Williams - Leave Her to Heaven

This hamlet at the head of the lake it bore the lovely name of Hazelgrove seemed to Harland today an ugly huddle of houses, an ugly huddle of humanity. Probably there were people here who if you met them singly were pleasant, simple, friendly folk; but in a group, here as elsewhere, they became a mob, sinking to the level of the lowest of them, degenerating into a gabbling, yelping pack, a hunting pack ready to pursue and tear and rend.

He and Leick had arrived on the early train, and Leick when they alighted went forward to the baggage car to see to the unloading of their gear. Jem Verity, the station master Harland remembered him from another morning four years before followed to talk with Leick there, and Harland as the train pulled out was left alone by the station. Three men who he shrinkingly supposed had come to have a look at him stood in a loose group a little along the platform, and he was uneasy under their speculative contemplation. When Leick and Jem Verity returned toward him, Jem stopped to speak to these men a low-voiced word, and they drifted away while Leick came on to where Harland stood.

Hell take us to town and then come back and truck our gear down to the wharf, and the boats all ready, Leick said. Well go get your license and your forest permit.

Jem joined them and drove them into the village. The game wardens house was next door to the store, and his wife answered their knock. Her eyes were fine and merry, and two small children, a boy and a girl, pressing beside her, were ready to make friends with these strangers; but when the young woman saw Harland, she said quickly to the children: There now, run along! Dont bother the gentlemen! They vanished, and she toldLeick, as though she knew their errand: Come in. Eds in the woodshed. Ill call him.

The warden was a broad-shouldered young man with a fine brow. He heard Harlands name without any outward sign that it was familiar, though Harland had expected and dreaded a look of startled recognition. When, their business done, Leick said they must find the forest supervisor, the young man volunteered to show the way. As they passed the second house, a boy nine or ten years old came running out to hail them.

Hi, Ed! he called. Where you going?

Im busy, Jimmy, the warden told him. You stay home. The boy lagged and reluctantly turned back; and the warden apologetically explained: The kids always trail along with me if Ill let em. They like to have me tell em about deer and bear and fish, and birds and things.

Harland judged children would like Ed; but he understood that today the news of his own presence in the village must already have been spread abroad, and mothers would keep their children indoors till he and Leick were on their way.

The forest supervisor had a small farm along the shore; and an old woman, presumably his mother, watched their approach through a curtained window. As they reached the front gate, the supervisor, a blocky young man with an expressionless countenance, came out to them. This heres what you want, I guess, he said, in a hurried, embarrassed tone; and Leick took the permit and glanced at it, and Harland felt a wry amusement at this proof that his coming was expected. Starting right away? the supervisor asked. Leick nodded, and the man said: Ed and mell see you off.

Harland almost nodded, in submissive understanding. They meant to make sure that he left the little community unharmed. As they all walked back toward the wharf, Harland at some sound looked behind them and saw the supervisors mother following along the dusty road. She turned into the first house of the village, and he guessed she would watch from that vantage their further movements, while she told an avid audience there all she had seen and heard and thought of him.

Except for her and his companions, no one was visible till at the wharf they found Jem and the boatman. Wes Barrell would set them down the lake to the outlet, and when he returned, his wife would have a thousand questions. Harland. had encountered her avid curiosity four years ago; and on the wharf now, seeing Wes ostentatiously ignore him while they prepared to depart, he imagined Barrells homecoming and his wifes persistent interrogations so completely that he was almost sorry for the man.

While the gear was being loaded and the canoe made ready for towing, Harland, although the three men by the gas pump were the only ones in sight, felt many eyes upon him. There were, he supposed, fifty or sixty people who lived either in the village or near-by, their lives devoted to defending their fields and garden patches against the encroachments of the wilderness. They traded work among themselves, and now and then Jem Verity hired them for one of his enterprises, or placed them as guides for sportsmen bound down the River; for Jem dominated this small community. Wes Barrell and the boat were alike Jems property. Probably not even the warden and the forest supervisor could hope to hold their places without his good will.

Harland felt the eyes and the thoughts of all these people fastened upon him, felt himself naked before them. They knew his most secret hopes and sorrows. They knew when he had bedded his wife, and when he left her bed, and why; they knew his bliss and his agony; they knew his dreams, and they had witnessed, though from a distance, the catastrophe which had so nearly destroyed him. All about him during the hour since he and Leick alighted from the train he had seemed to hear their whisper: Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!

So, gladly, after that one farewell glance when the boat pulled away from the wharf, he turned his back upon the scene, turned his back upon these men and women and upon the world. There was nothing so ugly as an ugly town unless it were the people in it. He was hungry to bid the place good-bye.