Still House Pond

by Jan Watson

  Lilly giggled. “You’re ever so much fun. I’m so glad Mama let me come.”

  “Just you remember to stay close to me or Cara. Don’t go wandering off by yourself.”

  “Mama’s already given me that speech,” Lilly said. “I’ll be watching Merky anyway.”

  “That will keep you out of trouble for sure,” Manda said. “Merky’s a live wire.”

  The wagon hit a hole in the roadbed. Lilly bounced. Manda’s encircling arm kept her safely seated.

  “You know, Manda, I’m good with children.”

  Manda chuckled. Lilly was such a serious child. “You are that.”

  As soon as they got inside the schoolhouse, Manda let the crowd swallow her up. Lilly would be fine with the rest of the Whitt family. Dance and Ace and their passel of kids had come also. She wouldn’t spend much time with them. She and Dance were never close. Dance was way older than Manda, and she never seemed to warm up to Manda. Truthfully, all Manda really liked about her sister was her name. Why couldn’t she have been named Dance instead of Dory?

  The crowd was thick on the dance floor and lined two or three deep along the walls. Box suppers and dances always brought people from all over. It was a good way to meet new folks. Manda’s feet twitched to the music as she elbowed over to the maids’ table with her decorated pasteboard box chock-full of fried chicken, potato salad, and dried apple pie. The table was dubbed the young maids’ table to keep from hurting feelings. Only eligible women participated in the box auction—young maids verging on being old maids like Manda. Wives and mothers brought food for their families. But maybe if the right person bid on her box tonight, this would be her last year at the spinsters’ table. Manda was ever hopeful.

  The auctioneer stood behind the table, picking his teeth with a broom straw and lifting one box lid after another. “What you got there, Miss Manda?” he asked. As soon as she put her supper on the table, he pried the corner up. “Well, well, fried chicken and still warm.” The broom straw bobbed in the corner of his mouth. “I just might have to save this one for last and bid on it myself.”

  Manda cringed. Joe Little must be forty years old, and he was bald to boot. Not to mention he was a widower with eight kids. Manda didn’t aim to take on that job. From the corner of her eye, she saw a boy sidle up to a second table, where delicious-looking cakes waited for the cakewalk. She watched as the boy ran his finger around the bottom of a caramel-iced confection. When he saw Manda watching, he popped his finger into his mouth and walked away.

  “Better mind the cakes, Mr. Little,” she said.

  A tap on her shoulder and she was waltzed away by Gurney. “You sure look nice, Manda,” he said.

  Nice? she thought. Sisters looked nice. Mothers looked nice. Even grandmothers looked nice. Manda wanted to be beautiful—or at the very least pretty. She held her body stiffly in Gurney’s arms. He didn’t seem to notice.

  Dimmert and Cara danced by. Cara raised her eyebrows.

  Manda shook her head in answer. No, no sparks yet.

  “What?” Gurney asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Not a thing,” Manda snapped.

  “I can’t wait until the auction,” he said. “My belly’s rumbling for your dried apple pie.”

  The song ended, and one of the musicians stepped forward, teasing a fast tune from his fiddle. Gurney turned to face the crowd and started clogging, heel-toe, heel-toe, emphasizing the downbeat of the music. Soon other folks fell in until a line stretched clear across the room. Some danced with eyes closed, and some slapped their knees in perfect time, energized by the percussive rhythm.

  Manda’s feet started up a little jig. It was hard to ignore the music. Gurney smiled and ran a set around her, his knees bent, his arms folded behind his back. Swishing her skirts, she matched him fancy step for fancy step. The other cloggers fell out until it was just she and Gurney facing each other, performing the time-honored dance to whoops and whistles from the crowd.

  The fiddler rocked the bow, burning up the strings. Gurney leaned in as if to steal a kiss. She leaned back. The crowd roared with laughter. Manda loved it. She could dance all night.

  It was over Gurney’s shoulder she first noticed the musician. He was a middling sort of guy—middling height, middling weight, and brown hair, nothing special except for his eyes, which were locked on her. She looked away and then looked back. He never broke his stare. Flustered, she lost a step.

