“Willie, git some water for the lady.”
One of the boys shot off to a bucket and brought back a tin cup full of gray water. He seemed so pleased as he held it out to Lucy, giving her a big gap-toothed smile, and she tried not to notice how dirty his hands were, or that he was scratching the back of his head so fiercely. She took a small dainty sip, trying not to gag, and held the cup out to Brother Wyatt, who drained it.
Lucy turned to Barbara Jean. “You can tell me what you’d like to say in the letter and I’ll write it all down for you.”
Barbara Jean squirmed a little, scratching behind her ear. In fact, all the children seemed to be scratching their heads. “I don’t got no paper or pen.”
Lucy held up her satchel. “I brought some from Cora.” She opened the satchel and dug around to find paper and her inkpot. “I seem to have forgotten a pen.”
“That I can help with,” Brother Wyatt said. “Willie and Sammy, do ya happen t’ have a spare feather? A big ’un?”
Sammy darted into the house and came out again with a long black-and-white striped feather in his hand. He handed it to Brother Wyatt, who examined it with a pleased look on his face.
“Wild turkey. Well done.” He pulled a pen knife from his duster pocket and started to whittle the end of the feather to a sharp point. “Will this do, Miss Lucy?”
Impressed with his resourcefulness, Lucy sat down on the porch step and tugged the cork off the ink pot. “Let’s find out.” She made a small six-pointed star on the paper. “Why, it’s better than my forgotten quill. It’ll do just fine.” The children crowded around her so tightly to see the star that she could barely move her elbows. And how badly they smelled! Sorely in need of a good soapy scrubdown, each one. Lucy tried to breathe through her mouth instead of her nose.
Thankfully, Barbara Jean shooed them away. “Boys, let her be! Give a body room.” She pointed to the yard and the boys sprang off the porch to stand in a long row like little soldiers, all eyes fastened on Lucy.
Brother Wyatt scooped up the reins of Lyric and Jenny. “While you two are working, I’ll get the horses out of the sun and maybe find some water for them, if you don’t mind.” He paused, waiting for Barbara Jean to give him the go-ahead, but she had something else on her mind besides watering the animals.
“Willie, you take them horses fer him. Ollie, go git yor paw’s fiddle for Brother Wyatt. I’m hoping you’re in a mind for a little fiddling today.”
“We can’t stay too long, Barbara Jean.” But even as he spoke, a violin and bow were thrust in his hands by a small boy in overalls. He smiled down at him. “Well, maybe jest one song.”
The children moved in a half circle around Brother Wyatt. He had one foot up on the porch step and tuned the strings one by one. Then he cleared his throat and started to play a plaintive tune, slowly at first, then he picked up speed, his nimble fingers going so fast they blurred. As he did, the children started swaying, swinging their arms, and then they burst into movement. Their arms stayed by their sides, their faces, though flushed pink, remained serious, and their legs moved so fast that Lucy couldn’t peel her eyes away from them. Heel, toe, over a knee, step back, step forward, a whirl of rhythmic beating of the feet. All too soon, Wyatt drew the song to a finish and dropped his bow.
Everyone clapped, but he shrugged off the praise and shifted it to the boys. “Miss Lucy, you’ve just seen some of the finest cloggers in the county. And that’s sayin’ a lot.”
Embarrassed, the boys elbowed and jabbed each other, their eyes glowing from the compliment.
“So that’s clogging?” Lucy had heard of clog dancing but had never seen it. “I’ve never seen feet fly so fast!” And Brother Wyatt’s violin skills were impressive. “A violin only has four strings, yet you made it sound as if you were playing chords on a piano.”
“Double stops,” he said. “Two notes played at once. Like so much in life, it works as long as they’re in harmony.” He grinned, and she couldn’t help but smile in return. He handed the fiddle to Ollie. “Now I’d better get some water for the horses.”
A shadow passed over Barbara Jean’s face. She scratched her bun vigorously. Or nervously? Lucy couldn’t tell. “Thing is, Brother Wyatt, we been having some trouble gettin’ water. On account of that pond going in.”
