"They'll never know," she said, and felt his hands and wondered how it was that a few minutes ago the day had been dull. "It was nice of you to bring Juber's song book," she went on, when it seemed that they had stood too long silent, saying things with their eyes that neither of them would ever put into words.
"I asked her to.There's somethin' I wanted to tell you, Delph."
"Logan after you?" she asked quickly.
He shook his head. "No worse'n common, I guess, but."
Roll me over gently, roll me over slow,
Roll me over on my right side
Cause my left side hurts me so.
"How's that, Delph? I was never any hand at readin' notes," Juber explained as he stuck his head through the door. He looked at Linnie, closed his eyes, and marking the time with his right forefinger, continued to sing in his cracked old man's voice:
With the first shot Johnny staggered, with the second shot he fell,
When the last bullet got him there was a new man's face in hell.
He was her man, but he
Delph caught his sleeve, and silenced him with a shushing. "You'd better not sing so loud. You know Aunt Fronie wouldn't like that song."
"It's a good song ballad, an' your Aunt Fronie knows I sing what I please in th' barn. Look, it's better even than I thought it would be. Notes it's got an' ever'thing." He wetted the tip of his thumb and pushed rapidly through the pages. "Look here's 'Shady Grove'an' 'Two Little Girls in Blue.' Lord, I wish I had time to fiddle that right now."
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"If you'd go soft an' easy-like Fronie would never hear. Take time," Delph suggested. "There can't be any press of work in all this weather."
"There's loggin' harness to mend. Me an' John'ull be needin' it th' first hard freeze that comes."
"I've nothin' to do today. Let me mend harness, an' you fiddle, an' Delph can sing," Marsh said. He looked up at the hay loft and then at Delph. "It would be nice to be up there."
Delph hesitated, eager to be with Marsh, but afraid that John might come and find him. "Fronie wouldn't like it so well."
"She'll never know. Have a little fun before you die, Delph," Juber advised. "I'll play soft like an' you sing low. If she hears anything she'll think it's th' ghost of crazy Aunt Rhodie Weaver out agin an' singin' in th' rain. Look, here's 'Birmingham Jail' I tell ye this book's got ever'thing." And Juber went humming away to get the logging harness and awl and leather thongs for mending. Delph wished Juber would not dart about so, and she and Marsh could be alone at least until she learned what troubled him, but Juber was back in a moment, reminding her to bring his fiddle from the crib wall.
They sat at the end of the hay mow farthest from the house, near a small window, high up under the eaves, through which enough of the rain gray light filtered for Juber to see to fiddle and Marsh to mend the harness. The hay was clover mixed with red top and timothy, unbaled and bright with a clean fresh smell that made Marsh think of a windy night in spring. The harness mending went slowly, often with little help from either his mind or his eyes. He saw Delph smile and heard her sing, softly with notes that seemed scarcely louder than the rain on the roof shingles. Juber was eager to try all the ballads in the book, so that she was kept skipping from one to another, patiently humming or singing a verse until Juber could follow it on his fiddle.
Now and then her eyes strayed into Marsh's, and begged to know what it was he had intended to tell her. Marsh would smile back, and try to reassure her that it was nothing very bad, but mostly he tried to avoid her glance for his eyes seemed no good at lying today. When Delph had sung until her throat was tired, Juber commanded a rest. "You two've been mighty good to me," he said.
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"Marsh mends my harness an' Delph sings my songs, so I'll give you all a special treatbut first you'll have to hunt it in th' hay."
"A hen's nest with twenty eggs, I bet," Delph said, and sprang to her feet.
Juber shook his head, but Delph went hunting through the hay. Marsh dropped the harness mending and followed her. When there was a mound of hay like a mountain between them and Juber, he kissed her as she knelt searching elbow deep in the hay. He saw her eyes for an instant before she sprang up and started away, and he was less afraid to tell her what he had come to tell. "Don't run away, Delph," he whispered.
She stopped, but would not look at him. "Isis that what you wanted to tell me?"
He flicked a dried clover blossom from her hair. "Somethin' like that," he said, and was silent then while he thought so hard on what he must say that he could not bother with words.
Delph felt his eyes caressing her face, looked up to meet them, and then looked quickly away. His eyes were gray and soft, shining in the shadowless rain gray light, but they were not happy eyes; and when she had looked at them a moment she knew what he had come to say. She heard the rain fall on the roof with a heavy leaden sound, and the coldness of it touched her as if she had stood naked under it. She drew a long shivering breath, clasped and unclasped her hands; looked at them while she said with more simple statement than question, "You're goin' awaysoon, I mean."
He nodded. "It's partly Logan's doin' He's a friend or kin of th' man that gave me th' pumpin' job.Now they're givin' it to Logan's brother."
