In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

- '"- ^*=r" J,* - "' ¦ ff ^¦""vjf" >*.· -.-^ ^ *> * * ¦ fevmm --¿wggf^fe Silent Forest .»*^ .,ir*,»'*·S ËAÎ7 iSW "^ by D. Jeanne Wilson 18 I used to tell him a lot of things but he never heard me. Old mule of a man with his Venetian blind ears that only flap open when he pulls the cord. Just the otherday I rushed in from Ellison's, plopped down my groceries, never even took off my girdle and it was ninety in the shade. "Willard," I said, "Pansy Morrison has gone off to Pittsburgh. Left Roger and those three kids. Says she's going to find herself." "Where's my hammer, Ida," he said. "The one Evan gave me. The one I got for my birthday." Later he dropped the hammer on the kitchen table where I'd told him a hundred times not to pile things, and proceeded to tell me Pansy Morrison had gone to Pittsburgh . FrecfHaines stopped by while he was mending the fence and gave him the details. "Itold you that,"I said,buthedidn'thear for he'd already turned on the television. IfIwas togo toPittsburgh to findmyself I wouldn't know who to look for. It wouldn't be the girl who married Willard Craddock thirty years ago. The one who all the boys looked at when she was Prom Queen and rode the float wearing a peach colored gown especially ordered from Sears. So, though I'm not so much to look at now I'd still like to be heard. Come to think of it he never listened to me too well back then. "I'd like to live in town," I told him. "I've always lived in town." He came by my housepleased as punch. "One hundred and forty acres prime land," he said. "Plenty 01 water for the cattle." So I shucked corn with its cat claw leaves, picked the ugly wart-covered cucumbers, and put up tomato juice the color of fresh blood. Itwas orangejuiceIwantedandcrunchy picklesincleanjarsfromthegrocery shelf. "I'm a Methodist," I told him. "My parents are Methodists. Grandpaw Henchly was a Methodist minister." We had to pass the Harmony Hill Methodist Church to get to the Pleasant Grove Baptist and pass it we have for thirty years of Sundays and them not even having "Jesus, LoverofMy Soul" in their hymnbook. Seems like when the kids were home I never had time to notice so much how he didn't hear me. Now I get to feeling like that tree Evan, my oldest boy, told about. Evan said if a tree fell in a forest and there wasnoonetohearit,itwouldn't make any sound. Seemed right foolish talk at the time but I have been thinking more and more about that tree. I got to thinking how maybe I'd go off to Pittsburgh. See ifI couldfindmore than this dead tree of a woman. Then I remembered that Betsy Ann is due any day now and Evan is already worried about the lay off at work. I couldn't worry the children. Ididdecide, though, thatIwould leave him like he had left me. For the next thirty years, that's figuring we'll live as long as his people since we've done everything else the way they did, I'll not hear a word he says. I was anxious to get started so I took my kettle of beans into the television room and began to string them just waiting for him to say something I wouldn't hear. He sattherewatchingtheDukeboys and looking at Daisy the way he looked at mewhenIwasPromQueen. I'llbedanged ifhe wasn't as quiet as afence post. When the show ended he got up and walked by like Iwasn'teventhere. I tookatighthold of that kettle of beans and lifted it in the air, then put it down. What would the children think if I hit their father with a bean kettle? Besides, I knew Betsy Ann and her three were coming for supper and 19 it was time to have the beans on. I did decide though I'd do more than not hear him. I'd not speak to him either. For the next thirty years it would be harder to...

pdf

Share