Helen

by JOHN MASTERS

BEFORE Nap started going out of his way to say disparaging things about her I don’t think I could have told you who she was. I suppose I knew her by sight although she was in the eighth grade and I in the fourth. Nap was in the seventh. We all lived in a small Missouri community and it was a small school, and a long time ago. She was fairish and fattish and the daughter of a farmer called Mr. Pratt, which made her name Helen Pratt.

We’d see her in school and she must have been at some of the parties and Hallowe’en bonfires we went to, and then out of nowhere Nap took this violent dislike to her. He would talk all the way back from school about what a sap she was, and indeed how sappy all girls were, and he’d imitate the way girls run with their knees together and their feet flailing out sideways. His imitations were very good, and I must say that for my part I am still not convinced that women’s legs are properly connected at the knees. Nap would also imitate the way girls throw, and I need not tell you how much I agreed with the bitter accuracy of his caricature. That particular act stood him in good stead all his life, and in our family Helen Pratt is only remembered now as the girl who inspired it. Nap would pretend to be a woman third baseman; he would get tied up with his knees in an attempt to catch an easy fly ball; he would try to throw to home plate but the ball would drop down his back or curve slowly over to first base.

It was this very act that he and I and the Havering boys were rehearsing when an incident occurred that should have put me on my guard. We were wandering homeward from school, all of us laughing and somewhat overexcited about Nap’s wonderful joke, when Mr. Pratt approached in his buggy. Helen and her younger sister were with him. I imagine he’d picked them up from school to take them to the store or the depot. In defense of my own subsequent behavior I must explain that I was the youngest of this particular group and on that account subject to strong internal pressures to “keep up” with the others. I could not for a moment tolerate the idea of being thought of as a “kid” or a sissy. So, as the buggy came near I tore off a handful of burdock burrs. It must have been March or April. As the buggy passed, with a sharp underhand motion and accurate aim I threw the burrs at Helen Pratt’s head. The burrs, already stuck together, became entangled in her hair. She screamed slightly, put up her hand, and turned to give us an angry look.

Now that I recall the scene, I believe that her expression, though intended to convey anger and scorn, in fact served as a mask for more pleasurable emotions. She had, after all, been taken notice of and I’m sure she thought Nap had thrown the burrs. Then the buggy went round a corner and I waited, grinning at the others, for my applause.

Please do not think my conduct, though ruffianly, was much out of the ordinary. The girls of our community, which was mainly agricultural, were accustomed to all kinds of horseplay and usually gave as good as they got.

The Havering boys began to cackle with laughter and congratulate me on my wit. But Nap cut in roughly, “What did you want to do that for?”

“Because she’s a sappy cow,” I said cheerfully. I was so sure of Nap’s approval — hadn’t he been inveighing against Helen Pratt and her intolerable airs for the past week? — that I failed to notice that his usually pale face was now suffused with passion, and he had taken off his glasses.

Heedless of grammar, Nap said, “Oh, you did? Come on, he’s getting too darn fresh,”and led the assault on me. The Havering boys, forgetful of their minute-old approbation, quickly joined in against me. I shouted aloud in outrage and surprise. I cried, “But you don’t like her!” None of them paid any attention. I felt that the world had blown up in my face. They overturned me in the dust, rubbed thistles into my hair, and left me.

I picked myself up and walked slowly homeward by another route. I did not want to see Nap and I did not want to see my mother. We had an agreement, Nap and I, that neither of us was ever to let Father or Mom know if we had been crying or had been hurt in any way (unless the hurt was obvious).

By suppertime I had almost forgotten the whole bizarre affair. I had found a robin’s nest and a dead crow; Rose, Susan, and Harold — the younger members of the family — did not hide their opinion that I was wonderful; and Nap had shown that he was sorry. Nap could always do just about what he wanted with anyone, and when he set out to please he was irresist ible.