She tried to smile, but her mouth felt tight and cold. "Spring comeyou'd a gone then anyhowmaybemaybepshaw, I guess it's better that you go now beforebefore."
"Before what, Delph?"
Her throat hurt, and she didn't want to talk. "Nothin'th' longer you stay th' worse it would beyour goin' away I mean." She flushed at her loose-tongued, begging ways, and stood staring at one of her feet half hidden in the hay. She felt something on her check, and knew it was a tear, and feared to raise her hand and brush it off. He would notice her hand quicker than the tear.
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"Delph,I've been thinkin'." He stopped because he didn't know what he had been thinking. All his thoughts could not change the two facts in his head; he could not forget Delph wherever he went, and he couldn't offer her the life the oil fields had to give.
The first tear fell on her sleeve, and he watched another take its place. He stepped nearer and put his arm around her shoulder. "Delph, I didn't come to make you cry."
"II'm not cryin'," she said, but would not lift her head.
"Delphyou've said lots of times you'd like to go away."
She nodded. "Always."
"Delph?"
"Yes."
"Would you be afraid to?"
She waited and when he did not finish, only stood with his arm tightening about her, she asked in a low voice, "Of what?"
"It's hard to say. You're not very oldhardly eighteen. An' I guess you know me so little an' my peoplethey wereare rentersscattered nowwith no land a their owndifferent from you an' yours, but maybe all th' same in their bones. They didn't want to be always on th' move.But, Delph, there's no harm in tryin'. I didn't mean to when I comeexactly. I ought to keep still."
"Why?" she asked still more softly.
"BecauseI can't ever forget you, Delph, an' it oughtn't to be like that. I mean I oughtn't to."
"An' is it a sin for you to like me?" she asked in a choked, half audible voice.
His tongue fumbled with words, and he shook his head impatiently. "Nobut in a wayI guess it's like I'm already married except I'm not. Butoh, hellDelph, would you marry me an' maybe go away from here an' not be afraid?"
"Why would I be afraid?"
"You know me so littlebut would you?"
She moved her lips and wondered if he heard her "Yes," and knew as his body touched her body. "You wouldn't ever be afraid or sorry maybe, Delph?"
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him. "No. I wouldn't beever."
He drew her suddenly tight against him. "Delphplease, are
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you certain? I meanit maybe won't be easy. I've nothin' much to give. Different from what you've always had, an' hard, too, maybe."
She smiled, and her eyes were free of doubt. "I wouldn't mindanything," she said, slowly as if she understood what it was she said. She struggled suddenly away like a frightened bird when Juber's voice came calling, "Come on back, you two. You'll never find 'em way over there."
"Wait, Delph," Marsh begged. "There's somethin' else. Iwell you see I want to do it rightth' way a man here would doso I mean to tell your Uncle John, ask him decent like."
She turned on him with frightened eyes. "Marsh, he'd never give his say. All at once, I mean. I could tell himlittle by little an'."
He frowned. "There'll maybe be no time for little by little. I finish my last shootin' job, next Thursday, an' then I'll speak to him."
Juber was calling again, more loudly than before. Delph in a flurry of fear that Fronie would hear, started over the hay, whispering breathlessly, "Marsh, please don't say a word. He'd say things to maybe make you hate himhe's quick tempered. Why, he wouldn't a let me a thought ofbein' engaged to Logan for a good while. Don't say anything."
"I won't go sneakin' around like a leper," he muttered, with his jaw looking hard, and his eyes turning black. "I'm not afraid of him."
She caught his sleeve, as Juber called again. "I know you're notnot afraid of anythingbut waithe's in a bad humor now over th' elections. At least wait till you're all ready to leave," she finished quickly.
Marsh chewed a strand of clover and considered. "All rightI'll shoot my last well next Thursdaybut I'll ask him that very day."
Delph gave a little moaning shiver. "I wish you wouldn't. He'll have a fit."
"He won't kill me," he said, and laughed and caught her hand, then forgot to drop it when they came within sight of Juber, who smiled on then unsuspiciously, and scolded, "I never thought you'd take th' business so scrus like an' go pokin' around like it's gold you're after. I've found 'em already."
Delph had scarcely a glance for the hired man's gift of pears nested in the hay. Juber took his pocket knife, and started a neat spiral of yellow peel, talking all the while. "Frum th' way Fronie took
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on when she couldn't find 'em in th' cellar, you'd a thought they was pure gold. She was a savin' 'em fer th' preacher's next fifth Sunday meetin', but there's nothin' Tilly likes so much as a good juicy pear all peeled an' quartered so she won't choke herself. I've got a bushel a th' finest winesap apples I could find put away fer th' others, an' Fronie an' Nance th'd die if they knowed it, but Delph here she's a good girl, an' won't let on. Will you, Delph?" he asked and lifted his head and looked at her.
