“July,” Mary called sharply, “go fetch in de clothes. It’s gwine to rain.” A gust of wind lifted a cloud of dust off the ground and sent it into the house. A clap of thunder cracked overhead.
“Goodbye, Si May-e,” Cinder called out sweetly, and out of the door she went, leaving a cloud of that sweet smell behind her.
July followed her out, but he soon came back with his arms full of clothes which he laid on the bed. “You want me to do anything else?” he asked quietly. The trees were rustling loudly as the wind bent their branches low. Pans flew off the shelf and the papered wall crackled.
Mary was almost ready to cry with impatience. Where were July’s senses that he stood asking her what to do when a rain was almost on them. He soon had the cabin closed tight, but it was filled with an awkward silence that marked the heavy rolling thunder. Mary wanted to say many things but she remembered Maum Hannah’s training; when the thunder rolls, people must sit down quiet and listen while Up-Yonder, the Great I Am, the Maker of all things, talks.
Instead of helping himself out of the pots, July fixed himself a cup of sweetened water and swallowed it down, thirstily.
Mary could keep silent no longer even if the clouds were shouting.
“What de matter ail you, July? How-come you don’ eat some possum?”
“I got de headache. I ain’ hungry.”
“How-come you got de headache?”
“I dunno, lessen so much sun-hot today done it.”
That was a poor excuse. Sun-hot could not make July’s head ache when shade covered the whole swamp where he worked. Sun-hot does not make people sick. July must have headache for some other reason. His eyes looked like corn-liquor eyes.
“Come lay down on de bed. Le me put a wet rag on you head, July. Dat’ll make you feel more better. When de rain stops I’ll get a collard leaf an’ tie on em. Dat’ll make you well.”
Men are like children when things go wrong. July was as helpless as Unex now. Mary pushed the rough-dried clothes aside and made him lie down on the bed, and soon he was sound asleep, in spite of the storm outside.
Lightning cracked sharp whips overhead and ran crooked white fingers through the cracks of the house. Mary shivered at the crashes of thunder and held Unex closer, but July lay still and snored. The muddy boots were still on his feet, ruining the clean bed, soiling the clean clothes. He was no more than a child after all. She had to look after him the same as she looked after Unex. Putting the baby on a quilt on the floor, she gently, quietly, began untying the string that fastened the shoes, and slipped them off his feet carefully, slowly, so he would not wake. Sleep would cure his head.
A wild wind whined around the house corners, rain poured on the roof and beat at the door and windows, trying to get in. The trees creaked painfully as the storm wrenched their limbs, darkness blotted out the day. Then the storm slackened, and July woke.
He sat up and stretched, buttoned up his shirt at the neck, got up and opened the door to look out. He felt better. His head was clear now, after his nap.
Lord, how good and clean the fresh air smelled after the cabin’s hot lack of breath. He went into the shed room and changed his clothes and stepped out into the yard to see if any damage had been done by the storm, and to breathe the fresh pleasant air.
Evening had come with a crimson sky and a clear thin wishing moon hung in the west. Bull bats darted about catching gnats and mosquitoes; squirrels chittered and scurried from one tree to another; frogs croaked noisily; grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, glad to be alive, made a whir of loud clear chirping. Partridges whistled “Bob White, peas ripe,” asking, answering, over and over again. The street, washed clean except for boughs and green leaves torn from the trees by the fierce wind and puddles left in low places by the streams of rainwater that gurgled away toward the river, was full of women and children, carrying in wood for the night, going to get the cows and milk them, calling up their fowls and scattering grain around the different doorways, to show each flock which was home.
Distant thunder boomed far away over the river where the storm had gone and the air grew chilly, but July was restless. Instead of sitting down quietly, or offering to help fix the ash-cake for supper, or to fetch a bucket of fresh water from the spring, he went into the shed room, tarried there a minute and came out buttoning up his shirt at the neck.
“Whe you gwine?” Mary asked him timidly.
He waited a minute; then he asked, “How-come you got to know evywhe I go, here lately? I’m gwine whe I’m gwine. Dat’s whe I’m gwine.” His words ripped through the quiet.
The room was hot. Its close air was full of the smell of steam from the pots and smoke from July’s pipe. There was scarcely a sound except Mary’s sniffles. July walked to the fireplace and stirred among the ashes, selecting a small live coal which he dropped into his pipe bowl. Her back was turned to him, but she knew how his lips were drawn, how his pipe stem was gripped between his set teeth, how his chin was pushed forward, how his lean young face had grown hard and set.
“How-come you duh cry?”
How could she tell him when he stood there smoking, gazing down at the sticks of wood, jerking out his words so vexedly.
Instead
