The Moonlight School

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “Won’t be any problem a’tall,” Fin said, not wanting to miss a chance to be alone with his sweetheart. “Asides, a little rain never hurt no one.” Though he had to admit, the clouds were dark and low, lying heavy as a thick gray blanket.

  They rode along, Fin stealing an occasional glace at Lucy, jest to prove to hisself that she was really there. He wished he were better at sweet-talking a woman, like Andrew Spencer was. Fin hadn’t learned much about women, not yet. His paw had passed on before he’d got around to that lesson.

  “Won’t the horses slip in the rain?”

  “Naw. They’s surefooted.” The sporadic drops of rain had now turned to a steady drizzle. “This ain’t much. It’ll pass soon.”

  “I guess the rain is good for the crops.”

  “Yep. We need every drop.” And with that, as if ordered up, the drizzle changed to fat drops. Thunder rumbled. Not much later, rain hit with a fury. “It’s turning into a real gully washer!” He glanced back at Lucy and saw the fear in her eyes.

  “Are you sure we should be out when there’s thunder and lightning going on?”

  “Jest a minor squall.”

  “More like a hurricane!”

  “Miss Mollie’s is jest over yonder.”

  Lucy groaned at that but kept following behind. Even Sheila was getting jittery with the thunder, her ears pointed flat back, so he nudged her to go faster. Thunder cracked again, this time much closer, so close his ears hurt. The rain beat down in waves, sharp and falling sideways in the wind, and he knew he’d underestimated this storm.

  As soon as they arrived at Miss Mollie’s, he helped Miss Lucy down and grabbed Jenny’s reins. “You go on in,” he shouted. “I’ll get the horses in the barn.” Thunder and lightning flashed and boomed as he darted toward shelter, holding the horses’ reins. He closed the barn doors and led the horses into a stall. They’d have to share for now, but it was better than being stuck outside. They’d have to take shelter at Mollie’s until the storm passed, so he stripped the horses of their gear, shook the leather so it would dry, and hauled a bucket of water for the horses. He noticed an empty feed sack and used it to dry them off. His paw had taught him that a good man always took care of his stock first. Hisself second.

  Fin made a run for the house and jumped over the steps in one leap to reach the porch. At the door, he wiped his face down with the now wet handkerchief and tried to make himself presentable. He was actually kind of pleased with this storm. The land needed the rain and he needed time alone with Miss Lucy to woo her. The door opened wide and he saw that Mollie and Miss Lucy weren’t alone, as he had hoped. Brother Wyatt was at the table with Miss Lucy and Miss Mollie, and who should be at the door but ol’ Angie Cooper with a great big grin wreathin’ her face.

  IF THERE WAS one thing Lucy was discovering about the mountain people, it was that they could turn any event into a party. And even better, a reason for storytelling. So many stories. Lucy could listen all day. And how Miss Mollie loved to tell them. Lucy didn’t mind hearing one more, especially if it meant she could sit for a while longer. “So what happened then?”

  On this rainy afternoon, over cinnamon tea and dried-apple cake, and fat hens roosting in the rafters—something Lucy still thought was odd—Miss Mollie told stories about the holler from years ago. She spoke of Angie’s mother, Aria Cooper, quite a few times, and Lucy realized she must have died, long ago. Angie listened wide-eyed, hungry for every memory. Lucy understood that.

  Miss Mollie told one story of Aria Cooper as a little girl, caring for an orphaned raccoon, until one day that critter bit her and her paw wanted to kill it. She wouldn’t let him but insisted on setting it free. “It’s jest its nature to be wild,” was Aria’s defense, and finally her paw relented. “And then that critter got in the henhouse and her paw shot and killed it. My oh my, Aria carried on weepin’ and wailin’ for days. Even had a funeral for it.” Mollie smiled her gappy smile. “She shed tears over every lovely, sad, happy, holy thing in the whole wide world. Wouldn’t eat no meat or fish or fowl . . . nothing with eyes that could look back at her.”

  Aria Cooper sounded like a gentle soul. Lucy wondered when she had passed, and why, and if Angie had memories of her. Lucy made a mental note to herself to ask Cora more about her. She dared not ask Angie, who had glowered at her most of the afternoon.

