House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday Read Free Book Online Page B

day to end inside of him. He stroked the stubble of beard at his throat and at last set the empty cup aside and crushed the cigarette out and lit another. A cockroach ran from the floor of the pantry in the corner of the room and stood suddenly very still for a moment where a part of the gray linoleum had been worn away and the wood of the floor was bare and brown. Then it was gone.
    The book was a kind of journal, old and bound in leather. The boards were visible and frayed at the corners, and here and there the leather was cracked and had begun to peel. He opened it with the tips of his fingers and moved the tips of his fingers slowly upon the dim lines of script, as if it were somehow possible to feel the raised shape of the words. The leaves were yellow and brittle at the margins, and dimly ruled in brown. And the script where he began to read was brown and even and precise, nearly the hand of a scrivener. Under the year 1874:
    16th November
    This morning a new wind & snow. Again I am consumed in coughing & can scarcely say Thy Mass. Lord Thy servant & mine Viviano said again María bear- HEE -nay et OMO FATUOUS ! BeThou pleased to forgive Thy black & bleating lamb. His little brother Francisco did not come it was so cold tho’ Thou knowest how well he loves to swing on the bell rope & walk on the hem of his cassock. With Thine Almighty help not otherways he will be ready next month to sing Thee the Glory of Thy Birth. There is so little time after all & Thou hast said to me Nicolás thy whole life thou art the midwife of My Coming. Yes & I await Thee still.
    17th November
    But if one among thee asks his father for a loaf will he hand him a stone? Or for a fish will he for a fish hand him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg will he hand him a scorpion?
    19th November
    Didst Thou see? Today when Thou wert broken on my tongue didst Thou see me shake? I have never loved Thee more & I shall never love Thee less again. No not less tho’ I be hale in the hour & whole. I dare not pray for it!
    But this afternoon the sun did shine thro’ the storm & I took heart in it or so until I went in to see old Tomacita Fragua. She declined in the bad weather near to death & I am glad to have gone there at once & do commend her wretched soul to Thee. Coming back I was taken off in another fit & leant over & spat blood on the snow & was it Thine?
    I see now it will be clear tomorrow.
    22d November
    Watch ye therefore for ye know neither the day nor the hour. Tomacita Fragua died this late morning & again I was not called to it. But the son-in-law Diego came in the afternoon & gave me leave to make the burial. I saw they had finished with her according to their dark custom & there was blue & yellow meal about on the floor. This rubbed on the stone fine as pollen almost & 4 feathers in the dead hands turkey & brown eagle. They hadwound her in a blanket tight & I saw as not before her belly was swoln as with child & already an awful stench. I marveled it was so soon. We made a little procession to the Campo Santo: Antonio & Carlos with her on the ladder & Viviano to assist me. Juan Chinana my good Sacristan too tho’ he was there already with the War Captain & had made the grave on the southeast by the arroyo & had already a little whitewashed cross of willow & thread. Then he Juan shoveled earth on her but it was frozen under the sand & hard to break the big pieces & some I thought would have given her hurt if she had been alive.
    Evening. Am I not yet constrained into Thee? When I cannot speak Thy Name I want Thee most to restore me. Restore me! Thy Spirit comes upon me & I am too frail for Thee!
    5 hrs since I have writ here & now I witness here that I am awakened coughing by something of the cold & dark terrible & strange & I fell out on my knees & rattled with cold on the floor. It seemed as tho’ I had done some evil & I
    12th December
    Did the little boys not serve Thee & Thy Mother well? I gave Viviano 1 sweet &