The Pastures of Heaven Read online

  Shark saw this recognition take place in many people. He saw men blush when they looked at her, saw little boys fight like tigers when she was about.

  He thought he read covetousness in every male face. Often when he was working in the orchard he tortured himself by imagining scenes wherein gypsies stole the little girl. A dozen times a day he cautioned her against dangerous things: the hind heels of horses, the highness of fences, the danger that lurked in gullies and the abso­lute suicide of crossing a road without carefully looking for approaching automobiles. Every neighbor, every peddler, and worst of all, every stranger he looked upon as a possible kidnapper. When tramps were reported in the Pastures of Heaven he never let the little girl out of his sight. Picnickers wondered at Shark’s ferocity in ordering them off his land.

  As for Katherine, the constantly increasing beauty of Alice augmented her misgiving. Destiny was waiting to strike, and that could only mean that destiny was storing strength for a more violent blow. She became the slave of her daughter, hovered about and did little services such as one might accord an invalid who is soon to die.

  In spite of the worship of the Wicks for their child and their fears for her safety and their miser-like gloating over her beauty, they both knew that their lovely daughter was an incredibly stupid, dull and backward little girl. In Shark, this knowledge only added to his fears, for he was convinced that she could not take care of herself and would become an easy prey to anyone who wished to make off with her. But to Katherine, Alice’s stupidity was a pleasant thing since it presented so many means by which her mother could help her. By helping, Katherine proved a superiority, and cut down to some extent the great gap between them. Katherine was glad of every weakness in her daughter since each one made her feel closer and more worthy.

  When Alice turned fourteen a new responsibility was added to the many her father felt concerning her. Be­fore that time Shark had only feared her loss or disfigurement, but after that he was terrified at the thought of her loss of chastity. Little by little, through much dwelling on the subject, this last fear absorbed the other two. He came to regard the possible defloration of his daughter as both loss and disfigurement. From that time on he was uncomfortable and suspicious when any man or boy was near the farm.

  The subject became a nightmare to him. Over and over he cautioned his wife never to let Alice out of her sight. “You just can’t tell what might happen,” he repeated, his pale eyes flaring with suspicions. “You just can’t tell what might happen.” His daughter’s mental inadequateness greatly increased his fear. Anyone, he thought, might ruin her. Anyone at all who was left alone with her might misuse her. And she couldn’t protect her­self, because she was so stupid. No man ever guarded his prize bitch when she was in heat more closely than Shark watched his daughter.

  After a time Shark was no longer satisfied with her purity unless he had been assured of it. Each month he pestered his wife. He knew the dates better than she did. “Is she all right?” he asked wolfishly.

  Katherine answered contemptuously, “Not yet.”

  A few hours later—”Is she all right?”

  He kept this up until at last Katherine answered, “Of course she’s all right. What did you think?”

  This answer satisfied Shark for a month, but it did not decrease his watchfulness. The chastity was in­tact, therefore it was still to be guarded.

  Shark knew that some time Alice would want to be married, but, often as the thought came to him, he put it away and tried to forget it, for he regarded her mar­riage with no less repugnance than her seduction. She was a precious thing, to be watched and preserved. To him it was not a moral problem, but an aesthetic one. Once she was deflorated, she would no longer be the precious thing he treasured so. He did not love her as a father loves a child. Rather he hoarded her, and gloated over the possession of a fine, unique thing. Gradually, as he asked his question—“Is she all right?”—month by month, this chastity came to symbolize her health, her preservation, her intactness.

  One day when Alice was sixteen, Shark went to his wife with a worried look on his face. “You know we really can’t tell if she’s all right—that is—we couldn’t really be sure unless we took her to a doctor.”

  For a moment Katherine stared at him, trying to real­ize what the words meant. Then she lost her temper for the first time in her life. “You’re a dirty, suspicious skunk,” she told him. You get out of here! And if you ever talk about it again, I’ll—I’ll go away.”

  Shark was a little astonished, but not frightened, at her outburst. He did, however, give up the idea of a medical examination, and merely contented himself with his monthly question.

