She would board with the doctor’s family two weeks, resting. After that time she would be given her board, week by week, among the patrons of the school, as the custom was, for the pay was small. Her work at the Seminary had given her the teacher’s credential. “I got no uneasiness but you’ll be able to teach those youngones a right smart,” Dr. Bradley said. “First we must put a little meat on your bones.”
The food was set on the table by the doctor’s wife, a large, breathy woman who sank comfortably into her ampleness and formed a bulwark against which their children leaned. She talked habitually of her work, of the food she prepared. Theodosia saw that she stilled her curiosity about herself, saw that she turned it into delicate sauces and the creamy essence of meats, nourishment for the body. The woman set upon each preparation diligently, carefully choosing an egg, rejecting a cream, tasting, studying, whipping, shredding, kneading, stirring, each dish brought to the board with a gesture of deep concern as she slightly leaned toward it to give it a last scrutiny. These attitudes were her habitual replies to her husband. The table was laid in the kitchen, for the days were cool and here was the most snug warmth. The doctor came from his office, a little room at the end of the yard, and sat at the head of the table. Sometimes he brought a patient with him, or a traveler, for there was always an extra place prepared. The heavy savors would arise and mingle sweetly with their hungers, with the faint odor of smoke from the cooking fire where the wood burned away now that it was no longer wanted. The doctor brought a breath of cold air with him and this lingered about his clothing and spread through the odorous warmth. When he was seated he bowed his head briefly and asked a blessing in a psalm-like sentence, and the little children would suck at their spoons and put their hands into their empty plates, an ear attentive to the blessing, of which they understood nothing but the amen, their hungers like the hungers of some small gentle beasts. The ceremony of carving and of passing plates was swiftly over, subordinated to their cravings. “Begin on your plate while it’s hot,” the doctor would say. “No waiten. No use to make any more fuss. Eat your victuals while they’re warm.”
The men in the village road knew one another intimately, calling “John” or “Bill” or “Thad” back and forth, shouting orders or suggestions. Lee Cummings worked somewhere on a farm, but he came home with his team at nightfall, the empty wagon rattling through the roadway. Or beyond the vapors of her sleep she would hear a night-passer, the wheels of a buggy or a car on the road which lay but a few feet from the house. In the early morning the village cows were driven to common waste pasture which was indifferently owned, along the creek, and the boys who drove them would loiter to swap knives or to boast of some personal excellence. A man’s voice would call out a command or a threat and a boy would move after his cow, simulating hurry. Thad sold goods at the store. He would stand in the sun in the early morning waiting for trade to come to his door, shifting his feet, waiting to see what the weather would offer before he predicted the business of the day. Chickens ran in the road and plucked at the grain that dropped from passing wagons, but when feeding times came they gathered at old Oscar Turner’s door. Thad would call out a jest or a truism to passing friends.
“Yes, the rich they have their ice in summer, but the poor they have their’n in winter, and everything hit’s all evened up all round,” he called after some leaving companion, closing some tale or argument. He took credit to himself as a philosopher. Or again, as a prophet:
“Hit’ll rain all day, you may as well get ready for hit. See them-there hens out eaten grass in the rain? When you see hens out in the morning eaten grass in the rain, that’s a sure sign hit’ll rain all day.”
She walked through the lane toward the creek or returned to sit on Bradley’s doorstep, or she walked along the highroad past the store and the grist-mill, knowing no surprise that she should be there rather than anywhere else, and no surprise at the replies of the people that fell the one against another, as they talked of their tasks, every man knowing the other’s needs or peculiar quality. One of old Oscar Turner’s hens laid her eggs in an overturned barrel beside Thad’s door.
“I looked to see if she was on,” a man said, drawing back from the barrel.
“Is she on?”
“I wonder if old Oscar he’ll set her there.”
“A right public place.”