Free A Painted House by John Grisham Page B

days. No Chandler had ever taken a load to the gin with bolls flying out like snow and littering the road. Lots of other folks did, though, and part of the picking season was watching the weeds and ditches along Highway 135 slowly grow white as the farmers hurried to the gin with their harvest.
    With the loaded cotton trailer dwarfing our pickup, Pappy drove less than twenty miles an hour on the way to town. And he didn’t say anything. We were both digesting our dinner. I was thinking about Hank and trying to decide what to do. I’m sure Pappy was worrying about the weather.
    If I told him about Hank, I knew exactly what would happen. He’d march me down the front yard to Spruillville, and we’d have an ugly confrontation. Because Hank was younger and bigger, Pappy would have in his hand a stick of some sort, and he’d be very happy to use it. He’d demand that Hank apologize, and when he refused, Pappy would start the threats and insults. Hank would misjudge his opponent, and beforelong the stick would come into play. Hank wouldn’t have a prayer. My father would be forced to cover the Chandler flanks with his twelve-gauge. The women would be safe on the porch, but my mother would once again be humiliated by Pappy’s penchant for violence.
    The Spruills would lick their wounds and pack up their ragged belongings. They’d move down the road to another farm where they were needed and appreciated, and we’d be left short-handed.
    I’d be expected to pick even more cotton.
    So I didn’t say a word.
    We drove slowly along Highway 135, stirring up the cotton on the right shoulder of the road, watching the fields where an occasional gang of Mexicans was still working, racing against the dark.
    I decided I would simply avoid Hank and the rest of the Spruills until the picking was over and they went back to the hills, back to their wonderfully painted houses and their moonshine and sister-marrying. And at some point late in the winter when we sat around the fire in the living room and told stories about the harvest, I would finally serve up all of Hank’s misdeeds. I’d have plenty of time to work on my stories, and would embellish where I deemed appropriate. It was a Chandler tradition.
    I had to be careful, though, when telling the painted house story.
    As we neared Black Oak, we passed the Clench farm, home of Foy and Laverl Clench and their eight children, all of whom, I was certain, were still in the fields. No one, not even the Mexicans, worked harderthan the Clenches. The parents were notorious slave drivers, but the children seemed to enjoy picking cotton and pursuing even the most mundane chores around the farm. The hedge rows around the front yard were perfectly manicured. Their fences were straight and needed no repair. Their garden was huge and its yield legendary. Even their old truck was clean. One of the kids washed it every Saturday.
    And their house was painted, the first one on the highway into town. White was the color, with gray trim around the edges and corners. The porch and front steps were dark green.
    Soon all the houses were painted.
    Our house had been built before the First War, back when indoor plumbing and electricity were unheard of. Its exterior was one-by-six clapboards made of oak, probably cut from the land we now farmed. With time and weather the boards had faded into a pale brown, pretty much the same color as the other farmhouses around Black Oak. Paint was unnecessary. The boards were kept clean and in good repair, and besides, paint cost money.
    But shortly after my parents were married, my mother decided the house needed an upgrade. She went to work on my father, who was anxious to please his young wife. His parents, though, were not. Pappy and Gran, with all the stubbornness that came from the soil, flatly refused to even consider painting the house. The cost was the official reason. This was relayed to my mother through my father. No fight occurred—no words. Just a tense