Enlightenment shone on Mrs. Pitts’ round face. “Ah. I suppose that explains your guests.”
“It does, yes. I’m marrying their father.”
Finally, she focused on the children and gave them a surprisingly warm smile. “And who do I have the pleasure to meet today?”
Elijah held his hand out. “Elijah Moses Walker, ma’am. From Cable’s Holler.”
She took his hand and gave it a sturdy shake, as if he were a grown man. “It’s very good to meet you, Mr. Walker. I am Mrs. Edna Eugenia Pitts. And who is this young beauty?”
Bluebird ducked behind Ada’s skirt. She wasn’t a naturally shy child, but the harried pace of Callwood had rattled her.
“Bluebird, sweetheart, Mrs. Pitts is a friend. It’s alright.”
Mrs. Pitts bent forward, bringing her short, hefty body close to the girl’s. “Bluebird. What a lovely name.” She held out her hand.
“Bluebird Hope Walker,” Bluebird muttered, but didn’t take the offered hand.
“Well, that’s doubly beautiful. A perfect name for such a beautiful girl.” She stood straight and exchanged her offer of a handshake with an understanding smile. She lifted the same smile to Ada. “I don’t imagine why it would be a problem for you to start your mornings at the top of the mountain. I’m pleased for you, Ada. You are too young to have spent the rest of your life in mourning.”
Jonah was anxious to return to Cable’s Holler. He’d been away nearly two weeks, and had left the state of his homestead to the Cummings boys—a greater trust than he’d extended to anyone in years, possibly ever.
Bluebird was anxious to go home as well. She missed her little goat, Lulubelle, and her little bluebird toy, the one Ada had made for her not quite a year before. And she missed her quiet little realm where she was princess.
Ada had begun her route just a few weeks shy of one year ago. In that time, it seemed she’d lived at least one full lifetime.
She was anxious to move up the mountain, too, and begin her next lifetime. Her mother was anxious to return to her roots and leave the troubles of this world behind.
Only Elijah seemed torn. He wasn’t reluctant to go home, exactly, but of the three Walkers, he was the only one who found the busier, more advanced life lived down here fascinating.
His father faced the differences warily, still jumping every time a car or truck rolled over the gravel road, still wincing when the electric lights went on, as if they were as bright as the sun itself. He said the faint hum of the power, which Ada heard only when he mentioned it, gave him a headache and made him tense.
Bluebird was frightened by nearly everything different. Bubbly and irrepressible at home, here in Barker’s Creek, she hid behind Jonah’s or Ada’s legs upon every new encounter, or curled up in Grammy Bess’s lap and buried her head.
Grammy Bess. Ada had loved these children as if they were her own since before Jonah had truly noticed her, or she him. Even so, and even after she had begun to dream of being their mother, being Jonah’s woman, she hadn’t realized what that would mean for her mother. To be a grandmother, finally. To have little ones to love. Having Elijah and Bluebird here had reclaimed Ada’s mother from the jaws of grief and hopelessness. She had been willing herself to die, to follow her husband and end her troubles. Now she was planning a new life.
Jonah coming down the mountain when he did, on the day he had, when her mother had been grieving so hard she’d made herself ill with it, and when Ada had felt the farthest reaches of her own despair—for the rest of her life, every day she lived, Ada would thank God for him, for bringing him and his children down to save them. To give them hope in the depth of their loss. To fill up lives that had gone empty. To bring them love.
In her job, as Mrs. Pitts so loved to say, Ada carried the world up the mountain. Jonah had carried it back down to her. And they would keep it with them wherever they were.
Ada and Jonah were married in her home church, in a tiny ceremony with only Doc Dollens as a guest and their official witness. Otherwise, only their family and the preacher were present. They invited no one else in Barker’s Creek. Whether it was fair or not, Ada was stung by the gossip, and the way they’d all sided with Chancey, and how they’d all decided Jonah had tainted her.
