5
“How’d you come by that wart there?”
She had handed me the reins and now she brought my hand closer to her spectacles to examine the growth on my finger. I explained about the pressure from my brushes, and said I’d been meaning to see a doctor about it.
“Ha! You do that. Old Doc Bonfils over to Saxony. Maybe he’ll rid you of it-maybe he won’t. What you need is a little red bag-that’ll take care of your wart, and then some.”
“Little red bag?”
She laid her finger alongside her nose and closed one eyelid. “What we call the Cornwall cure. We’ll see to it,” she added mysteriously, giving me back my hand.
We were proceeding along the winding road, called the Old Sallow Road, which leads to Soakes’s Lonesome and the Lost Whistle Bridge. In the east the sun rose higher in a sky already pure cerulean. The corn grew tall on either side of the road, and when I commented that the year promised a good crop, the Widow agreed.
“I knew t’would be. I been listenin’ all summer to the corn a-growin’. Oh yes sir, you can hear it all right. You come out with me one night next year-don’t smile, I’m not talkin’ about country matters-and you’ll hear it too. The softest rustle of leaf, soft as fairies’ wings, and you know them stalks is stretchin’ up to the sky, the tassels is length’nin’, the ears is bit by bit gettin’ fatter, till you can hear their husks pop. That’s somethin’, on a hot dark night, standin’ by a cornpatch in the light o’ the Mulberry Moon, and hearin’ the corn grow. Then you can say the earth has returned the seed ten thousandfold.”
She pointed upward. “See that blue sky now, that’s God’s sky. And up there in that vasty blue is God. But see how far away He is. See how far the sky. And look here, at the earth, see how close, how abiding and faithful it is. See this little valley of ours, see the bountiful harvest we’re to have. God’s fine, but it’s old Mother Earth that’s the friend to man.”
And corn was king. Foolish folk, she continued, on a cold night might insist on burning their cobs in the fire. Burn corn? Never. Return the corn to the earth, bury it, then, when the plowman turned the furrow in the spring, the tilth would come up rich and dark against the shear, a fertile soil willing to bear generously for whatever hand was put to the harrow. Love the earth and it must love you back.
“Yes,” she concluded thoughtfully, “we’ll have a bountiful Harvest Home.”
“Just what is Harvest Home?” I asked.
“Harvest Home?” She peered at me through her spectacles. “Why, I don’t think I ever heard a pusson ask that before. Everybody knows what Harvest Home is.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s what comes of bein’ a newcomer. Harvest Home’s when the last of the corn comes in, when the harvestin’s done and folks can relax and count their blessin’s. A time o’ joy and celebration. Eat, drink, and be merry. You can’t have folks carousin’ while there’s corn to be gathered, so it must wait till the work’s done. It means success and thanks and all good things. And this year’s the seventh year.”
“The seventh year?”
“Ayuh. For six years there’s just feastin’ and carryin’ on, but the seventh’s a special one. After the huskin’ bee there’s a play, and-well, the seventh year’s particular for us. Harvest Home goes back to the olden times.”
“When does it come?”
She looked at me again as if I were indeed a strange species. “Never heard a pusson ask that either. Harvest Home comes when it comes-all depends.”
“On what?” I persisted doggedly.
“The moon.” While I digested this piece of information, she pursed up her lips thoughtfully, watching as some birds flashed by. “Three,” she counted, observing their smooth passage through the sky. “And larks. Larks is a good omen if ever there was.”
“You believe in omens.”
“Certain. You’ll say that’s ignorant superstition, bein’ a city fellow.” Most of the villagers, she continued, were descended from farmers who had come from old Cornwall, in England, more than three hundred years earlier, and the Cornishman didn’t live who wouldn’t trust to charms or omens: stepping on a frog would bring rain, wind down a chimney signified trouble in store, a crow’s caw might foretell death or disaster, and, she concluded, did I find all this odd?
“No,” I replied, “not particularly.” Being Greek, I knew about superstitions; my grandmother had been a walking almanac of “do’s” and “don’t’s”, including broken mirrors and hats on beds.
“Superstition’s just a condition of matter over mind, so t’speak. I’m a foolish old woman and I don’t see things so clear. Missy, now, she can see plain as well water.”
Again I saw the child’s dull but watchful eyes.
The Widow continued, “Take that collar button in the hog’s stomach. Missy’ll know for sure how to read it.”
“You mean it could be a bad omen?”
“Certain! It just depends. Still and all-” Her voice again took on a worried tone as she looked away over the brimming fields. “But what could go wrong now? Surely the crop’s grown? Surely we’ll have a bountiful Harvest Home? Surely God won’t take away what He’s promised the whole summer long. Look at the corn there, as fat and ripe as a man could hope for. Surely everything’s been done that a body could do? Surely seven years was penance enough?” Her rapid questions being, I assumed, strictly rhetorical, I could do no more than nod my head at each while I studied the mare moving in front of us. Yet her voice told me how much she, and the entire community, counted on the harvest. Finally I asked her what was meant by the seven years’ penance.
“The last Waste,” she explained obscurely, and went on to relate how in Cornwall in the olden times, as she put it, there had been the Great Waste, when the land lay under a plague of Biblical proportions, the crops blighted, when nothing would grow. It had been the fault of Agnes, that same Agnes in whose name this very fair today was being held. For undisclosed reasons, this Agnes of old Cornwall had risen up before the entire village and cursed the crop. In fury, the villagers had dispatched her on the spot, but as a result of her maledictions they had suffered years of pestilence and drought. Then, one night, the spirit of the dead Agnes appeared to one of the elders-a repentant Agnes-saying that if a fair would be given each year in her honor, the land would again flourish and the crops would be plentiful. Thus the establishment of the annual Agnes Fair, a provenance I found interesting if fanciful.
Yet the next part of this strange history as the Widow related it struck my ear as real enough. Thirteen years ago, right here in Cornwall Coombe, there had been another Waste; the river had not risen in the spring, the ground was dry when the seed was planted, the rains did not come, the corn withered in the husk, and hard times came upon the village. Small wonder, I thought, that the farmers were superstitious.
Behind us I heard the noisy clangor of kettleware, the familiar furious din announcing the various comings of Jack Stump, the peddler. Looking back over the seat, I saw him working his cart in a frantic effort to catch up with us. Never turning, but with a serene smile, the Widow made no effort to restrain the mare’s progress, and only let her have her head.
Jack Stump, newly arrived like us, had during that first summer become a familiar sight along the byways and thoroughfares of the village. His improbable-looking rig was little more than a pieced-together relic of a cart constructed atop the several parts of an ancient bicycle. Astride a shiny, cracked leather seat and flying a small tattered American flag on one of the handlebars, he would drive the cart, ringing a cowbell or squeezing the rubber bulb of a brass horn to witness his comings and goings; these and the continual clang and rattle of the tin pans, kettles, and skillets strung above on lines made a mobile pandemonium that alerted the countryside to his continual progresses. And where he came and went, Jack Stump talked.
“Jabberwocky,” the Widow said, “that’s what that one spouts.” She jerked her head to the rear where the peddler strained under his load. “Poor benighted soul.” When he at last pulled alongside, she nudged me with her elbow and offered him the best of the day and weather.
“Whatcha say, Widow. Whatcha say, sir?”
The Widow slowed the mare to a walk. “Well, Jack, glad to see we’re not harboring a slugabed. What gets you up so bright and early?”
He huffed, seeking his breath, until the huff turned to a wheeze. “I’m an early bird, Widow, catching my
