The House of Dies Drear (12 page)

“Over my head, I hear music in the air

Up above my head, I see trouble in the air.”

The congregation joined Pesty and the choir in a surge of new strength:

“There must be a God somewhere!”

The hymn went on and on. The minister sang part of it alone, with the choir and congregation humming softly. It was enough to cause chills to run down Thomas’ spine. The minister had a voice finer than Pesty’s, better than any voice outside of the stage.

Mama is sure to come every Sunday, Thomas thought. She will say Preacher has a voice good enough to speak with the Lord.

Through it all, Mr. Pluto sat hunched over as though not listening. He didn’t move the whole time.

Thomas only half realized when the song ended, there was so much to watch and remember. He found himself sitting down and shushing the twins. They wanted more music. He promised them if they’d be still, there might be more in a few minutes. The choir had sat down. Pesty looked like a big doll in her long robe. Her bonnet looked pretty and not out of place. She was serious and sweet, sitting there in the midst of the older boys and girls.

The minister spoke solemnly of a God somewhere. Thomas listened for awhile. He talked about the Christian need to search out an invisible God in all things.

“Go to the rock,” the minister said. “Tell the sinner who hides his face on the rock that he need not. No, he need not! Tell him that he is God. Say to him that the rock is God. Tell him to love himself and the rock and you, for God is with you. I say, inside of you there is God. Inside all of us, in all things, you will find God.”

Thomas stared at the still form of Mr. Pluto. Mr. Pluto’s head nodded, and his high hat rolled from his lap into the aisle. The minister paused. A man got up and gingerly returned the hat to Pluto. He did not smile at the still form nor touch it. The still form did not react as if anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

Is he sleeping there? Thomas wondered. Does Preacher mean to find God in old Pluto?

The minister droned on. Thomas stopped listening. He glanced out of the window. He could hear children playing somewhere down the street. They would be noisy until the church service was over, at which time they’d go home for dinner and more play.

Is that all they know how to do?

Thomas felt a little tired. The excitement of the new church, the new minister, was wearing off. Somehow it was becoming confused with past Sundays in church. Irresistibly his eyes were starting to close.

“Four hundred seventy-one.”

Thomas woke up with a start. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but automatically he stood up.

Why is church always the same? Awhile ago, I was glad it was the same.

Sleepily he tried to appear interested.

But why must it be so slow and boring!

Preacher walk, Preacher talk

Preacher eat with a knife and a fork
.

The rhyme came to Thomas out of some mean memory of a long morning.

I got a ticket to raffle

I got two tickets to sell

I got three pastors a-waiting

To preach down in hell
.

Let the devil get ready

Tell the devil his fate

I got three pastors a-coming

To pass him the plate
.

Pesty’s voice quivered high above the choir,

“King Jesus lit the candle by the water side

So all the little children could be truly baptized …”

Mr. Pluto got on his knees in the aisle beside his pew. Thomas nearly choked. One of the ladies in the front row stared at Pluto with sheer malice. Mr. Small watched him with grave concern. There was an angry stirring in the congregation.

“Honor, honor, unto the dying day …”

One of those big men who must have been a brother to Mac Darrow came forward and tried, without touching him, to get old Pluto to get up.

“Darrow, sit down!” the preacher commanded.

“This isn’t no Baptist place! Carrying on in the aisle,” Darrow said. “We’re Methodist here!”

“I said sit down! Mr. Pluto wants to kneel, let him kneel!” the minister said.

“So come along children and be

baptized,

All the little children will be truly

baptized,

Honor, honor, unto the dying day!”

When the hymn ended, the choir filed out. Pesty came forward and helped Mr. Pluto back into his seat. She squeezed in beside him and then watched the minister.

The minister was clearly upset. Thomas hoped he would forget his lecture and maybe preach around what had just happened. He didn’t much care for old Mr. Pluto, but he decided he liked that Darrow man even less. Somehow he wanted the preacher to put the Darrow man in his place.

Instead, the minister turned to his Bible again. He grew calm and he read for a long time, hardly noticing the people looking out the windows.

