O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 — Wild Earth, part 2

* * * * * She had been married a week now, and the week had been the fairest of fair weather, indoors as well as out.

Now she sat at the clumsy old secretary desk to write a letter to Miss Tolman.

...

For all you said, and hought I was crazy, I am just as happy as I can be.

Wes is kind and full of fun, and he works very hard.

This farm is a pretty place, and the house is ten times as big as your shop.

I

am learning to cook and churn butter, and Aunt Dolcey, the old coloured woman, teaches me and doesn't laugh when I am dumb.

She says, and Wes does, too, that I am a born farmer's wife, and I think maybe I am, for I like it in the country more than I ever thought I'd like any place, and I don't get a bit lonely.

You ought to see our wheat--it's like green satin, only prettier.

I hope the rheumatism in your hands is better, and that you have got somebody good in my place.

Cousin Lorena, I am a very lucky girl to fall in love with such a nice man, with a piece of property and a flivver, even if it is an old one; but better than all that he has is Wes himself, for you never saw a better, kinder man.

He is not rough and does not chew tobacco as you thought maybe he did, only smokes a pipe once in a while.

I made a sweet-potato custard yesterday, and he said it was the best he ever tasted.

He says I must not do anything that is too hard for me, but I am going to drop seed corn.

We have been down to town once, and went to the movies and bought some candy, and he wanted to buy me a new hat, but I wouldn't let him.

He is so kind....

* * * * * She had written in a glow of happiness, trying to tell everything and finding it hard to get it into words that would allay Cousin Lorena's forebodings and impress her properly.

Annie frowned at the paper.

How inform a bilious, middle-aged prophet of evil that she had not only wedded prosperity and industry but also a glorious young demigod whose tenderness and goodness passed belief?

Suddenly she heard a voice, loud, angry, incoherent.

She dropped the pen and ran out to the kitchen door.

Wes stood there, confronting Uncle Zenas--a Wes she had never dreamed could exist.

The vein on his forehead was black and swollen; indeed his whole face was distorted with rage.

"You damned old liar--don't you tell me again you put that pitchfork away when I found it myself in the stable behind the mare's stall.

Pretty business if she'd knocked it down and run one of the tines into her."

"Marse Wes, you haddat pitchfo'k dere yo'se'f dis mawnin'; I ain't nevah touch dat pitchfo'k." Unc' Zenas's voice was low and even.

Behind Wes's back Aunt Dolcey made signs to her husband for silence.

"I tell you you're a liar, and by rights I ought to cut your lying tongue out of your head!

I haven't even seen that pitchfork for three days, and when I went to look for it just now I found it in the stable where you'd had it cleaning out the stalls.

Now shut up and get out about your work!

Don't let me hear another word out of you!"

Unc' Zenas turned away and Wes, without a word or look at the two women, strode after him.

Annie, shaken, caught Aunt Dolcey's arm.

"Oh, Aunt Dolcey," she breathed, "what on earth was the matter?"

Aunt Dolcey drew her into the kitchen.

"Nuffin' but Marse Wes flyin' int' one his bad Dean temper fits, honey," said the old woman "No use to min' him.

No use payin' any 'tention.

Dat why I waggle my head at Zenas to say nuffin' back.

Talk back to Marse Wes when he's high-flyin' on'y meks things worse."

Annie beheld an abyss yawning beneath her feet.

"Yes, but, Aunt Dolcey--what's the sense in talking that way?

It wasn't anything, just a pitchfork out of place.

And he went on so.

And he looked so dreadful."

Aunt Dolcey rattled her pans.

"I been dreadin' dis moment, whenas you firs' see Marse Wes in his anger.

Zenas an' me, we's use to it.

Marse Wes dataway; som'n go wrong he fly off de handle.

Zenas ain't mislay no pitchfo'k--I seed Marse Wes mahse'f wid dat pitchfo'k dis mawnin'.

But eve'y once in a while he git a temper fit an' blow off he mouf like dat.

Sometimes he strike some-buddy--but he doan often strike Zenas.

Sometimes he git mad at oner de hosses an' frail it proper.

