RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
THIS was in 1882, the year before the big fire destroyed most of New Hope's First Ward. At that time the Central School stood on a rise of ground just beyond John Gentner's meadow, and, as I ran down the clay-slick slope that late afternoon, beneath a steady rain, I recall I stopped at the meadow's bottom to wade my new boots into a collecting pool of water. In another month this would be a shallow pond covering all the lower part of the field.
The homeward trail went through a stand of scrub oak. A cottontail skipped before me in no great haste, with the earthstained pads of his hind feet showing as he ran. Rain scuffed steadily against the oak leaves, the earth's mold scent was very strong, and the freshness of a wind-cleansed sky was around me. I tramped through the small puddles of the trail and dragged my empty, lard-pail lunch bucket along the battens of John Gentner's barns as I passed by, so coming into Bridger Street. There was a small town wagon backed into the walk before Mr. Himmelmyer's empty house, and two men were unloading some trunks.
A girl stood at the edge of the walk, looking down, and, as I came up, I saw that she had dropped a paper-wrapped bundle into the wheel-furrowed mud. In matters of this sort I was a backward boy, and I do not know what impelled me to reach down and retrieve the package. When I stopped, the top of my lunch bucket fell into the mud, and this accident so embarrassed me I handed back the bundle without meeting the girl's eyes or answering the small—"Thank you."—she gave me. At the corner of Custer Street I paused and looked behind. A woman stood in the doorway of Himmelmyer's house, and the girl said something to her and afterward pointed toward me. More embarrassed than before, I walked home, hitting my boot heels on each interstice of the board walk.
After all this time it is odd how clear that whole scene is to me. Her picture is in my mind now, fresh and colored and living. She was around thirteen, my own age, wearing a checked dress and gray, ribbed stockings that made her seem long-legged. Her hair was amber-blonde, braided in back, and her eyes were a soft and sober gray. I remember that the tone of her voice was very distinct, yet softened by shyness.
That evening at the supper table my father said: "A Missus Alice Stuart moved into Himmelmyer's house today. She has a daughter, Elizabeth, about Tod's age. Apparently no husband. I think she said she was from Maryland."
My mother said to me: "You must get acquainted with her, Tod. It is hard for a new child to change schools."
THE new girl was in my school room the next day, sitting
in my aisle, and, when I pulled myself straight, I could look
over Ben Jettson's head and see the straight part running through
her hair. That night I waited until she had crossed Gentner's
meadow before following. I wanted to speak to her, but the
obscure pride of boyhood held me back. At the edge of the oak
copse I saw her make a short, swift turn of her head and then
hurry on.
Within a week we were walking together, and stopping at the pond in the meadow. Sometimes she held my pail while I waded in the deep water. I remember that she watched me with a great soberness. I seldom saw her laugh.
One night I said: "Where is your father, Elizabeth?"
She had a quick way of walking that I never have forgotten, with her shoulders swinging a little and her glance fixed ahead. After I had asked the question, she said in a level, hesitant voice—"I am not to answer that."—and walked on. The eyes of boyhood are sharp. I saw her lips tighten and didn't know why, although I do now. She turned in at her gate without saying anything more.
It was the next night that her mother came out to meet me. She said: "Tod, it is nice of you to walk home with Elizabeth." All I can think of in describing Mrs. Stuart is that she was like my mother, with the same sweetness. Her voice had a sustaining gentleness in it. It was a tone that carried you up and made you feel better; and behind the tone you felt something calm and firm. In New Hope, in 1882, there were many women like that. Remembering back through the years, piecing together the sharp images of boyhood, it seems to me now that my mother's composure came from a strong, self-nourishing spirit. There was cruelty, and there was tragedy in our world. Her eyes saw it and reflected it. Yet, she had a faith that kept her steady and a courage that made our house a warm, secure place.
That same night I heard my father say: "I understand Missus Stuart will do dressmaking."
We were in the living room. Mother sat by the center table, patching my clothes. The lamp's yellow light coned down on the table's red, checkered cloth; its glow faded out along the room. The isinglass eyes of the stove made four ruby squares in the corner shadows. My mother looked at Father, her white fingers pausing with the needle. She was on the edge of smiling, as though amused by his late knowledge. "I have already left some things with her. She has an eye for design, like a Frenchwoman's. She is well bred, Tod."
My father said: "It is somewhat odd for a woman of her refinement to be so far from home. I have wondered...."
