Latha explained, “I read the newspapers and watch television. I saw your mother on TV twice. I just had a hunch it was Sugrue because he disappeared at the same time, and because I knew him well. But I had no idea he’d taken you to Madewell Mountain. Now then. Let’s go look at the Stay More you have imagined so much.”
Chapter forty-two
Yowrfrowr really wanted to go with them, but he explained to her, My rheumatism, if that’s what it is, makes it increasingly wearying for me to get around. So I’ll just sit here and lick the place where my balls used to be until you get back. Have fun.
She debated with herself whether to stay with him or follow Robin and Yowrfrowr’s mistress. Since her first loyalty, despite her great love for Yowrfrowr, was to Robin, she chose to amble along behind them as they hiked down into the remains of the village. She enjoyed listening to their conversation, as the woman named Latha would pause to point to a building or house and relate its history, and since Hreapha was so good at minding Robin, she could absorb all of Robin’s feelings and reactions to the sights and sites of Stay More. “We probably won’t encounter a soul,” the woman said, “but if we do I’ll just say your name is Sally Smith and you’re a high school student from Jasper doing some research on the history of Stay More. Okay?”
They detoured over a low-water bridge across the creek, which was nearly dry this time of midsummer (“That’s Swains Creek or what’s left of it,” the woman said), and reached the schoolhouse, a modest white clapboard building with a well in the yard and a single outhouse. The woman, who said she’d attended school here herself long ago, explained that the single outhouse had been only for girls; the boys, including Adam, had simply “used the bushes”. They went inside the schoolhouse, which still had all its furniture in place although it hadn’t been used for a quarter of a century. “The first-graders sat down there,” the woman pointed, “and the eighth graders sat back here, with all the other grades in between. Right there’s where your Ad probably sat last, but he suffered a bad accident in the fourth grade and had to drop out of school.”
“I know,” Robin said. She sat down at the desk where Adam had probably sat, whose top was attached to the back of the desk seat in front of it. “He really loved this school, but I don’t think he missed anything after dropping out.”
“How do you know so much about Ad?” the woman asked, sitting down at one of the other desks. “The way you talk about him, I’d think you went to school with him. Did he leave a diary behind?”
“A diary? No, he left behind something a lot better than a diary. I don’t know how to tell you this, but…”
Hreapha sat too, on the splintery pine boards of the schoolhouse floor, and listened raptly as Robin attempted to explain to the kindly old woman the existence of, the nature of, and the habits of, an in-habit. Hreapha studied the woman’s face carefully to see what degree of disbelief she showed, but the woman, whom Hreapha was beginning to mind as well, had taken on the expression of a studious schoolgirl sitting at her desk listening to a teacher explain the most difficult of lessons, and while the expression contained elements of perplexity it was also filled with wonder and delight.
And Robin must have minded the woman too, because when she was finished she said, “You believe me.” It wasn’t a question.
For a while the woman did not say anything but stared at the room’s blackboard as if waiting for the teacher to diagram an in-habit. Finally she said, “Goodness gracious.” And a little while later she simply took a deep breath and said, “If that doesn’t beat all creation.” Then the two women got up from their desks and left the schoolhouse, and re-crossed the low water bridge.
That put them square in the middle of what had been the village, and there was really nothing left except the big two-story house, which, the woman explained to Robin, had been built by Jacob Ingledew, the founder of Stay More who had later been governor of Arkansas after the Civil War. The house had a porch with fancy balusters running the whole length of the front. “My grandson Vernon owns it,” the woman said, “as he owns most of everything around here, but he doesn’t live here. At the moment he’s renting it out to some college professor named Larry, who is probably sound asleep in there amongst the cockroaches. He has what they call a drinking problem.”
“Which Sugrue had,” Robin said. “And which I’m going to have if I don’t lay off all the whiskey he left behind.”
“I think you probably know when to stop,” the woman said. The woman pointed out where the big Ingledew general store had been, only its cement porch floor remaining, and where the big grist-mill had stood, and where Doc Swain’s house and office had been. “Did Sog tell you about Doc Swain?” the woman asked.
“Yes. He was my favorite paper doll,” Robin said.
“He was my favorite person,” the woman said. “Well, right there is where he patched up your Ad after he fell off the mountain.”
“You keep calling him my Ad,” Robin said.
“Well, isn’t he?”
They walked on up what had been the main street of the village and the woman pointed out where the bank had been, The Swains Creek Bank and Trust Company, the stone of its edifice now demolished and used to form a dike against the occasional rise of Swains Creek’s waters. Across from it was the only other remaining building in town, a three-part house also with a porch all along its front.
“Now that was my store and post office,” the woman said. “And also my house for many years before I moved out to the dogtrot, which was my husband’s home. After the post office closed and I moved out, it remained dusty and empty for many years, except for the old oak post office boxes, which are still in there. Recently my granddaughter Sharon moved in and fixed it up a bit. But let’s not talk too loudly, or she’ll hear us and come out.”
