voices were suddenly stilled, like birds before a storm.
I went behind the barn and vomited into the grass.
PART TWO: THE DAYS OF THE SEASONING
9
The Days of the Seasoning began, that lax period before harvest when the sun did its final drying of the corn, and the farmers readied themselves for the winter. And as the Days of the Seasoning went by, little by little I cleared my mind, and stopped thinking about the red pointing finger. At least I tried to tell myself I had. I convinced myself it had been nothing, a child having a joke on an outsider. During those early September weeks, I went about the village, sketching, doing water-color studies, and telling myself the incident had had no meaning. Sometimes I would see her-behind her gate, on the Common, along the road-but it was as if nothing had happened. So I told myself nothing had.
Though my perceptions might have sharpened since then, it is perhaps because I have learned the art of substituting one thing for another: it is the law of compensation put into sober practice. Later I was required by force of circumstance to negotiate a painful series of readjustments, but in that early autumn my only concern was the business of painting that small but particular corner of New England called Cornwall Coombe. It was all bright then, illuminated by the light I saw it with, and the brightness gladdened my painter’s eye. The light in cities is flatter, grayer, less defined. In the country it was quite different, an evocation of all the glowing light I had ever wanted to record, like some rare golden elixir that had been poured over the hills and fields. There were few grays in my palette, but an abundance of yellows and ochers and deep umbers with which I slopped and spattered the gessoed panels I painted on, working in a fury of haste to capture what I was seeing.
I felt I was becoming a fixture in the village, accepted not because I was the same as they, but because I was different, because I could “draw” things. I was respected because of my work, and because they sensed I wanted nothing more than to be able to put onto a board with brush and color the life I saw around me. And on my part I offered them ungrudging admiration. If I have presented them as picturesque and quaint, I have erred. Countryfolk they were, but a bunch of tough nuts. Dawn-to-dusk, fourteen-hour-a-day workers, unshirking and unstinting, stylish in their own New England right, whose plainest, homeliest task became a kind of ritualistic act: the quartering of an apple, the whittling of a stick, the laying of a brick. I appreciated them for their country wisdom, their humility, their hardiness. The sturdy sons of sturdy fathers. I found them people of simple but profound convictions, and I admired them for their love of the soil, their esteem for their village, their reverence for the past, and their determination to hold on to it at all costs. I liked their forthrightness, their modest know-how, their reticence; if they were worried and wearied by debt, or fearful of natural disaster, they alone knew it, for they never confided such things, except perhaps among themselves. It was the freemasonry of those who live close to the earth, with its harsh, often bitter realities.
And we were being offered a share in it. We were finding ourselves accepted as in the natural order of things, and were treated accordingly. Several Sundays after the Agnes Fair, we went to church. Mr. Deming and the elders were by tradition awarded the choice seats-up front, with cushions. Also included in this preferential treatment were, I discovered, the Hookes, Justin and Sophie. The remainder of the worshipers were ranged, also traditionally, in accordance with their social position and wealth, wives and husbands together-their offspring suffering time-honored banishment to the galleries, boys on one side, girls on the other-while the choir was seated in the loft behind, with Mrs. Buxley to conduct and Maggie Dodd at the organ.
When the last bell peal had died away, we all rose, and while the minister entered from the vestibule in his black gown, Amys drew the doors shut, their closing timed to coincide precisely with Mr. Buxley’s arrival in the pulpit. Soon thereafter the bell ringer stationed himself at the rear of the boys’ gallery, where he maintained a long wooden rod, ready to tap to consciousness any dozing young fry.
Our family sat toward the rear, in the straight-backed, unpadded, and decidedly uncomfortable pew one of the elders had assigned us, and we joined with the others while Mr. Buxley led the opening prayer. We sang the Doxology to Maggie’s accompaniment. After that came the pastor’s church notes and items of general interest; next was a hymn, followed by another prayer, and then, at the indicated moment, amid clearing of throats, rustling of programs, creaking of pews, and dropping of hymnals into racks, the congregation settled itself for the ritual Sunday sermon.
Harken, the village of Cornwall Coombe. Meek and humble lamb though he might be Monday through Saturday, the Reverend Mr. Buxley on the Sabbath was a lion. This was his church, this his pulpit, this his flock. For his text he had selected Second Kings, Chapter 18, Verse 32: “Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live and not die…” Having read from the scripture, Mr. Buxley closed the Book, removed his glasses, placed his hands on either side of the pulpit as though for moral support, and launched into a lengthy peroration. His broad ministerial gestures described the bounty of the promised harvest and the warranted thankfulness for a full grain elevator, fuller pocketbooks, still fuller stomachs. But then, alas-arms falling in despair-with such bounty, what else was there in this land of plenty?
Sin.
Here it comes, I thought, hellfire and brimstone; shades of Henry Ward Beecher.
“… sinning in this land of corn and wine,” deplored Mr. Buxley, and though he spoke of Israel, who was there gathered before him who knew not he alluded to Cornwall Coombe? Sin lay in the hearts of those who, like Jezebel, were greedy beyond their just portion. But-finger directed heavenward-the great Lord Jehovah, nothing loath, had prophesied that Jezebel, unfortunate creature, should have her worldly flesh eaten of by dogs at the wall of Jezreel.
I reached for Beth’s hand, lying on the hymnal in her lap. She smiled at me under her lashes and I gave her a silent
My eyes lingered on Worthy’s saturnine features as he lent appropriate attention to Mr. Buxley. In the several weeks since the Agnes Fair, the boy had been in our employ, helping complete the terrace wall, setting in the skylight, plus seeing to the myriad other chores Beth found in unending succession. Day by day, we were becoming more dependent on his help and, in consequence, day by day fonder of him. He had proved to be bright, able, quick to learn, and willing to please. Still, observing him as he worked, I could see he was somehow troubled, but when I tried to draw him out, I discovered nothing to solve the mystery of the boy’s melancholy. In the back of my mind always was the memory of the fair:
Still, though I had said nothing, I felt glad that no one had witnessed the scene behind the barn at Penance House, the black guts of the sheep, the red pointing finger.
I turned my head, looking up at the gallery where the village girls sat. Missy Penrose’s expression darkened as she saw my apprehensive glance, and her brow lifted in slight acknowledgment, as though between us we shared some un-Spoken and forbidden secret.
What bond could possibly connect us-me, Ned Constantine, and her, the village idiot? Why had I been singled out for her notice? And, having attracted it, why had I experienced that strange mixture of awe and dread? Why, in
