AVRAM DAVIDSON

 

RITE OF SPRING

 

 

“The
winter meat is about all gone," said Mrs. Robinson.

 

“SoÅ‚s the winter, for that
matter," her husband said. “Almost..."

 

“...and the potatoes..."

 

Mr. Robinson got up rather
quickly and looked in the bin. “Guess thereÅ‚s enough, though. I can do without
greens with my meat. If I have to. But I sure hate to do without potatoes."

 

“Yes," she said, drily. “IÅ‚ve
noticed."

 

He looked at her, as though for a
moment mildly surprised or puzzled. Then, with a faint smile, he put his arm
around her. For a moment she stood there, her head bent and touching his. With
a little sound of content, next, she moved away. She gestured toward one of the
cabinets. “ThereÅ‚ll be all that to do."

 

He nodded. “Not time yet,
though...Alice..."

 

“Yes?"

 

Mr. Robinson coughed. “Boy was
trying to get in the girlłs room again last night."

 

She whirled around, quicker than
you might have thought. A look of alarm or concern faded from her face. “He
didnłt, though..."

 

Mr. Robinson shook his head. “Scuttled
off quick enough, he heard me coming." And did quick brief mimicry of himself,
bleary-eyed, clutching an imaginary bathrobe, coughing a rheumy, old-manłs-nighttime
cough, and shuffling along noisily. Abruptly he stopped and straightened up,
ceased to be an ill and probably querulous old man, was once again stalwart,
thickset, and vigorous, for all his grey hairs. He and his wife chuckled.

 

“Well," he said, “itÅ‚s natural
enough. Healthy young boy. Pretty young girl."

 

“That," she said, “is beside the point
You speak to him, now, Henry. IÅ‚ll speak to her."

 

“Done and done and Bradstreet,"
said Mr. Robinson. He looked out the tightly closed windows. “Getting to be
about that time of the season. Fact, it is that time of the season. Oh, I
shouldnłt be surprised...any day now...Boy out to the shed?"

 

His wife nodded. As he started
getting into his sweater and jacket, she said, “Button up warm now."

 

Mr, Robinson stepped out the back
door and started across the yard. The remnants of last yearłs vegetable garden
lay stark and dead beneath his feet. Looking down, he said, “Well, old friend,
wełll put new life into you very soon now." He pushed open the door of a
weathered and sturdy old outbuilding. Its smell was cold and faint. Hanging
from a beam was a block and tackle and rope and chain. Mr. Robinson pulled,
tested, made adjustments, grunted his approval, and went out.

 

The sound of sawing and chopping
ceased as he appeared in the door of the shed. “You doing pretty good, Roger,"
he said. “Yes, sir, you doing pretty good, Mr. Ames."

 

Roger picked up an armful of wood
and carried it over and stacked it. He wiped his face. He had on it a few
freckles and a few pimples and a few hairs. Mr. Robinson put a hand on the boyłs
biceps and doubled up the boyÅ‚s arm. “ThatÅ‚s good, too," he said. “Better than
lifting dumbbells."

 

A sudden look of cunning came
over Rogerłs stolid face. He swiftly seized the older man in a wrestling hold,
heaved. They swayed together for a moment. Then, suddenly, Roger lay on the
sawdusty floor and Mr. Robinson was pinning his shoulders to it. “CanÅ‚t do it
yet, can you?" he asked.

 

“Hey," said Roger. The grip
relaxed, the boy started to get up, Mr. Robinson flopped him down again. “Pretty
good for an old man with one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel...Now
... I got something to tell you, young Roger Ames, and you are going to listen
to it, too. You were trying to sneak into Bettyłs room last night. Werenłt you.
Yes you were." Rogerłs face, only faintly flushed, still, from the wrestling,
now flooded as red as his shirt. “Now you listen. I am not some old prune who
doesnłt know that females are built different from men. I know all about that.
You ever learn as much about that as me, you be doing pretty well. I
know whatłs fun and natural between the sects. But. And herełs the
point, you see, boy. There is a time. You been told that. And
when that time comes, why fine. Thatłs what makes the world go round. Thatłs
what makes the grasses grow. The flowers bloom. But that time has not yet come
for you. You just wait, now, till it does. I waited. It wonłt
kill you." He got up.

 

Roger scrambled up as well. He
looked embarrassed and, at the same time, respectful. And, for the present
moment, just a bit uncertain. Mr. Robinson said, “Well, now. YouÅ‚ve cut wood.
Youłve wrestled. So now letłs see you practice catching for a while." And for a
while there, in the winter-stale garden between the old house and the
outbuildings, he watched and instructed Roger as Roger practiced catching.
Somewhere in the house a little bell rang.

 

Mrs. Robinson was putting things
on a tray with attention and dispatch at the same time as she was speaking with Betty. “Toast, butter, jam,
honey, cocoa," she counted. “Bless me, how that woman does eat. ItÅ‚s a
pleasure to behold...cookies ... is there any piece of crisp bacon, cold, from
breakfast? She is very fond of that...What was I saying...Oh, therełs
always so much to think about and to do at this time of the year..."

 

“About Roger and, you
know," Betty said: a slim young girl, rather blossomy about the bosom, with a
pale-and-pink and shiny face. “Well, I never encouraged him. I donÅ‚t even...well...
oh ... I guess I do like him okay, but, oh, sort of like a brother, if
you know what I mean, Grandma Robinson." The little bell rang and rang.

