James Agee - A Death In The Family

"Sure I do," he said; "just like seeing sunlight striking through waves, just before they topple."

"Yeah," his father said.

"Kate mustn't miss this," his mother said; "Kate!" and she took Aunt Kate by the shoulder.

"Sssh!" his father hissed, and he frowned. "Let her alone!" But Aunt Kate was already waked up, though she was still very sleepy, wondering what it was all about.

"Just look, Kate," his mother said. "Out there!" Aunt Kate looked. "See?" his mother said.

"Yes," Aunt Kate said.

"That's where we're going," his mother said.

"Yes," Aunt Kate said.

"Aren't they grand?" his mother said.

"Yes," Aunt Kate said.

"Well I think they're absolutely breathtaking," his mother said.

"So do I," Aunt Kate said, and went back to sleep.

His mother made one of the funniest faces he had ever seen, looking at his father all bewildered and surprised and holding in her laughter, and his father laughed out loud but Aunt Kate didn't wake up. "Just like Catherine," his mother whispered, laughing, and they all looked at Catherine, who was staring out at the mountains and looking very heavy and earnest; and they laughed and Catherine looked at them and began to realize they were laughing at her, and that made her face get red and that made them laugh some more, and even Rufus joined in, and they only stopped when Catherine began to stick out her lower lip and her mother said, "Mercy, child, you've got to learn to take a joke."

But her father said, "Doesn't anybody like to be laughed at," and took her on his lap, and she pulled her lip in and looked out the window again. Now they could even see the separate trees all over the sides of the mountains like rice, all shades of green and some almost black, and before much longer they were climbing more slowly past the feathery tops of trees and the high shoulders of the mountains and the great deep scoops were turning past them and beneath them as if they were very slowly and seriously dancing in sunlight and in cloud and in shadows almost of night, and now and then they could see a tiny cabin and a corn patch far off on the side of a mountain, and twice they even saw a tinier mule and a man with it, one of the men waved; and high above them in the changing sunlight, slowest of all, the tops of the mountains twisted and changed places. And after quite a while his father said he reckoned they better start getting their stuff together, and before much longer they got off.

That night at supper when Rufus asked for more cheese Uncle Ted said, "Whistle to it and it'll jump off the table into your lap."

"Ted!" his mother said.

But Rufus was delighted. He did not know very well how to whistle yet, but he did his best, watching the cheese very carefully: it didn't jump of the table into his lap; it didn't even move.

"Try some more," Uncle Ted said. "Try harder."

"Ted!" his mother said.

He tried his very best and several times he managed to make a real whistle, but the cheese didn't even move, and he began to realize that Uncle Ted and Aunt Kate were shaking with laughter they were trying to hold in, though he couldn't see what there was to laugh about in a cheese that wouldn't even move when you whistled even when Uncle Ted said it would and he was really whistling, not just trying to whistle.

"Why won't it jump to me, Daddy?" he asked, almost crying with embarrassment and impatience, and at that Uncle Ted and Aunt Kate burst out laughing out loud, but his father didn't laugh, he looked all mixed up, and mad, and embarrassed, and his mother was very mad and she said, "That's just about enough of that, Ted. I think it's just a perfect shame, deceiving a little child like that who's been brought up to trust people, and laughing right in his face!"

"Mary," his father said, and Uncle Ted looked very much surprised and Aunt Kate looked worried, though they were still laughing a little, as if they couldn't stop yet.

"Now, Mary," his father said again, and she turned on him and said angrily, "I don't care, lay! I just don't care a hoot, and if you won't stand up for him, I will, I can promise you that!"

"Ted didn't mean any harm," his father said.

"Course I didn't, Mary," Uncle Ted said.

"Of course not," Aunt Kate said.

"It was just a joke," his father said.

"That's all it was, Mary," Uncle Ted said.

"He just meant it for a joke," his father and Aunt Kate said together.

"Well, its a pretty poor kind of a joke, if you ask me," his mother said, "violating a little boy's trust."

"Why, Mary, he's got to learn what to believe and what not to," Uncle Ted said, and Aunt Kate nodded and put her hand on Uncle Ted's knee. "Gotta learn common sense."

"He's got plenty of comon sense," his mother flashed. "He's a very bright child indeed, if you must know. But he's been brought up to trust older people when they tell him something. Not be suspicious of everybody. And so he trusted you. Because he likes you, Ted. Doesn't that make you ashamed?"

"Come on, Mary, cut it out," his father said.

"But Mary, you wouldn't think anybody'd believe what I said about the cheese," Uncle Ted said.

"Well you certainly expected him to believe it," she said, with fury, "otherwise why'd you ever say it?"

Uncle Ted looked puzzled, and his father said, trying to laugh, "Reckon she cornered you there, Ted," and Uncle Ted smiled uncomfortably and said, "I guess that's so."

"Of course it's so," his mother blazed, though his father frowned at her and said "Ssh!"

When he woke it was already clear daylight and the sparrows were making a great racket and his first disappointed thought was that he was too late, though he could not yet think what it was he was too late for. But something special was on his mind which made him eager and happy almost as if this were Christmas morning and within a second after waking he remembered what it was and, sitting up, his lungs stretching full with anticipation and pride, he put his hand into the crisp tissue paper with a small smashing noise and took out the cap. There was plenty of light to see the colors well; he quickly turned it around and over, and smelled of the new cloth and of the new leather band. He put it on and yanked the hill down firmly and pelted down the hallway calling "Daddy! Daddy!", and burst through the open door into their bedroom; then brought up short in dismay, for his father was not there. But his mother lay there, propped up on two pillows as if she were sick. She looked sick, or very tired, and in her eyes she seemed to be afraid of him. Her face was full of little lines he had never seen before; they were as small as the lines in her mended best teacup. She put out her arms towards him and made in odd, kind noise. "Where's Daddy?" he shouted imperiously ignoring her arms. "Daddy-isn't here yet," she told him, in a voice like hot ashes, and her arms sank down along the sheet.

"Where is he, then!" he demanded, in angry disappointment, but she thrust through these words with her own: "Go wake-little Catherine and bring her straight here," she said in a voice which puzzled him; "there's something I must tell you both together."

He was darting his eyes everywhere for clues of his father. clothes? watch? tobacco? nightshirt? "Right away," she said, in a desperate voice.

Startled by its mysterious rebuke, and uneasy in his stomach because she had said "little Catherine," he hurried out-and all but collided with his Aunt Hannah. Her mouth was strong and tightly pressed together beneath her glittering spectacles as she stooped, peering forward.

"Hello, Aunt Hannah," he called with astonishment, as he sped around and past her; he saw her go into the bedroom, her hair sticking out from her thin neck in two twiggy braids; he hurried to Catherine's crib.