The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry Page 20

  We went through the gate and up the driveway. Toward the top of the rise, jutting up even taller than most of the cedars, was the Coulter family monument. It was made of granite—­a square base, then a long shaft like a candle with an angel standing on top of it. Grandpa’s mother had bought it from a traveling salesman when she was old and childish. Grandpa said she must have been crazy too. It had taken twenty mules to pull the base of it seven miles from the railroad station. And the old woman had been dead about five years before Grandpa was able to pay for it. On the front of the monument was written:

  FATHER —­—­—­ MOTHER

  George W. Coulter  Parthenia B. Coulter

  1826–1889     1835–1917

  Beneath this monument

  the mortal remains

  of George and Parthenia

  parted by death

  wait to be rejoined

  in Glory

  George and Parthenia were Grandpa’s mother and father. On the other side of the monument was Grandpa’s name:

  THEIR SON

  David Coulter

  1860–

  Grandpa was the only one of Parthenia’s children left at home when she bought the monument, and she’d left the other names off—­had forgotten about them, or was mad at them for leaving. But Grandpa wasn’t flattered that she’d remembered him. The last thing he wanted was to have his name carved in four-inch letters on a tombstone. The monument had been enough trouble to him without that. He still got mad every time he thought about it. It was as if she’d expected him to write his other date up there and die right away to balance things.

  It had finally bothered him so much that he’d sent Daddy to buy a new lot for the family. He said he’d be damned if anybody was going to tell him where to be buried. The new lot was way off on the far side of the graveyard. Nobody was buried there yet, and it was all grown up in weeds.

  The angel on top of the monument had his wings spread as if he were about to fly down and write the rest of our names in the blank spaces. Parthenia B. Coulter had left plenty of room for whoever might come along. Uncle Burley said the angel probably would fly on Judgment Day. That kind of talk always disturbed Grandma; she thought it was sacrilegious. And so he’d usually mention it when the subject of graveyards came up. He said he could just see that old angel flying up out of the smoke and cinders and tearing out for Heaven like a chicken out of a henhouse fire.

  A little past the graveyard gate was the Crandel Place. When we passed there Mrs. Crandel’s grandson, who had come to visit her from Louisville, was sitting in the front yard playing with a pet crow. Old man Crandel had caught the crow for him before it was big enough to fly. The boy was cleaned up and dressed as if it were Sunday.

  He walked over to the fence and looked at us. “Hi,” he said.

  We told him hello.

  “What’s your name?” he asked Brother.

  “Puddin-tame,” Brother said.

  “Would you like to come over and play with me?” the boy asked. “I’ll let you ride my bicycle if you will.”

  Brother and I climbed over the fence.

  “Where’s the bicycle?” Brother asked him.

  “On the porch.”

  We followed him up to the porch. The bicycle was a new one. And he had a new air rifle too.

  He brought the bicycle down the steps and rode it around in the yard. It was painted red and the sun shone on the spokes of the wheels. I wished Brother and I had one.

  In a little while the boy got off and gave the bicycle to Brother. But Brother couldn’t ride it, and it turned over with him. Then I got on it and it turned over with me. Mrs. Crandel came out on the porch and told the boy not to let us tear up his bicycle.

  When she went back inside Brother said, “Let me try it one more time.”

  The boy said, “No, you can’t. You might break it.”

  He caught the pet crow again and we went over to the corner of the yard and sat down under a locust tree.

  “That’s a mighty fine crow you’ve got there,” Brother said. “Can I look at him?”

  The boy said, “You can if you’ll be careful not to hurt him. Grandfather’s going to let me take him home with me.”

  “Sure. I won’t bother him.” Brother put the crow on his shoulder and smoothed its feathers. “Say,” he said, “I’ll bet you don’t know much about crows.”

  “Not much. Grandfather says they’ll eat about anything, and if you split their tongues they’ll talk.”

  “I can show you a little trick about crows. You want to see it?”

  “Yes,” the boy said.

