Often she would meet one of the women at the store or see them trading there, offering a few eggs for a bit of sugar or some other food, or she would see them take a few small coins from the corner of a handkerchief and spend them carefully. Sunday she went to the church for the last time, for autumn was coming fast now. She sat among the women, speaking with them softly, saying but little; she had never spoken more than some acquiescence or some reply.
‘Lige gave me money to get a new winter cloak,’ one said, ‘but I said to put hit in the bank. No need to waste, I say.’
‘He told me, Sam did, to get me a new hat, velvet maybe,’ another voice would murmur. ‘Said he was tired himself to see this-here old one again.’
They were young like herself. The speaker would rock herself slowly as she spoke, speaking carelessly, often smiling in a shadowed way.
‘Lige is a great hand to make,’ the first said. ‘And a great hand to spend on me. A new winter cloak he said for me to get.’
‘Abe laughed,’ one said, ‘laughed right out at my old shoes today and said, “Land sake, Irie, where’s the money I laid out for your shoes.”’
Then Ellen spoke, murmuring like the rest. She had never made so long a speech before. ‘Jasper, he said, “Ellen, why don’t you get yourself a new dress, a worsted, blue maybe? Here’s the money,” he said, “here on the shelf.” Jasper, he’s partial to blue. “Here’s the money on the shelf,” he said. “No use to stint or hoard up. And buy some pretty to trim it with, velvet maybe,” he says. “Here’s the money up here on the shelf any time you take it in head to buy.” But I’ll wait awhile, I says. And Hen, he can go barefoot a spell yet, church or not. No need to waste money on shoes for youngones in a summer time, I always say. Youngones don’t need so much. “The money is on the shelf nohow,” he says, “whenever you take it in head to want the dress.”’
CHAPTER NINE
Jasper had come back from town, where he had been to haul the tobacco crop for Goddard. He had been gone two nights, sleeping each night on a long bench in the waiting room of the warehouse. A great block of cold stood about him as he opened his overcoat and spread his hands to the fire. He had money in his pocket and he had something to tell.
‘Stand offen me a spell yet,’ he said to Nannie. ‘I’d give a gal the pneumonia or a bad cold nohow, that wanted to hug me.’
He stood up in the cabin, large and sure of himself, his shoulders drooping roundly in their accustomed stoop and his look free and high. He swaggered over the lighting of his tobacco. Ellen knew that he had something to tell although he had not yet spoken of it, for the money in his pocket would scarcely have given him such a flowering. He knew a song to sing for Joe, he said, a song he’d learned the night before from a man from Taylor. It would be a good song for Joe to know. The man from Taylor said he had not sung it, he reckoned, for fifteen years, and a song that had lain away fifteen years to sweeten was a right proper song to have. As she tended the fire gaily, lending herself to the hour, Ellen thought contemptuously of his song and his leisured way of coming to the vital matter. ‘Make Pap sing his song then,’ she said to Joe, and Jasper sang over and over, each time better pleased with himself, a bit of an incident from the life of Joe Bowers, a native of Missouri, as was revealed by the verse.
My name it is Joe Bowers.
I have a brother Ike.
I came from old Missouri
And all the way from Pike.
I have a little gal there,
Her name is Sallie Black.
I asked her if she’d marry me,
She said it was a whack.
Says she to me, ‘Joe Bowers,
Before we lock for life,
You better get a little home
To keep your little wife.’
‘For God’s sake!’ Ellen thought, quoting Jasper’s own usual comment. She stirred the fire gaily and took Jasper’s kiss on her face. Then he began to tell his news, quieting now to his serious business. He had met Joe Phillips in town and Phillips had said that he intended to raise tobacco the next year and that he, Jasper Kent, could have the place cropping on shares. Then they asked Hen if he remembered Phillips’s farm and would he like to go back there to live, to the place where he was born, and Hen took a great advantage to himself, as if he had lent something to the house by being born in it, and Ellen cooked a feast of meat and bread and made an egg pie to be merry over while they talked of going back, herself yielded now to the happy event, so that the moment of Jasper’s entering full of cold and full of his unsung song now seemed very remote.
