Deborah slung a new handful of wash onto the battling block and began to beat it even harder than necessary with the stick, considering the girl’s figure, too flat-chested and still too skinny, even though she was already beginning to show with child. She was a pretty little thing, Deborah had to grant her that much, and she could see how Janson might have been attracted to her, with her reddish-gold hair and blue eyes, but Deborah would never have thought it possible that he would have had his head turned to such a degree by this sort of girl, so modern, not at all the sort of girl he had been raised to marry. She had even allowed herself the worry that the child the girl carried might not be Janson’s—but she had voiced that concern to no one but Tom, and then only in the privacy of their bed in the night. Tom had told her to hush her mouth, that Elise seemed a good girl, and that Janson loved her dearly. Tom believed the girl loved Janson as well—men could be such gullible fools about some things, Deborah told herself. Such gullible fools.
She heard the front door of the house open and close, and a man’s footsteps on the porch, and then descending the steps toward the yard. A moment later Janson walked around the edge of the house, coming toward them where they worked in the side yard. He was dressed neatly in his best dungarees and a work shirt that was neatly pressed, though worn and frayed both at the cuffs and neck. His shoes were knotted together at the strings and slung over one shoulder, and his worn coat was in his hands as he walked to where his wife stood working at the washtub.
Elise had paused in her work and was staring at him, a look on her face that Deborah had not seen there before. Janson stopped before her and dropped his shoes to the ground, then took his coat and wrapped it about her shoulders. “You ought not be out here workin’,” he said quietly, but still she did not say anything. He turned to Deborah instead. “Gran’ma, she ought not be out here in the cold with her sleeves rolled to her elbows an’ her hands in that water. With th’ baby an’ all, she ought t’ be inside.”
Deborah looked at the girl and actually felt a twinge of guilt, realizing she had been working her so hard simply due to her own anger. She herself had worked harder than this throughout each of her own pregnancies, but this girl was not accustomed to such work, to any work at all, and Deborah had known that.
“I’m all right,” Elise said at last, drying her hands on the too-big apron Deborah had given her to wear, and then reaching back to take Janson’s coat from her shoulders and hold it up for him to slip it on. Janson’s hands closed over hers instead as she held the coat for him, and he looked down at her for a moment.
“I’ll be back soon as I can,” he said. “Don’t be worried if it’s late.”
“I won’t be. I just hope someone will stop to give you a ride into town, so you don’t have to walk so far.”
“Somebody probably will. If not, I’ll walk it; I’ve done it before.”
She nodded, and after a moment he drew her closer, holding her against him as his mouth came to hers. Deborah cleared her throat self-consciously, and, after a moment they separated, Janson finally moving to allow her to help him with his coat, and then turning back to look at her again.
“You go in an’ rest in a little while, you hear me?” he told her, and she nodded. He glanced at his grandmother for a moment, but did not say anything more, then he turned to look about the yard, toward the sharecropped house one more time, toward the fields where the dry cotton plants had recently been turned under, his eyes moving over the red land in a way that Deborah had so often seen before. For a moment he looked torn. There was a longing in him that she could almost feel—and then it was gone.
He straightened his back and turned his eyes toward his wife again, a brief smile touching his lips as he looked at her one last time before taking up his shoes and starting toward the road that would take him into town and away from the only kind of life he had known throughout his twenty years. Deborah watched him go, seeing him turn back to wave toward them before the rise of the land could cut off sight of the house behind him. She saw the girl wave in return, but Deborah did not. She could only turn back to her work, thinking of the years her son Henry had spent in that cotton mill, and of how often she had heard him swear that his son would have a better life.
Walter Eason sat in his office at the mill that morning, listening to the words of his son, Walt, but his eyes never left the hands folded neatly atop the massive oak desk, his own hands—his knuckles were large, his fingers long and tapering. Dark veins stood out along the backs of both hands; his nails were neatly groomed. Here and there were signs of his seventy-plus years, but the aging did not bother him. His hands were steadier still than many a younger man’s; they still held strength and assurance, as well as the wisdom he hoped that his years had brought him. They were hands that held influence far beyond this mill or Eason County, or even Alabama itself, hands that he was proud of, as he was proud of anything that was his own.
Walter sat looking at his hands as his son, sitting at the far side of the desk in a leather-covered armchair, delivered news that Walter did not want to hear. He listened, until long after the younger man had finished talking, but still did not say a word. He heard the shifting of his son’s abundant weight in the other chair, the creak of the upholstery, the clearing of a throat, a waiting and then silence, then he lifted his gray eyes and considered the man opposite him.
His only grandson, Walt’s only son and Walter’s hope for the future of his family and of his county, was causing difficulties again—but Buddy had been causing difficulties almost from his birth. Only the family name had kept him out of trouble with the law on several occasions in his eighteen years, but even the Eason name could not go on protecting him forever. He had to grow up someday if he were ever to assume the responsibility that would one day come to him.
After a long moment, Walter spoke. “Will the other boy recover?”
“Dr. Thrasher said that he would, though Buddy would have killed him if someone hadn’t pulled him off of the boy first.”
Walter nodded his head, considering. “Over a girl, you say—one of Buddy’s girlfriends?”
“No, the other boy’s—Buddy was, well—”
“And the boy’s parents?” Walter asked. He knew very well what his grandson was like; he did not have to be told, and he wanted none of the sordid details.
“The boy’s father is keeping his mouth shut.”
“Donner’s a good worker,” Walter said, nodding. It was his highest praise.
“But, Donner’s wife—” He did not continue, and did not have to. Walter expected nothing less than complete loyalty out of a millhand, no matter the circumstances.
“When the shift’s over, give Donner and his wife both their notice. I want them out of their mill house by day-end tomorrow—and make sure his wife keeps her mouth shut.”
The last words were said with a feeling that Walter showed only on such occasions. He could not allow such talk in the mill or the village. Complaint bred nothing but discontent—the more people talked, the unhappier they were; the unhappier they were, the more they wanted, and there could be nothing more a mill villager could want than what Walter Eason provided for them. They were poor; they worked long hours in the mill, and lived out their lives in mill houses he owned. They married other mill villagers, and had children just like themselves, too ill-equipped to make more of themselves than what they came into life with, for it was not within Walter to believe that anyone would be poor in the first place if he had any drive or ambition within him. All they could do was complain and cause trouble if they were given the chance, gaining for themselves freedoms they were never equipped to handle. They should be content in their neat homes along their clean streets, content with their steady wages, and the food on their tables, content that their children would come into the mill just as they had—he guaranteed them work; he guaranteed them shelter; he guaranteed them existence. What more could any of them need?
A discreet tap came at the door, and Walter looked up to see the secretary enter. “Yes, Grace?” Walt asked, an annoyance evident in his voice