Christy

by Catherine Marshall

  In the cold bedroom I set the lamp on the marbletop dresser, put my coat around my shoulders, and stood before one of the windows looking out at the village of El Pano. The moonlight was so bright that it had an artificial look, almost like a stage set I had seen at the Opera House back home. The houses were roofed with silver, the railroad tracks a pair of shining ribbons. The town seemed to be set in a saucer with snow-covered mountains on the two sides. I stood there wondering in what direction Cutter Gap lay.

  Why hadn’t someone from the school met me? Did they really need and want a teacher as much as Dr. Ferrand had said? Could Dr. Ferrand have gotten busy in Arkansas or at one of the other missions and even forgotten to tell them at the mission that I was coming? But I had had a letter from him. No, it couldn’t be that.

  I could feel the cold air seeping around the edges of the loose-hung window, and my fingers and toes were getting icy. I retreated into the room to the dresser and began taking the hairpins out of my hair, staring at my reflection. Eyes too big for the rest of my face, a little too serious, even a bit frightened, stared back at me. A face too thin, the hollows beneath the cheekbones shadowed by the lamplight. Too angular. For the millionth time, I wished I were beautiful like my friend Eileen back in Asheville.

  As the last hairpin was withdrawn, I tossed my head and my long hair came tumbling down around my shoulders. I picked up the hairbrush and began brushing vigorously.

  Pushing open the door of the General Store early the next morning, I was greeted first by smells: coal oil, strong cheese, leather, bacon fat, tobacco. In straight chairs and cowhide rockers a group of men were gathered around a roaring fire in a bumper stove. The whittling and the rocking left off as eyes followed my progress across the creaky floor. At the nearest counter a woman was arranging spools of thread in a cabinet under curving glass. “Excuse me . . .”

  “Yes?” The woman straightened up, looking at me curiously.

  “I was told that I might find Mr. Pentland, the mailman, here. Is he by any chance—one of those men there?” I inclined my head in the direction of the still silent group around the stove.

  The woman’s eyes swept the men. “Ben Pentland,” she called loudly, “com’here—willya?”

  A man looked up from the high boots he was lacing, grunted, and went on methodically crossing and tying the laces. At last he finished, then like a jackknife unfolded to well over six feet of man. As he ambled in our direction, I saw that he was wearing overalls over a gray shirt of some linsey-woolsey material carefully buttoned to the collar, then a frayed and unpressed suit coat on top of everything. But it was his face that was arresting. He had the look I would have expected to find in an English yeoman of Robin Hood’s time: a long slim face creased by wind and weather, a patrician nose, thin firm lips, eyes deep-set in their sockets with glints and lights in them, bushy arching eyebrows.

  “This here’s Ben Pentland, Miss—?”

  I stuck out a mittened hand. “Christy Huddleston from Asheville.”

  “Howdy.” He took my hand so firmly that I winced. “You’re the postman, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.” The tall mountaineer was not going to waste any words.

  “Could I talk with you a minute? Back there maybe?”

  The man looked surprised but followed me towards the back of the store where the hardware and the harnesses and saddles were. Around the stove the hum of conversation began again. “Mr. Pentland, I need help. I’ve come to teach school in Cutter Gap. I thought someone would meet me at the station yesterday, but nobody did. So I’m trying to find a way to get out to the Cove. Mrs. Tatum—you know, at the boarding house—said you could help me since you carry mail out there.”

  “Yep, carry the letters regular,” he said proudly. “But ain’t nobody been in or out the Cove since a couple days. Snow’s too deep.”

  “When are you going next?”

  “Startin’ now. That’s why I was gettin’ my boots on. Have to go. Letters are pilin’ up something fearful.”

  “Do you ride?”

  He looked astonished at my question. “In fine weather, shorely. But no critter could make it in this snow.”

  “How far is it, Mr. Pentland?”

  “Seven mile to Cutter Gap, good seven mile.”

  I hesitated, knowing that I’d never walked seven miles at one stretch in my life. But what did it matter? The snow might lie on the ground for a long time and I couldn’t sit in El Pano waiting for spring to come. “Could I walk out there with you today?” I asked impetuously.

  “Nope, too hard a walk for a city gal-woman.”