Dat high temper run in de Dean fambly, chile.

Dey gits mad, an' dey flies off, an' you just got to stan' it."

"But does he--does he get over it quick?"

The old negress shook her head.

"He'll be mighty quiet come suppeh-time, not talkin' much, lookin' dahk.

Walk light, an' don't say nuffin' rile him up, eve'ything all right.

T'-morrow mawnin' come, he's outer it."

Her voice rose into a minor cadence, almost a chant.

"Chile, it's a dahk shadder on all de Deans--dey all mahked wid dat frown on deir foreheads, an' dey all got dahk hours come to um.

Marse Wes's maw she fade out an' die caze she cain' stan' no such.

His grammaw, she leave his grampaw.

An' so on back.

Ontell some ooman marry a Dean who kin chase dat debbil outer him, jes so long de Dean men lib in de shadder.

I tole you, ain' I, de day you come, sperrit an' sense carry you fur, but it's de haht gwine carry you froo.

Now you un'stan'."

Yes, Annie understood, imperfectly.

So might Red Riding Hood have understood when the wolf suddenly appeared beside her peaceful pathway.

She asked one more question, "Does he get mad often?"

and waited, trembling, for the answer.

Aunt Dolcey stuck out her underlip.

"Sometime he do, en den again, sometime he doan'.

Mos' giner'ly he do."

Annie walked back to her letter, and looked at its last phrase.

She picked up the pen, but did not write.

Then with a quick intake of breath she took her first conscious step in the path of loyal wifehood.

She added, writing fast: "He is the best man that ever lived, I do believe," and signed her name, folded the letter and sealed it in its envelope as quickly as she could.

At supper she watched Wes.

He was, as Aunt Dolcey had predicted, very silent; the vein in his forehead still twitched menacingly and the pupils of his eyes were distended until the colour about them disappeared in blackness.

After he had eaten he went outside and smoked, while Annie sat fiddling with a bit of sewing and dreading she knew not what.

But nothing happened.

Presently he came in, announced that he was tired and had a hard day before him to-morrow, and thought he'd go to bed.

Long after he had fallen into immobile slumber Annie lay beside him, awake, marvelling how suddenly he had become a stranger, almost an ogre.

Yet she loved him and yearned to him.

The impulse that had made her finish the letter to Cousin Lorena in the same spirit in which she had begun it called her to pity and help him.

She must conceal his weakness from their world.

She listened to his deep, regular breathing, she put her hand against his hard palm.

"I'm his wife," thought Annie Dean with inarticulate tenderness.

"I'm going to try to be everything a wife ought to be."

The next morning he was his old self again, laughing, joking, teasing her as usual.

The scene of yesterday seemed to have gone utterly from his memory, though he must have known that she had seen and heard it.

But he made no allusion to it, nor did she.

The farm work was pressing; the warm spring days foretold an early season.

As he went whistling out toward the barn Annie heard him salute Unc' Zenas with familiar friendliness: "How's tricks this morning?

Think the Jersey'll be fresh next week?"

Aunt Dolcey heard him, too, and she and Annie exchanged long glances.

The old woman's said, "You see--what I told you was true"; and the young woman's answered, "Yes, I see, and I understand.

I'm going to see it through."

But something in her youth had definitely vanished, as it always does when responsibility lays its heavy hand on us.

She went about her new life questioningly eager for understanding.

There was so much for her to see and learn--the erratic ways of setting hens, the care of foolish little baby chicks; the spring house, cool and damp and gray-walled, with its trickle of cold water forever eddying about the crocks of cream-topped milk; the garden making, left to her and Aunt Dolcey after the first spading; the various messes and mashes to be prepared for cows with calf; the use of the stored vegetables and fruits, and meat dried and salted in such generous quantity that she marvelled at it.

All the farm woman's primer she learned, bit by bit, seeing how it supplemented and harmonized with that life of the fields that so engrossed and commanded Wes.

But through it all, beneath it all, she found herself waiting, with dread, for another outburst.

Against whom would it be this time--Unc' Zenas again--Aunt Dolcey--one of the animals--or perhaps herself?

She wondered if she could bear it if he turned on her.

