Mrs. Pritchard studied the woods. “All I got is four abscess teeth,” she remarked.
“Well, be thankful you don’t have five,” Mrs. Cope snapped and threw back a clump of grass. “We might all be destroyed by a hurricane. I can always find something to be thankful for.”
Mrs. Pritchard took up a hoe resting against the side of the house and struck lightly at a weed that had come up between two bricks in the chimney. “I reckon you can,” she said, her voice a little more nasal than usual with contempt.
“Why, think of all those poor Europeans,” Mrs. Cope went on, “that they put in boxcars like cattle and rode them to Siberia. Lord,” she said, “we ought to spend half our time on our knees.”
“I know if I was in an iron lung there would be some things I wouldn’t do,” Mrs. Pritchard said, scratching her bare ankle with the end of the hoe.
“Even that poor woman had plenty to be thankful for,” Mrs. Cope said.
“She could be thankful she wasn’t dead.”
“Certainly,” Mrs. Cope said, and then she pointed the trowel up at Mrs. Pritchard and said, “I have the best kept place in the county and do you know why? Because I work. I’ve had to work to save this place and work to keep it.” She emphasized each word with the trowel. “I don’t let anything get ahead of me and I’m not always looking for trouble. I take it as it comes.”
“If it all come at oncet sometime,” Mrs. Pritchard began.
“It doesn’t all come at once,” Mrs. Cope said sharply.
The child could see over to where the dirt road joined the highway. She saw a pick-up truck stop at the gate and let off three boys who started walking up the pink dirt road. They walked single file, the middle one bent to the side carrying a black pig-shaped valise.
“Well, if it ever did,” Mrs. Pritchard said, “it wouldn’t be nothing you could do but fling up your hands.”
Mrs. Cope didn’t even answer this. Mrs. Pritchard folded her arms and gazed down the road as if she could easily enough see all these fine hills flattened to nothing. She saw the three boys who had almost reached the front walk by now. “Look it yonder,” she said. “Who you reckon they are?”
Mrs. Cope leaned back and supported herself with one hand behind her and looked. The three came toward them but as if they were going to walk on through the side of the house. The one with the suitcase was in front now. Finally about four feet from her, he stopped and set it down. The three boys looked something alike except that the middle-sized one wore silver-rimmed spectacles and carried the suitcase. One of his eyes had a slight cast to it so that his gaze seemed to be coming from two directions at once as if it had them surrounded. He had on a sweatshirt with a faded destroyer printed on it but his chest was so hollow that the destroyer was broken in the middle and seemed on the point of going under. His hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. He looked to be about thirteen. All three boys had white penetrating stares. “I don’t reckon you remember me, Mrs. Cope,” he said.
“Your face is certainly familiar,” she murmured, scrutinizing him. “Now let’s see . . .”
“My daddy used to work here,” he hinted.
“Boyd?” she said. “Your father was Mr. Boyd and you’re J.C.?”
“Nome, I’m Powell, the secant one, only I’ve growed some since then and my daddy he’s daid now. Done died.”
“Dead. Well I declare,” Mrs. Cope said as if death were always an unusual thing. “What was Mr. Boyd’s trouble?”
One of Powell’s eyes seemed to be making a circle of the place, examining the house and the white water tower behind it and the chicken houses and the pastures that rolled away on either side until they met the first line of woods. The other eye looked at her. “Died in Florda,” he said and began kicking the valise.
“Well I declare,” she murmured. After a second she said, “And how is your mother?”
“Mah’d again.” He kept watching his foot kick the suitcase. The other two boys stared at her impatiently.
“And where do you all live now?” she asked.
“Atlanta,” he said. “You know, out to one of them developments.”
“Well I see,” she said, “I see.” After a second she said it again. Finally she asked, “And who are these other boys?” and smiled at them.
“Garfield Smith him, and W. T. Harper him,” he said, nodding his head backward first in the direction of the large boy and then the small one.