Brother Wyatt’s back straightened, and he cast a glance at the bucket. “How about if the boys and I fill up some buckets of water in the creek?”
A sigh of relief came from Barbara Jean. “If it ain’t no trouble.”
Wyatt turned to Lucy. “By the time you finish the letter writing, we’ll be back.”
Lucy wondered how long that errand might take, because the last creek with running water that she remembered crossing was quite far from this cabin. But then she remembered that he had told her creeks and streams and rivers crisscrossed these mountains.
Sammy and Willie scurried to keep up with Wyatt’s long strides. How could anyone run over dirt and rocks in bare feet? But they were all barefoot, even Barbara Jean.
“How do you manage so many children?” Lucy asked. She got the impression that there was no husband or father around.
Barbara Jean shrugged. “Ain’t so many. Jest six.”
In Lexington, families were small. Many of Lucy’s schoolfriends were only children. Once she had asked the housekeeper why that was so, and she had responded coolly, “There’s no need for a houseful.” Lucy was left with the impression that having children was not particularly valued or desired. At least not among the well-to-do.
Yet look at the happiness that poured out of that house, like honey from a jar. She thought back to her silent home, the quiet supper table, the empty rooms. From deep inside Lucy rose that familiar longing for Charlotte, her sister, for family, for all that had been missed.
The four remaining boys surrounded her again, enclosing her in a tight circle, waiting for her to begin to write. And they were all scratching. Had they been in poison ivy? Could it be eczema?
“Back away, boys,” Barbara Jean said, “afore you tip the ink pot all o’er Miss Lucy.”
“Yes, boys, please do give me a little space to write.”
The little boy named Ollie peered solemnly at Lucy. “You talk funny.”
Barbara Jean slid down on the porch step, a few feet away from Lucy, and pulled the boy onto her lap. “That’s cuz Miss Lucy comes from the city.”
“Where’s that at?”
Lucy smiled. “In a place called Lexington. Lots and lots of people live there in houses close together.”
“Cheek and jowl? Oh, there’s a pity,” Ollie said, and his elfin face looked worried for her.
On Lucy’s lap was the satchel and paper. “Barbara Jean, you just go ahead and tell me what you’d like to say, and I’ll write it down.”
Barbara Jean nodded, like she’d rehearsed this moment. She straightened her back and said loudly, “To whom it may concern. The creek has dried up. It jest ain’t right, what you done. Yours truly, Barbara Jean Boling.”
Lucy looked up. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Lucy set the feather in the ink pot. “To whom shall I deliver this letter?”
Barbara Jean looked at her as if she might be dim-witted. “To the lumber company, o’course.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They scalded m’ land.”
“Scalded?”
“Ruined.”
Lucy looked around. “I’m confused. How did they spoil this farm?” Surrounding the small, hilly farm were thick woods.
“They stopped up the creek.”
“Stopped it up?”
Exasperated at Lucy’s inability to understand, Barbara Jean tried again. “They stopped up the creek”—she pointed uphill—“to make a pond up yonder. Soz they could send the logs down the mountain. That creek used to come right along the farm. We counted on it, especially with this drought. Now we gotta go a long way to git water.”
“Didn�
��t they inform you of what they intended to do? The contract should have spelled it all out.”
“Lots of fancy language in it.” Barbara Jean looked away, pushing a stray lock of hair back from her face, and Lucy nearly gasped when she saw something small and white move by her ear. Lice! She jumped up, nearly toppling the ink pot. So that’s why these children kept scratching their heads. Trying to recover her horror at the lice discovery, she held up the letter she’d written. “Barbara Jean, what’s the name of this lumber company? I’ll post the letter as soon as I return to town this afternoon.” Which couldn’t be soon enough! She felt an itch in her hair. Down her back. Below her chin.
Barbara Jean looked away. “Valley View.”
Lucy stilled. Her father’s company.
Seven
MERCIFULLY, Brother Wyatt came chugging up the hill, carrying a large trough of water, followed by Sammy and Willie, carrying buckets. He set it down against the house with a large exhale, his face red from exertion. “It’s past noon. We must be on our way.”
