Stories of Erskine Caldwell (3 page)

The yellow tom was all the way up in one of Jim’s young maple shade trees. The maple wasn’t strong enough to support even the smallest of the little Swedes, if he should take it into his head to climb to the top after the cat, and neither Jim nor me was hurting ourselves trying to think of a way to get the feline down. We were all for letting the cat stay where he was, till he got ready to come down of his own free will, but the little Swedes couldn’t wait for anything. They wanted the tom right away, then and there, and no wasting of time in getting him.

“You boys go home and wait for the cat to come down,” Jim told them. “There’s no way to make him come down now, till he gets ready to come down of his own mind.”

But no, those two boys were little Swedes. They weren’t thinking of going back home till they got the yellow tom down from the maple. One of them ran to the tree, before Jim or me could head him off, and started shinnying up it like a popeyed squirrel. In no time, it seemed to me like, he was up amongst the limbs, jumping around up there from one limb to another like he had been brought up in just such a tree.

“Good God, Stan,” Jim said, “can’t you keep them out of the trees?”

There was no answer for that, and Jim knew there wasn’t. There’s no way of stopping a Swede from doing what he has set his head on doing.

The boy got almost to the top branch, where the yellow tom was clinging and spitting, when the tree began to bend towards the house. I knew what was coming, if something wasn’t done about it pretty quick, and so did Jim. Jim saw his young maple shade tree begin to bend, and he almost had a fit looking at it. He ran to the lumber stack and came back dragging two lengths of two-by-fours. He got them set up against the tree before it had time to do any splitting, and then we stood there, like two damn fools, shoring up the tree and yelling at the little Swede to come down out of there before we broke his neck for being up in it.

The big Swedes across the road heard the fuss we were making, and they came running out of that three-story, six-room house like it had been on fire inside.

“Good God, Stan,” Jim shouted at me, “here comes the Swedes!”

“Don’t turn and run off, Jim,” I cautioned him, yanking him back by his coattail. “They’re not wild beasts; we’re not scared of them. Hold on where you are, Jim.”

I could see Mrs. Frost’s head almost breaking through the window glass in the kitchen. She was all for coming out and driving the Swedes off her lawn and out of her flowers, but she was too scared to unlock the kitchen door and open it.

Jim was getting ready to run again, when he saw the Swedes coming towards us like a nest of yellow-headed bumblebees, but I wasn’t scared of them, and I held on to Jim’s coattail and told him I wasn’t. Jim and me were shoring up the young maple, and I knew if one of us let go, the tree would bend to the ground right away and split wide open right up the middle. There was no sense in ruining a young maple shade tree like that, and I told Jim there wasn’t.

“Hey,” one of the big Swedes shouted at the little Swede up in the top of the maple, “come down out of that tree and go home to your mother.”

“Aw, to hell with the Old Lady,” the little Swede shouted down. “I’m getting the cat by the tail,”

The big Swede looked at Jim and me. Jim was almost ready to run again by that time, but I wasn’t, and I held him and told him I wasn’t. There was no sense in letting the Swedes scare the daylights out of us.

“What in hell can you do with kids when they get that age?” he asked Jim and me.

Jim was all for telling him to make the boy come down out of the maple before it bent over and split wide open, but I knew there was no sense in trying to make him come down out of there until he got good and ready to come, or else got the yellow tom by the tail.

Just then another big Swede came running out of that three-story, six-room house across the road, holding a double-bladed ax out in front of him, like it was a red-hot poker, and yelling for all he was worth at the other Swedes.

“Good God, Stan,” Jim said, “don’t let those Swedes cut down my young maple!”

I had lots better sense than to try to make the Swedes stop doing what they had set their heads on doing. A man would be purely a fool to try to stop it from raining from above when it got ready to, even if he was trying to get his corn crop planted,

I looked around again, and there was Mrs. Frost all but popping through the window glass. I could see what she was thinking, but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. It was good and plenty though, whatever it was.

“Come down out of that tree!” the Swede yelled at the boy up in Jim’s maple.