Jonah wore the suit the doctor had lent him for the funeral and then simply given him for the wedding, so Ada was able to tailor it to fit a bit better. The children wore the clothes they wore to the funeral as well. Ada wore her best dress, the one George had bought her in a wild splurge. She’d been able to clean away from its fabric all signs of the wreck with Chancey.
She thought—no, she knew—George would be happy for her. All he’d ever wanted was her happiness. In his life, he’d worked every day to give her some small moment of joy, and he’d never failed. She knew he was looking down now and feeling glad. She’d given her heart to a man who was almost nothing like him, except in that: their care of her.
The ceremony was over in scant minutes, hardly a ceremony at all. But the words had been said, and that was all that mattered. After the papers were signed, they invited Doc Dollens over for a nice supper.
And that was Ada’s, and Jonah’s, second wedding day. Quiet. Humble. And perfect.
They loaded the wagon with kitchen goods, clothes and linens, books. They crated the chickens and loaded them on, and they loaded all the feed and a few haybales as well. Jonah selected a few hand tools he could use. They meant to bring Polly, the younger of their cows.
Everything else, including the farm itself, they’d walk away from.
The wagon wouldn’t go all the way to Cable’s Holler. It was too wide to get even as far as Red Fern Holler, but they had hope to ask for help from their friends and neighbors to haul things by horse, cart, and hand the rest of the way. Jonah was reticent about asking for favors he didn’t know how he’d repay, but Ada understood better about neighbors, and knew there would always be chances to return kindnesses done.
In that spirit, despite her newly conflicted feelings about the neighbors she’d lived with most of her life, Ada didn’t protest when her mother wanted to invite them all over to take what they wanted of the things they hadn’t packed up in the wagon. Early on the Monday morning they meant to head up the mountain, Ada and her family watched her neighbors come to them, nearly all at once, streaming toward the house on foot, on horseback, by wagon, by truck.
Some of those people had run Jonah off their property on the end of a rifle only two weeks before. All of them had sided with Chancey barely more than a week before.
Jonah kept his distance. He stayed close enough to be there should Ada or her mother need him, but far enough that he wasn’t convenient for people to disrespect him—or, for that matter, to apologize, should they be so inclined.
But when Chancey’s truck rolled through the gate, suddenly Jonah was at her side.
She patted his arm. “It’s alright. His momma’s with him. He’ll behave.”
Jonah only growled, a deep rumble in his chest, and Ada couldn’t help but chuckle to herself.
Mrs. Maclaren was a nice woman, who’d been good to Ada all her life, and a good friend to her mother as well. She’d been at her father’s funeral, but Chancey was her son, so Ada gave her more leeway to take up for him.
Ada took a step toward them, meaning to greet Mrs. Maclaren and take her to her mother, but Jonah caught her hand.
She turned. “It’s alright, Jonah.”
“I don’t want him close to you.”
“We’re leaving soon, and then he never will be again. His mother has been good to us. Momma will want to talk with her.”
His dark eyes flashing, he gave her a curt nod and let her go.
When Ada went toward the Maclarens, Chancey’s eyes skidded off to the side. She didn’t know whether that was shame or contempt, but she didn’t rightly care. She went to his mother and held out her hand. “Mizz Birdie. How are you this mornin’?”
Mrs. Maclaren smiled and took Ada�
��s hand warmly. “Well, Ada, I’m feelin’ a mite blue. I can’t hardly reckon you and your momma bein’ away from us.”
“Come talk to Momma. She’ll want to say goodbye.”
Chancey’s mother turned to her boy. “Don’t you git up to no trouble, Chancey Maclaren. B’have yourself today of all days.” She turned back to Ada. “We ain’t here to take nothin’, Ada. Don’t feel right. I jus’ wanna see to your momma is all.”
