Scarlet Sister Mary (1928, Bobbs-Merrill Company)/Chapter 29
A wide-seated split-bottom chair with a pillow for a mattress, made a fine bed for Emma, who seemed glad enough to sleep and roused only for food or fresh clothes. Then she wailed pitifully and shook her fists and waved her thin legs about. Mary woke at her first whimper and, gathering her up close in her arms, soothed her with low crooning words, fed her with Nan's sweet rich milk, and patted her back to sleep again.
Unex slept beside Emma on a pallet of quilts on the floor with his feet up near the fire, for the night stayed damp and chilly and his blood was hard to warm after that terrible wetting the rain had put on him.
Dawn brought a stiff wind that cleared the clouds out of the sky, and a winter sun came out white and warm, drying off the drenched earth. Before sunrise Mary mended the fire which blazed up bright in spite of the wet wood, but Unex slept on heavily. Poor fellow. How long and narrow he was stretched out there on the floor. His body seemed shrunken, his face dry and ashy, deep black shadows lay under his eyes. Sorrow had left its mark on him. Nothing but time could heal him, but good food and rest and love would help him.
When Unex woke, he said his bones ached, his head felt heavy and a misery had his insides restless, but Seraphine hurried about, waking the children for Mary, helping them dress, laughing and playing with them, stirring a pot, cooking the sausages while Keepsie milked the cow, and the cabin became gay with happiness except for Unex's sadness. He tried hard to seem glad, to meet the children who had come into the world since he went away, but his heart was in none of it; Mary could see that. Maybe he was hurt with her having so many children; maybe he was sick and weary from his long journey, sad that Emma's little mother was dead.
Big Boy came in for breakfast, and ate greedily, a great pile of hominy wet with sausage gravy, great hunks of sausage, one after another; it did Mary's heart good to see such an appetite; but Unex shuddered when he looked at the nice panful of victuals she fixed for him. He wanted nothing but a cupful of sweetened water. He was thirsty, he craved things to drink, yet when he swallowed them down, they burned his insides. A strange thing ailed him.
The news of Unex's arrival spread with speed, and all the Quarter people hastened to greet him and bid him welcome home. Everybody brought something; the cabin table was full of good things, but he ate nothing. By daylight his hands looked bonier than ever, the hollows in his neck deeper. His shoulders were stooped; his feet were heavy and dragged him along slowly, wearily. Once he reeled, then he sat quickly down in a chair and leaned his face forward in his hands. Unex was sick. Still, when the neighbors kept coming with their hands filled with gifts: chickens, eggs, fresh-baked bread, bottles of last spring's sweet blackberry wine, this fall's scuppernong wine, good smooth corn liquor, he sat up straight and talked to them, with a smile on his thin features. He said he was very tired from his long journey and trying to care for Emma, but he had a special word for everybody, the children as well as the grown people.
Maum Hannah was overjoyed to see him and was set on feeding him plenty of nourishing food right at once. He looked starved out to her. Hot meal gruel made with milk would strengthen him. He was too big to go without victuals; he must swallow some down whether he felt like it or not. But Unex craved no food, he wanted cool spring water, not sweetened water or hot table tea. Soups and gruels and smelly high-seasoned food made him retch.
Mary hovered about, feeding her babies and Emma, and watching Unex. She noticed with terror how his hands shook and his lips trembled when he talked, how his eyes had a strange gleam, making them bright like glass, although a shadow lay under them.
She put him a chair outside in the yard where the sun shone warm and bright, and the fresh cool air fell soft from a clear blue sky. He sat there for a short while, but he soon became tired, for the people crowded around him, laughing, talking. The hens were too noisy with their scratching and clucking; Nan's bleating was too sorrowful, the cock's crow too mournful; the flies settled on him, crawling, biting; the squealing of the shoat in the pen made him restless. It was too much for his strength, he would be better off inside, lying down and resting on a bed.
Mary's heart turned cold. Unex was sick. His body was hot, his hands and feet were cold. His eyes burned red, as oil lamps burn just before they go out.
Wagons went creaking past, taking the people to church, and by noon the Quarters were almost silent, then Unex fell into a deep sleep. Seraphine took all the babies to Maum Hannah's house so their cooing and crying would not dis, turb Unex's rest.
Mary looked at him from time to time, huddled there on the bed, sometimes asleep, sometimes awake, without desire for food or for talk, and, it seemed to her, with little desire to live. Unex was sick, bad sick. She went to the open window and stood looking out so he could not see her tears.
She had gone through a good deal, this fall, without weakening, but now she felt her strength giving away. Unex was her heart-string. If ne died she could not, could not bear it.
He lay gazing at her, his big pitiful eyes asking dumbly for help. She must not let him see how sad she felt, that would be against him. She must smile and be cheerful, make him believe he would soon be well.
"Would you drink a lil chicken soup now, if I fetch em to you, son?" she asked cheerfully.
"Not now, Si May-e, le me wait a lil while. You come set by me. Put you hand on my head like you used to when I was a lil boy. Dat's de way. You hand feels so cool an' good. It makes my head feel better a-ready."
