Stubble Part 11

A moment's pause. Mr. b.o.n.e.r cleared his throat. "All right," he said.

And then he bent back over his work.

He went and got his hat. With his hand on the swinging door he paused and looked back. Not a head was raised. In the air there hovered a droning, a rustling. It was like a vast, drowsy, slothful thing, ignorant, dull, hateful. He pulled open the door. And then he left it.

Three hours later he was standing in the "Golden Rule" at Bloomfield.

Before him was a gla.s.s counter wherein were displayed knives and cleavers and scissors and other cutlery. Above the counter, peering at him rather anxiously over steel-rimmed spectacles, were the head and shoulders of Mr. Burrus. Burrus! It had come to him on the train.

That was the name he had not caught. Burrus! Who else?

"And you say that the last time you saw him was when he got into his buggy and drove away--last night? What makes you think he's gone away?"

Mr. Burrus had been thoughtfully eyeing his stock of knives through the case and as Joe finished he cast a quick, sidewise glance up at him. Joe caught the flicker of it through the spectacles. "Well," he began, and hesitated a little, "it's what I woulda done--under the circ.u.mstances." Mr. Burrus' manner, usually so brisk and business-like, seemed suddenly to have changed. He scratched his head with a long and bony finger and looked up again at Joe. What he saw seemed not to rea.s.sure him, for Joe had all of a sudden grown beyond Bloomfield's conception of him. He towered above the cutlery case--seemed to fill out his clothes. There was a set look about his mouth and a steadiness about his eyes. Mr. Burrus paused again.

"Circ.u.mstances?" said Joe. "Under what circ.u.mstances?"

Mr. Burrus gazed off into the clear blue of the sky patch outlined by his front door. "Well," he began cautiously, "I weren't callatin' to say anything about this to anybody, but--I had to let Bushrod go."

The little weazened body with its scrawny neck rising out of the gaping rubber collar, the s.h.i.+ny bald head with its fringe of graying hair about the edge, the white s.h.i.+rt sleeves with the frayed cuffs and the skinny brown hands--a most incongruous disguise for Nemesis to take in pa.s.sing a p.r.o.nunciamento.

"Why?" Joe repeated after him softly. "Wasn't he doing his work?"

Another flash-like glance up through the steel-rimmed spectacles. Mr.

Burrus appeared to be weighing his words. "No," he considered, "it weren't that." He drummed with his fingers on the gla.s.s counter. "He was drunk," he snapped out, and stared sternly off into s.p.a.ce. And then as if he felt it becoming of him, he frowned and his adam's-apple moved up and down with quick, spasmodic jerks. But he would not look at Joe.

A moment's silence descended on the shop and the odours of the place, as though set free by that silence, came drifting to Joe's nostrils as he stood there waiting--waiting for the story. There was a blending of the smells of coal oil and fresh cloth on bolts and the indefinable metallic smell of tinware, and behind it all an overtone of odour, as it were, of sweet growing things--hay and grain--and the fields--Someone dropped a pan in the rear of the shop and Mr. Burrus looked around fiercely. When he again faced Joe, the hara.s.sed look was gone.

Joe had been gradually making up his mind. "You'd seen him drunk before?--That wasn't the first time?"

Mr. Burrus looked up. "Well!" he began tartly. "So much the worse, isn't it?"

"No," said Joe, "it's not. If you'd fired him the first time there'd have been some reason for it. It was because he wasn't the kind of man you wanted in your office, wasn't it?"

"That was it, exactly," agreed Mr. Burrus.

"It was because he didn't see things as he should, didn't do things as he should--in a general way--that he wasn't fit for the job, Mr.

Burrus?" Joe went on.

"Exactly."

"And if he had--had been of a piece with yourself--so that you could have jiggled him around in your fingers like a hunk of putty, it would have been all right. It was not his drinking--it was his drinking in spite of your wanting him not to--that got him in bad, wasn't it, Mr.

Burrus?"

Mr. Burrus fidgeted and then turned sharply on Joe. "This ain't no third degree."

"And you think he's gone away?" Joe continued as though not hearing him.

"Of course he's gone away. What else was there for him to do?"

There was no obvious alternative.

Joe took his leave and went to see Mrs. Mosby. As he stood waiting in the cool, high-ceilinged hall, he was struck by the quiet of the place. It had an air of waiting. What for? There was a high walnut hat-rack with a mirror and a marble slab with a card tray on it, and two high-backed chairs, likewise black walnut and elaborately carved and atrocious, and in the dim recesses of the stair a horsehair sofa, all just as they had been for years. They were mute but they seemed expectant. What could they be waiting for? They were on the outside edge of things--where life was pa.s.sing. What could be in store for them? And yet, as he stood in the hall, with the sound of his breathing so fine, so distinct in his ears, they seemed to be part of another presence waiting there with him, a mute presence as to sound, but in some way eloquent voiced, clamorous to be heard.

A faint rustling came to his ears and then steps, and looking up, he saw his aunt Loraine coming down the stairs. Her bangles and her trinkets gave out hushed little clickings and he could hear her breathing as she came across the carpet to meet him.

"Joseph," she said, and he could see beneath her sh.e.l.l that she was agitated. "Joseph! What do you suppose can have happened?" Her toilette, like an ancient ritual observed in every sacred detail, included her manner and deportment. The voice, the inflection, the bearing--all went with the ruching and the bangles. Joe had once wondered if she put them all in the same box when she went to bed.

