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Circa 1922
I STAID the night for shelter at a farm
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| Behind the mountain, with a mother and son, |
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| Two old-believers. They did all the talking. |
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The Mother
Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits |
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| She could call up to pass a winter evening, |
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| But won’t, should be burned at the stake or something. |
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| Summoning spirits isn’t “Button, button, |
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| Who’s got the button,” you’re to understand. |
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The Son
Mother can make a common table rear |
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| And kick with two legs like an army mule. |
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The Mother
And when I’ve done it, what good have I done? |
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| Rather than tip a table for you, let me |
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| Tell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me. |
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| He said the dead had souls, but when I asked him |
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| How that could be—I thought the dead were souls, |
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| He broke my trance. Don’t that make you suspicious |
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| That there’s something the dead are keeping back? |
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| Yes, there’s something the dead are keeping back. |
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The Son
You wouldn’t want to tell him what we have |
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| Up attic, mother? |
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The Mother
Bones—a skeleton. |
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The Son
But the headboard of mother’s bed is pushed |
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| Against the attic door: the door is nailed. |
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| It’s harmless. Mother hears it in the night |
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| Halting perplexed behind the barrier |
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| Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get |
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| Is back into the cellar where it came from. |
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The Mother
We’ll never let them, will we, son? We’ll never! |
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The Son
It left the cellar forty years ago |
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| And carried itself like a pile of dishes |
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| Up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen, |
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| Another from the kitchen to the bedroom, |
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| Another from the bedroom to the attic, |
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| Right past both father and mother, and neither stopped it. |
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| Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs. |
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| I was a baby: I don’t know where I was. |
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The Mother
The only fault my husband found with me— |
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| I went to sleep before I went to bed, |
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| Especially in winter when the bed |
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| Might just as well be ice and the clothes snow. |
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| The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs |
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| Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me, |
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| But left an open door to cool the room off |
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| So as to sort of turn me out of it. |
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| I was just coming to myself enough |
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| To wonder where the cold was coming from, |
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| When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom |
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| And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar. |
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| The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on |
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| When there was water in the cellar in spring |
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| Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then someone |
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| Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step, |
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| The way a man with one leg and a crutch, |
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| Or little child, comes up. It wasn’t Toffile: |
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| It wasn’t anyone who could be there. |
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| The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked |
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| And swollen tight and buried under snow. |
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| The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust |
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| And swollen tight and buried under snow. |
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| It was the bones. I knew them—and good reason. |
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| My first impulse was to get to the knob |
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| And hold the door. But the bones didn’t try |
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| The door; they halted helpless on the landing, |
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| Waiting for things to happen in their favor. |
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| The faintest restless rustling ran all through them. |
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| I never could have done the thing I did |
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| If the wish hadn’t been too strong in me |
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| To see how they were mounted for this walk. |
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| I had a vision of them put together |
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| Not like a man, but like a chandelier. |
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| So suddenly I flung the door wide on him. |
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| A moment he stood balancing with emotion, |
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| And all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire |
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| Flashed out and licked along his upper teeth. |
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| Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.) |
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| Then he came at me with one hand outstretched, |
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| The way he did in life once; but this time |
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| I struck the hand off brittle on the floor, |
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| And fell back from him on the floor myself. |
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| The finger-pieces slid in all directions. |
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| (Where did I see one of those pieces lately? |
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| Hand me my button-box—it must be there.) |
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| I sat up on the floor and shouted, “Toffile, |
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| It’s coming up to you.” It had its choice |
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| Of the door to the cellar or the hall. |
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| It took the hall door for the novelty, |
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| And set off briskly for so slow a thing, |
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| Still going every which way in the joints, though, |
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| So that it looked like lightning or a scribble, |
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| From the slap I had just now given its hand. |
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| I listened till it almost climbed the stairs |
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| From the hall to the only finished bedroom, |
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| Before I got up to do anything; |
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| Then ran and shouted, “Shut the bedroom door, |
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| Toffile, for my sake!” “Company,” he said, |
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| “Don’t make me get up; I’m too warm in bed.” |
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| So lying forward weakly on the handrail |
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| I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light |
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| (The kitchen had been dark) I had to own |
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| I could see nothing. “Toffile, I don’t see it. |
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| It’s with us in the room, though. It’s the bones.” |
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| “What bones?” “The cellar bones—out of the grave.” |
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| That made him throw his bare legs out of bed |
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| And sit up by me and take hold of me. |
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| I wanted to put out the light and see |
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| If I could see it, or else mow the room, |
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| With our arms at the level of our knees, |
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| And bring the chalk-pile down. “I’ll tell you what— |
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| It’s looking for another door to try. |
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| The uncommonly deep snow has made him think |
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| Of his old song, The Wild Colonial Boy, |
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| He always used to sing along the tote-road. |
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| He’s after an open door to get out-doors. |
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| Let’s trap him with an open door up attic.” |
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| Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough, |
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| Almost the moment he was given an opening, |
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| The steps began to climb the attic stairs. |
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| I heard them. Toffile didn’t seem to hear them. |
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| “Quick!” I slammed to the door and held the knob. |
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| “Toffile, get nails.” I made him nail the door shut, |
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| And push the headboard of the bed against it. |
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| Then we asked was there anything |
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| Up attic that we’d ever want again. |
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| The attic was less to us than the cellar. |
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| If the bones liked the attic, let them like it, |
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| Let them stay in the attic. When they sometimes |
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| Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed |
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| Behind the door and headboard of the bed, |
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| Brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers, |
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| With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter, |
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| That’s what I sit up in the dark to say— |
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| To no one any more since Toffile died. |
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| Let them stay in the attic since they went there. |
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| I promised Toffile to be cruel to them |
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| For helping them be cruel once to him. |
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The Son
We think they had a grave down in the cellar. |
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The Mother
We know they had a grave down in the cellar. |
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The Son
We never could find out whose bones they were. |
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The Mother
Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once. |
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| They were a man’s his father killed for me. |
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| I mean a man he killed instead of me. |
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| The least I could do was help dig their grave. |
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| We were about it one night in the cellar. |
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| Son knows the story: but ’twas not for him |
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| To tell the truth, suppose the time had come. |
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| Son looks surprised to see me end a lie |
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| We’d kept up all these years between ourselves |
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| So as to have it ready for outsiders. |
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| But tonight I don’t care enough to lie— |
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| I don’t remember why I ever cared. |
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| Toffile, if he were here, I don’t believe |
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| Could tell you why he ever cared himself…. |
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| She hadn’t found the finger-bone she wanted |
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| Among the buttons poured out in her lap. |
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| I verified the name next morning: Toffile. |
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| The rural letter-box said Toffile Barre. |