  He sounded so final that I felt desperate. “Mr. Pentland, you don’t understand. I’m strong, honestly I am, and the snow may last for weeks.”

  “Sorry, miss. Ain’t no use. It jest wouldn’t be fitten for a woman to go along with the U-nited States mail.” Abruptly, he took a step backwards, dramatically placing his hand over his heart as if to salute the flag. His voice rang out as he intoned, “ ‘Neither rain—nor snow—nor heat—nor gloom of night—will stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’ ”

  I stared at him, amazed. I had never heard this slogan before and at first I thought he might be making fun of me. But he was in dead earnest.

  “Beautiful, ain’t it! Just been told us by the gov-ment in Washington. Now looky here, I figure that if rain nor snow, nor none of those things are meant to stay us couriers, then we shorely can’t have no gal-woman stayin’ us.” And he turned to rejoin his companions in the front of the store.

  I ran after him. “Mr. Pentland, please. That’s a wonderful slogan. I promise that I won’t interfere with the mail one bit. I won’t even slow you down. I’m used to walking. Please? At least consider it?”

  The postman’s eyes seemed to be taking my measure. “Look, I don’t want to disencourage you, but it’s for your own good. It’s not nacherally easy a-walkin’ in the snow—” The eyes deep in their sockets were penetrating. “And what about your go-away satchel?”

  So he was weakening—a little. I leaped at the straw he held out. “I’ve only one small valise, Mr. Pentland, just—oh—that size. The rest of my things are coming by trunk. The valise wouldn’t be anything at all to carry. May I, may I come with you?” And I smiled at him, turning on all the feminine charm I could.

  “Wal—You stoppin’ at Mistress Tatum’s?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Kin you be ready in a hip and a hurry?”

  “Thirty minutes? . . . Ten?”

  He nodded—and grinned.

  “I’ll be ready.” And I ran out of the store.

  Twenty minutes later a still incredulous Mrs. Tatum was telling me good-bye on her front porch. Impulsively the big woman took my face between her hands, kissed first one cheek, then the other. “That’s for your mother. And you let her know that I did my level best to send you home to her. Don’t forget though, that I’ve got good broad shoulders. Just dandy cryin’ posts they are, if ever ye need cryin’ posts.”

  She held me off at arm’s length looking at me. Under my coat I was wearing the red sweater mother had knitted for me; on my head was a matching turban.

  “You’re a sight on the eyes,” Mrs. Tatum said approvingly. “I’ll bet my last sixpence they don’t know what they’re getting out at that mission. They’ve never seen the likes of you before.”

  Mr. Pentland, standing out on the edge of the road, was obviously embarrassed at all this female fuss and eager to get started. I heard him say almost under his breath, “Blatherskite wimmin!” So I cut the good-bye as short as I could. As I turned to go down the steps, Mrs. Tatum thrust a brown paper bag into my hands. “No good walkin’ on an empty stummick,” she explained a little self-consciously.

  “But—how did you get it together so quickly?”

  “Now, just a little snack is all, somethin’ to keep you and Ben goin’. Away with ye—” Then she waved us down the road, calling after me, “Mind ye watch th
em slippery log-bridges over the creeks! The Lord bless ye and keep ye, child.”

  Her kindness was a good omen, I thought. It was remarkable that Mrs. Tatum had not shown any resentment over my refusing her advice. And now here was Mr. Pentland not only letting me go with him, but good-naturedly carrying my valise along with his mail pack. Still, he wanted me to know that he meant business, so he was setting a brisk pace.

  For the first half mile or so just the other side of El Pano there was a wide, well-traveled lane which many feet had packed into a hard white roadbed. One side was bordered by a row of giant spruces, black against the snow, their shadows long in the morning light.

  For no reason at all the white fields on either side of the narrowing lane reminded me of the top of one of my mother’s devil food cakes, thickly covered with white frosting. I remembered my child’s-eye view when I had been just tall enough on tiptoe to be eye level with the cake: that expanse of snowy white icing, glazing over where it was beginning to harden; the little wavy lines in it, so unsullied before any small fingers had sneaked bits off here and there.

