Margaret, striding rapidly over the fields as though, running from something, was also muttering to herself, “I don’t know. My God, I don’t know!”
She circled a clump of whispering trees, whose shadow was beginning to be faintly outlined on the brown earth. She came in sight of the three-room shack where she lived. Margaret suddenly thought of Ralph’s cold derision when he mentioned her home. She was filled with mingled resentment against him, and also a sadness.
She remembered what old Margot had said once: “We strong ones are always drawn to weaker men. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because nature intended us to breed them out. But seems as like they destroy us before we can do much about it. They eat us up.”
She was near the house now. It stood, stark and alone, as though a group of maples nearby had withdrawn from it fastidiously. It leaned, its clapboards gray and broken under the moon. The windows were uncurtained. Behind the house loomed the outbuildings, dark and untidy.
She pushed open the kitchen door and her ears were assaulted by familiar quarreling voices. The wooden floor was stained with dirt and grease, and uncovered. The walls were of knotted pine; on one wall was an iron bracket in which smoldered a dirty oil lamp. On the table stood another lamp, reeking of coal oil. In one corner of the room fumed an ancient wood stove, littered with scraps of burned food. In a woodbox near the stove, the wood was covered with eggshells, scraps, and the scrapings of Peter’s pipe.
It was hot in the kitchen, and very noisy. The children, as usual, were squabbling among themselves. At intervals Peter would reach across the littered table and smite one of his ragged offspring, who would scream. Beyond the table, in a corner, stood a “pallet,” on which Margaret and Linda slept, the fraying quilts sweeping the dust of the floor. Behind the table stood Bobbie, six years old; it was his turn tonight to wave a “branch” over the heads of the family to keep off the flies.
Melinda Hamilton sat across the table, with its litter salt pork and beans and jugs of molasses, opposite her husband. She was a thin woman with gray hair, pale blue eyes, and a long horselike face. She had once been pretty, but there was no sign of it now.
Peter ate like a wolf, his powerful shoulders hunched forward over the table; he shoveled food into his great mouth with a fork or a knife or anything handy. His dark blue shirt was splotched with sweat.
The family did not look up, with the exception of Peter, when Margaret entered slowly, the lamplight shining on her black braids. Peter frowned at her but could not be entirely displeased. The sloping neckline of her dress revealed the strong brown neck.
“Where you been?” he barked. “Traipsin’ around with the ole woman, I bet. Gassin’ for hours, doin’ nothin’. And all the pertatoes not in yet, and the grapes—”
“Leave me be,” snapped Margaret. Unconsciously she reverted to his own manner of speech. “I worked every blessed hour from sunup to sundown, like I always do, and then you raise the devil if I run off a minute.” She pushed a chair between her father’s and Linda’s, and, snatching a tin plate, she filled it with food.
“Ain’t been nobody here a minute today to give a body a drink of water,” her mother complained. “Lands sakes, a body might as well be dead as a burden on her folks. Seems like, though, with a pack of young uns, and one of ’em a great girl like you, Maggie, I oughtn’t be left alone to git along best I can.”
“Can’t be two places at once,” Margaret said sullenly. “Can’t be a plow horse and a hired gal, too.”
“You work turrible hard, don’t you?” said Peter sarcastically. “Worn to the bone, poor critter. How’s the ole woman? Ain’t seen her in a month or more.”
“She’s all right,” said Margaret briefly. She ate steadily.
Her father’s sharp eye saw the somberness of her face. He frowned.
“The ole woman ain’t been settin’ you agin John Hobart, be she?”
Margaret snorted. “All she been talking about today was telling me I should marry him.”
Peter cocked a busy eyebrow. “Must be changin’ her tune,” he ruminated. “Last time she mentioned him, she said he was nothin’ but a stud horse. Hated his guts, she did. Funny.”
Margaret did not reply. Suddenly the group around the table became intolerable to her, ugly and dirty beyond endurance.
“Ought to run over and see the old girl,” Peter continued thoughtfully. “Thought she looked a mite poorly the last time I seen her. Ninety years old. Well, the old uns lived longer than we’ll live. Good stock in ’em. I’ll amble over there tomorrow.”
Margaret shrugged. She stood up and began to stack the dirty dishes.
“Here, Mag, forgot to tell you John’s comin’ over to see you tonight. Better hurry up.”
Margaret paused a moment. “Got to go out a minute or two,” she muttered. Her dark face had colored painfully. “I’ll be back.”
Peter ceased stuffing his pipe and glowered.
“Runnin’ out to chase over the country with that good-for-nothin’ Ralph again, eh?” he roared. “No, you ain’t, my gal. That’s got to stop, and its stoppin’ right now! Even Johnny Hobart’s heard about it. It ain’t decent, and you’re big enough now to know it.”
Margaret faced him. Her fists clenched themselves fiercely.
“Leave Ralph Blodgett be!” she shouted. “I’ll tend to him. I don’t need no help from anyone. He—he ain’t what you think he is, Pa. He’s a genius!”
Peter narrowed his eyes.
“Now, what may a genius be?” he drawled. “Does it chop wood and shoe horses and bring home the bacon for the woman to cook? Or does it just sit and star gaze, bein’ soulful and too good for ord’nry folks? If that’s what it is, I don’t want no hide nor hair of it around here,” he added in a suddenly harsh tone. “Now, git to work, and be ready to see John when he comes. And mind what you say to him, my gal, or it’ll be the worse for you.”
Margaret faced him without fear, though her lips whitened. “I’m agoin’ to see Ralph for a minute,” she said quietly. “If you don’t let me go, I won’t see John tonight, and I won’t say to him what I ’tended to say.”
