Raintree County (6 page)

Johnny wished the men in front of the General Store would talk more about the real war, but instead, as usual, they talked about slavery.

Grampa Peters kept saying that the best thing to do was just to
leave the whole question alone and not get the South all excited about it and that the territories to be carved out of the new land would settle the question of slavery for themselves. He said there never would have been all this fuss and fidget if it hadn't been for the Wilmot Proviso. The thin man said that the South was all for throwing over the Missouri Compromise and that they never would be satisfied to let California come in as a free state.

—Damn them! the thin man said, getting excited, as people always did sooner or later when they talked about the new lands and slavery, that's what they fought the damn war for—slavery.

T. D. was inclined to take a hopeful view of the situation.

—It was destiny, he said. We was going in that direction.

Mr. Doniphant came back, carrying his banjo. He sat down and sang some songs in a soft whanging voice, and while he was singing, Ellen came out of the house to listen, and some other people gathered around.

—Sing that one you sang last night, Grampa Peters said.

Mr. Doniphant sang:

—I come from Alabama

With my banjo on my knee,

I'se gwine to Louisiana,

My true love for to see.

It rained all day the night I left;

The weather it was dry.

The sun so hot, I froze to death,

Susanna, don't you cry.

The chorus went:

—O, Susanna,

Do not cry for me;

I come from Alabama

With my banjo on my knee.

The best verse was the second:

—I had a dream the other night,

When everything was still;

I thought I saw Susanna dear,

A-comin' down the hill.

The buckwheat cake was in her mouth,

The tear was in her eye.

Says I, I'se comin' from the south,

Susanna, don't you cry.

—That's a good one, Grampa Peters said.

They had him sing it again.

—Where'd you learn it? T. D. said. I don't recollect ever hearing it before.

—O, I picked it up in a camp of folks over in Ohio. We had a different way of singin' it too that they made up around there. They was some of 'em singin' it thisaway:

—O, Californy!

That's the place for me!

I'm off for Sacramento

With my washbowl on my knee.

—Reckon you intend to git some gold out there, eh, son? Grampa Peters said.

—Well, sir, Mr. Doniphant said. I didn't know if all them stories about there bein' gold there was true. Most people just said they heerd it from somebody else. I thought I'd git me some land. If they is gold to be got, maybe I could git some of it too. I ain't worryin' none about it. All I want is to git out there.

—What d'yuh think about this here slavery question, son? Grampa Peters said. Do you think they'd ought to keep slavery out of them new lands?

Young Mr. Doniphant strummed softly on his banjo.

—Well, he said softly, I don't know how you folks feel about it around here. Me and the folks I been travellin' with goin' West don't want no slave labor to compete with in the new lands.

—But have they a constitutional right to prohibit it? Grampa Peters said. That's the question. There ain't any right under the Constitution to prohibit it. That's all I say.

—Maybe they ain't, the young man said. But I don't figger there'll be any slavery in the new lands.

He strummed softly on the banjo, humming,

—O, Californy!

There's the land for me.

I've tooken quite a journey from

My home in Tennessee.

—If we keep slavery from spreading, T. D. said, it will die natural of its own accord. Slavery's a wrong, and nothing can make it right. I take a more or less hope——

Something bit and tore the mildly spoken words. Young Mr. Doniphant stood up, ashamed and scared.

—D'yuh think——

—She's all right, T. D. said. It's natural. The pains are getting sharper.

—No good baby was ever got without a lot of yellin', Grampa Peters said.

Ellen and some other women went back into the house.

—Take it easy, son, T. D. said. This may go on all day.

—By the way, T. D., Grampa Peters said, could you let me have another bottle of them pokeberry bitters sometime? My stummick's been actin' up on me agin. Sometimes I think I can't hardly stand it.

Mr. Doniphant sat down slowly and kept picking nervously at the banjo and humming,

—O, Californy!

That's the place for me!

—What route do you figure on takin' to git out there? the thin man said.