2

NEEDLESS to say, it was not I who brought up the name of Helen Pratt while we were lying in bed in our darkened room that night. I was surprised when Nap did, but he did not seem to be able to stop mentioning her. I did not say much, either in assent or dissent. I couldn’t have oven if I’d wanted to because Nap, after a fumbling start, embarked on a monologue such as one pays to go and hear in theaters. It was all about Helen Pratt. It described with relentless antipathy her manner of walking, talking, and being. Few aspects of Helen Pratt’s existence were not touched on. All the while I detected a puzzled overtone in Nap’s voice. In truth he could no more understand than I could why he was talking about the girl. The tone of his diatribe did not cause either of us any perplexity. Girls were sappy, and to be despised. He could not have said “Helen is brave, kind, intelligent, and beautiful ” — not because it was untrue (which it was), but because the laws of syntax forbade the coupling of laudatory adjectives with female proper names.

No, the mystery was why he had to speak about her at all. However, I had forgotten all this when, a couple of days later, Helen Pratt and an eighthgrade girl friend of hers appeared at our yard gate. They called me “little boy” and asked me whether my brother Horatio was in. I must say that I did not like being called “little boy” by anybody, least of all by girls. I told them brusquely that Nap was not in, and that I did not know where he was. Giggling, they produced a purple envelope with large, violet, writing on it and told me to be sure to give it to my brother Horatio when he returned. I asked them suspiciously what was in it, because it smelled very strong and sweet, like honeysuckle mixed with doves and sugar and all boiled up together. They said there was something in it for me, and my brother would read it to me, and went off, giggling together.

I went into the house and read the address. “Master Horatio Middleton.” No one but Father was allowed to call Nap by that name. There was something in it for me, the girls had said. Personally I thought it was a stink bomb. I decided to save Nap from being fooled by it. I slit the envelope near an open window. The smell did not get much worse, so I read the note inside. Miss Helen Pratt would be pleased if Master Horatio Middleton and Master John Middleton came to her birthday party. In the empty room I sneered, briefly. Only two nights ago Nap had emphasized the disgust he felt at the idea of any close association with Helen Pratt. He wouldn’t be seen dead with her. No statesman could have made a clearer or more popular definition of his policy. And here was an actual case to which the policy could be applied in its entirety. Nor had I forgotten those girls’ hint that I could not read.

I turned over the purple paper, found a pen, and wrote: “No. Nap and I won’t come to your party because Nap says you stink and I say so too.” I put the letter back in the envelope, changed the superscription to “Helen Pratt,” and went out. I walked over to the Pratts’ farm, put the letter happily into their mailbox, looked up a few friends, and returned home shortly before supper, eager to tell Nap what had happened.

When we were alone, I told him.

I reminded him of his statements about Helen Pratt. I told him they had called me “little boy” and him “Horatio.” I pointed out the utter illogicality of his attitude — all in vain. He said I had no business to open a letter addressed to him. He said I had a nerve. He lashed himself into a fury as he imagined the difficulties he would face in explaining the mistake. I realized with amazement, not to say stupefaction, that he wanted to accept the invitation. More, he expected me to go to Helen Pratt in person, say that I and I alone had written the answer, that it did not at all represent his (Nap’s) view because he did not think she stank at all. In short, I was to apologize.

Inevitably, in the end, I did it. The next day Nap and Helen came by chance together in the schoolyard and Nap was offered the invitation again, I being this time excluded, and in due course Nap went to the party.

He returned from it in a frame of mind that I found perplexing, and remained in that state until the next phase of this very worrying period of my life began. He would talk a good deal about Helen’s father, Mr. Pratt, and the land he owned and the excellence of the Pratt chickens and the Pratt cows. I think he was fumbling for some way to get around the grammatical law as understood by small boys, and say something downright appreciative of Helen Pratt, and had been led as a first stage to the notion of transference. He could not yet say that Helen Pratt was more beautiful than Helen of Troy, but he seemed to think that Mr. Pratt’s prize pig was.

On the other hand he began to speak in derogatory terms of two male eighth-graders, John Terry and George Valentine. Neither of them had done him any harm. As far as their relationship with him went it might have been called friendly.

Nap also said, several times, that scissors weren’t so smart; while thimbles were plain cheap. Though I thought these opinions sound enough they seemed to have very little relevance to anything, until I heard from another source that at the party John Terry had given Helen Pratt a pair of scissors and George Valentine had given her a thimble. Nap had given her nothing. He had something all right, a bottle of perfume compared with which the stuff in the purple letter was like new-mown hay, but he forgot to take it to the party. Then, instead of giving it to her the next day with a whimsical apology, as Mom urged, he poured it all out into Mr. Wimpy’s fowl run. I heard later that Mr. Wimpy’s rooster drank some of the stuff and had marital troubles for a week or two afterwards in consequence; but at the time Nap poured it in, the fowls only reeled away to the farthest corner of the run and clung giddily to the netting. I think the rooster was asleep.

