3stalwarts (130 page)

The wagons were rolling down the slope to a kind of square, where elms grew against the buildings and a covered pump stood just off the crossroads. On the left-hand side a huge, four-storied building of brick and stone cast a shadow towards them. A couple of brown dogs were walking on stiff toes towards the Halleck dogs.

Ma leaned down from her seat.

“It’s Utica, Jerry.” Her stout cheeks were sober now. Beside her Mary was silently fishing the bundles out of the wagon. Jerry took them one by one. They made a small pile on the sidewalk.

“We’re hauling straight through, Jerry. We’re going to miss you.”

Jerry found it hard to speak.

“Thanks for all you’ve done, Ma. You and the others.”

“It’s all right, Jerry. You won’t change your mind?”

He shook his head. Mary climbed slowly down. As she perched on the hub, Ma Halleck flung fat arms about her.

“Good-bye, dearie.” She kissed Mary heartily. “I’d kiss that Jerry boy, only he wouldn’t like it.”

Jerry tried to grin.

George came up with Joe and shook their hands. Then Esther and Angy came from their wagons to kiss Mary. Prue said, “Excuse me staying here; it’s hard for me to climb,” but she blew a kiss. Abijah and Abel waved farewells as they struggled with the sheep at the crossroads. Mary moved closer to Jerry, and they stood together behind their bundles staring up the slow slope of the westward street as the wagons mounted. One of the dogs looked back at them and waved its tail.

And suddenly Jerry was sorry he had not accepted Ma Halleck’s proposition. Even then he might have overtaken them. But as Prue’s wagon top just started to sink beyond the rise a voice said at his ear, “Morning, young mister. You settling here in Utica?”

”A considerable piece of work”

Jerry turned on his heel. Standing with his back against the half-dead trunk of an elm, a mild-faced man regarded him over the bowl of a large pipe. He was very short, with wavy brown hair growing straight back from a phenomenally high, sloping forehead. His face was pale, and his nose large, broad-nostriled, with a faintly humorous cock to the tip. With his left hand he kept batting a floppy hat at an inquisitive blue fly.

Jerry said, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, I don’t see exactly why you should want to stop here. But that’s your business. Ever been here before?”

“No.”

“Ever heard of Utica before?”

“Yes.”

The little man grinned. His teeth were oddly spaced under his broad lips and showed yellow snuff stains.

“Well, you’re worse off than most movers. Most of them never heard the name of this city and don’t seem even to see it. They pass right through. You’ve got connections?”

“Connections?”

“People to stay with,” explained the little man. politely. “You’ve got a job?”

“No,” said Jerry, “I’ve got neither.”

“I’d better introduce myself.” He stepped away from the tree to make a stiff little bow. “I’m Lester Charley.”

Jerry said, “My name’s Jerry Fowler. This is my wife, Mary.”

Lester Charley made a lower bow to Mary.

“I’m honored. Let me welcome you to Utica, Mrs. Fowler.”

His eyes puckered and his yellow teeth reappeared. He batted again at the fly, then put his hat on his head. It had a brim so wide that under it he appeared like the stem of a mushroom. He tilted his head and peered out at Mary.

“You’ve come a long way?”

“Albany,” said Jerry for her.

“You must be tired.”

“Oh no,” Mary said. “We’ve only come a short way this morning.”

The fly zoomed under the little man’s nostrils, but he did not appear to notice.

“Well, well,” he said. “Let me place myself at your disposal. Perhaps you’re looking for lodgings?”

“I’d been considering it.”

“I don’t want to thrust myself upon you, Mr. Fowler, but the truth is that I have a loft room, comfortable bedstead, unlimited pump in the back yard, and a window with a handsome view of Genesee Street, over my establishment.”

“We can’t pay very high rent,” said Jerry.

“Dear, dear. A few cents one way or the other. I’m not trying to persuade you, mister. But the truth is my wife sent me out this morning. The room’s empty and she told me to go down and intercept any likely newcomers to this town. You’re likely, I guess. The board and all comes to two dollars a week.”

Jerry hesitated.

“You’ll be following the footsteps of many of our best citizens,” said Lester Charley. “Lots of them spend a week with me. They move on. Why?” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Seven children. Seven little Charleys. I feel I should mention them. They are included with the pump and bedstead.”

Jerry turned to Mary.

“What do you think?”

