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Unlighted Lamps
by
Mary walked along the road and down the hill toward Wilmott Street. Broken bits of the story concerning her mother that had for years circulated in town had reached her ears. Her mother, it was said, had disappeared on a summer night long ago and a young town rough, who had been in the habit of loitering before Barney Smithfield’s Livery Barn, had gone away with her. Now another young rough was trying to make up to her. The thought made her furious.
Her mind groped about striving to lay hold of some weapon with which she could strike a more telling blow at Duke Yetter. In desperation it lit upon the figure of her father already broken in health and now about to die. “My father just wants the chance to kill some such fellow as you,” she shouted, turning to face the young man, who having got clear of the mass of vines in the orchard, had followed her into the road. “My father just wants to kill someone because of the lies that have been told in this town about mother.”
Having given way to the impulse to threaten Duke Yetter Mary was instantly ashamed of her outburst and walked rapidly along, the tears running from her eyes. With hanging head Duke walked at her heels. “I didn’t mean no harm, Miss Cochran,” he pleaded. “I didn’t mean no harm. Don’t tell your father. I was only funning with you. I tell you I didn’t mean no harm.”
The light of the summer evening had begun to fall and the faces of the people made soft little ovals of light as they stood grouped under the dark porches or by the fences in Wilmott Street. The voices of the children had become subdued and they also stood in groups. They became silent as Mary passed and stood with upturned faces and staring eyes. “The lady doesn’t live very far. She must be almost a neighbor,” she heard a woman’s voice saying in English. When she turned her head she saw only a crowd of dark-skinned men standing before a house. From within the house came the sound of a woman’s voice singing a child to sleep.
The young Italian, who had called to her earlier in the evening and who was now apparently setting out of his own Sunday evening’s adventures, came along the sidewalk and walked quickly away into the darkness. He had dressed himself in his Sunday clothes and had put on a black derby hat and a stiff white collar, set off by a red necktie. The shining whiteness of the collar made his brown skin look almost black. He smiled boyishly and raised his hat awkwardly but did not speak.
Mary kept looking back along the street to be sure Duke Yetter had not followed but in the dim light could see nothing of him. Her angry excited mood went away.
She did not want to go home and decided it was too late to go to church. From Upper Main Street there was a short street that ran eastward and fell rather sharply down a hillside to a creek and a bridge that marked the end of the town’s growth in that direction. She went down along the street to the bridge and stood in the failing light watching two boys who were fishing in the creek.
A broad-shouldered man dressed in rough clothes came down along the street and stopping on the bridge spoke to her. It was the first time she had ever heard a citizen of her home town speak with feeling of her father. “You are Doctor Cochran’s daughter?” he asked hesitatingly. “I guess you don’t know who I am but your father does.” He pointed toward the two boys who sat with fishpoles in their hands on the weed-grown bank of the creek. “Those are my boys and I have four other children,” he explained. “There is another boy and I have three girls. One of my daughters has a job in a store. She is as old as yourself.” The man explained his relations with Doctor Cochran. He had been a farm laborer, he said, and had but recently moved to town to work in the furniture factory. During the previous winter he had been ill for a long time and had no money. While he lay in bed one of his boys fell out of a barn loft and there was a terrible cut in his head.