The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck
Pat could not sleep that night. His head was too full of plans. Once he got up and lighted the lamp to look in his bank book. A little before daylight he dressed and cooked his breakfast, and while he ate, his eyes wandered again and again to the locked door. There was a light of malicious joy in his eyes. "It'll be dark in there," he said. "I better rip open the shutters before I go in there."
When the daylight came at last, he took a crowbar and walked around the house, tearing open the nailed shutters as he went. The parlor windows he did not touch, for he didn't want to disturb the rose bush. Finally he went back into the kitchen and stood before the locked door. For a moment the old vision stopped him. "But it will be just for a minute," he argued. "I'll start in tearing it to pieces right away." The crowbar poised and crashed on the lock. The door sprang open crying miserably on its dry hinges, and the horrible room lay before him. The air was foggy with cobwebs ; a musty, ancient odor flowed through the door. There were the two rocking chairs on either side of the rusty stove. Even through the dust he could see the little hollows in their cushions. But these were not the terrible things. Pat knew where lay the center of his fears. He walked rapidly through the room, brushing the cobwebs from his eyes as he went. The parlor was still dark, for its shutters were closed. Pat didn't have to grope for the table; he knew exactly where it was. Hadn't it haunted him for ten years? He picked up table and Bible together, ran out through the kitchen and hurled them into the yard.
Now he could go more slowly. The fear was gone. The windows were stuck so hard that he had to use the bar to pry them open. First the rocking chairs went out, rolling and jumping when they hit the ground, then the pictures, the ornaments from the mantel, the stuffed orioles. And when the movable furniture, the clothing, the rugs and vases were scattered about under the windows, Pat ripped up the carpets and crammed them out, too. Finally he brought buckets of water and splashed the walls and ceilings thoroughly. The work was an intense pleasure to him. He tried to break the legs from the chairs when he threw them out. While the water was soaking into the old dark wallpaper, he collected all of the furniture from under the windows, piled it up and set fire to it. Old musty fabrics and varnished wood smoldered sullenly and threw out a foul stench of dust and dampness. Only when a bucket of kerosene was thrown over the pile did the flame leap up. The tables and chairs cracked as they released their ghosts into the fire. Pat surveyed the pile joyfully.
"You would sit in there all these years, wouldn't you?" he cried. "You thought I'd never get up the guts to burn you. Well, I just wish you could be around to see what I'm going to do, you rotten stinking trash." The green carpets burned through and left red, flaky coals. Old vases and jars cracked to pieces in the heat. Pat could hear the sizzle of mentholatum and painkiller gushing from containers and boiling into the fire. He felt that he was presiding at the death of his enemy. Only when the pile had burned down to coals did he leave it. The walls were soaked thoroughly by now, so that the wallpaper peeled off in long, broad ribbons.
That afternoon Pat drove in to Salinas and bought all the magazines on house decoration he could find. In the evening, after dinner, he searched the pages through. At last, in one of the magazines, he found the perfect room. There had been a question about some of the others; there was none about this one. And he could make it quite easily. With the partition between the sitting room and the parlor torn out, he would have a room thirty feet long and fifteen wide. The windows must be made wide, the fireplace enlarged and the floor sandpapered, stained and polished. Pat knew he could do all these things. His hands ached to be at work. "Tomorrow I'll start," he said. Then another thought stopped him. "She thinks it's pretty now. I can't very well let her know I'm doing it now. Why, she'd know I heard her say that about the Vermont house. I can't let people know I'm doing it. They'd ask why I'm doing it." He wondered why he was doing it. "It's none of their darn business why," he explained to himself. "I don't have to go around telling people why. I've got my reasons. By God! I'll do it at night." Pat laughed softly to himself. The idea of secretly changing his house delighted him. He could work here alone, and no one would know. Then, when it was all finished, he could invite a few people in and pretend it was always that way. Nobody would remember how it was ten years ago.
This was the way he ordered his life: During the day he worked on the farm, and at night rushed into the house with a feeling of joy. The picture of the completed room was tacked up in the kitchen. Pat looked at it twenty times a day. While he was building window seats, putting up the French-grey paper, coating the woodwork with cream-colored enamel, he could see the completed room before him. When he needed supplies, he drove to Salinas late in the evening and brought back his materials after dark. He worked until midnight and went to bed breathlessly happy.
The people of the valley missed him from their gatherings. At the store they questioned him, but he had his excuse ready. "I'm taking one of those mail courses," he explained. "I'm studying at night." The men smiled. Loneliness was too much for a man, they knew. Bachelors on farms always got a little queer sooner or later.
"What are you studying, Pat?"
"Oh! What? Oh! I'm taking some lessons in--building."
"You ought to get married, Pat. You're getting along in years."
Pat blushed furiously. "Don't be a damn fool," he said.
As he worked on the room, Pat was developing a little play, and it went like this: The room was finished and the furniture in place. The fire burned redly; the lamps threw misty reflections on the polished floor and on the shiny furniture. "I'll go to her house, and I'll say, offhand, 'I hear you like Vermont houses.' No! I can't say that. I'll say, 'Do you like Vermont houses? Well, I've got a room that's kind of like a Vermont room.' " The preliminaries were never quite satisfactory. He couldn't come on the perfect way for enticing her into his house. He ended by skipping that part. He could think it out later.
