Home from the Hill (16 page)

Polite little spoonfuls were left at the bottom of the tubs of potato salad and cole slaw, a few crumbs in the potato chip cartons, a few squashed deviled eggs on the platters. Coffee was brought out in steaming milk pails, served in paper cups. Everyone had ice cream. Then those with cows waiting past their time to be milked, and women with infants and some with husbands to be put to bed, took their leave and went home.

Others probed the carcass further. They ate until dark, then lanterns were strung and still they ate, rested in talk, then ate some more. When the dance band arrived, the carcass was a skeleton.

22

Sometimes when the sight of his wife reminded Albert Halstead that time was not standing still, and his mind turned for comfort to thoughts of his posterity, he was cheered by his prospects in having such a daughter as Libby. How well a beauty like that might marry!

She seemed especially attractive this evening; though no sooner had Mr. Halstead made that observation than his habitual apprehensions set upon his mind. Reclining in his armchair in the living room (which he was conscious he would soon have to vacate for Libby and her date), he observed his daughter as she observed herself in the hallway pierglass. She was looking especially attractive, and thought so herself, no matter how much she might pout at her reflection or how dissastisfied she might pretend to be with her mother's efforts to do some last minute something, down on her knees, her mouth bristling with pins, to the hem of her gown. Mr. Halstead had not yet put to himself the question, why she was in a party gown, a new one, if he was not mistaken; nor yet the question, why she was taking such very especial pains with her appearance this evening. Both questions were present in his mind, awaiting his attention; but he was not going to acknowledge them before he just had to. He said to himself again, “How well she might marry!” and at once, despite all his practiced efforts, he thought “—if only she isn't ruined first!”

He had come near to escaping this apprehensive hopefulness, this tantalizing dread, almost had had no daughter and still could not comprehend how he could have had such a burdensomely beautiful one, considered it a mockery of fate masquerading as a boon. A man who never did anything, who had desired of life nothing but lack of notice, who had welcomed growing old because it was expected of the young that they make a show of passion, he had married late and sensibly a woman his own age, who for ten years blessed him with barrenness, a length of time sufficient to permit him the feeling that a hazardous corner had been safely rounded, whereupon, among other things he did, he bought a house with a mortgage the payments on which would otherwise have gone toward a college trust fund, only then, just then—the timing of the ironies of life was so tauntingly pat—to have his wife up and conceive. Not quite a Sarah, she must still have had the help of God.

But, middle-aged and about to become a father, even Albert Halstead had felt foolishly happy. What man will not alter his ideas of himself for the sake of a son to gladden his declining years? Quite unconsciously, Mr. Halstead had slipped into thinking himself slated for some little reward for having asked so little of life, and the chance that it just might be a girl-child did not occur to him. He could not conceive himself as the father of a daughter. What place had an infant daughter in the life of a middle-aged man? What place had an old father, he asked himself now with undiminished wonderment, in the life of a near-grown one? It had been an agony of embarrassment to him to have to wheel the perambulator down the street; when the child began to grow, its beauty was an added embarrassment. Not that he suspected it was not his (for Albert Halstead was free of vanity, of illusions, about his wife), just that it drew still more amused attention to him. To the joke of his being a father at his age was added the joke of
his
being the father of such a little doll. Not, of course, that anybody ever said that to his face, and not that his vanity would have been wounded if someone had. He was not vain. He knew he was not young and that he never had been handsome. He did not mind not being young and handsome. He minded looking foolish.

All that he had asked for had been a little peace and quiet for his last years. He had seen them attended upon by a wife sensible of the comforts he had provided and grateful for having been spared any demands upon her passions. He would not have minded a daughter, either—but one of those like some men had, who, if no source of dynastic daydreams, was no source of worry either, whose every thought was for the comfort of the author of her being, a mute wraith, always on tiptoe, his slippers or a hot water bottle in her hand. Instead, he had not even a room, not even a chair he could call his own, but must put himself out like the cat at night so some young blade could have his living room to spark his daughter in. He had been willing to give the threescore to the world, so he might have the ten for himself, and now in his old age (he was sixty-three) his house was infested with boys like drones swarming to a queen bee.