Mother said: "You needn't wonder." She spoke one more word, but she spoke it without sound, framing it on her lips. The word was: Divorced. And then both of them were looking at me as though something unseemly and evil were here.
THERE is something you need to know about New Hope as it
was then. It sat on the bank of the muddy Missouri, facing the
endless, unfilled prairie westward. Ours was a rich, little town
built on the freighting trade. Up the river came the cargo-laden
steamboats, and out onto the prairie, day after day, the great,
high-wheeled wagons rolled. Along St. Vrain Street stood a row of
gaunt, unlovely, three-story warehouses with their high-arched
doors and windows; on Custer were the stores and saloons and
shops that supplied the surrounding prairie. This land was fresh
and still raw; hot by summer and bitter by winter, and all its
contrasts were violent. Now and then at night at the end of St.
Vrain Street a great, round, sullen plaque of flame marked the
campfire of the freighters. On Sunday a long silence settled, and
the bells of the two churches rode a bronze, sonorous summons all
across the housetops, and stiffly and solemnly we went to
church.
One evening I rounded the corner of Custer and saw Hugh Sutherland come by the Himmelmyer house and pause and lift his hat to Mrs. Stuart on the porch. I heard him speak, and I heard Mrs. Stuart's slow answer, and for a moment these two faced each other, and then Hugh Sutherland re placed his hat and came on. When I passed him, I saw that he didn't notice me. There was a half-excited cast to his face. Afterward, in the closing shadows, I stood and watched the doorway of the Himmelmyer house. Mrs. Stuart had gone inside. I could see Elizabeth through the front window. She sat before a table with her head bent over, as though reading, and I waited until I knew she wouldn't come out. Down by the brewery, so still was this night in New Hope, I heard Ben Jettson calling. I turned slowly that way.
These are memories that come across those years, bright and crowded and so little dimmed by the intervening time. That week the rains filled the pond at the bottom of Gentner's meadow, and I made a raft of fence posts and old battens from Gentner's barn and floated it. Elizabeth sat in the center while I poled the raft around the shallow pond. When I put the raft over toward the shoreline, Elizabeth jumped and sank to her knees in the water. I stepped into the water and pulled her ashore, and for a moment I had my arms around her and felt the quick beat of her heart. She was a speechless girl, but she looked at me with a shock on her face, tore free, and ran through the oaks toward home.
Ben Jettson called from the school side of the pond. "Come on back, Tod." But I left the raft and tramped into Bridger Street and up Bridger to Custer, traveling toward my father's office. Mrs. Hugh Sutherland's buggy and two white horses stood hitched in front of Sutherland's law office. I stopped to scratch the nose of the near mare and was this way when Mrs. Sutherland came out. She was a tall, common woman, always heavily dressed, and she was laughing at something, though the tone of her laughter was hard. I turned around to see her look long and carefully at Hugh Sutherland who had come to the door. Her face was red, and she laughed again and saw me. She said—"Tod, you are a little man."—and reached into her purse.
Hugh Sutherland said in a downward tone—"Nellie."—and then Mrs. Sutherland bent toward me and put a half dollar in my hand, stepped into her buggy, and ran it recklessly down the street. I didn't look at Hugh Sutherland, feeling strange, and went up to my father's office and waited in the doorway. It had begun to rain again, slow and fine, and twilight moved down from the lead-colored sky. Mrs. Stuart appeared from the Bon Marché, walking toward Bridger Street, and immediately Mr. Sutherland came out as though he had waited and watched for her, and the two of them were face to face for a moment. I saw Mrs. Stuart step away and lift her head, and I saw Mr. Sutherland's arms go behind his back and remain there. Now that I think of it, I recollect that he was a good-looking man, and in our town he had always been respected. My father came to the street and saw this scene, and I knew, from his silence, that he was displeased. Presently Mrs. Stuart went down the street, Mr. Sutherland walking beside her. My father said no word all the way home. In the house I told them about the fifty cents. My father's eyes, so very black, showed a rare anger and he said: "Tomorrow I wish you to return the money to her, Tod."
I SLIPPED out of the house after dinner and stood again
in the shadows of Bridger Street, watching the shine of light in
Elizabeth Stuart's window. I saw her move around the room and
stop at the window and place a hand against the pane. As long as
she stood there, I watched the silhouette she made. At last, when
she turned away, I went home through the steadying rain. As I got
inside the door, I heard my mother say: "A grown and married man.
He has no right to spread his unhappiness on others."
Then she stopped, and both she and Father looked at me. Father said: "What's the matter with you, Son?"
