It has always seemed to me that it is more important to tell what a man thinks than what he does, that the landscapes seen internally by only one eye are more significant and terrible and beautiful than the landscapes seen by a thousand. It would be a frightful but awesome thing to see, if only for a moment, the vast and formless country behind one blank human face, where the mind flickers like a dim flame in countless winds that never roved on land or sea.
Dan Hendricks had nothing physically to show why fate had picked him out to crush and rend and hurl and spit upon. I remember him well, how he looked when we were going to school together, a tall and lanky boy with a long face like a melancholy colt, and rather vague brown eyes. His hair was never fully cut; it clung at the back of his shaggy neck like a dull brown fringe, and one long lock was always falling over his forehead and blinding him. He would brush it away, vaguely, abstractedly, but never impatiently. It was just a nuisance to be borne. Life itself seemed to him just a nuisance to be borne without much thought of it, to be brushed casually aside in order that one might see clearly.
He was not a stupid boy, in spite of his apparent aimlessness of gesture and his slow movements and shabby clothes. He had a large, well-cut nose in his pale face, a very wide mouth, and high, clever cheekbones. There were times when he had a singular beauty of expression, soft and gentle and ironically kind. I never knew a time when he ever hurt anything or anybody. He spoke slowly, slurring his words, letting his voice die away toward the end of his sentences. He had big hands and bigger feet, but his knuckles were not large, and the fingers were slender, though fumbling. When he was a boy he had all the intrinsic gentleness and tenderness and stern integrity that he was to have when he became a man, but few besides Livy and Sarah Faire and myself seemed to know it. They never did know it, even when he was dead. To most of the folks in South Kenton, he was just a no-account, the son of the shiftless village blacksmith, living in a two-room shack behind the smithy. He wore galluses three-fourths of the time, even to church, and in the winter he merely wore a heavy, shapeless coat over them. He ran barefoot most of the time, too. He seemed to hate shoes, though I don’t believe it was because he particularly loved the good, wholesome, rich feel of the earth under his feet. I think shoes simply seemed insignificant to him. I don’t think he really loved Nature, either; he loved wild and stormy landscapes, bitter sunsets, and the dark calm before tempests. That was because he loved beauty, and loving beauty is very different from loving Nature though most folks won’t agree.
Most folks believe that if a person is really good and honorable and high of heart, everyone will love him, feeling instinctively all his virtues. That isn’t so. I knew what Dan Hendricks was, and so did one or two others, but the majority of the people in South Kenton despised him and despised his father. Folks in the mass are very stupid and blind; they see only the mud on thick boots, the grime under fingernails, and the need of a shave or a haircut. They saw only that Sam Hendricks drank every penny he could lay his hands on, that he was godless, illiterate, and profane. They saw that Dan showed no more ambition than did his widowed father, and that Dan would sit slackly by the hour staring at the sky with his mouth open, the bucket he had been sent to fill, empty at his side. Like folks all over the world they believed that loquacity shows an active mind, and that feet that scurry are feet that are going somewhere.
My father was the old-time country doctor of popular memory. I will not add, “And may his tribe increase.” It’s a good thing for the country at large that the old-time doctor is disappearing; folks’ll live longer for it. Not that my father was any more ignorant or superstitious or hidebound than others of his profession in those days; but he did not know too much. My mother had been a “school-marm,” and never forgot the fact. She, it was, who instilled what pride my father had in him. Therefore, they objected peevishly and harshly to my love and friendship for Dan Hendricks. Mother had inherited a little money, and we lived in one of the best houses in the village. I was never allowed to invite Dan there. I tried, awkwardly and blushingly, to explain why not to Dan, but he stopped me halfway with a slight, amused smile, as though he was surprised that I thought the matter important enough to talk about.
Livy, my wife, was the daughter of the town “reverend,” and had two other sisters. Livy, too, was forbidden to play with Dan Hendricks, though she always disobeyed without any pangs of conscience that I could discover. She petted and pitied and teased Dan, and when we were youngsters I often suffered jealousy because of the evident affection Dan had for her. I wanted both of them to love only me. They knew it and laughed at me. But no one could help loving Livy then, for her smallness and darkness and plumpness and gay dimples and dancing braids of hair.
