Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

But certainly Mr. Winters would want to put in a gift for Rose. Joan’s mind ran over the big one-room store. What would be nice? Rose had never mentioned the peach nightgown. Joan, remembering, had a pang of missing it still. It was so pretty. She would probably never have another so pretty.

She leaped from her bed and was suddenly gay. The house was itself again. Rose and Francis were alive, needing her — her dear old father. She was gay with him at breakfast and laughed when he looked at her in bewilderment.

“I’m only making fun,” she cried, and dropped a light kiss upon the ends of his white hair. “The rain’s over!”

“Your mother used to have days,” he remarked with mild patience.

Her heart shadowed. “There — I’ll stop teasing you,” she said remorsefully.

Well, it didn’t matter. She must get the things for Rose. She would buy a little gift, too, to put in. She had several dollars saved. She could get some ribbon — but there they wore native dress. Why didn’t Rose tell her how they looked? Or perhaps a pair of silk stockings. It was impossible to believe that Rose did not secretly adore silk stockings. She put on her hat and her old brown coat and went down the street, singing under her breath.

In the store at the far end, among the cotton stuffs, she saw Ned Parsons and turned her head. She did not want to bother with him today, but probably she would have to — he’d call or come bustling up. But he did not. When she glanced toward him he seemed to be absorbed in a list he was checking. He did not seem to see her. She searched for Mr. Winters, and found him at last in the stock room, surrounded by half-opened packages and boxes. He stood tall and narrow, his too narrow shoulders drooping about his narrow chest. It was known that he was “consumptive” and only Mrs. Winters’ constancy and determination had kept him alive. Left to himself he would not have touched milk or butter or eggs. But twice a day she came to the store with a tumbler of eggnog and stood watching him while he drank it. Everybody knew that once, when he was young, in desperation he had poured it into a bale of new white cotton sheeting while she was looking about, but she had caught him because he had poured it too quickly. The stuff had slipped down the sized cloth in trickles of yellow. She had never forgotten it. “The wicked waste!” she had cried hundreds of times in remembering it. Hundreds upon hundreds of times she had stood watching him drink the eggnog down, never trusting him. Once goaded by the smiles of clerks he had muttered, “You don’t need to stand there — seems as if all the times I’ve drunk it would count.”

But she had retorted, “I’ve never felt I knew exactly what you’d do next, Henry Winters! If it wasn’t for me, you’d be in your grave.” His life, saved thus daily, belonged to her.

“Mr. Winters!” Joan called across an aisle, beaming at him. “I’ve come to get some things for Rose. I thought you’d be interested.”

His face cracked into wrinkles, and she warmed to see him. He was so kind!

“Well now, come along and let’s see.” He was all excitement at once, his bony body moving in all convulsive darts of overflow. “I’m just unpacking some perfume. It so becomes a lady — like a flower scented, I always think.”

“But to send so far? A bottle might break.”

“Yes — yes — stupid of me. Well now, let me think. A brooch? I have some nice costume jewelry.” Why did Mr. Winters seem so excited today? He fumbled in a package and brought out a pasteboard box and opened it. His hands were trembling, and he did not quite meet her eyes. “Look, it’s pretty stuff, isn’t it? See, here’s a garnet set. I’m partial to garnet. This is amethyst — glass, but it looks real, doesn’t it? This is pretty, isn’t it — and these blue beads.” He touched the glass beads with a long, delicate forefinger, the nail blunt and broken.

“Well,” said Joan, hesitating. It was so hard to tell him Rose never wore jewelry. “I think,” she said warmly, not to hurt his feelings, “if we chose some silk stockings — They’re easy to send.”

He closed the box at once. “You’re right,” he said quickly, and hurried ahead of her.

In the store, people were beginning to come for their day’s shopping. Since it was Saturday, wives were in from the country, the older ones in calico waists and dark skirts and little stiff hats, and the young women in wash dresses, the sort Mr. Winters hung on a rack and sold for a dollar. Three or four of them stood by the rack, turning the dresses eagerly. She could hear them. “There — that’s real pretty.” “I don’t care for checks, though — looks like apron stuff.” One of them, a plump squat woman who had a coarse pretty face, said, “Yes, when I’m dressed up I like to feel dressed up. Joe likes something fancy on Sunday, too — he’s partial to lace.” She listened, watching them, smiling yet feeling them strange to her. They would be shy of her because she was educated, because she was the minister’s daughter. She said impulsively to Mr. Winters, “Wait on them first — I’m in no hurry.”

“No indeed,” he said heartily, although any other day he would have obeyed her. What was the matter with him today? She smiled at them when he went back unwillingly toward them. But they did not smile back. Their eyes met hers blankly and they took her courtesy, not recognizing it. She waited, foolishly hurt.

… Perhaps, she told herself afterward, it was because she was already hurt that it seemed to her that when Mrs. Bradley came in a moment later she thought her cool. What did it matter whether Mrs. Bradley was cool or not? What if Mrs. Bradley only gave her a little nod and held her tight lips without a smile? Had someone told her perhaps after all this long time that Martin had once — Mrs. Bradley always hated any girl whom Martin liked — people laughed at her about it. But then Netta came in and Netta was not cool. She was too warm, too pitying. Netta waved to her and then came near and whispered to her, “I want you to know that I shall always stand by you!”

“What do you mean, Netta?” she said aloud. She had always the instinct to answer Netta’s whispers very loudly.

But Netta turned now with fresh warmth to Mrs. Bradley, who was listening. “Oh, Mrs. Bradley, I want to tell you I think the way Martin played last Sunday was just wonderful! It’s so sweet of him to want to keep on playing in this little old village when we all know he could — I said to Ned last night—” She drifted away with Mrs. Bradley, laughing coquettishly. “And Ned said—” She glanced at Ned at the far corner and waved. “There he is — he’s calling me.”

… “Now let’s see,” said Mr. Winters. He had been arguing mildly over the dresses. “Wouldn’t you care for the blue instead, ma’am? It seems to me blue favors you more than pink — and the blue is a little bigger.” He shook his head to Joan and ruffled his gray spiky hair that stood high and stiff above his narrow, veined forehead. “She took the pink,” he whispered to her with pain a moment later. “A fat woman will always choose pink. I’ve seen them do it for twenty years. Now then—” He was so kind, so very kind.

When she had the little heap ready he ran into the stock room in the funny jogging trot he had when he saw customers filling the store, and came back holding the blue beads out to her. “I want you to have them,” he said. “They favor you.”

“Oh, no,” she said, amused. “I couldn’t.”

Then to her surprise he became suddenly incoherent. He was staring across the store and she followed his eyes. There was Mrs. Winters, her back to them.

“You take them,” he said, and stumbled on. “What I say is it’s not the old man’s fault. Whatever they say, you remember that. We all grow old, I guess.”