Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

Surely this child was the best child that was ever born. He lay for hours in the rough little cradle she had found under the eaves. She had taken an old pillow and cleaned it and made it into a mattress and cut up two of her mother’s linen sheets into small sheets, and she made a tiny pillow and edged it with the fine crocheted lace upon her mother’s wedding petticoat. The petticoat was in the round-topped trunk and there she found it, yellowed and scarcely worn, and very fine. Her mother had been an only child and her wedding clothes had been fine, and she had had good linen, though her father had been poor — a professor of Latin in a little Southern university. She scarcely ever talked about her father and mother, because they had died close together the last year before Joan was born. There was no home to go to anymore — no home to take her baby and show her off. She used to say, “I did so want to show you to my mother, Joan. You were the loveliest baby, and she loved babies. It was so hard not to have her see you.”

Yes, it was hard. Looking at her own baby, Joan cried out in her heart, “I wish I could show him to her. I wish she could see him, somehow. Maybe she does see him.”

But even if she saw him from some far heaven of the dead it was not enough. She wanted to cry out to her mother, “Look at his little hands and feet! See how quietly he lies. I believe he will have curly hair. Isn’t his hair the goldenest gold?”

She wanted to hear her mother’s voice, eager, excited, agreeing, praising, “The loveliest baby, darling! I always knew you would have lovely babies.”

But there was only silence, and she sitting alone by the crib holding his plump, passive little hand. He was so good. He would lie letting her hold his hand or cuddle him to her. It did not matter how firmly she strained him to her, he never cried. He ate and slept and never cried when she put him down. He lay in his crib, staring at the rafters, breathing gently, slowly. He was so quiet, so silent. Even Bart’s mother said grudgingly, “He’s pretty good. But I declare I don’t see the use of washing out his diapers every time they’re a mite wet. The soap jar’s nearly empty again. It’s a chore to make soap, too.”

She grew strong quickly and went downstairs. Everything was exactly the same and yet it was all different now that her baby was born. This was her home. She was rooted here now.

“Seems to me it’s about time you was moving into your right bed again,” said Bart to her one night. She was putting away his blue shirts she had just ironed. He was in bed, ready to sleep.

She was suddenly breathless. “The baby would disturb you, Bart.”

“He doesn’t make any noise,” said Bart grumpily from the bed. He was watching her, the thickened look creeping about his lips and nostrils. She hastened a little and then remembered. She was not afraid. She did not answer. She put away Bart’s heavy shoes and hung up his work garments. “Shall I open the window, just a little?” she said quietly.

“No,” he grunted from the bed. “It’s as cold as sin outside.”

“Then good night,” she said. She blew out the lamp quietly and escaped him in the darkness.

She climbed the attic stairs and made ready for bed. In the cradle the baby lay sleeping. She threw open the window wide and felt the clean icy air rush in upon them. I’ll keep him where I can open the windows, she thought. He’s going to live up here with me.

She lay there in the keen darkness, awake, the cold air coming and going, an energy in her blood against sleep.

She was perfectly strong again. The baby was three weeks old. Dr. Crabbe said he wouldn’t come anymore — she didn’t need him.

“You never needed me anyway, darn you,” he said affectionately, accusing her. “You’ve got health enough in you to heal any sickness.” Yes, she was strong — strong enough for anything, strong against anybody.

Echoing at the edges of her thought was Fanny’s voice. Fanny might come any day. The heavy snows were melting. She must get word to Fanny. That little dark child belonged to her, too. She must do something, she must think what to do. But now she would know, she was so strong. Things came to her when she was strong like this.

And next day she thought of how to get word to Fanny. She met Sam on the small back stairs and waited for him. The stair was too narrow for passing. As she waited for his clumping step, waited for his rough grinning face to pass her, she thought of it. There was a look on his face, a look she hated and would not see. He could not see any woman without that look. But she could use even that. “Sam,” she whispered, “will you do something for me?”

“Sure,” he said. He clamped his hand heavily upon her shoulder and patted it. She did not flinch. “Do you see Fanny sometimes?”

He dropped his hand and his grin widened. “Now you’re trying to find out something.”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “I only want you to tell her something for me — tell her that I’m ready to do what I said.”

“What did you say?”

She fenced him off. “Now you are trying to find out something.”

“Yes,” he parried. His hand was heavy on her shoulder again. “I got you.”

“No more than I have you,” she said smoothly. “I would tell your father, you know.”

His hand was dead on her shoulder. The grin was stricken from his face. “You wouldn’t !” he whispered.

“No, of course not!” She laughed, sick within herself. “Of course I won’t say a word. You will tell her, won’t you, Sam?”

“Sure, I’ll tell her,” he said. “I’ll tell her — I’ll tell her tonight maybe—”

She went upstairs and took the baby from the cradle and rocked him against her, sick, sick. She must remember that little dark angelic face. What she did was for him — for them all.

She looked at the baby. He was so fair, his eyes blue like her father’s. I’ll call him Paul, after Father, she thought. She had not known what to call him. Once she had asked Bart suddenly, “Do you like the name Roger, Bart?”

“What for?” he had asked stupidly.

“For the baby.”

“I don’t know,” he had answered, pondering. “We had a sorrel horse named Roger. Pop sold him because he wouldn’t go in a team. He’d rear and pitch if he was put with another horse.”

No, she thought, looking at the child’s broad pale forehead and wide blue eyes, Roger didn’t suit him. Roger meant someone else. Paul — she named him Paul.

“Shall we call the baby Paul?” she said brightly at the supper table.

They looked up at her out of the silence. Whenever she spoke they looked at her astonished, unable to comprehend at once what she said, since she did not speak of the things of which they were thinking — the field just sown, a horse to be shod, the pig’s litter. Then Sam spoke. “Paul — it’s all right, isn’t it? Pop will like it.”

“It’s short and handy,” said Bart.

“They can’t nickname it when he goes to school,” said Bart’s mother.

The old man waited, his jaws full of dry bread. He swallowed hard and gulped the skim milk. “It’s a good Gospel name,” he said.

“Then it will be Paul,” said Joan. She smiled. It would have been Paul anyway.

She had often dreamed in the silence of this house of children’s voices, of the chatter and singing, of the shouting and laughter. The house would be full of lovely sound when a child was born. Even a child’s lusty crying would be good to hear.

But Paul was so still. He never cried. Not unless he were hurt and in physical pain would he cry. She waited for the sounds of bubbling laughter, of cries and little angers. Frank, she remembered, searching her memory, had been always bubbling and cooing and roaring with laughter or crying. But Paul was still. She coaxed him with singing and prattle and smiles. But he stared back at her quietly, his face grave, his blue eyes wandering from her face. She held him in her arms and shook him in play and he bore it patiently. The most he ever gave her was one day when she touched his cheek with her finger and moved it about his chubby jaw, his lips. Then for an instant he smiled, as though she had touched some nerve or muscle. But when she cried out in delight, it was over. When she took her finger away, the smile was gone. It was like a ripple when a finger is trailed in water. She could not be sure it was a smile.