A Death In The Family (11 page)

“Tell you what I’ll do,” his father said, “I’ll sing you one song, and then you be a good boy and go on to sleep. Will you do that?” The child pressed his forehead upward against the strong warm hand and nodded.

“What’ll we sing?” his father asked.

“Froggy would a wooin go,” said the child; it was the longest.

“At’s a long one,” his father said, “at’s a long old song. You won’t ever be awake that long, will you?”

He nodded.

“Ah right,” said his father; and the child took a fresh hold on Jackie and settled back looking up at him. He sang very low and very quietly:
Frog he would a wooin’ go uh-hooooo!, Frog he would go wooin’ go uh
-hooooo, uh-hoooooo, and all about the courting-clothes the frog wore, and about the difficulties and ultimate success of the courtship and what several of the neighbors said and who the preacher would be and what he said about the match, uhhoooo, and finally, what will the weddin supper be uhooooo, catfish balls and sassafras tea uhhoooo, while he gazed at the wall and the child gazed up into his eyes which did not look at him and into the singing face in the dark. Every couple of verses or so the father glanced down, but the child’s eyes were as darkly and steadfastly open at the end of the long song as at the beginning, though it was beginning to be an effort for him.

He was amused and pleased. Once he got started singing, he always loved to sing. There were ever so many of the old songs that he knew, which he liked best, and also some of the popular songs; and although he would have been embarrassed if he had been made conscious of it, he also enjoyed the sound of his own voice. “Ain’t you asleep yet?” he said, but even the child felt there was no danger of his leaving, and shook his head quite frankly.

“Sing gallon,” he said, for he liked the amusement he knew would come into his father’s face, though he did not understand it. It came, and he struck up the song, still more quietly because it was a fast, sassy tune that would be likely to wake you up. He was amused because his son had always mistaken the words “gal and” for “gallon,” and because his wife and to a less extent her relatives were not entirely amused by his amusement. They felt, he knew, that he was not a man to take the word “gallon” so purely as a joke; not that the drinking had been any sort of problem, for a long time now. He sang.

I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too, my honey, my baby,

I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too, my honey, my sweet thing.

I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too,

Gal don’t love me but my sugarbabe do

This mornin,

This evenin,

So soon.

When they kill a chicken, she saves me the wing, my honey, my baby,

When they kill a chicken, she saves me the wing, my honey, my sweet thing,

When they kill a chicken, she saves me the wing, my honey

Think I’m aworkin ain’t adoin a thing

This mornin,

This evenin,

So soon.

Every night about a half past eight, my honey, my baby,

Every night about a half past eight, my honey, my sweet thing

Every night about a half past eight, my honey

Ya find me awaitin at the white folks’ gate

This mornin,

This evenin,

So soon.

The child still stared up at him; because there was so little light or perhaps because he was so sleepy, his eyes seemed very dark, although the father knew they were nearly as light as his own. He took his hand away and blew the moisture dry on the child’s forehead, smoothed his hair away, and put his hand back:

What in the world you doin, Google Eyes? he sang, very slowly, while he and the child looked at each other,

What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?

What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?

What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?

His eyes slowly closed, sprang open, almost in alarm, closed again.

Where did you get them great big Google Eyes?

Where did you get them great big Google Eyes?

You’re the best there is and I need you in my biz,

Where in the world did you get them Google Eyes?

He waited. He took his hand away. The child’s eyes opened and he felt as if he had been caught at something. He touched the forehead again, more lightly. “Go to sleep, honey,” he said. “Go on to sleep now.” The child continued to look up at him and a tune came unexpectedly into his head, and lifting his voice almost to tenor he sang, almost inaudibly:

Oh, I hear them train car wheels arumblin,

Ann, they’re mighty near at hand,

I hear that train come arumblin,

Come arumblin through the land.

Git on board, little children,

Git on board, little children,

Git on board, little children,

There’s room for many and more.

To the child it looked as if his father were gazing oft into a great distance and, looking up into these eyes which looked so far away, he too looked far away:

Oh, I look a way down yonder,

Ann, uh what dyou reckon I see,

A band of shinin angels,

A comin’ after me.

Git on board, little children,

Git on board, little children,

Git on board, little children,

There’s room for many and more.

He did not look down but looked straight on into the wall in silence for a good while, and sang:

Oh, every time the sun goes down,

There’s a dollar saved for Betsy Brown,

Sugar Babe.

He looked down. He was almost certain now that the child was asleep. So much more quietly that he could scarcely hear himself, and that the sound stole upon the child’s near sleep like a band of shining angels, he went on:

There’s a good old sayin, as you all know,

That you can’t track a rabbit when there ain’t no snow

Sugar Babe.

Here again he waited, his hand listening against the child, for he was so fond of the last verse that he always hated to have to come to it and end it; but it came into his mind and became so desirable to sing that he could resist it no longer:

Oh, tain’t agoin to rain on, tain’t agoin to snow:

He felt a strange coldness on his spine, and saw the glistening as a great cedar moved and tears came into his eyes:

But the sun’s agoin to shine, and the wind’s agoin to blow

Sugar Babe.

