The Gallery

There was no conceivable trouble of terrestrial origin that could touch her--or would want to. And, as it turned out, I was right in that respect.

I was right in another respect too. By finishing my thesis I became a Ph.D. on schedule, and if I had abandoned all that and rushed to Sumac the moment I received the telegram it could not have materially altered the outcome of things. And Aunt Matilda, hanging on the wall of my study, knitting things for the Red Cross, will attest to that.

You, of course, might argue about her being there. You might even insist that I am hanging on her wall instead. And I would have to agree with you, since it all depends on the point of view and as I sit here typing I can look up and see myself hanging on her wall.

But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning when, with my thesis behind me, I arrived on the 4:15 milk run, as they call the train that stops on its way past Sumac.

I was in a very disturbed state of mind, as anyone who has ever turned in a doctorate thesis can well imagine. For the life of me I couldn't be sure whether I had used symbol or token on line 7, sheet 23, of my thesis, and it was a bad habit of mine to unconsciously interchange them unpredictably, and I knew that Dr. Walters could very well vote against acceptance of my thesis on that ground alone. Also, I had thought of a much better opening sentence to my thesis, and was having to use will power to keep from rushing back to the university to ask permission to change it.

I had practically no sleep during the fourteen-hour run, and what sleep I did have had been interrupted by violent starts of awaking with a conviction that this or that error in the initial draft of my thesis had not been corrected by the final draft. And then, of course, I would have to think the thing through and recall when I had made the correction, before I could go back to sleep.

So I was a wreck, mentally, if not physically, when I stepped off the train onto the wooden depot platform that had certainly been built in the Pleistocene Era, with my oxblood two-suiter firmly clutched in my left hand.

With snorts of steam and the loud clanking of loose drives, the train got under way again, its whistle wailing mournfully as the last empty coach car sped past me and retreated into the distance.

As I stood there, my brain tingling with weariness, and listened to the absolute silence of the town triumph over the last distant wail of the train whistle, I became aware that something about Sumac was different.

What it was, I didn't know. I stood where I was a moment longer, trying to analyze it. In some indefinable way everything looked unreal. That was as close as I could come to it, and of course having pinned it down that far I at once dismissed it as a trick of the mind produced by tiredness.

I began walking. The planks of the platform were certainly real enough. I circled the depot without going in, and started walking in the direction of Aunt Matilda's, which was only a short eight blocks from the depot, as I had known since I was six.

The feeling of the unreality of my surroundings persisted, and with it came another feeling, of an invisible pressure against me. Almost a resentment. Not only from the people, but from the houses and even the trees.

Slowly I began to realize that it couldn't be entirely my imagination. Most of the dozen or so people I passed knew me, and I remembered suddenly that every other time I had come to Aunt Matilda's they had stopped to talk with me and I had had to make some excuse to escape them. Now they were behaving differently. They would look at me absently as they might at any stranger walking from the direction of the depot, then their eyes would light up with recognition and they would open their lips to greet me with hearty welcome.

Then, as though they just thought of something, they would change, and just say, "Hello, Arthur," and continue on past me.

It didn't take me long to conclude that this strange behavior was probably caused by something in connection with Aunt Matilda. Had she perhaps been named as corespondent in the divorce of the local minister? Had she, of all people, had a child out of wedlock?

Things in a small town can be deadly serious, so by the time her familiar frame house came into view down the street I was ready to keep a straight face, no matter what, and reserve my chuckles for the privacy of her guest room. It would be a new experience, to find Aunt Matilda guilty of any human frailty. It was slightly impossible, but I had prepared myself for it.

And that first day her behavior convinced me I was right in my conclusion.

She appeared in the doorway as I came up the front walk. She was breathing hard, as though she had been running, and there was a dust streak on the side of her thin face.

"Hello, Arthur," she said when I came up on the porch. She shook my hand as limply as always, and gave me a reluctant duty peck on the cheek, then backed into the house to give me room to enter.

I glanced around the familiar surroundings, waiting for her to blurt out the cause of her telegram, and feeling a little guilty about not having come at once.

I felt the loneliness inside her more than I ever had before. There was a terror way back in her eyes.

"You look tired, Arthur," she said.

"Yes," I said, glad of the opportunity she had given me to explain. "I had to finish my thesis and get it in by last night. Two solid years of hard work and it had to be done or the whole thing was for nothing. That's why I couldn't come four days ago. And you seemed quite insistent that I shouldn't call." I smiled to let her know that I remembered about party lines in a small town.

"It's just as well," she said. And while I was trying to decide what the antecedent of her remark was she said, "You can go back on the morning train."

"You mean the trouble is over?" I said, relieved.

"Yes," she said. But she had hesitated.

It was the first time I had ever seen her tell a lie.

"You must be hungry," she rushed on. "Put your suitcase in the room and wash up." She turned her back to me and hurried into the kitchen.

I was hungry. The memory of her homey cooking did it. I glanced around the front room. Nothing had changed, I thought. Then I noticed the framed portrait of my father and his three brothers was hanging where the large print of a basket of fruit used to hang. The basket of fruit picture was where the portrait should have been, and it was entirely too big a picture for that spot. I would never have thought Aunt Matilda could tolerate anything out of proportion. And the darker area of wallpaper where the fruit picture had prevented fading stood out like a sore thumb.

I looked around the room for other changes. The boat picture that had hung to the right of the front door was not there. On the floor under where it should have been I caught the flash of light from a shard of glass. Next to it, the drape framing the window was not hanging right.

On impulse I went over and peeked behind the drape. There, leaning against the wall, was the boat picture with fragments of splintered glass still in it.

From the evidence it appeared that Aunt Matilda had either been trying to hang the picture where it belonged, or taking it down, and it had slipped out of her hands and fallen, and she had hidden it behind the drape and hastily swept up the broken glass.

But why? Even granting that Aunt Matilda might behave in such an erratic fashion (which was obvious from the evidence), I couldn't imagine a sensible reason.

It occurred to me, facetiously, that she might have gone in for pictures of musclemen, and, seeing me coming up the street, she had rushed them into hiding and brought out the old pictures.