Am making progress beyond my wildest dreams. The young woman with whose family I have taken up residence is helping me, with a bit of innocent subterfuge, to win over the people of the mountain. The matriarch of this particular community has given me her blessing, and with her approval, the populace is anxious to offer their knowledge and remembrances. Last Sunday at the church meeting, I received so many offers of help that I had to begin making appointments to see all of the willing participants.
Meetings and recordings are made mostly in the evening as the spring and summer is a very busy time for the mountain people. Young Jesse and I go out on mule back late in the day to homesteads and cabins all up and down both sides of the mountain.
That actually suits me very well as the farmer, Mr. Best, keeps me quite busy earning my keep around his place. Not only am I expected to help his son Jesse with planting and livestock care, I am now involved in adding a small room onto the log house in which the family lives. I have my own bed now. A gift from one of the local people. Jesse and I have set it up in the empty foundation of the soon to be extra room. I find that I don't mind sleeping out under the weather; however, I am not at all looking forward to the rain. I am learning a good deal, as I knew nothing of rail splitting, carpentry, or mud daubing prior to my introduction to it here. It is hard, hot work and I believe my very weary arms are now perhaps twice the circumference they were when I left Cambridge. I have no idea upon what occasion I might find my newfound knowledge and prowess to be needful, but still I am eager to learn the primitive ways and have discovered a certain sense of accomplishment in the product of my more rigorous labors.
Tonight, young Jesse and I will be "chasing meat. " His term. We have been so busy with the farm work and building, there has been no opportunity for hunting. So tonight, having no appointments of my own, Jesse has invited me to go with him. As the young man is not allowed to carry a gun without his father present and since we will be hunting at night, I can't imagine what our prey might be. But I will go along as is expected. Perhaps Jesse will bring his fiddle and play. His music is such that I have no doubt that he could coax birds out of the trees if necessary.
Chapter Seventeen
It was full dark and Roe was already weary before the night hunting expedition even began. The evening breeze lightly ruffled Roe's hair as he made his way down the well-worn trails.
The sounds of tree frogs and katydids filled the darkness. In the distance an old owl screeched angrily at some unwelcome visitor to his neighborhood. Carrying a gray burlap tow sack, Roe followed the beam of light that glowed from the grease lamp that Jesse carried. The grease lamp was merely a quart-size cast-iron cooking vessel that was filled near to the brim with rancid grease. A thin cotton cord served as its wick and what the homemade lantern lacked in brightness and reliability, it made up for in efficiency and expense.
"It's better than pine knots," Jesse had explained when he'd lit it up. "Got more control of the fire and yer less likely to dump it on the ground and start up a blaze."
Roe didn't question his statement. Nor had he thought to question Jesse about what they were to hunt, but Roe was surprised to see the young man carrying only a small, three-pronged spear tied to a length of cord.
"What is that thing?" Roe asked. "A harpoon?"
Jesse looked puzzled. "What's a harpoon?"
"It's something that you kill whales with. Whales are like very big fish."
The young man nodded a little uncertainly.
"Well, maybe it is a harpoon," Jesse said. "You can catch fish with it, if you're a mind to." He held it up to the light for Roe's closer inspection. 'This is a gigger. It's what you use to go giggin'."
"Gigging?"
"Yep."
"Is that what you call hunting at night, gigging?"
Jesse laughed delightedly. "Your thinkin' is downright peculiar, frien'. Hunting at night is hunting at night. Giggin' is giggin'. Course, most giggin' is done at night, but it ain't a rule or nothing."
"What kind of things can you hunt at night?"
"Oh, coons, possums, most anything that you've a hankering for. The light scares the critters and freezes them in their tracks. Mostly I hunt possums at night."
"And you kill them with this gigger?"
Jesse's eyes twinkled with delight. "I don't gig much for possums," he answered with laughter at his good little joke. He held his shoulders straight and proud. Pleased that on the subject of hunting, he was both more knowledgeable and more experienced. "Now, don't you worry, Roe. It ain't hard a'tal. You'll get the hang of it in a jiffy. You just follow my lead and we'll have a plate full of great eating before the night's half gone."