3

THE next phase began about a week later, when Nap told me to come with him and look for a beautiful thing. It was a troubling phrase and I had a troubling afternoon. He did not mean a slice of cherry pie, or a lady’s-slipper that I saw growing by the creek, or a cockerel’s feather, or a minnow, or even my snake belt. He shrugged off these and other suggestions as soon as I made them. In the end he sat down gloomily in our hide-out on the bank of the creek, his head between his hands. We kept one or two useful things down there — a piece of rope, a knife, a beer bottle full of water, a snake’s skin, things like that.

Nap took off his glasses. He stared grimly at the water. He put on his glasses.

He said, “Frog.”

I said that frogs weren’t beautiful, but he explained that what he wanted was something to give to Helen Pratt. “A frog will sure make her jump,” he said, with every appearance of anticipation. It was too late to begin frog hunting then, but in the next day or two we caught fifty frogs, one way and another. It was I who actually found and captured what must have been the most beautiful frog in the state of Missouri. He was green, mottled with black, lined with crimson, the effulgent eyes overlaid and underlaid with pouches of jet and crimson, the belly yellow, and he carried a jewel in his head. Furthermore, he was big.

I thought he would be just the frog to frighten the wits out of Helen Pratt, who had obviously insulted Nap at her beastly party and should now be made to pay for it. I was looking forward to the presentation.

Nap owned a biggish enamel box about that time and he decided to present the frog in this. I thought that was clever, because the box itself made an attractive gift and Helen Pratt would not imagine there might be something inside. It only goes to show that no two people, not even brothers, ever really understand each other.

Nap presented the box to Helen in the school passageway at a time when no one else was there but everyone was arriving. Scarlet in the face — with the effort of suppressing his laughter, I imagined — he pushed it out at her, mumbling “Present. Because it’s a nice day.”

When girls are older they often like this kind of romanticism, but at Helen Pratt’s age they are rigidly conventional. Helen Pratt was not on her guard exactly, because, as I’ve said, it was a very pretty box, but she was perhaps disposed to think the whole business peculiar, and was therefore ready to treat subsequent events as a deliberate jape rather than as the lighthearted improvisations they actually were.

When Nap handed her the box she giggled and said, “Oh, thank you, Horatio. How pretty! Is it for me?”

I said, “Of course, sappy. Didn’t you hear what Nap just said?” But she only sniffed, and Nap glowered, and I shut up quickly.

I felt better in a second because Helen slipped the catch and opened the lid. The frog bounded out in a fine, flashing arc, his colors coruscating in the morning light as he swooped like a jeweled bat through the mote-rich bands of sun, landed briefly on some girl’s shoulder, jumped into Helen’s hair and from thence to the floor.

It was unfortunate that most of the students then collecting in the passageway happened to be girls. Instant pandemonium erupted. Helen Pratt screamed, the other girls screamed, the teacher screamed. Some called us “wicked boys,” others swung their satchels wildly at us. I was very happy.

I may add that I was the only one to think of rescuing the frog, who would otherwise have been trampled on. I caught him, pressed him for a moment against the back of Helen Pratt’s neck — gently, as I did not want him to be hurt — and then dropped him carefully out of the window onto the grass. I thought it was one of the best tricks Nap had ever played, and went to congratulate him.

I am sure I need not explain what happened.

I’d had enough. It was too bad. I would not speak to Nap the rest of that day, nor at supper, nor in our room at night. My anger was not lessened as I slowly came to realize that Nap’s silence, as rigid as mine, was not caused by remorse or even by ill temper. The truth was that he had forgotten my existence. I nursed my humiliation for a couple of days. I was very unhappy. I had no clue to Nap’s behavior and should logically have decided that he’d gone a little queer in the head. But grownups do not always realize the strength of young people’s faith — particularly, I believe, that of young boys; nor do they realize where that faith is placed. One of the foundations and props of my existence was that Nap was wonderful. If therefore he seemed to me to be acting strangely it was not he, but I, that should be suspected of insanity. Nap I knew; myself I did not know.

