Tramping on Life Part 16

"No!"

Paul struck a match and lit the lamp. I sat on the side of the bed and talked with him.

"Ain't you heered how I been married?" he began.

"So that's it, is it?" I antic.i.p.ated prematurely, "and you weren't happy ... and she went off and left you!"

"Yes, she's left me all right, Johnnie, but not that way ... she's dead!"

And Paul stopped with a sob in his throat. I didn't know what to say to his sudden declaration, so I just repeated foolishly, "why, I never knew you got married!" twice.

"Christ, Johnnie, she was the best little woman in the world--such a little creature, Johnnie ... her head didn't more'n come up to under my armpits."

There followed a long silence, to me an awkward one; I didn't know what to do or say. Then I perceived the best thing was to let him ease his hurt by just talking on ... and he talked ... on and on ... in his slow, drawling monotone ... and ever so often came the refrain, "Christ, but she was a good woman, Johnnie ... I wish you'd 'a' knowed her."

At last I ventured, "and how--how did she come to die?"

"--baby killed her, she was that small ... she was like a little girl ... she oughtn't to of had no baby at all, doctor said...."

"I killed her, Johnnie," he cried in agony, "and that's the G.o.d's truth of it."

Another long silence.

The lamp guttered but didn't go out. A moth had flown down its chimney, was sizzling, charring, inside ... Paul lifted off the globe. Burnt his hands, but said nothing ... flicked the wingless, blackened body to the floor....

"But the baby?--it lived?"

"Yes, it lived ... a girl ... if it hadn't of lived ... if it had gone, too, I wouldn't of wanted to live, either!..."

"That's why I'm workin' so hard, these days, with no lay-offs fer huntin' or fis.h.i.+n' or anything."

The next day I learned more from Rachel of how Paul had agonized over the death of his tiny wife ... "'she was that small you had a'most to shake out the sheets to find her,' as Josh useter say," said Rachel gravely and unhumorously ... and she told how the bereaved husband savagely fought off all his womenfolk and insisted on mothering, for a year, the baby whose birth had killed its mother.

"At last he's gittin' a little cheer in his face. But every so often the gloomy fit comes over him like it did last night at supper. I keep tellin' him it ain't Christian, with her dead two years a'ready--but he won't listen ... he's got to have his fit out each time."

As if this had not been enough of the tragic, the next day when I asked about Phoebe, Aunt Rachel started crying.

"Phoebe's gone, too," she sobbed.

"O, Aunt Rachel, I'm so sorry ... but I didn't know ... n.o.body told me."

"That's all right, Johnnie. Somehow it relieves me to talk about Phoebe." She rose from her rocker, laid down her darning, and went to a dresser in the next room. She came out again, holding forth to me a picture ... Phoebe's picture....

A shy, small, oval, half-wild face like that of a dryad's. Her chin lifted as if she were some wood-creature listening to the approaching tread of the hunter and ready on the instant to spring forth and run along the wind....

An outdoor picture, a mere snapshot, but an accidental work of art.

Voluminous leaf.a.ge blew behind and above her head, splashed with the white of sunlight and the gloom of swaying shadow.

"Why, she's--she's beautiful!"

"Yes--got prettier and prettier every time you looked at her...."

"But," and Aunt Rachel sighed, "I couldn't do nothin' with her at all.

An' scoldin' an' whippin' done no good, neither. Josh useter whip her till he was blue in the face, an' she wouldn't budge. Only made her more sot and stubborner....

"--guess she was born the way she was ... she never could stay still a minute ... always fidgettin' ... when she was a little girl, even--I used to say, 'Now, look here, Phoebe,' I'd say, 'your ma 'ull give you a whole dime all at once if you'll set still jest for five minutes in that chair.' An' she'd try ... and, before sixty seconds was ticked off she'd be on her feet, sayin', 'Ma, I guess you kin keep that dime.'

"When she took to runnin' out at nights," my great-aunt continued, in a low voice, "yes, an' swearin' back at her pa when he gave her a bit of his mind, it nigh broke my heart ... and sometimes she'd see me cryin', and that would make her feel bad an' she'd quiet down fer a few days ...

an' she'd say, 'Ma, I'm goin' to be a good girl now,' an' fer maybe two or three nights she'd help clean up the supper-things--an' then--" with a breaking voice, "an' then all at once she'd scare me by clappin' both hands to that pretty brown head o' hers, in sech a crazy way, an'

sayin', 'Honest, Ma, I can't stand it any longer ... this life's too slow.... I've gotta go out where there's some life n' fun!'

"It was only toward the last that she took to sneakin' out after she pretended to go to bed.. gangs of boys an' girls, mixed, would come an'

whistle soft fer her, under the window ... an' strange men would sometimes hang aroun' the house ... till Josh went out an' licked a couple.

"It drove Josh nigh crazy.

"One evenin', after this had gone on a long time, Josh ups an' says, 'Ma, Phoebe's run complete out o' hand ... she'll hafta be broke o' this right now ... when she comes back to-night I'm going to give her the lickin' of her life.'

"'Josh, you mustn't whip her. Let's both have a long talk with her. (I knowed Josh 'ud hurt her bad if he whipped her. He has a bad temper when he is het up.) Maybe goin' down on our knees with her an' prayin' might do some good.'"

"'No, Ma, talkin' nor prayin' won't do no good ... the only thing left's a good whippin' to straighten her out.'"

"O Aunt Rachel," I cried, all my desire of Phoebe breaking but into tenderness. I looked at the lovely face, crossed with sunlight, full of such quick intelligence, such mischievousness....

You can catch a wild animal in a trap, but to whip it would be sacrilege ... that might do for domesticated animals.

"Josh never laid a hand on her, though, that night ... she never came home ... men are so awful in their pride, Johnnie ... don't you be like that when you grow to be a man...."

Then Aunt Rachel said no more, as Paul came in at that moment. Nor did she resume the subject.

Next morning I packed away to visit Uncle Lan. I might as well go, even if I hated him. It would be too noticeable, not to go.

He was at the train, waiting for me. He proffered me his hand. To my surprise, I took it. He seized my grip from me, put his other hand affectionately on my shoulder.

"I've often wondered whether you'd ever forgive me for the way I beat you.... I've learned better since."

Before I knew it my voice played me the trick of saying yes, I forgave him.

"That's a good boy!" and Lan gave my hand such a squeeze that it almost made me cry out with the pain of it.