"Oh, yes," Delph answered, and sat down on the hay and picked up the song book, and began to turn quickly through it.
Juber sat with his peeling-curled knife suspended above the pear, and looked at her. "What you mean, Delph, sayin' you'll give me away? What's th' matter anyhow? You seem plum out a breath an' all excited like frum huntin' in th' hay, with your cars red as fire."
"It's this new song ballad book," she said, and would not look at him when he handed her the pear, ready-peeled to eat, but reached her hand and took it blindly.
Juber glanced at Marsh sitting with his head slightly bent and his eyes on the pear he peeled. "You take mighty thick choppy peelin's to be such a savin' sort of man," he said.
Marsh continued to peel away as if he had not heard. Juber studied him a time, then looked at Delph, sitting too still, not eating, not reading, just sitting with a bite of untasted pear in her mouth and juice dribbling down her chin. "Don't you like Tilly's pears, Delph?" he asked.
"Yes, oh, yes," she said, and the song book slipped from her hands into her lap while she sat hugging her knees and smiling at the hay.
"I can see it's mighty sweet in your mouth," he said, slowly, and with a curious sorrow like a leave taking in his voice, that made him seem tired and old. Neither noticed when he took his fiddle and crawled up over the hay to the small window. Rain splashed against the panes, and the hills and creek bottoms and trees and fields seen through the rain wet glass looked crumpled and gray. He leaned his back against the barn wall, and with his head almost touching the rafters began to play softly:
I never knew what true love meant
Till I courted in the rain.
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Marsh heard the tune, and smiled at Juber in understanding, and came and sat with him. But he was restless, fingering the hay, looking sometimes at Delph, then again at him. "Could I open th' window a little, or would th' dampness hurt your fiddle?" he asked after a time, and when Juber nodded, he unhooked the latch and propped the window open with a twist of hay.
The rain smell and the earth smell came sharp and clean. Juber paused in his fiddling, and drew a deep breath and said, "It makes a body think a spring an' plantin' time."
"Yes, it does," Marsh said, and looked at Delph, and begged her with his eyes to come sit by him.
She came, and smiled at Juber's song, but when he asked her to sing it, she flushed, and seemed suddenly the way Fronie would have her beshy, and still, and with the wonder of some great understanding wide in her eyes. "I wouldn't sing it, either," Juber said. "Anyhow not th' part that says:
I never knew what trouble meant
Till I courted in the rain.
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6
Jude's feet rang loud and hollow on the frozen road, and Marsh as he topped the hill saw the post office, wished he had not hurried so. John would most likely be there instead of home. At least he would have to stop and see; for it was Thursday afternoon, and he had finished his last well. He hitched Jude to the low limb of a sycamore near the creek, and paused and stroked the horse's shoulders, slowly with hard, heavy strokes. Jude turned and looked at him, and he asked softly, "What if he's in there, an' I ask him, an' he won't give in?"
Jude arched his neck, and gave a windy snort that was like a laugh to all the world. "You mean you'd take her anyhow, or do you mean I'm a fool for even thinkin' on it?" Marsh asked, but turned away without giving Jude time to answer.
He walked on, under the leafless beech trees and up the porch steps, encrusted with frozen tobacco juice and frozen mud. He heard men's voices on the other side of the plank door, easy and pleasant they seemed to be, but quiet and contained, hill voices under the pleasantness.
He pushed open the door and was still a moment, hunting out first one face and then another in the smoke filled twilight of the room. The conversation stopped abruptly while men craned their heads to look at him. Young Willie Copenhaver, sitting on an upturned dynamite box, called a greeting, and so did some of the others, but most, including John Costello, simply glanced at him, in brief appraising silence.
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Mrs. Crouch came from between the curtains that separated her living quarters from the store, and called, ''There's nothin' there for you to set on. Come an' take this chair.''
"I won't be but a little while an' I'd just as soon stand," he said, but as she started with the chair he went back to her.
She seemed to have forgotten the chair, but stood fingering the curtain and looking past him at the crowd. "I wouldn't speak to John," she said. "Delph told me you had it in your bead, but you'd better write him a letter."
"I want to do it rightth' way a man here would do it," he answered.
She continued to look past him and frown, then said resignedly, "Talk if you will, but I'm tellin' you he'll fly to pieces. You'd better do it outside. I'm not wantin' trouble here on gov'ment property.That's one a Logan's brothers a settin' close to John. Don't be lookin' around now." She sighed and smoothed her apron, then smiled at him. "Lord, but you're like my boy Les. How that child did love trouble.If I was religious I'd pray for you, I reckin. You'll need a lot of prayers I'm thinkin'." But she looked at him as if she thought he might get by without her prayers.