The Orchard Ladder

A STORY

by GEORGE GREEN

AFTER breakfast his mother told him to go back to his room; her voice betrayed the same strain he had recognized driving up from Boston the day before.

“Try to keep out of the way, Warren,” she said. He nodded, conscious of her distracted manner before a dish of bacon and eggs. His father smoked while he drank a second cup of coffee; yet he seemed nervous, ill at ease in the face of interrupted routine, the unfamiliar kitchen, the strange newspaper. Aunt Bess stood near the window, clenching tightly in one hand a corner of the bright blue curtain. She gave instructions for lunch to the stout woman who was washing dishes; she sounded confused, absent-minded, as if she had suddenly become lost in her own house.

Warren found two old copies of Life in the sitting room; he relaxed in the middle of his unmade bed and looked at pictures of a flood in Italy, Danish acrobats, an Indian religious festival. Then he found some paper in the bureau and began to draw. He experienced a sense of illicit pleasure being here, lying flat on the soft rug, sketching whatever came to mind.

The clock on the night table said five minutes past ten; he remembered his mother telephoning school to have him excused. Ten o’clock: now they were in the middle of spelling period. He thought for a moment of Miss Bendix returning written exercises, with great crosses in red pencil to mark errors. The word refrigerator came to mind; he had spelled it wrong three times: he put an e at the end instead of o. Refrigerator. He amused himself with a sketch of Miss Bendix; he made her with eyes slanting like a Chinaman’s and as skinny as the solitary birch tree swaying irresolutely in the wind outside his window. By the time his mother came he was restless, folding the sheets this way and that to represent fortresses for two opposing armies.

“Could I go out now for a while?”

His mother folded his pajamas, put them under the pillow. She said, “This afternoon it will be warmer.”

“I’ve got ski boots and my heavy socks.”

“We’ve all got to be as quiet as possible.” His mother finished making the bed, destroying both citadels with one sweep of her hands. Warren sensed that she was disturbed, that something important was happening. He watched his mother pace the length of the room, flick dust from a tablecloth, retrace her steps. He felt a second’s anger at the thought she was keeping secrets from him. Warren leaned over the chair in which she sat, watched her staring with a kind of exhausted attention at the solitary birch, the empty driveway. He said, “Is he very bad?”

“Uncle Bernard is seriously ill.”

He watched her portion out words, making decisions in transit as to how much to tell. What his mother said was true, always; but she put restrictions on how much she told him. He had the instinctive conviction she had never lied to him, and this was something of which he was, in his own way, profoundly aware.

“Is he going to die?”

Warren was conscious of her gaze suddenly concentrating on him, catching him off guard. She searched his eyes hastily, as if she wanted to protect him from something, shield him. She said, “We must pray that God will spare him.”

He thought of a hospital: doctors and nurses, a bright, loud ambulance ignoring red lights in mad flight across a city. But he mentioned none of these things. A month ago they had sent Uncle Bernard home from a hospital; after that began the series of telephone calls, then the final telegram. He gave his mind over to the silent drive up from Boston, Aunt Bess fumbling with a handkerchief on the porch, the shaded lamp burning in the hall outside Uncle Bernard’s room.

Then memory withdrew further, retrieved the visit of two summers ago, when they had left him up here for three weeks. He remembered the huge man laughing across the breakfast table, the hands big enough to lift a milk pitcher without grasping its handle, the awkward gait, the face curiously gentle beneath its coat of tan. He said, “Uncle Bernard’s real strong.”

Warren mused at random about that earlier visit; he knew there had been others, but of them he had lost all consciousness. He remembered how, one day, Uncle Bernard had delighted him by turning Indian and stalking him in the woods. He could still awaken that earlier excitement: sun breaking down through the foliage of maple trees, shadows giving false outline to stumps yards away, a bird voicing wonder somewhere above his head —then the sharp click of a twig breaking, arms lifting him as if he were the size of a baby chipmunk, the loud, delighted laughter: “Now for your scalp!”

He was almost startled at the sound of his mother’s voice. “What were you thinking of?”

