I have to sit somewhere.
Oh no, keep up. We'll go on down.
Lucky was he? Was he, Henry wondered — with his polished shoes and all his new concerns.
The river disappeared beneath the trees.
They walked by the creek by the hornbeam tree — Omensetter, his hand in his greatcoat pocket where the rent was, his back indifferent as a wall — by elm and oak and maple, in the bowl that tamed by the riverside, toward Henry Pimber's house where Henry followed, by the aspen, by the suede green sassafras, the beech. The silver morning grass was golden and resilient now. The slate was clean, the sandstones rich as brown sugar, and the red clay, softer after sunshine, moist, kept their feet to the slate, the sugar rocks, and the rough, resilient grass.
I've got to rest, Henry said.
The log was stripped of bark and bleached. It lay by the creek like a prehistoric bone.
Oh say, you've been sick, that's right. That hill is sort of steep. How are you feeling now — good?. . fine, that's good.
Omensetter took money from his pocket.
We'll have to move when we can find a place. It's a little wet there for the boy — you understand — it's a little low near the river. Well… You've been kind.
The money emptied into Henry's hand.
I'd better see to Lucy now, Omensetter said.
He swayed rhythmically a moment like a bear.
Lucy will be fine.
Sure — still, she must be watched — the boy…
Omensetter waved. Limbs divided up his back.
Good-bye.
So, Henry thought, well. . he's going to leave the fox where he has fallen. Anyway, that's that. Yes. That. Because it was impossible to speak in a wind. And there was only weather in it, after all. Weather. Leaves. Pollen, he'd been told, from infinite plants. Dust, too, of course. And the grains that carry cooking, bloom, and pine tree to the nose. Seeds naturally. Flies. Birdie song and the growl of bees. Himself — Pimber — rushing along. Yesterday it was the long night rain that fell, misplaced, through morning. Tomorrow? Tomorrow might be calm.
All right. I'll hide high up. I'll do that. Anyway, why speak in a wind? Didn't I wait for a wind to say: you saved my life?
Ding dong bell,
Pimber's down our well.
Didn't I wait until a wind could blow away my lie?
Who never did him any harm,
But wound his soul through a sleeve
of arm.
Just the same I thought the way you walked through town, Henry was whispering just barely aloud, carrying your back as easy and as careless as you would a towel, newly come from swimming always, barely dry you always seemed, you were a sign. Remember that first evening when you came? You were a stranger, bare to heaven really, and your soul dwelled in your tongue when you spoke to me, as if I were a friend and not a stranger, as if I were an ear of your own. You had mud beneath your arms, mud sliding down the sides of your boots, thick stormy hair, dirty nails, a button missing. The clouds were glowing, a rich warm rose, and I watched them sail till dark when I came home. It seemed to me that you were like those clouds, as natural and beautiful. You knew the secret — how to be.
Henry cleared his throat. And had he simply been mistaken? Or had Omensetter been persuaded of his luck so thoroughly that now he guarded it like gold, and feared being thieved? Henry wrapped his arms like a kerchief round his head. Omensetter had been robbed already. Everybody but the preacher stole from him. Furber merely hated. But what I took was hope — a dream — fool's gold — quarrel — toothsome hen, Henry said. How weary he was, and sorry… sorry for everything. He was sorry about the rent, about the house, the damp, the open well, the river. He was sorry for Omensetter, sorry for Lucy, sorry for the children, sorry for Lucy again. He was sorry for himself. Tears pooled in his eyes.
Just the same, Henry said, I thought you measured us by your inhuman measure like the trees, and we were busy ants in hills or well-hived bees whose love was to pursue the queen and bring on death. When you put my hands in bandages and beets I thought I understood. There was no shade between us ever but the shade I'd drawn. You were the same to human or inhuman eye.
