Harvest Home

Come on into the kitchen-I’ve got Robert’s lunch on. Have some?”

I declined, accepting her offer of a drink instead. Carrying Robert’s tray, she brought me into the sun porch. She set down the tray, waited for a pause in the narrative on the record player, then lifted the arm and shut it off.

“See who’s here, dear,” she said, “Ned.”

“Well, m’boy, pull up a chair.”

“Robert’s reading Anna Karenina.”

Robert readied himself while his wife unfolded a card table and set it up over his knees, put the tray on it, and opened a napkin and tucked it in his hand.

“Thank you, dear.” He began feeling out the carefully cut meat with his fork, the tips of his fingers working like antennas over the implements; Maggie hovered to assist his hand in finding the glass of milk or the salt shaker. When he had finished, she took his napkin from his lap, removed the tray, and bent to kiss him before going out.

“Don’t forget your drops, dear. Perhaps Ned will take down the card table-all right? Anything you need before I go?”

“Can I have a cigar?”

“Oh, Robert, you know what the Widow said.” She gave me a wink, set the tray down again, and took a cigar from the humidor on the desk, did her ritual of preparing it for Robert, then held the match while he lighted it.

“That’s quite a ceremony she performs,” I observed when Maggie had gone.

“Yes, Margaret’s father taught her.” He blew three smoke rings, the last passing through the first. “Did I do it?”

“Bull’s-eye. You should see them-” I stopped in embarrassment.

“It’s all right, m’boy, no need for blushes. The worst thing is for people to be conscious of my-infirmity. I’m used to it. Always amazes me how much I can see.”

“You have some vision still?”

“Blind as a bat. But I can see things in my head. The wonderful part is that for me they never change. Take Margaret, for example. I know she’s older now, but I see her exactly as she was when I lost my sight. And I get along. I have her, and my talking books. After Anna Karenina, I’ll undoubtedly get around to David Copperfield, finally. Is there a small bottle here somewhere?” His fingers were groping among the things at his elbow; I leaned over and put into his hand a rubber-stoppered bottle.

“That’s it, thanks.” As he removed his glasses and set them aside, I was astonished to see that he was not merely lacking vision, but that he lacked the very organs needed for vision. Drawing out the wads of cotton that filled the eyeless sockets, he put drops into each, set the bottle down, and replaced the cotton with fresh pieces. When he had screwed the top on the bottle, he felt for a paper tissue and used it on the lenses of his dark glasses.

“Haven’t seen a thing for a long time, but I still wipe my glasses every time I put them on. Creatures of habit, that’s what we are.” He settled the lenses over the bridge of his nose and felt for his cigar in the chrome stand at his side, then smoked in silence for several moments. “I must admit,” he said reflectively, “going blind came as quite a blow. Bound to, I suppose.”

I thought for an instant he was going to reveal the nature of his accident, but he dismissed the subject with a spin of his cigar tip, as though life’s horrors were unaccountable, and hence not worth discussion. “Some tragedies are unspeakable,” he went on, “but we must endure however we may. I’ll tell you something, m’boy, even though I enjoy my talking-books, I’d give up all the books in the world to see one star again. That’s what I miss the most, seeing the stars. We go out on the lawn sometimes at night and Margaret describes them to me; quite a one with the stars she is.”

“Quite a one with everything,” I said admiringly.

He nodded. “She’s a good right hand. Corrects my letters- I’m a rotten typist. Keeps me from bumping into things. Think of it, these many years of keeping a fellow from skinning his shins-that’s a career in itself. Margaret’s quite a woman.” He felt for the cigar stand and tapped his ash. “Anything particular on your mind?”

“Why?”

“Something in your voice.”

“Robert-what’s going to happen to Worthy?”

He shook his head, and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Hard to tell about Worthy. Lot of feeling about that. You can’t go around damning the corn crop in this village and not have people angry.” Worthy, it seemed, had been given a ticket-of-leave, and was being held in the back room of the post office under the ancient statute of durance vile.

“But he hasn’t broken any law,” I protested.

“No-none that’s in the books. But in Cornwall Coombe there’s a code of ethics not to be tampered with. To go against one is to go against all. It’s not really a village, you know. It’s more a clan, a tribe.”

“Penrose tribe?”

“Partly. But a man has to show respect for both the village and its ways. What time is it?”

I looked at the clock on the desk. “Ten minutes to two.”

“They’ll be starting soon.” He ran his tongue around the inside of his lips, then ruminatively touched it to the tip of his cigar. “About Worthy. I suppose it’s a matter of-choices.” He paused, tapping his ash again. I had the feeling he was picking his words carefully.

“Some probably wouldn’t agree with me, but I believe a man’s fate is in his own hands. ‘Not in the stars, dear Brutus,’ as Shakespeare says. No matter what a fortune teller may say, or an astrologer or a seer, the events that come to a man are determined by him and how he adjusts to those events. We’re all offered choices. Our very existences often depend on these choices. Making the wrong one can change our lives, but at least the decision has been made; the brake has been released, the machinery can go forward again. But in going forward, it may bring a man to meet the fate he himself has sought.”

“Did Worthy make the wrong choice?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“But it’s such a small thing.”

“There are degrees of smallness. I can understand your being interested in the boy’s welfare, but it’s out of your hands. I wouldn’t worry. Most likely the elders’ll give him a lecture and let him off.”

He made a gesture, dismissing the subject, but still I felt that there was more to be said and resolved. He seemed to sense this in the silence. Nodding, he repeated Justin’s words.

“If you have questions, take them to the Widow.”

The church bell was tolling as I drove up to the Widow Fortune’s door and knocked. There was no reply. Nor was the buggy in the drive. I waited another moment, then continued on to the Common. Passing the church, I saw some women moving up the steps. Just inside the open vestibule doors, someone-Mrs. Green, I thought-was handing out slips of paper from a sheaf in her hands. I glimpsed the Widow’s white cap as she took one and started in. Her head turned quickly-a flash of expression, no more, but before she looked away again I read in her face things I had never seen there until that moment. Was it scorn? Contempt? Or was it denunciation?

She entered with the others and presently the bell stopped. Amys Penrose came out, closed the doors behind him, and went down the street toward the Rocking Horse Tavern, I drove past the north end of the Common, where a large pile of debris was being assembled for the Kindling Night celebration; then I parked in front of the drugstore and went in. Except for the boy behind the soda fountain, the place was empty. “What’s going on over at the church?” I inquired. The boy shrugged and gave me a peculiar look. I walked out and, continuing up the street toward the post office, I caught various looks, and had several backs offered to me, which made me think of the shunning of the Pettingers when they had come to the Grange with their pumpkins.

Approaching the entrance to the post office, I received dark and sullen stares from several men lounging in the doorway, and when I attempted to pass, Constable Zalmon came to the door and blocked my way.

“Sorry, son, closed today.”

“Is this a holiday?”

“Nope. Just closed.”

The coldness of his tone told me the frost was on the pumpkin; and not only in the fields. Taking a quick glance over to the church, I proceeded along the sidewalk toward Penance House. I could hear the men’s voices