The house at Phillips’s place was vacant and they could take it at any time, and so they began at once to prepare for the journey. They had less goods than when they came, but two children more, Joe and Dick. Ellen rolled the clothing into bundles in a fever of joy because they were going. She would have a garden and some hens, and perhaps some turkeys, and the peddler would come to her house door to buy. There would be bright little dresses for Nannie and Dick, and Hen would go to school, perhaps, wearing a little duck suit from the store, and as she saw in her mind’s eye his stout little body under the duck suit she melted to him afresh and trembled with pride and maternal feeling. The cherry tree would be bearing by this time and she was in a fidget to know what had come to the grapevines she had planted along the fence. Marthy Shuck would come with her youngones, glad she had come back, and as she gathered together the clothing it came to her, mingled with the pleasure of the return, that she would be planting the garden in six weeks, perhaps, with Joe Phillips in and out to give her seeds and plants and to show her ways and praise her skill. ‘I got to get my youngones packed and off,’ Jasper said. ‘Five youngones I got, all told, Hen the oldest, and then Nan, she’s next, then Joe, then Ellie and then Dick, the least one. Five brats, I got. A house plumb full.’ Ellen felt her eyes brighten as she leaned over the cooking pots to gather them together.
They quickly took to themselves the changes that had been made in the house while they were gone. Someone had built a bench under the locust tree, and a row of shelves had been fitted to the wall beyond the cookstove. A dugout had been made for a cellar; it stood on the north side of the house in the shade, stone steps, roughly set, going down inside. It would keep the milk cool and sweet in summer. Hen remembered the rooms and he told Nannie stories of how she used to run away to the pasture and how he would bring her back, but she shook her head and could not remember, wanting Hen to tell her just how she had looked then and what she had said, or she would turn to Ellen asking, ‘Did I, Mammy?’ And once, as Hen said, she had lost her hippens over in the field, ‘stepped clean plumb outen her hippens and walked off.’
‘I reckon you want to know how you looked then,’ Hen said. ‘Right out in the plumb middle of the field.’
But Nannie was angry and said she did not do anything of the kind, and at that Hen remembered other more embarrassing things to tell. Nannie fought and cried in turns.
‘I could remember things about Hen,’ Ellen said, ‘that would match anything he knows on Nannie. Hen, he’s done all the things Nannie she ever thought to do and more maybe. Poor Hen, he was the first and he had to make his own way. If Hen lost his hippens in the pasture why he didn’t have no kind brother to pick it up for him and fetch it along home. I recall one time Hen lost his’n alongside the wheat field and the men at work in the field they picked it up and hung it on a pole against the fence, like it was a flag, it was. And it hung there a right smart while till I happened to see it and fetched it home.’
When the cherry tree bloomed it was like a little plaything, shapely and white-feathered as it was seen against the rise of the pasture. The farmer gave Nannie a pig to raise. ‘You could buy yourself a fine present Christmas if you slop your hog proper,’ he said. He built another small room to the cabin toward the spring season, and there were henhouses. The milk house kept the cream sweet and cool and presently there were coins to jingle in Ellen’s pocket, for the peddler, knowing she was the
re, came that way. She would save the egg money to buy a sewing machine, but the money from the butter she spent at once.
Marthy Shuck was the same she had been before, a little sly, a little round-about in her talk, but she was sure to come for a visit now and then and Ellen liked her. Sometimes she would bring one of her children to play with Dick or Joe.
‘You must have a fine garden by now,’ Marthy said. ‘You always do have the earliest of anybody. I got no garden to speak of. Backward this time, everything is. I’m downright sick to go out and look how backward it is.’
‘Mine does right well,’ Ellen said. ‘I’m well enough pleased. It’s forward enough to suit me. I’m right proud of my peas, ready to stick by a Tuesday of this week. I’m right proud on account of how early my peas are a-comen on.’
‘Are you?’ said Marthy Shuck. ‘I got peas in bloom. They was stuck two weeks ago, I reckon.’