  Brother motioned to me to come and help him. I held the crow while he got the dynamite cap and the piece of fuse out of his pocket. The boy came up and watched Brother put the fuse into the cap and crimp the cap against a rock.

  “Here,” Brother told me. “Hold his tail feathers up.”

  I held the tail feathers up and he poked the cap into the crow’s bunghole. I gave him a match and he struck it on his shoe.

  “Now you watch,” Brother said. “You’ll learn something about crows.” He lit the fuse and pitched the crow up in the air.

  The crow flew around over our heads for a minute, and Brother and I got out of the way. Then he looked around and saw that little ball of fire following him, spitting like a mad tomcat. He really got down to business then. He planned to fly right off and leave that fire. But it caught up with him over old man Crandel’s barn. BLAM! And feathers and guts went every which way. Where the crow had been was a little piece of blue sky with a ring of smoke and black feathers around it.

  Brother and I took off over the fence. When we looked back the boy was still standing there with his mouth open, staring up at the place where the crow had exploded. He started to cry. I felt sorry for him when I saw that, but there was nothing to do but run.

  When we got back to the graveyard we were out of sight of the Crandels’ house and we stopped running. The angel on top of the monument was looking in the direction of town. I could still hear the explosion going off.

  Brother said, “He thought a lot of that crow.”

  “He was crying,” I said.

  It was late; but we wouldn’t have supper until dark, after Daddy quit work, and we didn’t hurry.

  “Do you think Mrs. Crandel heard the explosion?” I asked.

  “If she wasn’t dead she did.”

  “If she didn’t he’ll tell her.”

  “Whoo,” Brother said.

  Big Ellis and Gander Loyd had gone home by the time we got to town. Mushmouth and Chicken Little Montgomery were sitting by themselves in front of the drugstore, and we walked down the other side of the street to keep them from seeing us. If one of them had pointed at us and said, “There go Tom and Nathan Coulter, and they just blew up a poor old boy’s crow,” we couldn’t have said a word. The sun had gone down and the nighthawks were flying. I was glad Brother and I were together.

  When we were outside town again Brother said, “We’ll tell Uncle Burley about it when we get home. He’ll get a kick out of it.”

  That made us feel a little better. But Uncle Burley was still at the fence row with Grandpa and Daddy when we got there. They were busy, and we didn’t go where they were.

  By the time we got home that evening Mrs. Crandel had telephoned our mother and told on us. Mother made us stay at the house until Daddy came in from work. We sat on the back porch and waited for him.

  When he came Mother told him what we’d done, and he cut a switch and whipped us. He was already mad at us for riding old Oscar, and he whipped us for that too while he was at it.

  “Now I know what that crow felt like,” I told Brother.

  “That crow never felt it,” Brother said. “He was dead before he heard the explosion.”

  The next morning Daddy said that if we didn’t stay out of trouble he’d take up where he left off the night before. After he went out of the house Mother told us not to feel bad because h
e was mad at us. He was just tired, she said.

  It started raining that afternoon, and rained off and on for a couple of days. The wet weather kept Daddy from working in the field; that gave him a chance to rest and he got into a better humor. He let us stay with him while he did odd jobs around the barn, and we enjoyed each other’s company.

  On the morning after the ground had dried Daddy hitched the team to the cultivator and drove to the tobacco patch. We watched him leave; and then we fed Mother’s chickens for her because she wasn’t feeling good.

  After a while we saw Grandpa riding his saddle mare across the field toward our house, and we ran to open the lot gate for him.

  “Where’s your daddy?” he asked us.

  “Plowing tobacco,” Brother said.

