could really justify coming, it was just as full.
Della and Wilson had come to Sharon five years earlier in search of two of their relations—Nelson Hodge and David Montgomery, both by that time departed. It was assumed by George Barns, when he first saw them in his tiny store beside the doctor’s house, that they were hoping to acquire money by inheritance, and he treated them to his usually hostile personality. He explained that Nelson Hodge and David Montgomery, two confirmed and dedicated bachelors who had lived together for as long as anyone could remember, were dead, and that their small farm, along with whatever livestock and implements, had been sold for debt at a state auction. And if he were ever to meet them in the hereafter he might present them with an unpaid balance of $4.78 from his own meager business.
But the truth was that Della and Wilson were not after an inheritance. They were young and looking for a place to settle, and it was in their minds that their relatives might provide them a wedge for getting nestled in a new place. Neither was well traveled. Nelson and David had been their last hope of this plan’s success. Of course not all their relatives had been dead, but those who were living had proved to be better as springboards for moving on than as wedges.
So with the plan dissolved, they decided to go no farther, at least for now. They visited Wilson’s uncle’s farm and talked to the family that lived there, who insisted that they stay, if not in the little room upstairs, then in the barn—as it was still early September and not unduly cold. So it was from these people’s barn that Sharon Center began to learn of them—Della, whose soul seemed always to be reaching out, and Wilson, whose soul was like a net around the two of them, keeping hers from escaping. And by the time they rented the building from Stuzman across the road and almost next to George Barns’ store and began adding on a long oblong room, many people had already heard about them. George Barns, when he learned Wilson intended to start a grocery store, told everyone that they wouldn’t last long—and that even if Wilson’s father had been a grocer, there was more to running a business in a rural community than met the eye. What he meant by that of course was that Sharon Center would not allow outsiders to come in and take money away from solid community members. But it was just that attitude—Barns’ belief that everything and everyone was fixed—which made him so unpleasant; and it was more his unpleasantness that finally forced him out of business than the competition. The new couple was more accommodating. Even the meat man would rather deliver there because of the absence of complaining and because of Wilson’s keen interest in fishing and politics.
Some time during those first years, before Della was asked to teach school, Wilson built swinging doors and compartments in his wagon, and a place for ice. Once a week he filled this huckster with food and delivered to nearly every house in Sharon Township, and two houses farther away (those of Floyd and Marvin Yoder). At the same time he would pick up the cream and eggs, dried beans and fruit, homemade foodstuffs like noodles and rolls, to carry back and sell. The coming of the Montgomerys’ huckster was something on the order of an occasion, and the full delivery route was seldom completed until long after dark. In the winter, in order to make his stops fewer, several families would gather at one home, bringing with them their butter or eggs and cream. The children hoped their fathers would be in festive moods and buy something more than what was absolutely necessary. And though it would take a very long severe winter to daunt the spirit of those Iowa women, this once-a-week social occasion offset many otherwise lonely, house-prisoned hours, and many days wherein no confessions were held to acknowledge secret morning terrors and evening tensions, where people lived together like enraged animals and the sound of families arguing and cursing wailed unobstructed over the frozen land, howling into other homes through brown cracks in the walls.
Wilson was young then, and was never known to be quick-tempered, threatening or anything short of good-natured. In fact, it was for the reason that he seemed so one-sidedly good-natured and so very careful not to consort with any of the darker emotions that he was looked upon as a bit of a mystery by those who believed a person should be more rounded out in temperament and that an occasional outburst of any kind was a healthy thing, which in Wilson’s history, so much as could be known, had happened only once, while delivering groceries in the winter.
Perry Bain and his family were being visited by relatives. A man who enjoyed nothing better than solitude, saving money and working himself into the ground, Perry found little pleasure in his new company and would have preferred walking all the way to Marvin Yoder’s house to meet Wilson’s huckster by himself, so that he could get down into the ditch and walk in the knee-deep snow, testing his endurance. But everyone wanted to go, and jumped at the chance to breathe fresh air; bundled up, the whole crew marched over to Marvin’s to meet the huckster, despite the bitter cold. Even the two young ones came, carried by rotation from shoulder to shoulder.
The Montgomerys’ wagon was there before them and they hurried inside, where nearly thirty people were gathered in the large kitchen and living room. There was much joking and talk of the ungodly weather. The Perry Bains and their visitors were quickly absorbed into the hubbub. The children played games on the kitchen table. The men occupied the living room, centered mostly around Wilson. It seemed so festive that Wendy Salinger went out to the wagon with Della and brought in a box of hard candy, put it down on the table and distributed one fat stick to each child. Della had one too, and they all began sucking on them with great relish. Soon thereafter the men came wandering back in to settle the matter of exchanging food and money. They progressed halfway to the table and stopped to talk again about the tax structure and the special benefits people had who didn’t really work for a living. Then Perry Bain broke away from the conversation and rushed across the room. Five-year-old Timmy Bain had just time to look up as his father jerked the candy from his hand, threw it back into the box and said, “Don’t you ever take nothin’ that don’t belong to you!”
The room began to shudder. Bain’s wife looked down at the floor. Timmy was trying not to cry. Everyone wished to heaven that they weren’t there. Della had taken her sucker out of her mouth, then put it back in and sucked on it, trying to pretend she still enjoyed it. No one talked. The room seemed electrically charged.
But then the character of the silent tension changed and changed, until everyone was aware that it was coming from Wilson’s eyes, which seemed to be seething with hate, and his face was completely white. He walked across the room and over to the box, took out the partially eaten piece of candy, threw it on the floor, busting it into many pieces, took out another and slid it across the table to Timmy, who was crying now. Then he looked over at Bain and the look in his eyes was so murderously hateful that no one there ever forgot it. “I’ll pay for that one,” he said. Bain walked back into the living room.
This was the first time Wilson ever outwardly displayed an intense or violent emotion. Many people talked to him about it later—hoping to find some glimmer of the hatred resounding behind his eyes—and he talked to them calmly and in his serious but shy fashion, explaining how suffering and injustice, although real, were wrong and were loathsome, and especially children, who everyone would admit had done nothing to deserve pain, should not have to endure it because of corruption and vanity, or even stupidity. Yes, everyone agreed to this. Jacob Amstide went one step further and maintained that not only children, but everyone was innocent and undeserving of suffering—which originated from mistakes and fears . . . and hell.
“But assuming that’s true,” said Wilson, “then it was wrong for me to interfere. Isn’t that what you mean?”
“No,” Jacob answered. “You’re innocent too.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Wilson, “about suffering coming from hell, or from mistakes, or from anywhere. It’s merely here, and we must deal with it. There’s right and there’s wrong.”
Naturally, everyone believed that. For instance, Merle Brown had compiled a mental list of atrocities that he felt proved the absurdity of the world, and after loosing these examples on his neighbors like a swarm
