The White Circle 

by John Bell Clayton 

AS SOON AS I SAW ANVIL SQUATTING UP IN THE TREE LIKE 
some hateful creature that belonged in trees I knew I had to take a 
beating and I knew the kind of beating it would be. But still I had to let 
it be that way because this went beyond any matter of courage or 
shame. 

The tree was mine. I want no doubt about that. It was a seedling 
that grew out of the slaty bank beside the dry creek-mark across the 
road from the house, and the thirteen small apples it had borne that 
year were the thirteen most beautiful things on this beautiful earth. 

The day I was twelve Father took me up to the barn to look at the 
colts—Saturn, Jupiter, Devil, and Moonkissed, the whiteface. Father 
took a cigar out of his vest pocket and put one foot on the bottom 
plank of the fence and leaned both elbows on the top of the fence and 
his face looked quiet and pleased and proud and I liked the way he 
looked because it was as if he had a little joke or surprise that would 
turn out nice for me. 

“Tucker,” Father said presently, “I am not unaware of the 
momentousness of this day. Now there are four of the finest colts in 
Augusta County; if there are four any finer anywhere in Virginia I 
don’t know where you’d find them unless Arthur Hancock over in 
Albemarle would have them.” Father took one elbow off the fence and 
looked at me. “Now do you suppose,” he asked, in that fine, free, good 
humor, “that if I were to offer you a little token to commemorate this 
occasion you could make a choice? 

“Yes sir,” I said. 

“Which one? Father asked. “Devil? He’s wild.” 

“No sir,” I said. “I would like to have the apple tree below the 
gate.” 

Father looked at me for at least a minute. You would have to 
understand his pride in his colts to understand the way he looked. But 
at twelve how could I express how 
I 
felt? My setting such store in 
having the tree as my own had something to do with the coloring of 
the apples as they hung among the green leaves; it had something also 
to do with their ripening, not in autumn when the world was full of 

apples, but in midsummer when you wanted 
them; but it had more to 
do with a way of life that had come down through the generations. I 
would have given one of the apples to Janie. I would have made of 
it a ceremony. While I would not have said the words, because at 
twelve you have no such words, I would have handed over the apple 
with something like this in mind: Janie, I want to give you this 
apple. It came from my tree. The tree stands on my father’s land. 
Before my father had the land it belonged to his father, and before 
that it belonged to my great-grandfather. It’s the English family 
land. It’s almost sacred. My possession of this tree forges of me a 
link in this owning ancestry that must go back clear beyond Moses 
and all the old Bible folks.” 

Father looked at me for that slow, peculiar minute in our lives. 
“All right, son,” he said. “The tree is yours in fee simple to bargain, 
sell, and convey or to keep and nurture and eventually hand down to 
your heirs or assigns forever unto eternity. You have a touch of 
poetry in your soul and that fierce, proud love of the land in your 
heart; when you grow up I hope you don’t drink too much.” 

I didn’t know what he meant by that but the tree was mine and 
now there perched Anvil, callously munching one of my thirteen 
apples and stowing the rest inside his ragged shirt until it bulged out 
in ugly lumps. I knew the apples pressed cold against his hateful 
belly and to me the coldness was a sickening evil. 

I picked a rock up out of the dust of the road and tore across the 
creek bed and said, “All right, Anvil—climb down!” 

Anvil’s milky eyes batted at me under the strangely fair 
eyebrows. There was not much expression on his face. “Yaannh!” 
he said. “You stuck-up little priss, you hit me with that rock. You 
just do!” 

“Anvil,” I said again, “climb down. They’re my apples.” 

Anvil quit munching for a minute and grinned at me. “You 
want an apple? I’ll give you one. Yaannh!” He suddenly cocked 
back his right arm and cracked me on the temple with the half-eaten 
apple. 