Robin asked, “Is she alone?”
“Yes. She had a very unhappy marriage which ended several years ago, thank heavens.”
“That’s interesting,” Robin said, “that she lives here and that man lives down there, and they’re the only people in town. Do they ever speak to each other?”
The woman laughed. “Rarely. In fact, Larry was her boyfriend for a while, in Chicago, where he taught, and he followed her here, but…oh, Robin, it’s such a long story you don’t want to hear it now.”
“If I still played with my paper dolls, I could make up a great story for them.”
“You certainly could. But you don’t have to do it with paper dolls. You could write it.”
“I don’t have any paper left.”
The woman put both hands on her hips. “Now that is inexcusable and I won’t allow you to leave without a supply a paper.” They resumed walking up the road, and Hreapha happily followed, with an inkling of where they might be going. “There’s only one other place to show you,” the woman said. “And it’s another half-mile or so up this road, the Parthenon Road, if you can walk that far.”
The old woman didn’t seem to mind walking. Probably she had a lot of practice, and had no infirmities like her Xenophon’s rheumatism. Hreapha reflected sadly that her lover Yowrfrowr might not live forever. For that matter, she herself was an old dog now, and she brooded that Yowrfrowr probably no longer considered her attractive. Well, certainly he no longer had any desire for her, not her fault or his.
They came to the man’s house, and a wave of nostalgia swept over Hreapha. “This was where Sog lived,” the woman said, “before he pretended to go off to California but instead kidnapped a seven-year-old girl and took her off to live on a mountaintop. Look, the note he left is still on the door: ‘GONE TO CALIFORNIA.’”
Hreapha was a little surprised to see how the house was falling apart now that it had been abandoned for so long. Time and the elements had removed all familiar scents and sights, and even the holes she’d dug all over the backyard had filled with silt. She could not detect any trace of her own in-habit at all, and decided conclusively that she must have taken it with her to Madewell Mountain.<
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“So this is where you grew up,” Robin said to Hreapha.
“Hreapha,” she said.
“You’re much better off now,” Robin said.
“Hreapha,” she agreed.
“And so are you,” the woman said to Robin. “Now let’s get on back home.”
That afternoon, as the two women sat in the dogtrot of the cabin (and Hreapha did not trot but sat), sipping their lemonades and taking in the breeze, Robin asked, “How do you manage to keep so many pets?”
And the woman returned the question, “How do you?”
“Well, I don’t have to feed them, much. They feed themselves.”
“My very generous and wealthy grandson Vernon, who is virtually my sole means of support apart from Social Security, regularly stops by to visit and always brings several boxes of canned cat food and dog food.”
“Is he also not married?”
The woman laughed. “No, but he’s been living for years with a woman, his cousin Jelena, and if you’ll stay with me for several days I’ll tell you their story too.”
“I’d really love to stay, but I do have to get home. You have such a nice house. And you and I are alike in so many ways, especially because we’ve learned how to live alone.”
“We certainly are alike, you and I. In fact, you remind me of myself at your age. Except you are much more beautiful.”
“I doubt that. When you were my age, you must have been the most beautiful woman on earth.”
“I doubt that. But why can’t you spend a week with me?”
“I’ve got to get on back home and milk the cow, for one thing.”
“Oh, when you first said ‘home,’ I thought you meant your former home in Harrison. You have no plans for returning there? Even though your mother remarried and lives in Little Rock now?”
“Really? No, I haven’t given any thought to going back to Harrison. I could never give up my friends, not even Adam, whom I was becoming too supercilious toward.”
“Does the in-habit know words like ‘supercilious’? Where’d you pick that up? Do you have books to read up there?”
“The only books I have are the Bible and a manual on farming and housekeeping, which Adam’s mother left behind, and one of those books must’ve had ‘supercilious’ in it.”
“It’s too late for you to start your journey home today,” the woman said. “So you’ll have to stay at least one more night with me.”
“Okay. I’ll be very happy to do that.”
“If I can find the number from Information, could I persuade you to call your mother and tell her you’re okay?”
Robin did not answer. Hreapha minded her and got an electric blast of panic, which was somewhat surprising. Didn’t Robin want to make any contact with her own mother? Finally, Robin said, “Please.” That’s all she could say for a while, and then she was able to add some more: “Please don’t let anybody know where I am. Don’t you understand?”
“Sure, Robin, I understand. Even if you told your mother that you want to stay on Madewell Mountain, there would be so much publicity over the news that you’re still alive that you’d be mobbed with tourists.” The woman laughed at her own exaggeration, then added, “Still, I think it might mean the world to your poor mother if somehow you could let her know you’re alive and well.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, but before she said anything further on the matter, she and the old woman went inside the cabin to begin preparing their supper, and except for a brief moment when Robin reappeared to give Hreapha a nice dish of dog food, Hreapha didn’t see her again until the morning. Hreapha spent a good part of the night just visiting with Yowrfrowr, Hruschka, and their children. One of Hreapha’s grandsons said to her, “Granny, Pa says there’s all kinds of critters living with you up on the mountain. Is that true?” And Hreapha regaled her grandchildren with stories about the menagerie, particularly the additions that had been made since Yowrfrowr had visited. She told them about some of Pogo’s hilarious antics. Later, when all of them slept, Hruschka didn’t mind that Hreapha slept snuggled up next to Yowrfrowr, whom she might never see again.