She was working in the spring house mixing cream with curd for cottage cheese, very busy and anxious over it, for this was her first essay alone, when she heard Wes again in anger.

She dropped her spoon, but did not go to look, only concentrated herself to listen.

This time he was cursing one of his horses, and she could hear the stinging whish of a whip, a wicked and sinister emphasis to the beast's snorting and frenzied thumping of hoofs.

Her blue eyes dilated with fear; she knew in what pain and fright the horse must be lunging under those blows.

And Wes, raucous, violent, his mouth foul with unclean words--only this morning he had told her that when Sunday came they'd go into the woods and find a wild clematis to plant beside the front door.

Wild clematis!

She could have laughed at the irony of it.

At last she could bear it no longer; she put her hands to her ears to shut out the hideousness of it.

After an interminable wait she took them down.

He had stopped--there was silence--but she heard footsteps outside, and she literally cowered into the darkest corner of the spring house.

But it was only Aunt Dolcey, her lips set in a line of endurance.

"I was lookin' erbout foh you, honey," she said reassuringly.

"I di'n' know where you was, en den I remembah you come off down heah.

Let Aunt Dolcey finish up dat cheese."

"What--what started him?"

asked Annie piteously.

"I doan' jes' know--sound' like one de big team di'n' go inter his right stall, er som'n like dat.

It's always som'n triflin', en no 'count.

But land, he'll be ovah it come night.

Doan' look so white en skeer, chile."

"But--but I been thinking--what if he might turn on me--what if he'd strike me?

Aunt Dolcey--did he ever strike you?"

"Oncet."

"Oh, Aunt Dolcey, what did you do?"

Something flared in Aunt Dolcey's eyes that was as old as her race.

She looked past Annie as if she saw something she rather relished;

just so her ancestors must have looked when they were dancing before a bloodstained Congo fetish.

"You see dat big white scar on Marse Wes' lef' wris'?

When he struck me I mahk him dere wid my hot flatiron.

Am' no man eveh gwine lif' his hand to Dolcey, no matter who."

A shrewd question came to Annie: "Aunt Dolcey, did he ever strike you again?"

"No, ma'am, no 'ndeedy, he didn'.

Wil' Marse Wes may be, but he ain' no crazy man.

It's dat ole debbil in his nature, Miss Annie, honey.

En ef ever once som'n tremenjus happen to Marse Wes, dat debbil'll be cas' out.

But hit's got to be stronger en mo' pow'ful dan he is.

Not 'ligion, fer 'ligion goes f'm de outside in.

Som'n got to come from inside Marse Wes out befo' dat ole debbil is laid."

This was meagre comfort, and Annie did not follow the primitive psychology of it.

She only knew that into her happiness there had come again the darkening of a fear, fear that was to be her devil, no less terrible because his presence was for the most part veiled.

But again she steeled her courage.

"I won't let him spoil everything;

I won't let him make me afraid of him," she vowed, seeing Wes in his silent mood that night.

"I won't be afraid of him.

I wish I could cut that old vein out of his forehead.

I hate it--it's just as if it was the thing that starts him.

Never seems as if it was part of the real Wes, my Wes."

In the depths of the woods, on Sunday, she stood by while he dug up the wild clematis--stood so he could not see her lips quiver--and she put her clenched hands behind her for fear they, too, would betray her.

"Wes," she asked, "what made you get so mad last Thursday and beat old Pomp so?"

He turned toward her in genuine surprise.

"I wasn't mad; not much, that is.

And all I laid on Pomp's tough old hide couldn't hurt him.

He's as mean as a mule, that old scoundrel.

Gets me riled every once in a while."

"I wish you wouldn't ever do it again.

It scared me almost to death."

"Scared you!"

he laughed.

"Oh, Annie, you little silly--you aren't scared of me.

Now don't let on you are.

What you doing--trying to kid me?

There, ain't that a splendid plant?

I believe I'll take back a couple shovelfuls this rich wood earth to put in under it.

It'll never know it's not at home."

"Yes, but, Wes--I wish you'd promise me something."

"Promise you anything."

