Book: Autumn

R >> Robert Nathan >> Autumn




"I went out so grand," she said. "I was going to find all sorts of
things. But what did I find?"

At that moment, John Henry entered the barn, smoking his corncob pipe.
When the smell of smoke reached Anna, she grew weak and ill, and
stumbling back to the house, went upstairs to rest. But even to climb
the stairs made her catch her breath. Now, before breakfast of a
morning, she was deathly sick; afterwards she was tired, and ready to
cry over anything. Poor Anna; she was dumb with shame. "I'm worse
than Mrs. Wicket," she said to herself, over and over again. "I'm
worse than Mrs. Wicket. My life is ruined. I'd be better dead."

And what of honest Thomas? He was pale with fright. It seemed to him
as if the devil had reached up, and caught him by the leg. He was in
for it. But like a fly in a web, he could not believe that it was not
some other fly. "Oh, God," he prayed, "look down . . . say something
to me."

When Mr. Jeminy was told that Thomas Frye and Anna Barly were to be
married, he exclaimed: "What a shame.

"Yes," he continued with energy, "what a shame, Mrs. Grumble. They did
as they were bid. Now they know that love is a trap to catch the
young, and tie them up once and for all, close to the kitchen sink."

"No one bade them do what they'd no right to do," said Mrs. Grumble.

"They did," replied Mr. Jeminy sensibly, "only what they were meant to
do. Youth was not made for the chimney corner, Mrs. Grumble. And love
is not all one piece. We make it so, because we are timid and
indolent. We like to think that one rule fits everything; that
everything is simple and familiar. Even God, Mrs. Grumble, in your
opinion, is an old man, like myself."

"He is not," said Mrs. Grumble.

"Yes," continued Mr. Jeminy, "you believe that God is an old man,
insulted by everything. Now he has been insulted by Anna Barly, who
did as she had a mind to. Well, well . . ."

"No matter," said Mrs. Grumble comfortably, "there's the baby; you
can't get around that."

"Mrs. Grumble," said Mr. Jeminy earnestly, "I am going to Farmer Barly.
I am going to say to him, 'Let me have Anna's baby, and we'll say no
more about it.' Yes, that is what I am going to do."

"Well," gasped Mrs. Grumble, throwing herself back in her chair, "well,
I never . . . so that's it . . . I can tell you this: the day that
baby comes into this house, I go out of it. Why, who ever heard of
such a thing? No, indeed."

"There," she thought to herself, "that's what comes of people like Mrs.
Wicket."

"Mrs. Grumble," said Mr. Jeminy.

"I've no more to say," said Mrs. Grumble.

"Mrs. Grumble," pleaded Mr. Jeminy, "I am an old man. There is nothing
left for me to do in the world any more. I am sure you would be
pleased with Anna's baby. Let us do this much for youth; for the new
world."

"I declare," cried Mrs. Grumble, "you'll drive me clean out of my wits.
The new world . . . you mean Sodom and Gomorrah, more like. The new
world . . . sakes alive."

"Mrs. Grumble," said Mr. Jeminy, "the old world is dead and gone. Let
the young be free to build a new world. It will be happier than ours.
It will be a world of love, and candor. Perhaps it will be also a
world of poverty. That would not do any harm, Mrs. Grumble."

"A fine world," said Mrs. Grumble. "At least, I won't live to see much
of it, I've that to be thankful for."

"Finer than what it is," retorted Mr. Jeminy, losing his temper, "finer
than what it is. Not the same, sad pattern."

"The old pattern is good enough for me," replied Mrs. Grumble.

"You're a fossil," said Mr. Jeminy.

Then Mrs. Grumble raised her voice in prayer. "Lord," she prayed,
"don't let me forget myself. Because if I do . . ."

"Yes, that's it," cried Mr. Jeminy, "stop up your ears . . ." And out
he went in a rage. Mrs. Grumble, left alone, looked after him with
flashing eyes and a heaving bosom. "Oh," she breathed, "if I could
only lay my hands on him."

