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re: Midnight sleepy time reading, an ode to Auburn.
Posted on 10/21/16 at 11:01 pm to CtotheVrzrbck
Posted on 10/21/16 at 11:01 pm to CtotheVrzrbck
6
"Go on," the father said. "Pick it up." The two sisters stooped, broad, lethargic; stooping, they presented
an incredible expanse of pale cloth and a flutter of tawdry ribbons.
"If I thought enough of a rug to have to git hit all the way from France I wouldn't keep hit where folks
coming in would have to tromp on hit," the first said. They raised the rug.
"Abner," the mother said. "Let me do it."
"You go back and git dinner," his father said. "I'll tend to this."
From the woodpile through the rest of the afternoon the boy watched them, the rug spread flat in the dust
beside the bubbling wash-pot, the two sisters stooping over it with that profound and lethargic reluctance,
while the father stood over them in turn, implacable and grim, driving them though never raising his voice
again. He could smell the harsh homemade lye they were using; he saw his mother come to the door
once and look toward them with an expression not anxious now but very like despair; he saw his father
turn, and he fell to with the axe and saw from the corner of his eye his father raise from the ground a
flattish fragment of field stone and examine it and return to the pot, and this time his mother actually
spoke: "Abner. Abner. Please don't. Please, Abner."
Then he was done too. It was dusk; the whippoorwills had already begun. He could smell coffee from the
room where they would presently eat the cold food remaining from the mid-afternoon meal, though when
he entered the house he realized they were having coffee again probably because there was a fire on the
hearth, before which the rug now lay spread over the backs of the two chairs. The tracks of his father's
foot were gone. Where they had been were now long, water-cloudy scoriations resembling the sporadic
course of a lilliputian mowing machine.
It still hung there while they ate the cold food and then went to bed, scattered without order or claim up
and down the two rooms, his mother in one bed, where his father would later lie, the older brother in the
other, himself, the aunt, and the two sisters on pallets on the floor. But his father was not in bed yet. The
last thing the boy remembered was the depthless, harsh silhouette of the hat and coat bending over the
rug and it seemed to him that he had not even closed his eyes when the silhouette was standing over
him, the fire almost dead behind it, the stiff foot prodding him awake. "Catch up the mule," his father said.
When he returned with the mule his father was standing in the black door, the rolled rug over his
shoulder. "Ain't you going to ride?" he said.
"No. Give me your foot."
He bent his knee into his father's hand, the wiry, surprising power flowed smoothly, rising, he rising with it,
on to the mule's bare back (they had owned a saddle once; the boy could remember it though not when
or where) and with the same effortlessness his father swung the rug up in front of him. Now in the
starlight they retraced the afternoon's path, up the dusty road rife with honeysuckle, through the gate and
up the black tunnel of the drive to the lightless house, where he sat on the mule and felt the rough warp of
the rug drag across his thighs and vanish.
"Don't you want me to help?" he whispered. His father did not answer and now he heard again that stiff
foot striking the hollow portico with that wooden and clocklike deliberation, that outrageous overstatement
of the weight it carried. The rug, hunched, not flung (the boy could tell that even in the darkness) from his
father's shoulder struck the angle of wall and floor with a sound unbelievably loud, thunderous, then the
foot again, unhurried and enormous; a light came on in the house and the boy sat, tense, breathing
steadily and quietly and just a little fast, though the foot itself did not increase its beat at all, descending
the steps now; now the boy could see him.
"Go on," the father said. "Pick it up." The two sisters stooped, broad, lethargic; stooping, they presented
an incredible expanse of pale cloth and a flutter of tawdry ribbons.
"If I thought enough of a rug to have to git hit all the way from France I wouldn't keep hit where folks
coming in would have to tromp on hit," the first said. They raised the rug.
"Abner," the mother said. "Let me do it."
"You go back and git dinner," his father said. "I'll tend to this."
From the woodpile through the rest of the afternoon the boy watched them, the rug spread flat in the dust
beside the bubbling wash-pot, the two sisters stooping over it with that profound and lethargic reluctance,
while the father stood over them in turn, implacable and grim, driving them though never raising his voice
again. He could smell the harsh homemade lye they were using; he saw his mother come to the door
once and look toward them with an expression not anxious now but very like despair; he saw his father
turn, and he fell to with the axe and saw from the corner of his eye his father raise from the ground a
flattish fragment of field stone and examine it and return to the pot, and this time his mother actually
spoke: "Abner. Abner. Please don't. Please, Abner."