The children at school did not like Beatrice Faire, even though her mother dressed her exquisitely for those times, and she was always dainty and clean and had many pennies to spend for licorice shoelaces and molasses apples and hard, round lemon drops at the general store. She would spend the money lavishly on her schoolmates, not out of generosity, I knew, but merely because for a time she could buy the regard and respect of those she felt hated and snubbed her.
Yes, they hated Dan, too, as much as they hated Beatrice. They laughed at his shabbiness. For years they joked about the time Dan carried his shoes slung over his shoulder on the way to school, then sat down carefully in the dust near the door and put them on. But there was something good-natured in their dislike of Dan; they often included him, when necessary, in their games. But in their hatred of Beatrice there was something malevolent.
Dan, I found, pitied Beatrice. I thought, when I was young, that it was because the children snubbed her; I found out, years later, that he pitied her because of what she really was. He tried a few times to be kind to her, and gentle, but she repulsed him with such venom and loathing that he fell back.
Livy was kind to everyone. She was even kind to Beatrice, whom she really could not bear. Beatrice responded to this almost pathetically; she dogged Livy whenever she could, followed her constantly, was included in many things in order that the others could obtain Livy. “You’ll ask Bee, too, or I won’t come,” Livy would say flatly. So Beatrice came. The little girls always walked hand in hand together, light red head bobbing beside dark head, ruffled skirts or plaid wool frocks mingling and blowing together. But what a difference in the faces beneath hoods or sun-bonnets or knitted woolen caps! Livy’s face was so open, so smiling and fearless and generous, though not as pretty as Beatrice’s. Bee’s face, in spite of its pink-and-whiteness and dimples and small red mouth and russet eyes, was so sly, so crafty, so mean, that all its beauty seemed an uncertain kind of ugliness.
Beatrice was always at Livy’s home. The Reverend Isaac Bingham and his wife, Livy’s parents, were very fond of Beatrice, in the blind manner of adults. They lauded her pretty manners, her respectful manner of speaking, her little curtsies, her spurious shyness, and soft voice. They thought their tomboyish and rollicking little Olivia could profit from the association. But I knew that it was only Livy’s inherent integrity and fine nature that kept her from the pollution that Beatrice literally exuded from her whole body. The reverend and his wife did not know that Livy not only did not like Beatrice, but had a real contempt for her, and that she only befriended the child because she could not endure that even a mean thing be trampled upon.
The society of the little town-village was very tight and close. Only about a dozen families were included in it; mine, Beatrice’s, Livy’s, Dave King’s, Bob Cunningham’s, Matilda Hughes’s, Willie Williams’s, Amelia Burnett’s, Mary Knowles’s, Jane Mundell’s, Susan Crawford’s, and Jack Rugby’s. Dave King’s father was an old man, though Dave, at the time I speak of, was only twelve years old. Endicott King had been married three times, the first two without issue. He had married one of my mother’s second cousins, a young girl some thirty years younger than he, and she had borne him this one child. Endicott was a retired farmer, comfortably situated and with extraordinarily fastidious manners and luxurious tastes. They lived in a large white stone house near Hamsville Pike and had two hired girls. Bob Cunningham’s mother was a widow; her husband had been the owner of the shoe factory in Ripley; and on his death she had retired to her old home on a comfortable annual income. Matilda Hughes’s father was Ezra Hughes, president, vice-president, secretary, and manager of South Kenton’s one and only bank, a shrewd and miserly and pious rascal. Willie Williams’s father was Tom Williams, a lawyer of pompous appearance and sonorous tongue; Amelia Burnett’s papa was Mark Burnett, mayor of South Kenton for ten years; Mary Knowles’s widowed mother held half the mortgages in the county, it was said, and was a regular modern businesswoman who would have earned admiration even in these days for careful management and an eye for profit. Jane Mundell’s and Susan Crawford’s fathers were horse dealers of good income, while Jack Rugby’s father was Mortimer Rugby, head of the South Kenton School Department and schoolmaster of its only school.
