Book: Autumn

R >> Robert Nathan >> Autumn




"I'm glad," said Mr. Tomkins, "that the minister isn't here to listen
to you. Come along now; I've plenty still to do before supper. The
widow Wicket's gate is down. But I've promised to set a fence for
Farmer Barly first."

"You need help, William," remarked Mr. Jeminy thoughtfully; "you need
help. I must see what I can do." And he went home, down the hill,
after Mr. Tomkins.

The next day he started out early in the morning. When Mrs. Grumble
asked him where he was going, he replied, "I must step over to Mr.
Tomkins, to help him with something."

From Mr. Tomkins he borrowed a saw, a plane, a hammer, and a box of
nails. Then he hurried off to mend Mrs. Wicket's gate. On the way he
stopped to gather an armful of goldenrod for his friend, and also to
pick a yellow aster for himself, from Mrs. Cobbler's garden.

When he arrived at Mrs. Wicket's cottage, the widow's pale face and
listless manner, filled him with alarm. "I've been up with Juliet,"
she said. "The child has a touch of croup. It's nothing. She's
better this morning." And she gave him her hand, still cold with the
chill of night.

"Good heavens," exclaimed Mr. Jeminy; "I am sure Mrs. Grumble would
have been glad to keep you company."

Mrs. Wicket smiled. But she did not answer this declaration, which Mr.
Jeminy knew in his heart to be untrue.

Putting down his tools, he began to examine the gate. "Hm," he said.
"Hm. Yes, I'll soon have this fixed for you." Mrs. Wicket stood
watching him with a gentle smile. "You're very kind," she said. "It's
very kind of you, Mr. Jeminy. Most folks are too proud to turn a hand
for me, no matter what was to happen."

"Tut," said Mr. Jeminy.

"Well, it's a fact," said Mrs. Wicket gravely. "I've never felt
loneliness like I do here. Not ever. Because I've had trouble, Mr.
Jeminy, and known sorrow, folks leave me alone. I'd go away . . . only
where would I go?"

"Sorrow," said Mr. Jeminy, "is a good friend, Mrs. Wicket. Sorrow and
poverty are close to our hearts. They teach the spirit to be resolute
and indulgent.

"One must also learn," he added, "to bear sorrow without being vexed by
it."

"I've never had sorrow without being vexed by it," said Mrs. Wicket.
"To my way of thinking, sorrow comes so full of troubles, it's hard to
tell what's one, and what's the other."

"Sorrow," said Mr. Jeminy, "comes only to the humble and the wise. It
is the emotion of a gentle and courageous spirit. But wherever trouble
is found, there is also to be found envy, pride, and vanity. It is
good to be humble, Mrs. Wicket; in humility lie the forces of peace.
The humble heart is an impregnable fortress."

And he tapped his breast, as though to say, "Here is a whole army."

"Yes," she mused, "yes . . . but the heart's liable to break, too,
after a while."

"Not the humble heart," said Mr. Jeminy firmly. "No . . . you cannot
break the humble heart."

Mrs. Wicket stood gazing at the ground, twisting her apron with her
hands. On her face was a look of pity for Mr. Jeminy, because she had
heard that he was not to teach school any longer. "It will be a hard
blow to him," she thought.

"Few," continued Mr. Jeminy, "go very long without their share of
sorrow. And sorrow is not a light thing to bear, Mrs. Wicket.
Poverty, also, falls to the lot of most of us; and it is not easy to be
poor. Yet to be poor, to be sad, and to be brave, is indeed the best
of life. He who wants little for himself, is a happy man. If he is
wise, he will pity those who have more than they need. He will not
envy them; he will see the trouble they are making for themselves.
There is no end of pity in this world, Mrs. Wicket; like love, it makes
rich men of us all."

Mrs. Wicket nodded her head. "Yes," she said, "it's a blessing to feel
pity. It makes you strong, like. The humble heart is a power of
strength."