“How do you boys do?” Mrs. Cope said. “This is Mrs. Pritchard. Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard work here now.”
They ignored Mrs. Pritchard who watched them with steady beady eyes. The three seemed to hang there, waiting, watching Mrs. Cope.
“Well well,” she said, glancing at the suitcase, “it’s nice of you to stop and see me. I think that was real sweet of you.”
Powell’s stare seemed to pinch her like a pair of tongs. “Come back to see how you was doing,” he said hoarsely.
“Listen here,” the smallest boy said, “all the time we been knowing him he’s been telling us about this here place. Said it was everything here. Said it was horses here. Said he had the best time of his entire life right here on this here place. Talks about it all the time.”
“Never shuts his trap about this place,” the big boy grunted, drawing his arm across his nose as if to muffle his words.
“Always talking about them horses he rid here,” the small one continued, “and said he would let us ride them too. Said it was one name Gene.”
Mrs. Cope was always afraid someone would get hurt on her place and sue her for everything she had. “They aren’t shod,” she said quickly. “There was one named Gene but he’s dead now but I’m afraid you boys can’t ride the horses because you might get hurt. They’re dangerous,” she said, speaking very fast.
The large boy sat down on the ground with a noise of disgust and began to finger rocks out of his tennis shoe. The small one darted looks here and there and Powell fixed her with his stare and didn’t say anything.
After a minute the little boy said, “Say, lady, you know what he said one time? He said when he died he wanted to come here!”
For a second Mrs. Cope looked blank; then she blushed; then a peculiar look of pain came over her face as she realized that these children were hungry. They were staring because they were hungry! She almost gasped in their faces and then she asked them quickly if they would have something to eat. They said they would but their expressions, composed and unsatisfied, didn’t lighten any. They looked as if they were used to being hungry and it was no business of hers.
The child upstairs had grown red in the face with excitement. She was kneeling down by the window so that only her eyes and forehead showed over the sill. Mrs. Cope told the boys to come around on the other side of the house where the lawn chairs were and she led the way and Mrs. Pritchard followed. The child moved from the right bedroom across the hall and over into the left bedroom and looked down on the other side of the house where there were three white lawn chairs and red hammock strung between two hazelnut trees. She was a pale fat girl of twelve with a frowning squint and a large mouth full of silver bands. She knelt down at the window.
The three boys came around the corner of the house and the large one threw himself into the hammock and lit a stub of cigarette. The small boy tumbled down on the grass next to the black suitcase and rested his head on it and Powell sat down on the edge of one of the chairs and looked as if he were trying to enclose the whole place in one encircling stare. The child heard her mother and Mrs. Pritchard in a muted conference in the kitchen. She got up and went out into the hall and leaned over the banisters.
Mrs. Cope’s and Mrs. Pritchard’s legs were facing each other in the back hall. “Those poor children are hungry,” Mrs. Cope said in a dead voice.
“You seen that suitcase?” Mrs. Pritchard asked. “What if they intend to spend the
night with you?”
Mrs. Cope gave a slight shriek. “I can’t have three boys in here with only me and Sally Virginia,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll go when I feed them.”
“I only know they got a suitcase,” Mrs. Pritchard said.
The child hurried back to the window. The large boy was stretched out in the hammock with his wrists crossed under his head and the cigarette stub in the center of his mouth. He spit it out in an arc just as Mrs. Cope came around the corner of the house with a plate of crackers. She stopped instantly as if a snake had been slung in her path. “Ashfield!” she said. “Please pick that up. I’m afraid of fires.”
“Gawfield!” the little boy shouted indignantly. “Gawfield!”
The large boy raised himself without a word and lumbered for the butt. He picked it up and put it in his pocket and stood with his back to her, examining a tattooed heart on his forearm. Mrs. Pritchard came up holding three Coca-Colas by the necks in one hand and gave one to each of them.