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I let go with the rock and it hit a limb with a dull chub sound and He caught my hair in his hands and wallowed my head against 
Anvil said, “You’re fixin’ to git it—you’re real-ly fixin’ to git it.” the ground until I said every bitter word of it. Three times. 
“I’ll shake you down,” I said. “I’ll shake you clear down.” Anvil tossed away a spent, maltreated core that had been my 
“Clear down?” Anvil chortled. “Where do you think I’m at? Up apple. He gave my head one final thump upon the ground and said 
on top of Walker Mountain? It wouldn’t hurt none if I was to fall out “Yaannh!” again in a satisfied way. 
of this runty bush on my head.” He released me and got up. I lay there with my face muscles 
I grabbed one of his bare feet and pulled backwards, and down Anvil twitching in outrage. 
came amidst a flutter of broken twigs and leaves. We both hit the Anvil looked down at me. “Stop blubberin’,” he commanded. 
ground. I hopped up and Anvil arose with a faintly vexed expression. “I’m not cryin’,” I said. 
He hooked a leg in back of my knees and shoved a paw against my I was lying there with a towering, homicidal detestation, 
chin. I went down in the slate. He got down and pinioned my arms planning to kill Anvil—and the thought of it had a sweetness like 
with his knees. I tried to kick him in the back of the head but could summer fruit. 
only flail my feet helplessly in the air. There were times when I had no desire to kill Anvil. I 
“You might as well quit kickin’,” he said. remember the day his father showed up at the school. He was a 
He took one of my apples from his shirt and began eating it, dirty, half crazy, itinerant knickknack peddler. He had a club and he 
almost absent-mindedly. told the principal he was going to beat the meanness out of Anvil or 
“You dirty filthy stinkin’ sow,” I said. beat him to death. Anvil scudded under a desk and lay there 
He snorted. “I couldn’t be a sow, but you take that back.” trembling and whimpering until the principal finally drove the 
“I wish you were fryin’ in the middle of hell right this minute.” ragged old man away. I had no hatred for Anvil then. 
“Take back the stinkin’ part,” Anvil said thoughtfully. “I don’t But another day, just for the sheer filthy meanness of it, he 
stink.” crawled through a classroom window after school hours and befouled 
He pressed his knees down harder, pinching and squeezing the flesh the floor. And the number of times he pushed over smaller boys, 
of my arms. just to see them hit the packed hard earth of the schoolyard and to 
I sobbed, “I take back the stinkin’ part.” watch the fright on their faces as they ran away, was more than I 
“That’s better,” Anvil said. could count. 
He ran a finger back into his jaw to dislodge a fragment of apple And still another day he walked up to me as I leaned against the 
from his teeth. For a moment he examined the fragment and then warmth of the schoolhack shed in the sunlight, feeling the nice 
wiped it on my cheek. warmth of the weather-beaten boards. 
“I’m goin’ to tell Father,” I said desperately. “They hate me,” he said dismally. “They hate me because my 
“‘Father’” Anvil said with falsetto mimicry. “‘Father.’ Say ‘Old old man’s crazy.” 
Man.’ You think your old man is some stuff on a stick, don’t you? As I looked at Anvil I felt that in the background I was seeing 
You think he don’t walk on the ground, don’t you? You think you and that demented, bitter father trudging his lonely, vicious way through 
your whole stuck-up family don’t walk on the ground. Say ‘Old Man.’” the world. 
“Go to hell!” “They don’t hate you,” I lied. “Anyway I don’t hate you.” 
“Shut up your blubberin’. Say ‘Old Man.’” That was true. At that moment I didn’t hate him. “How about 
“Old Man. I wish you were dead.” comin’ home and stayin’ all night with me?” 
“Yaannh!” Anvil said. “Stop blubberin’. Now call me ‘Uncle So after school Anvil went along with me—and threw rocks at 
Anvil.’ Say ‘Uncle Sweetie Peetie Tweetie Beg-Your-Pardon Uncle me all the way home. 
Anvil.’ Say it!” Now I had for him no soft feeling of any kind. I 
“Uncle Sweetie . . . Uncle Peetie, Tweetie Son-of-a-bitch Anvil.” planned—practically—his extinction as he stood there before me 
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commanding me to cease the blubbering out of my heart. He gave me a shove and I went out into terrifying space. He 
“Shut up now,” Anvil said. “I never hurt you. Stop blubberin’.” leaped after and upon me and we hit the pillowy side of the straw 
“I’m not cryin’,” I said. rick and tumbled to the ground in a smothering slide. 
“You’re still mad though.” He looked at me appraisingly. “That’s no fun,” I said, getting up and brushing the chaff from 
“No, I’m not,” I lied. “I’m not even mad. I was a little bit mad, my face and hair. 
but not now.” Anvil himself had lost interest in it by now and was idly 
“Well, whattaya look so funny around the mouth and eyes for?” munching another of my apples. 
“I don’t know. Let’s go up to the barn and play.” “I know somethin’,” I said. “I know a good game. Come on, 
“Play whut?” Anvil looked at me truculently. He didn’t know I’ll show you.” 
whether to be suspicious or flattered. “I’m gettin’ too big to play. To Anvil stung me on the leg with the apple as I raced through the 
play much anyway,” he added undecidedly. “I might play a little bit if door of the cutting room. When we reached the barn floor his eyes 
it ain’t some sissy game.” again fell on the peculiar white circle. “That’s to play prisoner’s 
“We’ll play anything,” I said eagerly. base with,” I said. “That’s the base.” 
“All right,” he said. “Race you to the barn. You start.” “That’s a funny-lookin’ base,” he said suspiciously. “I never 
I started running toward the wire fence and at the third step he saw any base that looked like that.” 
stuck his foot between my legs and I fell forward on my face. I could feel my muscles tensing, but I wasn’t particularly 
“Yaannh!” he croaked. “That’ll learn you.” excited. I didn’t trust myself to look up toward the roof where the 
“Learn me what?” I asked as I got up. “Learn me what?” It big mechanical hayfork hung suspended from the long metal track 
seemed important to know that. Maybe it would make some difference that ran back over the streaming mows of alfalfa and red clover. 
in what I planned to do to Anvil. It seemed very important to know The fork had vicious sharp prongs that had never descended to the 
what it was that Anvil wanted to, and never could, teach me and the floor except on one occasion Anvil knew nothing about. 
world. I think Father had been drinking the day he bought the hayfork 
“It’ll just learn you,” he said doggedly. “Go ahead, I won’t trip in Staunton. It was an unwieldy involved contraption of ropes, 
you any more.” triggers, and pulleys which took four men to operate. A man came 
So we climbed the wire fence and raced across the burned field the out to install the fork and for several days he climbed up and down 
hogs ranged in. ladders, bolting the track in place and arranging the various gadgets. 
We squeezed through the heavy sliding doors onto the barn floor, Finally, when he said it was ready, Father had a load of hay pulled 
and the first thing that caught Anvil’s eye was the irregular circle that into the barn and called the men in from the fields to watch and 
father had painted there. He wanted to know what it was and I said assist in the demonstration. 
“”Nothing” because I wasn’t yet quite ready, and Anvil forgot about it I don’t remember the details. I just remember that something 
for the moment and wanted to play jumping from the barn floor out to went very badly wrong. The fork suddenly plunged down with a 
the top of the fresh rick of golden straw. peculiar ripping noise and embedded itself in the back of one of the 
“I said, “No. Who wants to do that, anyway?” work horses. Father said very little. He simply painted the big 
“I do,” said Anvil. “Jump, you puke. Go ahead and jump!” white circle on the barn floor, had the fork hauled back up to the 
I didn’t want to jump. The barn had been built on a hill. In front top, and fastened the trigger around the rung of a stationary ladder 
the ground came up level with the barn floor, but in back the floor was eight feet off the floor, where no one could inadvertently pull it. 
even with the top of the straw rick, with four wide, terrible yawning Then he said quietly, “I don’t ever want anyone ever to touch 
feet between. this trip rope or to have occasion to step inside this circle.” 
I said, “Nawh, there’s nothin’ to jumpin’.” So that was why I didn’t now look up toward the fork. 
“Oh, there ain’t, hanh!” said Anvil. “Well, try it—” “I don’t want to play no sissy prisoner’s base,” Anvil said. 
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“Let’s find a nest of young pigeons.” 