But when she did, at last, lay hands on him, it was not in the way she
looked for, as she sat rocking up and down, waiting for him to come
home again.




IX

THE SCHOOLMASTER LEAVES HILLSBORO,
HIS WORK THERE SEEMINGLY AT AN END

Mr. Jeminy came slowly out of the post-office, and turned up the road
leading to his house. In one hand, crumpled in his pocket, he held his
dismissal from Hillsboro school: "On account of age," it said. Next
morning, at nine o'clock, the new teacher was coming to take over the
little schoolhouse, with its splintered desks, the dusty blackboard,
and the colored maps.

As he walked, the sun sank in the west, and evening crept up the road
after him. The air was damp; he could see his breath pass out in fog
before his face. The wind, blowing above his head, showered down the
last dried, yellow leaves upon his path; before him he saw the chilly
sky with its faint, lonely star, and over him the half moon, like a
slice; and he heard the autumn wind, steady and cold. "You fields," he
said, "you trees, you meadows and little paths, I do not believe you
wanted to dismiss me. You must have enjoyed the daisy chains my pupils
used to weave for you in the spring. Now they will learn the use of
figures and percents, and the names of cities I have forgot. I will
never hear again the voices of children at the playhour come tumbling
in through the school windows. For at my age one does not begin to
teach again. But it is ridiculous to say that I am an old man."

It grew darker and darker, the trees creaked and popped in the cold, or
groaned like bass viols; and all along the roadside Mr. Jeminy could
see the feeble glimmer of fireflies, fallen among the leaves. He said
to them, "Little creatures, my flame is also spent. But I do not
intend, like you, to lie by the roadside in the wind, and keep myself
warm with memories. Now I am going where I can be of use to others.
For I am brisk and tough, and do not hope to gain by my efforts more
than I deserve."

Thus, following his thoughts, Mr. Jeminy passed, without knowing it,
the house where Mrs. Grumble, sitting by the stove, awaited his return.
The moon, riding out the wind above his head, peered down at him
between the branches, as he stepped from shadow into moonlight, and
again into shadow. Under the trees the dry, fallen leaves stirred
about his feet, and other leaves, which he could not see, fell near him
in the dark. As he passed the little orchard belonging to Mrs. Wicket,
he heard the ripe apples dropping in the night.

In the gray of dawn, he found himself approaching a farmhouse somewhere
south of Milford, whose lighted lamp, pale yellow in the early
twilight, drew him from the road, across the fields. As he turned
through the tumbled gate, a woman came to the door, her dress billowing
back from her in the breeze.

"Come in, old man," she said.




X

BUT HE IS SOUGHT AFTER ALL

In Mrs. Tomkin's garden the hydrangeas were already pink with frost,
and the leaves of the maples, fallen upon the ground, covered the earth
with patches of yellow and red. By the side of the road, piles of
leaves, raked together by Mr. Tomkins, were set on fire; they burned
with a crackle and a roar, and gave off an odor at once pungent and
regretful, which mingled in the fresh autumn air with the fragrance of
grapes and cider, as the last apples of the season, too old and ripe to
keep, went to the press back of the barn.

Juliet liked to play in Mrs. Tomkins' garden, where the hens, each
anxious to be not the first, but the second, ran after each other as
though to say, "You go and see, and I'll come and look."

Now she sat on the steps of Mrs. Tomkins' porch with her doll Sara,
while her mother, Mrs. Wicket, watched at the bedside of Mrs. Grumble,
who was very ill. Juliet did not realize how ill she was; she thought
Mrs. Grumble might have croup. But Mrs. Ploughman, who sat on the
porch with Mrs. Tomkins, knew that Mrs. Grumble had pneumonia. "Got,"
she explained, "by setting up that night, when Mr. Jeminy never came
home."

"No," said Mrs. Tomkins, "he never came home. If it had been me, in
Mrs. Grumble's place, I'd have gone to bed, instead of parading around
with a lantern all night, catching my death."