“I remember everything about this place,” Powell said, looking down the opening of his bottle.
“Where did you all go when you left here?” Mrs. Cope asked and put the plate of crackers on the arm of his chair.
He looked at it but didn’t take one. He said, “I remember it was one name Gene and it was one name George. We gone to Florda and my daddy he, you know, died, and then we gone to my sister’s and then my mother she, you know, mah’d, and we been there ever since.”
“There are some crackers,” Mrs. Cope said and sat down in the chair across from him.
“He don’t like it in Atlanta,” the little boy said, sitting up and reaching indifferently for a cracker. “He ain’t ever satisfied with where he’s at except this place here. Lemme tell you what he’ll do, lady. We’ll be playing ball, see, on this here place in this development we got to play ball on, see, and he’ll quit playing and say, ‘Goddam, it was a horse down there name Gene and if I had him here I’d bust this concrete to hell riding him!’”
“I’m sure Powell doesn’t use words like that, do you, Powell?” Mrs. Cope said.
“No, mam,” Powell said. His head was turned completely to the side as if he were listening for the horses in the field.
“I don’t like them kind of crackers,” the little boy said and returned his to the plate and got up.
Mrs. Cope shifted in her chair. “So you boys live in one of those nice new developments,” she said.
“The only way you can tell your own is by smell,” the small boy volunteered. “They’re four stories high and there’s ten of them, one behind the other. Let’s go see them horses,” he said.
Powell turned his pinching look on Mrs. Cope. “We thought we would just spend the night in your barn,” he said. “My uncle brought us this far on his pick-up truck and he’s going to stop for us again in the morning.”
There was a moment in which she didn’t say a thing and the child in the window thought: she’s going to fly out of that chair and hit the tree.
“Well, I’m afraid you can’t do that,” she said, getting up suddenly. “The barn’s full of hay and I’m afraid of fire from your cigarettes.”
“We won’t smoke,” he said.
“I’m afraid you can’t spend the night in there just the same,” she repeated as if she were talking politely to a gangster.
“Well, we can camp out in the woods then,” the little boy said. “We brought our own blankets anyways. That’s what we got in theter suitcase. Come on.”
“In the woods!” she said. “Oh no! The woods are very dry now, I can’t have people smoking in my woods. You’ll have to camp out in the field, in this field here next to the house, where there aren’t any trees.”
“Where she can keep her eye on you,” the child said under her breath.
“Her woods,” the large boy muttered and got out of the hammock.
“We’ll sleep in the field,” Powell said but not particularly as if he were talking to her. “This afternoon I’m going to show them about this place.” The other two were already walking away and he got up and bounded after them and the two women sat with the black suitcase between them.
“Not no thank you, not no nothing,” Mrs. Pritchard remarked.
“They only played with what we gave them to eat,” Mrs. Cope said in a hurt voice.
Mrs. Pritchard suggested that they might not like soft drinks.
“They certainly looked hungry,” Mrs. Cope said.
About sunset they appeared out of the woods, dirty and sweating, and came to the back porch and asked for water. They did not ask for food but Mrs. Cope could tell that they wanted it. “All I have is some cold guinea,” she said. “Would you boys like some guinea and some sandwiches?”
“I wouldn’t eat nothing bald-headed like a guinea,” the little boy said. “I would eat a chicken or a turkey but not no guinea.”
“Dog wouldn’t eat one of them,” the large boy said. He had taken off his shirt and stuck it in the back of his trousers like a tail. Mrs. Cope carefully avoided looking at him. The little boy had a cut on his arm.
“You boys haven’t been riding the horses when I asked you not to, have you?” she asked suspiciously and they all said, “No mam!” at once in loud enthusiastic voices like the Amens are said in country churches.
She went into the house and made them sandwiches and, while she did it, she held a conversation with them from inside the kitchen, asking what their fathers did and how many brothers and sisters they had and where they went to school. They answered in short explosive sentences, pushing each other’s shoulders and doubling up with laughter as if the questions had meanings she didn’t know about. “And do you have men teachers or lady teachers at your school?” she asked.