There were a few other families in South Kenton, also, in a sort of limbo between the despised stratum of nondescript townsfolk and farmers from the outlands and the snobbishness of our little circle. These included the constable’s family and the undertaker’s family, and the general storekeeper’s family, and they were occasionally included in our refined little parties and other doings, though never completely accepted. The richest man in town was Ed Ford; he owned the brewery outside of South Kenton and the American House in town with its hilarious bar. But he was a man of such opulent appearance, with his plaid vest, white shirtsleeves, profanity, gold watch-chain and charms, and sleek, walruslike whiskers, that he was avoided publicly, though not privately, by the better element. He was also a foreigner; that is, no one knew exactly what his origin was, and besides, he tended bar in his “hotel.” He gave lavishly to church funds, could always be counted upon for charitable donations, but he was too expansive of speech, too ready of friendly tongue and back-slapping hand, too loud and raucous of voice, to be included in our refined little orbit. His three pretty daughters were never invited anywhere except when absolutely necessary, and while I was still a child they traveled a good deal and finally married substantial gentlemen in other and larger towns. The good ladies of South Kenton were always suspicious of Ed Ford, and, led by Livy’s mother, they were eternally getting up “crusades” against his wicked bar and brewery. However, the women were never too severe and thorough about them, because Ed Ford’s generosity had to be depended upon, on not infrequent occasions, to pay Livy’s father’s salary. When Ed, with a grand gesture, actually contributed half the funds to build a new parsonage, the crusades died a sudden and discreet death. Ed was no fool.
In the limbo was also included the family of Con Sturgeon, owner of the Opera House.
To all of the youngsters of the inner circle, the families in the limbo seemed brilliantly colored, romantic, enviably high-living, pursuing lives of mystery and excitement. Beyond the limbo, we knew nothing and cared less, imitating our elders’ light scorn and head-turning. Even my father, the country doctor, kind and jovial and gruff enough when visiting farmers’ wives and children, recognized his humbler patients with only a casual nod when he met them in town. Thus for early American democracy.
Some will ask why Mundell and Crawford, the horse dealers, and Sarah Faire were included in our solid inner community. Well, Mundell and Crawford were well off, and their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers before them, had been first settlers, and of good family. Sarah Faire was not at first included, but eventually her charming manners, docility, fascinating voice, and unusual beauty endeared her even to the frosty-lipped ladies. She was very intelligent, and had the art of pleasing down to a fine point. Moreover, she was an accomplished musician for South Kenton, and could play the violin with extraordinary skill, though not, as I later discovered, with any particular inspiration. She had a select little class of pupils among us, and she handled this matter with a casualness, in conjunction with her dressmaking, which aroused admiration. She could always be called upon in an emergency, was also ready with a helping hand with her usual good nature and amiability. No one could help liking her. Perhaps that also accounts for Beatrice’s later hatred for her mother.
Sarah Faire was the only one in our society who did not possess a carriage, but she had the choice of any of our vehicles on Sundays. We called for her, and she would climb lightly into the carriage, a dainty figure in her muslins or silks or velvets, exquisitely gloved and rosy of cheek, a parasol of many silken ruffles over her nodding plumes of chic little bonnet, her small white teeth flashing in a good-tempered and agreeable smile. She would be accompanied by Beatrice, a pretty little replica of herself in black boots, embroidered petticoats, and long fair curls. Sarah would laugh and talk gaily to her hostess, but Beatrice would sit in a corner of the carriage, smirking faintly, her little gloved hands primly in her lap. All the adults petted the child excessively; her manners were perfect.
