West End School

The West End School is the Salinas grammar school that Cal and Aron Trask attend after their family moves from the ranch to town. It is a large, two-story yellow building divided into separate play yards for boys and girls, with grades three through eight. The school becomes the setting where the twins' contrasting personalities emerge sharply: Cal quickly establishes a cold, manipulative leadership among his classmates, while Aron's angelic beauty and quiet steadiness draw affection and respect. It is also at the West End School that Aron re-encounters Abra Bacon, the girl who will become the central romantic figure in his life, and where Cal first begins to deploy the psychological tactics that define his relationship with his brother.

Building and Setting

The West End School was a huge building of two stories, fronted with gnarled poplars. It divided its play yards into "girlside" and "boyside," separated by a high board fence behind the school. The back of the play yard was bounded by a slough of standing water in which tall tules and cattails grew. The school housed grades from third to eighth, with the first- and second-graders attending "Baby School" some distance away. Each grade had its own room, each room furnished with battered oak desks, a platform and square teacher's desk, one Seth Thomas clock, and one picture. The pictures identified the rooms: Galahad in full armor pointed the way for third-graders, Atalanta's race urged on the fourth, the Pot of Basil confused the fifth grade, and Laocoön completely wrapped in snakes sent the eighth-graders on to high school. The twins were assigned to the seventh grade because of their age, and they learned every shadow of the Laocoön picture.

The Twins' Arrival and Adaptation

Cal and Aron were stunned by the size and grandeur of the West End after their background in a one-room country school. The opulence of having a teacher for each grade made a deep impression on them. But as is true of all humans, they were stunned for one day, admiring on the second, and on the third day could not remember very clearly ever having gone to any other school. Cal quickly worked out a method to avoid being called on by the teacher: he calculated that if they never raised their hands during the first week but knew the answers when called on, the teacher would be thrown off; during the second week they would raise their hands without knowing the answers and she would not call on them; by the third week they could sit quietly and she would leave them alone. The method worked, and in a short time the twins were not only let alone but got themselves a certain reputation for smartness.

Contrasting Personalities

Everyone who saw the twins remarked on their difference one from the other and seemed puzzled that this should be so. Cal was growing up dark-skinned, dark-haired, quick and sure and secret. Even though he may have tried, he could not conceal his cleverness. Adults were impressed with what seemed to them a precocious maturity, and they were a little frightened at it too. No one liked Cal very much and yet everyone was touched with fear of him and through fear with respect. Although he had no friends he was welcomed by his obsequious classmates and took up a natural and cold position of leadership in the schoolyard. If he concealed his ingenuity, he concealed his hurts too. He was regarded as thick-skinned and insensitive—even cruel. Aron drew love from every side. He seemed shy and delicate. His pink-and-white skin, golden hair, and wide-set blue eyes caught attention. In the schoolyard his very prettiness caused some difficulty until it was discovered by his testers that Aron was a dogged, steady, and completely fearless fighter, particularly when he was crying. Word got around, and the natural punishers of new boys learned to let him alone. Aron did not attempt to hide his disposition. It was concealed by being the opposite of his appearance. He was unchanging once a course was set. He had few facets and very little versatility. His body was as insensitive to pain as was his mind to subtleties.

Aron's Reunion with Abra

On Aron's first day in school he waited eagerly for the recess. He went over to the girlside to talk to Abra Bacon. A mob of squealing girls could not drive him out. It took a full-grown teacher to force him back to the boyside. At noon he missed her, for her father came by in his high-wheeled buggy and drove her home for her lunch. He waited outside the schoolyard gate for her after school. She came out surrounded by girls. Her face was composed and gave no sign that she expected him. The cloud of girls hung on and on. Aron marched along three paces behind them, patient and unembarrassed even when the girls tossed their squealing barbs of insult over their shoulders at him. Gradually some drifted away to their own homes, and only three girls were with Abra when she came to the white gate of her yard and turned in. Her friends stared at him a moment, giggled, and went on their way. Aron sat down on the edge of the sidewalk. After a moment the latch lifted, the white gate opened, and Abra emerged. She walked across the walk and stood over him. "What do you want?" she asked. "You aren't engaged to anybody?" Aron replied. "Silly," she said. He struggled up to his feet. "I guess it will be a long time before we can get married," he said. "Who wants to get married?" Abra asked. Aron didn't answer. He walked along beside her. Abra moved with firm and deliberate steps and she faced straight ahead. There was wisdom and sweetness in her expression. She seemed deep in thought. And Aron, walking beside her, never took his eyes from her face. His attention seemed tied to her face by a taut string. They walked silently past the Baby School, and there the pavement ended. Abra turned right and led the way through the stubble of the summer's hayfield. On the edge of the field stood a little pump house, and a willow tree flourished beside it, fed by the overspill of water. The long skirts of the willow hung down nearly to the ground. Abra parted the switches like a curtain and went into the house of leaves made against the willow trunk by the sweeping branches. This willow tree pumphouse would become the secret meeting place for Aron and Abra, the setting for their childhood romance.

Cal's Manipulation

Cal knew his brother and could handle him by keeping him off balance, but this only worked up to a certain point. Cal had learned when to sidestep, when to run away. Change of direction confused Aron, but that was the only thing that confused him. He set his path and followed it and he did not see nor was he interested in anything beside his path. Cal did not question the fact that people liked his brother better, but he had developed a means for making it all right with himself. He planned and waited until one time that admiring person exposed himself, and then something happened and the victim never knew how or why. Out of revenge Cal extracted a fluid of power, and out of power, joy. It was the strongest, purest emotion he knew. Far from disliking Aron, he loved him because he was usually the cause for Cal's feelings of triumph. He had forgotten—if he had ever known—that he punished because he wished he could be loved as Aron was loved. It had gone so far that he preferred what he had to what Aron had. When Abra touched Aron and spoke softly to him, Cal's reaction was automatic. His brain probed for a weakness in Abra, and so clever was he that he found one almost at once in her words. Some children want to be babies and some want to be adults. Few are content with their age. Abra wanted to be an adult. She used adult words and simulated, insofar as she was able, adult attitudes and emotions. Cal sensed this, and it gave him the instrument to knock down her anthill. He knew about how long it would take his brother to find the box for the rabbit. He could see in his mind what would happen. Aron would try to wash the blood off the rabbit, and this would take time. Finding string would take more time, and the careful tying of the bow knots still more time. And meanwhile Cal knew he was beginning to win. He felt Abra's certainty wavering and he knew that he could prod it further. When Abra looked away from him at last and said, "What do you stare at a person for?" Cal looked at her feet and slowly raised his eyes, going over her as coldly as if she were a chair. This, he knew, could make even an adult nervous. He then told her a lie about Aron's back being covered with scars from Lee's beatings, and when she was thoroughly unsettled, he whispered in her ear, "You've wet your pants." The result was that when Aron presented Abra with the carefully wrapped rabbit, she threw the box into the road, and Cal watched his brother's face fill with misery. Cal put his arm around his brother's shoulders and hugged him reassuringly, saying, "Don't be sad. I'm going to let you use my rifle."