Warren put one leg up on the arm of her chair, frowned dully toward the solitary birch, the familiar woods, the remembered voice. He said, “Uncle Bernard was very good to me.”

“He was good to everyone.” She got up, made an unnecessary adjustment of the pillow. She put her hand on Warren’s head. “He was my big brother; I remember him when he was just about your size.”

He had no experience to judge Uncle Bernard’s relationships with grownups. He thought of him as essentially solitary: someone who could hold the ladder in the apple orchard with one hand, or make footprints to try and equal in turned earth; one skilled in short cuts to reach the blueberry bushes on Jaffrey Mountain. He said, “I want to be like him when I grow up.”

Then his mother took him by the hand. “Lunch must be ready by now,” she said. They made their way through the hall, down the carpeted stairs. Warren caught sight of a figure in white cautiously shutting the door to Uncle Bernard’s room. He fancied she smiled at him, sending an odd smell, like iodine, down the stairs.

“Could I go in and say hello later?”

“We’ll have to ask Aunt Bess,” his mother said. Again he sensed she was not really giving a reply at all.

“Maybe I should speak to the nurse?” He felt his mother’s hand close tighter over his own: it was almost as if she were afraid and wanted company.

2

AUNT BESS was not with them for lunch. His father said she was upstairs talking to the doctor. The stout woman in slippers served; Warren took every opportunity to watch the broad, stolid face. His mother spoke to her, and took their plates awkwardly, putting a glass of milk in front of him with the reminder not to drink it all before he ate. He wanted to ask the stout woman’s name, but she was never out of the room long enough so that she would not hear him.

There were dead intervals when nobody said anything. Warren watched the stout woman bring in dessert: custard with a cherry stuck on a little hill of whipped cream. He was the only one who wanted any.

He could hear the wind against the house and, at intervals, the sound of voices, as if someone were giving instructions in a forced whisper. It made him think of robbers trying to enter at an upstairs window. He peered out at the snow, lying old and gray now in the long pasture. Sparrows made tiny brown islands, looking for crumbs; then they bounced lightly over the hard-crusted surface, changing position with a sudden motion of their heads.

Afterwards his mother gave him permission to take a walk, provided that he stay away from deep drifts. The nurse was having her lunch then. Warren watched her from the doorway; he wanted to ask if he might see Uncle Bernard. He wanted her to give Bernard a message, assurance that he was near by to close the barn door, replace fallen stones on the wall: the robbers would never get in while he lay in wait to foil them.

Then the nurse said, “Hello, little boy,” and Warren turned suddenly red with embarrassment. He tried to recover by shutting the door too loudly, then advancing into the room. He pulled a warm sweater belonging to Aunt Bess over his head. “I’m going out.” He said it with false emphasis, establishing his claim to take Bernard’s place, follow the wide footprints.

“Be sure you’re dressed for it,” the nurse smiled at him. Her dress was very crisp and white; it made him think of starched snow.

“I’m going to look around,” Warren said. He pretended to give close attention to his gloves. After a moment he looked up again, his message almost phrased. But then the stout woman entered; the nurse and she began talking together. When he said, hesitantly, “That’s my uncle upstairs,” the two women turned brusquely in his direction: he felt as if he had broken a no-talking rule at school.

Once outside, Warren made his way over the grimy expanse of snow back of the house. He had remembered to bring bread which the stout woman gave him. The sad, quick smile with which she helped him button his jacket made him forget unnecessary data — like names.

He distributed the bread among the bobbing sparrows. From where he stood he could see the apple orchard, branches smaller, sharply defined now in the white stillness. He gave his attention to the high-pitched noise of sparrows; they filled the empty air with companionship: a remote echo of green foliage, tangled ferns, sunlight heavy on smooth boulders.

Beneath an apple tree he saw the ladder; it lay half-buried in snow, one of the lower rungs missing. Somehow, the sight of it filled him with melancholy. It looked as if it had been abandoned out here, left to the fallen leaves, the cold rain, the bed of snow. Warren tried to pry it loose; he wanted to prop it up against a tree. He told himself, with pride at his knowledge, that wet and cold would cause it to rot. But it resisted all attempts to raise it, one end being locked in a sheet of ice.

