Harvest Home

continued. “Puts one and one together and comes up with two. What he saw, he knew, and what he knew, he was bound to tell. We got our privacies. Some more regrettable than others-even Jack would admit that.”

I spoke coldly. “You don’t have to worry; he won’t talk any more. And you don’t have to worry about getting him back on his rig by spring-he’ll never see the winter out.”

She stared at the shattered cup and saucer. “You think I’m evil. A bad old woman. Yes, I’m old, and I crave peace. I don’t have much time to grow older. Soon someone’s going to have to relieve me of my-duties. Someone will have to come after me.”

“Missy?”

“You are too disdainful. Missy, perhaps. Or, before her, another. But while I live I’ll be doin’ my duties. I’ve lived as I was taught. I’ve lived in what I believed.”

She looked down at the table, ran her fingertips along the blade of the rusty scissors. “I miss the old humbug, y’know. Hearin’ him comin’ ‘round with his clatter and his bang and gabbin’ a body’s ear off.”

I pulled my hands to me, thrusting them in my lap, wrenching my fingers that I should not strike an old woman. When I could govern myself again, I got up.

“What about Worthy?”

Heir head lifted, her eyes blinked at the light, as if trying to see past it, past me, into some cloudy future. “Worthy Pettinger,” she said softly. The light etched her features; she looked haggard, worn, as she began picking up the shattered pieces of the blue teacup. “Clem bought me them cups the year we was married. All these years, and not a one of ‘em broke. Till now. I don’t s’pose I can mend it, can I?” She thought a moment. Then: “No,” she concluded, “some things is forever past mendin’.” One by one she laid the broken pieces in the saucer.

25

It was the end of the great back-to-the-land movement. Henceforward it would be country mouse into city mouse again. What other answer was there? What else to do. But how could I bring myself to put it to Beth, to tell her how we had been fooled and connived against? To tell her what the women really were?

Tell her what the Widow Fortune was?

Perplexed, indecisive, but with a growing determination, after a sleepless night, the next morning I gravitated to the Common, my mind still working over the reason for the attack on the peddler. We have our privacies, the Widow had said. Something private, which Jack Stump had discovered. Still trying to conjure up an idea of what discovery, I watched Irene Tatum’s pickup truck rattle down the north end of Main Street and pull up to the Common. Some of the Tatum kids leaped out and, under Irene’s supervision, unloaded a stack of wooden planks and hauled them across the grass to the bonfire heap. The construction had grown considerably in the past two days, a crude frame of timbers and boards nailed crisscross to hold together the assemblage of boxes, crates, and debris that had been jumbled inside. Ladders were being used to hand material up to the top, where Jim Minerva was securing it with twine, while below groups of people viewed the work as it proceeded, pointing, laughing, chatting.

From the chimneys and eaves of the houses hung the woven corn symbols, swaying in the breeze: Harvest Home was coming.

Inside the post office, it was business as usual. I passed the open doorway, then slipped along the side of the building to the rear. I crept up to the window and looked in. The room was empty. The door was open and I could see Myrtil Clapp at the counter, stamping a package for Mrs. Buxley, who stood on the other side of the window. Glancing at me, the minister’s wife gave me a quick dither of fingers, and I hurried around to the street to intercept her as she came out, then walked beside her across the Common.

She gave me one of her best smiles. “Lovely day, Ned, isn’t it the loveliest? And tonight will be one of the most exciting- see the bonfire we’re going to have.”

“Mrs. Buxley, what’s happened to Worthy?”

“Worthy? Pettinger? Why, nothing.” She wrinkled her eyebrows. “Worthy’s left.”

“Left?”

She nodded, arranging the neckline of her dress. “Mrs. Zee drove him over to the turnpike to catch the bus. He’s gone to New York. At least he said he was going to New York.” She gave a little shrug. “Of course, one never knows what the young people are going to do these days, does one?”

“He simply left?”

She threw her gloved hands out palms up. “Simply. Ewan Deming had a little talk with him. I think he rather reprimanded Worthy. Set him straight, so to speak. Then he let Mrs. Zee drive him to the bus. Isn’t it strange about the sheep?”

“The sheep?”

“Yes. See-they’re gone. Amys has put them to fold. A sure sign winter’s coming. Whenever the sheep are gone, I know it’s time to get out my fur coat. Hope you’ve got plenty of warm clothes-our winters can be terrible. One year the snow was five foot high right here on the-Ned? Are you all right?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Suddenly you looked-well-” We crossed to the far sidewalk in front of the church, where she gave me her arm to help her onto the first step. “Thank you.” She let out a little laugh, as if we were wicked. “See you in church.” Waggled fingers, went on up the steps, patted the bell ringer’s shoulder as he sat knitting. “Pretty colors, Amys.” Went inside.

He gave her a look and plied his needles.

“Been here all morning, Amys?”

“All mornin’.”

“Did you see Worthy Pettinger leave?”

“Ayuh. Old Deming gave him what-for; then Mrs. Zee drove him off in his car.”

“Did he have a suitcase?”

“Ayuh.” He began counting stitches. I went a little distance down the sidewalk and turned in to the cemetery, made my way up the slope through the maze of headstones, and stood on the knoll, thinking.

Then I quickly left and went down to the library, where I asked the librarian to find me a particular volume of the Farmer’s Almanac. When my theory had been corroborated, I thanked her and left. Margie Perkin’s head hung out the window of the beauty parlor as she chatted with Betsey Cox, the bank teller, below. On the other side of the Common, the perpetual checker game at the firehouse was interrupted while Merle Penrose and Harry Gill stood in the doorway watching Mrs. Brucie come out of the grocer’s and go into the drugstore. Jim Minerva tied a corncob on a stick and jammed it in the top of the bonfire pile. A cheer arose from among the onlookers, and Mrs. Buxley, who had brought Mr. Buxley out onto the church steps, waggled her fingers. Directly across the way, at the post office, Tamar Penrose came to see what the applause was about.

I stared moodily at the autumn sky, as blue as it had been in August, in June. I recalled the morning of the Agnes Fair, walking down Penrose Lane, pledging myself to the earth, thinking how right it all felt, how we would find our places in Cornwall Coombe. You folks be happy here, said the Widow Fortune; That’s all you’ve got, each other, and bein’ happy together.

My jaw clamped. I felt aloof, apart, a stranger. Who was I? Who were they? The villagers of Cornwall Coombe; and I an alien, an outsider, never to be an insider. But I no longer cared to be. They were altered, and so was I. All I wanted now was — suddenly I wanted terribly to see Beth, to talk to her.

Tamar went back into the post office. The back room was empty now. Worthy had gone. He hadn’t cared much, after all; had left without saying goodbye. When you came down to it, he wasn’t any different from the rest.

Myrtil Clapp came out of the post office, followed by Tamar, who locked the door and went toward her house. I stood on the knoll, thinking about Justin Hooke. Why had he lied? I kept wondering. Why would Justin Hooke tell me a deliberate lie?

I went down the back slope and stepped over the iron fence. The marshy ground squished under me, filling with water. I shoved a branch into the earth. It drove in easily and when I pulled it out the hole filled immediately.