up and glanced around. “Where did the Lord lay?” he asked.
“Right yonder,” Tish pointed a sniffwhip. The impress of the Lord’s body was still detectable in the grass. “His head was there, and His feet were way over there , and out yonder is where I touched His finger.”
The boy climbed down from the Platform and walked slowly homeward beside his sister, retracing their steps. After a while he raised his bent head and with upturned face, with stargazers and big eyes alike, he gazed at the stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, serenely removed from these two wisps of roosterroach life. Jubal asked Tish how far away those twinklers were, and whether Man was Lord of all those worlds as well as of this one.
“Did ye tell me wunst the stars are worlds, Tish?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“All like ours, with roosterroaches all over all of ’em?”
“I reckon so, Jubal.”
“Do they all have to go west, everywhere, jist like us?”
“Everything goes west, sooner or later. Even those whole stars, each and ever, sputter and go dark and go cold and go west.”
Jubal grew very reflective. “And is our world ever going to go cold?”
Tish realized that Jubal was too young to remember the last winter. She herself had been still too young during the worst part of it to realize its severity. “Yes,” she said. “It will become very cold.”
“When we go live in Partheeny, can we stay warm all the time?”
“Why, Jubal, what gives ye the notion that we could ever go live in Partheeny ?”
“If you was to marry a Squar Ingledew, we could!”
Tish could not suppress a great laugh. “I’m not about to marry no Squar Ingledew!” she said. “Whatever give ye such a notion?”
“Momma said.”
“Huh? What-all did Momma say?”
“She said if ever anything happened to her and Daddy, you was to remember that the Dingletoons was actually Ingledews, and that you orter go and visit the squires and claim kin.”
“Claimin kin is one thing,” Tish told Jubal. “Gittin married to one of ’em is a gray moth of a different color. Besides, if we was kin, it’d be incest to marry one. And Brother Tichborne says there’s nothing worser than incest.”
“When will ye claim kin?” he wanted to know.
She was confounded, nay, dumbfounded, by the prospect. From the woods all around came the opening bars of the Purple Symphony, but she mistook these sounds for strains in her own heart: someone had told her that when you hear the Purple Symphony it makes you yearn for something. The lower bristles of her sniffwhips tingled with the scent of pining, and even though she realized the scent was coming from herself, it still meant good luck. Would she have good luck if she tried to claim kin to the Ingledews?
“When will ye claim kin?” Jubal intruded on her reverie once more, and Tish discovered herself back home in the rotlog hovel, surrounded by her siblings, all of whom were picking up Jubal’s question and drumming it at her: When will ye claim kin? When will ye claim kin? When will ye claim kin?
Tish suddenly felt overwhelmed by her responsibility, her duty, and the burden of the knowledge that they were Ingledews. Why had this knowledge come so abruptly, almost as a foretokening of tragedy? If her father had not discovered, on the same night of his westering, that he was an Ingledew, his children would have faced the vicissitudes of their lot in life with the same resignation and the same acceptance of reality that all roosterroaches possess. They would have been content to go on living as Dingletoons. Somewhere, somehow, Tish might have crossed paths with Archy Tichborne again, whom she had encountered so fleetingly at the play-party. “Just to think,” she said to herself morosely, “only last night I danced and laughed!” Now, as the oldest survivor among the Dingletoon children, she had to take over the household…or find a way to move to Parthenon.
“Better
“Right yonder,” Tish pointed a sniffwhip. The impress of the Lord’s body was still detectable in the grass. “His head was there, and His feet were way over there , and out yonder is where I touched His finger.”
The boy climbed down from the Platform and walked slowly homeward beside his sister, retracing their steps. After a while he raised his bent head and with upturned face, with stargazers and big eyes alike, he gazed at the stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, serenely removed from these two wisps of roosterroach life. Jubal asked Tish how far away those twinklers were, and whether Man was Lord of all those worlds as well as of this one.
“Did ye tell me wunst the stars are worlds, Tish?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“All like ours, with roosterroaches all over all of ’em?”
“I reckon so, Jubal.”
“Do they all have to go west, everywhere, jist like us?”
“Everything goes west, sooner or later. Even those whole stars, each and ever, sputter and go dark and go cold and go west.”
Jubal grew very reflective. “And is our world ever going to go cold?”
Tish realized that Jubal was too young to remember the last winter. She herself had been still too young during the worst part of it to realize its severity. “Yes,” she said. “It will become very cold.”
“When we go live in Partheeny, can we stay warm all the time?”
“Why, Jubal, what gives ye the notion that we could ever go live in Partheeny ?”
“If you was to marry a Squar Ingledew, we could!”
Tish could not suppress a great laugh. “I’m not about to marry no Squar Ingledew!” she said. “Whatever give ye such a notion?”
“Momma said.”
“Huh? What-all did Momma say?”
“She said if ever anything happened to her and Daddy, you was to remember that the Dingletoons was actually Ingledews, and that you orter go and visit the squires and claim kin.”
“Claimin kin is one thing,” Tish told Jubal. “Gittin married to one of ’em is a gray moth of a different color. Besides, if we was kin, it’d be incest to marry one. And Brother Tichborne says there’s nothing worser than incest.”
“When will ye claim kin?” he wanted to know.
She was confounded, nay, dumbfounded, by the prospect. From the woods all around came the opening bars of the Purple Symphony, but she mistook these sounds for strains in her own heart: someone had told her that when you hear the Purple Symphony it makes you yearn for something. The lower bristles of her sniffwhips tingled with the scent of pining, and even though she realized the scent was coming from herself, it still meant good luck. Would she have good luck if she tried to claim kin to the Ingledews?
“When will ye claim kin?” Jubal intruded on her reverie once more, and Tish discovered herself back home in the rotlog hovel, surrounded by her siblings, all of whom were picking up Jubal’s question and drumming it at her: When will ye claim kin? When will ye claim kin? When will ye claim kin?
Tish suddenly felt overwhelmed by her responsibility, her duty, and the burden of the knowledge that they were Ingledews. Why had this knowledge come so abruptly, almost as a foretokening of tragedy? If her father had not discovered, on the same night of his westering, that he was an Ingledew, his children would have faced the vicissitudes of their lot in life with the same resignation and the same acceptance of reality that all roosterroaches possess. They would have been content to go on living as Dingletoons. Somewhere, somehow, Tish might have crossed paths with Archy Tichborne again, whom she had encountered so fleetingly at the play-party. “Just to think,” she said to herself morosely, “only last night I danced and laughed!” Now, as the oldest survivor among the Dingletoon children, she had to take over the household…or find a way to move to Parthenon.
“Better
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