Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

She went out into the sunshine of the afternoon. It was not late, but the sun would soon be gone. She turned westward down the road, to walk a little while, her face toward the sun. In the barn the men were milking. She could hear Bart’s voice roaring at a cow: “Stand over there, Bessy! Careful now, you—”

She set her face steadily westward.

It was then that she saw the girl coming toward her. She came up the road, walking with a sort of springy dancing step, and she had a child with her, a little boy. She had been carrying him, but when she saw Joan she set the child down in the dusty road and led him toward her.

Joan stopped, waiting, looking at the two. Of course this was Fanny. She remembered now she had seen this face, this gay careless passionate pretty face, the last time she had been at the mission with her father. This girl had been there. She remembered her wearing a thin red flowered dress through which her skin had shone, golden. The girl’s face looked up to hers, a face like a dark, petunia, the full red lips, the great dark swimming eyes, black iris, clear white, passionate eyes and mouth, smooth round dark cheeks, strong short curly black hair under a small bright red felt hat.

“Are you Frank Richards’ sister? You favor him mightily.” The girl’s voice was like honey, thick-deep, sweet.

“Yes,” Joan said — no use trying to say anything else. “I’m his sister — what do you want of him?”

“I heard he was here.”

She looked down into the black eyes. … And why should she now remember Miss Kinney, standing before the missionary meeting, talking about great eyes peering through the jungle, jungle eyes?

“He’s gone,” she lied. “He’s gone back to his job.”

“Could you kindly tell me where he is?”

“Far away — away out west.”

“Is he coming back soon?”

“No — not soon — perhaps never. He didn’t say.”

In the twilight the child suddenly began to cry softly, and the girl slapped him sharply on the cheek. “Shut up, you!” The child turned and buried his face in her skirt, and sobbed noiselessly. He was too thinly dressed and Joan saw he was shivering.

“He’s cold,” she exclaimed.

“He wouldn’t be so cold if he’d walked more instead of fretting me to carry him,” the girl said petulantly. But Joan dropped to her knees, not able to bear the child’s noiseless weeping. A little child ought not to know how to weep silently, she thought. He must have been many times afraid before he could have taught himself to weep like that.

She began to unbutton her jacket.

“I have a sweater underneath,” she said. “Let me wrap it about him.” She took off the garment and knelt upon the ground and slipped the child’s arm through the sleeves and turned them back over his hands. Without knowing it she was coaxing him, talking to him tenderly, persuading his little chilled body into the wrap. “There now, little boy! Now, this hand, now we’ll button it up warm and tight. See, I’ll put your own belt around to hold it close There … there …”

The child, won by her voice, looked at her, and she saw his face fully, near to her own. Her heart turned in her breast. Francis had been beautiful, but this child was the most beautiful she had ever seen. This little face was the face of a dream child. She stared into it, trembling, drawn, repelled. Francis, her mother, her father, her own self — all of them were there in this jungle child’s lovely face, but to them all were added the darkness, the passion, the power of the jungle.

“He’s your own brother’s child.” She heard the girl’s deep wild voice. “He put this child in me. He come and met me in the woods down by the stream and put this child in me and then he went away and left it on me. I got no way to keep him. If a man fathers a child in me, he’s got to take it or pay for it, one or other. Else I can’t make my living. And I’m wanting to settle down. I got a colored fellow will marry me if I can do something about this child. It’s your own brother’s — I can prove it.”

“Don’t tell me anything!” Joan whispered. “I believe what you say. I don’t want to know. Let me think.”

She rose to her feet and stood looking at the child. He looked back to her silently, comforted by the jacket, trying to hold his lips against quivering. From under his fabulous lashes he looked up, his eyes unearthly large. He could not possibly understand. He was too small. And yet he seemed to know his circumstances. She loved him suddenly, and she knew she could not let him go — she must keep hold of him — her mother, her father, Francis, all of them were here in this tiny body. His blood was theirs.

“If you will wait a few days,” she began, breathless, still looking down at him, “not more than a week — say a week from today — I’ll bring you a little money. I have to get it from the bank. I haven’t much, but I’ll surely help you. And I’ll think what to do — if you’ll just go home now. I’ll be here a week from today at this same time with the money. You can trust me, can’t you? My father used to preach in South End.”

“Yes, I used to hear him.” The girl laughed, a full deep laugh. “Lordy, I used to think what a conniption he’d have if he knew he was a granddad!”

Joan said, “Our parents are dead.”

“Yes, I know. The chapel’s shut up. They say it’s going to be a dance hall next summer — fellow name of Jack Weeks is going to open a beer hall there as soon as the main road’s finished — a little peakedy white fellow, but his dad’s putting up the cash. Going to open the factory again, too. The state’s working on a big new road now right through South End, and everybody says business is going to be good — we’re all going to make money.” The girl spoke eagerly, her mouth a poppy for redness in her glowing face. She was restored to good humor. “I’ve got to be gone, I guess. My fellow’s waiting down the road. He’s got a car. Well, thank you, ma’am, if you will help me. I call this child Frankie, after his pa. I call them after all their pas — the two girls, I twisted their names. Willa, I call one, and the other — Here, you take off the lady’s jacket, Frankie.”

“No — let him keep it,” said Joan. “And take care of him.” She turned and began to walk away.

“Oh, sure I will! I’m always good to them — nobody can say I’m not good to them.”

She looked after them once, quickly. That small creature was trudging along over the rough earth road. She could see her jacket warm around him, glowing through the twilight a spot of scarlet.

Oh, what had Francis done?

In the house there was the smell of wood burning in the kitchen stove. The cover had been taken from the table and in the kitchen, the men were washing. She heard Bart say, “Where’s Jo?”

“Upstairs, I guess,” his mother answered. “I’ve had no help from her tonight, I know.”

But she tiptoed through the room and went straight upstairs to the attic. Francis was still asleep. No, he was not asleep. He was lying awake, and he had lighted the candle on the box.

“That you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. She came over and sat on his bed. She had no time to waste. In a few minutes Bart would be shouting for her.

“Francis,” she began and stopped. “Francis — there was a girl here this afternoon — from South End — looking for you. I met her on the road.”

She felt his body gather and grow tense. “She was here, looking for me?”

“Yes — but I knew before.”

“You knew?”

“Yes.”

They were both whispering. He sat up. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t — you didn’t tell me.”

“I wanted to get away. … Damn her, she used to say she’d find me wherever I went. That’s why I couldn’t come back home. Thought I was safe here. How’d she know? I haven’t stirred out. I haven’t seen anybody.”