 

Grandma Robinson said that she
did know what Betty meant. A little smile crinkled the corners of her mouth and
eyes. “As for Ä™a brother,Å‚ well, my, many a girl says that, until a certain
time comes, and then her mind gets changed quick enough." She deftly
laid a neatly ironed napkin over the tray and picked it up. Betty went ahead
and opened doors. “Oh, IÅ‚ve no reason to complain of you, dear," said the older
woman. “YouÅ‚ve been as nice as any girl whoÅ‚s ever lived with us. And IÅ‚m sure
your mother will be pleased, too. Because itłs just as she said, child,
itłs just as she said. Itłs hard raising children right, in the city,
teaching them the right ways, the old ways, the things to know...to
do...and, for that matter, not to do..."

 

Betty said, “And all those
things, you know, in the woods, too..."

 

Mrs. Robinson turned her face,
slightly creased with the effort of carrying the tray, and nodded over her
shoulder. Betty knocked on the last door. There was a noise from inside, and
she opened the door, standing aside for the other to go in.

 

“Well, Mrs. Machick," said
Grandma Robinson, cheerfully, “and here we are, with your half-past ten snack."
The room was clean, but it did not smell so.

 

“Half-past ten? You mean
more like half-past twelve the woman sitting on the bed said. She was
fat. She was very, very fat. Betty deftly pulled up a little table. Mrs.
Robinson set the tray down. “No, dear, itÅ‚s only half-past ten," she said.

 

“Sure it is," said Mrs. Machick, in a
low, tight voice. “Oh, sure." She had a small, tight, tiny-tiny mouth, set into
the middle of a vast, loose face. Her eyes darted quickly between the lady of the
house and the girl, but she didnłt meet their own eyes, and then she had eyes
only for the tray and what was on it.

 

“Now. Is that all right?" Mrs.
Robinson cocked her head.

 

“Could you spare it?" the woman
on the bed asked. Her brows made quirky little motions. She sighed. She
shrugged. All down the front of her nightgown were food stains.

 

“Now, if thereÅ‚s anything else
youłd like, just ring your little bell for it," Mrs. Robinson said, without the
slightest trace of annoyance. “If we have it, weÅ‚ll be glad to bring it to you."

 

“Sure you would," Mrs. Machick said. “Oh,
yeah." She fluttered her nostrils with the breath of the long-suffering, gave
her frowzy head a little shake, and began to feed.

 

Betty and Grandma closed the door
and exchanged faint sighs. They were halfway across the front room when a low
whistle was heard from outside. They looked at each other, wide-eyed and
open-mouthed, then turned and tiptoed swiftly to the windows, not touching the
lace curtains. A bird was on the ground in front of the house, investigating
the sere remains of last yearłs grass. Out from behind an evergreen came Roger.
It was a marvel how, body crouched, on the tips of his toes, hands out just so,
how swiftly and how silently he sped; for all his size and all.

 

It was over in a matter of
seconds.

 

Everybody cried out, but not very
loudly. Roger, followed by Mr. Robinson, turned toward the house. Grandma and
Betty bustled about, taking things from drawers and closets. The men came in,
Roger with a wide and surprised-silly grin on his face. “Welcome, welcome,
first harbinger of spring," said Mrs. Robinson; and, “Sir, we bid you welcome,"
her husband said, with a slight bow. She poured wine into a silver goblet. The
birdłs head peeped out between the boyłs fingers. He held them over the goblet,
as though he were offering the bird a drink. Mr. Robinson took its head between
the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and with his right hand he took the
shears Betty gave him and cut off its head. The bright blood made little swirls
in the pale wine, till Mrs. Robinson, with a silver spoon on the handle of
which were quaint and curious engravings much more than half-obscured, stirred
the goblet. Then the liquid turned pink. She gave everybody a spoonful of it.

 

For a moment the house was
utterly still.

 

Then Betty gave her lips an
absentminded smack. Then she went absolutely pale. Her eyes flew to Roger. From
her now white lips came a sound like the rim of a glass being squeaked. His
mouth fell open. His eyes bulged. She fled the room in an instant. The door to
the hall slammed behind her. Then another door slammedthe back one. But in
between the two times, Roger, uttering a noise between a growl and a howl, had
begun his pursuit. There was a crash. (“DidnÅ‚t even try to open that
one," Mr. Robinson said.) There was a cry, first shrill, then full-throated.
There were two noises, quick together, as it might be thud-thump or
thump-thud.

 

“Well, now," said Mr. Robinson,
gently. “He did wait. And it didnÅ‚t kill him." There were some more noises. A
lot more. “IsnÅ‚t killing her, either, presumably," he added.

 

“It always pays to do things
right," his wife said. “YouÅ‚ll get some good greens and potatoes and garden
truck this year, I shouldnłt wonder."

 

He gave a slow, reflective nod. “You
decided what kind of annuals you want out front?" he asked. She started to
reply; then, with a tongue click of self-reproof, flung open the front door and
emptied the goblet in a wide-scattered toss. Her lips moved. “There,"
she said, after a moment, closing up. The two older people looked at each other
in quiet contentment. They sighed. Nodded briskly.

 

“Plenty to do," he said. “Even
before those two are ready to help us. Got to get all those knives and
cleavers out of the cabinet and sharpen Oh. Oh, yes. Before I forget."
He fetched a pad and an envelope, ink bottle and pen, sat. “To the Editor, Dear
Sir," he wrote, in his neat, slow hand. “This morning at"he pursed his lips,
consulted his pocket watch, considered"at about a quarter-to eleven we sighted
the first robin of spring in our front yard. Wonder if this is any kind of a
record for recent years? Would be glad to hear from any devoted ęrobin-watchersł
and followers of other good old ways and customs, who may write me directly if
they care to."

 

In her room across the other side
of the house, fat Mrs. Machick rang her little bell.