Blue Ridge Billy

by Lois Lenski

  Billy explained what had happened. Then he added: “You’re gonna mess around with hit till hit bites you, Uncle Pozy.”

  The ole man kept on feeling round the possum’s neck and back of its head. Then suddenly, “Ouch!” he screamed. “Wicked little varmint, you! Out in your pen you go!”

  It was a long time since Billy had been to Uncle Pozy’s. It seemed good to be there again and talk with the old man. The boy took up a long split of white oak and began to weave it in and out through the chair bottom.

  “You come too late for dinner, son,” said Uncle Pozy, “but I got somethin’ for you to eat all the same.” He put beans and stewed apples and corn-bread on the table and pressed the boy to eat. He found some bones for Banjo. He was bubbling with happiness over Billy’s return.

  “How come you’re not makin’ baskets, Uncle Pozy?” asked Billy with his mouth full.

  “That Miz Sutherland’s takened it into her head to buy some handmade chairs,” explained Uncle Pozy. “So I started makin’ ’em again. Whenever I get tired makin’ baskets, I make chairs for a change.”

  “You got plenty work to do to make a good livin’, ain’t you, Uncle Pozy?” said Billy. He remembered how Jeb Dotson had accused him of running Uncle Pozy out of business, and he wanted to be reassured.

  “More’n I can do,” said the old man, “and all off my own place. Did you ever think when you was walkin’ through the woods that there was baskets and chairs a-growin’ right there afore your eyes?”

  Billy nodded, his mouth full of corn-bread. “And calico dresses and banjos, too,” he mumbled softly, but the old man did not hear.

  “Shall we have us a little music?” asked Uncle Pozy, when Billy had finished eating He looked toward his dulcimer, but hesitated to take it down.

  “Oh Uncle Pozy, I ain’t told you,” cried Billy, jumping up. “Uncle Jamie’s learnin’ me to play the fiddle! I’m goin’ over two-three times a week to take lessons. Mammy said I might could, now there ain’t so much work to do come winter.”

  “Lordy mercy!” cried Uncle Pozy. “Think o’ that now!”

  “None of Uncle Jamie’s boys take to hit like I do, he says,” Billy went on. “He wants me to come as often as I can.” The boy paused. “But I don’t know what Pap’ll say when he finds out—he ’lows as music don’t grow corn and beans.”

  “Likely your Pap’ll change his mind,” said the old man.

  “And say, Uncle Pozy,” cried Billy again, “Pap didn’t have nothin’ to do with that still in No Man’s Cove, after all.”

  “Shoo, now,” said Uncle Pozy, “of course not. Your Pappy’s a good man and a law-abiding citizen. I knowed that all along.”

  “The still’s gone now,” said Billy, “and I’m powerful glad. The folkses that owned it—Pappy said I’d better not tell their names.…”

  “Law no, I don’t want to know who they were,” said Uncle Pozy.

  “They come and drug hit over the hills into Tennessee,” said Billy. “Pap and I seen ’em go, in the middle of the night.”

  “You was with your Pap? He takened you? And you talked this all over with him?”

  Billy nodded. “Law, yes.”

  “That’s good. Now you can trust your Pap again,” said Uncle Pozy.

  “And Granny Trivett and Sarey Sue can roam all over the mountain in peace,” said Billy.

  “They didn’t bother her none, I hope,” said Uncle Pozy.

  “Law, no,” said Billy. “Gran was too smart for ’em. She knew all about hit, but wouldn’t say a word.”

  “I hear she owns the whole mountain,” laughed Uncle Pozy.

  “I reckon she does,” said Billy.

  Uncle Pozy took down his dulcimer.

  “First, let me put Banjo out the door,” laughed Billy. “He don’t like music as much I do. He’ll howl!”

  The old man touched the strings and sang softly:

  “Down in the valley, the valley so low,

  Hang your head over, hear the winds blow;

  Hear the winds blow, dear, hear the winds blow,

  Hang your head over, hear the winds blow.

  If you don’t love me none else will do,

  My heart is breaking, dear, just for you,

  Breaking for you, dear, breaking for you,

  My heart is breaking, dear, just for you.

  Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,

  Angels in heaven knows I love you,

  Knows I love you dear, knows I love you,

  Angels in heaven knows I love you …”

  CHAPTER XIII

  A Letter for Billy

  “Meal’s a gettin’ low,” said Mammy, after breakfast. It was six o’clock and the morning was cold. Winter had come to Hoot Owl Hollow.

  “Go get that drag and bring in a load o’ corn, son,” said Pappy.

  Billy dumped the corn on the hearth in the front room. Everybody sat down by the firelight and began to shuck and shell the corn. Even Mazie and Red Top helped.

  Soon Billy started, his sacks of corn lying over the gray mule’s back, riding off to mill. He buttoned his coat tightly across his chest, and rubbed his hands together to warm them.

  The rutty road that followed Roundabout Creek was rough and frozen now. In shallow places in the creek, ice could be seen. The mail-wagon had just arrived from Cranberry, so Billy decided not to stop at the post office until he returned.

  “Had any fights lately?” chuckled Old Hamby at the mill.

  “Not since the Moseleys left,” answered Billy. He waited leisurely while the old wheel creaked and churned, grinding the corn.

  “Whoa, mule! Whoa, I say!” Billy jumped down and went into the post office to warm himself. The tiny stove was red hot.

  “Ary letter for me, Miss Viney?”

  Miss Viney held a letter in her hand. “Now who,” she asked in a teasing voice, “could be writing to Bill Honeycutt, I wonder?” She gazed at the letter through her spectacles.

  “Hit can’t be for me,” said Billy. “You’re foolin’, Miss Viney. I don’t know ary soul in all the world who’d write me a letter.”

  “You don’t?” Miss Viney’s long thin arm came slowly out the little window. She smiled happily, as Billy took the letter.

  Billy stared at it. He had never had a letter before in his life. But there was his name, printed on the front in big letters: Billy Honeycutt, Solitude, N. C. He was the only Billy Honeycutt in Solitude.

  “Who’s it from, Billy?” asked Miss Viney.

  “Danged if I know!” he answered.

  Then before the postmistress could ask any more questions, he flung himself on Old Bet’s back and went flying up the creek.

  “Mammy! Pappy! Letty Jo!” he called. “I got me a letter!”

  “Whoever from?” asked Letty Jo.

  “I had a cousin livin’ in Georgia once …” began Mammy.

  “And what was the name of that Uncle o’ mine up in Virginy?” asked Pappy.

  Mammy and Pappy looked at each other and smiled.

  “Open hit!” demanded Red Top, standing on a chair.

  “Let’s hear what hit says,” added Letty Jo. “Then we’ll know who writ it.”

  With shaky fingers, Billy tore the envelope open. He read the letter through, then he looked up, with disappointment on his face.

  “Hit’s a mistake,” he said. “Hit ain’t for me, after all. Hit’s from a mail-order house in Chicago. Hit’s about an ‘order for goods’ that somebody sent ’em. Hit says they’ll send hit soon, by express, to the depot at Cranberry. Hit ain’t for me. I ain’t ordered nothin’.”

  Pappy looked at Mammy. “Never heard o’ no other Billy Honeycutt in Solitude, did you?”

  “Never did.” Mammy covered her mouth with her apron quickly. Was she laughing or crying?

  The mysterious letter lay on the table. Three days later, Pappy returned from Cranberry and lifted a large box out of the jolt-wagon.

  “Why, hit’s from Chicago, and here’s my na
me on hit!” exclaimed Billy.

  “Open hit! Open hit!” demanded Red Top.

  They all crowded round while Pappy opened the box on Christmas day, and Mammy took the things out one by one. There was a doll with golden hair for Mazie, a little red wagon for Red Top, a new shirt for Pappy, gay red suspenders for Pappy and Billy, and several lengths of pretty dress-goods for new dresses for Mammy and Letty Jo. Then, down at the bottom, lay a mysterious object, well-packed and padded. Pappy took it out and laid it carefully on the table.

  “Open hit, son,” he said. Billy opened the wrappings.

  There lay a beautiful, shiny violin.

  It was too beautiful to touch or talk about. Even Red Top and Mazie said not a word.

  “There must be some other Billy Honeycutt somewheres …” said the boy when he could find words. “This ain’t for me——”

  “Yes, son, hit’s your’n,” said Pappy.

  “For me to play on?”

  “Better to take lessons on your own fiddle instead o’ your Uncle Jamie’s,” said Pappy. “I hear these fiddlers are partial to an instru-ment o’ their very own.”