But Mother spoke to Father in a quick and gentle way: "Tod."
He looked at me more carefully, and then both of them knew. I understand that now.
But it is strange that time does this to us. I look back with a kind of tolerance, with a kind of amusement for the boy I was that short, fall season. There is no way for me to bridge the gap, to live again the alternate misery and wild self-confidence. I am older, and my boyhood comes to me only as a warm memory. But that fall when Elizabeth Stuart lived in our town, I was in love; and to boyhood love is a shyness, a torture, and a fierceness. It is strange that we forget this. I recall that I lay in bed and remembered her silhouette in the window. I remember wishing I were a man.
THAT fall rain fell heavily along the prairie. Mud lay
deep on our streets, and the muddy river rose in yellow
turbulence and tore huge chunks out of the banks near town. Geese
turned south early, and at night I used to lie awake and hear
their high, thin murmuring and was touched by this wildness. It
stirred me in unnamed ways. The steamer, Old Vincennes, blew up
at Sawyer's Bend. Jack Lyle and one other outlaw were killed in a
fight at Blue Bonnet crossing, fifty miles west. Mrs. Hugh
Sutherland was fined twenty dollars for driving her team through
St. Vrain Street at a gallop. One night, pacing down Bridger
Street, I saw Hugh Sutherland standing directly across from the
Himmelmyer home; he was a tall shape in the shadows, and I went
by without turning my head, not wishing him to know I had seen
him. There was a rumor around town that he had asked Mrs.
Sutherland to divorce him; and a rumor that he had proposed to
Mrs. Stuart. Now and then, by day, I used to see him stand in the
center of his door, fastened to deepest thoughts. I recall that
he was not more than thirty-five, although in boyhood that seemed
old. Clark Williston, in my grade at school,
said—"Elizabeth ain't got a father."—and I tore the
shirt from his back and fought him until he fell on the ground.
Mrs. Williston talked to my mother about it. My mother said
nothing to me.
A boy is a harp whose strings are plucked by the fingers of many strange winds. There was a dread in those short, dark days, a dread of a future that was so slow in coming, and a feeling stronger than any feeling in the world when I walked across Gentner's meadow with Elizabeth.
Even then a sharp social line divided New Hope, and on each Friday night those who belonged to the right of that line dressed and drove to the German at the Masonic Hall. Now that I look back, I think it was a ritual to preserve the gentility and the manners of an East our people would never see again and yet wished never to forget. Or it was a way of breaking the hardness and loneliness of this fringe of life, facing the edge of the smoky West. Clear through my boyhood that bright memory runs, of my mother's dress stiffly rustling as she walked and of her face, normally so serene, a little flushed beneath her auburn hair while my father looked down at her with an expression faintly puzzled, faintly amused. My father was not a big man, but his eyes were blacker than any eyes I have ever seen, and there was a kind of austerity at the edges of his long lips. When I was young, I thought my father was made of iron. But I know now that the austerity was a mask to keep a secret. After all these years the strongest impression I have of him is of a lonely and imaginative spirit lost in the wrong world.
THAT Friday night I left my father and mother and went to
a comer of the hall and sat beside Max Beal and Clark Williston.
I saw Elizabeth Stuart, standing with one of the Gilstrap girls
nearby, and then I noticed that Mrs. Stuart had come to the dance
with James Pelky, who was a friend of Father's and not
married.
There is a color in this world that is seen only in boyhood and never again; there was a grace and a dignity in that age of my youth that is forever lost. The bracket lamps along the walls sent a soft shining across the floor, the violins and guitars made a melody that rose and fell in steady waltz rhythm, women's dresses wheeled beautifully by, and the sound of talk was gay and very strong. My father and mother came by and smiled at me, and I saw them look at each other in a way that was odd and young; it was an expression that shut me out. Mrs. Stuart came by with James Pelky who was earnestly talking to her; and Hugh Sutherland came by with his wife, his eyes turning and following Mrs. Stuart with a continuing insistence. Mrs. Sutherland's face was quite red. Once she lifted her face and caught Mr. Sutherland's straying glance. I heard her strident laugh. She said something that seemed to hit him hard; his shoulders fell. I heard him say: "Nellie, please."
Elizabeth was in a chair farther down the wall. I got up and went toward her, feeling awkward and hearing Clark Williston's low laugh behind me. Elizabeth's dress was white and came up to a collar around her throat. The light of the hall shone on her hair and made her eyes very gray. She looked at me, dropped her head, and I saw her hands move on her lap; and then she looked at me again, and smiled.