  He turned the mare around and rode back through the gate. Brother and I watched him go up the ridge. When he rode the mare he kept his walking cane hooked over his arm. Mother said he carried the cane because he was old, but mostly he used it as a riding whip. He could walk almost as fast as Daddy, poking the cane straight out in front of him as if to get the air and everything out of the way so he could move faster. He always hurried, even across a room, setting his feet down hard. You could never imagine him turning around and going the other way. When he walked through the house he made the dishes rattle in the kitchen cabinet, and you half expected to find his tracks sunk into the floor. He was tall and lean, his face crossed with wrinkles. His hair was white and it hung in his eyes most of the time when he wasn’t wearing a hat, because he didn’t use a comb for anything but to scratch his head. His nose crooked like a hawk’s and his eyes were pale and blue.

  Before long he came over the ridge again, and Daddy came with him. Daddy had unhitched the team and the wind blew the sound of the loose trace chains down into the lot. Grandpa rode through the gate ahead of him and unsaddled the mare and put her in a stall, and then helped unharness the mules.

  “Did you get done, Daddy?” Brother said.

  “No,” Daddy said. He sounded mad again.

  I was going to ask him why he’d quit, but Grandpa told me to get out of the way before one of the mules kicked my head off.

  “They won’t kick me,” I said. “I feed them all the time.”

  He looked at me and snorted. “Shit,” he said.

  When they got the mules unhitched Daddy went to the house, and Grandpa led the mules to the barn to put them in their stalls. Brother and I followed him into the driveway. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from these mules?” he said. “Go to the house.”

  Daddy was in the kitchen talking to Mother when we came in.

  “What’s going on?” Brother asked.

  Daddy didn’t answer. He went out and started the car, and he and Grandpa drove off toward town.

  In about half an hour they came back. Uncle Burley was slouched between them in the front seat. Grandpa got out and hooked his cane around Uncle Burley’s arm and told him to come on out of there. Uncle Burley crawled out and stood up, holding on to his head with one hand and on to the car door with the other one. He hadn’t shaved for two or three days, and his whiskers were matted with blood and dirt.

  There was a knot on the left side of his head, starting above the ear and ending in a cut an inch long across his cheekbone.

  “Hello, Uncle Burley,” I said.

  “Well now,” he said, “good morning boys.” He let go the door to wave to us and fell down in a pile.

  “For God’s sake, look at Uncle Burley,” Brother said.

  Daddy and Grandpa picked him up between them and helped him into the house. Mother filled a pan with hot water and got the iodine out of the medicine cabinet and followed them to the living room. They stretched Uncle Burley out on the sofa and Mother began washing the blood off his face. She was gentle with him, and washed carefully around the cut so it wouldn’t hurt.

  “What did he hit you with, Burley?” Daddy asked.

  “Jack handle. Surely must have been a jack handle.”

  “It’s a damned shame he didn’t use the jack,” Grandpa said.

  Mother finished washing Uncle Burley’s face, and then poured some iodine into the cut. He whooped and sat up.

  Grandpa jobbed the cane into his ribs. “Lay down there, God damn it.”

  Uncle Burley lay down again and let Mother bandage his face. Then they got him up and led him out to the kitchen. Brother and I kept out of the way and watched them set him down at the table. Mother poured him a cup of coffee, and she and Daddy and Grandpa went out on the back porch and began talking.

  Uncle Burley’s hands shook so much that he splashed some of the coffee out into his saucer; he tried to drink it out of the saucer and shook it all over his shirt.

  He saw Brother and me watching him and grinned at us. “Now boys,” he said, “let Uncle Burley tell you something. Don’t ever drink. It’s bad for you.” Then he said, “But if you ever do drink be sure to get to hell away from home to do it.” He set the coffee cup down and touched the side of his head with his fingers. “If you ever drink, and you ever get in a fight, always try to make an honorable show.” He laid his right hand on the table so we could see it. It was skinned up across the knuckles and the middle finger was out of joint. “Boys,” he said, “I was after him just like a hay rake.”

  He finished the cup of coffee and Brother got the pot and poured him another one. He put an arm around each of us and said, “Don’t let on to the rest of them, but Uncle Burley was drunk.”

  He told us to keep it to ourselves, because there were some things that were a man’s own business. We said we’d be quiet about it.