Then he was done too. It was dusk; the whippoorwills had already begun. He could smell coffee from the
room where they would presently eat the cold food remaining from the mid-afternoon meal, though when
he entered the house he realized they were having coffee again probably because there was a fire on the
hearth, before which the rug now lay spread over the backs of the two chairs. The tracks of his father's
foot were gone. Where they had been were now long, water-cloudy scoriations resembling the sporadic
course of a lilliputian mowing machine.
It still hung there while they ate the cold food and then went to bed, scattered without order or claim up
and down the two rooms, his mother in one bed, where his father would later lie, the older brother in the
other, himself, the aunt, and the two sisters on pallets on the floor. But his father was not in bed yet. The
last thing the boy remembered was the depthless, harsh silhouette of the hat and coat bending over the
rug and it seemed to him that he had not even closed his eyes when the silhouette was standing over
him, the fire almost dead behind it, the stiff foot prodding him awake. "Catch up the mule," his father said.
When he returned with the mule his father was standing in the black door, the rolled rug over his
shoulder. "Ain't you going to ride?" he said.
"No. Give me your foot."
He bent his knee into his father's hand, the wiry, surprising power flowed smoothly, rising, he rising with it,
on to the mule's bare back (they had owned a saddle once; the boy could remember it though not when
or where) and with the same effortlessness his father swung the rug up in front of him. Now in the
starlight they retraced the afternoon's path, up the dusty road rife with honeysuckle, through the gate and
up the black tunnel of the drive to the lightless house, where he sat on the mule and felt the rough warp of
the rug drag across his thighs and vanish.
"Don't you want me to help?" he whispered. His father did not answer and now he heard again that stiff
foot striking the hollow portico with that wooden and clocklike deliberation, that outrageous overstatement
of the weight it carried. The rug, hunched, not flung (the boy could tell that even in the darkness) from his
father's shoulder struck the angle of wall and floor with a sound unbelievably loud, thunderous, then the
foot again, unhurried and enormous; a light came on in the house and the boy sat, tense, breathing
steadily and quietly and just a little fast, though the foot itself did not increase its beat at all, descending
the steps now; now the boy could see him.
1
Posted on 10/21/16 at 11:02 pm to CtotheVrzrbck
7
"Don't you want to ride now?" he whispered. "We kin both ride now," the light within the house altering
now, flaring up and sinking, He's coming down the stairs now, he thought. He had already ridden the mule
up beside the horse block; presently his father was up behind him and he doubled the reins over and
slashed the mule across the neck, but before the animal could begin to trot the hard, thin arm came round
him, the hard, knotted hand jerking the mule back to a walk.
In the first red rays of the sun they were in the lot, putting plow gear on the mules. This time the sorrel
mare was in the lot before he heard it at all, the rider collarless and even bareheaded, trembling,
speaking in a shaking voice as the woman in the house had done, his father merely looking up once
before stooping again to the hame he was buckling, so that the man on the mare spoke to his stooping
back:
"You must realize you have ruined that rug. Wasn't there anybody here, any of your women…" he
ceased, shaking, the boy watching him, the older brother leaning now in the stable door, chewing,
blinking slowly and steadily at nothing apparently. "It cost a hundred dollars. But you never had a hundred
dollars. You never will. So I'm going to charge you twenty bushels of corn against your crop. I'll add it in
your contract and when you come to the commissary you can sign it. That won't keep Mrs. de Spain quiet
but maybe it will teach you to wipe your feet off before you enter her house again."
Then he was gone. The boy looked at his father, who still had not spoken or even looked up again, who
was now adjusting the logger-head in the hame.
"Pap," he said. His father looked at him - the inscrutable face, the shaggy brows beneath which the gray
eyes glinted coldly. Suddenly the boy went toward him, fast, stopping as suddenly. "You done the best
you could!" he cried. "If he wanted hit done different why didn't he wait and tell you how? He won't git no
twenty bushels! He won't git none! We'll gether hit and hide hit! I kin watch…"
"Did you put the cutter back in that straight stock like I told you?"
"No sir," he said.
"Then go do it."