In the morning, early, Robin and the woman came out of the house. Robin’s backpack was bulging with things the woman had given her. The woman asked, “Can you manage to take some kittens with you? I’ve got plenty. More than plenty.”
“Oh, I’d love to,” Robin said. “But one is all I could manage.”
“Take your pick.”
Robin picked out a very young, cute, female calico kitty, and nestled it into the open top of her backpack. “Thank you so much for everything,” Robin said to the woman. “Especially for the books and the paper and the pencils. I’ve already written on the first sheet of paper. Would you like to read it?” And she handed the woman a sheet, which the woman read aloud.
“Dear Mommy, I want you to know that I survived my kidnapping, and I am alive and well and happy and the man who did it is dead. Some day, not soon, I hope to see you again and tell you all about it. But for right now, I want with all my heart to stay where I am, so I can’t tell you where it is, and I hope you won’t try to find me. Please know I’m just fine and I love you very much. Robin.”
Robin said to the woman, “If you can ever find her address, and have your grandson or somebody mail that from Harrison so it has a Harrison postmark, do you think that will help?”
“Thank you,” the old woman said.
“No, thank you,” Robin said. “Thanks beyond words for everything. Thanks also for showing me how nicely you can live all by yourself. I hope you will stay alive forever because I want to see you again.”
“And you take care of yourself because I want to see you again too. Are you sure I can’t persuade you to take some oranges and bananas with you?”
“If I did, I might develop a hankering for them,” Robin said, and both women laughed.
The women hugged each other for a long moment, and then Robin said one more thing, “Remember your promise never to tell anybody where I am.”
Hreapha licked Yowrfrowr upside his handsome face, and he returned the lick, saying, Take care, old girl.
And then they were on the road home. Hreapha’s sadness was relieved by the gladness of going home, and apparently Robin was joyful too, because they were hardly out of sight of the dogtrot cabin before Robin began singing, not any of her songs or hymns with words but just those pure tones of hers that were so beautiful, rising and falling and revealing the colors of her heart. Hreapha felt like singing herself.
But going back up the mountain was much harder than coming down the mountain. Halfway up, Robin had to stop for a long time, panting and trying to get her breath back, and she said to Hreapha, “I don’t know if I can make it. Maybe you ought to go on ahead without me.”
“Hreapha,” she said, meaning, I wouldn’t hear of it.
So they sat for a while beside the trail and Robin got her lunch and the kitty out of the backpack, shared the lunch with Hreapha and the kitty, who, she said, she had decided to name “Latha,” and then she showed Hreapha the various other things the woman had given her: a package of writing paper, several pencils, a ballpoint pen, three thin books with paper covers, two packages of spaghetti noodles, a cylinder of Morton’s salt, six packages of yeast, as well as a dress, a pair of panties, a brassiere, a bath towel and washcloth, a hair comb, etc., etc. No wonder Robin was winded, trying to backpack all that stuff up the mountain.
“Wasn’t she the nicest person you could imagine?” Robin said. “I never could have dreamed up anybody like her. None of my paper dolls, not even Doc Swain, was as good as her. I left her some money. On the bed where she’d find it. Ten thousand dollars.”
After lunch Robin was ready to resume the climb, although she had to stop several more times before reaching the end of the trail. While they were resting again, they were startled by the appearance of a small but strange creature which Hreapha had not often seen but recognized as an armadillo, which looks
like an opossum wearing armor.
“Good heavens! What’s that?” Robin asked.
“Hreapha,” she said, meaning, an armadillo.
“Okay, you might as well get me one for my next birthday.”
“Hreapha,” she said, meaning, It is done.
When they finally emerged into the pasture, the first of their friends to greet them was Bess, who mooed loudly. Bess’s udder was utterly swollen, and Robin took off her backpack and squatted to milk Bess right there, allowing the milk to run out on the ground. Robin explained to Hreapha, “Adam said the first milking after a delay wouldn’t be fit to drink, but we need to relieve Bess.”
Adam was the second of their friends to greet them. So how did Stay More suit ye? his voice asked.
“I had a wonderful time,” Robin said. “I stayed two nights with Latha Bourne Dill.”
You wouldn’t fool a feller, would ye? Is she still going strong?
“Adam, tell me something. What did she look like the last time you saw her? She wasn’t white-haired and stooped then, was she?”
Why, no, I reckon she must’ve been close to fifty but she still had a full head of dark hair and I relished her, I thought she was ripsniptious, I mean swelldifferous, I mean she was a real sight for sore eyes.
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