  Laughing, Gurney caught her hand. Wild applause broke out. Manda and Gurney bowed like actors on a stage.

  The mood of the crowd shifted abruptly when the middling man took up a small, slender, three-stringed music box and strummed it like a guitar. The other pickers stood silently behind him. Nobody danced to the strains of “Pretty Polly.” Most just stood in place and swayed in time to the middling man’s high, lonesome voice. He sang of a girl murdered by her faithless boyfriend, an innocent girl who now lay silent in her grave with only the wild wind for comfort.

  Gurney chanced to slide an arm around her shoulders. She wished he wouldn’t.

  The middling man closed his eyes as if his song were a prayer. His voice was pure as an angel’s. When he finished, nobody clapped or hooted or hollered. Many women dabbed at their eyes, and several men cleared their throats. Manda was mesmerized. She didn’t notice when Gurney took his arm away.

  The auctioneer broke the spell when he called for the auctioning of the maids’ boxes.

  The musicians leaned their instruments against the wall. Two men stepped off the stage and headed for the door. The middling man rolled a cigarette.

  Lilly and Jay, Dance’s eldest son, appeared at Manda’s side. They were going to eat with her and whoever bid the most for her box supper.

  The children clutched at her, pulling her toward the maids’ table. Manda looked over her shoulder and saw the middling man strike a match on the sole of his shoe to light his smoke. He squinted with his first puff. Was he still looking at her? Her hands trembled inside the children’s clasp. What if he bought her box? Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Aunt Manda,” Jay said, “look, the auctioneer’s holding up your parcel. Reckon who will buy it?”

  “Everybody knows Gurney Jasper will,” Lilly said. “He’s Manda’s beau. Right, Manda?”

  Manda didn’t answer.

  When the auctioneer called for bids on her supper, nary a soul bid against Gurney. After he claimed his prize, Gurney selected one of the school desks pushed up against the back wall and spread the supper across its top. Lilly and Jay took a chicken leg each. Gurney smiled so big that mustard-style potato salad spilled from the corner of his mouth. Manda handed him one of the red- and white-checked napkins she’d ironed this morning. He wiped his mouth on one corner.

  “This here will put a man in hog heaven,” Gurney said.

  Manda split a biscuit for the children. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “What’s not to like? Say, you ain’t et a bite.”

  Manda’s emotions churned like the butter she spread on the biscuit. She couldn’t wait for the music to resume. All she wanted was to watch the middling man again.

  When they had finished supper, Cara came over and claimed the children. “Gurney asked permission from Dimmert to see you home,” she whispered in Manda’s ear. “Don’t worry about Lilly. I’ll take care of her. You have some fun.”

  So she was supposed to jump at the chance to ride home with Gurney? It was just taken for granted? Says who? Then again, Dimmert and Cara were likely to leave earlier than Gurney. If she let him take her home, she could stay until the very end of the dance like the other young folks would do. This could work in her favor. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Sounds like they’re starting the cakewalk,” Cara said with a tinge of excitement. “I hope my chocolate cake brings a lot of money. I think the school board’s buying maps of the world for the students with the proceeds.” She squeezed Manda’s shoulder. “See you later.”

  Manda always enjoy
ed cakewalks. It was lots of fun watching.

  Gurney nudged her. “See that cake at the end of the table? The widow Sparrow always brings one.”

  “It looks like a fruitcake,” Manda said.

  “It is a Christmas cake—leftover that is. One year my pa bid on it out of kindness. We used it for a doorstop.”

  Manda laughed. “You did not.”

  Gurney held his right hand aloft. “Upon my honor.”

  After several rounds of heavy bidding on all manner of confections, Mrs. Sparrow’s doorstop cake was the only one remaining. Manda was interested to see what would happen. Who would take pity on the poor widow this time?

  Joe Little looked at the cake. He looked at Mrs. Sparrow. “I believe I’ll buy this one myself,” he said, bringing his gavel down with a smack.

  Soon Mrs. Sparrow will be baking cakes for a passel of young’uns, Manda surmised. Better her than me.

