guns an’ sech way up North. You don’t hear ’bout sech goin’s on down here in Georgia where decent folks live, now, do you?”
His words paused for a moment, as if he expected Janson to respond, but Janson could think of nothing to say. He did not know anything about gangsters, or about criminals bootlegging liquor up North, and had heard a radio only once or twice in his life in the country stores back home. He knew that moonshiners and bootleggers operated stills in the backwoods in many areas; he and his father had even happened on a bootlegging operation once while hunting, and he had long ago been initiated to corn liquor himself—but he knew very little of the world the old man was talking about, of speakeasies and gangsters and the Prohibition agents everyone called “revenuers.” He had not been raised in a world of radios, or even of electric lights and running water and telephones, and he realized for the first time in his life how very different the world was becoming now, a world where someone in Georgia could know what was going on up North, or anywhere else in the world, just by turning a radio dial.
After a moment he realized that Titus was waiting for a response, but he could still think of nothing to say. He glanced over at the old man, saying the first thing that came to his mind. “You said th’ youngest boy ain’t too much like th’ other two.”
“No, Mist’ Stan ain’ too much like nobody else in th’ family, ’cept maybe he looks a good bit like his mama,” Titus answered, seeming to be satisfied. “He favors Mist’ Bill, too—but I’d say ways makes lots ’a difference in folks, an’ Mist’ Stan’s shore different from th’ rest ’a them young’ns in his ways. He’s quiet an’ all ’til he gets t’ know you, but then he kin talk your arm right off, wantin’ t’ know th’ whys and what-fors for everythin’—kin drive a body t’ distraction sometime, but he’s a good boy. Always got his nose in some book; don’t never cause no trouble t’ nobody. I doubt he’s ever give his mama cause for one gray hair in all his life—not like them other two boys an’ Miss Elise. With them three, it’s a miracle Miz’ Whitley ain’ done white haired a’ready. An’ Miss Elise ought t’ know better, but she’s spoil’t an’ all, like th’ only’st girl’s libles t’ be in any family. She’s pretty as a picture, with red-gold hair an’ pretty blue eyes—but she’s a Whitley through and through, stubborn like Mist’ William, an’ spoil’t; an’ that Phyllis Ann Bennett don’t help matters none. She’s always fillin’ Miss Elise’s head with all kinds ’a nonsense since she come back from spendin’ a couple weeks in New York City with some cousin ’a hers back summer ’fore last. She even got Miss Elise t’ bob her hair off—Lor’, but Mist’ William almost took th’ roof off th’ place over that!” The old man sighed and shook his head. “That Phyllis Ann ain’ no kind ’a girl for Miss Elise t’ be runnin’ ’roun’ with, her wearin’ her skirts up t’ her knees an’ rollin’ her stockin’s down t’ where anybody kin see th’ tops of ’em, smokin’ right in front ’a grown folks. I don’t think her folks say anythin’ t’ her about her ways anymore; I don’t guess they can—”
Again he fell silent as they walked along, and Janson found himself shaking his own head this time, imagining for a moment how William Whitley must have felt the day his daughter had come home looking like some city flapper, with her hair bobbed off and her skirts too short—he could almost feel sorry for the man, rich or not.
“Mist’ William ain’ too happy with Miss Elise bein’ friends with that Phyllis Ann no more, but they ain’ too much even him kin do about it. Them two little gals ’s thick as thieves, an’ they have been since they was jus’ babies. After Miss Elise went an’ bobbed her hair off, he packed her up an’ sent her off t’ some girls’ school up in Atlanta where Miz’ Whitley went when she was a girl, but th’ next thing you knowed that Phyllis Ann was goin’ too—not even Mist’ William kin find a way ’roun’ that daughter ’a his when her mind’s sot on somethin’—” he said as they rounded a bend in the red clay road and came to within sight of the big house at a distance beyond the magnolias and the oaks that stood in the wide front yard. “I doubt if Miz’ Whitley’s had even one minute’s peace in her mind since Miss Elise’s been gone off up there with that little Bennett gal, worryin’ about her even more’n when she was here. They ain’ no tellin’ what them two little gals ’s liables t’ get int’ off up there on they own—” he said. “Ain’ no tellin’—” And then he fell silent as they approached the house.
Janson stared up at the lighted windows before him, thinking of rich folks and their ways—what the world needed even less of, he told himself, was more fancied-up, bobbed-haired women, Miss Elise Whitley and her friend Phyllis Ann Bennett included.
He and Titus passed through the yard, trodding over the now winter-brown grass, and, as Janson stared down at it, he thought again of how much more pleasing to the eye the yards of the regular country-folk seemed: hard-packed clay swept free of grass and weeds, with uneven borders of rocks marking where the many flower beds would stand again in the spring and summer. There was absolutely no sensible reason, he told himself, for a man to sow grass in his yard, only to have to tend and cut it in the warm months—it could not be sold or eaten or made into clothes; all it could do was create more work for a man who had work enough already. It just did not make sense.
As they neared the house, Titus led him around toward the rear of the structure, and Janson went, though he felt his pride ruffle—for the first time in his life he realized there were front doors in this world he could not go to, houses he would not be able to enter as a man; that this was one of them, one of many.
The rear door of the house swung inward as they stepped up onto the back veranda, Mattie Ruth’s ample form framed in the open doorway by the light falling from the wide hall behind her. “I seen you comin’ from th’ front parlor while I was straightenin’ up,” she said and stepped back to let them enter. “Everybody’s done finished eatin’ now; Mist’ William’s in th’ library—”
Janson followed Titus in through the doorway, blinking to adjust his eyes to the brightness of the glaring electric light there in the hall. Very few times in his life had he ever been in houses lighted by electricity, and he did not like it, preferring by far the more-familiar muted glow of kerosene lamps, or even simple firelight, to the white, glaring brightness electricity created.
Once he could see better, he stared around himself with surprise at this place before him, from the waxed wooden flooring, to the walls papered with floral designs, to the heavily lacquered hall table against one wall, and the richly brocaded settee tucked in just opposite beneath where the staircase rose toward the back of the house and the floor above. At the far end of the wide hall stood double doors that opened out onto the front veranda, and, as Janson stared toward them, he noticed for the first time the transom of colored glass just above, as well as the matching glass panels on either side of the wide double doors, all inset with designs of blue and gold, and the frosted glass inserts in the doors themselves etched, he could tell even at that distance, with flower designs.
There were two identical crystal chandeliers of electric lights hanging from the carved ceiling at equal distances from the front and rear doors, and many doors opening off each side of the hallway, as well as a second, narrower hallway breaking off to one side of the house—Janson had never before in his life been in such a house as this, had never even believed that people could live in such a place. He stood just where he was, his eyes moving to the heavily framed paintings on the walls, the gilt-edged mirrors, and, at last, to the delicate what-nots of crystal and porcelain that sat on the hall table. He was almost afraid to move, afraid that he might break or damage something here in this fancy room.
“Y’all wait right here. I’ll tell Mist’ Whitley you’re wantin’ t’ talk t’ him,” Mattie Ruth said, then moved down the hallway, stopping at a door to the right and tapping lightly. A gruff voice answered from inside, the words unintelligible, and she opened the