She said, “We might look.”

“Fine!” exclaimed the little man. “If I bring you to the door, Mrs. Charley will manage the rest. She can ask no more than that. If I might make a suggestion, we had better get along. It’s time I opened the store. Here, let me have one of your bundles.”

Smiling, he bent down for the smallest bundle, and then with quick steps led them up the street. Little pops of smoke from his pipe blew back in their faces with strong, pungent breaths.

“I run a bookstore,” he said over his shoulder. “It does as well as could be expected. Naturally, now that Utica is a town with its own corporation, I expect improved business. Things are going to boom. Yes sir, boom is the word Mr. Cozier used to me yesterday. You’ll find that when anything happens in this western country it happens with a boom.”

A bell in the white steeple bonged lethargically for nine o’clock. Jerry saw women coming down the street towards the public market to the right of the hotel. Inside, a butcher in a new apron was sharpening his knives. The dry-goods store with Devereux painted over the door already showed customers at the counter. Down the street that led to Rome rumbled a heavy wagon loaded with casks. A farmer was driving in from Deerfield, the eight legs of two slaughtered hogs topping his load; and the sun shone indecently on their shaven whiteness.

Lester Charley swung suddenly in to a small house with a frame front; but Jerry caught a glimpse of the log walls in the back and a small garden patch with a well sweep protruding from a peaked roof. The house was set a little back from the roadway, giving a drowsy sense of quiet behind its two slender locust trees. But the quiet at the moment of their entrance was broken by the smack of a stick and shrill wailing.

“Henderson!” cried a sharp voice.

A small red-headed boy raced round the corner clutching a firkin to his middle with one hand while with the other he fished frantically for green pickles and stuffed them into his mouth. The vinegar syrup slopped at each step he took. His shirt front was soaked with it. As he confronted his father he stopped so suddenly that a wave sloshed forward onto the pathway.

At that moment an active little woman with sharp, bare elbows and an upraised butter paddle raced round the corner. Her mouth was tight closed and she breathed hard through her nose as if she had made up her mind to a long chase. When she saw Lester Charley she stopped, but not before she had caught the boy’s collar and whacked his head lustily with the paddle. He roared and broke away, resigning the firkin; but as soon as he reached the street his roaring slid into an Indian whoop. Two more boys of nearly his own age and size scudded up to him and he passed out booty from his dripping fingers. Eating elaborately, they strolled out of sight.

“A fine thing you’ve made him— that boy of yours …” the little woman began shrilly.

Lester Charley lifted a hand. His face was sober.

“Alice!”

For the first time she seemed aware of Jerry and Mary. With a quick gesture she put the paddle into the firkin, set them down on a stone, and wiped her hands on a rumpled apron. Her thin freckled face assumed a smile.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fowler, Mrs. Charley,” said Lester with something of an air. “They seemed interested, my dear. I thought I’d bring them up for you to show them the room to. I regret that I can’t go with you. I must open my store.”

Something like a snort vibrated the tip of Mrs. Charley’s nose. But she said, “Come in.”

Gathering up the firkin, she led the way round to the kitchen door.

“I wouldn’t wish to bring you round the back, but seeing as we’ve met so near it, it’s handier. And I’ve got a pot in the fire to look at.”

The kitchen was a long room running the width of the back of the house. The wall had been sealed in pine, but the log rafters, long since bare of bark, crossed the ceiling. The oven was of brick; the fireplace, large enough to roast a lamb, bristled with spits and trammel and crane. Dishes used and unused cluttered the washboard; odds and ends of clothing hung on pegs; it smelled clean enough, but it was as disordered as a magpie’s nest.

Mrs. Charley paused to lift the lid of an iron pot that was simmering in a bed of coals; she whipped off her apron, and tossed it on the table.

“The room’s this way,” she said. “We can’t rent but the one.”

She led them forward through a narrow passage. Jerry had a glimpse of two bedrooms with tousled bedclothes on four beds. A ladder stairway led upward to a hole in the hall ceiling; and up this Mrs. Charley scampered as briskly as a squirrel.

“This is the room,” she said. “It’s under the roof, but it’s well aired and it keeps warm in winter from the kitchen.”

She pointed to a small trap set directly over the hearth.

“When you open this you get a powerful rise of heat.”

