All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred fifty)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Chapter Six

Short Days

(part one hundred fifty)

 

 

 

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Lawrence stilled a certain sigh of completion. He knew his life would be difficult, that Mary had kept his house…that a wife did this.

Mary had kept his house, and he had never totted it up, so many jobs of work done. (So many inimical looks, so many freighted words…if God allowed…subtracted.) He would have to pay a girl, and she was likely to be Pearletta.

These musings carried him to the barn, not the place he meant to be, and so he walked to where a long-ago run of barb wire cut some birch stumps. Scraggling to life in clusters, leaves chest-high and bright yellow.

He had never tried sugaring birch…

He could see, climbing over, a horse was tethered at Clarks, Mangin’s.

“Jesus Lord.”

Farmer Clark, at his breathless stomp on the porch boards, appeared, in suitcoat and overalls. “Everard!”

Clark moved to the post, shaded his eyes, stared back the road. Lawrence stared, seeing of his house the long humped shape of wild grape drowning blackberry, black windows, white clapboard, green tin roof.

A deadness, though inside were four people at work.

“Trouble I can help with? Or Mrs. Clark?”

Mrs. Clark stepped out. “Lawrence, come sit. Junior was to bring you back with him, but he said you were off to town. To Snedden’s.”

Skepticism. Her hand guided him to the bench under the window, while Mangin from a dining chair stood, and Mrs. Clark shooed him down. “Sit right there, Lawrence. Dish up for yourself.”

Her husband under instruction set a plate and mug from the cupboard.

Lawrence said: “I saw the doctor was here, and it worried me more of the…”

“We are all right as rain.” Quick, as though typhoid, spoken over food, might spoil it.

“Snedden had me look for Bayard.”

The news drew nods. Lawrence dished potatoes, beans, rolls. Mrs. Clark dipped a platter towards him, and two chicken parts in thick batter slid to his plate.

“Bayard’s taking in Mary. Lidah.”

“A blessing someone will,” said Mangin.

“Hard thing to keep home for,” said Clark.

“Jethro Cemetery?”

Mrs. Clark asked it, and Lawrence, swallowing, understood a second late.

“You’ve asked Mr. Hardy?”

Mary’s minister, preacher at Jethro Chapel. Never had Lawrence shirked, in walking his wife to church, in dressing for Sundays, in hosting Hardy every third month. Hardy was no enemy, an easy man to speak to…

But he’d forgotten. The grave, the words over it. “There’s no wait likely, is there?”

Clark said: “Bayard’s got a cellar he can keep the boxes in.”

Mangin said, as before: “It’s a matter of public health. No. No wait. I will go along and speak to Bayard.”

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred fifty-one)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2024, Stephanie Foster)