Better that, however, than evenings when instead of a parlor date she went out on one, he said hastily to himself. For, a fatalist and superstitious, Mr. Halstead had a terror of being overheard complaining. And indeed he was punished now. For now the question of the gown his daughter was wearing and upon which his wife was expending herself demanded his notice. That was a party gown. You did not have parlor dates in gowns like that. She was going out. Where? To the dance at the Hunnicutt house. With whom? He named over some of her recent beaux, not knowing, as he never did, whether he hoped tonight's was a new one, and thus one who could not have made much time, or one of the old ones, thus one who might be serious, which is to say, one with honorable intentions. For whom was she taking all this unusual trouble?

Albert Halstead tried to be an honest man, above all honest with himself, and on one point he was even more successful than he wished to be: not from him, he knew, could his daughter have inherited the strength of character to resist all those boys. (And if not from him, certainly not from her mother!) It was not that he considered his daughter especially susceptible; he did not consider his suspicions to reflect on Libby herself. It was not a question of whether she was particularly susceptible, but that she was not as particularly unsusceptible as she would need to be with her looks, and men being what they were.

He was thinking how the spreading of his daughter's wings had made all men, especially those between 18 and 25—the non-marrying age—his enemies, made him fear them in proportion as they also raised his hopes, when the doorbell rang. He shuddered. He never had given his daughter the lectures he believed he owed her. He had always been ashamed to. His suspiciousness was vaguely a reproach to his manhood; moreover, he recognized, without being able to change, that he took it to absurd, to comical lengths. He had allowed himself to be uneasily comforted by the supposition that his wife would have given her the customary motherly talking-to about boys; but occasionally he put to himself the disturbing question, how much impression would any talk of his wife's have made on
him
?

For a moment his two women froze in their attitudes before the glass. Then Libby let out a shriek, heisted her skirts, and dashed up the steps two at a time. Her mother scrambled up from her knees and followed after, leaving him, who feared and mistrusted all boys, who always felt like the man in
The Lady or the Tiger
, to open the door and welcome this boy who might be the one to marry her … or the one to ruin her.

Theron knew Mr. Halstead, as one knew most everyone in town; not well, since there was no particular connection between the Halsteads and his parents, and not otherwise, since Mr. Halstead, being the father of a daughter, was no hunter—but to speak to.

But Mr. Halstead seemed not to know him, not even to speak to. At least, Mr. Halstead did not speak, but stood at the door gaping at him. He supposed he did look different from the way people were used to seeing him, in a dress suit, a new dark brown flannel one, white shirt and tie, dress shoes, new ones that shone, and carrying, like a flower preserved in a block of ice, an orchid in a cellophane box. “It's Theron Hunnicutt,” he said.

“I see it is,” said Mr. Halstead, who saw all too well. He was aghast. This boy of all boys Mr. Halstead had reason to fear, and on this day of all days to mistrust. There was not among Mr. Halstead's social needs any longing for a local aristocrat to exempt from the daily claims made by the world upon himself; he feared guns and was morally shocked by anybody, no matter how little need he might have for getting on in the serious business of life, who allowed some hobby to become his whole existence. Mr. Halstead had a middle-class hatred of all the so-called quality—who took rights unto themselves, especially the right to their neighboring subjects' women-folks. Oh, he knew him, all right, and it did not make Mr. Halstead feel more hospitable to observe the ease with which he had made the transition from gentleman-hunter to well-dressed young man, to see that he was good-looking, or rather, to see that women would think so. Especially today. For Mr. Halstead knew too what day it was. How could any girl resist him on this day, his day? That any girl would have to resist him Mr. Halstead did not even think to question; for he knew Theron Hunnicutt, all right—that is, he knew Wade “The Captain” Hunnicutt.

“I've come to call for Libby,” said Theron.

“
Have
you?” said Mr. Halstead.

The tone of this was somewhat disconcerting. “Why, yes, sir. To take her to the dance.”

“
Are
you?” said Mr. Halstead.