We made a leisurely and delightful party, as we all drove up to the door of the little white Baptist church, our carriage wheels twinkling, our spanking horses fat and sleek, and calling out greetings to each other. The churchyard would be flooded with warm, quiet summer sunlight; even the gravestones looked festive, green and smooth and decked with flowers. There were few amusements in those days, and our social life centered about the church, with its small glass windows and scrubbed, bare interior. Life was placid and static, yet filled with a content and richness not found nowadays in the feverish coming and going of a life that lives only on the surface. We were not tired by headlines, by alarums, by movement that at last only resolves into inertia. We were not concerned with the doings of a febrile Europe; what the Kings and the Mundells and the Crawfords and the Rugbys were doing, were going to do, was excitement enough for us. We discussed marriages of two and three years ago with an avidity that did not tire until another marriage happened. Mrs. Hughes’s new curtains furnished the ladies with conversation material for months; the Williams’s new horse was a subject that could not be exhausted. For weeks, the ladies were in a flutter about the contemplated strawberry festival in the church grounds; the annual fair consumed the attention of all the community to the exclusion of everything else. Bourgeois women were not yet concerned with Art and Movements; in fact, they knew scarcely one book from another, and an artist seemed to them a monstrosity that would never cross the placid circling of their tight little orbits. When I became a young doctor, the pride of my father, I found no neurotic women in my community, found no inhibitions or complexes or psychopathic behavior. Livy says it is because these things had as yet no names, but existed just the same, as witness so-and-so and so-and-so. But I am of the opinion that strange and twisted behavior is the result of too much thinking, too much leisure, lives that are too crowded with exigent things that are worthless in themselves. Health lies in simplicity of thought as well as simplicity of living. When men become too concerned with their souls and their mental lives, trouble sets in. The more we emulate the animals in directness of simple purpose, whether that purpose is benign or cruel or barbarous, the better our health, mentally and physically. Excessive childbirth may have been bad in some few cases, but except for women like Livy, the childless woman is a whole lot sicker in her mind and body than the woman with six or more children. It seems to me that whatever mind or soul a woman has, she’s better off if she ignores it.
Of course, we had our infrequent scandals and stupidities and cruelties. We wouldn’t have been human if we hadn’t. But even these things had a healthy lustiness about them. There was a sort of robust animalism in the way the people of South Kenton treated Dan Hendricks.
Dan and his drunken father did not go to church. The minister showed no wholehearted regard for their souls. The consensus was that they were not worth the saving. I confess that for a time I was troubled by Dan’s godlessness, and each Sunday I resolved that I would cut off our friendship. Livy never had such thoughts; she was a total heathen, for all she was the minister’s daughter. Livy has less religion and faith and more humanity than any other creature I ever saw.
I can stop now, and I can hear the little husky organ groaning in the soft hot silence of the summer Sunday; I can hear the leisurely singing of the congregation, following the music with individual interpretation. A bumblebee comes zooming through an open window, and, catching the sunlight on his yellow wings, he dips and soars over the flowered hats and bonnets of the women. Outside, through another window, I can see the quiet green fields and dusky purple hills beyond, and to the south, the white village houses in their nests of massive green. Mr. Bingham stands in the pulpit, lank and black-garmented, solemn and eyeglassed, his fingers between the leaves of the hymn-book; a sunbeam glistens on his bald head. Over everything is a shining and slumberous peace; heads nod here and there as Mr. Bingham begins to drone his long sermon. I see Livy and her mother and sisters across the aisle; Livy yawns, and mischief sparkles in her dancing round eyes.
Then, the huge Sunday dinner afterwards in a darkened dining room; braces of brown chickens and stuffing, roasted potatoes and greens, squash and yellow yams floating in syrup, golden pies and rich jams and thick brown coffee with cream, pitchers of warm milk, glass containers full of shining spoons, a tablecloth like a white board and napkins like small sheets. Then freedom, to run through the hot fields beyond the village, to go looking for wild blackberries and blueberries and, later, for nuts. Life, after Sunday dinner, seemed endless, full of shining sunlight, distant voices, white dresses, and sleepiness.
Dull? Yes. Perhaps. But when is life really not dull? It is all a very dull business. But it becomes duller when we expect vague richnesses and movements in the near future, when man cannot resign himself merely to exist and drink up the present moment, slowly and placidly, as cattle, standing in their own images, drink up satisfying waters.