Instead of starting to climb down, the little Swede reached up for the big yellow tom cat’s tail. The tom reached out a big fat paw and harried the boy five-six times, just like that, quicker than the eye could follow. The kid let out a yell and a shout that must have been heard all the way to the other side of town, sounding like a whole houseful of Swedes up in the maple.

The big Swede covered the distance to the tree in one stride, pushing everything behind him.

“Good God, Stan,” Jim shouted at me, “we’ve got to do something!”

There wasn’t anything a man could do, unless he was either a Swede himself, or a man of prayer. Americans like Jim and me had no business getting in a Swede’s way, especially when he was swinging a big double-bladed ax, and he just out of a pulp mill after being shut up making paper four-five years.

The big Swede grabbed the ax and let go at the trunk of the maple with it. There was no stopping him then, because he had the ax going, and it was whipping around his shoulders like a cow’s tail in a swarm of black flies. The little maple shook all over every time the ax blade struck it, like wind blowing a cornstalk, and then it began to bend on the other side from Jim and me where we were shoring it up with the two-by-fours. Chips as big as dinner plates were flying across the lawn and pelting the house like a gang of boys stoning telephone insulators. One of those big dinner-plate chips crashed through the window where Mrs. Frost was, about that time. Both Jim and me thought at first she had fallen through the window, but when we looked again, we could see that she was still on the inside, and madder than ever at the Swedes.

The two-by-fours weren’t any good any longer, because it was too late to get to the other side of the maple in time to keep it from bending in that direction. The Swede with the double-bladed ax took one more swing, and the tree began to bend towards the ground.

The tree came down, the little Swede came down, and the big yellow tom came down on top of everything, holding for all he was worth to the top of the little Swede’s head. Long before the tree and the boy struck the ground, the big yellow tom had sprung what looked like thirty feet, and landed in the middle of Mrs. Frost’s flowers and bulbs. The little Swede let out a yell and a whoop when he hit the ground that brought out six-seven more Swedes from that three-story, six-room house, piling out into the road like it was the first time they had ever heard a kid bawl. The women Swedes and the little Swedes and the big Swedes piled out on Jim and Mrs. Frost’s front lawn like they had been dropped out of a dump truck and didn’t know which was straight up from straight down.

I thought Mrs. Frost was going to have a fit right then and there in the kitchen window. When she saw that swarm of Swedes coming across her lawn, and the big yellow tomcat in her flower bed among the tender plants and bulbs, digging up the things she had planted, and the Swedes with their No. 12 heels squashing the green shoots she had been nursing along — well, I guess she just sort of caved in, and fell out of sight for the time being. I didn’t have time to run to see what was wrong with her, because Jim and me had to tear out behind the tom and the Swedes to try to save as much as we could.

“Good God, Stan,” Jim shouted at me, “go run in the house and ring up all the neighbors on the line, and tell them to hurry over here and help us before the Swedes wreck my farm and buildings. There’s no telling what they’ll do next. They’ll be setting fire to the house and barn the next thing, maybe. Hurry, Stan!”

I didn’t have time to waste talking to the neighbors on the telephone line. I was right behind Jim and the Swedes to see what they were going to do next.

“I pay you good pay, Stan,” Jim said, “and I want my money’s worth. Now, you go ring up the neighbors and tell them to hurry.”

The big yellow tom made one more spring when he hit the flower bed, and that leap landed him over the stone wall. He struck out for the deep woods with every Swede on the place behind him. When Jim and me got to the stone wall, I pulled up short and held Jim back.

“Well, Jim,” I said, “if you want me to, I’ll go down in the woods and raise hell with every Swede on the place for cutting down your young maple and tearing up Mrs. Frost’s flower bed.”

We turned around and there was Mrs. Frost, right behind us. There was no knowing how she got there so quick after the Swedes had left for the woods.

“My crown in heaven,” Mrs. Frost said, running up to Jim and holding on to him. “Jim, don’t let Stanley make the Swedes mad. This is the only place we have got to live in, and they’ll be here a year now this time, maybe two-three, if the hard times don’t get better soon.”

