The Lottery and Other Stories (14 page)

“This dreary old place,” Mrs. Winning said. Mrs. MacLane, with a rose-colored sweater and her bright soft hair, was a spot of color in the kitchen that Mrs. Winning knew she could never duplicate. “I’d give anything in the world to live in your house,” Mrs. Winning said.

“I love it,” Mrs. MacLane said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy. Everyone around here is so nice, and the house is so pretty, and I planted a lot of bulbs yesterday.” She laughed. “I used to sit in that apartment in New York and dream about planting bulbs again.”

Mrs. Winning looked at the boys, thinking how Howard was half-a-head taller, and stronger, and how Davey was small and weak and loved his mother adoringly. “It’s been good for Davey already,” she said. “There’s color in his cheeks.”

“Davey loves it,” Mrs. MacLane agreed. Hearing his name Davey came over and put his head in her lap and she touched his hair, bright like her own. “We’d better be getting on home, Davey boy,” she said.

“Maybe our flowers have grown some since yesterday,” said Davey.

Gradually the days became miraculously long and warm, and Mrs. MacLane’s garden began to show colors and became an ordered thing, still very young and unsure, but promising rich brilliance for the end of the summer, and the next summer, and summers ten years from now.

“It’s even better than I hoped,” Mrs. MacLane said to Mrs. Winning, standing at the garden gate. “Things grow so much better here than almost anywhere else.”

Davey and Howard played daily after the school was out for the summer, and Howard was free all day. Sometimes Howard stayed at Davey’s house for lunch, and they planted a vegetable patch together in the MacLane back yard. Mrs. Winning stopped for Mrs. MacLane on her way to the store in the mornings and Davey and Howard frolicked ahead of them down the street. They picked up their mail together and read it walking back up the hill, and Mrs. Winning went more cheerfully back to the big Winning house after walking most of the way home with Mrs. MacLane.

One afternoon Mrs. Winning put the baby in Howard’s wagon and with the two boys they went for a long walk in the country. Mrs. MacLane picked Queen Anne’s lace and put it into the wagon with the baby, and the boys found a garter snake and tried to bring it home. On the way up the hill Mrs. MacLane helped pull the wagon with the baby and the Queen Anne’s lace, and they stopped halfway to rest and Mrs. MacLane said, “Look, I believe you can see my garden all the way from here.”

It was a spot of color almost at the top of the hill and they stood looking at it while the baby threw the Queen Anne’s lace out of the wagon. Mrs. MacLane said, “I always want to stop here to look at it,” and then, “Who is that
beautiful
child?”

Mrs. Winning looked, and then laughed. “He
is
attractive, isn’t he,” she said. “It’s Billy Jones.” She looked at him herself, carefully, trying to see him as Mrs. MacLane would. He was a boy about twelve, sitting quietly on a wall across the street, with his chin in his hands, silently watching Davey and Howard.

“He’s like a young statue,” Mrs. MacLane said. “So brown, and will you look at that face?” She started to walk again to see him more clearly, and Mrs. Winning followed her. “Do I know his mother and fath—?”

“The Jones children are half-Negro,” Mrs. Winning said hastily. “But they’re all beautiful children; you should see the girl. They live just outside town.”

Howard’s voice reached them clearly across the summer air. “Nigger,” he was saying, “nigger, nigger boy.”

“Nigger,” Davey repeated, giggling.

Mrs. MacLane gasped, and then said, “
Davey
,” in a voice that made Davey turn his head apprehensively; Mrs. Winning had never heard her friend use such a voice, and she too watched Mrs. MacLane.

“Davey,” Mrs. MacLane said again, and Davey approached slowly. “What did I hear you say?”

“Howard,” Mrs. Winning said, “leave Billy alone.”

“Go tell that boy you’re sorry,” Mrs. MacLane said. “Go at once and tell him you’re sorry.”

Davey blinked tearfully at his mother and then went to the curb and called across the street, “I’m sorry.”

Howard and Mrs. Winning waited uneasily, and Billy Jones across the street raised his head from his hands and looked at Davey and then, for a long time, at Mrs. MacLane. Then he put his chin on his hands again.

Suddenly Mrs. MacLane called, “Young man—Will you come here a minute, please?”

Mrs. Winning was surprised, and stared at Mrs. MacLane, but when the boy across the street did not move Mrs. Winning said sharply, “Billy! Billy Jones! Come here at once!”