  Beyond those fields frosted with white, were the foothills, and beyond them, the mountains. A golden glow rimmed the easternmost range, and over the far mountains hung a soft smoky-blue mantle, but in the valley through which we were walking the sky was clear blue.

  Could it have been only yesterday that I had stood beside the tracks at the El Pano station and disconsolately watched the train from Asheville disappear over the horizon? Now Mr. Pentland seemed almost to have forgotten me, so that I was having more and more trouble keeping up with his long, loose-jointed strides. Finally he noticed. “Reckon I’d better whittle my walk down a mite,” he said. “You’ll be nippety-tuck to keep up with me.” Then he added generously, “Wimmin’s skirts ain’t the best for snow. We can jest take hit easy-like.”

  There was a natural dignity and an innate courtesy about this man that I instinctively liked. His speech was peppered with expressions so quaint that it was like another language: “the sunball” . . . “afeard” . . . “mought.” Twilight, he called “the aidge of dark,” and I smiled, remembering his “blatherskite wimmin” for Mrs. Tatum and me. “What’s your first mail stop, Mr. Pentland?”

  “Beck’s mailbox is first. I’ve got one letter for them.” He patted the mail pouch swinging at his side. “I can see it’s from Mistress Beck’s aunt in Jonesboro. Her littlest settin’-along child’s been poorly for some time. Guess she’s a-lettin’ Mistress Beck know the news. Their mailbox is just the other side of the Big Mud Hole.”

  “Aren’t all mud holes frozen in this kind of weather?” I asked.

  “Shorely. Only this ain’t just any old mud hole. This is the Mud Hole. In the spring it’s a sight to behold. Wagons sink right up to their axles and mules might just as well be tryin’ to hoof it through sorghum.”

  “Sorghum? What’s sorghum?”

  “Wal-l-l, molasses.”

  “Oh, I see. Well then, why don’t the roadmen fix the hole?”

  “Ain’t no roadmen. We have to manpower the roads ourselves. Every vig-rous man is supposed to work three days a year keepin’ the roads in repair. But Hell’s Banjer! Soon’s road-mendin’ time comes, most of the men has creeled their backs or their knees or they’re hurtin’ somewhere. Seems like it’s always ill-convenient to work for Tennessee. So the Big Mud Hole gets worser and worser each spring. That’s it yan—just up there.”

  We walked in silence for a while. Then came the first mail delivery at Beck’s. But I was still full of questions. “Mr. Pentland, how many families live around the Cutter Gap section?”

  The mailman thought a moment. “Jedgmatically, I don’t know. Maybe ’bout seventy.”

  “Most of the people farm, don’t they? What crops? What do they raise?”

  “Raise young’uns mostly,” he answered drily, his face never changing expression.

  “And do most of these children go to the mission school?”

  “Wal-l, hit depends. Not all of ’em got religion, and if’n some families go to the school, then there’s others just p’int blank won’t go near it. But most everyone seems to like the new preacher, David Grantland. He’s got good wind in the pulpit and can shore tote a tune.”

  I wanted to know more about David Grantland. “Has he been at the mission long?”

  “Naw—near about three months. He’s from somewhere up north—”

  “Is he married?”

  “No-o-o—” Mr. Pentland looked at me and chuckled. Abruptly I changed the subject. “Tell me, do you know Miss Alice Henderson?”

  “Shorely. Everybody in the Gap knows Miz Henderson.”

  “What’s she like? What does she look like?”

  The mountaineer shifted my satchel to his other hand, took his time about answering. “Miz Henderson’s gettin’ up thar—not so young now. But she’s a pert ’un—dauncy.” He chortled, a soft low chuckle that seemed to come from deep within him. “Tangy as an unripe persimmon, matter of fact. Rides a horse all over the mountains by herself. Sidesaddle, longskirt. Sits like a queen in that saddle. Gallops too, oft as not.

  “Right high-stocked with brains. Started two schools and churches before our’n. Keeps busier than a honeybee ’round a rosey-bush—a-teachin’, a-preachin’, visitin’ folks, nursin’ the sick, a-comfortin’ the dyin’.

  “She’s a smiley woman. All her wrinkles are smile-wrinkles. Has a heap o’ hair, light hair, leetle gray in it now. Wears her hair in braids that she folds round and round her head, like—like a crown.”