"I don't know, Aunt Lorry, I'm sure." Catching a haggard look about her eyes he added more gently: "But I wouldn't be too worried. He's probably gone to Louisville."

She shook her head, and in spite of herself her voice broke a little.

"He's never done that without telling me."

Joe stood for a moment in thought. "There was no business that would take him anywhere--business about the farm?"

"No," she said. "Won't you come in and sit down in the parlour? I was so upset----"

He looked at her kindly. It was perhaps the first time in his experience he had ever done so. Somehow the sh.e.l.l did not seem so to cover her. She was such a tight little body, a close-bound f.a.got of reserves and inhibitions. She had never exuded the slightest humanity.

And now the sh.e.l.l was cracking and little glints were showing through.

"No, Aunt Lorry," he said. "Not now. There's nothing to be gained by talking--unless you have any ideas as to where--where he might have gone."

Her eyes looked haggard but they remained stoically dry. She shook her head.

He turned to go and took a few steps toward the door. And she came and laid her hand on his arm. It was as light and feathery as a dead leaf, but he could feel the warmth through his sleeve.

"Don't," she said, "don't let anything get out if--if there's anything should be kept quiet." She looked him earnestly in the eyes.

"I'll depend on you?"

He promised and ran lightly down the front steps. Behind him the front door closed, ponderous and grave. And as he pa.s.sed around the curve of the driveway to the gate he looked back and the shadows of the old house were stretching out toward him on the gra.s.s.

He had had a sudden idea. There in the front hall it had occurred to him that there was one person at least who might know something. He had recalled that last night spent in the upstairs ell bedroom, the voices, the clatter of a car. Zeke was probably closer to his uncle Buzz than any other living soul. And just as suddenly he had decided that it would be time wasted to talk with his aunt Loraine--time that could be well spent elsewhere. And so his departure had been precipitate. And now as he hurried along the plank walk, beneath the arching branches, with the world so fresh and green and hopeful about him, he felt how incongruous everything was. Over beyond the hedge the blackbirds were hopping about on the gra.s.s looking for worms, giving occasional satisfied clucks. Across an intersecting road, on up ahead, an old buggy pa.s.sed, drawn by a jogging horse with hanging head. Like the Mosby turnout--very. And that very morning he had been at his desk, drugged, overwhelmed with the hopelessness of monotony.

He pa.s.sed on to the other side of town, keeping to the back streets, for he did not wish to meet any one or talk to any one. It was nearing six o'clock as he approached the gate of Zeke Thompson's cabin, and there was that golden glow in the sky which so often follows a spell of dampness. It had rained the night before--the road looked dark and cool--and about the western sky the clouds were hovering as if undecided. But the sunlight streamed bravely through and all was fresh and clean and cool.

The front door was open and as Joe pa.s.sed through the gate he saw no one. Softly he climbed the steps and pa.s.sed over the threshold. The room was empty, but an ap.r.o.n thrown carelessly over the back of a rocking chair gave evidence of its having been vacated not long since.

The door to the next room was standing ajar.

Joe stood and pondered. Just what should he ask Zeke? Should he tell him what had happened? Zeke might probably have heard, if the news was about. Standing there, waiting, there came to his ears a peculiar sound, faint, high-pitched, and monotonous. He listened. Someone was singing in the next room in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

Curious, he walked softly over to the door and peered through.

There in a tiny rocking chair sat a little figure rocking to and fro.

Its back was half turned toward him, but he could see a kinky head which was bent over something held in its arms, which it was most evidently lulling to sleep. The room was darkening, with only a single patch of orange-coloured sunlight upon the bare floor. Back and forth went the little body. He could see the bare feet with the stubby toes, escaping as by miracle the ever-threatening rocker. There was a small square of blue-calico-covered back, two little pigtails of hair tightly tied with sc.r.a.ps of baby-blue ribbon, and--the voice. It was as fine and high as wind blowing across a hair and with a curious, lifting minor note. He listened.

First there would be a gentle hus.h.i.+ng and then the refrain--the melody was unappreciable and elusive, though constant:--

"Gra.s.shopper set on sweet tater vine, On sweet tater vine, On sweet tater vine.

Big turkey gobbler come up behime And nip him off that sweet tater vine."

With the word "nip" would come a crescendo, swelling to a sharp little monosyllabic quaver, and then the whole thing would die away most mournfully.

Twice he heard it sung through to the faint accompaniment of the tiny screaking rocker. It was a very solemn abjuration against the promiscuous sitting about of casual creatures. And oddly enough it seemed to him in a way that something was speaking through that feeble, quavering voice to him; that this was of the same parcel with what had happened, was happening. He felt singularly tense--had not the slightest desire to laugh. And as he watched, the orange patch on the floor began to fade, until the room was bathed in shadow. And the song came suddenly to an end and he heard a gentle little "Hush," and then a sigh, and then silence. Slowly he backed away on tiptoe from the door.

He had barely gained the security of the front room--somehow he felt it as security--when he heard the gate screak and, turning suddenly, saw a man dart like a shadow around the side of the house. For a moment he stood in indecision; then he walked softly to the open front door and stood waiting on the threshold. It would be easier to explain his presence there. The sky had grown darker; curling billows of cloud rolling in from the south had chased away the orange glow and their under surface was lit by a pale-green luminance as they came. s.h.i.+fting wisps of vapour slid twisting and writhing on up ahead, like outriders on reconnaissance. It was singularly still.