For a moment the eyes of father and daughter locked. Then Peter softened. So, the gal was goin’ to be sensible, prob’ly goin’ to tell that young squirt that she was agoin’ to marry John Hobart. He grinned.
“Well, go on, then. But, mind you,” he added warningly, “you be back right quick, or I’ll come after you with a stick.”
In a moment Margaret had vanished through the door into the darkness beyond. In the kitchen, flies settled thickly over the remnants of the meal. Melinda rubbed her nose. She was secretly gratified. If Maggie’d come to her senses, then there’d allus be enough vittles in the larder. She hated her daughter, wanted her out of the house, and wanted to profit by her going. She secretly hoped John would beat her frequently.
Margaret ran swiftly over the dark earth. Her shawl floated about her shoulders, her braids streamed behind her. Soon the house, with its rawly lit windows, was far behind. In the distance she saw a clump of dark trees, their crests whitened by the moon, their shadows thick on the ground. As she came up to them, a tall slender young man emerged from the gloom, spoke her name. She caught at his hand, pulled him along.
“Come on,” she panted. “Let’s go up the hill to our place!”
She ran on. He followed her, but she ran more easily and soon the distance between them widened. Her shadow streaked behind her, grotesque and wavering and leaping.
She reached the top of the hill, stood outlined against the sky, watching the ascent of her cousin. She might have been a dark statue, remote and somber.
When Ralph came up to her, she touched his arm and murmured tensely, “I have something to tell you. Sit down here, beside me.”
He sat down, uneasy, and rested his elbows on his knees, staring down into the valley.
He was a tall wiry youth, but somehow he gave the impression of delicacy. He had long, thin, well-shaped hands, so different, Margaret always thought, from the blunt fingers of the other men she knew. His nose was his best feature, thin and straight, and almost noble. His eyes were blue and he had a shock of fine light hair which glistened in the moonlight. He gave an impression of mingled shyness and arrogance.
“Well, what is it?” he demanded, in the light voice that had always seemed so musical to Margaret. Now, for some reason, she found it exasperating.
She drew a deep and shaken breath. “I was talking to Granny today,” she began, and then was suddenly unable to go on.
“Well?”
Margaret was silent. He could not see the tears on her face.
Ralph shrugged. There was a real storm in him tonight. He, too, had something to say. He was going away to Williamsburg, perhaps even to New York. He could stay here no longer; he was smothering in this atmosphere. He had been sent by his mother through all the schools in Whitmore. Margaret had lent him old Margot’s books; they had spent hours whispering over them on this same hilltop. Now he must go away. But, he had decided, Margaret would go with him. He had some money wheedled from his doting mother. He would take his scribbled mounds of poems with him; somewhere in that bright and shimmering world were men who awaited his message!
Ralph sighed; he could not summon interest in anything Margaret had to say tonight. He was elated at the thought of departure, finally, but he was sick, a little sick at the thought of anyone but Margaret reading his poems. He had instinctive taste, and deep within him he knew his gifts were second-rate. It was a thought he could not face too often, for without poetry he was naked.
He looked at the stars thrusting their points through the pale sky; he looked at the moon, remote and terrible.
“Margaret,” he sighed. “Sometimes I’m so afraid. Sometimes I feel so strong that nothing, nobody, could hurt me, and the next minute it’s all blank, empty. I can’t seem to rouse myself. If only I could feel, Margaret. Feel something in myself that was hard and purposeful. But there is nothing, nothing even to live for.”
Margaret had heard variations of this hundreds of times. But tonight, she could only see old Margot sitting on the dead log, the coppery sunlight on every seam of her face, her knees spread, yet strong, the clod of living earth in her hands. The vision was so strong that she could have sworn that she saw her grandmother’s very face.
She felt a sudden hatred. She wanted to shout at him, “Look at the earth, you fool! Feel it in your hands, the good warm earth! Look down there, where people are sleeping, after a day’s work and a day’s sweat, happy to be able to sleep, happy to wake up tomorrow, and push their feet in the earth again! That’s where reality is, that’s where life is!”
So intense were her thoughts that she stood up abruptly, full of exultance. Ralph stared up at her amazement.
“You’re not going yet, Margaret?” he said. “I’ve got lots of things I want to talk over with you.”
He waited for her to sit down again, looking up expectantly. But she would not. She could not endure him tonight; she felt that she despised him. Then she was flooded with compassion for him, and tenderness overwhelmed her. She bent quickly and touched his forehead with her lips. He clung to her suddenly; her spirit bent back from him desperately, holding onto the color of reality. Involuntarily her body straightened, and he rose to his feet, still clinging to her. They stared at each other in the moonlight; its pale glimmer shone in Margaret’s face. Her eyes were on fire, filled with living brilliance; her face glowed with an inner vitality. Never had she been so beautiful. The young man was dazzled.
“Oh, Maggie, darling!” he cried. “I love you so!”
He put his arms around her, kissed her neck.
In her tenderness she let him hold her. She smoothed his hair with her brown young fingers.
He was whispering, “Maggie, I’m going away in a few weeks. Far away. To give the world what I can give it. And you must come with me. We’ll be married, as we have always intended.” He kissed her warm neck again.
There were tears in her black eyes; she looked over his head at the quiet night sky. She felt very close to God, humble, yet full of exquisite happiness.
“I must go now,” she said softly. She had already left him. She slipped from his arms and began to run, like a shadow. He called after her; she did not turn, did not look back. She felt that she was running back to life.