Now she was entering the kitchen. The kitchen wouldn't be changed, for that would make the other room a bigger surprise. She would stand in front of the door, and he would reach around her and throw it open. There was the room, rather dark, but full of dark light, really. The fire flowed up like a broad stream, and the lamps reflected on the floor. You could make out the glazed chintz hangings and the fat tiger of the overmantel hooked rug. The pewter glowed with a restrained richness. It was all so warm and snug. Pat's chest contracted with delight.
Anyway, she was standing in the door and--what would she say? Well, if she felt the way he did, maybe she wouldn't say anything. She might feel almost like crying. That was peculiar, the good full feeling as though you were about to cry. Maybe she'd stand there for a minute or two, just looking. Then Pat would say--"Won't you come in and sit for a while?" And of course that would break the spell. She would begin talking about the room in funny choked sentences. But Pat would be offhand about it all. "Yes, I always kind of liked it." He said this out loud as he worked. "Yes, I always thought it was kind of nice. It came to me the other day that you might like to see it."
The play ended this way: Mae sat in the wingback chair in front of the fire. Her plump pretty hands lay in her lap. As she sat there, a far-away look came into her eyes.... And Pat never went any farther than that, for at that point a self-consciousness overcame him. If he went farther, it would be like peeking in a window at two people who wanted to be alone. The electric moment, the palpitating moment of the whole thing was when he threw open the door; when she stood on the threshhold, stunned by the beauty of the room.
At the end of three months the room was finished. Pat put the magazine picture in his wallet and went to San Francisco. In the office of a furniture company, he spread his picture on the desk. "I want furniture like that," he said.
"You don't mean originals, of course."
"What do you mean, originals?"
"Why, old pieces. You couldn't get them for under thirty thousand dollars."
Pat's face fell. His room seemed to collapse. "Oh!--I
"We can get you good copies of everything here," the manager assured him.
"Why of course. That's good. That's fine. How much would the copies cost?"
A purchasing agent was called in. The three of them went over the articles in the picture and the manager made a list; pie-crust table, drop-leaf gate-leg table, chairs: one windsor, one rush seat ladderback, one wingback, one fireplace bench; rag rugs, glazed chintz hangings, lamps with frosted globes and crystal pendants; one open-faced cupboard, pictorial bone-china, pewter candlesticks and sconces.
"Well, it will be around three thousand dollars, Mr. Humbert."
Pat frowned with thought. After all, why should he save money? "How soon can you send it down?" he demanded.
While he waited for a notice that the furniture had arrived in Salinas, Pat rubbed the floor until it shone like a dull lake. He walked backward out of the room erasing his faint foot marks with a polisher. And then, at last, the crates arrived at the freight depot. It took four trips to Salinas in his truck to get them, trips made secretly in the night. There was an air of intrigue about the business.
Pat uncrated the pieces in the barn. He carried in chairs and tables, and, with a great many looks at the picture, arranged them in their exact places. That night the fire flowed up, and the frosted lamps reflected on the floor. The fat tiger on the hooked rug over the fireplace seemed to quiver in the dancing flame-light.
Pat went into the kitchen and closed the door. Then, very slowly he opened it again and stood looking in. The room glowed with warmth, with welcoming warmth. The pewter was even richer than he had thought it would be. The plates in the open-faced cupboard caught sparks on their rims. For a moment Pat stood in the doorway trying to get the right tone in his voice. "I always kind of liked it," he said in his most offhand manner. "It just came to me the other day that you might like to see it." He paused, for a horrible thought had come to him. "Why, she can't come here alone. A girl can't come to a single man's house at night. People would talk about her, and besides, she wouldn't do it." He was bitterly disappointed. "Her mother will have to come with her. But--maybe her mother won't get in the way. She can stand back here, kind of, out of the way."
Now that he was ready, a powerful reluctance stopped him. Evening after evening passed while he put off asking her to come. He went through his play until he knew exactly where she would stand, how she would look, what she would say. He had alternative things she might say. A week went by, and still he put off the visit that would bring her to see his room.
One afternoon he built up his courage with layers of will. "I can't put it off forever. I better go tonight." After dinner, he put on his best suit and set out to walk to the Munroe house. It was only a quarter of a mile away. He wouldn't ask her for tonight. He wanted to have the fire burning and the lamps lighted when she arrived. The night was cold and very dark. When Pat stumbled in the dust of the road, he thought with dismay how his polished shoes would look.
There were a great many lights in the Munroe house. In front of the gate, a number of cars were parked. "It's a party," Pat said to himself, "I'll ask her some other night. I couldn't do it in front of a lot of people." For a moment he even considered turning back. "It would look funny though, if I asked her the first time I saw her in months. She might suspect something."
When he entered the house, Bert Munroe grasped him by the hand. "It's Pat Humbert," he shouted. "Where have you been keeping yourself, Pat?"
"I've been studying at night."
