3
Throughout the rest of her days Temperance Crandall measured time as before or after 1913. Often in later Novembers when the leaves hurried across her lawn and the hickory nuts tumbled down from the shagbark hickory she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
It was of little interest to her that Mrs. Sean McGinty died of cancer of the uterus after bearing thirteen children in eighteen years, or that Father O'Malley in laying her away spoke of her as an outstanding example of motherhood. She scarcely bothered to learn the details of the scandalous conduct of the Reverend Charles MacArthur of the Congregational church who had been caught in a compromising situation with his soprano soloist, thus confirming the worst suspicions of the Methodists. And although Gerty MacDougal, 18, entered the bonds of holy matrimony with Cornelius Vandenheim, 82, just in time to inherit a Civil War pension for life, Temperance all but forgot to pass on the information to Sister Dickenson.
For Temperance Crandall was discovering that when tragedy and scandal touch one's own household the salt has lost its savor.
In the first place her mother was definitely sinking. Doctor Whitehead doubted that the old heart could stand the strain of another winter. Secondly Temperance's own Peter Brailsford was being seen so often with that wanton hussy Maxine Larabee that Temperance could have wept. Now, as she waited for Peter to come to breakfast, the harsh whisper of calloused fingers on hard knuckles filled the room.
Peter Brailsford, awaking from a sound sleep, was instantly aware that this was no usual day. He jumped out of bed with a shout, threw his flannel nightgown into a corner, dashed half a pitcher of icy water into the wash bowl, and with chattering teeth sponged his warm skin with a washcloth and rubbed dry with a rough towel. He danced around on his toes throwing a flurry of effective punches into some large, tough adversary, burst into a baritone solo which suddenly went soprano, pulled on long scratchy underwear, corduroy trousers, stiff cowhide boots, and a rough woolen shirt and hurried to the kitchen.
"Um! Pancakes!"
"Put on plenty of butter and mmaple syrup," said Temperance. "I ain't going to let any boy starve under my roof."
It was a bright, cold Saturday morning. Peter had begged the day off. Now he ran shouting with exuberance to join the crowd gathered on the Library steps. Maxine, the English teacher for chaperon, and nearly a dozen others were headed for Lake Koshkonong and a day in the woods.
They piled into an ancient Ford three deep and several on the running boards, chugged and steamed up hills and through valleys bright with maple and sumac until at last they came to Charley's Bluff where they unloaded and built a fire of driftwood on the beach between huge granite boulders. They raced, wrestled and shot at targets with a twenty-two, buried each other in the leaves and shook down hickory nuts.
At noon they gathered about the fire to roast wieners on sticks and to drink black coffee.
All went well until the couples paired off and Maxine decided to sing songs to the accompaniment of Thomas Carlyle's five-string banjo. Who did that half-witted son of a horse-doctor think he was, Peter wondered. They were making outrageous love, Peter thought. Starting off with such comparatively innocuous ditties as "Moonlight Bay" and "You're a Great Big Blue-Eyed Baby," they were soon harmonizing on "Cuddle Up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine," and "Every Little Movement Has a Meaning All Its Own." Peter began to wonder what sort of a girl Maxine was.
Then he was remorseful.
He was ashamed that he had let himself question Maxine's character. Certainly she had never let another boy kiss her or touch her breasts. She was sitting beside Thomas Carlyle singing songs because he had a banjo; but very soon now she would come over to Peter and they would wander off together. He mustn't let himself be jealous like this. Peter didn't think that he could trust himself if he should find that Maxine was in any way unfaithful. He thought that he would kill her and then himself, and that people would find them locked in each other's arms.
He would write a verse for their common gravestone which would be inscribed beneath twin turtle doves on pure white marble.
He told himself that he was talking nonsense, that no boy should keep his girl from singing songs and flirting a little. But he lay among the leaves, looking up at the sky and brooding over the loss of this precious day which was to mean so much to them. He had intended to ask her to marry him and had thought out just what he was going to say. He had intended to tell her that first love like theirs was always true love, and how their marriage wouldn't turn out like so many marriages. Their life together was going to be different.
He had envisioned the whole scene over and over. They would be cozily sitting in deep leaves in some protected ravine with nothing but the trees and sky to hear what they were saying. He would pour out his heart, and she would listen with rapt attention and turn up her lips for kisses.