  “It don’t pay to talk too much about your business,” he said.

  When he’d finished the second cup of coffee Grandpa and Daddy loaded him back into the car and started home with him. Mother told us to stay in the kitchen and help her, but she had to leave the room for something and we ducked out the back door.

  We cut across the field and got to Grandpa’s house just as they were helping Uncle Burley out of the car again. Grandma was in the kitchen cooking dinner. When she saw them coming across the back porch with Uncle Burley, she dropped a pot full of green beans on the floor, and stood there saying, “Oh Lord, oh Lord.”

  Then she hurried to help them bring Uncle Burley in. Grandpa told her to get out of the way; Uncle Burley wasn’t dead yet, he said. Grandma’s old yellow cat started rubbing against Grandpa’s leg and purring. He took a cut at it with his cane, but missed.

  “Scat, damn you.”

  The cat backed off a little, and then followed them into the house and up the stairs. Grandma fixed Uncle Burley’s bed and they undressed him and put him under the covers. He really did look sick then. Under the whiskers his face was as white as the pillow. Grandma leaned over him and smoothed the covers and asked if there was anything he wanted.

  “That’s right, by God,” Grandpa said. “You coddle him.”

  They looked at each other for a minute; and Grandpa turned around and started out of the room, the cat weaving in and out between his feet. He took another swing at it with his cane as he went out the door, but missed again.

  Grandma looked at Uncle Burley and said, “Lord help us. I don’t know what’s going to become of us.”

  “Shhhh,” Uncle Burley said. “It don’t pay to talk too much.”

  She sat down beside him on the edge of the bed, rolling her hands into her apron. “Oh, Burley. Why do you have to be so bad, Burley?”

  Daddy took Brother and me down the stairs.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked him.

  “It’s going to be.”

  When we went out on the back porch Grandma’s cat was hanging by a piece of string from a limb of the peach tree. It didn’t look as if it ever had been alive. The wind swung it back and forth just a little.

  “Look at that old cat,” Brother said.

  Chapter 2

  OUR MOTHER had been sick since I was born, Daddy told us. And
she began to get worse. She had to spend more and more time in bed, until finally she didn’t get up at all. Grandma came every day and cooked our meals for us and did the housework, and took care of Mother while Daddy was in the field.

  Daddy got short-tempered with us, and stayed that way longer than he ever had before. He took us to the field with him every morning to keep us out of the house and we stayed with him all day. It was hard to have to be with him so much. Brother and I were careful not to aggravate him, but scarcely a day passed that we didn’t get at least a tongue-lashing from him. He was worrying a lot and working hard, and the least thing could set him off. The worst times were when we came to the house at noon and at night. He wouldn’t let us make a sound then.

  I quit having the dream about the lion, and began dreaming things that woke me up in the middle of the night. I came awake sweating and afraid, but I could never remember what I’d dreamed. It always took a long time to get used to the room and the darkness again and go back to sleep.

  On one of those nights when I woke up I heard Daddy talking on the telephone. I couldn’t hear what he said, and I dozed off again until I heard a car come in the driveway and stop beside the house. The door of the car opened and slammed; and I heard Daddy’s voice and then the doctor’s on the front porch. They came inside and their footsteps went down the hall and into the room where Mother and Daddy slept. Before long the back door opened and I heard Grandma talking to Daddy in the kitchen. “I saw the light burning and thought I’d better come over,” she said.

  They went into the bedroom and it was quiet again for a while. I went back to sleep finally. But I woke again several times before morning, and each time I’d hear them talking quietly downstairs and tiptoeing over the floors. The last time I woke the sky was turning gray. I heard the doctor’s car leaving.

  Nobody called Brother and me to wake up, and we slept a little past the regular time. When we got dressed and went downstairs Daddy was standing in the living room looking out the window. He didn’t speak to us, and we crossed the room and started down the hall to the kitchen. Grandma opened the bedroom door and came out, shutting it quickly behind her. Her face looked tired, and her eyes were red.