Tell Them the Bell Did

Jonas pulled the split shovel handle off the gate post, jammed it upright in the dust, and went up the Row.

At every post he struck the bell on his belt once, then rapped the old gate bell beside it with the handle until rust came off in flakes. He heard none of it. He felt the iron in his wrist and counted posts. At every shut door he held the slate to the wood and banged the frame.

FORTY HANDS TO THE MOUTH. BRING SHOVELS. THE ROW DIGS TODAY OR DRIES.

Abel followed with the cart. At the first step he filled a bucket from the barrel, chalked a mark on the cart's side and held the stub up.

"If I fill these buckets, do you write that down, that it was the Row's ringing and not just me?"

Halfway through the second bucket the tap coughed air. Down the Row a door jumped in its frame and settled.

WRITE IT YOURSELF. CHALK THE ROW'S NAME ON THE CART, NOT YOURS.

Jonas struck the nearest gate bell once toward that door and stood. The tap went dry. The door opened a hand's width, a child's arm set an empty bucket on the step, and it shut.

Abel rubbed out his mark and chalked THE ROW in its place, big. He thumped the barrel.

"Mr. Pike's name isn't on it and neither is mine, Jonas. The barrel's dry, so I'm taking the mule down to the clinic ditch to fill it, and I'll be back before the sun's over the Row's roofs. If anybody asks who sent me, tell them the bell did."

The cart rattled off toward the clinic ditch. Behind Jonas the handle tipped over in the dust.

He took it to the child's door, where the latch stood half up. He didn't bang. He leaned the handle on the step, wrote, held the slate low at the crack, and touched his belt bell once, soft.

BUCKETS GO TO THE CLINIC DITCH WITH THE CART. COME FILL THEM. THEN BRING THEM TO THE MOUTH. I DIG FIRST.

A girl of about nine came out barefoot, picked up the bucket and the handle, and stood on her step holding both. Jonas looked up the Row and down it. Every other door was shut.

From the top post, where a gate bell hung on a rope, the Row fell away to the clinic fence. The cart reached the sluice and Pike was there. He laid a wet palm on the barrel rim and talked. Jonas didn't try to read him. He had never needed to read Pike to know how long a sentence was. Under the gate the brown thread went to a drip and quit.

Jonas hauled the rope. He knew only from his arm that the strokes came wrong, too far apart, then bunched. The rope slid out of his fingers. No door opened.

Below, Abel held the chalk out to Pike. Jonas caught the rope and struck once, hard.

Pike set the stub on the tailboard and put a hand on the wheel without turning it. Abel took the stub back and wrote on the cart, broadside to the Row, big enough to read from the hill.

GATE TIED TO CLINIC. PIKE AT WHEEL. NO FIGURE.

Pike knelt at the dry ditch. Abel chalked again.

PIKE SAID NOT YES NOT NO. ABEL SAW.

Above the clinic roof the well house door stood open. The keeper tore another pale strip off the bottom of the nailed list and let it fall.

Jonas let go of the rope. It swung and bumped the bell.

Pike went to the brace and worked Cole's knot loose. The key dropped onto the stones. Abel picked it up, held it out, and wrote.

LACE OFF BY PIKE'S HAND. ABEL SAW.

The wardens had hung no lock on the Box so no widow could be told the water was in somebody's coat. Pike closed his fist on the key.

A door down the Row stayed open. A woman came out with a bucket in each hand and stopped at the end of the lane. Pike waved her toward the shade and turned nothing. Two more doors opened, and a boy came out with a dented pail.

Abel took her heavy bucket, set her on a stool in the cart's shade, and chalked.

WOMAN FIRST. PIKE HAS KEY, WHEEL NOT TURNED.

The boy set his pail under the dry spout. The woman held her last bucket out beside it. Jonas stood at the top post with the rope hanging, counting open doors, and nobody ringing.