The Town Page 3

  Just the same he felt grateful to that clock for staying awake with him and keeping his mind company. A whippoorwill’s voice was only part of the darkness, but when the giggers came, they seemed like a piece of day in the night time. He could lie on his floor bed and look out the low window and see their torch light moving like a small sun far over there on the river and hear the giggers’ voices when the wind brought them right. The best was when the blacksmith worked at night to let a keel boat get off in the morning. He thought no sound so cheerful and alive in the dark as that ringing anvil. It put iron in his soul and sweetness in the long black hours to know that some human was awake like himself, that it wasn’t wholly a season of gloom and the dead.

  But the worst was when company came and he had to give up his bedfellow, Guerdon. Hardly a week that some strange man or woman didn’t stay overnight in the cabin, and most always Chancey had to sleep with them. His mother would say something like this.

  “You’re welcome to spend the night if you don’t mind sleeping with Chancey. He’s such a little feller, you’ll hardly know he’s there.”

  And seldom did they. He might as well have been a lump in the bed tick for all the notice they took of him, but every minute of the long night their presence and parts from head to toe tormented him. Some were worse than others. One night he had to sleep with a hairy man whose spines pierced his tender young flesh like a porcupine whenever he turned or rolled against him. Another time his bedmate was a little dried-up old woman who lay in her place like it was her coffin, never moving or breathing all night that Chancey could tell except that every once in a while she made a fine sound like a cat spitting.

  Now why did the family make such a joke of the awful time he had to sleep with the bride and bridesman! They came from Spring Valley. Chancey’s father had done some law work for the bridesman, and the pair had their heart set on him to do the marrying. When he said he was no squire and couldn’t, they were so taken down that Chancey’s mother took pity on them and sent for the new Squire Matthews and had the bridal pair to supper afterwards. When Chancey went to bed, they were still in the kitchen. Later he heard them come into the room below where his mother and father had their bed. At last he heard his mother say the fateful words.

  “We’ll make you welcome to spend the night. But you’ll have to sleep in the loft with Chancey. He has a bad heart and we can’t move him. But I’m sure you won’t mind. He’s such a little feller and don’t take up much room.”

  That was the time Chancey’s heart even sank the deepest. Soon Kinzie and Guerdon came up. Resolve was out somewhere and would come in later. The little boy looked sadly at his bedfellow, Guerdon, whom he knew would sleep three in a bed tonight with his other brothers. He always had to give up his bed with Chancey when company came. But Guerdon acted like it didn’t matter to him.

  “Oh, man, are you goin’ to sleep with a mighty pretty woman tonight!” he told the little boy.

  “I’d sooner sleep with you,” Chancey said to him.

  “Shh! Don’t talk like that. You’ll make her feel bad if she hears you. She likes you. I could tell the way she looked at you at the table.”

  Yes, he could talk that way. He didn’t have to sleep with her. He could lay down and sleep with his brothers. Every now and then while they undressed, he heard Guerdon whisper something to Kinzie or Kinzie to him. He couldn’t catch what they said, but they’d snort and gurgle and hold it in till they shook, and that’s the way it went till they had their night shirts on. Then they came over to Chancey’s bed and stood there in their skinny legs looking down at him.

  “You better not sleep on your side of the bed tonight, Chancey,” Kinzie told him. “You’re supposed to sleep in the middle.”

  “What for?”

  “So the bed stays in balance. You’re such a little feller. If you was on one side and those two on the other, it would throw the whole business out of kilter.”

  “Yes, and so they don’t fight, too,” Guerdon put in. “A bride and a bridesman is liable to scrap with each other the first night, and this way you keep each one on his side where he belongs.”

  With grave faces they lifted their small brother up and set him down squarely in the middle of the bed. Then they left him there, but long after they got in their own bed, Chancey could hear them whisper and choke together till in time they grew silent and after that started to snore.

