre farm on either side of it.

Henry knew nothing of farming. When he was in his teens he had gone away to work on one of the river steamers. In those days, twenty years ago, steamers ran from across the sound, and up the river as far as Jamesville, the town below the Sherrod place. There were no steamboats on the river now. The railroad had built a long trestle across the sound and put them all out of business. The old _Plymouth_, that Henry had gone out on, was lying, a rotting hulk, at Adamton. The boat’s trip from Adamton across the sound and up the river to Jamesville had required a day. Then she was tied up at the dock until next morning when her captain backed her around and headed her downstream and again across the sound to Adamton. The railroad now hauled the cotton and tobacco, and an occasional crop of peanuts from Jamesville to Adamton in three hours.

Henry had been fat even as a young man. He had a jolly laugh and took life pretty much as he found it. He knew a lot of drummer jokes, collected from travelers on the _Plymouth_. He told them to the old folks and to Will whenever he came to the farm to spend a night. Will listened to them with ill grace and Henry was forced to believe Will jealous of him. He wooed Will with presents bought in the superior stores of Adamton, and if he discovered Will was “courting” a town girl, he stopped going to see her himself. He had a long talk with Will when the old people died. He said if Will wanted him to he would give up his job and come home, but Will said he didn’t need any river man around. So Henry had kept on with the _Plymouth_.

The farm was a lonely place and Will’s fine enthusiasm for farming by himself soon wore itself out. He decided to get married and went “courting” Annie Spruill, the daughter of a neighboring farmer. He drove to her house in a shiny new buggy and a suit of clothes Henry had bought for him over in Adamton. Will had intended painting the house and making many improvements when he brought Annie home, but the spring freshet in the river ruined his corn that year, and afterwards he never seemed to get around to it.

Annie had been a pretty girl when Will married her. In those days she had bright brown eyes and black hair, but the eyes dimmed and ceased to sparkle after a few years on the farm with Will. The work was heavy, and Will, his disposition never good, fretted with his seeming ill-luck, rarely provided her with any of the things women like. He had drunk corn whiskey, and as Annie lost her good looks and became a drab creature who rarely spoke, he drank worse. His unfaithfulness to her was known throughout the county.

Annie’s children died at birth. They were thin infants, old beyond the knowledge of mortals. She had wept noisily for the first and a little less for the second. She was carrying the third when Henry came home to stay. A doctor in Adamton had told him he was losing his eyesight. Will said he had been “kicked out of his job.” Annie was glad to have him. He never lost his temper and he helped her around the house until the blindness was upon him. He was resigned and at first made a joke of his affliction. He sat in his rocking chair, never seeming to care whether he moved again or not. He told Annie all the drummer jokes and made her laugh long and loudly. He learned to knit and he sent away to a mail order house for a fiddle. He taught himself to play “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

Annie’s third child was born. Henry held it in his arms until the tiny overburdened heart ceased beating in thumps. He could not see the age-old little face, nor the coppery spots on its forehead, but he knew something was wrong.

Doctor White in Jamesville told Will that he and Annie must not have any more children, and that he was to come to town for treatment. Will listened to him in sulky silence--and never went.

Farm labor became harder to get. A great many farm hands had gone north, lured by rumors of higher wages. Will rented out part of the farm to a negro tenant. This man had a still down in the hollow and Will bought molasses for him and sold the finished “monkey rum” in Jamesville. It was only a small business, for Will had no money to buy off the county officers and run the still on a large scale, but it was quite big enough to furnish him with all he and his town friends wanted to drink. Three or four times a week he drove into town with a jug under the seat of the buggy and, after he had disposed of it, spent the evening lounging around the drug store and talking to the girls from the tobacco stemmery. He spent his money buying them silk stockings and cheap perfume.

During all this time Henry sat on at the farm, moving only when necessity drove him. He grew stouter. He rarely told a drummer joke; Annie knew them all, so there was no need. His clothes were worn and shiny with grease from the food he spilled upon them. He had put his fiddle away. He told Annie he had heard that people born on the river came home to die on it.