He took off a glove, rubbed his hand along the wood. He thought of a figure striding between trees, with the ladder perched on his shoulder, one hand placed well forward to keep it balanced. “Watch out for your head, small fry.” “Bet I could ride on the end of that thing.” “Come on and try it, if you like.”

The sight of the house brought him back to the present. He was aware his hands were cold; his glance focused now on the white structure, with the barn extending to the left beside it. It seemed very distant from out here; he examined it, his eyes blinking in the wind. He felt very alone, not in the sense of being by himself physically, but as if he were listening to a voice at the end of a long corridor— just out of range to catch exact words.

Warren got up and turned with a sense of performing a stern duty toward the river. Just before the stream ran the old stone wall that marked the line between Uncle Bernard’s property and old man Coffin’s. . . .

Two summers ago he had walked the length of this wall with Uncle Bernard; and they crossed it — carefully, so as not to disturb any of the stones — when they went fishing. He remembered how proud he felt to help arrange stones so that they fitted right. He would grasp one lying beside the wall, lift it gingerly into place; it felt dry and hot against his hands. Uncle Bernard would send him to search in the grass for smaller stones. “You need good ones to fill the chinks.” Then Warren would dig in the warm earth, the color of damp brown clay below the surface. He would return to the wall, sweating happily as he squinted at the tall figure, the enormous hands.

“This what you meant ?”

“That’s the ticket.” Then the lazy tilt of the hat, the barely perceptible smile, the abrupt laughter. “For a city boy you do right well.”

“But I’m not a city boy — not now, anyway.”

“Think you might want to farm when you grow up?”

“Guess I’ll have to wait and see,” Warren said. He watched Bernard as he set the final stones in place. He felt a tremor of happiness, of serenity, standing here in the heavy August sunlight. He sensed this must be part of growing up, this instinctive love for someone who gave tokens of faith in one’s compulsion to help, to imitate. Being with Bernard, he told himself, made him feel taller, stronger.

“I don’t know, small fry,” Bernard said. “I’m afraid you’re too fond of daydreaming.”

Warren laughed at the tall form stretching itself out, the old felt hat screening the face. He said, “I can do that even better than you.” Then he lay down, face toward the earth, so that when he turned his head the wall made him think of houses for cliff dwellers; ants scampered back and forth in the entrances to the caves. He turned over quickly to watch a bird wheeling lazily, like a pendulum on an invisible wire.

“Hawk,” Bernard said, wiping the rim of his hat with a handkerchief.

Warren watched the constant swinging; then it altered in his imagination to the sudden shifts of a fish of prey, solitary in an ocean of blue space. He said, “I’d like to fix him.”

“How’s that?”

“He’s up there now probably thinking like mad where he’ll steal a chicken next.”

He felt Bernard observing him. “Some hawks have a taste for chickens,” Bernard said, “but they knock off no-good critters, too.” The boy turned again, let himself roam in and out of the wall with the imaginary cliff dwellers. He felt, somehow, that the wall was more simple than the question of hawks: it was closer, easier to comprehend. He satisfied himself by reaching out one hand to touch it. . . .

3

NOW, walking alone by the wall through the heavy snow, Warren noticed sections where stones had toppled down. He replaced as many as he could; others, too heavy to lift, he abandoned with an odd sense of regret, as if he were neglecting someone’s call for help.

The sun, weak and distant all day, became lost behind a bank of colossal clouds. Warren watched his breath form steam, like white smoke from a railroad train. For a time he rested on the top of the wall, staring idly at the long pasture, the apple orchard, and, silent in the distance, the house. He surprised himself by how much he could recolled about Uncle Bernard: things they had done, what Bernard had said to him. It was the first time in his life he had ever experienced this; it gave him a novel sense of age, of having listened to someone reading the same book for years and years.

He turned, shielding his face against the east wind. To his left, like an immense gray elephant on its knees, lay Jaffrey Mountain. They had climbed it together two summers ago; it was there he had felt for the first time the reality of fear: a raw numbness in the middle of his chest making him think he was going to be sick.