They had reached the widest part of Itchy Creek. Jesse began to slowly, quietly make his way along the edge of the bank.
"Just keep your ears open for the croaking," he whispered. "When you come upon a feller, you just shine the light in the frog's eye and while he's watching it, you stab him with the gigger."
"Frog?"
"Bullfrogs," Jesse answered. "You know, those big green ones. We're a-giggin' for bullfrogs."
"Jesse, what on earth are we going to do with a dead bullfrog?"
"Not one." Jesse pointed to the tow sack Roe still held in his hand. "We'll need a sack full to make a decent mess."
"A decent mess of what?"
"Frog legs."
"Jesse, I don't think—"
"Shhhhhh," Jesse hushed him. The deep-throated croak of the bullfrog was loud along the bank. With the careful, quiet moves of a cat stalking a bird, Jesse moved up the bank toward the sound of the bullfrog's presence.
With the grease lamp in his left hand, Jesse flashed the light before the big green frog. Just as the young man had said, the stunned river dweller was frozen in place just long enough for Jesse to thrust the gigger into the unwary fellow's back.
"Got 'im!" Jesse yelled with delight. "Open that sack, Roe. We got our first catch of the night."
To Roe's disbelief, the big bullfrog was more than a foot long and frantically kicking his heavily muscled hopping legs. Holding the tow sack open, he watched Jesse push the frog off the end of the forked prong.
"You ain't never eat frog legs?" Jesse asked.
"No, not ever."
"My frien', you've a delight coming that even you cannot imagine. Frog legs are so good, even Meggie cain't ruin 'em." Jesse chuckled happily.
"I'll take your word for it," Roe answered, less enthusiastically.
"See how easy giggin' is," Jesse said. "The next croaker we find is all yours."
"I don't know, Jesse."
"Now, Roe, we both know how smart ye are. Yer smarter than me, smarter than folks around here, so you are sure enough smarter than an old green bullfrog. You can't let that dumb ole creature get the best of you."
Roe was quite willing to do just that, but seeing himself through Jesse's eyes made a difference.
"It ain't like you're a-killing some cute hoppy toad," Jesse explained. "Bullfrogs is big and ugly and just sit on the banks all day and eat flies. They don't serve mankind much purpose, except that they is meat. And if a man's a man, he's obliged to fetch up the meat."
Jesse's words were so sincere and so reminiscent of Onery's way of speech that Roe was immediately certain that the young man had been served up that exact lecture upon some long-ago gigging trip when he was as hesitant and uninterested in participating as Roe was now.
Jesse was sharing his knowledge, simple though it might be, and Roe didn't have the heart to scorn it. Smiling, Roe hoped he looked more appreciative than he felt.
"Just lead me to the next croaker, Jesse," he said. "I'm ready to try my hand at this gigging business."
Jesse grinned with pleasure and threw his arms around Roe's shoulders, hugging him with the warmth and love of a brother. Roe managed not to flinch.
"Frien'," Jesse told him. "We're about to fetch up the best mess of Arkansas frog legs a body has ever tasted."
They continued to walk
along the edge of the wood near the riverbank. Jesse was slightly stooped and listening. Roe followed behind carrying the big gray tow sack, the contents of which continued to jump and wiggle within the bag. Only a couple of minutes passed before Jesse stopped suddenly. He motioned to Roe, who could then also hear the deep, bass-throated croak along the bank.
"Your turn," Jesse said with a delighted grin as he exchanged the gigger and lamp in his own hands with the sack in Roe's.
Roe tested the weight of the gigger in his right hand a couple of times before determinedly heading off in the direction of the calling bullfrog. He stepped easily, as Jesse had done, placing each foot carefully in the grass before moving up the other. The break of a twig or the snap of underbrush would be enough to warn the noisy croaker on the bank to flee from danger.
