Enduring (42 page)

Then he was gone, and she heard him off up the creek whistling for his dog.

She started home, reflecting,
But he didn’t even kiss me
.

Chapter thirty-three

S
weet June passed into sluggish July, hotter than usual and dry. All the Stay Morons either worked at the tomato canning factory or in connection with it, and all of them spent part of their earnings at Latha’s store. Often Latha when she was alone with her daughter was tempted to tell her of her experience in the cavern up on Banty Creek, but there was always the worry that Sonora might tell Hank and it might start a chain of gossip. Latha felt it wasn’t fair for Sonora to describe in detail her carnal exploits with Hank if Latha couldn’t return the thrill of storytelling. As all good storytellers knew, the pleasure worked as much for the teller as for the listener. One night when Sonora was off somewhere enjoying herself with Hank, Latha was alone with Dawny and was tempted to find out if he knew the facts of life, and, if not, to begin his education. But if
that
got back to his Aunt Rosie, it would be the end of Latha as far as Stay More was concerned.

One night toward the latter part of July when she was sitting on the porch with nobody except Dawny and a few dozen of her cats, and Dawny had, as he usually did, requested her to tell him a story, she realized she needed to visit her outhouse first and she told Dawny she’d be right back. The outhouse was always a good place for thinking deep thoughts, and entertaining fantasies, and she practically relived the entire episode of meeting Dolph Rivett, moment by moment, before realizing that Dawny was waiting for her to tell him a story. When she got back to the porch, Dawny announced, “There was a man here.”

Something in his voice made it sound like it wasn’t a man that anybody knew. “Who?” she said.

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me his name.”

Her first thought was that it could have been Dolph Rivett, somehow managing to track her down. “What did he want?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just wanted to know who lived here now. I told him. Then he wanted to know if anybody was livin on the Dill place, so when I said no he headed off in that direction, said he was just gonna look around up there.”

Latha had some trouble breathing. Could it possibly be—? No, it couldn’t possibly be. “What did he look like?” she asked, realizing her voice was quavering.

“I couldn’t much tell. He was on the other side of a flashlight. Sort of tall, I guess. Seemed like a nice man.”

Latha did not know what to say, so she said nothing, for a long time. Finally Dawny had to remind her that she was going to tell him a story. She found her way out of the flood of old memories that had captivated her. She smiled and rumpled Dawny’s hair. “Sure, Dawny,” she said, but was reluctant to let go of all those memories, and selected one of them that was a ghost story of sorts. “Would you care to hear a strange tale about a dumb supper? Have you ever heard tell of a ‘dumb supper’?”

“Caint say that I have,” he said. So she decided to tell him the story about her high school classmates having a party at one of the girl’s houses in Parthenon, where they decided to have a dumb supper.

“Well,” she said. “Once upon a time, in a month of May a long time ago, a bunch of girls who were just about ready to graduate from high school decided to set themselves a dumb supper, which is an old, old custom that must go all the way back to the days of yore in England.

“The idee is that you take and set out a place at the dinner table, just like you were having company, except you don’t set out any food. You put out the plate and knife and fork and spoon, and the napkin. Then you turn the lamp down very low. A candle is even better. Then you wait. You stand behind the chair and wait to see what happens.” She said these words with ominous mystery, and although she could not see Dawny in the dark she could feel that he was getting excited. “Well,” she went on, “there were six of these girls, and they set out six plates, and then the six of them stood behind the six chairs and waited, with only one candle to light the room. They waited and they waited. The idee is that if you wait long enough, the apparition—not a real ghost, Dawny, but a ghost-like image—the apparition of the man you will marry will appear and take his seat before you at the table.

“Oh, of course it was all a lot of foolishness like all that superstitious going-on, but these girls believed in it, and anyway it would be a lot of fun. So they waited and they waited.

“Sometimes, if a girl was wishing very hard that a particular boy would appear, somebody she was crazy wild about, then she might get hysterical and really believe that he had come! Imagine that, Dawny. But the other girls would just laugh at her.