  Only he on this loft was awake when the bride and bridesman came tiptoeing up. Chancey peeked. The bride held the candlestick in her hands. It was true what Guerdon said that she was a pretty thing with snowy skin, brown hair and a yellow flowered dress with tucks and ruffles. Except that she was strange and would constrain him, he didn’t mind too much sleeping with her. She looked soft and quiet and like she wouldn’t snore. But why did this old bridesman have to come up too? Why couldn’t he sleep outside on the bench or in the barn on the hay? He looked rough and scaly on the outside as a persimmon butt. The soil of his calling stuck to his hands. So deep was it embedded in the cracks of his skin, it looked as if he never could wash it out. Just to lay eye on him gave the little boy the feeling that if this horny and brushy old ploughman ever crawled between the sheets, he’d corrode and puncture them and next morning leave a dark scaly print of himself on the linen.

  “You ain’t a goin’ to leave him ’ar?” he asked hoarsely.

  “I think we better,” she whispered. She seemed uncertain.

  “Hold on. How kin we get in our bed with that damned tyke in the middle?”

  “We’ll have to,” she whispered. “You’re supposed to sleep on that side and me on this.”

  “Not me! The squire said we were man and wife, and nobody could part us.”

  “We can’t move him on account of his heart!”

  “He’s asleep and he won’t find out.” Chancey felt the heavy, soil-caked hands under him.

  “Let me be!” the little boy yelled.

  The snoring of the two grown boys in the other bed stopped abruptly like halted clocks, then went on. Almost nothing would wake Guerdon and Kinzie once they got to sleep. Their mother said they were bad as Lymie Hollins who slept through the time the flood carried his house down the river.

  The bride pushed the bridesman away.

  “Now you better be good!” she hissed.

  Chancey meditated. She might be little but she could take care of herself. That was the way with women. They might look slight, and mild as butter outside, but inside they were spit and fire. The bride blew out the candle. The little boy could hear them undressing in the dimness. He felt the bride creep lightly in under the covers on one side of him. After while a heavy grunting crocodile crawled in on the other.

  Oh this, the little boy knew, would be the darkest night of his life. He felt like a small fence stretched between a raging lion on one side and a soft white lamb on the other. The nights of the hairy man and the old woman who spat like a cat seemed mild and peaceful now in comparison. Never had the loft felt so sultry and filled with dark lightning. For a while he tried to make himself thin as a sassafras leaf lying spaceless and harmless between them. But the soft feel of the bride on one side and the hard scales of the bridesman on the other kept bringing him back to human shape and misery.

  If only the bridesman had lain still as the bride, but he kept reaching his claws over as if wanting to eat her.

  “Remember the little feller’s heart!” she whispered.

  “It kin stop deader’n a doornail for all I care,” he growled.

  “Listen!” she halted him. “I don’t hear him breathing any more.”

  That held the bridesman and Chancey held his breath. On and on he held it till the bride sat up in alarm. He wished he could hold it all night but in the end he had to let it go with a loud whoosh, and the bride lay down with relief and a sharp warning. But the bridesman wasn’t satisfied. If he couldn’t torment with his hands, he would with his feet. He would reach one leg over below the little feller and kick at
her. It startled Chancey. He didn’t know what to make of it. The picture in the dark of this old man scaled like a snapping turtle, cavorting himself playfully with his feet filled the little boy with horror. Once when a horny leg struck him he gave a loud bleat.

  Downstairs he heard the creaking ropes of his mother’s bed.

  “Is Chancey all right, Mrs. Jones?” she called.

  Instantly the bride sat up, and her soft hands ran quickly over the little boy’s form till they found his heart.

  “Why, I think so, ma’am,” she called back, guardedly. “He must have had a nightmare.”

  “I’m glad it’s no worse,” the voice said, relieved, and the ropes creaked once more.

  Now why did his mother call out like that, the little boy wondered. It must have been a warning, for almost never had she done that before.

  The bride must have reckoned it the same.