"Mr. Jeminy," said Mrs. Ploughman, "was a queer man, and no mistake. I
remember the day he stepped in to pay me a call. Mrs. Crabbe was with
me. 'Mrs. Ploughman,' he said, 'and you, Mrs. Crabbe, we're leaving a
lot of trouble behind us.' Fancy that, Mrs. Tomkins--as though I'd up
and go any minute. 'Mr. Jeminy,' I said, 'I'm not afraid to die. When
my time comes, I'll go joyfully.'"

"No doubt you will," said Mrs. Tomkins comfortably.

"Well," said Mrs. Ploughman, "it's a good thing, in my opinion, he was
made to give up teaching school. It's a wonder the children know
anything at all, Mrs. Tomkins. I declare, it used to mix me up
something terrible, just to listen to him."

Mrs. Tomkins gazed at her sewing with thoughtful pleasure. "It was a
hard blow to him," she said. "He did his best. Maybe he was a little
queer. But he harmed no one. He used to tell the children stories.

"How is Mrs. Grumble," she asked, "to-day?"

"Weak," said Mrs. Ploughman; "very weak, out of her mind part of the
time with the fever."

"Do you calculate she'll die, Mrs. Ploughman?"

"I don't know. But I don't calculate she'll live, Mrs. Tomkins.
Still, we must hope for the best. This is the way it was; first the
influenza, and then the pneumony. Double pneumony, the doctor says.
There's a lot of it around again, like last year. It takes the young
and the hardy. It won't get me. No.

"There's nothing to do for it," she added, "nothing, that is, beyond
nursing."

"If it wasn't for Mrs. Wicket," said Mrs. Tomkins, "I expect she'd have
been dead before this. Mrs. Wicket's a capable woman in things like
that. Capabler than Miss Beal. There was no one else ever made me so
comfortable. I have to say that about her; Mrs. Grumble's getting the
best of care. And I'm looking after Juliet. Not that she's any
trouble; she's as quiet as a mouse, playing all day long with her
dolls."

But Mrs. Ploughman could not find it in her heart to forgive Mrs.
Wicket for having been the cause of her grandson Noel's death. "Yes,"
she said, "I expect Mrs. Grumble's getting good care. But when a
body's dying, 'tisn't so much care you want, as salvation. I wouldn't
want any Jezebel hanging over my deathbed, Mrs. Tomkins, thank you."

Mrs. Tomkins, who attended each Sunday the little Baptist church at
Adams' Forge, did not believe that she and Mrs. Ploughman would meet in
heaven. However, she did not choose this moment to mention it. "It
may be as you say, Mrs. Ploughman," she remarked, "or it may be that
we've been too hard oh Mrs. Wicket. Mind you, I don't speak for her
life with that bad egg of Eben Wicket's. But we ought to forgive
others as we would have others forgive us."

"You needn't quote Gospels to me," declared Mrs. Ploughman; "I'm as
easy to forgive as the next one, where there's a reason for it. I
don't hold it against Mrs. Wicket that she drove my Noel to his death.
No. I forgive her for it. And I don't blame Mr. Jeminy for going off,
if he had a mind to, and leaving Mrs. Grumble to catch the pneumony."

"No," said Mrs. Tomkins.

"But there's this much queer," said Mrs. Ploughman: "The way she takes
on in the fever. She does nothing but call him back, Mrs. Tomkins.
'Mr. Jeminy,' she hollers, 'where's the old rascal?' she says. Then
she goes on about his being in some trouble, and she has to get him out
of it. 'He's in the toils,' she says; 'he's with the scarlet woman.'"

"My life!" exclaimed Mrs. Tomkins.

"I declare," said Mrs. Ploughman, "I wouldn't be Mrs. Wicket, or Miss
Beal, not for a thousand dollars."

Mrs. Tomkins sighed. "It's real sad," she said. "I'd like to find Mr.
Jeminy; it would ease the old woman's last hours. But he's likely far
away by this time. And there's no one could spare the time to go after
him, even if a body knew where he was. Though I've an idea he went
south, through Milford. Walking, I should say."

