“Get up on the bed,” she said to Basil, “and reach me some cobwebs from the corner.”
She laid the cobwebs against the place and hurriedly wound the two pieces of cotton cloth around Kirk’s head.
“His eyes are opening,” John said. Blood was still coming from the wound, dyeing the bandage, but Kirk’s eyes were quivering open. Seeing this, Emma took up the pan and went outside. John set the lamp on the floor and sat down to watch.
Emma brought back fresh water in the pan. She had slipped on the waist to her skirt and it hung loose outside. With the rag she bathed Kirk’s face, pushing back the heavy light hair slowly from his forehead.
Presently Kirk raised up a little, lifting himself from the shoulders. In a second he sank back again. Emma and John, with the lamp between them, sat on the floor looking for Kirk’s eyes to open again. Basil, sitting on the side of the bed, watched anxiously. He did not want his brother hurt. Yet as soon as Kirk had raised up, he felt an anger at his brother again. Now that Kirk’s eyes were closed he was anxious and sorry about the whole matter. He knew that Kirk went off with Minnie on the sly, and half suspected that Minnie liked Kirk best. But quarreling with his brother was against his religion. He had told the preacher about their quarrels and the preacher had read something from the Bible. “Behold,” the preacher read. “Behold how beautiful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” And Basil felt that it was a beautiful thing, and would make up his mind not to quarrel again. Then suddenly this anger and hate came up between them.
Kirk opened his eyes wide and looked at Basil. When he saw his brother his brows came together. He raised himself up with hands clenched on the floor on either side. “You,” he began.
“Lie down and shet up,” Basil said.
Emma touched Basil’s leg. “That’s enough now, Basil.”
“I ain’t a child, Ma.” Basil drew his leg away from her touch. “I’m head of this family.”
“I’d like Granpap to hear ye,” Emma said. She tried to make her voice sound as if she didn’t care much about the whole thing. As if she was making fun of Basil and Kirk.
“Granpap’s a Kirkland, and I’m a McClure. And I’m oldest. So long as I’m here Kirk can’t profane the name of God in this house.”
“Hit’s enough, I tell ye.” Emma could see the hate coming up in Kirk’s face. “Basil,” she said, “take that lamp and lead the way to the other room. Now, John, you get under that arm like me.” Kneeling beside Kirk she lifted his arm over her shoulder. John would not be much support but she had to keep Basil and Kirk from touching.
John lifted himself as high as possible when they had got Kirk standing and he did help, for he could feel his brother’s weight on his shoulder as they walked slowly through the passage and up the steps into Emma’s room. Basil set the lamp on the table and helped the others get Kirk on the bed. He hung back in the doorway until Kirk was covered, then returned to his own place.
He was already troubled in himself about Minnie. All the men knew by this time that she was with child, all but Jim Hawkins unless he suspected and would not let himself see. When Jim Hawkins did find out he might accuse him, Basil McClure. In reality the child might be his, if one time could make it his. But there had been other men. Basil was not taking the blame unless the blame was his, and that could not be proved. He did not want Minnie any more as a wife. She was a whore, had proved it. Yet he did not want Kirk to have her either, not so long as he was there, and could see them together. For, much as he despised Minnie, he still wanted her.
In the other room Emma pulled a chair up beside the bed. “Better go on to sleep,” she said to John. But he stood at the foot of the bed and watched Kirk. Emma did not urge him to go, and presently she made a place at the foot of her bed for him. She lifted Bonnie toward the head, so there was a small place at the foot. He lay down and went to sleep with his knees strained toward his chin. One skinny arm lay outside the bedclothes, and the hand was clenched into a small fist. She undid the fist and pressed the fingers out straight. When Kirk moved she lifted the covers back to watch his face. Usually Kirk was so full of life even his family had come to think that he could do nothing but laugh, and make fun. Now his face was set in rigid stern lines. It frightened Emma at first, but his regular breathing reassured her. He was sleeping.
The next morning Basil came in for breakfast. Emma waited on him and tried to say some words. But he had only yes or no to give her. Kirk was sitting up in bed. The bandage, passed crossways over his forehead, made him look jaunty, as if he cared for nothing and nobody. While Basil was at the table he pretended to have a banjo in his arms and began singing.
He said “Pore Boy” in such a way, and gave Basil a look.
Bonnie hung onto the side of the bed, looking up at Kirk and listening to the song.
“That’s enough, Kirk,” Emma said. “Hush!”
She was glad Basil did not sit long. Kirk looked as if he was ready to devil anyone who came near, anyone he felt like deviling.
Bonnie liked having her brother there in bed. She took his com pone and fatback over and three cups of coffee one after another. Kirk would not eat, but he wanted the coffee. And after he had the three cups they could not keep him in bed.
About midday he was sitting on the log below the door. Emma was inside, getting ready to wash the clothes.
“Ma,” Kirk said quietly and Emma came and stood above him. She looked up and saw a man riding down the trail. They watched every turn and dip of the trail that brought the horse and rider in sight. When the horse came over the last rise they saw that the man was Hal Swain.
John and Bonnie appeared from somewhere and sat in the yard. Emma heard Basil come through the back door and pull out a chair at the table behind her.
“Well,” Emma said. “Hit’s time Hal came to see us.”
Kirk moved his shoulders impatiently. She was quiet for a little while. She felt that Kirk did not want her to speak. Then in spite of her words came from her mouth again.