  Meanwhile, Shark’s ledger fortune continued to grow. Every night, after Katherine and Alice had gone to bed, he took down the thick book and opened it under the hanging lamp. Then his pale eyes narrowed and his blunt face took on a crafty look while he planned his investments and calculated his interest. His lips moved slightly, for now he was telephoning an order of stock. A stern and yet sorrowful look crossed his face when he foreclosed a mortgage on a good farm. “I hate to do this,” he whispered. “You folks got to realize it’s just business.”

  Shark wetted his pen in the ink bottle and entered the fact of the foreclosure in his ledger. “Lettuce,” he mused. “Everybody’s putting in lettuce. The market’s going to be flooded. Seems to me I might put in potatoes and make some money. That’s fine bottom land.” He noted in the book the planting of three hundred acres of potatoes. His eye traveled along the line. Thirty thousand dollars lay in the bank just drawing bank interest.

  It seemed a shame. The money was practically idle. A frown of concentration settled over his eyes. He won­dered how San Jose Building and Loan was. It paid six per cent. It wouldn’t do to rush into it blindly without investigating the company. As he closed the ledger for the night, Shark determined to talk to John Whiteside about it. Sometimes those companies went broke, the officers absconded, he thought uneasily.

  Before the Munroe family moved into the valley, Shark suspected all men and boys of evil intent toward Alice, but when once he had set eyes on young Jimmie Munroe, his fear and suspicion narrowed until it had all settled upon the sophisticated Jimmie. The boy was lean and handsome of face, his mouth was well devel­oped and sensual, and his eyes shone with that insulting cockiness high school boys assume. Jimmie was said to drink gin; he wore town clothes of wool—never over­alls. His hair shone with oil, and his whole manner and posture were of a rakishness that set the girls of the Pastures of Heaven giggling and squirming with admira­tion and embarrassment. Jimmie watched the girls with quiet, cynical eyes, and tried to appear dissipated for their benefit. He knew that young girls are vastly at­tracted to young men with pasts. Jimmie had a past. He had been drunk several times at the Riverside Dance Palace; he had kissed at least a hundred girls, and, on three occasions, he had sinful adventures in the willows by the Salinas River. Jimmie tried to make his face con­fess his vicious life, but, fearing that his appearance was not enough, he set free a number of mischievous little rumors that darted about the Pastures of Heaven with flattering speed.

  Shark Wicks heard the rumors. In Shark there grew up a hatred of Jimmie Munroe that was born of fear of Jimmie’s way with women. What chance, Shark thought, would beautiful, stupid Alice have against one so steeped in knowledge of worldliness?

  Before Alice had ever seen the boy, Shark forbade her to see him. He spoke with such vehemence that a mild interest was aroused in the dull brain of the girl.

  “Don’t you ever let me catch you talking to that Jim­mie Munroe,” he told her.

  “Who’s Jimmie Munroe, Papa?”

  “Never you mind who he is. Just don’t let me catch you talking to him. You hear me! Why, I’ll skin you alive if you even look at him.”

  Shark had never laid a hand on Alice for the same reason that he would not have whipped a Dresden vase. He even hesitated to caress her for fear of leaving a mark. Punishment
was never necessary. Alice had always been a good and tractable child. Badness must originate in an idea or an ambition. She had never experienced either.

  And again—“You haven’t been talking to that Jimmie Munroe, have you?”

  “No, Papa.”

  “Well, just don’t let me catch you at it.”

  After a number of repetitions of this order, a convic­tion crept into the thickened cells of Alice’s brain that she would really like to see Jimmie Munroe. She even had a dream about him, which shows how deeply she was stirred. Alice very rarely dreamed about anything In her dream, a man who looked like the Indian on her room calendar, and whose name was Jimmie, drove up in a shiny automobile and gave her a large juicy peach. When she bit into the peach, the juice ran down her chin and embarrassed her. Then her mother awakened her for she was snoring. Katherine was glad her daughter snored. It was one of the equaling imperfections. But at the same time it was not ladylike.