Thomas looked up at his father. Mr. Small’s face was bemused. Becoming aware of Thomas staring, he gently patted Thomas’ knee.

All at once, Thomas felt totally let down. Everything had come to a standstill for some reason, he felt. All the hope of a new place—a new beginning and a new happiness—went out of him.

Nobody will come home with us. No one will laugh and talk with Papa. I won’t have anyone to show my carvings to.

The church service was coming to an end. The collection plate was being passed around. They all stood to say the words that meant a parting.

“May the Lord watch between me and

thee

While we are absent, one from another,

Amen!”

Mac Darrow disappeared through a rear door, the way the choir had gone, before Thomas had a chance to catch his eye. All those boys in the corner milled around their parents before they all filed out.

Thomas held one of the twins, while Mrs. Small held the other. The minister had not even welcomed them from the pulpit. Perhaps he had forgotten, Thomas thought.

But the minister did come forward to shake hands with Mr. Small. He was Reverend Breckenridge he told them, and he was pleased to have them come.

“You are a historian, I hear,” he said to Mr. Small.

“Yes, I’ll be working here for a time,” said Mr. Small.

Folks were coming over to say a few words to their minister. In doing so, they were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Small and Thomas. There were Henrys and Davises; there were Harrises and Browns. But that was all. If any of them had the least curiosity about Mr. Small leasing the house of Dies Drear, he said nothing about it. The four big men, those Darrows, filed silently out without a word even to the minister.

“You have yourself a good slice of history in that big house,” the minister was saying to Mr. Small. “I’ve always admired it. I don’t have a family, however, and I can’t say I would care to live in it alone.” He smiled pleasantly.

A warning? Thomas wondered.

“We had a good turnout this Sunday,” the minister went on. “I haven’t seen some folks who were here today in quite awhile. Mr. Darrow and his sons I haven’t seen in a few months, although the one son, McDonald, plays piano for me each Sunday. It always surprises me how good weather will bring folks out more than anything I have to say.” He laughed, amused at himself.

Mr. Small watched him closely. “I don’t believe I’ve met the Darrows you speak of… .”

“Oh, you will meet them. You will get to know everyone—we are a small community here. Folks are a little shy at first, but they are good-hearted people. Awfully glad to have you among us.”

“Thank you so much,” said Mr. Small.

“Good luck to you all, and I do hope to see you next Sunday,” the minister said.

Mr. Small told him he would surely see them.

Outside some of the congregation were still gathered, talking with one another. As the Smalls emerged from the church, folks looked down at their feet or away to the street, as people will do when they are shy and cannot think of what to say. Mr. Pluto was just climbing into his buggy. He favored his lame leg considerably and fell heavily into his seat. Beside him was Pesty, and she smiled at Thomas. On seeing Mr. Small, Pluto touched his fingers to his high hat. His mind seemed to be on something other than passing the time of day with strangers. He went off the way he had come, with Pesty in the crook of his arms.

I’ll not wave to them, Thomas thought to himself. I’ll not wave at the devil, nor the devil’s disciple!

Folks moved away, got into cars and went home. Mr. and Mrs. Small and Thomas, carrying the twins, walked slowly to their own car.

No one to come home with us, not even Pesty! No one to listen to Papa and hear about all the lives of history. What kind of place is this North anyway? What kind of a no-account place!

Chapter 11

MR. SMALL DECIDED
they would combine lunch with dinner in the college dining room.

“It will be a Sunday treat for everyone,” he said cheerfully. “Afterward, we’ll still have time to find a locksmith.”

He looked anxiously at Thomas. The boy wanted to meet young people, and there seemed to be no easy way to go about it. Thomas would need time to become adjusted; he would have to take things easy until the town had got used to them.

Mr. Small said nothing to Mrs. Small or to Thomas about the aloofness of the church members. He occupied them with talk about the college. Thomas forgot for awhile the mystery of the new house.

