when he woke it was already clear daylight and the sparrows were making a great racket and his first disappointed thought was that he was too late, though he could not yet think what it was he was too late for. but something special was on his mind which made him eager and happy almost as if this were christmas morning and within a second after waking he remembered what it was and, sitting up, his lungs stretching full with anticipation and pride, he put his hand into the crisp tissue paper with a small smashing noise and took out the cap. there was plenty of light to see the colors well; he quickly turned it around and over, and smelled of the new cloth and of the new leather band. he put it on and yanked the hill down firmly and pelted down the hallway calling “daddy! daddy!”, and burst through the open door into their bedroom; then brought up short in dismay, for his father was not there. but his mother lay there, propped up on two pillows as if she were sick. she looked sick, or very tired, and in her eyes she seemed to be afraid of him. her face was full of little lines he had never seen before; they were as small as the lines in her mended best teacup. she put out her arms towards him and made in odd, kind noise. “where’s daddy?” he shouted imperiously ignoring her arms. “daddy—isn’t here yet,” she told him, in a voice like hot ashes, and her arms sank down along the sheet.
“where is he, then!” he demanded, in angry disappointment, but she thrust through these words with her own: “go wake—little catherine and bring her straight here,” she said in a voice which puzzled him; “there’s something i must tell you both together.”
he was darting his eyes everywhere for clues of his father. clothes? watch? tobacco? nightshirt? “right away,” she said, in a desperate voice.
startled by its mysterious rebuke, and uneasy in his stomach because she had said “little catherine,” he hurried out—and all but collided with his aunt hannah. her mouth was strong and tightly pressed together beneath her glittering spectacles as she stooped, peering forward.
“hello, aunt hannah,” he called with astonishment, as he sped around and past her; he saw her go into the bedroom, her hair sticking out from her thin neck in two twiggy braids; he hurried to catherine’s crib.
“wake up, catherine!” he yelled, “mama says wake up! right away!”
“stobbit,” she bawled, her round, red face glaring.
“well mama said so, mama said so, wake up!”
and a few moments later he hurried back ahead of her and hollered breathlessly, “she’s coming!” and she trailed in, two-thirds asleep, snuffling with anger, her lower lip stuck out.
“take off that cap!” his aunt hannah snapped with frightening sternness, and his hands only just caught it against her snatching. he was appalled by this inexplicable betrayal, and the hardness of her mouth as she struggled with self-astonishment and repentance was even more ominous.
“oh, hannah, no, let him,” his mother said in her strange voice, “he was so crazy for jay to see it,” and even as she said it he was surprised all over again for his aunt, whispering something inaudible, touched his cheek very gently. and now as she had done before, his mother lifted forward her hands and her kind arms. “children, come close,” she said.
aunt hannah went silently out of the room.
“come close”; and she touched each of them. “i want to tell you about daddy.” but upon his name her voice shook and her whole dry-looking mouth trembled like the ash of burned paper in a draft. “can you hear me, catherine?” she asked, when she had recovered her voice. catherine peered at her earnestly as if through a thick fog. “are you waked up enough yet, my darling?” and because of her voice, in sympathy and for her protection, they both came now much nearer, and she put her arms around both of them, and they could smell her breath, a little like sauerkraut but more like a dried-up mouse. and now even more small lines like cracked china branched all over her face. “daddy,” she said, “your father, children”: and this time she caught control of her mouth more quickly, and a single tear spilled out of her left eye and slid jaggedly down all the jagged lines: “daddy didn’t come home. he isn’t going to come home ever any more. he’s—gone away to heaven and he isn’t ever coming home again. do you hear me, catherine? are you awake?” catherine stared at her mother. “do you understand, rufus?”
he stared at his mother. “why not?” he asked.
she looked at him with extraordinary closeness and despair, and said, “because god wanted him.” they continued to stare at her severely and she went on: “daddy was on his way home last night—and he was—he—got hurt and—so god let him go to sleep and took him straight away with him to heaven.” she sank her fingers in catherine’s springy hair and looked intently from one to the other. “do you see, children? do you understand?” they stared at her, and now catherine was sharply awake.