“Some of both and some you can’t tell which,” the big boy hooted.
“And does your mother work, Powell?” she asked quickly.
“She ast you does your mother work!” the little boy yelled. “His mind’s affected by them horses he only looked at,” he said. “His mother she works at a factory and leaves him to mind the rest of them only he don’t mind them much. Lemme tell you, lady, one time he locked his little brother in a box and set it on fire.”
“I’m sure Powell wouldn’t do a thing like that,” she said, coming out with the plate of sandwiches and setting it down on the step. They emptied the plate at once and she picked it up and stood holding it, looking at the sun which was going down in front of them, almost on top of the tree line. It was swollen and flame-colored and hung in a net of ragged cloud as if it might burn through any second and fall into the woods. From the upstairs window the child saw her shiver and catch both arms to her sides. “We have so much to be thankful for,” she said suddenly in a mournful marveling tone. “Do you boys thank God every night for all He’s done for you? Do you thank Him for everything?”
This put an instant hush over them. They bit into the sandwiches as if they had lost all taste for food.
“Do you?” she persisted.
They were as silent as thieves hiding. They chewed without a sound.
“Well, I know I do,” she said at length and turned and went back to the house and the child watched their shoulders drop. The large one stretched his legs out as if he were releasing himself from a trap. The sun burned so fast that it seemed to be trying to set everything in sight on fire. The white water tower was glazed pink and the grass was an unnatural green as if it were turning to glass. The child suddenly stuck her head far out the window and said, “Ugggghhrhh,” in a loud voice, crossing her eyes and hanging her tongue out as far as possible as if she were going to vomit.
The large boy looked up and stared at her. “Jesus,” he growled, “another woman.”
She dropped back from the window and stood with her back against the wall, squinting fiercely as if she had been slapped in the face and co
uldn’t see who had done it. As soon as they left the steps, she came down into the kitchen where Mrs. Cope was washing the dishes. “If I had that big boy down I’d beat the daylight out of him,” she said.
“You keep away from those boys,” Mrs. Cope said, turning sharply. “Ladies don’t beat the daylight out of people. You keep out of their way. They’ll be gone in the morning.”
But in the morning they were not gone.
When she went out on the porch after breakfast, they were standing around the back door, kicking the steps. They were smelling the bacon she had had for her breakfast. “Why boys!” she said. “I thought you were going to meet your uncle.” They had the same look of hardened hunger that had pained her yesterday but today she felt faintly provoked.
The big boy turned his back at once and the small one squatted down and began to scratch in the sand. “We ain’t, though,” Powell said.
The big boy turned his head just enough to take in a small section of her and said, “We ain’t bothering nothing of yours.”
He couldn’t see the way her eyes enlarged but he could take note of the significant silence. After a minute she said in an altered voice, “Would you boys care for some breakfast?”
“We got plenty of our own food,” the big boy said. “We don’t want nothing of yours.”
She kept her eyes on Powell. His thin white face seemed to confront but not actually to see her. “You boys know that I’m glad to have you,” she said, “but I expect you to behave. I expect you to act like gentlemen.”
They stood there, each looking in a different direction, as if they were waiting for her to leave. “After all,” she said in a suddenly high voice, “this is my place.”
The big boy made some ambiguous noise and they turned and walked off toward the barn, leaving her there with a shocked look as if she had had a searchlight thrown on her in the middle of the night.
In a little while Mrs. Pritchard came over and stood in the kitchen door with her cheek against the edge of it. “I reckon you know they rode them horses all yesterday afternoon,” she said. “Stole a bridle out the saddleroom and rode bareback because Hollis seen them. He runnum out the barn at nine o’clock last night and then he runnum out the milk room this morning and there was milk all over their mouths like they had been drinking out the cans.”