A Daughter of the Morning

Mis' Bingy's house lay all still in the sun. The sunflowers and hollyhocks by the back door and the chickens picking around looked all peaceful and like home. I thought Mr. Bingy must be sleeping off his drunk, and her keeping quiet not to disturb him.

The kitchen door was standing open and I stepped up on the porch. And then I heard a terrible cry, from right there in the room.

"Go back – back, Cossy!" Mis' Bingy said. "He'll kill you!"

All in an instant I took it in. She was sitting crouched on the bed, shielding the baby with a pillow. And he set close beside the door, sharpening his hatchet.

He jumped up when he see me. I remember his red eyes and his teeth, and his thin whiskers that showed his chin through. Then he sprang forward, right toward me and on to me, with his hatchet in his hand.

I donno how I done it. For no reason, I guess, only that I'm big and strong and he was little and pindling. I know I never stopped to think or decide nothing. I dodged his hatchet and I jumped at him. I threw my whole strength at him, with my hands on his face and his throat. He went down like a log, because I was so much bigger and so strong. But that wouldn't have saved us, only that, as he fell, he hit his head on the sharp corner of the cook stove. He rolled over on his back, and the hatchet flew out on the zinc.

"You killed him!" Mis' Bingy says. She sat up, but she didn't go to him.

"We ain't no time to think of that," I says. "Get your things and come."

She didn't ask anything. She took the baby and run right and got a bundle of things she'd got ready. I see then that she had on her best black dress, and the baby was all dressed clean and embroidered. I picked up the hatchet, and we went out the door, and shut it behind us. She never looked back, even when we got to the door; and I noticed that, because it wasn't like Mis' Bingy, that's soft and frightened.

"I don't mind what he done to me," she said, "but just now he took the baby – and touched her hand – to the hot griddle."

She showed me.

"I hope he's dead," I said.

"Where shall I go?" she says. "My God, where shall I go?"

"Ain't you no folks?" I asked her.

"Not near enough so's I've got the fare," she says. "Anyhow, I don't want to come on to them."

We was in the grove at the time. I donno as it would have come to me so quick if we hadn't been there.

"Mis' Bingy," I says, "let's us go to the city together, you and me. And find a job."

I thought she'd draw back. But she just stopped still in the path and looked at me round the baby's head.

"You couldn't do that, could you?" she says.

"Yes," I says. "I didn't know it before, but I know it now. I could do that."

She kep' on looking at me, with something coming in her face.

"You couldn't go to-day, could you?" she says.

I hadn't thought of to-day, but the thing was on me then.

"Why not to-day as good as any day?" I says.

"Your Ma – " she says.

"This is different," I says. "This is for me to do."

We come to the edge of the grove, and across the open lot I could see Mother. She was spreading out her scrubbing cloth on the grass to dry. I went up to her, and I wasn't scared nor I didn't dread anything because I was so sure.

"Mother," I says, "Mis' Bingy and I are going up to the city together to get some work. And we're goin' to-day. But first I've got to go and find somebody. I donno but I've killed Mr. Bingy."

I don't remember all the things she said. All of a sudden, my head was full of other things that stood out sharp, and I couldn't take in what was going on all around, not with what I had to think about. Mis' Bingy sat down by the well-house and went to nursing the baby, and Mother stood up before her asking her things. I left 'em so, and ran down the road to the Inn. That was the nearest place I could get anybody.

It was about ten o'clock in the morning by that time. All this had happened to me before it was time to get the potatoes ready for dinner. I remember thinking that as I run. There was the Inn – and Joe was out wiping off the tables in the yard, with the same dirty cloth, and straightening up the chairs.

"Joe," I says, "I ain't sure, but I think I've hurt Mr. Bingy pretty bad. Is there somebody can go up to their house and see?"

Joe stared, his thick, red, open lips and his red tongue looking more surprised than his little wolf eyes.

"What?" he says.

When I'd made him know, he got two men from the field and they run up the road toward Bingy's. On the Inn window-sill was the same kitten I'd played with while I was waiting for the coffee. I went and got it and sat down at the table where we'd been. It seemed a day since I was there. I seemed like somebody else. For the first time I wondered what would be if Keddie Bingy was dead. But it wasn't the being arrested or stood up in the court room or locked in jail that I thought of, and it wasn't Keddie at all. All I kept thinking was:

"If Keddie's dead, I won't never see him again."

I sat there going over that, and holding the kitten. It was a nice little kitten that looked up in my face more helpless than anything but a baby, or a bird, or a puppy. I felt kind of like some such helpless things. The world wasn't like what I thought it was. More things happened to you than I ever knew could happen. I always thought they happened just to other folks. The tables and the bare, swept dirt didn't look as if anything was happening anywheres near them, and yet down the road maybe was a dead man that I'd killed. And a mile and more away by now he was, and a little bit ago he'd been here, and the me that set there with him had been somebody else. And the me that had been awake before daybreak that morning probably wouldn't ever be me at all, any more. Everything was different forever. I saw something on the ground, down by the arbor. It was the pink phlox I had picked. They threw it away when they wanted to wash the glass. It seemed so helpless, laying there without any water. I went and got it and put it on my dress.