  Lightning flashed and thunder struck at almost the same time, and Lucy jumped in her chair, half expecting the roof to cave in. Wyatt noticed her discomfort and clasped his hands together. “Let’s roll up the rug and have a little fun.” He crossed the room and bent down to pick up a fiddle. “Mind if I use Angus’s fiddle?”

  “That’s what he’d want ya to do,” Miss Mollie said.

  Wyatt pulled it out of the case and held it close to his heart. “This belonged to Mollie’s grandfather. He brought it across the ocean with him. The most important instrument any Scotch-Irish brought over was the fiddle.”

  “And the music,” Mollie said. “There was jest enough room on the ship to bring along memorized songs.”

  Wyatt laughed, Fin and Angie, too, and suddenly Lucy caught the joke.

  “Let’s show Miss Lucy some of our beloved music,” Wyatt said.

  Fin had moved the table against the wall, and right behind him, Angie kneeled on the floor and rolled up the rug. Then Angie, Fin, and Mollie, too, stood in the center of the room, arms by their sides, faces solemn, as Wyatt tuned the fiddle’s strings, turning the keys and cocking his ear until satisfied that he had each string just so.

  “I have a feeling this is going to be good. Lucy, you’re in for a real treat.” Wyatt’s foot tapped a beat, and he started to fiddle, and they started to kick their legs in rhythm. Back and forth, side to side, heel, toe, heel, toe. Why, even Mollie kept up! At a slower pace, of course, but she was thoroughly enjoying herself, relishing the moment. In her enthusiasm, Lucy could see hints of the girl she once was.

  Any sounds of thunder were drowned out by the fast-moving bow against the fiddle’s strings, the pounding beat of feet as they stomped. Now and then, Wyatt would drop the fiddle to his side and half sing, half talk a verse or two in his fine, deep baritone voice, then lift the bow to the fiddle and carry on without missing a beat. Lucy stared, transfixed. She wasn’t sure what was more astounding—the many musical skills of Wyatt, or the clog dancing. Both, she decided.

  Fin pulled Lucy by the hand to get her to clog along with them, and she tried. But she was terrible at it, truly terrible. Clumsy and confused, she gave up and stood against the wall, shaking with laughter. Besides, she’d rather just watch them! After a while, Mollie sagged down next to her in a chair, breathing hard, but Fin and Angie kept up to the end of the song, which was quite long. And when it was over, the storm had passed by, and the clouds were breaking up.

  Brother Wyatt set the fiddle into the case and closed it up with a satisfied pat. “Miss Lucy, if you’ll finish up your work with Miss Mollie, I’ll see you back to town.”

  “Oh, I’ll see her down the hill,” Fin said.

  “No, Fin, you need to give Angie a ride home. Her paw must be worried sick about her.”

  Fin scowled, and Angie grinned, and Miss Mollie patted the chair next to her for Lucy to sit down and start writing down her dictations.

  THIS AFTERNOON had turned out to be sweeter than cornbread dunked in sorghum. Angie’d gone to Miss Mollie’s to take her a jug of buttermilk from their cow, and next thing she knew, she was dancing with Finley James. And riding behind him on Sheila, to boot. He’d hoisted himself up, then reached down to give her a lift, which she thought was chivalrous. She told him, too, but he only snapped at her.

  “Stop showing off.”

  “I ain’t. I cain’t holp it if I like them big words.” When he didn’t say anything more, she added, “You could learn big words, too, Finley James. They ain’t so hard, and you’re plenty smart enough. Stubborn as a mule, that’s yor problem.” She could feel him tense up and she eased off from tw
eaking him. “Yor shore a good dancer.”

  “Anybody who don’t know how to clog to that song don’t know nothin’.”

  “Miss Lucy don’t know it.”

  “That’s different. It’s all new for her.” He kicked Sheila’s sides so she picked up her pace, and Angie had to cling to him more tightly. “Don’t wampish,” he snapped.

  “I ain’t trying to wriggle! I’m hanging on for dear life.” But she was enjoying the ride immeasurably. That was another big word she’d learned this week. “Miss Lucy don’t belong here.”

