Thomas Tryon - Harvest Home

“All of them. I’m thinking of joining the navy.”

“And see the world? Maybe that’s a good idea.”

“I been savin’ my money. I got some put by, enough to tide me over. There’s a fellow I know runs a pool parlor and beer bar in Hartford. I can go stay with him until I decide what to do.”

“How old are you, son?”

“Sixteen.”

“The navy won’t take you without your parents’ consent, you know. Not till you’re seventeen.”

“I know. They’ll never give it, anyway, but I’ll be seventeen soon.” He lifted the shovel and stepped from the hedge, moving past me.

I stopped him. “You’re right. You ought to go if it’s what you want to do. It’s your life, no one else’s, and you can’t let other people tell you what you should do. We’ll miss you.” I took out my wallet, extracted some bills, and held them out. Worthy shook his head.

“Go on, son, take it.”

“You already paid me.”

“This is just to help you along till you get things figured out.” I pressed the money into his hand.

“O.K., but only till I can repay you.” He folded the bills until they were a small square and tucked them in his watch pocket. “Thanks, Mr. Constantine. I’m sorry to be leaving you. You’ve been kind to me. Will you tell Kate goodbye?” He looked back at the buried box. “And look-”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I was sure he was going to say more, but had thought better of it. “Will you write me and let me know what you decide?”

“Sure. Would you want my tractor?”

“That’s right-we were going to plow with it next spring. How much are you asking?”

“No-you can have it. It’s a present.”

I said I couldn’t accept it, but if he thought I could manage to keep it running, I’d like to buy it; where could I send a check?

He thought a moment, then said, “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll write to you, and put ‘Jonn Smith’ on the envelope. That way you’ll know it’s from me.” Again he looked back at the covered hole. “Don’t tell anybody,” he whispered. I took the shovel and we shook hands.

“Tell your wife goodbye, too,” he said, and went up the drive. One thing was clear: he was lying. Something had frightened him.

I looked down at the spot where he had buried the box; then, taking the shovel in my hands, I began digging.

When I had hung the shovel in the garage and come out, the shoebox under my arm, I heard Robert’s hallo from the other side of the hedge.

“That you, Ned? Come and sit.”

Turning the corner of the hedge, I found the blind man in his lawn chair, with his usual stoical attitude, as though he had learned long ago never to expect anything but what life chose to bring him. “Well, m’boy, Margaret tells me you’ve been up on the roof all morning. Be careful-those old shingles can be treacherous.”

I pulled up another chair, explaining that all necessary precautions had been taken, and that Worthy Pettinger had done most of the dangerous work anyway.

“Handy fellow, Worthy,” Robert said ruminatively. “Good-looking boy, too, they tell me. Got the old Cornish blood in him.”

“I thought the Cornish were fair. He looks more like an Indian.”

“In England it’s generally held that the so-called ‘black Irish’ were sired by those Spaniards who made it to shore when the Armada was sunk, but anyone who knows their apples will tell you it’s not the Spanish who blackened the Cornish hair, but men from a civilization far older than that. I’m speaking of the sailors from Knossos, in Crete, long before Caesar’s legions were even settling in England.”

“And Missy,” I asked pointedly. “Is she of the Cornish strain, too?”

“Her mother is, that we know. As to the father-that would be anybody’s guess.”

“Is it true she can prophesy?”

Before Robert could reply, Maggie appeared with a carriage robe which she tucked around his knees, laughing at his protests at being coddled. “Just pretend you’re on shipboard, darling.”

“What time do we get to Le Havre?” He smoothed the cover over his knees while Maggie knelt close by with her gardening things. “What have you fellows been talking about?” she asked, digging in some large new bulbs.

“Ned was asking about Missy’s predictions.”

Maggie laughed again. “Ned, you’ve got to get used to the country notions around here.”

“I don’t think you can toss them off as notions,” Robert argued. “Certainly there are people who appear to be endowed with special powers. Cassandra foretold the downfall of Troy. Montezuma’s priests were able to predict ahead of time the coming of the white man to the New World. Modern psychical research recognizes precognition as possible. People get portents of disaster all the time, and they’re often confirmed.”

“Maybe Missy just makes lucky guesses,” I put in.

“Maybe. But because of her freckles the villagers believe she had communication with the god. Not our Christian God, mind you, but the god that was worshiped in the olden times, as the Widow calls them. In those days, they believed men had the power of divination which stemmed from their knowledge of the stars.”

“And Missy’s stars are written on her face.”

Maggie placed a bulb in the hole and covered it over. “You see, Ned-country notions.”

“What you have to remember,” Robert continued, “is that human nature doesn’t change much. You can’t negate the ingrained imagination of a whole culture. When they came from Cornwall to the New World, the original settlers were a deeply religious sect. What did they find when they got here? Cold, illness, the constant fear of attack; they were foodless and homeless. They were forced to adapt to circumstances, to learn new ways in order to survive. But in learning the new they refused to give up the old, a faith based on the moon and the stars and the tides, and on ancient deities they could turn to for succor in this time of stress. During the first year the village was settled, there was a good harvest, which the Indians had shown them how to grow, and they had food.”

But then, he went on, had come what was still remembered as the Great Waste, the famine where the corn shriveled up and died, and the Cornish settlers felt the cold hand of fear at their throats, and they raised themselves up and prayed for help, not in church but in the fields, inviting the blessings of the old gods, those who had come with the dark-haired Cretan sailors. And the gods answered them, for the land was blessed with crops in the fields and fruit in the orchards.

“But it’s all vestigial,” Maggie hastened to point out. “Like the Spring Festival and the bonfire.”

“Country notions, yes,” Robert replied. “You’ll find evidence, though, that when the Christian priests tore down the pagan temples, the people made them leave the trees that grew around the temples. And, more importantly, the priests couldn’t destroy the thinking that impelled the building of the temples in the first place.”

“What would Mr. Buxley do if he found something like this in Justin Hooke’s corn patch?” I took the lid from the shoebox and brought out the doll.

Maggie, about to set in another bulb, laid it down with her trowel. “What on earth-?” She reached and took the doll from me. “What a strange-looking thing.” She turned it over in her hands, examining it. Then she placed it in Robert’s hands and let him feel it, describing its form to him in all its details. When Robert had done, she stood it up on the ground among her iris cuttings and bulbs and pronounced it a most unhandsome thing.

“It’s really quite awful-looking, Robert.”

“Is it?”

“What do you suppose it means?” I ventured. “Do they believe in hex around here?”