Up a Road Slowly (3 page)

Most of us carried our lunches in tin pails. Carlotta Berry had a basket with daisies painted all over the lid, which set her apart socially. We ate out under the trees when it was at all possible; in all the years I never became quite reconciled to eating inside with the smell of dust and winter garments and many kinds of food.

The problem of eating lunch with Aggie Kilpin was one of sharp annoyance to me for a long time, but by the end of my first year in the new school, I had found the solution.

Aggie was a mistreated, undernourished, and retarded girl, the youngest child of a shiftless, vicious father and a mother who had been beaten down by the cruelties of her life. Aggie must have been ten or eleven the first winter that I knew her and even then, she hardly recognized a dozen words in the primer from which Aunt Cordelia tried to teach her. She would stand beside my aunt's desk floundering through a page that the youngest child in the room could have read with ease, and after each mistake, looking around the room to grin and smirk as if her failures were evidences of some bit of cleverness on her part. It was dreadful to watch her; I averted my eyes from Aggie whenever possible.

But it was not Aggie's retardedness that made her a pariah among us; it was the fact that she stank to high Heaven. Aunt Cordelia had pled with the girl for years to treat herself to an occasional tub of soapy water, to shampoo her hair, to wash just once in a while the shabby dress which she wore every day of the year. Aggie would grimace and mouth some half-intelligible garble, but she never lost any of her overripe fragrance. Aunt Cordelia stopped trying to do anything about it after a while; as a matter of fact, she thought it quite possible that Aggie's family might have turned upon her if the girl had shown any disposition to be different.

I loathed poor Aggie, who seemed to have a perfect gift for making herself repulsive. She stood at the blackboard one day, I remember, and before the entire school used a word that all of us had been brought up to consider dirty. It was a slip of the tongue with poor Aggie, but I was shocked. Some of the big boys laughed. Danny didn't, and neither did my brother; they sat side by side studying the pages of their geography with frowning intensity and very red faces. None of the girls laughed except Carlotta, who didn't want to, but became hysterical and had to go outside to the pump and wash her face until she got hold of herself.

Then Aunt Cordelia demanded “Silence,” whereupon silence descended upon the room. Everybody was ashamed except Aggie; she was not accustomed to being the center of attention, and she threw sly glances at the boys who had laughed, preening herself a little at the success of something she had done, a something of which she was completely unconscious.

I used this incident to convince Aunt Cordelia that Aggie was no proper companion for the rest of us, who were considerably younger, that we had every right to shun her company. But Aunt Cordelia was not convinced. She saw to it that Aggie was included in all of our games, and what was hardest for us to bear, that Aggie was invited to join our little circle at lunchtime. Sometimes we would try sneaking away hurriedly at noon; inevitably we would hear a stern, “Julia—Elsa—Carlotta, I believe that you girls have forgotten to invite Agnes to go with you.”

And so we would have to ask her, and Aggie would come galloping eagerly, usually to
my
side because I was Aunt Cordelia's niece, and she seemed to know that I was under special pressure to be a decently behaving classmate. She called me “kid,” and she would throw her arm around my neck until I learned to dodge. Then when we were seated under the trees she would take out unappetizing-looking food, which usually smelled strongly of onion, and would eat noisily, laughing at everything that was said and inching nearer to my side each time I inched away from hers.

Finally I organized a seating arrangement and did not hesitate to use my prestige as Aunt Cordelia's niece in enforcing the rules.

“We will sit in a big circle,” I explained, “and the Queen will sit in the middle. Aggie is the oldest so she gets to be the Queen. The rest of us are subjects, and we are not allowed to look at the Queen while she eats, so of course, we will have to sit with our backs to her. Do you know, Aggie, that you could have us beheaded if we dared to look at you while you were eating?”

Aggie
didn't
know, and she didn't much enjoy her royal role after the first day or two. She wanted Lottie or Elsie to be the Queen—
not
Julie, because she wanted to be a peasant at Julie's side. But we were adamant. “You are the oldest, Aggie. It wouldn't be right for one of us to be the Queen.” And again, “Shame on you, Aggie; you ought to be proud that we are letting you be our Queen.”