  “Why do you keep getting your knickers in a twist over Miss Lucy? She’s book red. She knows lots of things. I mean, amazin’ stuff. And she’s a real fine lady.”

  “Her clothes? Why . . . they’re jest fanci—”

  “I don’t mean her clothes. It’s more than that.”

  “Well, what do you mean?”

  “She’s not childish. She don’t go shootin’ off her mouth.”

  Unlike you, that’s what she was sure he was thinking. If God gave her a mouth, how could it be wrong to use it? What did he think a lady was meant to be, anyhows? Dumb and docile, meek and mouselike, that’s what it sounded like. When Fin remained quiet, she changed the subject. “You going to the dance on Saturday night?”

  “Don’t know. Doubt it.”

  “Miss Lucy’s going. With Andrew Spencer. He’s works for the lumber company and I’m pretty sure they’re sweet on each other. They make a fine-looking couple too. Why, jest the other day—”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when Finley James stopped Sheila short and said, “Here’s where you git off.”

  “But . . .”

  “Quicker for you to head through them trees than for me and Sheila to go around. Off you go.” He practically shoved her off, made a clicking sound, and Sheila took off.

  “I take it back!” she shouted at his disappearing back. “You ain’t chivalrous. Not at all!”

  AS LUCY TOOK DICTATION from Miss Mollie, Wyatt stacked wood on the porch, and fed and watered her animals. It was touching to see the care everyone gave Miss Mollie, such a quirky old woman, yet she was working her way into Lucy’s heart. Even the stench of the cabin was not as bothersome to her, at least not as odorous as it had been on her first visit.

  Brother Wyatt walked alongside Lucy, who sat on Jenny’s back, as they headed down the hill beside the rushing creek.

  “This rain should help end the drought,” she said.

  “You’d think so, but the rain came down too fast and hard. Ends up just running right off the hill. Doesn’t have a chance to saturate the ground. Better a rain that is slow and steady.”

  Something else she’d never considered. She hadn’t had to. Weather never really mattered before. “That clogging . . . how in the world did Miss Mollie keep up?”

  “She’s been doing it all her life. But she’s not as old as you might think. The hard life up here, it can age a woman mighty fast.”

  Lucy should have realized. Life up here must be so difficult for a woman. Babies, one right after the other. Scratching out sustenance on a hill took its toll. And their teeth! So many women she’d met, men as well, were missing teeth. There was so much she had to learn about this mountain life . . . starting with music. “Wyatt, that music—I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “Mountain music?” He glanced up at her. “Music has a deep tradition up here.”

  “I didn’t expect the storytelling.”

  He grinned. “Whatever happens gets written into a ballad. Love, murder, betrayal, you name it. Every detail. I know of one song that has over one hundred verses.”

  “So that’s the style of mountain music? Storytelling?”

  “Oh, that style goes back to Ireland. Most of the ballads made their way across the ocean and didn’t die off in the mountains. Just the opposite, in fact. The mountains hold tradition in.”

  A sigh escaped her, and he took notice. “What is that about?”

  “There’s so much I still have to learn about this area. About these people.”

  “It’s your history too.”

  “I suppose you’re right, but my father never spoke much of it. If I ever asked, he’d tell me that it was better to face forward in life, not backward.”

  “What about you, Lucy?”

  Me? Lucy felt a jolt run through her. As many times as she’d heard her father make that remark, it never occurred to her that he might be directing it at her. She was always facing backward. Always sifting through the past, hanging on to it.

  When she didn’t say anything, Wyatt poked a little deeper. “What brought you here, Lucy? What made you agree to come?”

  “I don’t really know. Being here, coming back to my family’s roots, I feel as if I’m living on the edge of two worlds. The past and the future.”

  Wyatt looked at her with his intense gaze. “Perhaps you’re here to discover God’s purpose for you.”

  “I don’t believe God has a purpose for me.”

  After that Wyatt was quiet for a long time, until he stopped the pony and turned to Lucy. “Would you mind if I took the long way back to town? There’s something I want you to see. It’s just over yonder.”

  Over yonder. Oh dear.