"The ole vagabone," exclaimed Mrs. Ploughman.

"Yes," Mrs. Tomkins declared with energy, "it's a wicked sin, Mrs.
Ploughman, for him to be away now, and Mrs. Grumble taken down mortal.
He's been a good friend to William for nigh on twenty years. I'd go
after him myself, if it weren't for my rheumatism."

"Well," said Mrs. Ploughman, "I never heard of such a thing."

"There's lots you never heard of, Mrs. Ploughman," said Mrs. Tomkins.
And folding her hands, she gazed at her friend with quiet satisfaction.

Little Juliet, playing on the steps with her doll Sara, missed none of
this conversation, only a part of which, however, she understood.
While she dressed and undressed her child, made of rags and sawdust,
put her to sleep and woke her up again, she was listening with
attention first to Mrs. Tomkins, and then to Mrs. Ploughman.

"Let's play you're Mrs. Grumble," she told Sara. And she covered the
doll with her handkerchief. Sara did not mind the square piece of
cambric, which Juliet often used to carry small handfuls of earth from
one place to another. "I'm mother," said Juliet. Rising to her feet,
she went out into the garden, and returned again. "My dear Mrs.
Grumble," she exclaimed, "how do you feel to-day?"

"Very poorly, thank you," replied Sara, in that curious squeak with
which all of Juliet's children answered their mother.

"Well, that's too bad," said Juliet. "Where does it hurt you, Mrs. G.?"

"In the stummick," squeaked Sara.

Juliet shook her head soberly. "Dear me," she said. "Well, cheer up,
Mrs. Grumble; what would you like to have?"

"Ice cream," said Sara hopefully, "and fritters."

"All right," said Juliet. She went back into the garden, whence she
presently returned with a few dead leaves and some mud. "Here," she
said; "here's the ice cream. And here's the fritters. Don't get sick,
now, will you?"

"No," said Sara.

Her mother gazed at her with sympathy. "What else would you like?" she
inquired.

"I'd like Mr. Jeminy," squeaked Sara. "He's in the toils."

"I'll go and see if I can find him," said Juliet. And she began to
look about for a twig, or a small branch, suitable for Jeminy. But all
at once she grew thoughtful. It had occurred to her that to look for
Mr. Jeminy in the flesh would be a delightful adventure. It would
please every one. She sat down on the porch steps to think it over.

In the first place, it would be necessary to slip off unobserved. For
although Mrs. Tomkins, by her own account, would be glad to have Mr.
Jeminy back again, Juliet felt that she could not explain to Mrs.
Tomkins exactly what she intended to do. As for the trip, an umbrella
in case of rain, and the company of Sara would be sufficient. Then it
was only a question of walking in the direction of Milford, before she
came on Mr. Jeminy in the middle of the road; so Mrs. Tomkins had said.

With Sara under her arm, she tiptoed around to the rear of the house,
skipped through the yard, climbed the low fence, and hurried home.
There she put on her best bonnet, and took her mother's umbrella from
the closet. Then she went back to her own room and took down her penny
bank. Holding it upside down, she began to shake it as hard as she
could. But only five pennies fell out. "That's enough," she decided.
It seemed to her that with five pennies she could buy almost anything.

When she went to bid good-by to her family, she decided that Sara was
not the doll she would take along with her, after all. For Anna had a
bonnet, whereas Sara had none. Anna also wore a new dress, made for
her by Mrs. Wicket out of an old petticoat. Sara was better company,
but Anna would be more respected along the road.

"I guess I'll take you, Anna," said Juliet. "No use your pulling a
face, Sara," she added; "it won't get you anything. You can't go. So
you may as well know it. Maybe if you're good, I'll bring you
something back."

And off she went down the road to Milford, Anna under one arm and the
umbrella under the other.