Henry slid from the log and hushed his whispering. He pushed at low shrubs until he couldn't see the sycamores. It was thick in this part of the woods. He parted the branches with his arms. Brackett Omensetter before he left had hid behind his face and made his back a wall. The man had been a miracle. He had, Henry spoke out angrily. A miracle. Not to be believed. And now he took defense against the world like everybody else. No miracle, a man, with a man's mask and a man's wall. Henry chuckled, unfastening the belt of his coat. He tugged at it. It would be strong. His pooled tears ran. If Brackett Omensetter had ever had the secret of how to live, he hadn't known it. Now the difference was-he knew. Everyone at last had managed to tell him, and now like everybody else he was wondering what it was. Like everybody else. Henry wiped his eyes. Don't look for Henry here, my dear, he's gone. He's full of foolishness, and off to kill a fox. But I'll not die as low as he did, for I could ornament a tree like the leaves of a maple. No. It should be tall. A white oak maybe, with its wide lobes. There was beauty in the pun: leave-taking. Though it wouldn't be an easy climb for a man who'd been so sick so recently. Still the sun would reach him early there and stay the day, the win blow pleasantly. It ought to seem like leaping to the sea. He went by cherry and by black gum trees calling their names aloud. He was the Adam who remembered them. Tears nevertheless began again. How sorry for it all he felt. How sorry for Omensetter. How sorry for Henry.
The Reverend,Jethro
Furber's Change of Heart
1
Rough dogs, barking, splashed into the river chasing sticks. Coats and ties had been hung in the trees and men were hurling stones at soda bottles or skimming pieces of slate and loudly counting the skips. He picked out squealing children and the laughter of the women. If there hadn't been a wall he would have seen them scuffling on the edge of the water. The land fell and the trees parted so that seated where he was the Ohio might have made his eyes blink, but the wall was eight feet high and wound in its vines like a bottle of claret. The bench was damp and cold, shadowed all morning by the elms, and he slid his Bible under him. It was a poor garden, given over to ground ivy and plants that preferred deep shade, for the sun reached it only at the top of the day when it found an opening between the crowns of the trees and the head and body of the church. Absently, he felt the pores of the cement. The shadows of the elm leaves passed gently over the vines and grasses. In winter one could see quite easily through the gate at the end of the garden to the river lying placidly in its ice — leaden, grave, immortal. He had never learned when the key had been lost but the lock was rusted now and the double gates were bound. By spring, when the ivy leafed and thickly curtained the pickets, his blindfold was complete. Nevertheless he could see the sand rising in little puffs and the brilliant water striking the shore. It wasn't true, but Jethro Furber felt he had spent his life here. Certainly he had brought to the garden the little order it had, laying the walk with his own hands and clearing the graves of weeds and creepers, carefully scrubbing the markers. The rough cold bench was as familiar to him as his skin, and the garden, with its secret design and its holy significance, was like himself. He smiled as he considered it (he had considered often), for the body of any symbol was absurd, as ridiculous as Christ's body was, so lank and ribby. And those crudely fashioned timbers thrust clumsily in the earth were foolish. The crucifixion was so far from love. How far was he from what he meant?… pale, pinch-faced little man in Negro-colored clothing, the nail-eyed reverend, Jethro Furber, fourth in this church and a liar; how far was he from the conscience of his people? That Scanlon girl was turning around, blooming her pink skirt, and The Noisy One was calling to his dog. He saw the hair of The Noisy One tossing like a girl's; his stones were shattering the water. Furber had told them what was due the Sabbath; he had thrown his voice on its knees before them shamefully; he had warned and threatened; he had rounded his words with brass and blown through them strongly like a choir of trumpets. But what use was it to preach? Futile. Futile. He could not face them down again. That, too, was futile. In three corners of the garden there were graves, crookedly laid, where the no longer living persons of his predecessors had been put away, and there was still an empty corner left for him to lie futile and forgotten in. All was proper and correct. Even the clichés of the preacher were correct: the no longer listening ears, the no longer swelling lungs, the no longer laughing teeth or dancing hair, the no longer bitterly envenomed prick. He struck his thigh, half rose, then settled slowly back again. Omensetter's stones dipped and flew and lit like gulls upon the water. Furber rubbed his teeth together so they squeaked, then shivered at the sound. Soon the sun will reach the bench, he thought, and the leaves will whiten. He would wait where he was. He would have to. Certainly he would not go out again.