  NOT MUCH LATER, Wyatt led Jenny up a seldom-used trail in which Lucy had to duck several times to avoid getting whacked in the face. Then the trees started to thin, and he slowed Jenny to a stop. “Have you ever seen scalded land?”

  “I’ve heard of tobacco fields that wear out the soil.”

  “That’s not quite what I’m talking about. The lumber companies give it euphemisms. They say they’ve harvested the timber. Cleared the acreage. Or they say they’ve run it out.”

  She was well acquainted with those terms.

  “I call it exhausted land.” He tied Jenny’s reins to a tree limb, low enough that she could nibble grass. “Follow me.” He helped her off the pony, jumped the creek, then reached out a hand to help her across. Then he took her along a path, single file. “There,” he said, stepping away so she could see around him down below at the side of the hill.

  Shocked, Lucy took in the sight: a wasteland, littered with broken tree trunks. “What’s happened?”

  “Have you not seen what a forest looks like after sawyers and skidders have come through?”

  “Yes, of course I have.” Once, when her father took her along on a business trip. “But the stumps were cleared too.”

  “Not these loblolly pines.” He looked at her, pained. “Woodsmen just take the trunk and leave the stump and roots. Straight and tall, without knots, strong, light in weight. Used for ship masts, for lumber, and the wood pulp is used for paper.”

  “Turpentine.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Fin told me that the pitch is used for turpentine. He said these trees are in high demand.” She gazed at the cutover acreage. It looked like a war had taken place on it.

  “This stand had been here at least one hundred fifty years. Gone in just a few months.”

  “They’ll grow back, though, won’t they? Aren’t pines fast growing?”

  When he didn’t answer, she glanced over and saw the disappointment in his eyes.

  “But that’s not the point, is it? You wanted me to see how the land has been ravaged.”

  “These trees need acid soil, full sun, lots and lots of water. Yes, they can grow quickly, if all those conditions are met. But look up.” He pointed to a few tall trees standing along the edges, as if forgotten. “You can see a lot of seeds in their crowns. That’s a warning that the trees have become stressed. They put seeds out to try and keep the next generation going.”

  “So why would they be stressed?”

  “This forest used to have many streams crossing through it,” Wyatt said quietly, his eyes watchful. “But . . .”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “The water was diverted”—she took in a deep breath and finished her sentence—“by the lumber companies.” Sh
e turned to him. “Who owns this hill?”

  “It belongs to Finley James’s mother.” He looked up at the sky. “Used to be you’d lose count of the bald eagles soaring overhead. They build a nest and return to it every year to hatch their fledglings. Not this spring. No place for them to nest. No creeks to hunt for fish.”

  “Why did Fin’s mother sign the contract?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  Oh. Because she needed the money.

  He gazed out over the hillside. “Sometimes, you just have to see it for yourself to truly understand it.” He stood and offered her a hand to help her up. “We’d best keep going. It’ll be dark soon.”

  She gave the hillside of sawed-off stumps one more long look. It did look worn out, beaten down, scalded. Exhausted.

  AS ANGIE COOPER reached home, she saw her paw over by the open barn door and waved. He beckoned her over, so she veered through the cow yard to see what he wanted.

  “Where y’ been, daughter?”

  “Over at Miss Mollie’s,” she said, adding quickly, “helping out.” Her paw was always pleased when she did a good turn for others.

  “I saw Miss Cora in town. She said Miss Norah’s been getting sick too much.”

  “Finley James sez she’s mooning after the postman. He sez she’s always ailing after he comes through.”

  Paw frowned. “Fin needs to respect his teacher and not go shootin’ off his mouth.”

  Angie’s father, Arthur Cooper, was a kind and fair man, highly regarded by all, and a stickler for respecting one’s elders. “Miss Cora sez she’s gonna have one more talk with Miss Norah, a warning talk, ’bout not missing any more days of teaching school. But she also said she thinks I need to start looking around for another teacher.”

  “I can teach Little Brushy. I can read better than any teacher we’ve ever had. I’m faster and better at sums too.”

  “Daughter, I knowed that and you knowed that and Miss Cora knowed that . . . but you got to git through your grade 8 exams before you can teach. That’s jest the way it is.”