Ellen would know when she had gone into Marthy Shuck’s trap, and would know that Marthy had set her own low in order to set hers lower, but in spite of this she was pleasant company, always sure to come and sure to sit all afternoon. Hester Shuck was staying long with Marthy, all of a year she had stayed. She had grown taller since Ellen had first seen her and had gathered greater depth in her chest and hips. She gave no heed to the children, and presently Ellen knew that she heeded only Jasper. She would sit loosely in her chair when she came to sit for an evening and her eyes would gather at him.
Once, in the autumn, Marthy, sitting all afternoon, said in blame of Bill Shuck, calling him shiftless:
‘Yes, we go on in the same old rut, year in, year out in the same place. I tell Bill sometimes he ain’t worth shucks. Same old go and come, that’s Bill.’
‘Winter is the time to move,’ Ellen said, ‘on hand soon now. Some will be shiften about, I reckon.’
‘I reckon it was a heap of worry to you when Jasper was in court, now. That was something to upset a body, I lay that-there was.’
‘It was right worrysome whilst it lasted, but it’s all done now and over, I reckon.’
‘I reckon so. I heared it said it was a right close call for Jasper Kent. They said so. Said there was three witnesses, one old man Chesser, that’s your pap, and two men on Wingate’s side, men that was hid in the garden and saw what come. Said these men swore Kent taken the horse to the barn on purpose to burn it up, horse had worked for him all summer in the plough. Said he had no call to take it in. There was a little mist of rain but not enough to bother a work horse used to stand out. Said a horse could go in by itself if it minded to. No, said Kent taken the critter in on purpose to burn it to death. Kent had a close call, they said.’
‘If Jasper taken the horse in I reckon his aim was to hitch it to a buggy,’ Ellen said, speaking angrily. ‘His aim was to go that night, to get Pappy or Pius to drive with him to bring the critter back. He was in his rights to use any nag on the place any time, nohow. But it’s over now,’ she said in a lower tone, knowing that her anger pleased Marthy too well, ‘It’s all over and that’s all there is to that-there.’
‘Yes. Jury said “not guilty”, and I reckon that sounded good to Jasper. I was right glad he come off so easy. Glad, I am, sure and certain, mighty glad. I said to myself at the time, “What,” I said, “will become of poor Mrs Kent and the youngone?” That’s what I said. “They could come over here and stay till they find a place to go,” I said.’
Ellen knew that this was true, that Marthy had said this and that Marthy would have taken her in. ‘It’s all past and over now, I reckon,’ she said.
‘They said Jasper Kent he had a close shave that time, nohow,’ Marthy said, holding to the matter. ‘Said the lawyers traded cases, swapped. “I let you win this-here and you let me have that-there.” That’s how it was said it was. Some even said the lawyers played cards half the night before, and traded the cases back and forth all night, sometimes Kent was in the win and again the State – that’s Wingate’s side. That-there lawyer he ran for the legislature next election and that was what was told in the speeches. Said if they had quit the game, say, at ten o’clock Jasper Kent would ’a’ been in the prison right now. That’s what was told. But I reckon it wasn’t so bad as that nohow. They traded cases about, it was said, but maybe the card game might ’a’ been campaign talk, election time. The other man won to the legislature, nohow. You never heared about all this, you gone from here, I reckon. It made a heap of talk up at the shop and all around.’
‘But I thought… I thought…’ Ellen was greatly surprised, but she checked her speech before she had said what she thought, which was that the jury had found the right and had established it, finding it on Henry’s statement. She had sold her calf to pay the lawyer. She had thought that the jury had set a certain way as right and had made every other way wrong. ‘But it’s all over and done now, I reckon. All forgot. No call to bring it up and to hold it in mind. It was right worrysome whilst it was a-goen on, but it’s over now,’ she said.
‘Yes, it was worrysome, I reckon, and a right close shave for Jasper Kent, they said. I often say Bill he don’t amount to shucks, but then he ain’t never been in trouble yet in court, no way or how, and I reckon I got a right smart to be thankful about. Never yet in no sort of trouble to bring worry to a body.’