Lucy marveled at how he, and Finley James as well, seemed to know how to tell time without a timepiece. She tucked Barbara Jean’s letter in her satchel. “I’ll deliver it myself, Barbara Jean. And I’ll make sure you get an answer from the lumber company.”
Weary relief sprang to the woman’s face. “You’d do that?”
“It’s a promise.”
Barbara Jean gave her a broad smile, her first. Lucy tried not to show her shock at the gaps of missing teeth in her mouth. The boys ran alongside them as they rode back toward the trail, stopping to turn back when they reached the dry creek bed.
Lucy and Brother Wyatt rode for a long distance without speaking. As they came to a creek with flowing water, he slowed Lyric to a stop and loosened his reins to let her drink. Lucy followed his lead and slackened the reins so Jenny could lap up the clear, cool water.
“Let’s rest a bit,” he said. As Lucy started to slide down off Jenny, he stopped her, startled. “Hold it! Wrong side.”
“Horses have a wrong side?”
“Left side. Always.” This time, he hopped off his horse to help her so she didn’t tumble in her dismount, like she’d done at Barbara Jean’s and made the boys double over in laughter. “We can have a bite to eat before we carry on.”
“What is there to eat?”
“Miss Maude always packs me a lunch. More than one man could possibly eat.”
Lucy doubted that, but she was famished. That lone hoe cake hadn’t done much to stave off hunger.
Brother Wyatt hooked the reins of Lyric and Jenny to low hanging tree branches, so they could drink all they pleased. Then he crossed the creek by leaping from stone to stone, and jumped on to a grassy spot on the bank, nimble as a gazelle. He turned in a circle, hands on his hips. “This looks like just the spot for a picnic.”
Stepping cautiously, she followed his path across the creek, but stopped at the last stone.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s rather far.” It would take a large leap to reach the bank, and she could just see how it would unfold: she would end up plopping into the water, bottom first.
He reached a hand out to help her make the leap and her cheeks grew warm, but whether it was from feeling a little embarrassed by needing his help or from the touch of a man’s fingers, she couldn’t tell.
He sat down and patted a place in the soft grass for her to sit. “I checked. No snakes.”
“Snakes?” It came out in a croak.
“Not to worry,” he said, laughing. “Sit.”
There was that nice laugh again, like a low rumble. He didn’t laugh often enough. Stiff, chafed, and saddlesore, she eased down on the ground, trying not to grunt and moan. She avoided his eyes, because she was sure he was laughing at her like everyone else, but when she cast a sideways glance at him, his head was lifted up.
A gentle breeze was causing a tree in bloom above them to shower petals down, like a rainfall of confetti. He picked up a blossom and held it out to her on his open palm. “Flowering dogwood. One of my favorites.”
She lifted it to her nose to sniff the sweet scent. “I’ve seen a few of these trees along the trails.”
“There used to be more. When I was a lad, the woods were full of them.”
“What’s happened to them?”
“The lumber companies found out that dogwood is the best wood for tools. Mallets and hammers and such. The wood doesn’t crack or split. So they’ve cut most of them down.”
She noticed he had reverted back to a more formal, crisp diction. One she could sense took effort for him.
He passed a thick slab of corn bread to her. “Lumber companies call it harvesting, like a renewable crop. But they’re wrong. ’Tis a pity, for the splendors of spring aren’t the same without those native trees.” He lifted his head to gaze again at the flowering tree. “Glad this one is still here to provide a canopy of blossoms for us on this fine spring day.”
A canopy of blossoms. This man was a phrase maker, an artist with words, and it triggered her long-buried love of language, something she was born with, and nurtured, until that terrible day. “Brother Wyatt . . .”
“Call me Wyatt. The mountain people tagged that label on me when I started the singing schools. Now I’m known by it.”