And she went back to Juliet, who had begun to cough again. Left to
himself, Mr. Jeminy regarded the gate-post with a thoughtful air. But
inwardly he was very much pleased with himself.

That year they kept harvest home before September was fairly done. In
the meadows the hay, gathered in stacks, shone in the moonlight like
little hills of snow; and in the shadows the crickets hopped and sang,
repeating with shrill voices, the murmurs of lovers, hidden in the
woods.

Anna Barly and her friends watched the moon come up along the road to
Adams' Forge. In Ezra Adams' haywagon they were singing the harvest
in. Their voices rolled across the fields in lovely glees, rose in the
old, familiar songs, broke into laughter, and died away in whispers.
Thus they renewed their interrupted youth, and celebrated the return of
peace.

It was a cold, still night, with dew white as frost over the ground.
Anna, huddled in the hay, could see her breath go out in fog; while the
moon, shining in her face, seemed to veil in shadow the forms of her
companions--Elsie Cobbler with her round, soft elbow over Brandon
Adam's face, Susie Ploughman murmuring to Alec Stove . . . She was
chilly and wakeful; and watching the moon through miles of empty sky,
heard, as if from far away, the singing up front, back of the driver's
seat, and Thomas, whispering at her side.

"What a grand night. Clear as a bell."

"Yes," said Anna, "It's lovely."

She lay back against the posts of the haywagon, her young face lifted
to the sky. Her heart was full; the beauty of the night, the hoarse,
familiar sounds, the shining, silent fields, and the pale, lofty sky,
filled her with longing and regret. She closed her eyes; was it Noel,
there, or Thomas? It was love, it was youth to be loved, to be held,
to be hugged to her breast.

"Listen . . . they're singing Love's Old Sweet Song."

The song died out, leaving the night quiet as before, cold, silvery,
urgent. She drew nearer to him; he breathed the simple fragrance of
her hair, and felt the faint warmth of her body, close to his. Then
silence seized upon Thomas Frye; he grew sad without knowing why. The
figures at his side, curled in the hay, seemed to him ghostly as a
dream. Poor Thomas; he was addled with moonlight; moonlight over Anna,
over him, moonlight over the hills, over the road, and voices unseen in
the shadows, and shadows unheard all around him.

"I could go on like this till the end of time."

"Could you?"

"I could ride like this forever and ever."

Anna lay quiet, lulled by the cold and the gentle movement of the
wagon, now fast, now slow. "Together?" she asked. "Like this?"

"That's what I mean."

His hand touched hers; their fingers twined about each other. "I
know," said Anna. She, too, could have gone on forever, dreaming in
the moonlight. Noel . . . Thomas . . . what was the difference?
"Don't talk. Look at the trees, up against the moon. Look at my
breath; there's a regular fog of it."

"Are you cold?" He bent to wrap the heavy blanket more snugly about
her. He wanted to say: "You belong to me, and I belong to you." And
at that moment, with all her heart, Anna wanted to belong to some one,
wanted some one to belong to her . . .

"Thanks, Tom--dear."

The haywagon crossed the first rise, south of the village. Below the
road, a rocky field swept downward to the woods, pale green and silver
in the moonlight; and beyond, far off and faint, rose Barly Hill, with
Barly's lamp burning as bright for all the distance, as if it hung just
over those trees, still, and faint with shadows.

"See," said Anna, "there's our light."

But Thomas did not even lift his head to look. In the chilly, solemn,
night air, he was warm and drowsy with his own silence, which being all
too full of things to say was like to turn him into sugar with pure
sorrow. And Anna, her round lips parted with desire, waited for him to
speak, and held his hand tighter and tighter.

"Starlight," she murmured, "starbright, very first star I see to-night,
wish I may, wish I might . . ."

"Sky's full of stars," said Thomas.

"Do you know what I wished?"

"Do I?"

"Don't you?"

He looked at her in silence; awkwardly, then, she drew him down, until
her lips brushed his cheek.

