From the Improvement Era, April 1946 –

Hungry Sheep

By Blanche Kendall McKay

It was not by accident that Joan watched the large Goodrich sedan draw up to the curb across the street. She had brought her work from the Daily Gazette to her bedroom so as to be at home when the three o’clock train pulled in from Henderson. In a moment the chauffeur alighted and helped Henrietta Goodrich and her sister Elizabeth to the sidewalk. Elizabeth was the elder by some ten years, but it was she who carried the overnight bag, while Henrietta leaned upon the chauffeur’s arm. They have failed, thought Joan, the war is over, but Paul refused to come home. Lannie, the colored maid, appeared on the porch, took the bag and assisted Henrietta into the house. The chauffeur drove away, and the large Goodrich house settled to its customary atmosphere of silent immobility.

Joan threw herself upon the bed, pressing rigid palms into her burning eyes. She found it hard to analyze just how she did feel toward Henrietta, the mother of Stanley and Paul. She knew that she had hated her once, but those flames had been extinguished in their mutual tears when Stan had been killed. No one could suffer as Joan had suffered without feeling pity for the proud woman who had suddenly passed from the simulation of youth to old age – passed beyond the rescue of her beauty parlor. Tears pricked Joan’s eyelids as she admitted that she had forgiven Stan’s mother. But she could never forget. If it hadn’t been for Henrietta Goodrich, she would have borne Stanley’s name all the days of her life; she might even have borne him a son. A smothering wave of loneliness enveloped her.

But after a moment she sat up with an effort. Something must be done about Stan’s young brother, Paul. Her glance roamed the four walls of her room but found no answer, then her typewriter and bestrewn desk, even Stanley’s photograph became as nothing, and she stood with him under a great tree whose branches shut out the sky and held them close.

“Perhaps Mother was right,” Stanley was saying. “Ten months in camp opens your eyes to a lot of things. I guess I ran into too many war brides with their crying babies.” But his words lacked conviction, and Joan had known even then that she and Stan would have been married if it hadn’t been for his mother. She lived again their last day together. The sun had gone down, and an immense yellow moon had climbed the sky to grow small and white, and yet they had not talked their hearts empty.

“I hope it’s all over before Paul turns eighteen.” Stan’s constrained voice, tightened above his normally low register, echoed now in the still room. Stan’s living voice! “Paul is such a kid – too sensitive for war –” Her own sobbing reply: “I’ll take care of Paul, honest I will! He’ll be precious to me because of you –” Stan’s utter tenderness. “Don’t cry, Joan. I’ll come back, you know –” One supreme moment, filling enough to encompass a lifetime! Yet she could have forgotten her work at the Gazette, could even have forgotten Paul and old Mrs. Goodrich and given way to futile mourning because life would never hold for her another such moment.

But she must find out about Paul. Even before she took her copy to the Gazette office, she must know about him. If only someone other than his mother had seen him! As she crossed the street, the Goodrich windows appeared to be gazing at her inhospitably. She strained to pull her nerves under control. Lannie admitted her to the living room, where Elizabeth was knitting in a low rocker and Henrietta lying upon the couch. She hesitated on the threshold, and Mrs. Goodrich lifted herself on her elbow, surprised into revealing her curiosity.

“Come in, my dear,” said Elizabeth cheerfully. “Here’s a comfortable chair waiting for you.”

As Joan seated herself, she silently studied the face of Paul’s mother. Then, after a jerky little intake of breath, she spoke.

“Yesterday’s Gazette said you had gone to Henderson to bring Paul home.”

Henrietta sat up swiftly, brown eyes snapping under her gray coiffure, her over-decorated robe clinging to her thin knees. “I don’t see why there should be such a to-do about a ride to Henderson,” she protested. “If Paul doesn’t want to come home, let him live somewhere else.” She lay down again with closed eyes, breathing rapidly, and drawing a small shawl around her face.

Losing one son was hard enough, though Joan, feeling her own throat grow taut. One can scarcely expect a woman to lose two gracefully. But it was not out of pity for Henrietta Goodrich that she steadied her voice to speak. She could hear her own choking, “I’ll take care of Paul. Stan –”

“Did you see Paul?” Joan asked.

Elizabeth laid down her knitting and leaned forward, watching her sister. After a silence, Henrietta replied, “Yes. He is better. Out of the hospital, in fact. He uses his – hand well.” She stretched upward to look at a water color hanging above the piano. Joan turned and gazed at a delicately painted lake, its edges rippling beneath a trailing willow. Two finely printed words stood out mutely in a lower corner: “Paul Goodrich.” For a moment their hearts beat the same strain of pity, then Henrietta lay down again, wearily.

“If he is out of the hospital, where is he staying?” asked Joan softly.