IV

It was twelve o’clock and Will came in from the field. The perspiration streamed down his face and the top of his overalls was wet with it. Annie put dinner on the table. She had cooked a piece of smoked hog jowl and boiled some collards in the liquor, and there was a pudding of yellow corn. At Will’s place stood a pitcher of milk, covered with a cloth to keep the flies out. Will washed his hands and sat down; Henry was already in his accustomed place. A cat came in and curled its sleek sides around the table leg. Will kicked at it and the cat jumped in a great arch through the kitchen door.

“I’m going to kill ’at cat,” he said. No one answered him, no one spoke throughout the meal.

The kitchen was stifling hot. When Will had finished he carried his chair out on the porch. A little breeze was stirring, he propped the chair against the side of the house, sat down and closed his eyes. In a minute more he was fast asleep. Annie washed the dishes and set the kitchen to rights. As she crossed the porch on her way to the house she leaned over and shook him awake: “Ain’t you ever goin’ to work?” she said.

He stretched himself and stood up: “Tain’t none of yore business, ifn’t I don’t!” he told her as he crammed his hat on his head and went down the back steps to the field.

He came in early, long before sunset, and asked for a towel and hot water. He took the bucket Annie gave him to their bedroom and whistled as he washed and put on clean clothes. He joined them at supper in his best suit of clothes and ate his food in a great hurry.

“Goin’ to town again tonight, Will?” Henry asked.

“None er yore business!”

“Well,” Henry said mildly, “you needn’t take a feller’s head off when he asks you a question.”

Will’s eyes were red as he looked up, “Who ast you to put in? You mind your own business--if you don’t, you know what’s good for you! I guess I got a right to go to town when I dam’ please! Who does all the work aroun’ here--you tell me that----”

“I didn’t mean nothin’,” Henry said.

“No, an’ you better not neither!” Will got up from his place. He turned toward Annie, “An’ you needn’t leave no light burnin’ for me!” Annie did not look at him. In a minute or two they heard him drive out of the yard. He would be gone all night and in the morning would appear, sober and sleepy, to spend the whole day lying in a stupor on a pallet at the end of the porch, sleeping away the effects of the raw liquor he had drunk.

Henry tapped his way out to the porch and sat down in a rocking chair. When Annie had put up the supper dishes she came out and joined him. It was cooler out there. The sun had long since gone down and the river had lost its look of parchedness. The water was black as it hurried by to the sound. There were black shadows under the myrtle and willows on the opposite bank, but the trees waved green higher up where the light struck them. The sky back of them was soft with a scattering of white clouds. Night flew close to the water. A crane’s broad wings circled and went on downstream. The frogs began their nightly singing.

Henry’s hands rested on his knees. Annie sat tense and drawn in her chair, her hands on the arms and her head back against the high, broad top of it. They were both rocking. Suddenly Henry’s chair ceased rocking and he turned to Annie.

“You ain’t right well, are you, Annie?”

Annie did not answer him at once and he went on: “Seems to me like you been ailin’ quite a spell. You don’t never say nothin’, but I kin feel you moving ’round slow like. What’s the matter with you?” His slow tones were anxious.

Annie rocked all the harder. “Tain’t nothin’,” she said briefly.

“Well, I’m right glad to hear it. Maybe you need a dost of quinine--that’ll put you right in a jiffy----”

“It’ll be a long time afore I’m right agin!” Annie said passionately.

The full meaning of it sank into Henry’s mind in the long pause that followed. He cleared his throat helplessly, and his voice, as he questioned her, had a quaver in it: “You don’t mean you’re goin’ to--to have another young ’un?”

“Yes, I do, an’ I wish I was dead! I been thinkin’ I’d better go down and jump in that river----”

“Now, Annie, don’t talk like that!” Henry put out a hand and felt for her in the dark. “That kind of talk ain’t right. You know what the Bible says about takin’ your own life. It ain’t right. You ought not to even think it----” he lapsed into silence.

“Maybe you made a mistake--maybe it ain’t so,” he said after a little.

“Yes, maybe!” Annie’s voice was bitter.

“Does--does Will know?”

“I ain’t told him, but he knows well enough--” she broke off and suddenly stood up. “I--I forgot, I ain’t fed the cat.” She went swiftly into the house. Through the blinds back of him Henry heard her fling herself down on the bed and smother her sobs in the quilts. He rocked violently, his fat, helpless hands around the knobs of the armchair.