  Still Billy did not understand. What had made Pap change his mind like this?

  “Music don’t grow corn and beans,” said the boy in a low voice.

  “Tell him, Rudy,” said Mammy.

  “Hit’s all on account o’ that hound pup you got this fiddle,” said Pappy.

  “Don’t pester him, Rudy,” said Mammy. “He’s waited so long. Tell him.”

  “What’s Banjo got to do with it?” asked Billy.

  “Hit was this way,” said Pappy. “I met Uncle Pozy down to the store one day and we got to talkin’ about that hound pup o’ your’n. I says what a good possum dog he is, and Uncle Pozy says how good that big fat possum tasted. I says: ‘The pup’s just got it in him—he’s a born possum dog, can’t help hisself.’ Then Uncle Pozy says: ‘Just like that boy o’ your’n. He’s got music in his blood. You can’t stamp hit out. He’s a born musician if ever I see one.’”

  “Uncle Pozy said that?” asked Billy.

  “Yes, son,” said Pappy. “I hadn’t never thought about hit that way before, but that blamed possum dog made me see it.”

  Billy bent over and patted Banjo on the head.

  “So when I sold that last load o’ logs,” Pappy went on, “I made up my mind my boy should have instru-ment of his own. And your Mammy was needin’ right smart other things and Christmas was a-comin’ …”

  “So we sent to the mail-order house to get ’em,” added Mammy.

  Billy took his eyes off the new fiddle and looked at the pretty lengths of dress-goods. “How many new dresses you gonna have, Letty Jo?”

  His sister tossed her head. “Two-three, I reckon.”

  Billy touched a piece with a flowered pattern. “I wisht …”

  “What is it, son?” asked Mammy.

  “Sarey Sue ain’t never had no new dress with purties on hit. Granny makes her wear old brown linsey all the time …”

  Mammy folded up the piece Billy had chosen. “We got more’n we need. You take this un to Sarey Sue.”

  Billy hesitated. “Is hit calico? Are you shore hit’s calico?”

  Mammy fingered the piece. “Hit’s better’n calico. Hit’s lawn, that piece, flowered lawn.”

  “I’ll take hit to her,” said Billy. He started out the door.

  When he reached the Half-Way-Up House, Sarey Sue and Granny were sitting beside the fire and Sarey Sue was playing her accordion. There was music and cheer, without loneliness, on Christmas day, in the little cabin on the side of the mountain.

  Sarey Sue came running out when she heard Billy calling. “We got us a new cow-brute!” she shouted, pointing to the shed.

  “Who cares about a new cow-brute?” answered Billy. “Here’s a new dress—get busy with your finger-sewin’, gal. Get ready to make all them teeny-tiny stitches. I hear they had a square dance down at Jasper Jackson’s house last Saturday night and had ’em a big time. Fix up your new dress and you can go to the next one.”

  Sarey Sue opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.

  “Where’d you get hit?” demanded Granny. “You ain’t stole hit from Jeb Dotson’s store?”

  “Jeb ain’t got no purties like this, Gran,” said Sarey Sue.

  “Pap sent a big order to the mail-order house in Chicago,” said Billy, “and got something nice for all of us for Christmas—and this purty dress for Sarey Sue. Guess what he got for me?”

  The two stared at the boy.

  “A fiddle!” he cried. His face shone with happiness.

  “From Chicago?” gasped Granny. “A fotched-on fiddle?”

  “Law, yes,” said Billy. “Hit’s so purty, I’m skeered to touch it.”

  “Lordy mercy, what’s the world a-comin’ to!” said Granny. “A fotched-on fiddle for Billy and a store-bought calicker dress for Sarey Sue. Glory be!”

  “’Taint calicker, Gran,” said the girl, her voice full of awe.

  “Hit’s lawn, Mammy said,” explained Billy. “Lawn’s better’n calico.”

  “Lawn!” echoed Sarey Sue. “Blamed stuff’s so thin you can see smack dab through it.” She looked at Billy and added: “Guess your Pappy’s not mean after all.”

  It was a month later when word came of Uncle Jamie’s accident. Cousin Rick rode over to Hoot Owl Hollow one Sunday to bring the news.