The circle of peasants grew wider and wider as the days went by until our poor unlovely Queen sat in splendid isolation where she could not offend her subjects.

Aunt Cordelia discovered our game one day. We explained it to her with the same wide-eyed innocence that we had feigned when we explained it to Aggie. For a minute I was unsure; I thought I saw a storm approaching. But Aunt Cordelia was silent. She stood looking at us for a little while and, although I was pretty young, I detected amusement, sadness, and a kind of baffled uncertainty in her look. Finally she turned away without saying anything.

 

 

 

In the months before Danny and Chris and I were old enough to help Aunt Cordelia with her janitorial work, the three of us walked with Carlotta, Elsie Devers, and Jimmy Ferris down the road from school each evening. We ranged in age from seven to ten; Elsie and Jimmy were the two oldest and a little superior in their attitude because they knew about the intricacies of decimal fractions; Lottie was the prettiest, Chris was the tallest, I was the youngest and toughest, and Danny was the sweetest. I loved Danny secretly, or thought I did, but for all my love I didn't hesitate to hurt him one evening, an act that hurt
me
to remember for many years.

It started with Jimmy betting a million that Danny wouldn't dare kiss me, and Danny betting a million that he would, too, dare, all of which led to Chris and Jimmy pinning my arms behind me and Danny giving me a triumphant if unenthusiastic kiss. I was furious at all three of them, not so much because of the kiss as at the indignity of being thus kissed. It was Danny, however, who as soon as my arms were loosed, got the impact of a small hard fist that I had learned to use effectively as Chris could have testified. Danny's eye was swollen shut and rimmed with green and purple by the time we reached the big house in the grove and found Aunt Cordelia in her kitchen.

She bathed the eye of her favorite in cold water and held a silver spoon against the swollen flesh while she listened to the story of what happened. She said nothing at first, but after a while she quietly gave us her private opinion that a small boy's kiss was hardly in as poor taste as a small girl's physical violence. That, at least, was the gist of her remarks; after that she ignored me and asked Chris to go the rest of the way home with Danny and to apologize for his sister's behavior.

I slunk out to the surrounding woods, disgraced, heavyhearted, and resentful. Public opinion was against me as I could see by the prim looks that Carlotta and Elsie bent upon me. I had hurt someone who was gentle and good, someone I loved, and that brought a heaviness to my throat. Aunt Cordelia, however, had blamed me and not any of the three boys; I resented that so much that it almost overcame my remorse.

There was a cluster of slender birches just beyond a thicket of blackberry vines, four silver-barked trees arranged in a rough semicircle with intertwining branches forming a leafy roof. I called this cluster of trees my cathedral, and I came there often when life's problems became particularly heavy. It was in this retreat that I found shelter on that spring evening after I punched Danny.

I knelt in what would have been true penitence if Aunt Cordelia's rebuff had not kindled so much rage, and I gave the Divine Presence all the details. I asked Him to consider the fact that three boys, all bigger than I was, were the ones who had started the trouble, and that a lady who pretended to be so dedicated to fair play had behaved in a way that no one, certainly not He, could call fair.

“Why is it,” I demanded, “that Thou lettest these things always happen to
me
? Why dost Thou always let me be the one to get into trouble? I'd hate to think that Thou wert as unfair as Aunt Cordelia but it begins to look as if—”

I heard a slight stirring then, from behind one of the trees, and opening my eyes, saw Uncle Haskell, golf bag over his shoulder, leaning nonchalantly against one of the trees, laughter spread all over his face.

“You're snooping,” I told him angrily. “I was trying to pray, and you have no right to snoop when someone is praying.”

“I am
not
snooping, my darling niece, nor do I have the slightest interest in your prayers.” He laid the golf bag aside and sat down in front of me. “As a matter of fact, however, you weren't actually praying you know. You were giving Jehovah a penny lecture.”