  Shark Wicks received a telegram. “Aunt Nellie passed away last night. Funeral Saturday.” He got into his Ford and drove to the farm of John Whiteside to say he couldn’t attend the school board meeting. John Whiteside was clerk of the board. Before he left, Shark looked worried for a moment and then said, “I been wanting to ask you what you thought about that San Jose Building and Loan Company.”

  John Whiteside smiled. “I don’t know much about that particular company,” he said.

  “Well, I’ve got thirty thousand lying in the bank drawing three per cent. I thought I could turn a little more interest than that if I looked around.”

  John Whiteside pursed his lips and blew softly and tapped the stream of air with his forefinger. “Offhand, I’d say Building and Loan was your best bet.”

  “Oh, that ain’t my way of doing business. I don’t want bets,” Shark cut in. “If I can’t see a sure profit in a thing, I won’t go into it. Too many people bet.”

  “That was only a manner of speaking, Mr. Wicks. Few Building and Loan Companies go under. And they pay good interest.”

  “I’ll look into it anyway,” Shark decided. “I’m going up to Oakland for Aunt Nellie’s funeral, and I’ll just stop off a few hours in San Jose and look into this company.”

  At the Pastures of Heaven General Store that night there were new guesses made at the amount of Shark’s wealth, for Shark had asked the advice of several men.

  “Well anyway, there’s one thing you can say,” T. B. Allen concluded, “Shark Wicks is nobody’s fool. He’ll ask a man’s advice as well as the next one, but he’s not going to take anybody’s say-so until he looks into it him­self.”

  “Oh, he’s nobody’s fool,” the gathering concurred.

  Shark went to Oakland on Saturday morning, leaving his wife and daughter alone for the first time in his life. On Saturday evening Tom Breman called by to take Katherine and Alice to a dance at the schoolhouse.

  “Oh, I don’t think Mr. Wicks would like it,” Kathe­rine said, in a thrilled, frightened tone.

  “He didn’t tell you not to go, did he?”

  “No, but—he’s never been away before. I don’t think he’d like it.”

  “He just never thought of it,” Tom Breman assured her. “Come on! Get your things on.”

  “Let’s go, Ma,” said Alice.

  Katherine knew her daughter could make such an easy decision because she was too stupid to be afraid. Alice was no judge of consequences. She couldn’t think of the weeks of torturing conversation that would follow when Shark returned. Katherine could hear him already. “I don’t see why you’d want to go when I wasn’t here. When I left, I kind of thought you two would look after the place, and the first thing you did was run off to a dance.” And then the questions—“Who did Alice dance with? Well—what did he say? Why didn’t you hear it? You ought to of heard.” There would be no anger on Shark’s part, but for weeks and weeks he would talk about it, just keep talking about it until she hated the whole subject of dances. And when the right time of the month came around, his questions would buzz like mosquitoes, until he was sure Alice wasn’t going to have a baby. Katherine didn’t think it worth the fun of going to the dance if she had to listen to all the fuss afterwards.

  “Let’s go, Ma,” Alice begged her. “We never went any place alone in our lives.”

  A wave of pity arose in Katherine. The poor girl had never had a moment of privacy in her life. She had never talked nonsense with a boy because her father would not let her out of earshot.

  “All right,” she decided breathlessly. “If Mr. Breman will wait ’till we get ready, we will go.” She felt very brave to be encouraging Shark’s unease.

  Too great beauty is almost as great a disadvantage to a country girl as ugliness is. When the country boys looked at Alice, their throats tightened, their hands and feet grew restless and huge, and their necks turned red. Nothing could force them to talk to her nor to dance with her. Instead, they danced furiously with less beautiful girls, became as noisy as self-conscious children and showed off frantically. When her head was turned, they peeked at Alice, but when she looked at them, they strove to give an impression of unawareness of her pres­ence. Alice, who had always been treated in this way, was fairly unconscious of her beauty. She was almost resigned to the status of a wall flower at the dances.