—Why, I don't know yet. I aim to take the safest.

—After what happened to them Donners, Grampa Peters said, I reckon you can't be too careful. I wonder if you ain't goin' to have to winter over somewhere before you try it.

—Maybe so, the young man said.

—Have you seen any Mormons along the way? T. D. said.

—Not as I know of. They say the Mormons has all gone out and got them a place out there somewheres.

—I seen a book, Grampa Peters said, and it had a picture in it of a Mormon goin' to bed with his wives. That there bed was simply swarmin' with women pullin' each other's hair and feedin' babies.

—One woman's more'n enough fer me, the thin man said. They'd ought to take and burn all them Mormons at the stake.

Those days, people were always going West. Johnny had heard it said that along the National Pike there was a wagon every hour regular and at times a whole train. Nothing could stop the people from going West. They had babies along the way, like Mr. and Mrs. Doniphant. They died in the snow on the mountains and ate each other to keep from starving, like the Donners. They had a scad of wives in one bed like the Mormons. Most of them were slightly crazy some way. But they kept right on going. Perhaps it had something to do with the sun that made an arc day after day above the National Pike. Johnny thought of the western land under the far setting of the sun, wide plains in purple evening through which on softly thundering hooves the buffalo herds were running, he thought of Indians, riding swift ponies toward the flanks of purple mountains, wagontrains streaming thinly westward, he thought of shining rivers, green slopes, blue ocean on the distant shore of evening.

Those days, Johnny thought much of gold, Indians, great rivers, buffalo, and men who carried guns. Before the war, the West was a vagueness, a direction, a place of few names that belonged mostly to someone else. Now, however, it was good to think that the Nation extended from sea to shining sea.

—Here's an interesting item, T. D. said, shaking the newspaper. It tells here how they laid the cornerstone for the Washington Monument.

—I wonder will they ever git that thing built, Grampa Peters said. Seems to me I've heard talk of it for a long time now.

—O, I guess they'll get it built some——

A cry cut across T. D.'s sentence. This time it lasted longer than usual, and Mr. Doniphant got up and went into the house.

—Now that's what I call a good loud one, Grampa Peters said. Sounds like the real business, T. D.

—How do you stand listenin' to 'em all the time, T. D.? Just this one's drivin' me crazy, the thin man said. But I suppose you git use to it.

—I never will get use to it, T. D. said. But the Lord requires it of Woman for her Sin, and so it must be.

—I guess it must hurt 'em somethin' awful, the thin man said.

Grampa Peters belched complacently.

—By God, I got to git me another bottle a them bitters.

Each time the woman cried, Johnny wanted to crawl off somewhere and hide. His pleasant landscape of Raintree County revolved dizzily, running with rivers of blood. Life was not what he had supposed it to be. When his mother appeared at the door, he turned his face away. He and all his brothers and sisters had entered life by an incredible wound inflicted on that slight beloved form. This was what the word ‘woman' really meant.

—Daniel Webster, Grampa Peters was saying, much as I oppose him in most questions, has the right idea about this whole slavery thing. Stand upon the Constitution, and all will be well.

In those days, people were always standing on the Constitution. The Constitution was like the Bible. When you appealed to the Constitution, you had made the ultimate appeal. If you could quote the Constitution to support your argument, you had quoted God. People who quoted the Constitution always did so solemnly and as if that finished the matter. The majority of arguments ended by each man appealing to the Constitution, and the man who did it oftenest and in the loudest voice was adjudged the winner.

Not that anyone ever really won.

It seemed as though Grampa Peters' remark about the Constitution set the argument going again. More men gathered around, and as the woman in the house cried more often, the men talked more loudly and profanely about slavery, westward expansion, and presidential candidates. There appeared to be a contest between the men before the General Store and the woman in the house to see which could get the best of a furious debate in which the two contestants were determined to ignore each other. But to Johnny, only the cry of pain was real. It filled up the street. It drew a bloodred streak across the day. And at last it compelled silence and respect.

