Death In The Family, A - James Agee [94]
The news butcher came through and in spite of his mother, Uncle Ted bought him a glass locomotive with little bright-colored pieces of candy inside and Catherine a glass telephone with the same kind of candy inside, which his father had never done. His father and Uncle Ted spent a good deal of time in the smoking car, to smoke, and to make more room. It got hot and dull. But after quite a while his father came hurrying back down the aisle and told his mother to look out the window and she did and said, “Well what?” and he said, “No—up ahead,” and they all three looked up ahead and there on the sky above the scrubby hill, there was a grand great lift of grayish blue that looked as if you could see the light through it, and then the train took a long curve and these liftings of gray blue opened out like a fan and filled the whole country ahead, shouldering above each other high and calm and full of shadowy light, so that he heard his mother say, “Ohhh! How perfectly glorious!”, and his father say shyly, a little as if he owned them and was giving them to her, “That’s them. That’s the Smokies all right,” and sure enough they did look smoky, and as they came nearer, smoke and great shadows seemed to be sailing around on them, but he knew that must be clouds. After a while he could begin to see the shapes of them clearly, great bronzy bulges that looked as if they were blown up tight like balloons, and solemn deep scoops of shady blue that ran from the tops on down below the tops of the near hills, deeper than he could see. “They’re just like huge waves, Jay,” his mother said with awe. “That’s right,” he said; “you remember?” “Sure I do,” he said; “just like seeing sunlight striking through waves, just before they topple.”
“Yeah,” his father said.
“Kate mustn’t miss this,” his mother said; “Kate!” and she took Aunt Kate by the shoulder.
“Sssh!” his father hissed, and he frowned. “Let her alone!” But Aunt Kate was already waked up, though she was still very sleepy, wondering what it was all about.
“Just look, Kate,” his mother said. “Out there!” Aunt Kate looked. “See?” his mother said.
“Yes,” Aunt Kate said.
“That’s where we’re going,” his mother said.
“Yes,” Aunt Kate said.
“Aren’t they grand?” his mother said.
“Yes,” Aunt Kate said.
“Well I think they’re absolutely breathtaking,” his mother said.
“So do I,” Aunt Kate said, and went back to sleep.
His mother made one of the funniest faces he had ever seen, looking at his father all bewildered and surprised and holding in her laughter, and his father laughed out loud but Aunt Kate didn’t wake up. “Just like Catherine,” his mother whispered, laughing, and they all looked at Catherine, who was staring out at the mountains and looking very heavy and earnest; and they laughed and Catherine looked at them and began to realize they were laughing at her, and that made her face get red and that made them laugh some more, and even Rufus joined in, and they only stopped when Catherine began to stick out her lower lip and her mother said, “Mercy, child, you’ve got to learn to take a joke.”
But her father said, “Doesn’t anybody like to be laughed at,” and took her on his lap, and she pulled her lip in and looked out the window again. Now they could even see the separate trees all over the sides of the mountains like rice, all shades of green and some almost black, and before much longer they were climbing more slowly past the feathery tops of trees and the high shoulders of the mountains and the great deep scoops were turning past them and beneath them as if they were very slowly and seriously dancing in sunlight and in cloud and in shadows almost of night, and now and then they could see a tiny cabin and a corn patch far off on the side of a mountain, and twice they even saw a tinier mule and a man with it, one of the men waved; and high above