Dawn of a New Day (12 page)

A
lthough Kent Maxwell had opened the two large windows, his workroom was still overly warm. April had come to the Ozarks bringing hot weather, and now, wiping the sweat from his forehead, Maxwell tossed down his brush with an irritated gesture on the rickety table beside his easel and walked to the third window. It had been stuck tight ever since he moved in, but up until now two windows had been adequate to cool the attic space. Placing his hands on the top of the wooden frame, he shoved with all his might, bracing against his good leg. The window resisted for a moment, then shot upward unexpectedly, breaking free from the dried paint that had held it. Maxwell grunted with satisfaction, but when he released the window it immediately slid back down. Irritation flickered in his eyes, and he muttered, “Got one of those ropes and sash weights. Rope must be broken.”

His eyes swept the room, and he moved over to pick up a two-foot-long piece of wooden lathe, which he used to prop the window open. He walked over to one of the other windows, whose sash weight did work, and stood looking out over the countryside. He had had the screens replaced, for the old ones had rusted out years before. Now the bright aluminum net caught the rays of the hot sun and divided the landscape before him into a series of tiny squares. Always interested in visual impact, Maxwell muttered, “I wonder what it would be like to paint over a screen like this where all the little squares show.” He toyed with the idea, thinking of techniques and ways to make such a picture come to birth, then shrugged his shoulders, speaking aloud, “It would probably be a hit. I'd be rich, and a hundred thousand half-baked artists would go around painting through screens.”

The radio, which he always left on while he was painting, continued to fill the studio as he gazed out the window. The Beatles worked their way through “Eleanor Rigby,” followed by Pete Seeger pounding out his anti–Vietnam War protest song, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” and this was followed by the strange song by Arlo Guthrie, “Alice's Restaurant.”

With a grunt of displeasure, Maxwell limped over to the radio and turned the knob until he got Simon and Garfunkel singing “The Sounds of Silence.” Maxwell paused, his eyes thoughtful, as he listened to the strange melody and the rather eerie words of the song. It had the power to make him sad somehow or other, although he could not understand why.

He moved back to the easel and was irritated when the music was interrupted by the daily five-minute newscast. As usual, the war news was bad. In dulcet tones, the local newscaster announced, “The death of U.S. servicemen exceeded those of the Vietnamese enemy in the war zone….” He immediately followed with an account of a parade in New York on Fifth Avenue, the largest demonstration yet against the war. Maxwell listened as the announcer said, “More than twenty thousand people took part. Counterdemonstrators, some of them veterans of other wars, threw eggs from the sidewalk, and several dozen fought with the protesters at Eighty-Sixth Street. Police made seven arrests. Thousands of other protesters marched in Washington, in the Midwest, and in California. And in Boston today, fifty high school students shouted, ‘Kill them! Shoot them!' as they fought with anti-Vietnam protesters after four of them had burned their draft cards.”

Enduring the newscast, Maxwell waited until the music came back on. This time it was The Byrds, a trio he rather liked. As they belted out “Mr. Tambourine Man,” he muttered, “I like songs that don't have any social value. That's what music's supposed to be.”

The painting he was working on was one that he took great pride in. It was a portrait of Prudence that he was creating from memory. It was a memory that was very real to him, for ever since he had seen the young woman one day, her hair blown by the spring breeze as she sat outside under the blossoming peach tree, the picture had been taking place in his mind. He had included, as a background, the line of foothills that lifted themselves above the horizon and framed her face, and he painted her from the waist up, her head tilted slightly to one side and the beginnings of a smile on her lips. Now he was working on the eyes with a tiny brush, trying to capture the light that he occasionally saw appear when she was pleased. He could not remember what he had said that had pleased her at that moment and wished that he could.

As he worked on, infinitely meticulous with the tiny brush, he realized that—not for the first time—Prue's visits had been a breath of fresh air to him. He had not made friends among the neighbors, although several had called. Neither had he gone to church nor any of the political meetings that some of the locals delighted in. Most of his time he spent either outside limping for relatively short distances around the place or inside painting. The nights, when the light had gone, he spent reading or listening to his collection of records.

It was a lonely life, and the appearance of Prudence to clean the house and to cook for him had been a welcome break. She came more often than was necessary, and after doing her work she would inevitably sit as still as a statue and quiet as a stone behind him as he worked. Her silence and patience amazed him, for he had not seen such a thing in the very young in all of his experience. Her presence did not disturb him, and he had found himself explaining what he was doing, dissecting his craft and speaking of the difficulties that he encountered.

He had been delighted to discover by voicing his problems to the dark-haired young woman who sat watching him so quietly and steadily with her dark eyes that sometimes the problem resolved itself. He had also given her books on the history of painting and had made a startling discovery. She did not learn quickly from books, from the text that is, but she memorized every picture, every painting, that appeared in the book.

He heard a sound and quickly identified Prue's voice, for she always called as she came up to the house. He moved the canvas to an oblique angle of the room, covered it carefully with a piece of dry, thin canvas, and then moved to the window. “Hello,” he called. “Come on in, Prue.” He caught her quick smile and the wave of her hand, then turned and left the studio to meet her downstairs.
I won't tell her about the painting
, he thought.
It'll be a nice surprise for her when it's finished.

