And mind, now—I’ll have your paw’s skiff in shipshape inside of a week.
John skipped up the plank and onto the bricks of the landing, already slick with evening mists. The water front was lined with buggies and old Model T’s with ditch mud splattered clean to the windows. Country girls and their boys and the old folks lined the shore with their hands holding their money till the calliope stopped playing. Then they would go down and give Mr. Bryant their money and go inside for the show. John sighed and moved away along the tree-shaded darkness of Peacock Alley. He was wild with misgivings now about having left Pearl alone in the house. She was his trust, his pledge to Ben. As he hurried for the river road the voice of the calliope fell to a thin, faint chatter high in the spring night. Passing Spoon’s he spied his mother and Icey at the fountain, and Icey was fairly dancing a jig and hugging Willa and kissing her cheek, and he moved on past, shaking his head, wondering what they were up to now, thinking that he would never understand the ways of woman. He hurried more, knowing that it was past ten, and he did not want his mother to overtake him on her way home from work. The house loomed silent in the faint shine of the young spring moon. The light of the gas lamp in the yard lit the peppering of new growth on the oak tree and he saw that the lamp in the parlor window was lit. He could not remember whether it had been lit when he left and that made him frightened because he was sure Willa would not have left it burning.
Is somebody there? he said to the house, as he tiptoed up the steps.
By the river, under the fog, the green frogs chanted their unending litany of love.
Is anybody there?
But there was no reply, no sound, and he opened the screen door and closed it softly and stepped into the shadowed hallway. He knew almost at once that Preacher was there or had been there not an instant before because there was a Preacher smell in the silent air and it was the smell of dread in his nose, and doglike his flesh gathered and bunched at the scent of it.
Is anybody here?
Good evening, John!
So he had been standing there all along by the hall rack where Ben Harper used to hang his cap when he came in from the car of an evening. Preacher: standing there all along, letting him be scared, letting him call three times before he answered. Now Preacher moved forward and the light from the open doorway to the parlor threw a gold bar of light across the livid line of lip and cheek and bone beneath and one eye shone like a dark, wet grape and the lid crinkled over it nervously.
Does your mother know you go wandering alone at night, John?
No. She said—
But there was no way to explain, no excuse, no escape. And then he felt the anger rise choking in his throat and he thought: What right has he got?
Your little sister Pearl is asleep, then?
Yes.
Good, John.
Now he was in his genial, cajoling mood, and John knew suddenly that he liked this mood less than the other: the dangerous mood, because you never knew what was going on behind the coaxing, squinting eyes and the thin smile.
I have something to talk to you about, John.
Well, he sighed. I reckon I ought to be gettin’ up to bed if you don’t mind—
Really, my lad! You weren’t worryin’ about bed when you sneaked off to the wharf to waste your time with that evil old man.
And this had John dead to rights and so he sat down on a straight-backed chair by the door and wished for the sound of Willa’s footfall on the tanbark outside because he was getting scared again like he had been that night on the steamboat. Then he heard the scrape of another chair as Preacher sat opposite him and laid a cold finger on his hand.
I had a little talk with your mother tonight, John.
John thought: Why don’t he take me in the parlor to talk where there is light instead of out here in the dark hallway where I can’t watch his face while he says it and know whether what
John skipped up the plank and onto the bricks of the landing, already slick with evening mists. The water front was lined with buggies and old Model T’s with ditch mud splattered clean to the windows. Country girls and their boys and the old folks lined the shore with their hands holding their money till the calliope stopped playing. Then they would go down and give Mr. Bryant their money and go inside for the show. John sighed and moved away along the tree-shaded darkness of Peacock Alley. He was wild with misgivings now about having left Pearl alone in the house. She was his trust, his pledge to Ben. As he hurried for the river road the voice of the calliope fell to a thin, faint chatter high in the spring night. Passing Spoon’s he spied his mother and Icey at the fountain, and Icey was fairly dancing a jig and hugging Willa and kissing her cheek, and he moved on past, shaking his head, wondering what they were up to now, thinking that he would never understand the ways of woman. He hurried more, knowing that it was past ten, and he did not want his mother to overtake him on her way home from work. The house loomed silent in the faint shine of the young spring moon. The light of the gas lamp in the yard lit the peppering of new growth on the oak tree and he saw that the lamp in the parlor window was lit. He could not remember whether it had been lit when he left and that made him frightened because he was sure Willa would not have left it burning.
Is somebody there? he said to the house, as he tiptoed up the steps.
By the river, under the fog, the green frogs chanted their unending litany of love.
Is anybody there?
But there was no reply, no sound, and he opened the screen door and closed it softly and stepped into the shadowed hallway. He knew almost at once that Preacher was there or had been there not an instant before because there was a Preacher smell in the silent air and it was the smell of dread in his nose, and doglike his flesh gathered and bunched at the scent of it.
Is anybody here?
Good evening, John!
So he had been standing there all along by the hall rack where Ben Harper used to hang his cap when he came in from the car of an evening. Preacher: standing there all along, letting him be scared, letting him call three times before he answered. Now Preacher moved forward and the light from the open doorway to the parlor threw a gold bar of light across the livid line of lip and cheek and bone beneath and one eye shone like a dark, wet grape and the lid crinkled over it nervously.
Does your mother know you go wandering alone at night, John?
No. She said—
But there was no way to explain, no excuse, no escape. And then he felt the anger rise choking in his throat and he thought: What right has he got?
Your little sister Pearl is asleep, then?
Yes.
Good, John.
Now he was in his genial, cajoling mood, and John knew suddenly that he liked this mood less than the other: the dangerous mood, because you never knew what was going on behind the coaxing, squinting eyes and the thin smile.
I have something to talk to you about, John.
Well, he sighed. I reckon I ought to be gettin’ up to bed if you don’t mind—
Really, my lad! You weren’t worryin’ about bed when you sneaked off to the wharf to waste your time with that evil old man.
And this had John dead to rights and so he sat down on a straight-backed chair by the door and wished for the sound of Willa’s footfall on the tanbark outside because he was getting scared again like he had been that night on the steamboat. Then he heard the scrape of another chair as Preacher sat opposite him and laid a cold finger on his hand.
I had a little talk with your mother tonight, John.
John thought: Why don’t he take me in the parlor to talk where there is light instead of out here in the dark hallway where I can’t watch his face while he says it and know whether what
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