"Look at Elsie," she murmured. "Did you ever?"

But Thomas would not look at Elsie; not until Anna had told him her
wish. "Wish I may, wish I might . . ."

"Have the wish . . ."

But she would only whisper it in his ear.

Miles away, in Mrs. Wicket's cottage, Mr. Jeminy sat dreaming, and
rocking up and down. He had come to keep an eye on Juliet, so that
Mrs. Wicket could sit with Mrs. Tomkins, who was feeling poorly. While
Juliet, at his feet, played with her dolls, Mr. Jeminy gave himself up
to reflection. He thought: "The little insects which run about my
garden paths at home, and eat what I had intended for myself, are not
more lonely than I am. For here, within the walls of my mind, there is
only myself. And you, Anna Barly, you cannot give poor Thomas Frye
what he wishes. Do not deceive yourself; when you are gone, he will be
as lonely as before. Come, confess, in your heart that pleases you;
you would not have it otherwise. We are all lenders and borrowers
until we die; it is only the dead who give."

When Juliet was tired of playing, she put her dolls to bed, and settled
herself in Mr. Jeminy's lap. There, while the lamplight danced across
the walls, drowsy with sleep, she ended her day. "Tell me a story.
Tell me about the big, white bull, who swam over the sea."

"Hm . . . well . . . once upon a time there was a great white
bull . . ."

Then Mr. Jeminy rehearsed again the story of long, long ago, while the
bright eyes closed, and the tired head drooped lower and lower; while
the autumn moon rose up above the hills, and the haywagon rumbled along
the road, to the sound of laughter and cries.

But Thomas Frye and Anna Barly were no longer seated in the hay,
watching the harvest in. Unobserved by the others, they had stolen
away before the wagon reached Milford. Now they were lying in a field,
looking up at the stars, quieter than the crickets, which were singing
all about them.




VII

MRS. GRUMBLE GOES TO THE FAIR

September's round moon waned; Indian summer was over. One morning in
October Miss Beal, the dressmaker, had taken her sewing to Mr.
Jeminy's, in order to spend the day with Mrs. Grumble. There, as she
sat rocking up and down in the kitchen, the fall wind brought to her
nose the odor of grapes ripening in the sun. The corn stood gathered
in the fields, and in the yellow barley stubble the grasshopper, old
and brown, leaped full of love upon his neighbor. Mrs. Grumble, beside
a pile of Mr. Jeminy's winter clothes, sorted, mended, and darned,
while the sun fell through the window, bright and hot across her
shoulders. She kept one eye on the oven where her biscuits were
baking, counted stitches, and listened to Miss Beal, who tilted
solemnly forward in her chair when she had anything to say, and moved
solemnly back again when it was over.

"Mrs. Stove," declared Miss Beal, leaning forward and looking up at
Mrs. Grumble, "won't have a new dress this year. Well, she's right,
material is dreadful to get. As I said to her: Mrs. Stove, your old
dress will do; just let me fix it up a little. No, she says, she'll
wear it as it is."

"Look at me," said Mrs. Grumble. "Here's an old rag. But I get along."

"Indeed you do," said Miss Beal. "Still," she added, speaking for
herself, "one has to live."

"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Grumble airily.

"Goodness," exclaimed the dressmaker. "Gracious, Mrs. Grumble."

"I declare," avowed Mrs. Grumble, "what with things costing what they
do, and every one so mean, I'd die as glad as not, out of spite."

"I wouldn't want to die," said Miss Beal slowly. "It's too awful. I
want to stay alive, looking around."

"You're just as curious," said Mrs. Grumble. "Well, there, I'm not.
Men are a bad lot. You can't trust a one of them. Not for long."

"Yes," sighed Miss Beal, "there's a good deal I want to see. I'd like
to see Niagara Falls, Mrs. Grumble."

"Lor'," said Mrs. Grumble, "a lot of water."

"All coming down," said the dressmaker, "crashing and falling."

"I'd rather see a circus," declared Mrs. Grumble.