Prue had entered the house by the time he hobbled down the stairs, and he saw she was holding up an object. The sun behind her blinded him temporarily, and he blinked as she said, “Look what I found.” Moving out of the sunlight and letting the screen door slam behind her, Prue stepped forward, and Maxwell saw that she had a small cage built out of some kind of mesh. Inside was a red squirrel that chattered and held on with his claws.

“Where did you get him? You haven't been climbing trees, have you?”

“Oh no! Daddy found him while he was out hunting. He was just a little thing, and must've fallen out of the nest. I've been nursing him with a medicine dropper. He's so sweet.” She undid the latch, lifted the lid, and reached inside. The baby squirrel chattered fiercely, then she put him on her shoulder. He held tightly with his claws, looked around, then sat up and appeared to wash his face.

“Doesn't he bite?”

“No. Not a bit.” The squirrel turned and moved quickly, clinging to her shoulder but rising up and touching her ear with his nose. Prue giggled and pulled her head down. “That tickles,” she said.

Maxwell, always the artist, instantly had a thought. “That would make a good picture, that squirrel perched on your shoulder like that, but I'm not sure I could do it.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I'm not very good with animals. I'm better with people.”

The squirrel was nibbling at Prue's ear. She reached up and put her hand in front of him. A thought had come to her, and she had almost spoken it:
Why, you're not good with people at all!
But she was glad that she had kept the words back. It was true enough, of course. It had not taken Prue long to learn that Maxwell was not good with people. It was as though he had made the decision not to have friends or to let anyone get close. This puzzled her, for with her he was amiable and witty, and after the first stiff meetings could tease her and laugh at himself. But he was a man of mystery to her, for he never spoke of his past. She wondered, of course, if he had a wife and children, if he had family, and why he had chosen to seclude himself in the outback of the Ozark Mountains when he was obviously a city man. However, she filed this statement and then reached up and plucked the squirrel from her shoulder. “I just brought him to show you, but you can keep him for a pet if you want to, until he's old enough to turn loose.”

“No. I don't want to take care of anything, Prue. He's cute, but I guess I've got all I can do taking care of myself—along with your help.”

“All right. I'll take him home again.” Putting the squirrel back in the box, she fastened the lid, but she took some shelled peanuts out of her pocket and put several of them inside. “There's your snack,” she said, then she glanced around and put the cage down on the large oak table in front of the living room window. Coming back, she said, “I got a letter from Mark.”

“That's your reporter friend?”

“Yes. Oh, it's so exciting. He's been traveling around working for a newspaper, writing stories, and they're doing very well in the paper.” Her eyes were bright as she pulled the letter out and opened it, her eyes following the writing very slowly. “He says he's coming here this week.” She looked up and when he saw the expectation in her that brightened her countenance, he said, “Bring him by. I'd like to meet him.”

This was unexpected for Prue, but she said at once, “I think you'd like him, Mr. Maxwell, and you two would have a lot to talk about. He's so interested in everything. I bet he'd like to do an interview with you and put you in the paper.”

Instantly Maxwell shook his head. “No, nothing like that, but maybe you could bring him over and cook supper for us both. He's a bachelor, I assume.”

“Oh yes. He's just a year older than I am. We went all the way through school together. We were best friends, I guess you might say.” She folded the letter and tucked it into the pocket of her blouse. “Well, I'd better get started cleaning.”

“Come on up when you get through,” he said.

“Are you sure it doesn't bother you?”

“Not a bit, but you can make a chocolate pie, as usual, to pay for the privilege.”

Mark did arrive three days after Prue's conversation with Kent Maxwell, and she brought him the next day for the promised visit. The two of them walked over, and she listened as he told her some of his latest assignments. When they got to the house and were invited in by Maxwell, the first thing Mark said after Prue's introduction was, “It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Maxwell. I saw some of your paintings at the Art Institute in Chicago. I thought they were wonderful.”

Maxwell stared at the young man. “You like painting?” he asked.

“Well, I'm no expert, and I don't dig the modern stuff much.”

“Good,” Maxwell grunted. “I'm relieved to hear that.”

“Your paintings somehow catch my attention. I don't want to sound like a flatterer, but the one of the two old people in front of the tenement holding hands—I can't get it out of my mind. It said more to me about old age and poverty than a lot of words that I've read.”

“Well, thank you,” Maxwell said. “Maybe while you're here I can show you some of the new things I'm working on.”

“That would be fine. I'd like that.”

The visit turned out very well for a time, but at some undefined point, at least in Mark's and Prudence's minds, Maxwell changed. The two of them had been laughing, and Mark had reached over and pulled her hair, and she had thrown herself at him trying vainly to wrestle him to the floor. They were used to such scuffles, but Maxwell stood back stiffly with disapproval in his eyes. From that moment on he was less hospitable and almost gruff. As Mark and Prue left the house, Mark had a puzzled expression on his face. “Is he always that—changeable?”

Quickly Prue shook her head. “He's really very nice to me. I don't know what's wrong with him.”

“Do you like working for him?”

“Oh yes. The pay's good. Not much work around here, you know. What are you doing here, Mark? You didn't say in your letter.”

They had now reached the edge of the treeline, and the tall firs swayed gently in the breeze overhead, while underfoot the thick carpet of pine needles made a soft, spongy surface.

“I've come to take you to the senior prom, if I'm not too late.”

“Oh no. That would be fine,” Prue said quickly. She had had two invitations to go to the prom, but both of the seniors were shorter than she. Her eyes grew warm as she said, “I'll look forward to it.”