His mother’s brows twitched. “At a boarding house,” she said jerkily. “With some of his ‘buddies.’” Her thin tone quivered.

“It’s true that Paul is better,” broke in Elizabeth thoughtfully. “But he’s not well. He seems lost. I don’t think he was really glad to see us. At least not after the first half hour. He needs help and –”

Joan rose. “I think the Daily Gazette would gladly offer a position,” she began, but Henrietta threw her arms wide.

“The Gazette again! I wish this town would forget all about me and my sons.”

“We shall never forget our heroes,” cried Joan, huskily, her hazel eyes dark in the shadows creeping through the large windows. She could not speak Stan’s name, but she continued her plea for Paul. “We remember Paul playing the high school leads, editing the college Journal, contributing to the Gazette before he turned eighteen.” She did not mention Paul’s seemingly greatest gift, but was silent for a moment before his painting. “We want to see Paul a successful man. To whom can he turn if his friends forget him?”

Henrietta’s small jaws beat spasmodically in her thin cheeks. But she did not speak, not even when Elizabeth read Paul’s address, and she heard the stroke of a pencil.

Joan worked late at the Gazette office, preparing her copy a day ahead of schedule. She talked earnestly about Paul with the city editor, whose over-strained vision revealed itself as he took off his glasses and squinted at her eager face. “Paul was a brilliant kid,” he said. “I surely would be glad to give him a chance. Besides, I’m snowed under.”

All night Joan’s mind, consciously or otherwise, was busy with her problem of Paul. Once she had been talking about him with Stan; then she was talking with Paul himself about his mother; she heard Elizabeth’s exaggerated voice repeating, “He seems lost – lost.” But it was not until she was on the train riding toward Henderson that she recalled Milton’s line: “The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.” It had been two or three years since she had thought of Lycidas – perhaps not since she and Stan had pored over the poem as freshmen. The line kept recurring: “The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.” Thousands of boys elatedly sailing back to America – some of them all right, some of them maimed. Who would lift bruised spirits and give light to the blind? The wheels seemed to rotate: “Feed my sheep.”

It was her first glimpse of Paul that gave the keynote to her approach. He was slumped in a large chair, not in a boyish sprawl, but as old men sometimes sit when they have surrendered youth. His head was bowed, and his right arm with its pitiful hook was lying in his lap. But his left hand was spread helplessly on the arm of his chair, thumb drooping over upturned palm. She had but a glance, but in it she saw the real Paul. He was like a blind man, with sorrow lines down his face – one still bewildered by the constant dark.

“Joan,” he said as she came near. Then as her warm smile enveloped him, “I’m glad to see you, Joan.”

“And I,” she exclaimed, “it’s so good to see you out of the hospital – a regular guy again.” She studied his features and felt reassured when he looked back at her steadily. “Every time I see you, you look more like Stan.”

He dropped his eyes and swallowed hard. Joan’s lashes moistened. After a moment he asked, “What are you doing in Henderson?”

“Daily Gazette business. I’m visiting editors this morning. Want to come along?”

He decided to go. They spent the morning in newspaper offices, where she watched his interest become more and more evident. In the early afternoon they lunched on the balcony of a small restaurant overlooking the park. Paul managed well the simple food he ordered. When they finished, Joan suggested, “Let’s get out into the park.”

They sought the pond, with popcorn for the ducks. Later they found a bench where a clump of evergreens gave them a feeling of seclusion.

Joan lifted her eyes from the sweep of sun-soaked grass to find Paul studying her. His gaze was steady and clear, but she wasn’t sure of what lay in its brown depths.

“Paul, why are you afraid to go home?”

His head went down, and his left hand flexed nervously. Then he looked back at her bravely for a second before he said unsteadily:

“I don’t know that it is fear. I’m not sure exactly what it is. Maybe I’m afraid of myself. I saw a lot of poor kids who went – loony. It’s bad enough to lose part of your – mechanism, but it’s worse when your mind gets shot up. Sometimes I’m afraid what may have happened to mine.”

“You are not afraid of me, are you, Paul?”

“No.”

“Then may I talk frankly?”

“Of course.”

“I think you need to face yourself squarely, as you are today. Face the new Paul unflinchingly. And when you are used to your new self – a deeper self – go about among your old friends, and you will find they will accept you on that deeper level. That’s why I want you to go home.”

“I couldn’t stand home,” he flared. Then he pressed his mouth with his closed fist and stared out over the green carpet. She did not intrude. When his voice came again, it was under control. “Don’t get it into your head that I haven’t thought about it. Or that I wouldn’t like to – to be back where I – left off. But back home I was the coming great artist. People don’t understand. That’s why I cling to my buddies. We don’t have to explain ourselves.” He turned the fire of his outrage on her but she said nothing. With softened tones he went on. “I want to make something of my life, Joan. I resolved that over there. In the dripping tent of a hospital I kept saying to myself, ‘If I get back, I’m not going to be a failure because of – this.’”

