Harvest Home

her my own tribute.

Constable Zalmon and his wife, at the head of their pew, joined the line as it wound ceremoniously down to the pulpit. Apart from the antiquated badge of office pinned to his weekday vest, Mr. Zalmon had never looked to me much like a constable, and I supposed very little had occurred during his tenure to occasion his use of force or imprisonment. An ancient village law of durance vile, which could be at any time invoked to restrain drunks or disturbers of the peace, provided that- since the stocks had been dismantled from the Common- the alleged guilty party should be incarcerated in the back room at the post office until a town meeting determined innocence or guilt, and the penalty to accompany the latter. This was called being given a “ticket-of-leave,” and the prisoner a “ticket- of-leaver.”

Though the villagers had by a concerted effort kept the attack on Jack Stump private, it was generally concluded that it remained for Mr. Zalmon to press charges against the Soakes family, and he spent much of his time outside the post office, keeping a sharp lookout for the pink Oldsmobile.

Since I had for some days set up my easel near the bait shack, the window of which I was still painting, I had seen the continual passage of the village dames coming at all hours with their baskets of food, and almost without fail every day at five the Widow Fortune would arrive in her buggy to tend the results of the Soakeses’ violence. The ladies washed Jack’s clothes and linens, made him broths, kept him clean and shaven, and otherwise did whatever was required to revive him. It was the Widow’s object to put him back on his cart by spring, a purpose she went about with diligence and dispatch. In the meantime, Mrs. Buxley had solicited funds from the parishioners to keep him in necessaries through the fall and winter.

I had taken the boat and rowed upriver to the Soakeses’ jetty, but had seen no sign of any of them. Rumor had it they had gone off on a hunting expedition, and it appeared Mr. Zalmon’s vigilance was in vain. Clearly, they had shut Jack Stump up as effectively as they had the revenuer whose skull screamed in the hollow tree.

The tithing line was dwindling. The Dodds went down the aisle, Maggie leading Robert slowly; he held his token ear of corn out from him as though feeling his way with it. Mr. Deming took the ear and laid it on the heap, which by this time had become considerable. The elder shook Robert’s hand warmly, accepted Maggie’s ear, and she brought Robert back to their pew.

In turn, I took my place in line, then handed Mr. Deming the three ears I had brought to church, one for myself, one for Beth, and the smallest for Kate. Mr. Deming took this last and held it up so all might see, and as I passed back up the aisle I knew I was receiving the good wishes of the villagers for Kate’s recovery. I felt the warmth of their glances, saw Asia Minerva smile as I passed her pew, caught Will Jones’s acknowledging nod as I passed his.

When the last of the children had come down from the gallery and passed before the table, the elders turned to Mr. Buxley, who rose out of his chair and, from the pulpit, held his hand above the piled ears of corn on the harvest table and offered a blessing, while the elders and the congregation bowed their heads. When the blessing had been given, Mr. Buxley readjusted his glasses and announced the closing hymn. I stood with the rest of the congregation and turned to face the choir loft over the closed doors. Mrs. Buxley lifted her gloved hand, nodded to Maggie at the organ, and we began singing.

The selection was a Thanksgiving hymn, and the strains, church truant though I was, rang familiarly in my ears. All around me, my fellow-parishioners sang with fervor, their faces uplifted to the streaming sun, mouths wide, hymnals held high, while with fierce determination Mrs. Buxley encouraged the choir:

“Come ye thankful people come,
Raise the song of Harvest Home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide, for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come,
Raise the song of Harvest Home.”

The voices joined, rose, the notes clear and loud, a fervent sound that surely could be heard in Tobacco City. Ardor lighted the singers’ faces, and joy, and belief:

“First the blade and then the ear,
Then the full corn doth appear;
Grant, o harvest Lord that we
Wholesome grain and pure may be.”

I was looking not at Mrs. Buxley, or at Maggie, or the choir, but at the clock under the choir loft. Suddenly the vestibule doors flew open with a thunderous crash, a metallic sound reverberating as one of them struck the radiator. The choir exchanged startled looks. One by one their voices dwindled away, and Maggie lifted her hands from the organ keys, turning with a surprised expression, while Mrs. Buxley leaned over the railing and craned her neck to discover the cause of the disturbance.

White-faced, and with a deep scowl, Worthy Pettinger stood on the threshold, his arms outstretched to hold the doors back. As his eyes swept the pews, I saw Mrs. Pettinger start, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a little cry. Silent, staring, the congregation stood dumfounded, waiting to see what would happen.

Worthy lifted his right hand from the door panel and made a fist of it, and the fist trembled as he raised it and spoke in a loud, angry voice: “May God damn the corn!”

Immediately a babble of sounds arose, women covering their faces with their hands, some of the men turning to one another with angry mutters.

“May God damn the corn!”

He remained frozen in the open doorway, his clenched fist held aloft. “And may God damn the Mother!” Bringing his arm down in a swift gesture of denunciation, he wheeled and raced out the door. Behind him, the church was in pandemonium, the women crying out and sinking into their seats, the men struggling from their pews and up the aisle, while Amys Penrose appeared in the vestibule and, clutching the rope, began to yank it furiously. Listening to the wild peal of the bells, I thought the old man rang them with the sound of an “Amen.”

PART FOUR: THE CORN PLAY

21

The grain grew fruitful and the corn was ready in the husk, the fields seeming almost to groan under the weight they bore; then, when the Days of the Seasoning were over, and when the moon had attained its promised phase, it was time, and the harvest began. The villagers gathered at the Hooke farm, where custom decreed they were to commence the reaping; spreading out along the rows, they plundered the golden, opulent land, plucking the ears from the stalks and tossing them in baskets, which were then lifted and emptied into the horse-drawn wagons passing along the rows.

When Justin Hooke’s south field had been picked clean and the corn taken to the Grange for the husking bee, the stalks were then cut with sickles and gathered into giant shocks, which were tied and set at intervals between the furrows, and soon the field was bare. As in the other harvested fields, all that remained were the shocks and the stubble and the scarecrow the Widow Fortune had made, and now the villagers moved to the next field, and the