"Would you now?" asked Miss Beal, and her fingers ran in and out, in
and out, faster than ever, "would you, now? Well, then . . . there's a
fair at Milford this blessed afternoon."

"Would you go along?" asked Mrs. Grumble.

"Glory," said Miss Beal.

"I was going anyhow," said Mrs. Grumble.

Then Miss Beal began to giggle. "Well, I declare," she remarked, "I
feel that young."

"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble; "to hear you talk . . ." She was in the
best of humor.

"All the young folks will be there," said Miss Beal. "I heard as how
Alec Stove was going with Susie Ploughman. And there's Thomas
Frye . . . and Anna Barly . . ."

"Yes," said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal held up her thread against the light. "There's a queer
thing," she admitted. "I can't make head nor tail of it. Do you think
there's an understanding between them, Mrs. Grumble?"

"If there is," said Mrs. Grumble, "then Thomas has more sense than I
gave him credit for. Because how any one could have an understanding
with that wild thing, is more than I can see."

"How she carries on," agreed Miss Beal, "first with Noel, when he was
alive, and now with him."

"Ah," remarked Mrs. Grumble, "those are the new ideas. She has her
head full of them. Only the other day, down to the store, I heard her
say to Mr. Frye: 'It's the old who are always getting the young into
trouble.'"

"Just think of that," said Miss Beal.

"To my way of thinking," continued Mrs. Grumble, "the shoe is on the
other foot. What with the young folks growing up so wild, we must all
be as busy as thieves to keep what belongs to us."

"And what belongs to us, Mrs. Grumble?" asked the dressmaker, lifting
from her lap a dress designed for Mrs. Sneath, the butcher's wife.

"No more than what we can get," replied Mrs. Grumble, with a shake of
her head. "And that's little enough."

"Then," said Miss Beal, "what do you think Anna Barly meant by saying
'twas the old had got her into trouble?"

"Why, bless your soul," said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal, from the front of her chair, regarded her friend with round
and serious eyes. "I don't rightly know, Mrs. Grumble," she said, "but
I came on her yesterday, and I declare if she hadn't been crying. Last
night I dreamed old Mrs. Tomkins died. And you know, Mrs. Grumble,
dream of the dead . . ."

"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble.

"Mind," quoth Miss Beal, "I don't mean to say there's anything as
shouldn't be. Still, nothing would surprise me."

"There's no use talking," cried Mrs. Grumble, "because I don't believe
a word of it." But she felt it her duty to add: "For all I never saw
Anna look so poorly."

"A touch of influenza," answered Miss Beal, "so Sara Barly says. Lord
save us: a big healthy girl like Anna."

"It's the healthy ones who get it," said Mrs. Grumble with a sigh.
"God moves in a mysterious way."

"His wonders to perform."

Mrs. Grumble arose and placed a kettle of water on the stove. "We'll
have some tea," she said, "and I'll cook you some fritters. Jeminy is
out. Then we'll go to the fair."

"Glory," said Miss Beal.

After lunch the two women put on their bonnets and went to take their
seats in the Milford stage. As the wagon set out, creaking and
crowded, everyone began to talk; and so, with cheeks reddened by the
wind, rolled, still talking, into Milford.

The fair grounds were in a meadow, bounded on one side by a stream,
and, beyond it, a wood already brown and blue with cold. Over the dead
grass the bright colors of the fair shone in the sun; one could hear
the music and the voices almost a mile away. On the other side of the
field rose a gentle slope covered with goldenrod and white and purple
blooms in which the bees and wasps were still busy. There, above the
crowd of men and women, the happy insects were bringing to a close
their own bazaar, begun amid the showers of early spring. Here was the
bee, with his milch-cow, the ant with her souvenir, and the mild
cricket, amused like Miss Beal by everything. Here, also, the wealthy
spider, slung upon her twig, waited in patience for the homeless fly.
And as, in comfort, she fed upon his juices, she exclaimed: "The right
to fasten my web to this twig is a serious matter. For without me the
fly would be wasted, and would not obtain a proper burial."

