The Writing on the Wall: A Novel by W. D. Wetherell

line on a map from Sherbrooke to Boston it went right through town, thereby assuring him his eventual fortune.
    In the meantime he never worked very hard, but spent all his free time hating. He hates immigrants and Jews and Negroes and professors and Socialists and sissies and scientists and Democrats. None of these people demonstrate true Americanism in his opinion, Americanism being his favorite word. He could be nice enough, talking to me, almost too nice I thought at times, but when the hate comes over him his eyes harden, his neck stiffens, and his fat puffs up until he seems doubled. Where does this come from? I often wondered. His life had not been a bad one. It was like he plucked it out of the air, that was the frightening thing. Like hate had wafted in a cloud from another part of the country and, since it suited him, he reached up and pulled the cloud down.
    He has his cronies, the toughest of the loggers and teamsters who are in his employ. “My troopers,” he calls them. There are no Jews here to trouble or Negroes, so during the war they devoted most of their energy to harassing Frenchies. Young farm boys were crossing the line from Quebec to hide from conscription, they wanted no part of England’s fight, and Mr. Steen and his posse patrolled the back roads at night to capture them and send them back, almost always after beating them senseless.
    Mrs. Steen is rail thin, with black hair so beautifully silky it seems stolen and a chin that looks hacked out of bone-white flint. Her lips hardly move when she talks, the words seem to emerge half-formed from the bottom of her neck. She is a miser, her fingers enjoy the feel of money which she always turns in her fingers before pocketing. She bullies the minister in church, he goes around in constant fear of what she might demand, and she will not allow a book in her house except the Bible.
    She calls me “My little lamb” and all but purrs, but then she remembers that I had finished ninth grade and she had only gone through fourth and so she scowls and calls me “The professor” or “Little Miss Fancy Airs.” She hates me because I will not go to church on Sundays. I told her it was Alan’s one day off, our only time to walk in the woods together or go for a picnic, but this only made her angrier.
    Alan listens to everything his parents say, takes it very seriously and will not hear a word against them. They bully him mercilessly, are always comparing his lack of accomplishments to his father’s success. How he gave in on the house is a good example.
    We planned to purchase one of the old farmhouses and fix it up. We talked and talked about how we would do this, but his parents said no, that we must live closer to town, that only rough people still lived in the hills. I remember after the wedding when we finished the miserly round of sugarcake that was all Mrs. Steen would allow. “I have a surprise for you, Beth,” Alan said, turning away so as not to meet my eyes. “Mother and Father are building us a new house out by the creamery and it should be ready by autumn.”
    The spot they picked was three miles from town but Mr. Steen was convinced business would grow in that direction and then we would be in the center of things. The fields round about were owned by Judson Swearingen and they are wet and soggy most seasons, but there were three flat acres protected from the north wind by hills. The only neighbor lives with his daughter a half mile further on the road, old Asa Hogg who came back addled from the Civil War after all he had seen.
    We stayed with Alan’s parents while the house was being built. Mr. Steen would drive us out in his carriage to watch how things progressed. He was good with horses, he could calm the unruliest with a whisper, and except for the fact that he needed them for business he had no use for automobiles at all. He would bark instructions out to the workmen from the road, gesturing with the mallets of his fists. Mrs. Steen sat