3
There are nights when men and women cannot sleep but lie awake talking until almost dawn, nights when they feel suddenly articulate after long months or even years of silence. These nights are better spent in talking than in sleep or even in love.
Stanley and Sarah Brailsford went up to their room with a lamp. A cool wind was blowing from the lake rustling the old lace curtains at the window. Stanley set the lamp with its brightly polished chimney, neatly trimmed wick, and glass base filled with kerosene (in which the lower end of the wick floated like some pale, peculiar fish) upon the jig-sawed walnut bureau with its cracked mirror, and tatted bureau runner.
The lamp light emphasized his gigantic proportions, projecting his huge shadow on the walls and ceiling, lighting one half of his strong face and leaving the other in darkness. He took off his number eleven shoes, red and white cotton socks, and coarse blue shirt stained at the arm pits. He yawned enormously.
Quickly, with little movements almost shy, Sarah Brailsford unfastened her gray-sprigged percale waist and skirt. She took off her shoes and stockings as though she were ashamed to have Stanley notice that the shoes were cracked, misshapen, and run over at the heel, the black lisle stockings one great mass of careful darns. Before she removed her undergarments she slipped her nightgown on over her head and worked beneath the gown unfastening her patched unmentionables. Sarah wished she could have pretty bloomers like the ones on the Barton line. Stud could afford a new thrashing machine that year but no new clothes for the family. She hung her garments neatly on a chair.
Unlike his careful wife, Stud Brailsford threw off his clothes and strode about the room in his long knit drawers like an early picture of John L. Sullivan if you overlooked Stud's graying hair. He stood at the window looking out at the moonlit night, enjoying the tickle of the wind in the heavy damp mat of hair on his big chest. He scratched luxuriously with big blunt fingers, then turned and rubbed his back against the window frame, yawned, blew out the light, kicked off his drawers, and threw himself naked upon the cool sheet.
The slats of the bed creaked and groaned under his weight, and Sarah, as always, held herself a little rigid so that she would not roll down into the hollow he created. By morning she might be snugly against him, but that would come about slowly through the relaxation of sleep during the long night.
Moonlight flooded the room glinting upon the flaked mirror, the oval chromos in walnut frames on either side of the dresser, the big white and gold washbowl and pitcher on the warped wash-stand, the tin chimney-hole cover gilded and decorated with a romantic landscape, the enamelware pot underneath the bed. It came sweetly over the face of Sarah who in this light was beautiful even at the age of forty-three.
Outside there were night sounds: a hoot owl whooing from Cottonwood Hill, a farm dog howling at the moon, and far away across the lake an answering howl from some equally miserable brother in sorrow. The curtains billowed, moths brushed against the screen, a bittern croaked in desolate flight over the marshes.
For some reason they did not fall asleep. Perhaps it was the excitement of the man in the barn lot, perhaps thoughts of the morrow when they would have been wed for twenty long years.
"I've been wanting to ask you for weeks now...."
"What, Sarah?"
"About Early Ann, could she possibly be ...?"
"Be what?"
"I hate to say it, Stanley. You've always been so good to me."
"Aw, Sarah, why don't you tell me what's eating you? You ain't afraid of me, are you?"
"No, not afraid, I guess. But maybe you won't like it. Maybe it will hurt you somehow.... But I must tell you, I can't go on without. Is Early Ann your daughter?"
"My daughter!" He sat up straight in bed and turned toward her. "Well, now. It ain't altogether impossible."
"Oh, Stanley! I knew it, but I wouldn't let myself think it. Only, why did you tell me?"
"I don't know what's eating you, Sarah. I didn't say for sure she was my daughter. I only said...."
"You said it was possible...." She was crying quietly now.
"Well, a young man sometimes...."
"I know. I couldn't be so stupid or so blind as not to see young men all around the country.... But who was she, Stanley? No, don't tell me."
"I—I don't remember her name," Stud faltered. "But I did notice that Early Ann's face was like...."
"I'll treat her real nice," Sarah said, addressing the cracked ceiling above her. "I'll treat her just like a daughter. We always did want a daughter, Stanley."
"Aw, Sarah," he said. "Aw, Sarah, I'm sorry." It was almost the first time in twenty years that he had told her he was sorry for anything. It was the first time in ten that he had tried to soothe her with his big, rough hands. She could tell that he was trying not to sob, and a sudden flow of pity came out of her heart for the great, clumsy fellow beside her whom she loved.
"I can forgive you," she said. "I can forgive you real easy."
"It ain't an easy thing to forgive."
"I do forgive you now for being unfaithful, Stanley."
"Unfaithful," he said, astonished. "I don't know what you mean."
"But you just said...."
"How old is the girl?"
"Eighteen, she claims."
"But, don't you see, Sarah. Then she can't be my daughter. That would be after we were married."
"You mean that never after we were married, not once, not even one time...." There was such a note of joy and relief in her voice that the big man beside her was moved to find her mouth and kiss it.
"What a silly woman!" he said. "What a silly girl!" He laughed deeply, and suddenly hugged her until it hurt. She was laughing and crying by turns and kissing him as she had not since their honeymoon. She rubbed his beard the wrong way, thus giving him one of the most delectable sensations he could experience. And he kissed the nape of her neck as he used to years ago. A cock crowed in the moonlight and Stanley struck a match to read the time.
"Why, it's after midnight, Mother. It's the nineteenth of June, and we've been married twenty years."
BOOK TWO