Weeds

by Edith Summers Kelley

At the far end of the ridge, the tobacco barn lifted its weathered bulk into the sky. Built on the highest point of land, the wide sweep of lonely fields and pastures dropped away from it in every direction. Its roofs fell from the ridgepole with the broad sweep of a buzzard's wing; and it seemed like some great bird brooding over the wide, solitary expanse, or like some gigantic, incense-breathing temple built by these poor shanty dwellers to their one god, the all-powerful god of toil. From its point of vantage it dominated the landscape, somber, strong, and implacable.

But to Jerry and Judith it was only a tobacco barn and they hurried to it as the factory hand goes to his daily dungeon.

By the time they reached the little stripping room that leaned wearily against the tobacco barn, it would be light enough to begin to strip. They shared this stripping room with Hat and Luke, the two couples working at opposite ends of the little oblong box. Sometimes Hat and Luke would be there already, and in that case the fire would be lighted. If they were the first to arrive, Jerry would quickly light the fire in the little rusty box stove and they would settle down to work.

All day long they would stand stripping the soft brown silk leaves from the thick, woody brown stalks, tying them in bunches and assorting them according to color and texture. The softest, silkiest, most pliable, and lightest colored leaves were the best in quality. Descending from this there were many grades ending in the scraggy, reddish top leaves, torn and discolored leaves and leaves that had been touched by frost.

At noon the two couples, still at opposite ends of the room, would eat the lunches that they had brought with them and immediately fall to work again, working steadily until the short winter day was over and the twilight blurred the shades of brown before their eyes.

It was strange and unnatural how little conversation went on among these four young people as they stood working together day after day. Judith would have liked to talk and often wondered why she and the others did not talk more. Sometimes she made a deliberate attempt to start conversation; but it always ended in nothing. There hung over them always a heavy air of self-consciousness and constraint that smothered all natural spontaneity. There were several private and personal reasons for this. Jerry continued to nurse the old grievance of the stolen tobacco plants, and added to it the suspicion that Luke was getting away with some of the cream of his crop. He could steal a good many bunches without the possibility of their being missed, and Jerry opined that he was just the man to do it.

The minds of Hat and Luke dwelt largely upon the subject of money. They had one all-consuming desire in common, which was to get their crop stripped and on the market before the price fell. In this at least they were at one; aside from it their thoughts and desires were their own. Hat meditated upon what she had been reading in her latest copy of the "Farm Wife's Friend," mused upon her wrongs and Luke's shortcomings, and toyed gingerly, yet deliciously with thoughts of intrigue. Sometimes she lifted her black eyes to Jerry and saw that he was strong, healthy and handsome, then forgot him the next moment in thoughts of some imaginary lover.

Luke, in the short intervals of thoughts of gain, thought about the fox that he had hunted the night before and the good swigs of whiskey that he had had at Bob Crupper's out of a gallon jug stopped with a corncob. And he remembered how good the whiskey had made him feel. Not infrequently his mind wandered from these thoughts to dally with meditations more vague but more attractive. Sometimes when Judith lifted her head she met his little blue eyes fixed upon her with a look, the meaning of which was unmistakable. Instantly he would withdraw his eyes and work furiously at his task.

Once Jerry surprised one of these looks. His face flushed a dark, angry red and his fist involuntarily doubled, the knuckles protruding formidably. He opened his mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again. Luke had not noticed that he had been observed; and Judith, absorbed in her work of sorting, had not seen either Luke or Jerry. The little pantomime had taken only a second to perform and was gone as though nothing had happened.