“It ain’t right! It ain’t right!” He repeated it to himself over and over.

The stars were out when Annie stole back to her place beside him. The sky was powdery with them. Crickets chirped in the yard and the frogs cried loudly out of the swamp. Annie’s chair began to move. At first it went slowly back and forth and then it struck its gait. Henry’s rocker kept time to it.

“I been sittin’ here thinkin’ while you was gone, Annie. I been thinkin’ somethin’ mighty curious--about us--an’ how things is fixed in this world. It ain’t right, some of it. Now here’s us--Will all time runnin’ after them girls in town--an’ drinkin’. An’ then there’s you--you has to work too hard. Will don’t work hardly enough--he reely ain’t able too--maybe if’n he was to stop drinkin’ he might----”

“He won’t!” Annie interrupted.

“No, I don’t guess he will. It’s a pity. I seen a lot of it up an’ down the river in the old days--it don’t never lead to no good end. If you was to have somebody to help do the cookin’--an’ was to go to meetin’ now and then--an’ git some pretty clothes----”

“Huh!” Annie’s rocker stopped. “Where you think we goin’ to get all them things? I ain’t been to meetin’ in months--that’s how I git to meetin’!”

“I wasn’t sayin’ you was goin’ to git ’em. I was just thinkin’,” Henry’s voice rebuked her.

“Huh!” The rocking chair took up its accustomed gait again.

“Maybe--maybe when yore time come--” Henry’s voice went on out of the darkness, “maybe yore baby would live--and you could raise it up to be a comfort to you.”

Annie said nothing.

“Then ther’s me. All my life long I took good care of myself. I never had nothin’ much to do with girls--never drunk much--a toddy now an’ then, that’s all--but look at me?” There was no bitterness in Henry’s voice. “But here I am--a big lump--good for nothin’--I jest sit aroun’ an’ make a lot of work for you.”

“You’re a sight o’ company, Henry,” Annie interrupted.

“Well, thank you, Annie, but I’ll never be good for nothin’ again. An’ what I got to look forward to--just tell me that? Tain’t like I got married an’ had some children--it wouldn’t matter so much then--I wouldn’t keer--I’d be more resigned like----”

Annie stopped rocking.

Henry went on. “I sometimes sits an’ thinks about it for a good spell. We don’t know if what the preacher says is true. We ain’t certain ’bout that kingdom up in the sky--leastways I ain’t----” Henry paused uncertainly. “It may be agin’ the Scripters, but sometimes I think all we got is right here on the earth--an’ it don’t seem right that some of us gits so little.”

Annie sat still under the weight of it. “No, it don’t, Henry,” she said at last.

“I lived pretty good. I didn’t miss much when I was on the river--but I wish I’d got married. I wish I’d got a boy or girl to take keer of me now.” He heaved a deep sigh. “Well, it’s like that--but don’t guess it does any good to talk about it much.”

“I never knowed you cared nothin’ ’bout children,” Annie’s voice held a wondering interest.

“No, I don’t reckon you did. I ain’t never talked about it to nobody before.”

There was a long pause broken only by the creak of the boards under the two swaying chairs.

“Henry,” Annie began again, and her voice was solemn “if ’n I was to take keer of myself--same as Doctor White tole me last time--drink a lot of milk and let some of the heavy work go--do you ’spose this baby what’s comin’ would live?”

“Maybe it would, Annie----”

She leaned forward and touched him on the arm. “An’ if ’n it does live, Henry,” she said in sudden excitement, “it’s goin’ to _be yore chile_----”

Henry stopped rocking. “What you mean, Annie?”

“I mean I’m goin’ to give it to you--to grow up an’ be a comfort to you. It’s going to be named Henry Sherrod--an’ you is goin’ to raise it----”

“But how can you do that, Annie--you can’t give Will’s child away?”

“Can’t I?” the same scornful laugh was in Annie’s voice. “Will hadn’t ought to have no children--the doctor done said so--an’ anyway he shan’t tech it----”

“But what’ll he say?”

“He won’t say noth’n--you leave that to me!”

“But look here, Annie,” Henry leaned toward her in the darkness, his voice betraying his earnestness, “supposen you did--people would think it kinder queer----”

“Let ’em! Nobody never comes down here no more. When he gits big we’ll go away----”

“Where’ll we go?”