  The fun picked up as the evening progressed. By nine o’clock most of the families with children had gone and many of the old folks as well. Manda danced every dance. She had no idea there were so many unattached men around. It would be better if Gurney would stop cutting in, but he wasn’t a man to take a hint. She didn’t mind too much though, for Gurney was easy to maneuver toward the stage, which was where she really wanted to be. If it was true you could talk with your eyes, then she was talking, and by all accounts the middling man was listening.

  An hour later, the last dance—a slow, sweet waltz—was announced. Gurney pulled her into a tight embrace. She didn’t protest but laid her head on his shoulder and let him be her guide. She had never been this close to a grown man before. An odd sense of power, her power over him, startled her and she pulled back a bit. Was this strange feeling the “feminine wiles” she read about in the ladies’ magazines? If so, she needed to be careful lest she entice Gurney. She’d read about that too—enticing. It could get you into trouble and ruin your reputation quick as a cat’s sneeze.

  Besides, she didn’t want to waste those wiles. The magazine didn’t say how long they lasted, and she might want to try them out again sometime—say on the middling man.

  8

  Copper felt guilty as she rode Chessie across the forest floor. The little girls had pitched a fit when she left, and it was wash day. But instead of scrubbing grass stains from the knees of Jack’s trousers or starching the girls’ Sunday dresses, she was off on a lark. Well, maybe not a lark, but she was out of the house. When she left, Manda was separating whites from darks while Remy was building a fire under the washtub. Lilly was charged with keeping her brother and sisters out from underfoot, a task she was very good at. It made Copper wonder if Lilly might be a schoolteacher one day.

  Chessie paused at the edge of a pond. She was a cautious mare and wouldn’t venture into the water unless Copper strongly urged her to. Copper dismounted. The still water reflected the blue sky and a few white buttermilk clouds. It was wide, but it didn’t seem deep. Water could fool the eye, however. They could go around, but stands of silver tulip tree saplings banked the pool, and besides, Chessie needed to learn to deal with the fear of losing her footing.

  It hadn’t happened yet, but there was sure to come a day when both horse and rider would need to cross a swollen body of water to get to a patient up some holler or another. This area was notorious for violent flooding, especially in the spring and in the winter when snowmelt turned quietly meandering creeks into lethal rivers. Copper should know—many years ago her own mother had drowned in one such flood.

  She picked up a good-size rock and lobbed it to the center of the pool. It hit bottom with a plunk and a smallish splash. A frog with legs like bouncing springs jumped from the water’s edge, startling both her and Chessie. Crouching down, Copper watched skimmer bugs skate across the surface of the water. It was amazing how creation worked. This newly formed pool was already a home for some of God’s most fascinating creatures.

  Copper stood and took a crudely drawn map from her pocket and studied it. If she kept following Goose Creek for about two miles, veered left at the big rock, then right at the bent sycamore, she’d wind up at the Mortons’. At least that was what Mr. Morton’s X marks the spot indicated. Maybe she should pray there was only one big rock on this trail. She hefted herself into the saddle, then urged Chessie on.

  Mr. Morton had called John aside in the churchyard yesterday to ask his permission for Copper to call on his wife. Mr. Morton didn’t attend their church, but he knew where to find John on a Sunday morning. Copper was a little aggravated that he hadn’t asked for her directly. John didn’t tell her what she could or couldn’t do. The man was respectful, though, tipping his hat when John introduced them and answering her questions thoughtfully.

  Evidently, Mrs. Morton had lost three babies in the past. Mr. Morton told Copper he had heard from kin about the lady who caught babies on Troublesome Creek and so had come in search of her. It was a smart move on his part and unusual. Most folks still waited until labor was well under way to seek help.

  Copper prided herself on making some inroads into that old-fashioned way of doing things. Generally it was another woman who told her of a sister or a daughter or a friend who was newly in the family way. Copper would take the information and start preconfinement visits. People were learning they could trust her, except for the Stills. She could stand in the middle of the week and see both ways to Sunday on that one.