  Jimmie Munroe was leaning against a wall with ele­gant nonchalance and superb ennui when Katherine and Alice entered the schoolhouse door. Jimmie’s trous­ers had twenty-seven-inch bottoms, his patent leather shoes were as square across the toes as bricks. A black jazz-bow tie fluttered at the neck of a white silk shirt, and his hair lay glitteringly on his head. Jimmie was a town boy. He swooped like a lazy hawk. Before Alice had taken off her coat he was beside her. In the tired voice he had acquired in high school he demanded, “Dancing, baby?”

  “Huh?” said Alice.

  “How’d you like to dance with me?”

  “Dance, you mean?” Alice turned her smoky, promise­ful eyes on him, and the stupid question became humor­ous and delightful, and at the same time it hinted at other things which moved and excited even the cynical Jimmie.

  “Dance?” he thought she asked. “Only dance?” And in spite of his high school training, Jimmie’s throat tightened, his feet and hands shifted nervously and the blood rose to his neck.

  Alice turned to her mother who was already talking with Mrs. Breman that peculiar culinary gabble of housekeepers. “Ma,” said Alice, “can I dance?”

  Katherine smiled. “Go on,” she said, and then, “Enjoy yourself for once.”

  Jimmie found that Alice danced badly. When the music stopped, “It’s hot in here, isn’t it? Let’s stroll out­side,” he suggested. And he led her out under the willow trees in the schoolhouse yard.

  Meanwhile a woman who had been standing on the porch of the schoolhouse went inside and whispered in Katherine’s ear. Katherine started up and hurried out­side. “Alice!” she called wildly. “Alice, you come right here!”

  When the wayward two appeared out of the shadows, Katherine turned on Jimmie. “You keep away, do you hear me? You keep away from this girl or you’ll get into trouble.”

  Jimmie’s manhood melted. He felt like a sent-home child. He hated it, but he couldn’t override it.

  Katherine led her daughter into the schoolhouse again. “Didn’t your father tell you to keep away from Jimmie Munroe? Didn’t he?” she demanded. Katherine was ter­rified.

  “Was that him?” Alice whispered.

  “Sure it was. What were you two doing out there?”

  “Kissing,” said Alice in an awed voice.

  Katherine’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, Lord!” she said. “Oh, Lord, what shall I do?”

  “Is it bad, Ma?”

  Katherine frowned. “No—no, of course it’s not bad,”

  she cried. “It’s—good. But don’t you ever let your father know about it. Don’t you tell him even if he asks you! He—why, he’d go crazy. And you sit here beside me the rest of the evenin
g, and don’t you see Jimmie Munroe any more, will you? Maybe your father won’t hear about it. Oh, Lord, I hope he don’t hear about it!”

  On Monday Shark Wicks got off the evening train in Salinas, and took a bus to the cross-road which ran from the highway into the Pastures of Heaven. Shark clutched his bag and began the four-mile walk home.

  The night was clear and sweet and heavy with stars. The faint mysterious sounds of the hills welcomed him home and set up reveries in his head so that he forgot his footsteps.

  He had been pleased with the funeral. The flowers were nice, and there were so many of them. The weeping of the women and the solemn tip-toeing of the men had set up a gentle sorrow in Shark which was far from un­pleasant. Even the profound ritual of the church, which no one understands nor listens to, had been a drug which poured sweet mysterious juices into his body and his brain. The church opened and closed over him for an hour, and out of his contact he had brought the drowsy peace of strong flowers and drifting incense, and the glow of relationship with eternity. These things were wrought in him by the huge simplicity of the burial.

  Shark had never known his Aunt Nellie very well, but he had thoroughly enjoyed her funeral. In some way his relatives had heard of his wealth, for they treated him with deference and dignity. Now, as he walked home, he thought of these things again and his pleasure speeded up the time, shortened the road and brought him quickly to the Pastures of Heaven General Store. Shark went in, for he knew he could find someone in the store who would report on the valley and its affairs during his ab­sence.

  T. B. Allen, the proprietor, knew everything that hap­pened, and also he enhanced the interest of every bit of news by simulating a reluctance to tell it. The most stupid piece of gossip became exciting when old T. B. had it to tell.