“is daddy dead?” rufus asked. her glance at him was as startled as if he had slapped her, and again her mouth and then her whole face began to work, uncontrollably this time, and she did not speak, but only nodded her head once, and then again, and then several times rapidly, while one small squeaky “yes” came out of her as if it had been sneezed out; then suddenly sweeping both of them close against her breasts, she tucked her chin down tightly between the crowns of their heads and they felt her whole body shaken as if by a wind, but she did not cry. catherine began to sniffle quietly because everything seemed very serious and very sad. rufus listened to his mother’s shattered breathing and gazed sidelong past her fair shoulder at the sheet, rumpled, and at a rubbed place in the rose-patterned carpet and then at something queer, that he had never seen before, on the bedside table, a tangle of brown beads and a little cross; through her breathing he began once more to hear the quarreling sparrows; he said to himself: dead, dead, but all he could do was see and hear; the streetcar raised and quieted its grim, iron cry; he became aware that his cap was pushed crooked against her and he felt that he ought to take it off but that he ought not to move just now to take it off, and he knew why his aunt hannah had been so mad at him. he could no longer hear even a rumor of the streetcar, and his mother’s breathing had become quiet again. with one hand she held catherine still more closely against her, and catherine sniffled a little more comfortably; with the other hand she put rufus quietly away, so that she could look clearly into his eyes; tenderly she took off his cap and laid it beside her, and pushed the hair back from his forehead. “neither of you will quite understand for a while,” she said. “it’s—very hard to understand. but you will,” she said (i do, he said to himself; he’s dead. that’s what) and she repeated rather dreamily, as if to herself, though she continued to look into his eyes, “you will”; then she was silent, and some kind of energy intensified in her eyes and she said: “when you want to know more—about it” (and her eyes became still more vibrant) “just, just ask me and i’ll tell you because you ought to know.” how did he get hurt, rufus wanted to ask, but he knew by her eyes that she did not mean at all what she said, not now anyway, not this minute, he must not ask; and now he did not want to ask because he too was afraid; he nodded to let her know he understood her. “just ask,” she said again, and he nodded again; a strange, cold excitement was rising in him; and in a cold intuition that it would be kind, and gratefully received, he kissed her. “god bless you,” she groaned, and held them passionately against herself; “both of you!” she loosened her arms. “and now you be a good boy,” she said in almost her ordinary voice, wiping catherine’s nose. “get little catherine dressed, can you do that?” he nodded proudly; “and wash and dress yourself, and by then aunt hannah will have breakfast ready.”
“aren’t you getting up, mama?” he asked, much impressed that he had been deputized to dress his sister.
“not for a while,” she said, and by her way of saying it, he knew that she wanted them to go out of the room right away.
“come on, catherine,” he said, and found, with surprise, that he had taken her hand. catherine looked up at him, equally surprised, and shook her head.
“go with rufus, dear,” her mother said, “he’s going to help you get dressed, and eat your breakfast. mother will see you soon.”
and catherine, feeling that for some reason to do with her father, who was not where he ought to be, and her mother too, she must try to be a very good girl, came away with him without further protest. as they turned through the door to go down, rufus saw that his mother had taken the beads and cross from the bedside table (they were like a regular necklace) and the beads ran among her fingers and twined and drooped from her hands and one wrist while she looked so intently at the upright cross that she did not realize that she had been seen. she’d be mad if she knew, he was sure.
before he did anything about catherine he put his cap back in the tissue paper. then he got her clothes. “take off your nightie,” he said. “sopping wet,” he added, as nearly like his mother as possible.
“you’re sopping wet too,” she retorted.
“no, i didn’t either,” he said, “not last night.”
he found that she could do a certain amount of dressing herself; she got on the panties and she nearly got her underwaist on right too, except that it was backwards. “that’s all right,” he told her, as much like his mother as he was able, you do it fine. just a little bit crooked”; and he fixed it right.
he buttoned her panties to her underwaist. it was much less easy, he found, than buttoning his own clothes. “stand still,” he said, because to tell her so seemed only a proper part of carrying out his duty.
“i am,” catherine replied, with such firmness that he said no more.
that was all that either of them said before they went down to breakfast.