4

I CONTINUED in this disturbed state until, a few days after the presentation of the frog, I heard a commotion behind the hedge which bordered our schoolyard. I hurried round to investigate and came upon a list fight, John Terry was one contestant, and Nap the other.

I was frankly alarmed. Nap owed his place in the school and in the neighborhood to his character and his brain. He did not lack courage but he never picked a quarrel and very seldom fought. John Terry was the second biggest boy in the school — George Valentine was the biggest. John was wide as well as tall, dark, rather brutal looking, but basically an amicable fellow. The fight, like most of those between younger boys, seemed morelethal than it actually was. The faces of Nap and John Terry were contorted by peculiar mixed expressions — ferocity, temper, alarm - and an underlying but perfectly visible astonishment at themselves for trying to hurt another human being.

I ran around the flailing arms calling “What’s the matter, Nap?” and tried to grab one of John Terry’s legs but some other boys prevented me. Nap did not answer my question and no one else knew what the struggle was about though all were shouting encouragement to one or both fighters. Several girls were there. The younger ones yelled wholeheartedly for blood. The older ones, including Helen Pratt, screamed prettily, cried out, “Oh, why doesn’t someone stop them!” and watched the fight between their fingers which they had laced, loosely, across their faces.

John Terry was not only tough looking but actually tough. He began to knock Nap down with increasing frequency. The fighters followed regular seventh-grade rules — sometimes John Terry would hit Nap in the face with his closed fist; sometimes the two would lock arms and sink struggling to the grass, John Terry on top; but there was no biting. John Terry kept asking Nap if he’d had enough, and clearly Nap had. His nose was bleeding, his face was quite battered, and one eye was half closed, but he would not say he’d had enough. John Terry didn’t like to knock him down any more and I do not know how the fight could have been brought to an end if a teacher had not arrived. Then the boys stood apart, breathing heavily, and it seemed they had forgotten what the fight was about and who had started it. But several officious spectators told the teacher that Nap had started the fight and, ostensibly on that account but really because his face needed attention, Nap was sent home.

I may say that his most voluble accuser was a sixth-grade girl called Olive Brown; she had not seen the cause of the fight, I know, because she arrived near the end; but she had seen the result. I am glad to say that John Terry did not seem to notice what she had done for him.

As Nap walked away with downcast head, Helen Pratt hurried after him. They stopped at the edge of the road and she whispered to him. I saw her draw a handkerchief from her blouse. She gave it to him, obviously to stem the flow of blood from his nose. Nap gripped the handkerchief in his hand and let the blood run. Soon he shuffled off, leaning forward so as not to spoil his clothes. I ran after him and asked him anxiously if he was all right. I do not think he heard me. His eyes were bloodshot but shining, his steps painful but triumphant. He said only, “That’ll teach him.”

Before school finished I learned the truth about the fight. John Terry had, of course, heard of the success of Nap’s practical joke in giving Helen Pratt a frog. He didn’t like Helen Pratt, either. He decided he would help his friend Nap persecute the odious woman. He thought hard but in the end had to admit to himself that Nap’s own plan could not be improved upon. He therefore presented Helen Pratt with a frog.

Mom was in a state about Nap when I got home. She was threatening to write a strong letter to Mrs. Terry but wanted first to get some sense out of me as to what had happened. I did my best to tell her, but it was difficult. I myself did not understand. I tried to confine myself to facts and they made an unconvincing narrative, even to me: Nap gave Helen Pratt a frog. She screamed. Nap hit me. John Terry gave Helen Pratt a frog. Nap hit him.

Mom seemed to understand though, because she began to sort of half laugh and half cry, and said, “My poor darling Nap,”and went upstairs to patch his wounds again.

From his bed that night Nap talked endlessly about the fight, its causes and consequences. He spoke indistinctly through bruised lips. He was far too wise to try and convince himself or me that he had not lost the fight. He had been beaten, he said. Then why, he asked, had Helen Pratt come to lend him her handkerchief? He meant, she’d been pretty helpful, for a girl. I asked him what he’d done with the handkerchief and he said, “Oh, it’s here somewhere,”clasping his hand nonchalantly over his chest. The room reeked of honeysuckle and cloves. I could tell from my brother’s voice that he was deliriously happy — and slightly puzzled. In the morning he did fifteen minutes’ shadowboxing before going down to breakfast.