For a while, as she walked, she told herself stories. She believed
that she was the princess of one of Mr. Jeminy's fairy tales; then Anna
became a duchess, or an old queen. The fact that nothing unusual
happened to her, did not seem to her of any importance; she saw the
russet fields, the bare woods, the solemn clouds, and far off shine and
shadow; and walked with serious pomp for her own delight, as long as
she was able.

But after a while she grew tired, and sat down by the roadside to rest.
As she sat there, the sun sank lower, and the gathering chill of
evening made itself felt in the air. Then for the first time doubt as
to the wisdom of her course presented itself to her.

"We're going to catch it when we get home," she told Anna.

With a feeling of dismay, she remembered how far away from home she
was. The hush of evening, the silence of the fields, filled her head
with vague fears. She held her doll tightly to her breast for comfort.
The little red squirrel, flirting along the low stone wall, seemed to
peer at her as though to say; "This is where I live. But where do you
live? You can't live here; I won't have it." Juliet began to shiver
with cold.

"Oh, goodness," she whispered to Anna, "I'm going to catch it when I
get home."

But to start for home again in the gloom, took more courage than she
had left her. Grasping her umbrella, her five pennies, and her doll,
she retreated to the middle of the road. "Mr. Jeminy," she cried, "Mr.
Jeminy, where are you?"

The silence, more ghostly than before, was not to be endured. "Mr.
Jeminy," she called at the top of her voice, "Mr. Jeminy, Mr. Jeminy,
Mr. Jeminy.

"Oh, please come back."

She was saved the ignominy of tears. For at that moment she heard from
down the road a sound of wheels, and the beat of hoofs. And presently
a farm wagon, drawn by an old white horse, approached her in the
twilight.

"Well, bite me," said the farmer, peering at her over the front of the
wagon. "Are you lost, child?"

"No, sir," said Juliet. Now that she was found, she was in the best of
spirits, all sprightliness and wheedle. "I'm not lost. I'm looking
for somebody."

"Do tell," said the farmer. "A friend of yourn?"

"An old man," said Juliet. "An old, old man. He's a friend of mine.
I have to tell him to come home as fast as he can, because it's a
wicked sin."

"Does he live hereabouts?" asked the farmer.

"He used to," said Juliet, "but he ran away. Now Mrs. Grumble's sick,
he ought to come home again, and ease her last hours."

The farmer began to chuckle. "What's the old gaffer's name?"

"Mr. Jeminy," said Juliet.

"Hop in," said the farmer. "I'll take you along. He's been stopping
with Aaron Bade, over to the Forge. I declare, if that don't beat all.
Curl up in the hay, child, it'll keep you warm. What were you doing,
hollering for him?"

"Yes, sir," said Juliet.

The farm wagon started on again, through the rapidly falling dusk.
Juliet, under a blanket in the hay, looked up at the tall figure of the
farmer, set like a giant above her.

"Mister," she said.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Did he come with a scarlet woman, did you hear?"

"Not so far as I know. No, he came all alone, early in the morning.
Wasn't anybody with him."

Beneath her blanket, Juliet hugged Anna to her breast. "There, you
see," she whispered. And in her fresh, young voice, she began to sing,
while the wagon rattled down the road to Milford, a song she had heard
her mother singing the year Noel Ploughman died.

"Love is the first thing,
Love goes past.
Sorrow is the next thing,
Quiet is the last.

Love is a good thing,
Quiet isn't bad,
But sorrow is the best thing
I've ever had."




XI

AND IS FOUND IN GOOD HANDS

From the Bade farmhouse, a mile below Hemlock Mountain, the road winds
down to Adams' Forge, past Aaron Bade's stony fields. To the north
lies Milford; but to the south lies that enchanting land, blue in the
distance, misty in the sun, which the heart delights to call its home.

It is the land we see from any hilltop. As we gaze at its far off
rises, its hazy, shadowy valleys, we feel within us a longing and a
faint melancholy. There, we think, dwell the friends who would love
us, if we were known to them, and there, too, must be found the beauty
and the happiness that we have failed to discover where we are. It
seems to us that there, in the distance, we should be happier, we
should be more amiable and more dignified.