Mrs. Small was interested first in walking the college campus and hearing about its century-old history. They made their way to the campus, and Thomas enjoyed walking under the great oak trees. The trees made the grounds dark with shade. Mrs. Small liked the stone benches placed over the whole of the campus, for she could rest often and allow the twins to play in the grass.

“That’s the main building,” said Mr. Small, pointing out the twin towers of the oldest college building. “All the business offices are there, and a few of the classrooms. I have my office in the left tower—would you care to see it? You’ll have to walk up. There are no elevators.”

Mrs. Small declined to climb so many stairs. But Thomas wanted to find out what it was like to sit in a tower. He and Mr. Small climbed up and up. Finally they entered a corridor where Mr. Small opened one of the closed doors with a skeleton key.

“This will be a cool place in summer,” he said to Thomas. “Ivy covers the windows, keeping moisture close. Not much sunlight can penetrate. But come the winter, I’ll probably freeze here.”

“Isn’t there any heat?” Thomas asked. He had not much heart for talk. The climb up to the tower had tired him; he wanted no more than to go home to rest in his room.

“No heat that I know of,” Mr. Small said.

“I thought colleges were supposed to be modern,” said Thomas. “I thought up North they’d at least be heated.”

Mr. Small had to laugh. “Now don’t blame the North for everything,” he said. “This isn’t your state university with new buildings, sleek offices and central heating. Why this is history, son. Many of the buildings are much the same as they were a century ago. And if you don’t mind, I’ll dispense with heat any day for some good atmosphere.”

I wish history would just die, thought Thomas. Why must Papa have it clutter up everything?

Mr. Small’s office was not like any office Thomas had seen. It was like a watchtower, with garret windows and a musty smell. There were books piled everywhere, and bookcases lined the curved walls. An ancient desk by one narrow window had a small table on wheels next to it. Resting on the table was a typewriter that looked like an antique. The room was chilly, with a faint scent of cigar smoke.

“Nothing much ever changes in places like these,” said Mr. Small. “Here there will be time to think, and time even to be bored.”

“Papa, how is it you always know where to go so you don’t ever have to change?” Thomas said glumly. He went behind the desk to see out of the windows.

Uncomfortably Mr. Small watched him, for Thomas had spoken in anger.

“I’ve had to adjust myself, too, to these new surroundings,” Mr. Small said. He came quietly to the window. “It’s not always easy at my age to begin life all over again in a strange place.”

“Then why do it?” whispered Thomas. “Why bother when it’s all the same anyway?”

Out of the window, Thomas could see clear to the other side of town. “There are farms way out there, Papa. Look at that big one over there. They are plowing, even on Sunday.”

A haze hung over the town and farms. If he stared a long time, the town would get smaller and smaller and then would jump back again in focus. Thomas tried to make it stay in place, but it kept on moving farther away and then back again.

He rubbed his eyes. “It keeps jumping at me,” he said. “The whole town just keeps jumping around!”

“That’s because you don’t have a point of view,” Mr. Small said. “Pick out a landmark and it won’t happen.”

“No, it’ll happen if I was to pick out a landmark. I don’t want to … it just doesn’t like me looking at it. It just doesn’t want me!”

“Thomas, that’s childish,” Mr. Small said. “You’re tired. Things have happened too fast. Just hold onto yourself. Give the town time.”

“I don’t care anything for it,” Thomas said. “You can keep it!” He spoke bitterly, and Mr. Small saw that he was close to tears.

“What is it, Thomas? What have I done to make you so mad?”

“I’m tired of everything being always just the same,” Thomas couldn’t help saying. He felt a sudden relief, as though somewhere inside him he had let fly a rock. “Always colored churches! Always white churches somewhere hidden! Why is it folks never get together? We didn’t have to leave home at all. We could’ve stayed with Great-grandmother and had the very same change. We wouldn’t even have to go to church, because there isn’t any church left to go to!”

“Oh, I see,” said Mr. Small. He looked out over the town. “I do see… . But you can walk any part of that town down there and nobody will stop you. A few folks might look at you hard, but no one will be vicious with you. No one will call you names.”

“How do you know?” asked Thomas. “As long as there are hidden churches, how can you be so sure?”