“What would you like to do, Paul?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. That’s why I cling –” His head went down again. She longed to cry, but instead she listened to Elizabeth’s voice: “He seems lost – lost –” and to the recurring rhythm of the train: “Feed my sheep.” The sun was getting low now, and a cool breeze from the pond swept their faces. As if in answer to her thought, he said, “I couldn’t live in that big house without Stan. You don’t know Mother. ‘Poor Paul! Poor Paul!’ I would go crazy.”

“We all need you at home,” Joan said. “The Daily Gazette wants to take you on.”

“‘Poor Paul’?” he asked ironically.

“Not at all. We are dreadfully short-handed.”

He studied her inquiringly. “What would I do?”

“Assist the city editor. He’s swamped.”

She saw his artist eyes examining a pink-tinted cloud forming a filigree against the paling blue.

“Pictures can be painted with words,” she suggested. “The Gazette might be a starting point.”

“It might, at that.”

She was swift to push her advantage. “All your life you will be an artist, Paul – you can’t get away from that. And it is the artists who understand people. You have the imagination to catch viewpoints. To bridge over the differences between philosophies. Our guns are silent now, but that doesn’t mean we shan’t have to fight.”

He sat unmoving. He was thinking of a doctor in France who had said to him when he lay low: “Son, a country that is worth dying for is worth living for.”

Joan made a poor guess at his musings. “A man doesn’t have to remain in a small town after he has outgrown it. But right now the Gazette needs you.”

He turned, passionately. “I’m trying to save myself, Joan. You don’t know what it would be like to live in that antiquated house without – Stan.”

“I think perhaps I do.”

Something in her throaty tone stirred him, deep down, where he was struggling to keep the loneliness under cover. He scrutinized her profile – lifted chin and intense gaze, pallid cheek, the thinness of which her flowing brown hair failed to hide.

“You don’t think Stan died in my heart, do you?”

In pity he swept his eyes away from her struggling face. He felt the muscles of his own throat pulling painfully. “You stubborn little chaplain,” he said thickly, “you won’t even let yourself cry.” After what seemed a long time he stood up jerkily and groped for her hand.

“I guess you win. To the ladies belong the – spoiled. I’ll go back for a day or two – I’ve got to get you home.” Joan telephoned while Paul was packing.

Now as he helped her to the curb, she felt the tremor of his hand. His conviction that he must protect her from unhappy memories had steeled him during the long ride, but the sight of the small streets with their immense trees and the sudden loom of his home had awakened his sleeping uncertainty. Joan slipped her arm through his and started resolutely up the path, but her heart, too, was fluttering with misgivings. What if she had done the wrong thing in bringing Paul back thus abruptly? She knew so little about illness – could over-strained nerves snap? In reality, the only thing she did know about Paul was his need for love. Could Mrs. Goodrich do as Joan had requested over the telephone, accept her son without pity?

As they entered the hall, Elizabeth welcomed them joyously in small, broken sentences, drawing them into the living room. Henrietta had risen. Struggling against tears, she stood swaying slightly, as though she were attempting to advance but found her feet too weighty. “Hello,” he said, boyishly. She stretched out her arms, and the spontaneity of her smile lifted him. “Oh, Paul,” was all she could manage. He placed her on the couch and sat beside her. In a few moments he took in the familiar walls, the oils, and heavy drapes. Stan’s picture in his captain uniform, his own sketch of the lake.

“You kept everything just as it used to be, didn’t you, Mom?”

“I tried to. But Elizabeth and I have had along wait.”

She lay back on the pillows weakly, clinging to his hand, hungry eyes on his face. Paul leaned nearer and discovered something about his mother he had never known before: Carefully guarded, beneath the artificiality, her heart burned with a fierce desire for affection. She felt the wave of his sympathy.

“I couldn’t lose two sons,” she said, shaken. “I didn’t have the strength to lose two.”

“You’ll be all right, Mom,” soothed Paul. “I’m an old stick-in-the-mud now, and I’m going to stick around here a long time.”

Joan slipped out of the house and walked slowly down the steps, the velvet touch of night on her burning eyes. The street was as silent as the sky. As she reached the other side, the sheltering trees pushed their branches down to her. They knew. Paul will be precious to me – God, don’t let this moment be of no avail! And then it was that the realization came to her, as in a flash. None of the great moments were ever lost. Unchanged, they lived to rush back, again and again, to shine above the dulling clouds of anguish. They were the understanding moments, springing from the well which lies deeper than culture or race.