She was back about six weeks later, her belly down to normal, which on her was flat. And didn't have any baby with her. No one was surprised at that, of course; she hadn't carried it long enough. Miscarried, she told Mamma, like she'd been afraid she might. No one troubled her to tell more; didn't want to grieve her.
Melissy Turnbuck told Julie she wondered if the baby hadn't been the victim of an orangewood knitting needle. Julie slapped her face for that; I saw her do it. The only one more surprised than me was Melissy. Years later, Julie told me that Varia having an abortion at five, six months wouldn't make sense anyway. Julie worked for Doc Simmons then, and explained that five months is too far along for that.
Afterward, Varia got with child about every other year-pretty remarkable in our family-and always went off to her gramma, and never came home with anything more than her suitcase. After about the third time, we came to expect it, but she and Will kept trying.
By then we'd come to know that she was strange in other ways than her miscarriages, her tilty green eyes, and laughing at odd times. Because us kids were growing up, and Will didn't look all that young anymore-but Varia didn't look any different. In fact, when I was twenty-five, she still looked twenty, though she had to be around forty by then, at least.
That's the year a big old white oak barber-chaired on Will-split up from the stump, kicked loose about ten feet up, and fell on him. White oak's treacherous that way; the main reason folks log it is, it's the only tree that's much good for wet cooperage, so it's worth a lot. The one that got him had a butt better'n three feet across. He'd chained it and all before he ever picked up the ax, and tightened the chain with wedges, but the grab hook broke off! Ed Lewis, on the other end of the saw, said all he could see of Will was his left boot and right arm; the rest of him was under that big oak butt, squashed flat as pie crust. It shook Ed so bad, he quit logging; got a job at Singleton's, delivering coal and hogged stovewood. After they got the tree off Will, Byron Haskell, the undertaker, said he never before saw anything looked like that, and hoped never to again. The casket was kept closed, of course.
Pa said one thing about it was, Will died too quick to suffer.
Ma commented on how brave Varia was, what a strong front she put up, though she did look a little pale and drawn for a while. Afterward a couple of fellas around there tried paying court to her. Pretty as she was, the prettiest woman in Washington County, you might have thought there'd be more, quite a few more, but there was only the two. Unless you count old Lennox Campbell drooling on his vest. Could be they were scared off by how young she looked for her age, plus when it came to giving birth, she seemed sterile as a freemartin.
Or maybe they knew without knowing that she wasn't shopping for a man.
She stayed on the farm for more than another year, all by herself. Didn't seem right, even when you knew she was forty or whatever. A new Watkins man was going around, and when she answered the door to him, he asked if her mother was home. She did her own milking, dunged out her barn, gardened, fed her cows and chickens-stuff like that. Sold her team to Pa, though, and her hogs, and Pa agreed we'd farm her land for her on shares. She helped with things like shocking corn and oats, the way she'd always done. Even slim as she was, she was strong, and no one ever knew her to get sick, not even a cold.
At first Frank and I took turns going over and doing whatever heavy work there was to do; it was less than forty rod from our place to hers. But after a little, it seemed like it fell to me to do most of it, which I didn't mind. It was all family. We kept expecting her to get tired of being alone like that. Figured she'd either marry or go someplace she had blood kin. Evansville, probably.
Finally, after more than a year, she asked Pa if he'd like to buy her place. If the terms weren't too hard, he said, so they sat down together and worked out an agreement. That was in February; she figured to leave in April. And suddenly the whole family realized how much we'd miss her-Ma, Pa, all of us.
Right after that, I was over there with the spreader, getting her manure spread before plowing. I was pitching on a load when she came out to the barn and told me she was driving into town. (Will'd bought a Model A truck.) She said if I wanted to take a break, there was half a peach pie in the pantry; eat all I wanted of it. Then she left.
That sounded all right to me. Matter of fact, I got so excited, I couldn't hardly hold myself till she drove off. And it wasn't the pie I was excited about, it was the house! I didn't even finish loading the spreader, just put the pitchfork aside and went out with half a load. Soon as I got back with the empty spreader, I went to the house, left my barn boots on her porch, and went in. I didn't know what had got into me, but I was practically shaking.
I'd lived just down the road from it all my life, but never seen much of the inside; I'd hardly gotten farther than the kitchen. Our house was a lot bigger, so all the family get-togethers were held either there or at Max and Julie's over on the Maple Hill Road, turn and turn about. Now, alone inside, I asked myself why in the world I was so shaky-excited about a chance to snoop around Varia's house. I walked all through it, just walked through it looking around, and I realized that what I was looking for was pictures: family photos. Not of the Macurdy family, but hers! Seemed to me there ought to be some, and I wanted to see what they looked like. Wanted to see so bad, my chest felt all tight.
I didn't find any on the walls, so I started looking through dresser drawers and closet shelves for albums, or maybe boxes that might have pictures in them. Not mussing anything up; what I surely didn't want was for Varia to know. And when I didn't find anything downstairs, I went up in the attic.
The first thing my eyes hit on up there was a chest. Unlocked. I opened it, and right on top was this big brown envelope that I knew had to have pictures in it. I went over by the window with it, and took out what was inside.
On top was what looked like a letter, a letter I couldn't have read if I'd stood there all week. Could have been Chinese for all of me. Under it was pictures, snapshots. And if I hadn't thought before that Varia was peculiar, the pictures would have done it for me.
They were of children. The first showed four little boys alike as twins-looking a bit like Will, but with Varia's tilty eyes. The next was of five little girls, like twins again, and there wasn't any question who the mother was: Varia. In fact there was five-litters, I guess you could call them, the youngest of them looking about two years old. And written under each child, real small, was what might have been a name.
I didn't have any doubt at all that they were Will's and Varia's kids. Twenty-three little Macurdies, except I doubted they thought of themselves that way. Five litters. But Varia'd gone off pregnant probably eight or nine different times-more than five, anyway. So all told, it seemed to me she'd given birth to some forty. Having litters and a short term explained why she'd started to swell so early, but even so, they couldn't have been much bigger than squirrels when they were born. I was amazed they'd lived. Seemed like with Varia, Will was more fertile than all the Macurdy men since God knew when.