  “Now you lay quiet, Mr. Jones!” she whispered so sharp that Chancy reckoned it would take all the wildness out of him. But no sooner did he reckon all was still than the bridesman started talking again.

  “I can’t sleep here and you can’t neither,” he told her.

  “I was asleep a half dozen times already, but you woke me up,” she came back tartly. “Now why don’t you settle down and try to go to sleep your own self, Mr. Jones?”

  He snorted at that, kept thrashing and turning like he couldn’t lay still. Once he heard her asleep and breathing peacefully, he jumped up like it made him mad. Chancey could hear him pulling on his pants and boots. Down the steps he went, a feeling his way as if he had to go out bad. The little boy counted the minutes like pearls till he’d come back. How peaceful it seemed. Chancey had room now to let his body out to its natural size. He could feel the bride lying there softly beside him. Her presence was like the time the strange little girl sat white and fragile as a china chick in his father’s office. She and the bride both gave out the same kind of soundless purrings. He could feel them rise up around him like soft streams of quivering tiny marks in the dark air. It acted on him like the hum of bees and flies, made him sink down in the bed. It put over him a kind of spell as when Massey or Sooth combed his hair.

  When he woke up he couldn’t believe it. Why, he couldn’t remember a night that passed so soon. He never slept and yet it was daylight, while the last he remembered was the dark. He couldn’t even recollect the clock striking twelve. Yes, it must be so, for Resolve was still out when he minded last and there Resolve snored with his brothers. But where was the bridesman? The bride lay where she had all the time. She was awake now and likely her stirrings had woke him. In the far away kitchen he could hear his mother, and now the bride slipped quietly out of bed, holding her yellow dress around her. She picked up her shoes and stockings and ran without a sound down the steps.

  For a long time after she had gone, the boy lay there tasting the warm pleasure of his bed. It was like basking at the fire. He had actually slept. When he came downstairs, the boys were gone to their chores, and both bride and bridesman had vanished. They were over at the store, his mother said, on their way back to Spring Valley. Chancey went to the kitchen door but he couldn’t see them.

  “What time did Mr. Jones get up?” Chancey’s father asked as he sat down for his breakfast.

  “All I know is he was sitting on the bench outside the kitchen when I came out, and that was just daylight,” Sayward told him.

  “He couldn’t have slept very well,” Portius said.

  “I think Chancey kicked him out!” Sooth cried.

  “Is it true, Chancey, that you slept with the bride all night alone?” Libby teased him.

  Huldah’s black eyes glittered.

  “I hear that when a baby comes, Mrs. Jones is going to name him after Chancey.”

  “Now that’s plenty!” their mother said sharply, turning on them. “We had enough carrying on for one night.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE HAY SCALES

  Two gills a day—the thing is clear,

  Twenty-three gallons make the year.

  OLD ALMANACK

  IT seemed strange but now that Portius was away, Chancey wanted desperately to believe him his real father, for Portius was at the state capitol trying to get his bill passed. In his mind the little boy could see him moving among the legislators in their fine black coats and starched white collars. In his mind’s ear he could hear his father’s voice echoing from the capitol walls, telling that the citizens of Washington township wanted a county of their own, for now they had to travel days and nights through forests and waters to reach their county seat.

  Oh, Chancey had heard the story a thousand times, how this county was vaster than some states, how the folks down at the far end didn’t give a hait about them up here in Washington township which they reckoned belonged to Canada or old England perhaps. Four times, he knew, his father had taken his bill to the capitol, and three times it had been thrown out. But this year, the girls said, it was sure to go through, and when it did, his father would be one of the new county’s four judges and perhaps his honor, the president judge himself.

  All day yesterday and so far today the little boy had been sitting at the window, waiting to see his father come riding triumphantly home on his black horse, Brig. Now what would a president judge wear, he wondered. Would he come in a scarlet robe, with a three-cornered hat on his head, and when he kissed him, would he still have that peculiar sweetish tobacco-whiskey taste that was his father’s?

