The People

Father was working over a small bundle on the scrubbed kitchen table. Timothy crouched by Mama's bed, his hands holding one of hers tightly. Mama's breath was quieting down in shuddering gulps. She turned her face and pressed her eyes against her free wrist. "It hasn't cried," she whispered hopelessly. "Why doesn't it cry?
Father turned from the table, his whole body drooping. "It never even breathed, Rachel. It's perfectly formed, but it never breathed at all."
Mama stared up at the roof of the cabin. "The clothes are in the trunk," she said quietly, "and a pink blanket."
And Father sent me out to find a burying place.
The light went out of our house. We went the weary round of things that had to be done to keep living and even Merry stood quietly, her hands on the top board of her porch-pen, her wide eyes barely overtopping it, and stared out at the hillside for long stretches of time. And Father, who had always been an unmoved mainstay no matter what happened, was broken, silent and uncommunicating.
We seldom mentioned the baby. We had buried my hoped-for little brother up on the hill under a scrub oak. When Mama was well enough, we all went up there and read the service for the dead, but no one cried as we stood around the tiny, powdery-dry, naked little grave. Timothy held Mama's hand all the way up there and all the way back. And Mama half smiled at him when we got back to the house.
Father said quietly, as he laid down the prayer book, "Why must he hang onto
you?" Mama and I were startled at his tone of voice.
"But, James," Mama protested. "He's blind!"
"How many things has he bumped into since he's been up and around?" asked Father. "How often has he spilled food or groped for a chair?" He turned a bitter face toward Timothy. "And hanging onto you, he doesn't have to see-" Father broke off and turned to the window.
"James," Mama went to him quickly, "don't make Timothy a whipping boy for your sorrow. God gave him into our keeping. 'The Lord giveth-"
"I'm sorry, Rachel." Father gathered Mama closely with one arm. "This 'taking away' period is bad. Not only the baby-"
"I know," said Mama. "But when Timothy touches me, the sorrow is lessened and I can feel the joy-"
"Joy!" Father spun Mama away from his shoulder. I shook for the seldom seen anger in his face.
"James!" said Mama. "'Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.' Let Timothy touch your hand-"
Father left the house without a glance at any of us. He gathered up Merry from the porch-pen and trudged away through the dying orchard.
That night, while Mama was reading, I got up to get Timothy a drink.
"You're interrupting your mother," said Father quietly.
"I'm sorry," I said, "Timothy is thirsty."
"Sit down," said Father ominously. I sat.
When our evening was finished, I asked, "May I get him a drink now?"
Father slowly sat down again at the table. "How do you know he wants a drink?" he asked.
"I-I just know," I stumbled, watching Timmy leave the table. "It comes into my mind."
"Comes into your mind." Father seemed to lay the words out on the table in front of him and look at them. After a silence he said, "How does it come into your mind? Does it say, Timothy is thirsty-he wants a drink?"
"No," I said, unhappily, looking at Father's lamplight-flooded face, wondering if he was, for the first time in my life, ridiculing me. "There aren't any words. Only a feeling-only a knowing that he's thirsty."
"And you." His face shadowed as he turned it to look at Mama. "When he touches your hand, are there words-Joy, have joy?"
"No," said Mama. "Only the feeling that God is over all and that sorrow is a shadow and that-that the baby was called back into the Presence."
Father turned back to me. "If Timothy can make you know he is thirsty, he can tell you he is. You are not to give him a drink until he asks for it."
"But, Father! He can't talk!" I protested.
"He has a voice," said Father. "He hasn't talked since he became conscious after the fire, but he said some words before then. Not our words, but words. If he can be blind and still not stumble, if he can comfort a bereaved mother by the touch of the hand, if he can make you know he's thirsty, he can talk."
I didn't argue. You don't with Father. They started getting ready for bed. I
went to Timothy and sat beside him on the cot. He didn't put out his hand for the cup of water he wanted. He knew I didn't have it.
"You have to ask for it," I told him. "You have to say you're thirsty." His blind face turned to me and two of his fingers touched my wrist. I suddenly realized that this was something he often did lately. Maybe being blind be could hear better by touching me. I felt the thought was foolish before I finished it. But I said again, "You have to ask for it. You must tell me, 'I'm thirsty. I want a drink, please.' You must talk."
Timothy turned from me and lay down on the cot. Mama sighed sharply. Father blew out the lamp, leaving me in the dark to spread my pallet on the floor and go to bed.
The next morning we were all up before sunrise. Father had all our good barrels loaded on the hayrack and was going to Tolliver's Wells for water. He and Mama counted out our small supply of cash with tight lips and few words. In times like these water was gold. And what would we do when we had no more money?
We prayed together before Father left, and the house felt shadowy and empty with him gone. We pushed our breakfasts around our plates and then put them away for lunch.
What is there to do on a ranch that is almost dead? I took Pilgrim's Progress to the corner of the front porch and sat with it on my lap and stared across the yard without seeing anything, sinking into my own Slough of Despond. I took a deep breath and roused a little as Timothy came out onto the porch. He had a cup in his hand. "I'm thirsty," he said slowly but distinctly, "I want a drink, please."
I scrambled awkwardly to my feet and took the cup from him. Mama came to the door. "What did you say, Barney?"
"I didn't say anything," I said, my grin almost splitting my face. "Timmy did!" We went into the house and I dipped a cup of water for Timmy.
"Thank you," he said and drank it all. Then he put the cup down by the bucket and went back to the porch.
"He could have got the drink himself," Mama said. wonderingly, "he can find his way around. And yet he waited, thirsty, until he could ask you for it."
"I guess he knows he has to mind Father, tool" I laughed shakily.
It was a two days' round trip to Tolliver's Wells and the first day stretched out endlessly. In the heat of noon, I slept, heavily and unrefreshingly. I woke, drenched with sweat, my tongue swollen and dry from sleeping with my mouth open. I sat up, my head swimming and my heart thumping audibly in my ears. Merry and Mama were still sleeping on the big bed, a mosquito bar over them to keep the flies off. I wallowed my dry tongue and swallowed. Then I staggered up from my pallet. Where was Timothy?
Maybe he had gone to the Little House by himself. I looked out the window. He wasn't in sight and the door swung half open. I waited a minute but he didn't come out. Where was Timothy?
I stumbled out onto the front porch and looked around. No Timothy. I started for the barn, rounding the corner of the house, and there he was! He was sitting on the ground, half in the sun, half in the shade of the house. He had the cup in one hand and the fingers of the other hand were splashing in the water. His blind face was intent.