"Then--promise me not to get mad and beat the horses any more or holler at Unc' Zenas.

I don't like it."

"Annie, you little simp--what's the matter with you?

A fellow's got to let off steam once in a while, and if you'd been pestered like I have with Unc' Zenas's ornery trifling spells and old Pomp's general cussedness, you'd wonder that I don't get mad and stay mad every minute.

Don't let's talk any more about it.

Say, look there--there's a scarlet tanager!

Ain't it pretty?

Shyest bird there is, but up here in the woods there's a couple pairs 'most every year.

Pull that old newspaper up round the earth a little, so's I can get a better holt of it.

That's the girl.

Gee, I never knew what fun it'd be to have a wife who'd be so darn chummy as you are.

How d'you like your husband, Mrs. Dean?

Ain't it about time you said something nice to the poor feller instead of scolding his lights and liver out of place on a nice peaceful Sabbath day?

You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

She pushed back the fear devil and answered his smile.

'No, sir, I'm not going to say anything nice to my husband.

I'll tell you a secret about him--he's awful stuck on himself now."

"Why shouldn't he be?

Look who he picked out to marry."

Who could stand against such beguiling?

Annie looked up at him and saw his Dean mark give a little mocking twitch as if it rejoiced in her thwarting.

But she said no more; and they planted the wild clematis with its black woods earth beneath at the side of the front door, and Annie twisted its pliable green stems round one of the posts of the little benched entrance.

Her hands moved deftly, and Wes, who had finished firming the earth about the plant, watched them.

"Your little paws are gettin' awful brown," he said.

"I remember that first day, in the shop, how white they were--and how quick they moved.

You wrapped up them aprons like somethin' was after you, and I was trying to get my nerve up to speak to you."

"Tryin' to get up your nerve!

I reckon it wasn't much effort.

There, don't that vine look's if it grew there of itself?"

"Yeh--it looks fine."

He sat down on the bench and pulled her down beside him, his arm about her.

"Annie, baby, are y' happy?"

She put her cheek against his shoulder and shut her eyes.

"I'm so happy I wouldn't darst be any happier."

"You're not sorry you picked up with me so quick?

You don't wish't you'd stayed down in Balt'mer and got you a city beau?"

"I'd rather be with you--here--than any place in the world.

And, Wes--I think you're the best and kindest man that ever lived.

I

wouldn't have you changed, any way, one little bit."

She defied her fears and that mocking, twitching vein with the words.

"Same here.

Made to order for me, you were.

First minute I looked in those round blue eyes of yours I knew it."

"It isn't possible," she thought.

"It isn't possible that he can get so mad and be so dreadful.

Maybe if I can make him think he's awful good and kind"--oh, simple subtlety--"believe he is, too, and he'll stop getting such spells.

Oh, if he would always be just like this!"

But it was only two days later when she called him to help her; there was a hen that was possessed to brood, and Aunt Dolcey had declared that it was too late, that summer chickens never thrived.

"I can't get her out, Wes," said Annie.

"She's 'way in under the stable, and she pecks at me so mean.

You got longer arms'n me--you reach in and grab her."

He came, smiling.

He reached in and grabbed, and the incensed biddy pecked viciously.

In a flash his anger was on him.

He snatched again, and this time brought out the creature and dropped her with wrung neck, a mass of quivering feathers and horribly jerking feet, before Annie.

"I reckon that'll learn the old crow!"

he snarled, and strode away.

"We might's well have soup for supper," remarked Aunt Dolcey, coming on the scene a moment later.

"Dere, chile, what's a chicken, anyway?"

"It's not that," said Annie briefly; "but he makes me afraid of him.

If I get too afraid of him I'll stop caring anything about him.

I

don't want to do that."

"Den," answered Aunt Dolcey with equal brevity, "you got think up some manner er means to dribe his debbil out.

Like I done tol' you."

"Yes, but----" Aunt Dolcey paused, holding the carcass of the chicken in her hands, and faced her.

"Dishyer ain' nuthin'.

Wait tell he gits one his still spells, whenas he doan' speak ter nobody an' doan' do no work.

Why ain' we got no seed potaters?