"Well it's lucky you came over. I was going to go over to see you tomorrow. You heard the news, of course!"
"What news?"
"Why, Mae and Bill Whiteside are going to get married next Saturday. I was going to ask you to help at the wedding. It'll just be a home affair with refreshments afterwards. You used to help at the schoolhouse all the time before you got this studying streak." He took Pat's arm and tried to lead him down the hall. The sound of a number of voices came from the room at the end of the hall.
Pat resisted firmly. He exerted all his training in the offhand manner. "That's fine, Mr. Munroe. Next Saturday, you say? I'd be glad to help. No, I can't stay now. I got to run to the store right away." He shook hands again and walked slowly out the door.
In his misery he wanted to hide for a while, to burrow into some dark place where no one could see him. His way was automatically homeward. The rambling house was dark and unutterably dreary when he arrived. Pat went into the barn and with deliberate steps climbed the short ladder and lay down in the hay. His mind was shrunken and dry with disappointment. Above all things he did not want to go into the house. He was afraid he might lock up the door again. And then, in all the years to come, two puzzled spirits would live in the beautiful room, and in his kitchen, Pat would understand how they gazed wistfully into the ghost of a fire.
XI
When Richard Whiteside came to the far West in '50, he inspected the gold workings and gave them up as objects for his effort. "The earth gives only one crop of gold," he said. "When that crop is divided among a thousand tenants, it feeds no one for very long. This is bad husbandry."
Richard drove about over the fields and hills of California; in his mind there was the definite intention of founding a house for children not yet born and for their children. Few people in California in that day felt a responsibility toward their descendants.
On the evening of a fine clear day, he drove his two bay horses to the top of the little hills which surround the Pastures of Heaven. He pulled up his team and gazed down on the green valley. And Richard knew that he had found his home. In his wandering about the country he had come upon many beautiful places, but none of them had given him this feeling of consummation. He remembered the colonists from Athens and from Lacedaemon looking for new lands described by vague oracles; he thought of the Aztecs plodding forward after their guiding eagle. Richard said to himself, "Now if there could be a sign, it would be perfect. I know this is the place, but if only there could be an omen to remember and to tell the children." He looked into the sky, but it was clean of both birds and clouds. Then the breeze that blows over the hills in the evening sprang up. The oaks made furtive little gestures toward the valley, and on the hillside a tiny whirlwind picked up a few leaves and flung them forward. Richard chuckled. "Answer! Many a fine city was founded because of a hint from the gods no more broad than that."
After a little while he climbed out of his light wagon and unhitched his horses. Once hobbled, they moved off with little mincing steps toward the grass at the side of the road. Richard ate a supper of cold ham and bread, and afterwards he unrolled his blankets and laid them on the grass of the hillside. As the grey dusk thickened in the valley, he lay on his bed and gazed down on the Pastures of Heaven which was to be his home. On the far side, near a grove of fine oaks was the place; behind the chosen spot there was a hill and a little brushy crease, a stream surely. The light became uncertain and magical. Richard saw a beautiful white house with a trim garden in front of it and nearby, the white tower of a tank house. There were little yellow lights in the windows, little specks of welcoming lights. The broad front door opened, and a whole covey of children walked out on the veranda--at least six children. They peered out into the growing darkness, looked particularly up at the hill where Richard lay on his blankets. After a moment they went back into the house, and the door shut behind them. With the closing of the door, the house, the garden and the white tank house disappeared. Richard sighed with contentment and lay on his back. The sky was prickling with stars.
For a week Richard drove furiously about the valley. He bought two hundred and fifty acres in the Pastures of Heaven; he drove to Monterey to have the title searched and the deed recorded, and, when the land was surely his, he visited an architect.
It took six months to build his house, to carpet and furnish it, to bore a well and build the towering tank house over it. There were workmen about the Whiteside place the whole first year of Ric
A neighbor who was worried by this kind of procedure drove over and confronted the new owner. "Going to have your family come out, Mr. Whiteside?"
"I haven't any family," said Richard. "My parents are dead. I have no wife."
"Then what the hell are you building a big house like that for?"
Richard's face grew stem. "I'm going to live here. I've come to stay. My children and their children and theirs will live in this house. There will be a great many Whitesides born here, and a great many will die here. Properly cared for, the house will last five hundred years."
"I see what you mean, all right," said the neighbor. "It sounds fine, but that's not how we work out here. We build a little shack, and if the land pays, we build a little more on it. It isn't good to put too much into a place. You might want to move."
"I don't want to move," Richard cried. "That's just what I'm building against. I shall build a structure so strong that neither I nor my descendants will be able to move. As a precaution, I shall be buried here when I die. Men find it hard to leave the graves of their fathers." His face softened. "Why, man, don't you see what I'm doing? I'm founding a dynasty. I'm building a family and a family seat that will survive, not forever, but for several centuries at least. It pleases me, when I build this house, to know that my descendants will walk on its floors, that children whose great grandfathers aren't conceived will be born in it. I'll build the germ of a tradition into my house." Richard's eyes were sparkling as he talked. The pounding of carpenter's hammers punctuated his speech.