I said—"Would you like some punch?"—and turned away before she answered. The music had stopped. I worked my way to the punch bowl and waited my turn. Howard Fitz-Lee came up, wiping his forehead. He was a short, huge-shouldered man with red hair and a red beard that fell down against his white shirt bosom like a crimson waterfall. My father came up, and Hugh Sutherland came up, and Howard Fitz-Lee laughed in a great, deep way and said: "Hughie, next time you go shootin'...."
But Hugh Sutherland wasn't listening. He had turned and was looking at Mrs. Stuart across the hall; and on his face was an expression I had seen before—sharp, compressed, and stirred. He went directly to her and bent over to speak, and, when the music started a moment later, she rose and wheeled away from him.
I took up my cup of punch, noticing how soberly Fitz-Lee and my father were at the moment. Fitz-Lee said in a low voice: "Trouble here, Tod." Walking across the hall, I saw Mrs. Sutherland waltzing with James Pelky. She kept turning in Pelky's arms, turning her hard, discontented cheeks so that she might watch Hugh Sutherland. I reached Elizabeth and handed her the punch, more embarrassed than before. Elizabeth's voice was slow; it was soft. "Thank you very much, Tod." I heard Clark Williston laughing behind me, and I walked down the hall to the rear door, knowing that I would fight him before the week was out.
The door led to a wide, second-story porch behind the hall. I went through the doorway and stepped out of the yellow lane of light into the dark shadows of the porch's corner. From the porch I saw the lights of the Derby Saloon on River Street and beyond that the high smokestack of the brewery; and I was thinking of sliding down the porch post when I heard Hugh Sutherland's voice behind me.
I was trapped in the black corner of the porch. Hugh Sutherland held Mrs. Stuart's arm and drew her gently out of the hall until they were two tall, vague shapes silhouetted against the lane of lamplight. After all these years I remember the way his words rode the shadows, so hopelessly, so forlornly.
"Alice," he said, "if there is any hope for me, you'll have to give it."
Her answer was breathless and afraid: "Take me inside, Hugh."
"How much should I give up? I love you! Is there nothing to do?"
"Take me inside, Hugh!"
And then he said in a long, dying voice: "There is some happiness possible for us, Alice... if we take it."
Her voice was only a murmur. I scarcely heard the words. "I have not known much happiness, Hugh. But how could we be happy by being cruel to somebody else? I want you to know...."
Mrs. Hugh Sutherland was in the doorway, and her voice was high and arrogant; the sound of it made me cringe; it made me ashamed for her. She said: "Mister Sutherland, if you are through with Missus Stuart, take me home."
It seemed to me that the music got louder, as though to cover this. Mrs. Sutherland went inside, and Hugh Sutherland took Mrs. Stuart's arm and followed. From my position I heard the swell and fall of the music and, later, its ending. I went back into the hall and across it. The Sutherlands were gone, and Mrs. Stuart and Elizabeth were gone; and the pleasantness had gone out of the night. My father and mother took me home a little later. Long after I had gone to bed, I heard them talking in their room, and knew what they were talking about.
NEXT morning, which was Saturday, I drifted down Bridger
and stopped at Elizabeth's gate and waited until she came out.
Mrs. Stuart came to the door and said: "Not too long."
Elizabeth and I walked on toward the river. We cut through Fitzpatrick's Alley and stopped to watch the huge wheel of the brewery spin around until its spokes were a blur. Beyond the brewery stood the high warehouses, out of which came the strong smells that carry across the years to stir me now the smells of coffee, of burlap, of molasses, of flour, of whiskey. Wagons and horses were parked in a solid tangle along this street, and men moved in and out of the dark building runways, sweaty and deep voiced. And these men were my boyhood gods. Stables adjoined the warehouses, and Nippert's blacksmith shop stood here, with Nippert's huge, leather-aproned shape poised before the glow of his forge fire. This was New Hope in my boyhood, raw and strong and busy with a kind of excitement stirring all of us.
We drifted along, Elizabeth and I, past this quarter of town and past the shanties and sheds and corrals until we stood by the open edge of the river. Westward lay the open prairie, marked here and there by a house and a windmill's trestled shape; and on and on until there was only a blueness and an emptiness. The yellow river, swollen with a thousand miles of rain, swept by. It rustled against the bank at my feet, undercutting the soft soil; I could feel the earth shake at the water's impact. A tree moved downstream, turning around and around. The T.J.Jackson came about Sawyer's Bend, throwing black smoke from its stacks as it labored against the current. The expelled blast of its engines made a steady chuuu-chuuu-chuuu across the quiet.