The boy raised his head and looked at them, and then slid slowly down from the wall and started across the street. When he was across the street and about five feet from them he stopped, waiting.

“Hello,” Mrs. MacLane said gently, “what’s your name?”

The boy looked at her for a minute and then at Mrs. Winning, and Mrs. Winning said, “He’s Billy Jones. Answer when you’re spoken to, Billy.”

“Billy,” Mrs. MacLane said, “I’m sorry my little boy called you a name, but he’s very little and he doesn’t always know what he’s saying. But he’s sorry, too.”

“Okay,” Billy said, still watching Mrs. Winning. He was wearing an old pair of blue jeans and a torn white shirt, and he was barefoot. His skin and hair were the same color, the golden shade of a very heavy tan, and his hair curled lightly; he had the look of a garden statue.

“Billy,” Mrs. MacLane said, “how would you like to come and work for me? Earn some money?”

“Sure,” Billy said.

“Do you like gardening?” Mrs. MacLane asked. Billy nodded soberly. “Because,” Mrs. MacLane went on enthusiastically, “I’ve been needing someone to help me with my garden, and it would be just the thing for you to do.” She waited a minute and then said, “Do you know where I live?”

“Sure,” Billy said. He turned his eyes away from Mrs. Winning and for a minute looked at Mrs. MacLane, his brown eyes expressionless. Then he looked back at Mrs. Winning, who was watching Howard up the street.

“Fine,” Mrs. MacLane said. “Will you come tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Billy said. He waited for a minute, looking from Mrs. MacLane to Mrs. Winning, and then ran back across the street and vaulted over the wall where he had been sitting. Mrs. MacLane watched him admiringly. Then she smiled at Mrs. Winning and gave the wagon a tug to start it up the hill again. They were nearly at the MacLane cottage before Mrs. MacLane finally spoke. “I just can’t stand that,” she said, “to hear children attacking people for things they can’t help.”

“They’re strange people, the Joneses,” Mrs. Winning said readily. “The father works around as a handyman; maybe you’ve seen him. You see—” she dropped her voice—“the mother was white, a girl from around here. A local girl,” she said again, to make it more clear to a foreigner. “She left the whole litter of them when Billy was about two, and went off with a white man.”

“Poor children,” Mrs. MacLane said.

“
They’re
all right,” Mrs. Winning said. “The church takes care of them, of course, and people are always giving them things. The girl’s old enough to work now, too. She’s sixteen, but….”

“But what?” Mrs. MacLane said, when Mrs. Winning hesitated.

“Well, people talk about her a lot, you know,” Mrs. Winning said. “Think of her mother, after all. And there’s another boy, couple of years older than Billy.”

They stopped in front of the MacLane cottage and Mrs. MacLane touched Davey’s hair. “Poor unfortunate child,” she said.

“Children
will
call names,” Mrs. Winning said. “There’s not much you can do.”

“Well…” Mrs. MacLane said. “Poor child.”

The next day, after the dinner dishes were washed, and while Mrs. Winning and her mother-in-law were putting them away, the elder Mrs. Winning said casually, “Mrs. Blake tells me your friend Mrs. MacLane was asking around the neighbors how to get hold of the Jones boy.”

“She wants someone to help in the garden, I think,” Mrs. Winning said weakly. “She needs help in that big garden.”

“Not
that
kind of help,” the elder Mrs. Winning said. “You tell her about them?”

“She seemed to feel sorry for them,” Mrs. Winning said, from the depths of the pantry. She took a long time settling the plates in even stacks in order to neaten her mind. She
shouldn’t
have done it, she was thinking, but her mind refused to tell her why. She should have asked me first, though, she thought finally.

The next day Mrs. Winning stopped off at the cottage with Mrs. MacLane after coming up the hill from the store. They sat in the yellow kitchen and drank coffee, while the boys played in the back yard. While they were discussing the possibilities of hammocks between the apple trees there was a knock at the kitchen door and when Mrs. MacLane opened it she found a man standing there, so that she said, “Yes?” politely, and waited.

“Good morning,” the man said. He took off his hat and nodded his head at Mrs. MacLane. “Billy told me you was looking for someone to work your garden,” he said.

“Why…” Mrs. MacLane began, glancing sideways uneasily at Mrs. Winning.

“I’m Billy’s father,” the man said. He nodded his head toward the back yard and Mrs. MacLane saw Billy Jones sitting under one of the apple trees, his arms folded in front of him, his eyes on the grass at his feet.

“How do you do,” Mrs. MacLane said inadequately.