“All right,” I lied. “I know where there’s a nest. But one game of 
prisoner’s base first.” 

“You don’t know where there’s any pigeon nest,” Anvil said. 
“You wouldn’t have the nerve to throw them up against the barn if 
you did.” 

“Yes, I would too,” I protested. “Now let’s play one game of 
prisoner’s base. Get in the circle and shut your eyes and start 
countin’.” 

“Oh, all right,” Anvil agreed wearily. “Let’s get it over with and 
find the pigeons. Ten, ten, double ten, forty-five—” 

“Right in the middle of the circle,” I told him. “And count slow. 
How’m I goin’ to hide if you count that way?” 

Anvil now counted more slowly. “Five, ten, fifteen—” 

I gave Anvil one last vindictive look and sprang up the stationary 
ladder and swung out on the trip rope of the unpredictable hayfork with 
all my puny might. 

The fork’s whizzing descent was accompanied by that peculiar 
ripping noise. Anvil must have jumped instinctively. The fork missed 
him by several feet. 

For a moment Anvil stood absolutely still. He turned around and 
saw the fork, still shimmering from its impact with the floor. His face 
became exactly the pale green of the carbide we burned in our 
acetylene lighting plant at the house. Then he looked at me, at the 
expression on my face, and his Adam’s apple bobbed queerly up and 
down, and a little stream of water trickled down his right trouser leg 
and over his bare foot. 

“You tried to kill me,” he said thickly. 

He did not come toward me. Instead, he sat down. He shook his 
head sickly. After a few sullen, bewildered moments he reached into 
his shirt and began hauling out my apples one by one. 

“You can have your stinkin’ old apples,” he said. “You’d do that 
for a few dried-up little apples. Your old man owns everything in sight. 
I ain’t got nothin’. Go ahead and keep your stinkin’ old apples.” 

He got to his feet and slowly walked out of the door. 

Since swinging off the trip rope I had neither moved nor spoken. 
For a moment more I stood motionless and voiceless and then I ran 
over and grabbed up the nine apples that were left and called, “Anvil! 
Anvil!” He continued across the field without even pausing. 

I yelled, “Anvil! Wait, I’ll give them to you.” 

Anvil climbed the fence without looking back and set off down 
the road toward the store. Every few steps he kicked his wet trouser 
leg. 

Three sparrows flew out of the door in a dusty chattering spiral. 
Then there was only the image of the hayfork shimmering and 
terrible in the great and growing and accusing silence and emptiness 
of the barn. 

Assessing the Reading: 

1. Do the opening lines of the story draw you in and make you 
curious to read on? Why or why not? 
2. At what point is the tone of the story clearly established. 
When do you begin to get a pretty good idea of the direction 
the story is going? 
3. How 
does the author make his characters ‘threedimensional’? Are some characters more believable than 
others in the story? Why or why not? 
4. What 
are your feelings about the conclusion of the story? 
Does it feel confusing, like things have been resolved, or just 
open-ended? Why do you think the author chose to end the 
story this way? 
5. What themes 
can you identify from the story? 
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