Aaron Bade, tied to his rocky farm on the slopes above Adams' Forge,
remembered with a feeling of pleasure his one journey as far south as
Attleboro. He had been obliged to return home before he had found the
happiness which he had expected to find. However, once he was home, he
realized that he had left it behind him, in Attleboro, or just a little
further south . . .

Now, at forty, he was neither happy nor unhappy, but turned back in his
mind to the fancies of his youth, and enjoyed, in imagination, the
travels denied him in reality.

He had no love for the farm, which had belonged to his father; an old
flute, on which his father used to play, was more of a treasure to him.
Often in summer, as day faded, and the dews of night descended; when
the clear lights in the valley were set twinkling one by one, leaving
the uplands to the winds and stars, Aaron Bade, perched upon his
pasture bars, piped to the faintly glowing sky his awkward thoughts and
clumsy feelings.

In the morning he took leave of his wife, and with his hoe slung over
his shoulder, made his way down to the cornfield. There, seated upon a
stone, he saw himself in Attleboro again, pictured to himself the
countryside beyond, and before noon, was half way round the world,
leaving friends behind him in every land. Then, with a sigh, he would
go in among the corn with his weeder, only to stand dreaming at every
rustle of wind, seeing, in his mind, the smoke of distant cities,
hearing, in fancy, the booming of foreign seas.

His wife was no longer a young woman. As a girl she had also had hopes
for herself. It seemed to her, when she chose Aaron Bade, that in his
company, life would be surprising and delightful. She expected to see
something of the world--he spoke of it so much. But she was mistaken.
For Aaron's travels were all of the mind. And she soon discovered that
the more he talked, the more there remained for her to do. Thus her
hopes died away; between the stove and the chickens, and what with
cleaning, washing, sweeping and dusting, she rarely found time nowadays
for more than a shake of her head, never very pretty, and at last no
longer young, at the thought of what she had looked for, what she had
meant to find. In short, from hopeful girl, Margaret Bade was,
sensibly enough, turned practical woman; and when, on clear afternoons,
with his work still to do, Aaron would take his flute down into the
fields, she did his chores, as well as her own, with the wise remark
that after all, they had to be done.

Nevertheless, when the dishes were washed--when the shadows of evening
crept in past the lamp, no longer able to exclude them, she began to
feel lonely and sad. And as the notes of Aaron's flute mingled with
the night sounds, the chirp of crickets, the hum of insects, she felt,
rather than thought, "Life is so much spilt milk. And all that comes
of fancies, is Aaron's flute, playing down there in the pasture."

It was to this family that Mr. Jeminy came in the chilly dawn, on his
way, apparently, to the ends of the earth, and, after breakfast, fell
asleep in the hayloft, leaving them both gaping with pleasure and
curiosity. For he came, Aaron had to admit, like a tramp; but spoke,
Margaret thought, like the Gospels. "He's from roundabout," she said;
"I hope he doesn't think to try and sell us anything. Men with
something to sell always talk like the minister first."

But Aaron, with his mind on the far off world across the smoky autumn
hills, was pained at such a suggestion. "You're wrong, mother," he
said solemnly. "No, sirree. He's not from roundabout. And he's no
common tramp either. He's come a distance, I believe."

"Then," said Margaret with regret, "I suppose he'll be going on again."

Aaron Bade stared attentively at one brown hand. "We could use a man
on the farm," he said.

It gave his wife no pleasure to be obliged to agree with him.

"There's plenty still for a man to do, after you're done," she said.
But she smiled almost at once; for like the women of that north
country, crabbed and twisted as their own apple trees, she loved her
husband for the trouble he gave her.

"It's a queer thing," said Aaron; "he has the look of a bookish man.
Like old St. John Deakan down to the Forge, only St. John don't know
anything, for all his looks."

"His talk was elegant," Mrs. Bade agreed. She stood still for a
moment, looking down at her pots and pans. "He's seen a deal of life,
I dare say," she added casually--so casually as to make one almost
think that she herself had seen all she wanted to see.

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