She moved over to a back window and drew aside a faded calico curtain. At the inflow of light, Jerry and Mary looked round. Set as far to one side as the slope of the roof permitted, a huge double bedstead was covered with half a dozen old blankets. Mrs. Charley went over to it.

“It’s a comfortable bed. We slept in it ten years after we was married. My six oldest was born in it. It’s comfortable for sleeping.” She leaned a hand on the blankets. The cords creaked.

“That’s a good feather tick, Mrs. Fowler. Real deep. My mother made it. Nothing but white goose. You can’t find many like it nowadays. It’s a wide bed.”

She went over to the front window and drew aside the somewhat brighter curtains that screened it. A chest of drawers propped up by some old almanacs to make up the want of one leg, a wash-hand-stand with a cracked basin and a brass water pail, and two chairs made up the rest of the furniture.

“Them trunks,” said Mrs. Charley, “you can move them out of sight most anywheres— I never use them.”

She swung round on them, holding her hands.

“The lady’s free to use my washtubs Wednesdays. I give one six-inch candle every week. Bedding can be aired to suit the fancy. We’ve got three meals, et with family. Breakfast at seven, dinner at noon, and supper at half past five. I don’t know if my husband thought to tell you, but the board and bed comes to two dollars for two people.”

She sniffed suddenly.

Jerry glanced embarrassedly at Mary.

“Could we think it over a minute?”

“Surely.” She went quickly to the stair. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she called up from below.

Jerry turned to Mary.

“What do you think?”

Mary was lifting the blankets, a slight wrinkling of her forehead her only comment.

“It’s cheap,” said Jerry. “It would give me a chance to look around, and then when I got work we could move.”

She turned to him slowly, read his anxious eyes, and smiled.

“It will do fine. I’ll air it out and air the bedding. I’ll get some sage, though I don’t think there are bugs.”

“I wish it was a nicer place.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“Those children are going to raise an awful row all day. It’ll be hard on you.”

“I don’t mind them, Jerry. And I like the little man.”

“I don’t know what to make of him. I don’t exactly like him myself.”

“I do. We can try it.”

Jerry moved away to the front window.

“It ain’t the kind of start I’d hoped we’d be making, Mary. Maybe it’s going to be hard to find work.”

“Well, you’ve got something, to last us a while.”

“We have, Mary.”

“You’re awfully good to me. Jerry?”

“Yes?”

“When I’ve settled this room and all, I’d like to work, too.”

“No.”

“But I don’t see why not. I want to help. I won’t have anything to do here.”

“I don’t want you to. I can keep us both.”

“But I could use the money to put into our own house when the time came.”

“No.”

She looked down, but her lips set gently against each other. He gave her a covert glance, and his heart rose to see her sitting there on the bed with her head bent and her shoulders acquiescent.

“I’m going out,” he said. “Shall I tell Mrs. Charley we’ll stay?”

“Why not?”

“Well, it isn’t a very nice room.”

His voice was troubled.

Mary looked up. She smiled quietly.

“I’m going to like it, I think. A person can feel all alone up here under the roof.”

She raised her head.

“Shh, Jerry.”

Light feet walked just above their heads, and suddenly a pigeon began cooing and they heard the flutter of wings.

Jerry stooped over and kissed her tilted face.

“I’ll go out,” he said.

He left her sitting on the bed, staring at their three bundles in a row be-fore her feet.

Jerry went first to the kitchen. The smell of steaming linen made the air pungent. A couple of hot irons stood on end over the coals and an ironing board had been laid across two chairs.

There was a sound of heavy breathing.

“Hold still, Tom. By the gracious! I don’t mind if it is in your eyes! They ought to smart. Putting your head in a ‘lasses barrel for two minutes just to win a penny bet. Where’s that penny, anyway? Spent? I’ll be bound it’s spent. On licorice rope most likely!”

Mrs. Charley’s voice floated through the sunny window. She was holding another small son by the scruff of the neck as she lathered his head with a handful of homemade soap.

Beside the hearth a small red baby was squalling in a dishpan. It had dropped a spoon out of sight in the suds and was now leaning forward to fish between its feet. Just as Jerry entered, it collapsed with a gurgling yawp. Mrs. Charley let go of Tom to rush in for the baby, which by this time was emitting bubbles. Tom fled. As she looked up from rescuing the child, which now, for some reason, strangely resembled Mr. Charley, Mrs. Charley smiled apologetically.