All this was long past. The Temple stood desolate, a weather-beaten frame building, the golden ball tarnished, the windows broken, rank weeds surrounding it like a dreary sea, but to little Shaw Manifold it was a place of strange happenings and spiritual adventure.
He put away the books and went slowly down to the living room.
“What have I got to do, Grandma?” he asked, with disinclination for work in every line of his small figure.
She looked down at him contemptuously.
“You don’t look as though you’d much work in you. My goodness, I don’t know where your mother got you! She’s not a lazy bone in her body.”
Shaw hung his head. He was saying to himself:—
“You stop talking about my Mamma. I don’t want to hear you talking about my Mamma.”
His grandmother said—“Luke and Mark have put a load of firewood outside the woodshed. You go and pile it. And see that you do it neat. Don’t make one of those teetery-tottery piles, like you did last time.”
“Have I got to pile wood all afternoon?”
“Yes.” She turned away and began to count the stitches in her knitting. She had talked more than she was accustomed to and drew back, as though into her shell.
Shaw dragged his feet unwillingly through the pantry where Beatrice and Letitia were doing the dishes. They were talking eagerly about a party they were going to that night and did not even glance at him. In the kitchen the eldest sister, Esther, was ironing a starched white petticoat with many tucks. She saw the little boy and called out:—
“Shaw, you go and fetch an armload of wood for the fire! My irons are getting cold.”
He muttered, under his breath—“Fetch it yourself! I’m not goin’ to! Who was your servant last year?”
But, though he muttered, he dragged his feet in the direction of the mound of freshly cut wood and selected pieces of the right length for the stove. He carried these to Esther and threw them in the wood box. She pushed back her irons, lifted the stove lid, and thrust several sticks in on the glowing bed of coals. He watched a small green worm that had clung on the wood frizzle a moment, then turn into a tiny black char. He liked the smell of the hot clean petticoat and ran his hand along its glossy tucks.
“Take your dirty hand off my ironing!” said Esther, and glowered down at him out of her small grey eyes under their heavy brows. The heat had set her hair into a mass of little curls. Her rather heavy lips were very red. They all looked alike, these aunts and uncles of his, and he scarcely separated them in his mind. Only his mother was different.
At first he piled the wood neatly, but as his back grew tired and his arms ached he became more and more careless, so that the foundations of the pile were insecure and it tottered threateningly. Time and again he went to the pump and drank deeply from the tin mug of the refreshing spring water, but he could not make himself pile the wood well.
His uncles came from field and barn for tea. Luke and Herbert passed him without remark, but Mark, the youngest of the family, looked derisively at the woodpile.
“Has Ma seen it?” he asked.
“No,” muttered Shaw.
Mark kicked the base of the pile and the greater part of the wood was strewn over the yard. Shaw looked after him sullenly. He picked up a heavy stick and hurled it after Mark, but not till he was sure that Mark would not see it. He himself was little, alone, there was no one to care for him. He would not pile the wood any more! He would not pile the wood!
A hen with a single chick bustled into the yard, scratching among the chips. Shaw made a sudden swoop and captured the chick. He held it in his cupped hands, deliciously fluffy and fragile. He held it to his cheek, then kissed it rapturously. He laughed, feeling ashamed of himself for kissing it.
Kissing was something he had almost no acquaintance with. At night, after his mother had heard him say his “Now I lay me,” she always laid her hand tenderly on his forehead for a moment. That was her caress. But before she had gone away she had clutched him to her and pressed passionately loving kisses on his face. He had tasted the salt of her tears. He had felt the heavy beating of her heart.
In his grandfather’s house he had never seen a kiss exchanged. One might have lived there many more years than Shaw had had life without seeing lip meet lip. Roger Gower had, in forty-five years of married life, kissed his wife twice. The first time had been on their marriage day. The second, when she lay in bed with her first-born. He was to kiss her twice more before he died. Once on their golden wedding day and again on their diamond anniversary.
Shaw set down the chick and it scurried to its mother. Even a little yellow chick could run under its mother’s wing and stare back at the world defiant! Shaw wondered why his throat ached so. His collar was too tight! He put his fingers inside it and loosened it from his throat. His shirt was wet with sweat.
His grandmother appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. Her snowy hair was smooth above her pink face. She had a clean white apron over her grey print dress. She looked benign, but the sight of her made Shaw quail. She spoke in her low gruff voice.
“What’s this about the woodpile? Mark says it’s toppled over already. You’d better pile it good and firm, Shaw, or I’ll take a stick to you. Don’t come in to tea till it’s done right.”
She turned back into the house.
Shaw picked up a stick of wood and threw it after her, but aimed so that it struck the side of the house. He heard the heavy thud with satisfaction.
“That’s what you get, Grandma!” he growled. “And I’ll throw more sticks after you! I’ll throw them and throw them till there isn’t one left in the pile! Then what’ll you say, I wonder! You won’t talk about taking a stick to me, I bet!”
He walked in truculent half-circles around the wood yard, turning abruptly to walk in the opposite direction. The hen, clucking anxiously to her chick, coaxed it out of his way.
Desperately he set to work on the woodpile. His uncles went out to finish their work, but they did not look at him. He ached in every joint when he had finished. There was a splinter in his hand. His shirt was wet through. His hunger was such that he was dull to everything but its gnawing.
He went into the house and found his tea laid on a corner of the kitchen table. Cold fried potatoes, bread and butter, and stewed dried apples.
His grandmother was lighting an oil lamp, for it was a room that darkened early because of its low ceiling and small windows that faced northeast. The unshielded flame of the lamp flared red and smoky, but once the chimney was on it threw a clear mellow light. In it Shaw now saw his grandfather spread out his newspaper, his beard illuminated, the wen, crowning the baldness of his head, smooth and shiny.
Without a word his grandmother went out through the door and critically examined the woodpile. It only partially satisfied her, but she gave a grudging nod toward Shaw and he slid anxiously into his chair, his eyes already devouring the food. As he ate he stared at his grandfather. He stared at him in fear and contempt. He was all-powerful. He was unassailable. But he knew nothing of Shaw’s world of books. He had forgotten the existence of the books his own father had left him. There he sat gazing at the cartoon by Sam Hunter, trying to take in its point, his blue eyes solemn and round, his beard spread like a great broom on his breast!
When would he move his eyes! Shaw stared fascinated. Then the diversion of the young women’s descent from above took his attention. They came rustling down the stairs in their stiffly starched white petticoats, giggling