"I am very comfortable here," she added, "and I believe I have a right
to this place, which, but for me, would be only a twig, and of no use
to anybody."

Below, in the meadow, our two friends went arm in arm about the fair
grounds; Miss Beal bought, as her first purchase, a spool of ribbon;
and Mrs. Grumble had her fortune told. They rode on the carousel, all
the while thinking: "This is really too silly." As Mrs. Grumble
climbed down from her wooden horse, she said to herself: "I'm having as
good a time as that little girl with the pigtails, who is going around
for the fifth time."

If they turned west, their eyes were filled with the afternoon sun;
when they looked east, they saw the maples, yellow and green, against
the farther woods, the autumn sky, swept by its bright winds. All
about them men and women rejoiced in the sunshine, told each other it
was a fine day, and looked for some cause of dispute.

"The races are going to begin," said Mrs. Grumble, and taking her
friend by the arm, made her way toward the track, where she could see
the horses going gravely up and down. "There is a good one," she said;
"see how he jumps about."

The drivers wheeled into line, and sped away with a rush; the band
played and the spectators shouted.

"Oh, my," said Miss Beal, "look there." And she pointed to where Mr.
Jeminy, close to the fence, was dancing up and down, waving his hat in
the air. "Why, the old fool," said Mrs. Grumble.

"At his age," echoed Miss Beal.

But it did not amuse Mrs. Grumble to hear anyone else find fault with
Mr. Jeminy. "He's enjoying himself," she said. "I don't know as how
we've any call to make remarks."

"I only said 'at his age,'" replied Miss Beal hastily. But when she
thought it over, it occurred to her that she was right, and Mrs.
Grumble was wrong. Without courage on her own account, she was able to
defend with energy the general opinion. "I said 'at his age,'" she
repeated more firmly.

Mrs. Grumble folded her hands, and assumed a forbidding expression. "I
expect," she said, "that Mr. Jeminy is old enough to do as he pleases."

"Maybe he is," answered the dressmaker, nettled by her friend's tone,
"maybe he is. And maybe there's others old enough to know what's right
in a man of his years, Mrs. Grumble."

"At any rate," remarked Mrs. Grumble, "it's not for you to say."

"It's not alone me is saying it," replied Miss Beal. "What's more,"
she added, "for all I don't like to repeat this to you, Mrs. Grumble,
there's many think Mr. Jeminy is too old to teach school any longer.
There's some would like to see a young woman at the schoolhouse."

"Oh," said Mrs. Grumble.

Miss Beal laid her hand on her friend's arm in a gesture at once
triumphant and consoling. "Never you mind," she said; "trouble comes
to all."

Mr. Jeminy went home from the fair with a light heart. He started
early, because he liked to walk; and he carried in his hand a bit of
lace for Mrs. Grumble. As he went down the road, beneath the turning
leaves, and through the shadows cast by the descending sun, he began to
sing, out of the fullness of his heart, the following song:

The Lord of all things,
With liberalitee,
Maketh the small birds,
To sing on every tree.

The Lord of all things,
He maketh also me;
Giveth me no wings,
Giveth me no words.

When Mr. Jeminy had sung as much as he liked, he went on to say: "In
autumn the birds go south by easy stages; to-day their songs are
departed from these woods, where there is none left but the catbird, to
creak upon the bough. Soon snow will cover the earth, in which nothing
is growing. But you, happy song birds, will build your nests far away,
in green and windy trees, and your quarrels will fill distant valleys
with music."

When Mr. Jeminy was nearly home he looked behind him and saw Thomas
Frye and Anna Barly returning from the fair. He drew aside to let them
pass, and with the sun shining in his eyes, he thought to himself,
"Only the young are happy to-day."