I took up a dead branch and threw it into the river, and bent at the crumbling edge of the bank to watch it whirl away. There was a pressure pulling me back, and I turned and saw that Elizabeth held the tail of my coat. "Tod," she said, "I wish you would be careful."
THESE are the things I remember. They come out of that
far, stirring past as bright as any memory a man will ever have.
She wore a heavy coat whose collar tucked in at her chin. She
wore a round, flat, fur hat on one side of her yellow-blonde
hair. She was a leggy girl with deepest gray eyes and a composed,
grave expression that seldom changed. We were both thirteen, and
yet she was older than I. In the things she said. In the things
she thought.
The river shook the ground beneath me, and the westward horizon was an invitation I felt in my bones—and something in me was hard and desperate. I did not know what it was then, but I do now. It was the desperateness of being too young. For the dreams of youth are greater than the body of youth—and waiting grows too cruel.
I said: "When I'm sixteen, I'm going to drive a freighter."
She said: "You'd be away a long time."
"Well," I said, "I'd come back."
But she kept looking at me, and I remember now the grayness of her eyes. She said: "Maybe you'll change, Tod. Maybe you'll want to work in your father's office. Three years is a long time."
Something in her voice brought a dread to me. For in boyhood there is only uncertainty—and the fear of it. I said: "You'll be here, won't you?"
"Maybe not, Tod. My mother...."
Young as I was, I knew what she knew. The T.J.Jackson's great, throaty whistle sounded for the landing, the echo riding all across New Hope. We turned back along the muddy road leading into Custer, not saying anything. I saw Ben Jettson over behind the courthouse square, and he waved at me and made a secret signal. I went on with Elizabeth, past my father's office. Somebody ran down from River Street into Dr. Gillespie's office, and in a moment Gillespie came out with the man, carrying his small satchel and walking very fast, back up River. When Elizabeth and I turned into Bridger Street, we saw Mr. Sutherland at the door of the Himmelmyer house.
Mr. Sutherland had been hunting. He held a pair of ducks in his hand, and he was smiling at Mrs. Stuart who stood in the doorway. Mrs. Stuart wasn't smiling. She put up a hand and touched Mr. Sutherland's chest, and she said something to him that took the smile from his face; and then both of them were still and gray. I recall that expression on Mrs. Stuart's face so clearly, even now. And I know now that she had let herself love Hugh Sutherland. But she shook her head at him, and the pressure of her arm pushed him gently back. I hated Mr. Sutherland then. Because he was a man standing on Elizabeth's porch.
The town marshal, Lot Graves, came down Bridger with his long legs moving fast. His arm removed me aside from the gate, and moved Elizabeth aside. He went up to the porch and said something to Mr. Sutherland, and Mr. Sutherland said—"My God!"—and came back with Lot Graves; the two ducks were still swinging on his arm as he passed around the corner into St. Vrain. Mrs. Stuart's face was pale, and something smothered her voice. She said: "Come into the house, Elizabeth."
THIS was Saturday, mid-morning. My father came home
earlier than usual. He said: "Missus Sutherland took laudanum,
but Doctor Gillespie has her out of danger."
My mother caught her breath. She said—"Oh."—in a sad and gently diminishing voice.
My father said: "I am going to talk to Hugh Sutherland. I want you to go see Missus Stuart now."
My mother said: "She loves him, Tod."
"I am sorry for her," said my father, "and I pity Hugh." They had forgotten me for the moment. But I knew what my father meant. I knew he was thinking of Mrs. Sutherland with her bitter voice, with her intemperate anger. He said: "But it is his life, and he can't run from it. It would be worse, for all of them."
"Why?" asked my mother.
My father looked at her in some surprise. "Because he is an honorable man. Because his conscience wouldn't let him forget. You go see Missus Stuart."
My mother looked at me. "Go outside, Tod. I want to talk to your father."
My father said: "Let him stay. It is time he learned some of the hard things."
My mother shook her head. "He will learn soon enough."
I turned out, put my feet on the gate, and idly swung it back and forth. In a little while my father went to his office, and Mother came out and walked down Bridger, going into the Himmelmyer house. She stayed through noon, and, when she came back, I could see that she had been crying.
