A Death in the Family - James Agee [113]
“Rufus,” said Hannah. “Take Father’s hat to the hat rack.”
Bewildered, he did so. The hat rack was in plain sight.
“Now Father, if you won’t mind waiting just a moment,” Hannah said, showing him to the sitting room. “Rufus: Catherine: sit here with Father. Excuse me,” she added, and she hastened upstairs.
Father Jackson strode efficiently across the room, sat in their father’s chair, crossed his knees narrowly, and looked, frowning, at the carefully polished toe of his right shoe. They watched him, and Rufus wondered whether to tell him whose chair it was. Father Jackson held his long, heavily veined right hand palm outward, at arm’s length, and frowning, examined his nails. He certainly wouldn’t have sat in it, Rufus felt, if he had known whose chair it was, so it would be mean not to tell him. But if he was told now, it would make him feel bad, Rufus thought. Catherine noticed, with interest, that outside the purple vest he wore a thin gold chain; on the chain was a small gold crucifix. Father Jackson changed knees and, frowning, examined the carefully polished toe of his left shoe. Better not tell him, Rufus thought; it would be mean. How do you get such a blue face, Catherine wondered; I wish my face was blue, not red. Father Jackson, frowning, looked all around the room and smiled, faintly, as his gaze came to rest on some point above and beyond the heads of the children. Both turned to see what he was smiling at, but there was nothing there except the picture of Jesus when Jesus was a little boy, staying up late in his nightgown and talking to all the wise men in the temple. “Oh,” Rufus realized; “that’s why.”
When they turned Father Jackson was frowning again and looking at them just as he had looked at his nails. He quickly smiled, though not as nicely as he had smiled at Jesus, and changed his way of looking so that it did not seem that he was curious whether they were really clean. But he still looked as if he were displeased about something. They both looked back, wondering what he was displeased about. Was Catherine wetting her panties, Rufus wondered; he looked at her but she looked all right to him. What was Rufus doing that the man looked so unpleasant, Catherine wondered. She looked at him, but all he was doing was looking at the man. They both looked at him, wishing that if he was displeased with them he would tell them why instead of looking like that, and wishing that he would sit in some other chair. He looked at both of them, feeling that their rude staring was undermining his gaze and his silence, by which he had intended to impress them into a sufficiently solemn and receptive state for the things he intended to say to them; and wondering whether or not he should reprimand them. Surely, he decided, if they lack manners even at such a time as this, this is the time to speak of it.
“Children must not stare at their elders,” he said. “That is ill-bred.”
“Huh?” both of them asked. What’s “stare,” they wondered; “elders”; “ill-bred”?
“Say, ‘Sir,’ or ‘I beg your pardon, Father.’ ”
“Sir?” Rufus said.
“You,” Father Jackson said to Catherine.
“Sir?” Catherine said.
“You must not stare at people—look at them, as you are looking at me.”
“Oh,” Rufus said. Catherine’s face turned red.
“Say, ‘Excuse me, Father.’ ”
“Excuse me, Father.”
“You,” Father Jackson said to Catherine.
Catherine became still redder.
“Excuse me, Father,” Rufus whispered.
“No prompting, please,” Father Jackson broke in, in a voice pitched for a large class. “Come now, little girl, it is never too soon to learn to be little ladies and little gentlemen, is it?”
Catherine said nothing.
“Is it?” Father Jackson asked Rufus.
“I don’t know,” Rufus replied.
“I consider that a thoroughly uncivil answer to a civil question,” said Father Jackson.
“Yes,” Rufus said, beginning to turn cold in the pit of his stomach. What was “uncivil”?
“You agree,” Father Jackson said. “Say, ‘Yes, Father.”’
“Yes, Father,” Rufus said.
“Then you are aware of your incivility. It is deliberate