found me. I expected they would, and that was another reason I was glad to let her go, but of course I couldn't explain 2 25
that to her. Finally, I wrote to my father and told him I needed money—he hadn't heard from me in a year at least—and he sent me three times as much as I asked for. And there was a note telling me that you were getting married.
'During those weeks there was a revival, a tent meeting, down by the river. I used to walk over there every night because there were crowds and noise and there wasn't much alcohol. One night a man standing just beside me, as close to me as
you are, went down as if he'd been shot. When he came up again, he threw his arms around me and said, 'My burdens are gone from me! I have become as a little child!' I thought, If I'd been standing two feet to the left, that might have been me. I'm joking, of course, more or less. But it's a fact that if I could have traded places with him, my whole life would be different, in the sense that I might have been able to look Delia's father in the eye, maybe even my father. That I would no longer be regarded as quite such a threat to the soul of my child. That man was standing there with sawdust in his beard, saying, 'I was the worst of sinners!' and he looked as if that might well be true. And there he was weeping with repentance and relief while I stood watching with my hands in my pockets, feeling nothing but anxiety and shame. And a certain amusement, if you will forgive me.
But the next day my father's letter came and I got a decent coat and a bus ticket and I was all right then.
'When I got to Memphis the baby had just been born the day before, and the house was full of aunts and women from the church, coming and going. They let me come in and sit in a corner. I don't think anyone knew what to do with me till her father came home, so they just went on with their business. If the day had been warmer, I think I'd have been sitting on the stoop. One woman said to me, 'They're both just fine. They're sleeping.' And she brought me a newspaper, which was kind of her. It eased my embarrassment to have something to look at. 226
'When her father finally did come home, the room emptied and the house became completely still. I stood up, but be didn't offer to shake hands. The first words he said to me were 'I understand you are not a veteran.' Ah. I told him some lie about my heart, and then I regretted it instantly, because I felt I had made myself sound feeble, but I needn't have worried about that, because I could tell he didn't believe a word. As I recall, Deuteronomy says cowardice forbids one from going to the army. 'What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brother's heart melt as his heart.' So I had scriptural warrant, though I chose not to mention it.
'He said, 'I understand you are descended from John Ames, of Kansas.' Of course anyone else would have put that right, but I thought there might be some advantage in letting him believe it—he was referring to your grandfather, of course. It was the first slightly positive thing he had ever said to me.
He said he knew people whose families came north from Missouri before the war, and apparently they told some remarkable stories about him, about raids and ambushes. I told him I had
heard stories about the old man while I was growing up, which is true. They were mainly stories about him running off with the laundry, but I didn't tell him that. I remember my father said once when he was a boy the old man came to our church and sat in the back, and when the collection plate came to him he just emptied it into his hat.'
It's a fact that my grandfather always did suspect the Presbyterians of hoarding, so that's not at all unlikely. And he did
make a world of use of that hat.
He said, 'We had a few minutes of actual conversation, but I had to be cautious. I didn't know enough about the old times to risk telling lies, so I said my family had turned pacifist after the war. And didn't encourage discussion of it. That's correct, I believe?'
227 Absolutely.
'He knew • my full name because that is what Delia wanted to call the baby. I was so relieved when I heard that. Her father said, 'She's been waiting for you.' And I just sat there beside
her bed all that afternoon, talking a little when she felt like it. Looking at the baby now and then. The women would take
him away if he cried. They brought in some supper. I thought maybe things were improving, but they were all just being Christian. In the evening her father told me it would be best if
I went away. He said, 'This time I make no appeal to your honor.' I suppose he had the right to say that. They were looking after her and I didn't see how I could, so my thought was to
go back to St. Louis and find a decent job and save up some money and try to figure something out. Because she talked to me about bringing the baby home, and she meant St. Louis. 'I left what I could of my father's money with her. And three months later she came with her sister and the baby to the old place, Lorraine's place, where she lived when I met her. I had a new room at the time, very clean and cheap, and also very respectable, which is to say I'd have been out on the street if I'd brought home a colored wife and child. I couldn't afford the old squalor, if I was to save anything at all.
As it is, I've never repaid my father. Not a dime.
'So over all these years we have been back and forth, with her going to Memphis when things were too difficult, for the boy's sake. He is a wonderful boy. I believe he has never really lacked anything. He has uncles and cousins, and his grandfather dotes on him. Delia's father.
'My son's name is Robert Boughton Miles. He is very good to me, very respectful and polite. Not as much at ease with me as your boy is.
'I managed finally, about two years ago, to get a job that paid a little money. I made a down payment on a house in a 228
mixed neighborhood, and Robert and Delia came. It isn't much of a house, but I did some painting and found some rugs and chairs. And we had almost eight months there. But then we got careless and went to the park together, and my boss happened to be there with his family. And the next day he called me into his office and told me he had his good name to consider. I hit him, which was very stupid of me. I hit him twice. He fell against his desk and cracked a rib. I thought I had talked him out of going to the law, I promised to pay his doctor bills and something for his inconvenience, but that evening the police came to speak with us, to mention that law about cohabiting. It was humiliating, but I kept my head. I think it becomes a husband and father to stay out ofjail when possible. I arranged to put my family on the bus to Memphis, rented the house.