“That’s right, Stan,” he said. “You don’t know the Swedes like we do. You would have to be a Swede yourself to know what to tell them. Don’t go over there doing anything like that.”

“God-helping, Jim,” I said, “you and Mrs. Frost ain’t scared of the Swedes, are you?”

“Good God, no,” he said, his eyes popping out; “but don’t go making them mad.”

(First published in the
Yale Review
)

T
HEY CAME SLOWLY
up the road through the colorless dawn like shadows left behind by the night. There was no motion in their bodies, and yet their feet scuffed up dust that settled behind them as quickly as it was raised. They lifted their eyes with each step they took, peering toward the horizon for the first red rays of the sun.

The woman held her lower lip clamped tightly between her teeth. It hurt her to do that, but it was the only way she could urge herself forward step after step. There was no other way to drag her feet one behind the other, mile after mile. She whimpered occasionally, but she did not cry out.

“It’s time to stop and rest again,” Ring said.

She did not answer him.

They kept on.

At the top of the hill, they came face to face with the sun. It was a quarter of the way up, cut like a knife by the treeless horizon. Down below them was a valley lying under a cover of mist that was rising slowly from the earth. They could see several houses and farms, but most of them were so far away they were almost indistinguishable in the mist. There was smoke rising from the chimney of the first house.

Ruth looked at the man beside her. The red rays of the sun had begun to color his pale face like blood. But still his eyes were tired and lifeless. He looked as if he were balancing himself on his two feet with great effort, and as if the next moment he might lose his balance and fall to the ground.

“We’ll be able to get a little something to eat at that first house,” she said, waiting minute after minute for him to reply.

“We’ll get something there,” she said, answering for him. “We will.”

The sun came up above the horizon, fast and red. Streaks of gray clouds, like layers of woodsmoke, swam across the face of it. Almost as quickly as it had risen, the sun shrank into a small fiery button that seared the eyes until it was impossible to look at it any longer. “Let’s try, anyway,” Ruth said.

Ring looked at her in the clear daylight, seeing her for the first time since the sun had set the night before. Her face was paler, her cheeks more sunken.

Without words, he started forward down the hill. He did not turn his head to see if she was following him, but went down the road drawing one foot from behind and hurling it in front of him with all his might. There was no other way he could move himself over the ground.

He had stopped at the front of the house, looking at the smoke that floated overhead, when she caught up with him at last. “I’ll go in and try,” she said. “You sit down and rest, Ring.” He opened his mouth to say something, but his throat became choked and no words came. He looked at the house, with its worn doorstep and curtain-filled windows and its smoke-filled chimney, and he did not feel like a stranger in a strange country as long as he kept his eyes upon those things.

Ruth went through the gate, and around the side, of the house, and stopped at the kitchen door. She looked behind her and saw Ring coming across the yard from the road.

Someone was watching them from behind a curtain at the window. “Knock,” Ring said.

She placed the knuckles of her right hand against the side of the house and rapped on the clapboards until her hand began to hurt.

She turned around and glanced quickly at Ring, and he nodded his head.

Presently the kitchen door opened a few inches and a woman’s head could be seen through the crack. She was middle-aged and brown-faced and had a long, thick scar on her forehead that looked as if it might have been made by a bursting fruit jar. “Go away,” she told them.

“We won’t bother you,” Ruth said as quickly as she could. “All we wanted was to ask you if you could give us a little something to eat. Just a potato, if you have any, or bread, or something.”

“I don’t know what you are doing here,” the woman said. “I don’t like to have strange people around my house.”

She almost closed the door, but in a moment the crack widened, and her face could be seen once more.

“I’ll feed the girl,” she said finally, “but I can’t let the man have anything. I don’t have enough for both of you, anyway.”

Ruth turned quickly around, her heels digging into the sandy earth. She looked at Ring. He nodded his head eagerly.

He could see the word forming on her lips even though he could not hear it. She shook her head.

Ring went several steps toward her.

“We’ll try somewhere else,” she said.