After a particularly loud cry, Ellen came to the door and said,

—You better come now, T. D.

—Must be the breakin' of the waters, Grampa Peters said.

—O, my God! a woman's voice cried from the house. O, dear God!

—That's all right, honey, Ellen Shawnessy was heard saying. Go right on and holler, honey. Just holler as loud as you want to, if it helps.

The men sat cowed. Johnny hated them and himself. He hated
especially Grampa Peters. He hated the portly bulk of Grampa Peters, squatting majestically before the General Store; he hated the male complacency of Grampa Peters, which never had to be torn open and rent by such an anguish, the trousered fatness of Grampa Peters, who only sat before the General Store on his big dumb behind and made words about politics while life shrieked in an upstairs room. He hated all men in the person of Grampa Peters, because men caused this awful thing to happen and then could do nothing about it.

After the screaming had gone on for a while, the men began to curse softly.

—Well, Jesus God, I wish she'd hurry up and git it over with.

—Goddammit! Grampa Peters said once. I don't remember my wife yelled that loud, though God and Jesus knows she always yelled loud enough.

—They sure git the raw end of things, the thin man said.

After a particularly frightful yell,

—Well, Jeeeeeeeeeesus God in Heaven, Dear Lord! said Grampa Peters, git rid of it, sister!

The men began to act as though they were being abused in some way. As for Johnny, each time the shrieking came, the skin of his face drew tight, his chest heaved, tears came to his eyes, he wanted to scream, roll on the ground, and yell with laughter. The desire to laugh became so strong that he had to get up and walk away. He went to the big wagon that was in back of the house where Mr. Doniphant had gone for the banjo. He got behind the wagon and tried to laugh, but instead he was sobbing. Apparently that was what he had been wanting to do.

After a while, the shrieking stopped and was followed by a series of moans and then a silence. The men got up and stood looking at the house. Johnny felt strangely calm. He dried his eyes and walked back to the road and stood with the men.

There was a new sound, which was like an echo of the other, a piping, insistent little echo, helpless and shameless as the other. But after that sound began, the other sound never did return.

The men in front of the General Store began to smile, at first a little sheepishly, then broadly.

—By God, listen to that little pipsqueak howl a hisn.

—That ain't no pipsqueak howl. He's got a good loud yell fer a baby.

—He ought to have, if he takes after his maw.

After a while, the door opened, and Ellen Shawnessy came out.

—They want you all to come in and see it, she said.

—I reckon they'd
better
leave us see it, said Grampa Peters. I never worked harder to have a baby in my life.

The men all removed their hats and walked sheepishly into the house. Johnny brought up the rear. In a room upstairs, a woman was lying on the bed. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was all strung around on the pillow. She was looking at something lying on her arm. Her husband was standing beside the bed looking at it too.

It was a little hairless monkey with a scalded skin, the ugliest thing Johnny had ever seen.

—It's a boy, said Mr. Doniphant tentatively.

—It's a
fine
boy, Grampa Peters said, lying magnificently.

The mother only lay looking at the baby. The baby was yelling again, and T. D. said,

—A perfect baby. The beginnings of a fine family, my boy.

Some of the men hit Mr. Doniphant solidly between the shoulders, and others pumped his hand. He looked bewildered and kept saying,

—Thank ye, sir, thank ye.

—Well, Missus, Grampa Peters said, how do you feel?

—All right, said the woman on the bed. I'm sorry if I caused y' all trouble by carryin' on so. I never knowed what it'd be like.

All of them lied, saying they didn't notice a thing, and anyway it didn't bother them the least bit.

—What you goin' to call it, Missus? Grampa Peters asked.

—Well, the young woman said very slowly, looking at it, we was aimin' to call it, iffen it was a boy, Zachary Taylor Doniphant, but I done change my mind, and my husband and I would like to give him the name of this kind gentleman here who help us out and maybe save my life and the baby's.