I sat down to silence. Then Harry said, “Very good, pet,” and started clapping. My other brothers joined in. Mother’s and Father’s applause was tepid. I felt vaguely melancholy.
Lamar said, “I resolve to do better in geometry.” He spent hours each day running around the house measuring the angle of things with his new steel protractor.
Sam Houston said, “Lula Gates won’t let me carry her books home from school, so I resolve to carry Effie Preston’s, even if she doesn’t want me to. I swear I’m going to do it.” This got a good laugh.
Then it was Harry’s turn, but he only smiled and said, “It’s a secret.” There was a general outcry of that’s not fair.
I said, “You have to tell us, Harry. Otherwise it isn’t a real resolution.” Finally he relented to get us off his back. He glanced at Mother and said, somewhat weakly, I thought, “I resolve to study hard so I can get into the university next year.”
Mother twinkled with pleasure at this, which of course was his intended result, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it, he was just throwing her a sop. The fact that he wouldn’t tell us his real resolution made me suspect that it had something to do with Fern Spitty.
Mother’s resolution was to make sure that every single one of her children made it to church at least twice a week. There was stirring in the ranks at this but no one had the courage to moan about it to her face.
Father’s resolution was to give up dipping snuff. Since he was only allowed to dip at the gin, he’d decided that the agony of having to give it up at the front door every day when he came home outweighed the pleasure of partaking at work. Mother looked delighted and sipped her fizzy wine.
It took some badgering of Granddaddy, who took it jovially enough before he said, “It would be a sad commentary on my life if I were to have any resolutions left at my age. However . . . there is one thing. . . .”
Mystified, I searched my brain. Something to do with the mutant? Or that he wanted to perfect his pecan spirits? I had no clue.
“I wish to go driving in an auto-mobile,” he said. “I hear they have one in Austin.”
“But they’re dreadful machines!” said Mother. “And so unsafe! They say they’re likely to explode without warning, and people are always breaking their arms at the crank.”
“True.” He smiled. There was a contented, faraway expression on his face. He looked to the world as if he were staring off into the distance; but I knew that he was gazing into the future.
Then there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for the next hour to pass. My parents talked quietly, Granddaddy smoked cigars and read his National Geographic, and my brothers and I took turns at fighting off sleep and failing miserably. Finally, finally, the clock struck midnight, and as the chimes died out, we heard a cacophony of pots and pans being beaten in the streets all over town. We clasped hands in a circle and sang “Auld Lang Syne.” The words were incomprehensible, but the music was lovely. I looked around the circle of dear faces and considered all the gifts that had come to me over the past year. There were Mother and Father, holding hands and looking tired but happy. She had a few threads of gray at her temples, which I hadn’t noticed before. There was Harry: proud, tall, handsome, his collar and tie immaculate, a young gentleman in the making. There were Sam Houston and Lamar; there was Travis with Jesse James in his arms; there was yawning Sul Ross. There was J.B., dead on his feet but gamely determined to see in the new year.
And there was my grandfather, adding his low baritone in sad, sweet harmony to the music, his long beard glinting in the firelight. We had been so close to missing each other, he and I. He had turned out to be the greatest gift of all.
Then the pots and pans died out, and the song ended. Everyone except for Mother and Father shuffled up to bed, leaving the two of them to sit up together awhile longer.
I put on my thickest red flannel nightie and dove into bed. Mercifully, SanJuanna had taken the chill off the sheets with a warming pan. I intended to lie there for a while and take stock of my life. That’s what you do at the end of the century, don’t you? But I think I actually fell asleep right away and only dreamed I was taking stock.
Chapter 28
1900
The action of climate seems at first sight to be quite independent of the struggle for existence; but in so far as climate chiefly acts in reducing food, it brings on the most severe struggle between the individuals. . . .
I AWOKE IN A gasping panic. There was something terribly wrong with the world, and I knew in my marrow that something dreadful had happened during the night. It took me several seconds to figure out exactly what was wrong: There was such a deep, unnatural silence in the house and outside my window that it felt like the whole world had packed up and stolen away in the night. Had it happened? Had the world come to an end? Should I fall to my knees and pray?
And the light was all wrong. The light edging around my curtains seemed not so much like light as its absence. Every object in my room had taken on a flat, grayish aspect.
And then Ajax barked, just once. The sound was reassuring, even though it was muffled and as flat as the light. My panic was somewhat subdued by the realization that my bladder was about to burst. I felt desperate to use the chamber pot, but first I had to face the hideousness that awaited outside. I considered this. Well, if you did have to face the hideousness, it was a lot better to do so with an empty bladder. On the other hand, the china chamber pot would be awfully cold. I weighed these things, groped under the bed for the pot, and did a fair job of balancing above the icy rim.
That was better. Now to the business of facing hideousness.
I stood resolutely before the window and put my shoulders back in good military posture, took a deep breath, and yanked the curtain aside.
And there it was: a perfect blanket of white covering the lawn, the trees, the road, as far as I could see, all absolutely unbroken, untouched, and still. Snow. It had to be snow.
The world hadn’t ended. It had just begun.
I looked around my room at my familiar things in the strange light: the hummingbird’s nest in its glass box, my red Notebook, my framed butterflies.
I put on my rabbit slippers and pulled my wool dressing gown over my nightie. I edged around the noisy floorboard in the middle of the room and opened my door as quietly as I could, but it creaked loudly in the cold. I waited to see if anyone stirred, but to my relief there was no sound. I wanted to be alone. I wanted this just for me.
I tiptoed down the stairs out the front door and stood on the porch, clutching my gown around me. The temperature amazed me. How could the world be this cold? I inhaled deeply, and the air felt like a dagger in my chest. My exhaled breath formed clouds in the air that disappeared before I could catch them in my hands. There was no noise except for the whoosh of my breathing and the rushing of my own heartbeat. There were no birds in the silvery sky, no squirrels in the trees, no possums. Where had all the abounding life gone? The lack of living things made the landscape both beautiful and menacing.
As I looked out, a young coyote came slowly out of the trees, delicately lifting and shaking each paw before gingerly putting it down again in the snow. Step, flick, pause . . . step, flick, pause. . . . There was an expression on its face of such great disgust that I laughed. Startled, it looked up and saw me on the porch, and then I swear it sneered at me. It turned slowly on the spot and went back into the trees the way it had come, trying to step in its own tracks, still step-flick-pausing as it went.