‘But it’s all over now, I’d reckon, and no call to keep in mind about it, I say. Whatever it was and however it come, it’s over, ain’t it?’
‘Maybe it is. I hope so, nohow. It wouldn’t surprise me though if Jasper Kent, he saw trouble about it yet. I’d fear trouble about it all some way. I always said, Jasper Kent, he might maybe see a sight of trouble over that-there barn even yet and over that-there horse he burned up. It’s a right serious thing. It was said the reason Jasper couldn’t get a better place to work – Goddard’s is no good place, everybody knows – was because of that-there trouble he was in. Nobody wanted a man that was known to ’a’ been in court that way, up for burnen a man’s barn for spite. Folks is mean that way. Wish you no harm, but at the same time hire somebody else. That was why he had to stay to Goddard’s, the worst place in the county, I reckon, treats his men like dirt. Bad place, every body knows.’
‘But it’s over now,’ Ellen murmured, ‘over and near forgotten, I reckon. Over, it is.’
The house had three rooms now, one standing forward on the side toward the farm. There were two outside doors, one looking toward the farm and the other toward the woods and the hill fields. The locust tree in the yard, down toward the fence, had a seat built beneath it, and a little way to the right beyond the farm-side door stood the dugout with rock steps going down, and beyond the path went on to the garden. The huckster would come through the pasture on the two-wheel ruts along the fence and turn about at Ellen’s gate, ready to trade. Hen, going to school, walking the mile he must go, carried about himself a new wonder, a hint and a sign of things unknown or long forgotten, for out of his mouth would come sayings she once had known. She would sometimes look from one child to another, searching them, bewildered. Nannie had a little pointed nose, like Nellie’s. Her hair grew in soft waves over her ears, pale brown hair, soft and thin, and hung in a little braid at the back, tied with a tiny ribbon. Jasper said she looked like his mother, and between her and Jasper there was some close unspoken understanding. They would sometimes whisper together. Joe was a swaggerer, always ready for a fight, but Hen was careful and old, his slightly staring eyes looking distrustfully upon the world. Ellen felt awed of him when he wore his new learning openly and gathered a new pride to herself from him.
After a while Jasper would own a place; they talked of it with a vague certainty. Jasper had a great joke to tell on Hen. Coming home from the creek where they had fished all afternoon, Jasper, Nannie and Hen, suddenly Hen had stopped in the path to look up into the trees, listening, and then he shouted:
‘Mammy cooks for us-all.’
Jasper told his joke over and over, roaring out his great laugh, and Hen joined him. He had
heard the owl himself, Jasper said, up in the woods: ‘Whoo, whoo – who-who-who-aw-y,’ but Hen had heard, ‘Who – cooks – for you – all? for you – all?’
Nannie was past five now, able to hold her own fish pole and to put on her own bait. Her little brown feet made small prints in the dust of the road as she ran along behind Jasper and Hen. Or all together they would come home through the dusk singing, Nannie’s high shout unblended with the rest,
Ring around the raccoon’s tail,
Possum’s tail is bar,
Rabbit got no tail at-all
But a little bunch of har.
Sometimes, hearing them come singing or talking toward the cabin, seeing them come down the fenceline through the field from the creek, all talking together of things they knew and shared, her heart would seem to stand in its measure and a question, ‘Oh, who are they?’ would arise in her mind, pushing at her throat to be said.
Joe Phillips had brought her twenty or thirty raspberry cuttings from his garden, and in midsummer he had brought her sweet potato plants and had helped her to set them in rows. His own garden was a marvel of neatness and economy, and she tried to make hers the same.
She dug in the garden during the growing season until dusk drove her to the house. Spring found her out with the first open days, spading for the onions. Later she cut sticks for the peas or she called Hen to drop the seeds when she had made the rows. Sun-stained and hearty, her body deep and broad, she tried to give each one the veget able he liked best in ample profusion. Joe liked peas best; she would sow a plenty of peas, five rows. But Jasper was partial to beets, and she planted long rows of these, buying the finest seeds the peddler had.
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