The Accused, Harold R. Daniels [read out loud books txt] 📗

mother made over a gray flannel suit that had been given to one of his sisters during a period of service as a maid. He wore this to the church and to the cemetery.

It rained steadily during the actual burial. At twelve, just beginning to be conscious of his clothes, he stood in the rain, self-consciously aware of the ill-fitting suit and of the ragged haircut one of the uncles had given him at the last moment. To compensate for his clothes, he stood as straight as he could so that some of the sparse gathering patted him on the head and said, “There’s a little man.”

When it was over and they gathered in the living room of their house to make plans, Morlock hurried to his room and changed his clothes. Slipping out of the back door so that no one would see him and call to him to stay in the house, he made his way through the fields to Abram’s Rock, the wet grass whipping his bare legs as he ran. Near the top of the rock was a great crevice that was bridged by a fallen tree, making a shelter of sorts. He climbed to the crevice and crawled beneath the tree so that he was partially protected from the rain. Then, only then, he began to cry, his head tucked against his drawn-up knees. He cried partly out of the aching, conventional sorrow of a boy at losing his father, but also out of pity for the man who had spent those years in that musty smelling bedroom and out of grief for the shame in that man’s eyes.

When he was finished with crying he looked up, not having heard anyone approaching but sensing a presence, and saw at the level of his vision a pair of bare brown legs emerging from a skirt of some coarse material. He came out from beneath his shelter to see the Portagee kid—he so identified her in his quick, shamed anger at being found in tears—standing quite still and gravely watching him.

He said petulantly, “What are you doing out in the rain, kid? Don’t you have any sense?”

She said quietly, “You’re out in it. Why were you crying?”

He bent his head and tried to steady his voice. “My father died,” he said.

She skipped across the crevice and slid down beside him, sitting as still as he. “I’m sorry,” she said. “My mother died when I was eight.”

For perhaps several minutes neither of them spoke again. Morlock no longer resented her presence; she no longer intruded in his grief but rather shared it and made it lighter for him. After a time he said, “You shouldn’t be out in this rain. You’ll catch your death of cold.” Unconsciously, speaking to this child younger than himself, he parroted the words his mother had used a hundred times.

She shrugged. “Where I used to live it rains all the time. Nobody minds it. Besides,” she gestured in the direction of the farm where her people lived, “everybody is drunk back there. They always get drunk when they can’t go out and work in the fields.”

Morlock was shocked by the blunt explanation. Drunkenness was a disgrace and a shameful thing that people spoke about in whispers. He felt pity for this child who spoke of it so calmly without knowing what she was saying. He said uneasily, “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. They hit each other and throw things. By and by they go to sleep. It doesn’t matter.” Morlock found her accent pretty and wished she would speak more. She stood up. “I guess they asleep now. I go get something to eat. You hungry, boy?”

Morlock shook his head.

“We can sneak into the kitchen and get something if you like,” she said.

“I guess I’d better go home myself,” he said. He started the descent to the ground. When he was halfway down he looked back. She was standing where he had left her. When she saw him looking back, she called, “I’m sorry about your father. You come here tomorrow?”

Because he was a boy he called back casually, “I guess so. Maybe.” But on the way home he felt an odd anticipation at the thought of seeing her again.

His mother was alone in the kitchen when he came in the house; the uncles, the aunts and the sisters were in the parlor. She looked at him, wet and forlorn in the doorway. They were an undemonstrative family, but she made a rare gesture. She came toward him and dropped to her knees and hugged him wordlessly.

They were used to being poor, but hardly as poor as they were in the time directly after his father’s death. There were periods when they were actually hungry. Morlock helped as much as a young boy could. He had his lawns to mow, his errands to run. He spent the entire afternoon of one bad day gathering empty bottles and making the rounds of the stores collecting the few cents’ deposit on them. “When he had collected enough money, he bought frankfurters and rolls and a small package of tea. These things he brought to his mother as another boy would have brought the first silvery pussywillows of the spring. When their financial pressures eased some and there was time for play, he spent all of that time at Abram’s Rock with Marianna Cruz. Their games were solemn games played without the boisterous clamor that other children made. Morlock told her the legend of Abram’s Rock. She was fascinated with it and they enacted it many times. Often she would bring food to the Rock. Later in the year, when the corn ripened in the neighboring fields, they would steal a few ears. These they would roast in hot ashes. They would play their sober games until the shadows of the hemlocks lay long across the mossy flanks of Abram’s Rock. It was, for Morlock, a golden summer.

They were seldom bothered by the other children. Occasionally a crowd of them would come whooping to the Rock and join in whatever game the two were playing but the games never held them long. They would stay for a time and then, like a noisy flock of starlings, they would whirl away in a group. Once one of them shouted as if it were a shocking state of affairs that Marianna was Morlock’s girl. The rest of them took it up, giggling and gossiping, hoping to shame Morlock and the girl. Morlock’s reaction was more of surprise than resentment or shame. He seldom considered Marianna to be a girl. She was a comrade and a friend.

The summer waned and before they were aware of it it was time for school to begin.

Morlock asked her, “What grade will you be in?” He himself would be in the sixth.

She had been unusually quiet for several days. Morlock had supposed it was because of some family situation. Now she said in a troubled voice, “Woman was out to the house to see my fa’der. I will be in the first grade.” She looked straight at him, holding his eyes with hers in a way she had. “I’m afraid to go there to that school,” she continued.

Morlock, who liked school with its books and its crayons and its pencils, asked in astonishment, “Why should you be afraid? You’ll like it!”

She began to cry very softly. “Way I talk,” she said. “Way I dress. I got no good clothes. They will laugh at me.”

Morlock said loyally, “There’s nothing wrong with the way you talk.” He felt a rage at the thought that they might laugh at her, and he continued fiercely, “They better not. You can walk to school with me if you want to. I won’t let anyone laugh at you.”

Her face brightened. “Then I won’t be afraid,” she said with complete faith.

Morlock, the following morning, half regretted that he had invited her to walk with him to school. They would laugh, certainly, at the way she talked and the way she dressed, and he could not defend her against the whole school. And they would laugh at him for walking with her. Yet he had promised and so he waited for her.

She came early, walking quite slowly, head down, until she saw Morlock waiting for her. Then she began to walk faster, hurrying toward him. When she was abreast of him she slowed again and they walked on together. As they came nearer to the school, the sidewalk began to blossom with the back-to-school dresses of little girls and she began to hang back. Morlock, out of a sudden pity, said, “Don’t be afraid, Marianna.”

Now there were small boys and big boys; at the fence that bounded the schoolyard a whole cluster of them. When they saw Morlock and the girl they began to jeer and catcall. “Hey, Alvin—where did you get the Portagee girl friend?” And, “Hey, Portagee! Bet those are the first shoes you had on all year!”

Morlock felt a furious flush of embarrassment. Then he felt Marianna’s small hand creep into his own and he was ashamed of the embarrassment, ashamed of the regret that he had earlier felt at having offered to let her walk with him. This was his friend of the golden summer and to be ashamed of her was worse than being a traitor. He held his head high and said aloud, “Don’t pay any attention to them, Marianna. I’ll take you to your teacher.” And he wished that he could kill them all.

There were yet a few weeks of summer. They met after school each day at Abram’s Rock, which by now was almost like a home to them. It was their refuge, their sanctuary, and they knew every nook and cranny, every weathered scar on its great gray flanks.