Seraphine tiptoed in to say it was time to feed the babies, and Mary whispered to her to milk Nan and the cow and feed them fresh milk and give them a taste of pot-liquor out of the pot of greens on the hearth. Her own breasts had no milk now. They were empty and dry.
"You better eat some victuals yousef, Si May-e. You ain' to starve dem chillen. If Unex ain' gwine to drink dat gruel, whyn' you drink em? It ain' no use to waste em."
Mary swallowed down a cupful of the creamy white soup and asked for a cupful more. It was good and strength-giving. She did need food, all she could hold, to help her keep up a brave heart. She would nurse Unex back to wellness, back to life. Death should not have him. Not Unex.
A hang-dog look came into his eyes. The hot fever that scourged him quenched their bright ness and made them milky. His skin was hot and dry. His gaunt bony body groveled and rolled with pain. He groaned and begged for cool water from the spring. Always water. Cool water. The paper suitcase was empty except for a few rags, but he kept calling his dead wife to fetch it to him so he could change the baby's clothes.
His calling and calling for her and for water, made the hair rise on Mary's head. It was his call for Life. The soup she made for him was always too hot or too cold or too luke-warm. Chicken soup, okra soup, pigeon soup, all sickened him. He wanted water. Cool water, fresh from the spring. If he had strength in his legs he would take the path down the hill and find a smooth sandy place in the branch. He would stretch his full length in the cool water. The fever had the blood in his veins turned to steam. He wanted water. Cool spring water. It would dull the hot thorns in his belly.
People in towns have no cool spring water, or shade or green woods. Their shade is filth. Their sunshine is hot sidewalk breath. Last year's breath. Last year's sickening smell. Their streets hold the fever that makes thorns grow in your belly, thorns that never stay still, that stick clear up into your heart.
Day after day melted into long black nights, and Unex grew steadily worse. Sometimes he thought he was falling and cried out for Mary to catch him. She would hold his hot hand tight and try to make him understand he was dreaming, but his fear often frightened her too. An agony of dread chilled her every time she leaned low to hear his whispered words, for his breath had the faint sweet smell that always comes ahead of Death.
The neighbors were kind as could be. Two of the women stayed with her all the time and kept the fire burning, the floor scoured, the house clean, the pots boiling, the water buckets full. But Mary and Maum Hannah scarcely took off their clothes or slept more than an hour at a time.
One night, when Unex seemed to be a little better, Maum Hannah went home to catch a short nap. The women with Mary nodded in their chairs, for she sat beside the bed watching. The tide was coming in, nothing would happen before it turned. God knew what the ebb tide might bring. She could not close her eyes until that was past. When a sudden short shudder ran through Unex from head to foot, terror shook her, but she set her teeth against it and, putting her lips close to his ear, whispered:
"I'm right side you, honey. Go back to sleep. Si May-e ain' gwine leave you."
His eyes had cleared, his senses had come back. He knew what he was saying.
"Hold my hand, Si May-e—I got de rattle—my legs is cold to my knees" he whispered.
"Is you want me to call de people, son? Does you want em to come an' sing?"
He shook his head. No, he did not want them.
"I want you to hold my hand, Si May-e.—E is gittin dark."
"E ain' dark, son, de lamp is a-burnin." But as she said it she could see by the lamp's dim light how a deeper darkness was clouding his big sad eyes.
"Son—is you f'aid? Tell Si May-e."
"I'm cold, Si May-e"
"Does you want me to lay aside you on de bed an' warm you, son?"
Without waiting for him to say yes, she eased herself down close to him and put her arms around him. How thin he was, and so weak.
"Now, now," she whispered in his ear, "Si May-e is got you right in e arms. Don' be f'aid, honey.—Death ain' gwine to suffer you—no—all de worst is done over—shut you eyes, sonny, an' go sleep"
She wanted to sob, to scream out with grief, but she held herself still while his breath grew less and less. Death was wrenching his life out of his body.
"Sonny," she whispered. "Sonny," she called him again with her lips pressed close to his ear. He did not answer although he was warm and yielding. She tried to pray, but it was no use.
She choked back a sob. She must not cry yet. He might not be gone and would hear her. She held him tighter, closer in her arms, as if he were a baby again and sleeping too sound to be wakened.
Death took him. For all her trying and loving and pleading with God to leave him here with her, he was gone. God knew he was the only heart-child she had. The others were the fruit of eye-love, the children of her flesh, yet they were strong and hearty; and her joy-child, her first-born, her jewel, July's son, was gone.
Grief smothered her. Her heart was a rock in her breast. She hurried to the window and opened her mouth wide to catch enough air to breathe. She could hear herself moaning softly, not bawling, not beating her head against the wall as women do when they lose out in a fight with Death. Sorrow had her dumb. It had her body weighted down. Her eyelids were numb. Her eyes were too parched for tears.
She looked up at the sky where her precious child's soul was wandering about seeking its way to Heaven and God. The battered horn of an old red moon hung low above the dawn. The stars were pale and dim, poor lamps to light a lonely soul climbing that steep road trying to find its long way home.
The earth lay still and black. The high sky might have the dead boy's clean soul, but the greedy old ground would get his body, his poor, thin, fever-wasted body, and turn it hack into dust.