A great cedar, and the colors of limestone and of clay; the smell of wood smoke and, in the deep orange light of the lamp, the silent logs of the walls, his mother’s face, her ridged hand mild on his forehead:
Don’t you fret, Jay, don’t you fret.
And before his time, before even he was dreamed of in this world, she must have lain under the hand of her mother or her father and they in their childhood under other hands, away on back through the mountains, away on back through the years, it took you right on back as far as you could ever imagine, right on back to Adam, only no one did it for him; or maybe did God?

How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it’s good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life. And what’s it all for? All I tried to be, all I ever wanted and went away for, what’s it all for?

Just one way, you do get back home. You have a boy or a girl of your own and now and then you remember, and you know how they feel, and it’s almost the same as if you were your own self again, as young as you could remember.

And God knows he was lucky, so many ways, and God knows he was thankful. Everything was good and better than he could have hoped for, better than he ever deserved; only, whatever it was and however good it was, it wasn’t what you once had been, and had lost, and could never have again, and once in a while, once in a long time, you remembered, and knew how far you were away, and it hit you hard enough, that little while it lasted, to break your heart.

He felt thirsty, and images of stealthiness and deceit, of openness, anger and pride, immediately possessed him, and immediately he fought them off. If ever I get drunk again, he told himself proudly, I’ll kill myself. And there are plenty good reasons why I won’t kill myself. So I won’t even get drunk again.

He felt consciously strong, competent both for himself and against himself, and this pleasurable sense of firmness contended against the perfect and limpid remembrance he had for a moment experienced, and he tried sadly, vainly, to recapture it. But now all that he remembered, clear as it was to him, and dear to him, no longer moved his heart, and he was in this sadness, almost without thought, staring at the wall, when the door opened softly behind him and he was caught by a spasm of rage and alarm, then of shame for these emotions.

“Jay,” his wife called softly. “Isn’t he asleep yet?”

“Yeah, he’s asleep,” he said, getting up and dusting his knees. “Reckon it’s later than I knew.”

“Andrew and Amelia had to go,” she whispered, coming over. She leaned past him and straightened the sheet. “They said tell you good night.” She lifted the child’s head with one hand, while her husband, frowning, vigorously shook his head; “It’s all right, Jay, he’s sound asleep;” she smoothed the pillow, and drew away: “They were afraid if they disturbed you they might wake Rufus.”

“Gee. I’m sorry not to see them. Is it so late?”

“You must have been in here nearly an hour! What was the matter with him?”

“Bad dream, I reckon; fraid of the dark.”

“He’s all right? Before he went to sleep, I mean?”

“Sure, he’s all right.” He pointed at the dog. “Look what I found.”

“Goodness sake, where was it?”

“Back in the corner, under the crib.”

“Well shame on
me!
But Jay, it must be awfully dirty!”

“Naww; I dusted it off.”

She said, shyly, “I’ll be glad when I can stoop again.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “So will I.”

“Jay,” she drew away, really offended.

“Honey!”
he said, amused and flabbergasted. He put his arm around her. “I only meant the baby! I’ll be glad when the baby’s here!”

She looked at him intently (she did not yet realize that she was near-sighted), understood him, and smiled and then laughed softly in her embarrassment. He put his finger to her lips, jerking his head towards the crib. They turned and looked down at their son.

“So will I, Jay darling,” she whispered. “So will I.”

Chapter […]

His mother sang to him too. Her voice was soft and shining gray like her dear gray eyes. She sang, “Sleep baby sleep, Thy father watches the sheep,” and he could see his father sitting on a hillside looking at a lot of white sheep in the darkness but why; “thy mother shakes the dreamland tree and down fall little dreams on thee,” and he could see the little dreams floating down easily like huge flakes of snow at night and covering him in the darkness like babes in the wood with wide quiet leaves of softly shining light. She sang, “Go tell Aunt Rhoda,” three times over, and then, “The old gray goose is dead,” and then “She’s worth the saving,” three times over, and then “To make a featherbed,” and then again. Three times over. Go tell Aunt Rhoda; and then again the old gray goose is dead. He did not know what “she’s worth the saving” meant, and it was one of the things he always took care not to ask, because although it sounded so gentle he was also sure that somewhere inside it there was something terrible to be afraid of exactly because it sounded so gently, and he would become very much afraid instead of only a little afraid if he asked and learned what it meant. All the more, because when his mother sang this song he could always see Aunt Rhoda, and she wasn’t at all like anybody else, she was like her name, mysterious and gray. She was very tall, as tall even as his father. She stood near a well on a big flat open place of hard bare ground, quite a way from where he saw her from, and even so he could see how very tall she was. Far back behind her there were dark trees without any leaves. She just stood there very quiet and straight as if she were waiting to be gone and told that the old gray goose is dead. She wore a long gray dress with a skirt that touched the ground and her hands were hidden in the great falling folds of the skirt. He could never see her face because it was too darkly within the shadow of the sunbonnet she wore, but from within that shadow he could always just discern the shining of her eyes, and they were looking straight at him, not angrily, and not kindly either, just looking and waiting. She is worth the saving.