Pretty soon I heard them coming back, talking. Joe and one of the men come in sight, and Joe sung out:

"It's all right. He's groaning. Ben's gone for a doctor. What happened?"

I told 'em; but I wanted to get away.

"Well, shave my bones," Joe says, "if you ain't the worst I ever see. Why didn't you leave the woman knock down her own man?"

"Why didn't you leave her get him drunk?" I says. "If I'd have killed him, it'd been you that murdered him, Joe."

"Now, look here," says Joe, "I'm a-carrying on an honest business. If a man goes for to make a fool of himself, is that my lookout, or ain't it? Who do you think lets me keep this business, anyway? It's the U. S. Gover'ment, that's who it is. You better be careful what you sling at this business."

"Then it's the Gover'ment that's a big fool, instead of you and Keddie," I says, and started for home. I remember Joe shouted out something; but all I was thinking was that the day before I'd of thought it was wicked to say what I'd just said, and now I didn't; and I wondered why.

There wasn't a minute to lose now, because if Keddie was groaning he'd be up and out again and looking for both of us. Mother and Mis' Bingy and the baby was still out in the yard by the well-house, and Father was just starting down the road after me.

It's funny, but what, just the day before, would have been a thing so big I wouldn't have thought of doing it, chiefly on account of the row it'd make, was now just easy and natural. They must have said things, I remember how loud their voices were and how I wished they wouldn't. And I remember them saying over and over the same thing:

"You don't need to go. You don't need to go. Ain't you always had a roof over you and enough to eat? A girl had ought to be thankful for a good home."

But I went and got my things ready and got myself dressed. I wanted to tell them about the feeling I had that I had to go, but I couldn't tell about that, now that I was going, any more than I could tell when I thought I mustn't go.

I did say something to Mother when she come and stood in the bedroom door and told me I was an ungrateful girl.

"Ungrateful for what?" I says.

"For me bringing you up and working my head off for you," she says, "and your Pa the same."

"But, Mother," I says, "that was your job to do. And me – I ain't found my job – yet."

"Your job is to do as we tell you to," says Mother. "The idea!"

I tried, just that once, to make her see.

"Mother," I says, "I'm separate. I'm somebody else. I'm old enough to get a-hold of some life like you've had, and some work I want to do. And I can't do it if I stay here. I'm separate– don't you see that?"

Then it come over me, dim, how surprised she must feel, after all, to have to think that, that I was separate, instead of her and hers. I went over toward her – I wanted to tell her so. But she says:

"I don't know what you're coming to. And I'm glad I don't. When I'm dead and gone, you'll think of this."

And then I couldn't say what I'd tried to say. But I thought what she said was true, that I would think about it some day, and be sorry. If it hadn't been for Mis' Bingy, I s'pose I'd have given it up, even then. It's hard to make a thing that's been so for a long time stop being so. But Mis' Bingy needed me, and I was sorry for her; and I liked the feeling.

On the stairs Mother thought of something else.

"What about Luke?" she says.

I hadn't thought of Luke.

"He'd ought to be the one to set his foot down," says Mother, "seeing we can't do anything with you."

Set his foot down – Luke! Why? Because he'd tell me he loved me and I said I'd marry him! I went to the pail for a drink of water, and I stood there and laughed. Luke setting his foot down on me because I said he might!

"She'll come back when she's hungry," says Father. "Don't carry on so, Mate."

Mate was Mother's name. I hadn't heard Father call her that many times. It come to me that my going away was something that brought them nearer together for a minute. And Mate! It meant something, something that she was. She was Father's mate. They'd met once for the first time. They'd wanted their life to be nice. I ran up to them and kissed them both. And then for the first time in my life I saw Mother's lip tremble.

"I'll do up your clean underclothes," she says, "and send 'em after you. You tell me where."

"Mother, Mother!" I says, and took hold of her. If it hadn't been for Mis' Bingy I'd have given up going then and there, and married Luke whenever he said so.

It was Mis' Bingy's scared face that give me courage to go, and it was her face that kept my mind off myself all the way to the depot. I thought she was going to faint away when we went by the lane that led up to their house. But we never heard anything or saw anybody. We were going to the depot, and just set there until the first train come along for the city. And all the while we did set there, Mis' Bingy got paler and paler every time the door opened, or somebody shouted out on the platform. She wanted to take the first train that come in and get away anywheres, even if it took us out of our way. But I got her to wait the half hour till the city train come along; and as the time went by she begun to be less willing to go at all.

"Cossy," she says, when we heard the engine whistle, "I've been wrong. I'm being a bad wife. I'm going back."

"What kind of a wife you're being," I says, "that's got nothing to do with it. It's her."

She looked down at the baby. The baby had on her little best cloak, and a bonnet that the ruffle come down over her eyes. She wasn't a pretty baby, her face was spotted and she made a crooked mouth when she cried. But she was soft and helpless, and I didn't mind her being homely.

"I'm taking her away from a father's care," says Mis' Bingy, beginning to cry.

It seemed to me wicked the way she was stuffed full of words that didn't mean anything, like "bad wife" and "father's care." I didn't say anything, though. The baby's hand lay spread out on her cloak, with the burned part done up in a rag and some soda, the way Mother'd fixed it. I just picked up the little hand, and looked up at Mis' Bingy.

When the train come in, she went out and got on to it, without another word.