Marse Wes he took a contrairy spell an' he wouldn't dig 'em, an' he wouldn't let Zenas tech 'em needer.

Me, I went out moonlight nights an' dug some to eat an' hid 'em in de cellar.

Miss Annie, you doan' know nuffin' erbout de Dean temper yit."

They went silently to the house.

Aunt Dolcey stopped in the kitchen and Annie went on into the living room.

There on the walls hung the pictures of Wes's father and mother, cabinet photographs framed square in light wood.

Annie looked at those pictured faces in accusing inquiry.

Why had they bequeathed Wes such a legacy?

In his father's face, despite the beard that was the fashion of those days, there was the same unmistakable pride and passion of Wes to-day.

And his mother was a meek woman who could not live and endure the Dean temper.

Well, Annie was not going to be meek.

She thought with satisfaction of Aunt Dolcey and the hot flatiron.

The fact that he had never lifted finger to Aunt Dolcey again proved that if one person could thus conquer him, so might another.

Was she, his wife, to be less resourceful, less self-respecting than that old Negro woman?

Was she to endure what Aunt Dolcey would not?

Suddenly she snatched out the little old family album from its place in the top of the desk secretary, an old-fashioned affair bound in shabby brown leather with two gilt clasps.

Here were more pictures of the Dean line--his grandfather, more bearded than his father, his Dean vein even more prominent; his grandmother, another meek woman.

"Probably the old wretch beat her," thought Annie angrily.

Another page and here was great-grandfather himself, in middle age, his picture--a faded daguerreotype--showing him in his Sunday best, but plainly in no Sunday mood.

"Looks like a pirate," was Annie's comment.

There was no picture of great-grandmother.

"Probably he killed her off too young, before she had time to get her picture taken."

And Annie's eyes darted blue fire at the supposed culprit.

She shook her brown little fist at him.

"You started all this," she said aloud.

"You began it.

If you'd had a wife who'd've stood up to you you'd never got drunk and killed a man, and you wouldn't have left your family a nasty old mad vein in the middle of their foreheads, looking perfectly unChristian.

I just wish I had you here, you old scoundrel!

I'll bet I'd tell you something that'd make your ears smart."

She banged to the album and put it in its place.

"Well, not me!"

said Annie.

"Not me!

I'm not going to be bullied and scared to death by any man with a bad temper, and the very next time Mister Wes flies off the handle and raises Cain I'm going to raise Cain, two to his one.

I won't be scared!

I won't be a little gump and take such actions off any man.

We'll see!"

It is easy enough to be bold and resolute and threaten a picture.

It is easy enough to plot action either before or after the need for it arises.

But when it comes to raising Cain two to your husband's one, and that husband has been a long and successful cultivator of that particular crop--why, that is quite a different thing.

Besides, as it happened, Annie did not wholly lack sympathy for his next outburst, which was directed toward a tramp, a bold dirty creature who appeared one morning at the kitchen door and asked for food.

"You two Janes all by your lonesome here?"

he asked, stepping in.

Wes had come into the house for another shirt--he had split the one he was wearing in a mighty bout with the grubbing hoe--and he entered the kitchen from the inner door just in time to catch the words.

He leaped and struck in one movement, and it carried the tramp and himself outside on the grass of the drying yard.

The tramp was a burly man, and after the surprise of the attack he attempted to fight.

He might as well have battled with a locomotive going full speed.

"What you doin' way up here, you lousy loafer?"

demanded Wes between blows.

"Get to hell out of here before I kill you, like you deserve, comin' into my house and scarin' women.

I've a great mind to get my gun and blow you full of holes."

In two minutes the tramp was running full speed toward the road, followed by Wes, who assisted his flight with kicks whenever he could reach him.

After twenty minutes or so the victor came back.

His eyes were red with rage that possessed him.

He did not stop to speak, but hurried out his rackety little car and was gone.

Later they found out he had overtaken the tramp, fought him again, knocked him out, and then, roping him, had taken him to the nearest constable and seen him committed to jail.

But the encounter left him strange and silent for a week, and his Dean mark twitched and leaped in triumph.