Ada turned her attention to Chancey, who still wasn’t looking at her. Adding weight to her tone, she said, “Don’t worry, Mizz Birdie. Chancey didn’t drive us away. He couldn’t. It’s just time for us to start off new.” She turned back to his mother. “Is there anything you might need? He can look around if there’s something that could be a help to you.”
“No, I don’t think so. But you’re a dear. Chancey, wait at the truck.”
Ada felt an unseemly portion of bitter satisfaction as Chancey shambled back and climbed onto the hood of his truck.
She glanced in Jonah’s direction and saw the same feeling quirking the side of his mouth.
When their neighbors were gone and they and their possessions were loaded and rolling through the gates of the place she’d been born, Ada didn’t look back.
Home wasn’t a place.
Home was people.
Home was all around her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“’Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak,’” Ada read, and looked up to scan the rapt faces of her audience. “’Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instance, the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse’”—she struck key words with eerie emphasis, and each time, the children gasped—“’already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!’”
Aside from a few more stunned gasps and cries, her audience was silent and still as Ada closed the book: Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe. “The Black Cat” was her favorite story to read during the month of October, as a teacher and as a librarian. More than any other of Poe’s stories, it captivated a wide range of audiences. She refrained from sharing such a chilling tale with very young children, but from about eight on, they seemed well capable of enjoying the story without being unduly frightened by it.
The children and young people of Red Fern Holler sat with their eyes wide, absorbing the shocking end of the tale. Behind them, an array of their parents were equally overcome. Her audience included Elijah and Bluebird, and Jonah and Momma, too. They almost always came when she went to Red Fern for their regular ‘book meeting.’ Jonah had built a small cart Momma could sit safely on and he could pull so she could get down the mountain this far.
Virtually all the people her mother had known here were dead and buried, but their families remained, and the memory of her family was yet keen. She had rediscovered her people among their descendants, and had found a community of neighbors and friends among them. Jonah and Ada came down to Red Fern Holler with Momma and the children almost every week now, but the book meeting happened as part of her route, on the schedule she’d established, and her family met her here on these days.
After allowing a moment for her story’s desired effect to be felt, she set the closed book on her lap and folded her hands on its cover. “What is the lesson we can take from this story?”
“Before you wall up somebody, check for cats!” the newly gruff voice of one of the teen boys called out, and a ripple of laughter went through the older members of her audience.
She laughed. “That’s one lesson, I reckon, Jeb Smith. What’s a better one?”
“Stay away from liquor!” said KayLynn Dickerson.
“That’s a better one, yes. Good, KayLynn! Any others?”
“Be nice to kitties!” Bluebird said from her seat up front. “He was mean!”
“Yes, Bluebird. He was mean.”
“Not mean—he were crazy,” said another voice, but Ada didn’t see who it was.
“Crazy and mean ain’t so different.”
Suddenly, her audience was scattering. The children were miming scary cats, and the older folks were arguing about the theme of the story. Ada leaned back and watched, well pleased. This was what books could do, were meant to do: not only tell a story or impart information but build, grow, strengthen community. They were meant to be shared.
There had been some consternation among the older people in her audience when the story began to get dark. KayLynn’s father had wondered aloud if it was a godly kind of story. Ada had asked for trust, and been given it. She could hear among the various conversations how those who wanted a godly story had found it in Poe’s words. A cautionary tale about the wages of sin. Others had enjoyed a scary, suspenseful story. No one was wrong.
Jonah, still not one to engage in lively discussions except with his special people, and even then only occasionally, had stood back and watched. Now, he walked around the scattering group and came to her.
Standing at her side, he set his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Ever’day, you amaze me. You are an angel, Ada Walker. Nothin’ less.”
Ada rested her cheek on her man’s hand and was content.
