The Collected Stories of William Humphrey Read Online Free Page B

but when he and I, one fall Saturday in my twelfth year, brought home nine plump ones, we had had an unusual good day. When they were plucked and laid in a row my father said that, by Jim, you could almost recognize these as kin to the old-time quail. My mother seized this moment to suggest inviting Mr. Forester to dinner. Before she could take it back, my father said that that mess of birds was about as near worthy of a Forester as you would come nowadays, and, all right, we’d do it, by Jim.
    He and I walked downtown. It was midafternoon and the square was filled with country folks. There were farmwives in poke bonnets, with snuff stains at the corners of their mouths, and bold country girls in overlong dresses who would say even coarser things than their brothers whenever they passed a town boy like me. Ordinarily I hurried past, pretending an errand of deafening urgency, while I tried to fix my thoughts upon some moment out of history. It was thanks to these girls that I had some idea what the word violation meant and I was fond of imagining that I had only lately saved these unworthy girls from violation at the hands of Union soldiers, and of enjoying the irony of their ingratitude. Today I was glad to have my father with me. I was even gladder to have him guide me past the corners of the square, where the narrow-eyed, dirty-talking country men collected, squatting on alternate haunches all afternoon and senselessly whittling on cedar sticks until they were ankle-deep in curly, red-and-white, tobacco-spattered shavings.
    A crowd was in the hardware store and both Mr. Forester and the Saturday clerk were busy. My father and I stood out of the crowd near the coil of hemp rope, and by breathing deeply of the dry, clean, grassy smell of it I felt purified and removed. I felt acutely what disgust must fill a man like Mr. Forester to have to sell cow salves and horse collars to such men, and to have to refuse to dicker with their women over the prices of pots and mops and over the measure of a dime’s worth of garden seed.
    The crowd thinned out and I strolled over to look at the showcase of pocket knives, but seeing the clerk heading my way I rejoined my father.
    It pleased my father to be able to tell Mr. Forester that he had not come on business.
    â€œNo, sir, I have come on pleasure. Not that it is not always a pleasure, of course.”
    â€œThis is my boy, Mr. Forester. Son, shake hands with Mr. Forester. He is a backward boy, sir, but do not take it to mean that he is not aware of the honor.”
    Mr. Forester’s resemblance to General Beauregard added to the trouble I had remembering that he had not fought in the Civil War. At twelve, I had a very undeveloped sense of the distance of the past, and often, indeed, I found it quite impossible to believe that the Civil War was over. Certainly I could never believe that those remains of men, more like ancient women, who were reverently pointed out to me as Confederate veterans, could ever have been the men of the deeds with which my imagination was filled.
    â€œMr. Forester,” said my father, “my wife has been after me I do not know how long to bring home some birds fit to ask company in to. Well, I went hunting today—me and the boy—and I will not say that what we brought home are fit, but as I said to my wife, I guess these birds are about as near worthy as I am ever going to come, for the birds do not get any better and neither do I.”
    I was aware of the solemnity of the moment by the lack of contractions in my father’s speech.
    â€œNow I would not know, myself,” he continued, “but some say my wife is a pretty fair cook.”
    My father waited then, and in a moment Mr. Forester got the idea that somewhere politely concealed in that speech was an invitation to dinner.
    Mr. Forester said, “Why now, this is mighty nice and thoughtful of you and your wife, John—of whose cooking I never would doubt. I