“Anyway, these girls waited and waited, but of course nothing happened. Some of them closed their eyes and mumbled magic words, and some of them prayed, but no boys showed up, and no apparitions of boys showed up. Until finally…” Dawny had stopped breathing and she feared he might suffocate. “Until finally there was this one particular girl who was wishing very, very hard, and she opened her eyes, and there coming into the room was a boy! With his hat pulled down over his eyes, he came right on over to her chair and sat down on it! And then in the candle-light she saw who it was! It wasn’t the boy she was wishing for at all! It was another boy, the one she had already turned down twice when he asked for her hand!

“And then she fainted dead away.”

After a while, Dawny said, “Well? Then what happened?”

“Well, after they got her revived, with smelling salts and cold compresses, one of the girls explained it all to her. Somehow that boy had found out about the dumb supper. The boys weren’t supposed to know, but somehow he had found out. And came on purpose. The other girls had thrown him out of the house, after this poor girl fainted, and told him he ought to be ashamed of himself. And maybe he was.”

“Well,” Dawny said, “did she ever marry him?”

“No.”

“Did she marry the other one, the one she was wishing for?”

“No.”

“That other one, the one she was wishing for, his name was Raymond, wasn’t it?”

Latha gasped in surprise. “Why, Dawny, I didn’t know you knew about that!”

“What was the name of the one who came to the dumb supper?”

She could not answer.

A minute passed before Dawny begged her to please tell him, and when she wouldn’t, he suggested a couple of people it might have been, like Tearle Ingledew or Doc Swain, but she would not tell him. Not until he threatened to go away and never come back and “never love you anymore,” did she relent and confess. “All right,” she said. “His name was Dill. Every Dill. Isn’t that a queer name? It wasn’t Avery, but Every. He was William Dill’s boy, old Billy Dill who used to make wagons.”

Dawny, his voice trembling, asked, “What…whatever…what did ever…become of him?”

“Nobody knows, child.”

“Maybe…” he said, pointing up the road toward the Dill place.

“Yes, Dawny, that’s what I’ve been wondering about too.”

Suddenly Dawny requested, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

She smiled at the charming thought. “Whatever for?”

“To protect you.”

She started to laugh but decided it might hurt his feelings. She said, “Your Aunt Rosie wouldn’t allow it.”

“Aw, sure she would. She don’t care where I sleep.”

“But you’d have to let her know where you are, and I bet you she wouldn’t allow you to stay with me.”

Dawny stood up. “I’ll be right back, fast as I can.” And he took off for home, running as fast as his little legs would carry him, with the dog Gumper hot on his heels. She did not expect to see him again that night, and couldn’t imagine what he might say to his Aunt Rosie to get permission. She went out to the side of her house, where mullein were growing tall, and selected the tallest one and named it Every Dill, then bent it down to the ground. Then she went into her bedroom and prepared for bed. But she hadn’t completed her preparations when there came a knock at the bedroom door and there was Dawny.

“I just told her a bunch of kids are having a bunking party at your store, laying out pallets all over the place and that we’re going to have a real jamboree of ghost stories, with free sody pop. She believed me, but told me to behave myself.”

She admired his resourcefulness at the same time she regretted having consented to his plan. “Dawny, close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want to watch me undressing, do you?” She turned off the lamp.

“But it’s pitch dark, I caint see you noway.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Okay.” She continued removing her clothes and climbed into bed.

“Well,” she said. “Now you can open your eyes. But don’t look at me.”

“Why caint I look at you?”

“Because it’s so hot and we’d have to pull the covers up because I don’t have anything on.”

“You mean you’re nekkid?” She could sense that he was looking at her.

She pressed the side of his face to turn it away. “Don’t look.”

“But it’s so dark I caint see nothing noway.” He climbed into the bed. The faintest breeze came through the bedroom window. “Can I sleep nekkid too?” he asked.

“Dawny, I wish you wouldn’t say ‘nekkid.’ That makes it sound bad.”

“Okay, can I sleep undressed too?”

She was regretting her mistake more and more. “Dawny, you’re commencing to make me nervous. If you ever told anybody, your Aunt Rosie or anybody, that me and you slept together, let alone without our clothes, do you know that they would cover me with hot tar and feathers and ride me out of town on a rail?”