When he got as close as he dared, Roe pushed the grease lamp up near the creature's head. As before, the noisy green fellow was stunned stiff into silence. Roe took a deep breath. Raising the gigger high, he plunged it with a goodly amount of force right through the wide, slick, slimy back of the big old frog.
"You got him!"
Roe heard Jesse's cry of congratulations and it distracted him prematurely. The bullfrog jerked strongly at the gigger and dived headlong into the safety of the creek.
"Whoa!"
"Hang on to the cord," Jesse urged.
Roe managed to hang on and a minute later pulled the still fighting and protesting bullfrog back onto the bank. He picked up the gigger and held it high. The angry frog was kicking and twitching on the sharp, pronged metal piece.
"Now all we got to do is get him into the sack without letting the other one out."
It took a good deal of maneuvering, a couple of false starts, and some laughter to get both frogs in the sack at the same time. But by the time the two had managed to spear a couple dozen of the hoppy critters, they'd become experts at slipping one frog off the gigger without allowing any of the others access to the opening in the sack.
They were still walking the rustling length of the river-bank listening for the noisy croak when the rustle of something much bigger was heard in the brush behind them.
Roe started. But Jesse looked back with more curiosity than concern. "Ain't no bear steps that careless," he told Roe. "Over here," he called out. "Is that you, Pa?"
"It ain't your Pa, Simple Jess," the voice answered back.
A moment later a big strapping man in a wide-brimmed felt hat stepped out of the shadows. "It's Gid Weston."
"Oh, it's my Pa," Roe answered jokingly.
When the man looked at him curiously, Roe hid his grin at the small private joke and offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Weston. I'm J. Monroe Farley."
The man nodded slightly, his eyes moving over the newcomer as he took Roe's measure. Roe obliged him by doing the same, wondering what there was about himself that the pastor had mistaken for a son of the man before him. He found Weston to be near his own size and frame, although he was a whole generation older and wore his age like a sagging sack of beans around the middle of his waist. He didn't appear to be all that clean and his odor was pungent with sweat and wood smoke, bear grease and stale liquor.
"You're the city man what come and married up Best's daughter," he said.
Roe cleared his throat and nodded.
"He was my frien' afore he was her man," Jesse stated proudly. "I'm teachin' him how to gig and we got near a full poke of the biggest ole bullfrogs on the river."
The man nodded and held out his hand. Jesse handed him the sack of bullfrogs and he weighed it thoughtfully. He made a small approving sound.
"You done caught this many already and the night ain't even half over," he said.
Jesse shook his head proudly. "It's a good night for it and Roe and I, well, we ain't bragging but we ain't missed but two frogs all evening and one of them weren't hardly big enough to worry about."
"That's awful good giggin'," Weston said. "I ain't had no time for such myself lately." He looked thoughtfully from one young man to the other for a moment. "A mess of fried frog legs sure sets well on a man's belly, don't it?"
"It sure do," Jesse agreed easily.
"Suspect I oughter send some of my boys out to fetch me up a mess myself."
"They's plenty on the river," Jesse said.
"Course, those boys of mine don't listen to their daddy worth nothing no more. And they's all about half lazy. Take from their mama's side of the family, I think."
"Pa always said that you was pretty lazy, too," Jesse told the man with innocent honesty.
Weston chuckled lightly, not bothering to take offense. "Well, when it comes to night giggin', I guess your pa maybe is speaking the truth. Tell you what, boys," he said, stepping closer and eyeing the frog sack assessingly. "You got the whole rest of the night to get as many of these bullfrogs as you've a mind to. I'll trade you halves of what you caught already for a gallon jug of donk. It oughter make the hunting of them a sight more pleasant anyhow."
"What's donk?" Roe asked.
"Donk?" Weston said. "You don't know donk?"
"But I do, Mr. Weston," Jesse answered eagerly. "I know donk and it's a trade!"
It was very late and Onery was already snoring loudly in the bed as Meggie stirred the hot kettle next to the fire. She wrinkled up her nose at the smell and grabbed up the already discolored battling stick that she was using to stir and agitate the material. The concoction, known as a blue pot, was a mix of indigo and madder root boiled together in lye. It was not as easy a fotched-on dye as walnut leaves or sassafras bark, but it could make her plain homespun cloth into the color of the prettiest periwinkle-blue on the mountain. And a pretty new dress was just what she needed. Meggie was downright determined to have one for her new life on the mountain.