“I dunno--some place!” Annie leaned back, relaxed. Her voice was full of ease and happiness. “We’ll go away all right. Some place where there’s movin’ pichers an’ ’lectric lights. He kin go to school--pay school. I ain’t goin’ to sen’ my chile to no free school! Maybe he’ll have a tobacco warehouse when he gits grown----”

“Maybe he’ll be captain of a steamboat----” Henry’s voice took up the chant.

“Yes, an’ we’ll have a parlor an’ a organ----”

“Maybe he’ll read the newspaper to me----” Henry’s voice was wistful.

Once more the rockers rocked in cadence. It was cooler now, a little wind blew from across the river and brought the steady “flop flop” of the fish trap as it dipped down in the current.

Henry loosed himself from the dream first. “It’s gettin’ kinder late,” he said. “I reckon we all better be gettin’ to bed.”

Annie drew a long breath. “Maybe it won’t live,” she said.

“Maybe so,” Henry too seemed to have lost interest. He shuffled across the porch and through the doorway, the tap of his stick preceding him down the hall to his room.

Annie sat on, her hands gripped tightly together in her lap. “Oh, God,” she prayed, “I got to have somethin’--I got to have somethin’--”

V

October was on the river. Swamp maples flaunted a blare of color as far as eye could reach. The slim dagger leaves of the willows, already yellow, fell to eddy in the current before the river swept them away. Pokeberries were as black as ink. Green holly was swelling, turning red for winter. Up in the bare branches of the gum trees mistletoe, in round full bunches, swayed with every passing wind, the milky berries gleaming against gray-green leaves.

Annie Sherrod was jellying. She stood over the kitchen table pouring the crimson juice of wild grapes into tumblers and sealing them with round pieces of white paper dipped in rum and white of egg.

Propped against the door in a split bottom chair, Henry was skimping through the strains of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” on his fiddle. His head was bent low, only the thin, reddish hair brushed carefully across the top was visible to Annie as she looked across at him.

“It sure is gran’ jelly!” she told him.

Henry lowered the fiddle. “I can tell that jest by smellin’,” he said.

Annie wiped her hands on her big checked apron. “I’m goin’ to git you some in a saucer to taste in a minute. I never did see the beat of it for jellyin’. Most times you has to wait ’till it gits cole--or set it in the sun--but this here--” She dug her fingers in the cooling stuff and lifted a mass of it high. It dropped with a soft “slosh,” heard plainly across the room. Annie laughed, “Did you hear it?” she said.

“Sure did!”

“I got nine glasses,” Annie went on. “I aim to pick some more grapes next week an’ do up a even dozen ’fore I stops.”

Henry returned to his fiddling. The kitchen glowed in the afternoon light. The stove shone red through the cracks and the kettle on it poured out its song of steam. There was a red cloth on the eating table and a bunch of goldenrod stuck in a tumbler decorating the center of it. Over all, hung the rich, spicy aroma of the fox grapes.

Annie brought a saucer half full of jelly over to Henry.

“Here, taste it!” She filled a spoon and put it in his hand. She stood over him as he sampled it, her hands akimbo on her hips.

“Um----” Henry smacked his lips noisily. “It sure is good stuff!”

“Tomorro’ is Sattiday. You an’ me is goin’ to hitch up and drive to town right after brekfast and do some tradin’ at Latham’s. I already done washed your other ves’--it was terrible greasy. You got to stop dribblin’ things on yourself, Henry Sherrod. If n’ you don’t----” Annie’s voice was mocking, she threatened him with a flourish of the now empty saucer, “if n’ you don’t I’m goin’ to tie you up in one er my apruns!” She threw back her head and laughed.

“Huh! Huh!” Henry laughed with her.

“You all seem mighty happy in here.” Will stood in the doorway. He carried his gun slung across his shoulder.

The laughter stopped in mid-air. Henry returned to fingering his fiddle. Annie picked up the tray of jelly glasses and carried them out on the back porch, passing Will in the doorway, where he grudgingly made way for her. Coming back she took off her apron and, smoothing her new calico dress down over her full hips, got out the big pasteboard box she used for sewing.