VIII

THE TURN OF THE YEAR

A fortnight later, the dress-maker was called in haste to Barly Farm,
to sew coarse and fine linen, and a dress for Anna to be married in.
But it all had to be done within the week, towels, sheets,
pillow-cases, table-cloths, and aprons. "More than a body could sew in
a month," she declared. For Anna was going to have a baby. "Do what
you can," said Mrs. Barly, "and we'll have to get along with that."
And so we find Miss Beal at the farm by eight each morning, wishing the
day were longer, to enable her tongue to catch up to her fingers; for
she thought that she knew a thing or two, and could see what was
directly in front of her nose. "I'm nobody's fool," she said, as she
guided the cloth, snapped the thread, and rocked the treadle of the
sewing machine; and she sang to herself from morning to evening. As
the only songs she knew were from the hymnal, she sang, with a heart
overflowing with praise:

Ah how shall fallen man
Be just before his God?
If He contend in righteousness,
We sink beneath His rod. Amen.

or again:

Who place on Sion's God their trust
Like Sion's rock shall stand,
Like her immovable be fixed
By His almighty hand. Amen.

She was happy; it seemed to her that God, to whom she lifted up her
prayers, was wise and active, watching every sparrow. She was
satisfied that young folks were no better off than in her own day, but
might expect to find themselves, if they fell from grace, as wretched
as in the past. When Sara Barly had made the dress-maker comfortable
in the spare room, she went down to the kitchen in search of Anna. But
Anna was in the barn with Tabitha, the cat, whose new-born kittens
filled her with glee. Mrs. Barly stood in the middle of the kitchen,
as idle as her pots, and looked out through the window at the brown and
yellow fields. When she had tied her apron on, she felt dull and
tired; it seemed to her as if she were no longer virtuous, yet had not
received anything in return for what she had given. And because she
felt as if she had been cheated, she, also, lifted up her voice to God.
"Oh, God," she said, "all my life I never did anything like that."

By way of answer, she heard the low hum of the sewing machine, and the
alleluias of the dressmaker, singing as though she were in church.

Farmer Barly was down in the south pasture, with the schoolmaster's
friend, Mr. Tomkins; he wanted to put up a swinging gate between the
south field and the road. But all at once he felt like saying: "I
don't want a gate at all; I want a fence to shut people out." For when
he thought of Anna, in the gay autumn weather, he felt old and moldy.

"A bad year," said Mr. Tomkins; "still, I guess you're not worrying. I
understand you put a silo in your barn. But I suppose you have your
own reasons for doing it. A good year for cows, what with the grass.
I hear you're thinking of buying Crabbe's Jersey bull. A fine animal;
I'd like him myself."

"You're welcome to him," said Mr. Barly.

"Ah," said Mr. Tomkins, "he's beyond me, Mr. Barly, beyond my means.
I'm not a rich man. But I have my health."

"What are riches?" asked Mr. Barly. "They're a source of trouble, Mr.
Tomkins. They teach a young girl to waste her time."

"Well, trouble," said Mr. Tomkins.

"But what's trouble? Between you and me, a bit of trouble is good for
us all. Then we're liable to know better."

Mr. Barly shook his head wearily. "I don't know," he said; "folks are
queer crotchets."

"Why, then," said Mr. Tomkins, "so they are; and so would I be, as
crotchety as you like, if I owned anything beyond the | little I have."

"Small good it would do you," said Mr. Barly. "Life is a heavy cross,
having or not having, what with other people doing as they please."
And taking leave of Mr. Tomkins, he went home, thinking that in a world
where people robbed their neighbors, it were better not to possess
anything.

As he passed the potato patch, he heard Abner singing, without much
tune to his voice, a song he had learned in the army. "Ay," muttered
Mr. Barly, "go on--sing. You've learned that much, anyway. I may as
well sing, myself, for all the good I've ever had attending to my
business. I'll sing a good one; then I'll be right along with
everybody, and let come what may."

Anna, too, heard Abner singing, as she knelt in front of the basket
where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see,
Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in
the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh,
Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now look at me.

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