“Billy told me you said for him to come work your garden,” the man said. “Well, now, I think maybe a summer job’s too much for a boy his age, he ought to be out playing in the good weather. And that’s the kind of work I do anyway, so’s I thought I’d just come over and see if you found anyone yet.”

He was a big man, very much like Billy, except that where Billy’s hair curled only a little, his father’s hair curled tightly, with a line around his head where his hat stayed constantly and where Billy’s skin was a golden tan, his father’s skin was darker, almost bronze. When he moved, it was gracefully, like Billy, and his eyes were the same fathomless brown. “Like to work this garden,” Mr. Jones said, looking around. “Could be a mighty nice place.”

“You were very nice to come,” Mrs. MacLane said. “I certainly do need help.”

Mrs. Winning sat silently, not wanting to speak in front of Mr. Jones. She was thinking, I wish she’d ask me first, this is impossible…and Mr. Jones stood silently, listening courteously, with his dark eyes on Mrs. MacLane while she spoke. “I guess a lot of the work would be too much for a boy like Billy,” she said. “There are a lot of things I can’t even do myself, and I was sort of hoping I could get someone to give me a hand.”

“That’s fine, then,” Mr. Jones said. “Guess I can manage most of it,” he said, and smiled.

“Well,” Mrs. MacLane said, “I guess that’s all settled, then. When do you want to start?”

“How about right now?” he said.

“Grand,” Mrs. MacLane said enthusiastically, and then, “Excuse me for a minute,” to Mrs. Winning over her shoulder. She took down her gardening gloves and wide straw hat from the shelf by the door. “Isn’t it a lovely day?” she asked Mr. Jones as she stepped out into the garden while he stood back to let her pass.

“You go along home now, Bill,” Mr. Jones called as they went toward the side of the house.

“Oh, why not let him stay?” Mrs. MacLane said. Mrs. Winning heard her voice going on as they went out of sight. “He can play around the garden, and he’d probably enjoy…”

For a minute Mrs. Winning sat looking at the garden, at the corner around which Mr. Jones had followed Mrs. MacLane, and then Howard’s face appeared around the side of the door and he said, “Hi, is it nearly time to eat?”

“Howard,” Mrs. Winning said quietly, and he came in through the door and came over to her. “It’s time for you to run along home,” Mrs. Winning said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

Howard started to protest, but she added, “I want you to go right away. Take my bag of groceries if you think you can carry it.”

Howard was impressed by her conception of his strength, and he lifted down the bag of groceries; his shoulders, already broad out of proportion, like his father’s and his grandfather’s, strained under the weight, and then he steadied on his feet. “Aren’t I strong?” he asked exultantly.

“
Very
strong,” Mrs. Winning said. “Tell Grandma I’ll be right up. I’ll just say good-bye to Mrs. MacLane.”

Howard disappeared through the house; Mrs. Winning heard him walking heavily under the groceries, out through the open front door and down the steps. Mrs. Winning rose and was standing by the kitchen door when Mrs. MacLane came back.

“You’re not ready to go?” Mrs. MacLane exclaimed when she saw Mrs. Winning with her jacket on. “Without finishing your coffee?”

“I’d better catch Howard,” Mrs. Winning said. “He ran along ahead.”

“I’m sorry I left you like that,” Mrs. MacLane said. She stood in the doorway beside Mrs. Winning, looking out into the garden. “How
wonderful
it all is,” she said, and laughed happily.

They walked together through the house; the blue curtains were up by now, and the rug with the touch of blue in the design was on the floor.

“Good-bye,” Mrs. Winning said on the front steps.

Mrs. MacLane was smiling, and following her look Mrs. Winning turned and saw Mr. Jones, his shirt off and his strong back shining in the sun as he bent with a scythe over the long grass at the side of the house. Billy lay nearby, under the shade of the bushes; he was playing with a grey kitten. “I’m going to have the finest garden in town,” Mrs. MacLane said proudly.

“You won’t have him working here past today, will you?” Mrs. Winning asked. “Of course you won’t have him any longer than just today?”

“But surely—” Mrs. MacLane began, with a tolerant smile, and Mrs. Winning, after looking at her for an incredulous minute, turned and started, indignant and embarrassed, up the hill.

Howard had brought the groceries safely home and her mother-in-law was already setting the table.

“Howard says you sent him home from MacLane’s,” her mother-in-law said, and Mrs. Winning answered briefly, “I thought it was getting late.”