  And I had thought Mr. Pentland a man of few words! Somehow I had had him figured wrong. I had judged this mountain man simple perhaps because of his speech and because he had not had much formal education.

  The postman had now reached his second delivery spot. “Mornin’,” he called loudly. “Mail. United States mail.”

  As we walked on down the road I saw over my shoulder a woman with a woolen fascinator over her head coming to get the precious letter.

  “Is that sack full of mail?” I asked him, curious to know how many stops we were going to have.

  “Four more letters. Ain’t that a wonder!”

  “But back at the store you said—” I caught myself, then walked in silence trying to grasp this mountain world where six letters were “piled-up mail”!

  At last I returned to the subject I could never stay away from long: the compelling figure of Alice Henderson. “Mrs. Tatum said that Miss Henderson’s sort of—different. Do you think so?”

  “Aye, she’s different. That she is.”

  I waited expectantly, but apparently he was not going to explain further. “How?” I prodded. “Tell me how Miss Henderson is different.”

  “Talks about God lovin’ folks.” His answer came slowly. “ ‘God wants us all happy,’ she’s always a-sayin’. I could most believe it watching her. She don’t put no stock in long-faced persons even when they think they’ve got religion.” He laughed softly to himself, remembering something. “Like Christmas—In the mountains we shoot rifle-guns up chimneys and blow up tree stumps to celebrate. Last Christmas Miz Henderson said she had a better idea, so she sent to Philadelfy for a big box of boughten fireworks. Had a play-party for everybody. My, but them fireworks was shorely a sight to behold.”

  An angel of mercy on horseback with a box of firecrackers in her saddlebag. My picture of Miss Henderson was more and more intriguing.

  Then the trail began winding upwards and soon became so narrow that we had to walk single file and further conversation was impossible. Because the snow had obliterated the path, I had to walk in Mr. Pentland’s tracks. But the mountaineer seemed to know exactly where he was going. For the first hour and a half the walking had not been bad, but we had delivered three letters. But here in this defile it was colder. My eyes were watering, my cheeks stinging. I could no longer feel my toes inside my rubber boots. My skirts, wet almost to my knees, were now half-frozen. The chill air caught in my th
roat. Even my eyelashes were beaded with wet snow.

  Off to the left I heard a strange noise. “Mr. Pentland,” I called to him. “What’s that sawing noise off there?”

  “That ain’t sawin’. That’s ravens. They can make themselves sound like most anything. Ravens don’t pleasure me none. Not a-tall.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re mean. Like nothin’ better than to pick out the eye of a lamb or a fawn.”

  “You mean when they find a dead one?”

  “Naw. Hits the eye of livin’ animals they like.”

  I shivered. The sawing noise had changed to a cackle, then to what sounded like a buzz saw. We walked a long way before we left the sound behind us.

  At last we were at the bottom of the hill over which we had been climbing. Here in the valley were different kinds of bird sounds: the gobble of wild turkeys, the drumming of grouse. Holly trees, thick with red berries, stood in a clump in the clearing. From the top of the hill the valley had looked small, but I was discovering that distances in these mountains were deceptive. It took us a long time to cross the bottom land, and as we walked I could hear coming closer and closer the sound of rushing, tumultuous water.

  Then we reached the edge of a large creek, and I saw that there was no real bridge across it, only a makeshift affair of two huge uneven logs with an occasional thin board nailed across. The whole contraption swayed precariously six feet or more high in the air above the water. So this was what Mrs. Tatum had meant about slippery logs. I looked down at my boots and at my skirt, the mass of wet cloth clinging to my ankles. If only the logs were not so far above the water, and if only they had put the two logs closer together.

  Mr. Pentland said, “I’ll go first to see if hits slippery-like. Then you’d better stomp your feet and get warm before you try it.” He shifted the mail pouch to the middle of his back, took a firmer grip on my valise, and paused to scrape his feet on the edge of the bridge.

  My eyes were on his feet. Halfway across he paused. Below him the water sprayed over the boulders in the middle of the stream where it was not frozen. He called back, “Hit ain’t bad. Wait until I get acrost though, so you won’t get no sway.”