  “Hit was that new colt he was tryin’ to break,” explained Rick. “She was plenty wild and she throwed him. His right arm’s broke in two places and he can’t play the fiddle with his arm in a sling.”

  “Shore is too bad,” said Mammy.

  “What can we do to help?” asked Pappy.

  “Us boys can carry on the farm work,” said Rick, “but there’s that square dance comin’ off in Jasper Jackson’s house on Saturday night next week. Pappy ’lowed as Billy might could play some o’ them fiddle tunes he’s been a-learnin’ him.”

  “Me?” asked Billy. “Me play for the square dance?”

  “Law yes, you, son,” said Mammy, putting her arm around the boy’s shoulder. “You’re never too young to begin. If Uncle Jamie says you can, then you can.”

  “There ain’t nobody else in these parts, Pappy said,” added Rick.

  Billy turned to Pappy. “Can I do hit, Pap?” he asked.

  “Reckon so,” said Pappy, smiling. “They can’t have a square dance without a fiddler. What’s that new fiddle for, nohow?”

  Billy breathed deeply. He could hardly believe it was Pappy talking.

  “Pap says you’re to come over every day to practice on his fiddle,” said Rick. “He’ll lend it to you for the dance. He’ll do the callin’, even if his arm is in a sling.”

  “Ain’t you heard? I got my own fiddle, Rick!” said Billy proudly.

  When Rick saw the beautiful violin lying in its case, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. So Billy explained.

  “Don’t you-uns dare touch hit!” warned Red Top.

  “Gosh almighty, you ain’t even touched hit yet?” gasped Rick.

  “I couldn’t touch hit the first day,” admitted Billy. “After that I just had to hear it singin’ …”

  He picked up the fiddle and played Sourwood Mountain right through.

  “Golly!” said Rick. “Sounds just like Pappy.”

  “The hounds don’t like hit,” said Letty Jo. “They howl their heads off when Billy gets to practisin’ his lively tunes.”

  “But we like hit!” cried Mazie and Red Top, holding hands and dancing around the room.

  The night of the square dance, everybody came to Jasper Jackson’s house. The beds had been taken down and the furniture moved out of the big front room. All the neighbors were there—the Holbrooks, the Wilcoxes, Old Hamby and his niece’s family, Jeb Dotson, the Wileys, the Allisons and many others. When the Trivetts came in, Sarey Sue became the center of interest, she looked so pretty in her new flowered lawn dress.

 
“Lordy mercy!” cackled Granny Trivett, “what a crowd! I ain’t seen the like since I was a gal young un myself, the age of Sarey Sue.” Granny’s eyes moved slowly round the room. “I see everybody here but the Moseleys. Lizy ain’t worse off, be she? They ain’t sent for me lately.…”

  Nobody answered. Some of the women began whispering to each other.

  “Anything happened to the Moseleys?” asked Granny in a loud voice. “Lizy ain’t dead, and nobody told me?”

  No one replied.

  Granny’s eye fell on Billy Honeycutt. He was dressed in a new suit, and wore brand-new bright red suspenders. “You ain’t fit Burl Moseley lately, have you, Billy?”

  “Law, no,” answered the boy. He edged up close and said in a whisper: “Ain’t you heard, Granny?”

  “No, heard what? Nobody ain’t told me nothin’.”

  Billy turned to his mother. “Gran ain’t heard about the Moseleys, Mammy.”

  “Come over here and set down, Granny,” said Billy’s mother.

  They crowded close on the bench, Billy between them.

  “There ain’t no still in No Man’s Cove no more,” explained Billy in a whisper. “Pappy and I seen the men drag hit up over Stone Mountain one moonlight night—into Tennessee.”

  “Good riddance!” snorted Granny.

  “Pap never run that still,” said Billy.

  “Why, I knowed that all along, son,” said Granny.

  “Hit was Walt Moseley and his gang,” said Billy.

  “I suspicioned as much,” snorted Granny again. “I seen him a good many times too often on yon side o’ Laurel Mountain.”

  “Poor Lizy,” said Billy’s mother. “I feel for her, followin’ a man like Walt hither and yon, for better and for worse, till he gets caught.”

  “Wonder who’ll take care of her over in Tennessee,” said Granny.

  “You done a plenty to keep her well,” said Mammy, “always a-runnin’ to her whenever she felt an ache or a pain.”