THERE were things happening in New Hope. I felt them and
did not fully understand, but I was afraid. I ate dinner and
walked along St. Vrain Street and stopped by the stage office. My
father came from his office, and Howard Fitz-Lee came from the
store and joined him, and both of them stood a while on the walk,
very solemn as they talked. Then they went down to Hugh
Sutherland's place and went in. Ben Jettson came from Wister's
Alley and said from the side of his mouth: "You hear about Missus
Sutherland?" We idled along the street and stopped at the bank.
Pretty soon my father and Howard Fitz-Lee came out with Mr.
Sutherland, and my father put his hand on Mr. Sutherland's
shoulder and said something, and then Mr. Sutherland came across
the street with his head down and his face blank, and I thought
then that he was an old man. I hadn't noticed it before. He went
on up Bridger, but he didn't turn in at his house. He kept
walking until he was lost in the scatter of buildings at the edge
of town. Once he stumbled over a loose plank.
Ben Jettson and I walked out the Omaha road and came down to the tall bluff and hooked our feet over its edge, watching the Missouri roll heavily by. Ben Jettson said something, but I do not remember what it was, for I was thinking of other things. At five o'clock that evening I came along Bridger Street and saw a wagon backed into the walk by Himmelmyer's house. I knew then what was to happen. I sat on the steps of our porch.
Grayness swept over the prairie and turned the town dark. I watched the Himmelmyer house until my mother called me in to supper. There was little talk. I sat before my plate and didn't eat, and my father said: "Do you feel sick, Tod?" But I saw my mother shake her head at him, and nothing more was said. In a little while I went back to the gate and stood there. My mother went down the street to the Himmelmyer house again.
In these side streets, I remember, darkness lay soft and thick. Down St. Vrain the store lights made long patterns across the mud and at the corner of Herm von Gayl's old saloon there was a solid brightness. The Omaha stage came up from the stables and stopped in front of the bank; and then I saw my mother come from the Himmelmyer house with Mrs. Stuart and Elizabeth. I heard Elizabeth speak, but I didn't leave my gate; and pretty soon she came up and stopped in front of me. All these memories are bright and real and some of the old hurt comes back, even now. The gate was between us, and she was saying: "I am going away, Tod."
I said: "Where are you going? Maybe I can visit you when school's out."
She said: "I don't know."
"Well," I said, "maybe you can write me a letter. I'd answer it."
"All right, Tod," she said.
Mother and Mrs. Stuart had stopped over on Custer Street. I remember how quiet Mrs. Stuart's voice was when it called back: "Elizabeth."
Elizabeth said—"Here, Tod."—and placed something in my hand. I could only see the faint glow of her face in this darkness, but I heard her crying. That was all. She turned away, and I saw her walk across the street to her mother and go on toward the stage. I remember this best: the way she walked, with her shoulders straight and swinging a little. From my place at the gate I saw Mrs. Stuart kiss my mother and step inside the stage with Elizabeth. The door closed, and the driver made a complete turn in the street and drove down Custer. I saw Elizabeth wave; afterward the stage vanished in the yonder dark.
My mother was coming back, but I left the gate and went down Bridger. A light came out of Clark Williston's house, and I stopped in its beam to see what Elizabeth had given me. It was a small tintype picture, of herself. I turned into the Himmelmyer yard and sat on the steps. I heard my mother call my name, but I didn't answer it. There was the sound of wild geese overhead, and away out at the end of Bridger Street the teamsters had lighted a fire that burned its red glow against the black. Somebody came through the alley by the brewery and walked forward, and I made out Hugh Sutherland's shape. He stopped by the gate of the Himmelmyer house, and I heard him breathe once, deeply. I was in the thick shadows of the porch, and I don't think he saw me. I sat very still and hated him. Afterward, he walked on up Bridger, very slowly and with his shoulders down.
There was a little spatter of rain on the walk. Down at the landing stevedores were unloading the T.J.Jackson, with tar flares burning. I sat on the porch of the Himmelmyer house, feeling its emptiness as I have felt no emptiness since, and was this way when my father came down the walk and turned in. He came to the steps and was silent for quite a while, and this is one of my strongest memories of my father now—the silence that understood. Presently he said—"All right, Tod."—and we walked home. I recall that his hand, resting across my shoulders, was heavy and warm. It was a strong support to me as we walked through the night's black shadows.
THESE were my people, and the memory of them now is warm
and sustaining. Their voices follow me, kind and steady; and
their faces, so grave from what they knew, are watching me though
the dimness of time. What I remember best is their fidelity to
the truth, as they saw the truth.