  He listened too hard, his sisters said, and that’s what gave him his ear ache, though often had he had it before. Now he let his mother swathe his head in a red flannel rag sweetened with oil. Still his father didn’t come, not until they put him on the bucket in the corner. He could hear Massey racing for the house. What she cried out, he couldn’t tell and there was nobody to tell him, for his sisters hurried to the door and paid no attention when he called. There wasn’t even anybody to wipe him. He had to get to the window on his own shaky legs while his fallen britches tried to hobble him and his heart leaped like a crippled rabbit.

  Now who was that poor sick man a coming on foot for the house, the little boy wondered. His face was unshaven, his clothes dirtied, and when he walked, he reeled a little from side to side like a run down top. Not even the girls must have known him, for they drew back when he came up the step and in the house. Only Chancey’s mother kept standing at her place like she wasn’t scared and let him greet her. And that’s how the little boy knew who it was.

  He turned bitter eyes on his daughters.

  “Have you no welcome for your father?” he scourged them.

  None of them came forward although Huldah stared at him boldly.

  “You’ve been dramming and you’re drunk!” she sneered at him.

  “Yes, but I’m not stupid, Huldah,” her father retorted. “You may remember what I tell you. Tomorrow the stupid person will still be stupid, but the drunken man will be sober.” His eyes glowed like coals at the boy by the window. “So my little Chancey is the only one who will kiss me!” he said, and the little boy felt a shiver run along his back. He held up his britches higher and his face, too, blindly, till his father came, and he tasted the sour mixture of tavern doors, of the bucket, of sleeping rooms and other unknown dregs of the flesh.

  Oh, how, Chancey asked himself, could he have wished this man staggering to a bench to be his real father? Now his soiled hands fumbled through his pockets and fetched out pipe and pouch. Presently Libby at her mother’s word, brought a hot coal on the fire shovel, and as he drew, his eyes vanished in his stubble till his face became a clay chimney with the smoke pouring out.

  “Climb up and I’ll mitigate that torment,” he said and the restless hands pulled the boy to his knee and worked back the rag of flannel. Then his bluish, white-coated lips began plying a soft soothing stream into the painful ear.

  All the time Chancey’s sisters stood there, more composed now, but watching and waiting, exchanging looks with
each other. You could see them consumed by unspoken questions. Only their mother went about her business as if nothing had happened.

  “Where is Brig, Papa?” Libby dared at length to ask.

  “In safe hands,” her father answered between puffs, but he didn’t look at her. “The hands of one still more unfortunate than your father and farther to go.”

  “You sold him!” the girls cried together. Consternation reigned. Even his mother’s fingers, busily cleaning his father’s hat, were utterly still for a minute.

  “Then we’ll never see Brig again!” Sooth cried.

  “Your saddle, too, Papa?” Chancey whimpered.

  “Would you have me carry it home on my back?” he demanded sternly.

  “Where did you meet this man—in a tavern?” Huldah scorned.

  “And you had to walk all the way home, Papa?” Massey cried.

  “Then your bill was thrown out again?” Libby asked him.

  Their father gazed at one after the other with sovereign disdain.

  “No. The legislature passed the bill. By a good majority I may say.”

  Little squeals rose from the girls.

  “Then we’re in a new county!” Chancey tried to look out of the window but could see nothing. Light was breaking everywhere into the darkish kitchen. It wasn’t as bad as they had figured.

  “And you’re the president!” Massey shouted.

  “The president judge, you mean!” Dezia corrected her.

  Their father didn’t answer right away. His stream of smoke was missing Chancey’s ear and going down his neck.

  “No,” he said thickly.

  “Are you just a judge, Papa?” Sooth asked him.

  “I am nothing,” he said.

  “Hasn’t the governor told you yet?”

  At the word, “governor,” Chancey felt a trembling in his father’s knee.

  “The governor has made his appointments. But I am not named.”