Ada rode Henrietta to the barn and dismounted. The last of the autumn sunlight washed across the top of the holler, but it was dusk here at the bottom. This was the latest she ever was with this new route, riding down the mountain and back up. She’d cleaved a total of near twenty miles of traveling a week simply by not riding all the way to and from Barker’s Creek. This route took her to Red Fern Holler every day, because that was the trail head to reach home, and that was a convenience as well. Today, she’d stopped at the Cummings to warm up for a few minutes and had left with a basket of pumpkin muffins and sweet-potato tarts.
There was one new challenge to her work, now that she lived in Cable’s Holler, and the reason she was home at dusk tonight: getting to Callwood for the monthly meeting couldn’t be accomplished in a day. She had to stay overnight in town. Jonah didn’t like that, but one of the other librarians, Mrs. Galway, had a sister who ran a ladies’ rooming house, safe and bright and tidy, so she took a room there one night a month—a clean bed, a hot supper, and a cold breakfast for twenty-five cents.
Ada enjoyed this monthly trip. She got to see her colleagues, to work together with them and discuss their joys and challenges, and she was able to do a bit of shopping and pick up a little something for each of the people she loved.
The bank had claimed her parents’ farm, but it didn’t matter. That place had been nothing but a burden for years, and her father had been killed there. They were blessed to be free of it.
Now, living in Jonah’s family home, a humble place but free of debt, and with her work as a librarian, they had ease none of them had known before. They didn’t need her wages to live; Jonah had forged a whole life on nearly no money at all, and she had skills to add to that endeavor. The great bulk of her wages they saved, against the day when times might prove even harder and needs greater. But she could afford a few luxuries, like books and magazines for the children, and nice yarns for her mother, fabrics for a few pieces of new clothes, and good shoes for them all.
Circumstances would change again, hopefully fairly soon, but this time the changes would be their plan, and they would be prepared. When June Avery was married and forced to leave her teaching post, Ada meant to free up her librarian position for her.
Because she and Jonah wanted more children, and she couldn’t ride her route long while she carried a child.
But she already had an idea how she’d help keep her family secure and keep herself fulfilled when that time came.
She lit the lantern
, then unsaddled Henrietta and brushed her down. At her back, the house was quiet, but she knew it bustled in the front room. The scent of a good dinner wafted up the stovepipe.
Hen nickered as Ada combed her forelock.
“Yes, I agree. We have a lovely new life.” She led her horse into the barn. Jonah had built onto it first thing after they’d arrived home. Now there were three fully enclosed stalls, for Henrietta, and Petal and Polly, the dairy cows. The goats had an improved pen as well, and the chicken coop had been expanded to house a doubling of their flock. Jonah’s young rooster, Junior, was pretty proud of himself with such a big harem of ladies to call his own.
Before she doused the lantern, Ada stood at the barn door and watched the serene animals, nibbling quietly at their greens or slumping calmly off to sleep.
She blew out the flame and picked up her saddlebags and the basket from the Cummings.
Jonah met her at the side of the house. “Hey, darlin’,” he murmured and took her load from her and set it on the ground. His arms wrapped her fully, and she looped her her arms around his neck. As he claimed her mouth and she claimed his, he lifted her feet off the ground, and Ada wrapped her legs around his waist. This had become their greeting, and Ada could hardly believe she’d ever thought this freedom to love and desire completely had been anything less than magnificent.
She was dizzy when he set her back down.
His panting breath skimmed her face as he kissed her forehead. “We missed you.”
“I missed you. I’m glad to be home.”
“Good trip?” He bent and picked up her packs.
“Very good. We got a large donation of brand-new books in. I’ve got some with me. And I bought the children each a new book of their own as well.”
They walked onto the porch. The front windows blazed with light, and Ada stopped for a moment to enjoy the view. The new curtains she’d made hung open along the sides, and she watched her family busily laying the table for supper. Bluebird set a stack of plates—from their kitchen in Barker’s Creek—on the table covered with a tablecloth Ada’s mother had made years ago, and Ada’s mother set the plates at each person’s place, moving from the memory she’d made of her new home and its contents.
Carry the World Page 27
