Had I a Hundred Mouths by William Goyen

of a hurricane coming. Since yesterday we had felt signs of it—a stillness of air followed by an abrupt billowing of wind; and the sky seemed higher, and it was washed-looking.
    â€œMust be a drunken mill man sleeping in the weeds, or a hobo. Could even be your Uncle Bud, God knows,” my father told me; “go see what it is.”
    â€œCome with me,” I asked my father. “I’m scared.”
    What we found was a poor beaten creature who did not answer my father’s calls. My father and I carried the unconscious person onto the back porch and laid him on the daybed.
    â€œI wish you wouldn’t let the children see that,” my mother said, and drew back into the darkness of the house like her own shell.
    â€œHe may be dying,” my father said, “can’t rouse him. Call the doctor, son, then get me some warm water. Hey,” my father called loudly at first and then lowered his voice to a soft summons, “Hey, friend, hello; hello…”
    The battered friend did not budge, but he was breathing, now quite heavily, almost gasping. The warm water cleaned away some of the blood that was like paste on his lips and cheeks, and then some cool water stroked back his dark hair from his brow; and we saw in that moment when his face and his look came clear to us what would have been called a beautiful young girl if it had been a girl; but it was a man. Something shining came through the damaged face and we knew we had brought a special person into our house out of the weeds of the field. When my father pulled back the stained shirt of the stranger and saw something, he told the children (I was twelve and the oldest) to go outside in the yard. I did not go far but hid under the yellow jasmine against the screen and listened.
    â€œPardner, you might not make it,” I heard my father say, “if the doctor don’t hurry up and get here. Because somebody’s cut you with a knife.” And in another moment I heard my father say, “Who did this to you? Cut you like this?” There was no sound from the wounded stranger. “Hanh?” my father murmured tenderly, “who hurt you like this? Hanh? He can’t hear me or he can’t talk. Well, you try to rest until the doctor comes,” I heard my father say softly. At that moment I felt so sorry for this stranger lying silent in our house that I suddenly cried, there under the yellow jasmine.
    The hurricane that was said to be coming toward us from down off the deep southern Gulf kept reaching at us. Now we could smell it; and quick wind, then rain, had turned over us, whipped away, turned back on us. Now it really was close on us and my father guessed we were going to get it. Storms scared my father where little else did. He felt afraid in our old house and always took us to the high school basement. “Mary, you and the children go on to the high school and hurry up,” my father called. At this I rushed into the house.
    â€œI’ll stay with my father and the hurt man,” I announced. There was going to be a discussion of this, but little time was left for it; and I could see that my father was glad to have me stay.
    The storm came nearer. It threw down a limb of a hickory tree across the road and a driving rain hit against the side of our house for a few minutes, then stopped.
    â€œIt’s coming,” my father said. “We can’t stay out here on this screen porch. Latch the screen door and move things away from the open. We’ll move the hurt man into the parlor. What’s your name, friend?” I saw my father put his ear to the young man’s mouth.
    My father lifted up the stranger and carried him like a child inside the house to the parlor, where few people went. It was a cool shadowy room used only for special occasions. It looked like my father wanted to give the wounded man the best we had to give.
    I covered things on the porch and pushed things back and