“Why, yes. Yes I am.”

Still Mr. Halstead did not ask him in. Feeling strange, sensing something which he could only call unfriendliness in Mr. Halstead's manner, feeling very conscious of the day and wishing to make amends for his pride by some gesture of self-depreciation, he said with a laugh, “It's my dance, but I don't know how to dance. Libby is going to have to teach me.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Halstead. “And what are you going to teach her?”

“Sir?”

But instead of repeating his strange question, and still without asking him in, Mr. Halstead turned and crossed the hall, shuffling along in a noisy old pair of run-over carpet slippers with broken backs that flopped against his heels, and climbed the stairs. Amazed, Theron stood for a moment at the door. He stepped inside, and catching sight of himself in the mirror, shared his bewilderment with his reflection. He could hear Mr. Halstead slopping along the upstairs hall, then heard a door overhead slam—not just close: slam. What was the matter with Mr. Halstead?

A minute passed; two minutes.

The evening had turned out so fine that Theron had decided to walk rather than drive. Now catching sight of himself in the mirror again, he thought of the ribbing his clothes and the corsage had brought him from the hunting men still picking over the food out on the lawn. They had shaken their heads over the change; another good woodsman gone wrong, they said. They had thought he was proof against it.

Well, he was, he assured his reflection. He had other things to think about. He had seen, in this past week about town, when it would have been anti-climactic to go hunting, the other fellows his age and had compared himself to them. Some, though full-grown, bearded, were in high school still; others had taken jobs in town. Some were home from college for Easter recess—lounging about the nickelodeon in the confectionery in saddle oxfords carefully scuffed, shirts with detachable stiff collars, and those loud, double-breasted waistcoats that were popular on the campuses that year. All, however, spoke the season's slang, cracked the same sort of jokes. By way of lamenting the after-effects, they boasted of drinking sprees, finely compared the gaiety of honky-tonks scattered the length of a dozen long highways, exchanged notes on just how far the various girls of their acquaintance would go. He was in no danger of becoming like them, he thought. He did not mind their puzzlement over him, their pity for his simplicity. He felt himself not truly a member of his own generation, but in spirit one of his father's.

While he waited, he filled his mind with a memory of the afternoon. The door of the den had stood open and as he approached he had heard voices from within. He recognized one of the voices as Chauncey's. There was nothing in this to stop him, but he did stop. There was a quality in Chauncey's voice that stopped him, something both familiar and strange. Even before he could make out any words he recognized that tone. It was Chauncey's old storytelling chant.

“One of his dogs was dead but he still had that little ole hound an he had ole Deuteronomy. So he pushed aside them bushes an stepped out into the clearin.”

“Was he scared, Mr. Chauncey?” asked a small, high, excited voice.

“Scared! Who, Theron? Why, of course he was scared! Wouldn't you be? But there he was. Wasn't no gittin out of it now, even if he had of wanted to. Anyhow, wasn't much time to be scared. He no sooner had stepped out than that big ole pig forgets all about them two dogs pesterin him. ‘Uuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!' he go. ‘UUUUUUUUUUUUUgh!' an he makes for Theron like a bullet. So Theron th'ow his gun up to his shoulder—”

“Which one was it, Mr. Chauncey? This one?”

“'At's the one.”

Theron peeped around the doorjamb. There were three of them, but only one was talking—much to the annoyance of one of the other two. They were all about eight or ten years old. Chauncey, still in his chef's hat, sat in the chair by the gun cabinet, the three boys on the floor at his feet. “Be quiet, will you! Let him go on,” the one who was holding on to Chauncey's right hand said to the curly-headed one pointing at the guns. But the one who caught and held Theron's attention was the silent one, the dark, thin little boy nearest him. He was too intently absorbed even to protest the interruptions. He was living the story, and for him it had not been interrupted. His jaw was clenched, and he stared at Chauncey with big unblinking black eyes. Theron had listened until Chauncey tricked them just as he had used to trick him in telling the story of his father's exploits, stopping abruptly at the climax, leaving them to gasp with frustrated suspense.