It was a term bestowed in honor, that much Lucy knew. “I’ll drop the moniker only if you’ll call me Lucy. Not Miss Lucy. Makes me feel like I’m as old as the Hicks sisters.” He grinned, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “Speaking of lumber companies, Barbara Jean seems to feel that a lumber company had taken advantage of her. That was the purpose of the letter she had me write.” Just thinking of Barbara Jean made her feel itchy. She scratched the back of her neck, wondering if she had caught a louse or two, as she waited for Wyatt to say something.
He sobered, but volunteered nothing. He took an apple from the sack and his knife from his trouser pockets. He rubbed the apple against his shirt before carving a slice for her, holding it out to her on the tip of the knife.
As she took the apple slice, she said, “Does your silence mean you agree with Barbara Jean’s suspicion?”
He lifted his head, eyebrows creased in a frown. “Suspicion?”
“Did the lumber company intentionally take advantage of her?”
Overhead, a hawk let out a screech as it whizzed past. “Have you ever noticed that birds of prey do not sing?”
Goodness, it was hard to get a straight answer out of him! Unless that was his answer? Was he trying to hint that the lumber company was a predator? She waited for him to explain, waited and waited.
“When a person can’t read,” he said at last, “they are quite . . . vulnerable.”
Vulnerable. Something she had never considered. But did the lumber company agent know that Barbara Jean couldn’t read the contract? Was he culpable? Or ignorant of that fact? “Are there others? Like Barbara Jean?”
“Illiterates, you mean?” He scoffed. “Most. Nearly all the mountain folks can’t read nor write.”
Lucy thought of the man who came into Cora’s office and stared at her bookshelves like a thirsty soul stared at a glass of water. “But . . . there are schools in the hollows. Lots of them. Fifty-one, I think Cora said.”
“For the children. And that’s if parents can afford to let them go.”
“It doesn’t cost money to go to school, does it?”
“By afford, I meant to go without their help on the farm or in the timber for a day or a week or a month. Or in many cases, for years.”
“But it’s every parent’s obligation to see that their children are educated. It just seems wrong to not make their children a top priority.”
He gave her a sharp look. “Keeping the farm going is a man’s top priority. That’s how he’ll feed his family.” He tossed the apple core across the creek to Lyric and she caught it with her teeth. Reaching into the sack, he pulled out two hardboiled eggs and handed her one. “If you don’t mind
a bit of advice, be careful not to judge mountain folks by city standards. We’re all human beings and have thoughts and dreams like everybody else. You’ll find that we’re all alike in the end.”
She’d been given a similar scolding by Cora when she first arrived. As she cracked the eggshell, her mind traveled back to Barbara Jean’s children. It occurred to her that they should’ve been in school. Should’ve, but couldn’t. They had to drag buckets from a far-off creek to provide water for the family and animals. It must take them all day long!
How naïve Lucy felt. In just a short time, her eyes were getting opened wide to another world. One that her father knew well.
As she popped her last bite of egg into her mouth, she wondered if Wyatt’s roundabout way of answering her question was because he was aware, like everyone apparently, that her father owned Valley View Lumber. “But did the lumber company do something wrong?” She just couldn’t believe her father would allow such a thing. He was as honorable as a man could be. Straight as an arrow, that was her father.
He lifted his chin to gaze over the creek. “If it’s not wrong, does that make it right?” He rose to his feet and brushed on his trousers.
Sitting where she was, she noticed how shiny the cloth over his knees had become, how seams sprouted messy threads, how scuffed his shoes, how thin the soles. Those shoes wouldn’t last much longer. She thought of the clique of girls in her finishing school, and how they would scorn such a man. Cracker poor, they would snicker behind his back.
With a decent haircut and fashionable clothes, Brother Wyatt could be a good-looking man. He had a certain appeal. But she had a hunch that he cared not a whit for such a shallow measure of a man.
He picked up his saddlebags and leapt over the creek to feed a cut-up apple to the horses. Then, as if remembering himself, he turned back to offer Lucy a hand and help her onto that first stone. On the other side, he took Jenny’s reins, tugged them under his arm, then cupped his hands so Lucy could step up onto the pony. A groan slipped out of her as she heaved herself onto the saddle. Her bottom hurt. Everything hurt.
The Moonlight School Page 8