I felt too depressed for an argument. When he asked me what the trouble was, I went through the story once again. “Aunt Cordelia isn't fair,” I said finally. “She likes boys better than girls; it's as plain as anything. She likes Chris and Danny and even Jimmy Ferris better than she likes me.”

Uncle Haskell laughed lightly. “The very trait she most resented in Mama. Ah, Cordelia!”

“You mean that my grandmother liked you better than Aunt Cordelia?”

“Naturally! I was male, beautiful, and brilliant; Cordelia was female, only so-so as to looks, bright enough, but certainly not scintillating.”

“What about my mother?”

“Oh, Ethel was a rather charming child, but by the time she came along, Mama was so wrapped up in me that she was happy to leave Ethel's upbringing to Cordelia.”

I sat for a time, tongue-tied with resentment. When I was finally able to speak at all, my protest was, even to my own ears, weak and inane.

“And do you really think that was right?” I asked, trying to put my anger into each syllable.

“My dear child, I couldn't care less as to whether it was right or not. All that concerns me is that I got the best of the bargain.” He looked out at the shadowy woods, his clear blue eyes shining with what appeared to be perfect contentment. Then his brows suddenly shot up in sharp V-shapes. “Or did I?” he asked, still smiling, but somewhat more subdued. “I suppose that's debatable. Well, you'll have to ask your aunt Cordelia. Or your father, the impeccable Adam.”

“What do you mean—‘impeccable'?” I demanded, getting ready to defend Father.

“Without defect. Faultless. Don't worry; Adam is so charmed by middle-class values that he will accept ‘impeccable' as a proper tribute. At least, I think so. And if he doesn't—” Uncle Haskell spread his beautiful, well-kept hands before him and took time to admire for a second the shining ovals of his nails. “It's strange,” he added after a little, “that both of my sisters should have fallen in love with high-minded, irreproachable gentlemen, so different from their brother—and so immeasurably more pedestrian.”

“Did Aunt Cordelia actually fall in love at one time?” I asked incredulously.

“My dear child, do you mean that a generation is growing up without having heard of Jonathan Eltwing? Certainly, your aunt Cordelia fell in love—I am not sure that she has ever pulled herself out of it.”

Jonathan Eltwing held no interest for me, nor did Aunt Cordelia's love life; however, new words held a fascination for me, and I was drawn to the word “impeccable.” It had a good sound; moreover it meant without defect. Well, good. I did a quick bit of generalization based upon what I had heard of Uncle Haskell's heavy drinking and the ultimate ravages it was bound to bring to his system.

“Is your liver impeccable?” I asked pointedly.

Another man with his weakness might have been angered, but not Uncle Haskell. His laughter rang through the woods.

“My liver is in an enviable state of health and well-being, dear niece,” he chortled. “Much to the consternation of all the prophets, my general health, including the condition of my liver is—yes, impeccable.”

I felt that I had, perhaps, been a little rude. “I'm glad,” I told him politely. “I hoped that your liver was impeccable.”

“I'll just bet you did.” He looked at me goodhumoredly. “You evidently weren't as solicitous about young Trevort's health an hour ago as you are about mine. Are you quite sure that you didn't knock some teeth out?”

“I don't think so. Just his eye. Not out, but I made it black.”

Uncle Haskell shook his head. “What Mama would have done to any brat who might have messed me up like that.” He smiled to himself. “Dear Mama,” he said, “dear, dear Mama.”

I got the impression that he wasn't nearly as fond of Grandmother as the many “dears” might have indicated.

“If I ever have a boy, I'm going to see that he gets the blame for the things he does just as much as the girls do,” I said.

“You're never going to get the chance to have a boy if you don't do something about that truculent little chin of yours.” He got to his feet, hoisted the golf bag to his shoulder, and stooped to tweak my nose. “Accept the fact that this is a man's world and learn how to play the game gracefully, my sweet.”

I watched him as he strode off with his characteristically buoyant step into the shadows. It occurred to me that there was no golf course within five miles, and that if there were, it would be too dark at that hour for a game; moreover, I suddenly realized that there were no clubs in the brown bag over Uncle Haskell's shoulder.