“Aw, Latha! Do you honestly think I would ever tell anybody? I aint never gon tell
any
body
any
thing about me’n you.”

“Maybe,” she said, “maybe I better get a quilt and fix you a pallet on the floor in the other room.”

Dawny began to cry.

“Oh, shush, Dawny, a big boy like you!” she cooed. “Lie still, and shush.” But he kept on crying. She reached over and grabbed him by his undershirt and tugged the undershirt over his head, and then pulled his shorts down and off his feet. “There!” she said. “Now shush.” He shushed. “Close your eyes and go to sleep.”

“I’m not much sleepy,” he said. “Are you?”

“Not much, I guess.”

“Then tell me a story.”

“All right,” she agreed, and from her store of great ghost stories she selected the most special ones, the scariest ones, even ones that he had heard before, knowing that there’s nothing wrong with hearing the same story twice if you liked it the first time, especially the stories that have the most powerful climax. In the climax of her best stories, Dawny would reach over and squeeze her hand. Because the storyteller has as much thrill as the listener, she too was transported by her stories, and likened the ascent of the climax to the ascent of a mountain in sex, although of course neither she nor Dawny went quite over the mountain.

After a particularly intense climax, which left them both panting, Dawny said, “Latha, I love you.”

She turned and became aware that the moon had shifted from behind a tree and its light was pouring into the room, and Dawny was staring at her breasts. She reached out and rumpled his hair and said to him, “I love you too, and if you were a growed-up man I would marry you right this minute.” She pulled him to her and gave him a hug and then put him back where he was. “Now let’s try to get some sleep.”

They tried to get some sleep, but they were both listening. They listened for a knock or for footsteps on the porch. The night passed on. The symphony of the bugs and frogs never stopped. The night cooled. Footsteps! A voice! But it was a girl’s, it was Sonora, coming home. Her screen door opened with its noisy twang and then it was silent again, and stayed silent for a long time.

By and by, Dawny whispered into her ear, “Do you think that it might really be him up there? Do you think it’s really Every Dill?”

“Oh, I know it,” she said, because she had given this much thought, and the thought did not scare her nor worry her but filled her with the loveliest anticipation. “I know it is.”

They both slept.

The following day dawned bright and fair. She woke much earlier than Dawny, dressed, and stood for a while contemplating his small body. In the heat of the night he had kicked off the sheet and was naked and cute, his tiny dinger cutest of all. She was tempted to give it a kiss, but instead kissed him on the brow, at the same time reproaching herself for having allowed him to spend the night with her. Then she went to the kitchen and took a platter of day-old pork-flavored biscuits and carried them out onto the back porch and threw them one by one to her cats, saving the last one for herself. She munched it slowly and lingered to watch the cats fighting over the biscuits. She stayed even longer to watch the cats loll in the early morning sun and lick themselves and each other, then she returned to the kitchen and got her milk pail and filled it a quarter ways with water dipped from the water pail. She carried this up the hill to the cow lot, pausing only briefly at her out-house. She squatted by the Jersey’s flank, not needing a stool, and after washing each of the teats carefully with the water in the pail, she swirled the rest of the water out of the pail and began to milk.

The milk was good; Mathilda had been grazing lately on the orchard grass, free of the lower pasture’s bitter weeds that gave the milk a pungent taste. The pesky flies of July bothered Mathilda, and she fidgeted restlessly while she was milked. “Saw, Jerse,” Latha would croon at her, “saw.” Latha closed her eyes while she milked and enjoyed the feel of the long cool dugs. She filled the pail and carried it down to the springhouse to crock it and leave it to cool.

By this time her free-ranging chickens had assembled in a packed flock around the back steps of the house. She walked through them to the back porch and scooped into the feedbag and flung several handfuls into the yard. The chickens made a racket.

Then she took down the slop bucket hanging from the porch ceiling and carried it to the sty, for her four Chester Whites. Pigs were her favorite animal, not alone for the ebullient gratitude they showed for the garbagey swill she showered upon them, but for the noises they made, which seemed to her an expression of basic life forces.