He had wandered up an ancient logging path by himself; the path dissolved into brush, and for what seemed an interminable time he lost all sense of direction. He stumbled back and forth, resisting the impulse to scream, scratching his face in tangled undergrowth. Bushes suddenly became caverns at the bottom of the ocean; he fought to free himself from encircling arms, make his way to the surface.

Then, from near by, he heard Bernard’s voice. “Over here, small fry.“ He scrambled toward the voice, trying to slow down his fast breathing, the pounding in his chest that betrayed his fear. Bernard, on hands and knees, seemed absorbed in picking blueberries. He said, “I was beginning to think you went off and left me.” Warren leaned forward toward the kneeling figure, rested his hand lightly on Bernard’s shoulder.

On the way home Warren laughed and shouted a good deal to show he had conquered his fear; but it still lay inside him, a black, damp abyss.

That night he had a nightmare. He thought he was back on the mountainside. He had wandered away by himself: a second later he could not recognize one direction from another. He made one dash to his left, then fell when he turned his ankle on a rock. He got up, wiping spider webs from his face; he felt sweaty, then suddenly cold.

He uttered one feeble scream, looking about him through the tangled undergrowth, the shadows of taller trees, the hazy sunlight. Then he waited for what seemed an agonizingly long time; he could hear the sound of his own breathing, the quick pulsation of his heart.

Finally he awoke, staring convulsively at the lamp beside the bed. For an instant he thought he had been swimming under water and had just managed to reach the surface; he felt winded and thirsty. Then he recognized Uncle Bernard standing near the lamp: he looked oddly uncomfortable in bathrobe and slippers. He said, “I thought maybe you drank too much water from the canteen. How’s your stomach?”

“Guess I was talking in my sleep,” Warren said. Nightmare was a word for scared kids their first night at Boy Scout camp. He smiled guardedly at Bernard: the awkward bathrobe seemed to dissipate tangled brush, spider webs, mysterious sounds.

“Want company for a while?”

“I’m all right now.”

“I’ll leave on the light in case you want to read.”

Warren watched the tall figure clatter out the door. He thought with gratitude of the turned back, the loud voice: I was afraid you might have gone off and left me.

Then, with the reflection of the lamp like sunrise on the wall whenever he opened his eyes, he passed gently into calm and dreamless sleep.

By the time Warren reached the house the light had failed over the entire valley. In the west remained one long streak of cold red above the mountains; elsewhere the sky shed all color, settling quickly into uniform darkness. Once, crossing the long pasture, he heard a bird start suddenly from a branch; the sound frightened him, disturbed the regular clump of ski boots on snow.

He watched the windows increase in size; they made him think of distant lighthouses, beacons to guide the traveler, the stranger, back home. He hastened his pace; he would tell about the apple orchard, the replaced stones. He would get permission to see Uncle Bernard, explain what he had done. He felt happy in the realization he had not wandered without purpose.

On the back porch he banged his shoes against the steps; he enjoyed this new sound of leather against wood: it was dry, clear, unlike the slippery clump of boot against snow. He advanced toward the door, prepared to call out.

In the kitchen his mother anticipated him; he felt strangely flushed, excited, in the close warmth. She put her arms about him, made him take off his jacket, sweater, shoes. She said, “Don t go upstairs.”

“I fixed some things,” Warren said. He rubbed his feet, enjoying the warmth that penetrated deeply through cold checks, damp socks. Then, after a pause: “ Uncle Bernard will be glad to hear.”

“I’m sure he will,” she said.

The words drifted slowly across the warm kitchen, as if they had required a long space of time to complete. They passed through the blue curtain, lost themselves among the sounds, frozen, useless, of the winter night.

Warren turned toward the person making cocoa, observed the white apron, the movement of her arms. For the first time in his life he sensed she had lied to him. He felt a pang of disappointment at his discovery. He had learned that lies flew like hawks, in indeterminate circles, far beyond the denial of a stolen cookie, concealment of the broken dish.

He sat immobile for a very long time, pretending to listen, holding one foot with a kind of stealthy reserve. Outside, the wind was rising: he heard it creeping, like a horde of mice, around corners, windows, roof. He needed no words to realize the robbers had broken in.