I have mentioned that the biggest boy in the school was George Valentine, the one who had given Helen Pratt a thimble on her birthday. He was a good looking boy with wavy fair hair and a pleasant, open face and a personality to match. He was reasonably intelligent too; in fact, a thoroughly nice person. I could not help but observe that Nap had taken to following George Valentine around. He did not dog his heels exactly, but he was usually to be seen a few yards off, hungrily watching. It next became clear to me that George Valentine had taken to following Helen Pratt around. Observing Helen Pratt, I saw that she had taken lo giggling whenever George Valentine passed within twenty feet of her. She did not giggle at Nap now, although in the nature of the game then in progress he, too, frequently passed close to her.

Next, George Valentine began to pay Helen Pratt small attentions, such as throwing orange peels at her, and tripping her up when she ran by him, and the like. Then one day he went too far. He — I hesitate to write this, but it is the truth — he gave her a frog. It was in the schoolyard. I happened to be nearby, Nap was in his usual menacing proximity to George Valentine, and many others were close. One would have thought that the joke was wearing thin, but one would have been wrong. It was as popular as ever. This frog, however, was sluggish, and while Helen Pratt waited with dilated eyes for it to jump — and again make her the envy of the other girls, to whom no one gave frogs — Nap moved into action.

He caught George Valentine by the shoulder, swung him round, hit him hard on the nose, and danced away. I forgot to mention that before he actually struck out Nap said, “You stinker!” and he said it in a quiet, steely voice. I was never prouder of him. Helen Pratt screamed and dropped the box with the frog. Once more I was the only person to think of rescuing it. Meantime the fight, if it could so be called, had begun.

As far as I could judge, Nap was on the top of his form and George Valentine was below the bottom of his. Nap danced lightly around, punching with vicious speed, weaving, ducking, feinting. His eyes glittered coldly and his left arm flickered in and out like a viper’s tongue. It was the most professional looking thing I have ever seen, and if George Valentine had been a couple of feet nearer he would certainly have got hit several times. I thought then that the rather large distance between the two fighters was due to Nap’s poor eyesight — he had taken off his glasses, of course — but I am now convinced that Nap knew perfectly well what he was doing.

George Valentine’s nose undoubtedly hurt, but that was the least of his worries. His handsome face became quite glazed with apprehension as he watched the light that Nap waged around him. From behind half-raised fists, and standing perhaps ten or twelve feet from the storm center, he could well appreciate the extraordinary virtuosity of Nap’s performance. Like others present he must have been saying to himself “By gosh, I wouldn’t like to be in the ring with that fellow.”Then he realized that he was “in the ring with that fellow" — the welterweight champion of the world, probably. Further, he realized that behind the jabbing fists and above the dancing feet was the contorted face of his friend Nap Middleton, who had undoubtedly gone mad. George Valentine turned and fought his way silently through the ring of spectators.

For a few seconds Nap continued to bore holes in the air around him. Then he slowly lowered his fists, and said simply to Helen Pratt, “I don’t think he’ll bother you again.” He smiled at her, breathing deep draughts of the heady wine of anticipation.

Helen Pratt must have been deeply stirred. She was, as I have tried to show, in most respects a rather bovine girl. Now she stamped her foot in passion, and did not giggle, but cried furiously, “You brute! You bully! You’re always fighting! I hate you! Go away, go away!" Tossing her head, she ran off after George Valentine, who now stood, looking large and handsome and nervous, by the schoolroom door, ready to leap inside. Helen Pratt whispered to him and gave him her handkerchief for his nose, which was not bleeding, I turned away in disgust.

Everyone drifted off, leaving Nap and me alone on the battleground. I said, “You certainly showed that big slob, Nap.” Nap stood motionless, his head hanging. In his face were cut deep the lines of defeat, of surrender. All the storms of life could now rage unchecked over his soul, He did not care.

Not for long. As the school bell rang he looked up and I knew, without the words or the ability to explain why I knew, that all was over. Nap was again my favorite brother. But he only said, “Oh, shut up,” and walked away. I was left holding the frog.