He would tell her of his progress at the factory, and of the house they would have on Shannon's hill. They would talk about their children, and about life together after they were married. It was to have been an idyllic day. And now, a gaunt, freckle-faced, banjo-strumming young fool had spoiled it all. Peter felt like going over and pushing the boy in the face and picking up Maxine as he might a child and carrying her away. It would be easy to do. She was as light as a feather and always tripped along as though she were made of thistle down. Her flesh was like thistle down too. It made his head whirr to think of her soft flesh.
Always, always something came between Peter and happiness. He had been brooding and miserable for as long as he could remember, with only now and then a moment of intense happiness to repay him for his misery.
All his life he had worried about good and evil, about God and hell, about his features, his clothes, what people were thinking of him, and whether he would ever amount to anything. And now that he was in love he was experiencing a deeper and more exquisite misery than he could have imagined possible.
Maxine! Maxine!
But here she came at last, all radiant and smiling, her cheeks as red as apples. His heart leapt up in a moment and all his doubts left him. They walked along the beach, skipped stones on the thin ice and on the open stretches of water, dug a bird's nest out of the high, black banks of peat which skirt the beach to the south of Charley's Bluff. They discovered a little stream and followed its course back through the willows to a clearing where they explored a deserted cabin and a barn still filled with timothy and clover. From the wide door of the loft they could see across the lake to Lake House Point and to the Brailsford farm with its bright red barns and to the great cottonwood tree on Cottonwood Hill.
"You see that big tree," Peter said. "Not a man in the country can climb it, not even my father. But I'm going to climb it some day."
"Uh huh," said Maxine comfortably.
"I'm going to do lots of things in my life. Great things. I'm learning a heap about draftsmanship at the Trailer factory. I'm almost finished with my blue prints for that camp trailer. Maybe some day when I get to be famous...."
"Don't talk shop," Maxine said.
"Well, what shall we talk about?"
"Don't let's talk, beautiful boy."
She stopped his mouth with kisses and unashamed gave him his first lesson in love.
As was usual in Brailsford Junction death came before the doctor. Temperance was alone in the house when her mother died. She went up the stairs at six o'clock bringing the old lady a bite of supper and found her breathing heavily and rather chilled. She tried to reach Doctor Whitehead by telephone, but no one answered at the house or the office. She called out the upstairs window to a passing boy and told him to look for the doctor in front of the pool hall, then turned back to the stricken woman who opened her eyes once and smiled at Temperance feebly.
Temperance thought that the poor old thing was humming a hymn but when she leaned closer she realized that it was "Daisy Bell," a great favorite of her mother's. Thinking about it later she realized that her mother had never been what Brailsford Junction usually termed a Christian.
Even before the death rattle began, the thin face turned blue and the small hands clutching the counterpane were as cold as ice.
Temperance did not break down until she had pulled the sheet up over the face of the dead. Then a great flood of loneliness and grief came over her and she ran down the street in her house dress with her hair stringing out behind. Hardly knowing what she was doing she hurried up the stairs leading to the offices of Timothy Halleck and incidentally to the fly-blown waiting-room of Doctor Whitehead.
Brailsford Junction's leading physician was hanging up his prevaricating gilt placard, "Back in Half an Hour."
"Well, well, I was just heading for your home," he said. "I hope it ain't anything serious. How is your mother?"
"As well as could be expected with you on the case," cried Temperance, bitterly. "She died fifteen minutes ago."
"Now ain't that too bad," said Doctor Whitehead, squirting a stream of tobacco juice into a convenient corner. "I suppose you'll want a death certificate, eh?"
Temperance burst in upon Timothy Halleck who during that day had met a delegation of indignant mothers complaining about the oldest son of Crazy Jack Bailey, a young wife whose drunken husband beat her up every Saturday night with the stove poker, and the president of the bank who threatened to cut off his credit if he cancelled his mortgage against the Widow Morrison. For once his patience was tried beyond endurance.
"No, Miss Crandall, this time I will not listen to your gossip. I've heard all that I can stand for one day. Why can't you leave people alone? Let them live their lives and you live yours. For twenty years I've been wanting to tell you that you're a meddlesome, tale-bearing.... There, there now. Don't cry, Temperance. I realize I was a bit thoughtless. Why ... why, what is it?"
"I didn't know who else to tell," Temperance said, hiding her face in her hands. "Mother's dead, Timothy."
Temperance Crandall was to remember to her dying day that Timothy Halleck came around the desk and put his arm across her shoulders and told her that he would take care of the funeral arrangements.