That was Wednesday. During the rest of that week he worked steadily, at what was within his scope and
some which was beyond it, with an industry that did not need to be driven nor even commanded twice; he
had this from his mother, with the difference that some at least of what he did he liked to do, such as
splitting wood with the half-size axe which his mother and aunt had earned, or saved money somehow, to
present him with at Christmas. In company with the two older women (and on one afternoon, even one of
the sisters), he built pens for the shoat and the cow which were a part of his father's contract with the
landlord, and one afternoon, his father being absent, gone somewhere on one of the mules, he went to
the field,
They were running a middle buster now, his brother holding the plow straight while he handled the reins,
and walking beside the straining mule, the rich black soil shearing cool and damp against his bare ankles,
he thought Maybe this is the end of it. Maybe even that twenty bushels that seems hard to have to pay for
just a rug will be a cheap price for him to stop forever and always from being what he used to be; thinking,
dreaming now, so that his brother had to speak sharply to him to mind the mule: Maybe he even won't
collect the twenty bushels. Maybe it will all add up and balance and vanish - corn, rug, fire; the terror and
grief, the being pulled two ways like between two teams of horses - gone, done with for ever and ever.
Then it was Saturday; he looked up from beneath the mule he was harnessing and saw his father in the
black coat and hat. "Not that," his father said. "The wagon gear." And then, two hours later, sitting in the
wagon bed behind his father and brother on the seat, the wagon accomplished a final curve, and he saw
the weathered paintless store with its tattered tobacco and patent-medicine posters and the tethered
"Don't you want to ride now?" he whispered. "We kin both ride now," the light within the house altering
now, flaring up and sinking, He's coming down the stairs now, he thought. He had already ridden the mule
up beside the horse block; presently his father was up behind him and he doubled the reins over and
slashed the mule across the neck, but before the animal could begin to trot the hard, thin arm came round
him, the hard, knotted hand jerking the mule back to a walk.
In the first red rays of the sun they were in the lot, putting plow gear on the mules. This time the sorrel
mare was in the lot before he heard it at all, the rider collarless and even bareheaded, trembling,
speaking in a shaking voice as the woman in the house had done, his father merely looking up once
before stooping again to the hame he was buckling, so that the man on the mare spoke to his stooping
back:
"You must realize you have ruined that rug. Wasn't there anybody here, any of your women…" he
ceased, shaking, the boy watching him, the older brother leaning now in the stable door, chewing,
blinking slowly and steadily at nothing apparently. "It cost a hundred dollars. But you never had a hundred
dollars. You never will. So I'm going to charge you twenty bushels of corn against your crop. I'll add it in
your contract and when you come to the commissary you can sign it. That won't keep Mrs. de Spain quiet
but maybe it will teach you to wipe your feet off before you enter her house again."
Then he was gone. The boy looked at his father, who still had not spoken or even looked up again, who
was now adjusting the logger-head in the hame.
"Pap," he said. His father looked at him - the inscrutable face, the shaggy brows beneath which the gray
eyes glinted coldly. Suddenly the boy went toward him, fast, stopping as suddenly. "You done the best
you could!" he cried. "If he wanted hit done different why didn't he wait and tell you how? He won't git no
twenty bushels! He won't git none! We'll gether hit and hide hit! I kin watch…"
"Did you put the cutter back in that straight stock like I told you?"
"No sir," he said.
"Then go do it."
That was Wednesday. During the rest of that week he worked steadily, at what was within his scope and
some which was beyond it, with an industry that did not need to be driven nor even commanded twice; he
had this from his mother, with the difference that some at least of what he did he liked to do, such as
splitting wood with the half-size axe which his mother and aunt had earned, or saved money somehow, to
present him with at Christmas. In company with the two older women (and on one afternoon, even one of
the sisters), he built pens for the shoat and the cow which were a part of his father's contract with the
landlord, and one afternoon, his father being absent, gone somewhere on one of the mules, he went to
the field,
They were running a middle buster now, his brother holding the plow straight while he handled the reins,
and walking beside the straining mule, the rich black soil shearing cool and damp against his bare ankles,
he thought Maybe this is the end of it. Maybe even that twenty bushels that seems hard to have to pay for
just a rug will be a cheap price for him to stop forever and always from being what he used to be; thinking,
dreaming now, so that his brother had to speak sharply to him to mind the mule: Maybe he even won't
collect the twenty bushels. Maybe it will all add up and balance and vanish - corn, rug, fire; the terror and
grief, the being pulled two ways like between two teams of horses - gone, done with for ever and ever.
Then it was Saturday; he looked up from beneath the mule he was harnessing and saw his father in the
black coat and hat. "Not that," his father said. "The wagon gear." And then, two hours later, sitting in the
wagon bed behind his father and brother on the seat, the wagon accomplished a final curve, and he saw
the weathered paintless store with its tattered tobacco and patent-medicine posters and the tethered
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