Being a married lady, even a pretend one, was a good deal more interesting and exhilarating than Meggie had expected. She hadn't thought that folks would treat her differently or that the approach of the world around her would change. But it had, quite suddenly, and Meggie hadn't caught up to it yet.
She put the lid back on the kettle to try to keep the stench of hot lye from escaping out into the room.
She could hear her father's rhythmic snores from the one-poster bed on the far side of the room. Dying cloth was usually done outside. And no one dyed cloth in the middle of the night. But if she was to have a new dress by next Sunday, she needed to get the fabric colored right away. And she had to have a new dress by Sunday. If she didn't, folks might start thinking that her marriage wasn't going so well, or that her new husband was not a good provider. She blushed at the lame excuse. At least she should be honest enough with herself to admit that what she really wanted was to look something special when she walked into church next Sunday with Roe at her side. Not so that other folks would notice them, but so that Roe Farley might notice her.
She was Farley's new bride. At least that's how everybody she knew saw it. Unfortunately, she knew that neither she nor Roe could ever see it that way.
It was amazing how easily the people of Marrying Stone had accepted their little lie. She had thought there might be trouble, questions, curiosity. But her father had warned her to the contrary.
"None of these folks on the mountain is going to be worrying one iota about you and Farley. But, Meggie-gal," he'd said with a concerned furrow in his brow, "I'm a-worrying. And you ought to be, too."
"Pa, there is nothing to worry about." Meggie had spoken with a lightness that she didn't really feel.
Her father shook his head. "Ye can't just pretend you got feelings for a man for the rest of the summer and then jest let him walk out of yer life. Yer gonna get attached to this feller just as sure as the world. I don't want to see ye hurt, Meggie."
"Oh, Pa," she said. "Don't worry about me. I'm not about to get attached to some city feller," she lied, knowing full well that she already was. "I know exactly what I'm doing," Meggie insisted. "I'm helping Monroe get some of his work done and enjoying
myself a little."
"What kind of enjoyment do ye get from pretending like you's married? Seems to me it's kind of like pretending ye got a bad head cold."
"It is fun," Meggie said. "Pulling a little joke on everybody on the mountain. Having people think that this city feller is wed up with me. And," she added with deliberate laughter, "it sure makes Eda Piggott turn greener than persimmons in springtime."
Her father tutted in disapproval. "That kinda green jealousy ain't a bit like you, Meggie. You are either changing, girl, or you're pretending with your ole daddy, too."
Meggie had no answer for that and didn't offer one.
Onery gave her a long look, clearly worried. "I cain't see that no good can come of this thing." His tone softened. "You watch yer heart, girlie. I'm afeared that you're likely to get it broken."
Meggie had similar fears. It had seemed easy, right at first. They'd just let people think that they were married. A little harmless lie that would allow Roe to do his work and maybe let her spend some more time with him, smiling at him, pretending with him. It didn't occur to her that being married would change her status in the community and that the opinion of both Roe and herself was now as intertwined as poison ivy in the pussy willows.
"That man of yours is gonna need another string for his bow," Granny Piggott had insisted when she had come to call along with half the married womenfolk of the community. Bearing recipes and helpful counsel, the women crowded the small area within the cabin. They stretched a quilt frame across their knees and chatted openly as they sewed together a wedding ring quilt for the new couple and offered their congratulations.
"You've always been a good worker, Meggie, for all your silly dreaminess. It's yer task to convince this city feller that scaring up a passel of old tunes and saving them on wax ain't going to put victuals on this table come wintertime."
"They pay him cash money for his work," Meggie answered. "It's not like he's doing his collecting just simply for the pleasure of it."
"You'd best get that cash money from him and sew it into a mattress tick," Beulah Winsloe said. "Men ain't got no sense about currency."
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