  The Stills had a right to be upset. The law, under the direction of a traveling nurse with the state board of health located in Bowling Green, had forced Adie Still to leave her family, after all. But as Copper saw it, the Stills’ anger was futile and misdirected. It was not her fault, nor the law’s, that Adie had an active, contagious disease. It was nobody’s fault that the traveling nurse, backed up by the sheriff, did not believe Adie could be properly quarantined from her family unless she left that family. Adie’s husband, Isa, had a reputation and it was not a good one. The only neighbor he had not feuded with over property lines or straying livestock was John.

  Naively, Copper had thought she could help the whole family by providing a safe place for Adie until the baby was born. She had imagined herself taking care of Adie and her household until Adie had her baby and regained her strength. So she volunteered the little house and her services, but the Stills were not appreciative. Clannish people, Copper mused. Though they had lived on Troublesome Creek as long as she could remember, she had rarely seen them.

  One day in late April when she was shopping at the dry goods store in town, she’d spotted Adie through the store’s plate-glass window. Her husband walked ahead of her, a long-handled pistol in a holster on his hip, a row of silver-tipped bullets on the belt. The oldest boy walked shoulder to shoulder with his father. The barrel of the boy’s shotgun pointed toward the ground. Adie, with a sack of sugar on her shoulder and a five-pound bucket of lard in her hand, struggled to keep up. A string of stairstep children followed her like ducks. Adie was obviously expectant. She was carrying the baby high, and it stuck out round as a pumpkin on her thin frame. To Copper’s practiced eye, the woman looked ill. Of course she had to visit the Still house—and she didn’t wait for an invitation.

  John had warned her not to get involved with their reclusive neighbors. “The only way to get along with a Still is to stay away from a Still.”

  “How could I not offer my help to Adie?” Copper had demanded of him.

  “No good will come of it,” he had responded angrily.

  Maybe John was right, but she truly had no choice. Midwifery was her ministry, and she could not pick and choose to whom she would minister. She had discovered her calling while living in Lexington with her first husband. Life in the city was stifling to Copper. Playing the socialite wife of an up-and-coming doctor bored her to tears. She had a beautiful home with servants at her beck and call, lovely gowns, and too many fancy hats and pairs of gloves to count, but she was terribly unhappy. In the midst of such plenty she yearned for more.
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  Her unhappiness had spilled over into her relationship with Simon. She wanted him to bring her back to the mountains. It seemed to her she’d left herself behind when they married. She’d become like a shell lying useless on the beach—pretty on the outside but empty within.

  Thankfully, her husband had seen to the root of her problem and began to involve her in his medical practice. Looking back, Copper could see the finger of God directing her paths. What seemed such a hardship at the time was ultimately what enabled her to minister to the women of Troublesome Creek and beyond. Women like Adie Still. God was so good.

  Copper’s mind had wandered so that Chessie had to nicker to bring her back. Goodness, they’d almost passed the big rock. The boulder loomed over the trail, casting horse and rider into heavy shadow. She reached out and patted its cool gray surface as she rode by. Alert now, she watched for the next point of interest and guided Chessie to the right just past the bent sycamore.

  She soon arrived at the Mortons’ simple abode. A drift of smoke from the cabin’s chimney told her there was life inside. “Hello,” she called out. “Is anyone to home?”

  Two women—one young, one middle-aged—looked out around the doorframe.

  Copper waved. “Hey, Mrs. Morton. I’m Copper Pelfrey.”

  She could see her welcome on their faces even before they stepped out onto the porch and invited her in. Two peas in a pod, Copper thought, eyeing the women’s short statures and ample figures. The ladies had to be mother and daughter.

  “Come in. Come in,” the younger woman said. “I’m Emerald and this is my mother, Ruby. We’re ever so glad to see you.”

  “I’m glad to be here. I met Mr. Morton on Sunday, and he asked me to come.”

  Ruby pulled out a chair and indicated for Copper to have a seat at the kitchen table. “You two sit whilst I check my cake.”

  “Smells wonderful,” Copper said.

  Ruby cracked the oven door and looked in. “It’s a pork cake—my specialty.” She laid the oven door down and pulled a pan onto its surface, prodding the center of the batter with a long splinter. “Five more minutes—give or take.” The cake went back in the oven, and she closed the door.