Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

“He doesn’t know me — he doesn’t sit up alone.”

“He’s too little,” Bart said.

“No, he’s not. Rose says David sat up long before this.”

“Kids aren’t the same. You fuss too much, Jo. Sam was sort of slow, I remember, but he turned out all right. Give him time. Here, kid—” He put his thick finger under Paul’s chin and tickled him. A slow vague smile came to the small lips. “Sure, you’re all right, aren’t you? Say, Jo, I wish you’d come and get me those shirts. Pop’s yelling to start on the hay.”

“All right, Bart.”

But then it was good to stir, to have to move and do something, to know the night was ended. She laid the child down upon the bed. After the shadows of night it was good to feel the stairs beneath her feet, to open drawers, to feel solid stuff in her hands, solid, coarse, everyday stuff.

She found the shirts and gave them to Bart. She went downstairs and busied herself about the kitchen. The sun was tipping the horizon and light spilled from it like shining water. In the barnyard across the road Sam was harnessing the horses, forcing them backward into the traces. Their great heads towered over him, snorting, protesting. The cows were coming in a solemn procession out of the gate and turning down the road to the pastures, lush with the full-grown grass. Behind them was Bart’s father, his shoulders bent beneath the weight of a full milk bucket in each hand. She fetched a cup and went to meet him to dip up the new milk. The old man watched her, grudging, silent, and went on his way into the cellar.

She stood drinking the milk in the sunshine. Within her was the waiting darkness of the night, to which she must return. But just for this moment it was morning. The trees, the hills, the sky were real. She stood among them in the morning. The night was behind her and before her, but here was morning. She looked upward to the sky, quickly, searching. It was a habit now to search the sky. But it was empty, high, above her, serene and blue.

“When did Bart begin to talk?” she asked his mother, when Paul was well past a year old. For these many months she had spent her every moment watching Paul, measuring him, testing all his powers. Did he hear her when she called him? Yes, he turned his head slowly when she called. Did he see? Yes, his eyes followed the red flannel dog if she moved it slowly enough. Would he put out his hand to take it? Yes, he took it, but he let it fall. He did not remember that he had it.

Bart’s mother stirred the sauce made from the sweet apples. She used sweet apples for sauce so that sugar could be spared. “There’s enough sugar in food natural,” she said. “Folks shouldn’t want to keep eating sugar. It’s a flesh pander.”

Sam and Bart both bought cheap candy, secretly, like little boys, and ate it as men drink liquor, starved for sweetness. Bart’s pockets were sticky with the stuff when Joan washed his garments.

“Bart?” said his mother vaguely. “Oh, I don’t know — he was kind of late. He didn’t really talk before he was five, I guess. I remember some pestering neighbor woman came in one day when he was three and said it was funny he didn’t talk yet. But I always said he’d talk when he got ready to, and he did.” She stirred and tasted the stuff. “Em had a girl who never did talk, though. She had a fall, they always said. She never was just right. They got her put away finally. Em couldn’t do with her around when she was grown up — she’d act queer before folks.”

On a spring morning she waited for Fanny under the oak tree around the bend and when they came, she took Frankie’s hand and said, “Look at me, Frankie.” He looked up at her instantly, fully, his eyes directed into hers, knowing, intelligent.

“When did he talk, Fanny?”

“Who — him? That child? He talked as soon as he walked, I reckon — he wasn’t a year old before he was talking.”

“He’s very quiet,” she said.

“He talks when he wants to,” Fanny said indifferently. “And can he sing! Sing, Frankie!”

He dropped her hand then, and clasping his hand behind him, he opened his mouth so wide she could see his rosy red tongue and small white teeth, and he began to sing. His voice came out clear and full and unchildlike. “I’m singing with a sword in my hand, O Lord,” he sang fervently, swaying from side to side. She listened in silence until he finished. In the tree above them a bird began to twitter madly.

“Here,” she said to Fanny, giving her the dollar she had now been giving her each week.

“Thank you,” said Fanny. “Come on, Frankie, let’s go.”

But Joan did not wait. She was plodding down the road. And what sort of God was it of whom her father used to speak in such belief, who numbered the very hairs of their heads, who watched a sparrow lest it fall? So carelessly was a dark and nameless child born and gifted. But her child, her wanted child, had been given nothing.

Precious body of Paul! Let her keep his body sweet and fresh — his perfect body which she had made. She went to Clarktown and bought recklessly fine soft linen, blue, yellow, and gay gingham printed with flowers, and made him little suits. Above the vivid stuff his rosy face glowed. It was a beautiful body, the body of a beautiful little boy, the shoulders square, the thighs full, the dimpled knees and feet. She held him all the time now, sleeping and awake. At night she put him beside her in the bed. In the day she sat him astride her hip and held him as she walked and worked. She must feel his body. She had this body.

On one August day she dressed him carefully and drove into Middlehope to Dr. Crabbe. She drove down the street, not seeing it. The buggy top was up. That was to shield the child from the sun — the child and her. From the shadow she need see no one. She would reach there at noon and Dr. Crabbe would be at his own house — and everybody else would be at dinner. She planned all the way what she would say. She would be very calm and matter-of-fact. “Dr. Crabbe, I am worried about Paul. He is slow about doing things. I want you to see him. I want to know the truth.”

Yes, she must know the truth. She must press the cruel truth across her heart and know it whole. But she would be very calm and wait for him to see the truth and tell her. She had waited all these months, gathering herself to be strong, to be calm.

She went into his little dun-colored office and sat down, and his housekeeper, Nellie Byers, stuck her head in at the door. “That you, Joan? He’s just eating his dinner. My, isn’t that a cute baby you got? Yours, isn’t it?”

“Yes, mine,” said Joan. “I’ll wait, Nellie.”

She would be glad to wait, glad to have the chance to force down this hardness in her throat. But she had no chance. He was there at once. He wiped his lips with his napkin and threw it on the floor.

“Well, well, Joan!” Oh, his blessed hearty voice, his warm good voice!

“You came just in time. I was about to go and see Mrs. Mark — nothing urgent, poor soul, just going round to see how much more of her is dead. I try to get around once in a while, though she don’t want me to come. Why, Joan, what’s wrong?”

She was staring at him, sobbing, sobbing loudly. The sobs came loud and dry, and she was helpless in their gasp. They seized her and shook her. Speechlessly she held out the child to him and he took the baby. She gasped through her terrible sobbing, “Something’s — wrong. He doesn’t — know me.”

She gave her burden to him, and she was eased. She stopped sobbing. For the first moment in all these weary wakeful nights, these restless frightening days, she had rest from her burden. The long silence in her broke. Now she could not stop talking. She must talk on and on—“He lies so still — he’s so awfully still — I can’t tell you, Dr. Crabbe — it’s him. No one ever says anything. They think it’s wrong to talk — it’s as though they had blighted him—” All the time she was talking, talking, and he was looking at the child, testing him, touching him here and there, moving his limbs. He took off the little clothes and held the child.