“Maybe he’s come to say we can have the cow cheaper.”
That, she knew, was a foolish thing to say. For Hal could just as well say the same thing over the counter at the store to Kirk or Basil—or Granpap.
Hal rode into the yard and slowly got down from his horse.
“Come in,” Emma said. “Hitch the horse, Johnny.” And she stood aside to let Hal come into the house.
John slung the bridle over the limb of a tree and hurried into the cabin. The others were already inside. Kirk was on a chair opposite Hal. Emma and Bonnie were standing close by. Basil sat by the table.
“How’s everybody?” Hal Swain spoke smoothly like a preacher, and with confidence as if he knew something. He did know something, for he could read anything from a government letter for the post office to passages in the Bible.
“Well,” Emma said in answer to his question, and then added, “Kirk hurt his head.”
“Had I better look?” Hal asked. He had medicines on the shelf of his store and sometimes he doctored.
Emma undid the bandages. “Lost some blood,” Hal said after looking at the wound. “But he’ll mend soon.” He wound the bandages back, somewhat better than Emma had done them. But he left everything as she had fixed it the night before. “Wash it to-night,” he told her, “and put on more cobwebs.”
He sat down again. The eyes in the five faces looked at him. He felt the eyes, but kept his own fixed on his hands. He looked at their backs and then at the palms as if he was reading them as he would a book.
“I see your corn’s shucked,” he said at last.
“John and Bonnie helped,” Emma said.
“Many potatoes this year?” He turned and spoke to Basil.
“Some,” Basil answered him.
Again Hal looked at his hands. He examined his right thumb nail carefully as if he was a boy who had bored a hole there to measure the time till the sow would litter.
Then he cleared his throat. “Well,
Emma,” he said and hesitated. “Well, I reckon the Law’s got your pap.”
“I was afeared,” Emma said, “hit might happen.”
Basil got up and walked out of the back door.
“Yes,” Emma repeated. “I was afeared.” Her heart felt as heavy as a full bucket from the spring.
“He’s got plenty of friends,” Hal told her. “You ain’t to worry, Emma.”
“No,” Emma said looking at the floor. “Hit’s no use.”
“He sent you this,” Hal said and stood up to reach in his pocket. He laid some change on the table.
As soon as Hal’s horse turned the corner by the spring on the way back to the Crossing, Basil came in.
“Hit’s a disgrace,” he said.
Emma raised herself. “Hit’s not a disgrace, Basil McClure, unless you make it so.”
“Granpap’s broke the law.”
“For you and the others, to get money to feed ye.”
“He had a right,” Kirk said, looking jaunty under his bandage, and very sure of himself.
“Hit’s a disgrace,” Basil repeated. “Up at the settlement they’ll look at us and say, ‘The law’s got Granpap Kirkland.’ ”
Emma looked at him. “And there’ll be plenty to say he had a right,” she told Basil.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ORA and Frank McClure came over that night. Frank wanted them to know that he could borrow a horse from some kin near South Fork and one of the boys could have it for going to the trial.
Ora had some news for Emma. When they went out in the clearing to squat she said, “Minnie Hawkins is with child.”
“No!” Emma said, and then, “Well, hit’s to be expected.”
“She’s been a-hiding it under her dress. But now hit’s talked over at the store.”
Emma was quiet as they walked to the cabin in the dark. And she wondered who the man was. It might be one of her boys and if so Jim Hawkins had a right to make him marry. And she knew Minnie would not be good for either.
Even while she talked to the McClures she wondered about this. But the worry about Granpap was stronger. And there was the matter of deciding which of the boys should use the horse. Frank said let them both go, taking turns walking and riding. Emma, though she would not say it, wanted Kirk because Basil would not feel with Granpap. But Basil was the oldest.
Basil settled the matter himself before the trial. He came home from the settlement one Sunday night and got his few clothes together in a bundle. “I’m a-going, Ma, first thing in the morning,” he said.
“So soon?” Emma asked. She thought he meant the trial.
“I’m a-going to school,” Basil said. “The preacher got a place for me in the church school across North Range. I can make my way and learn, too.”
“And not have a disgrace,” Emma said, and at once she was sorry for her spiteful tongue. But she could not forget all that Basil felt about Granpap, yes, and said.
She got up next morning and gave Basil coffee before he went. Standing at the door she watched him go off on the path and without wanting to she yearned after him. He was her first, born when she was no more than a girl. And he was going off stiff against her and Kirk. It was early and there was only a half light, gray and dreary—a hopeless in-between time when the dark had gone and there was not any sign of the sun. It felt as if the sun would never come up. Emma listened to Basil’s steps until they died off somewhere on the second lap of the trail.
Kirk rode the horse to the trial. Emma and the children walked with him to the McClures’, where he would get the horse. Emma carried a bundle for Granpap tied up in a red handkerchief. There were some real flour biscuits she had made and a store shirt bought at Swain’s. Most of the money Granpap had sent by Hal Swain had been spent on these things—the flour and the shirt—but they had to send Granpap a message, and the gifts said they were thinking about him.
All morning Emma helped Ora string dried apples and grabble potatoes. The children worked with Young Frank in the corn patch high up on the hillside. Big Frank had gone to Swain’s. He had been promised a seat in Swain’s wagon if he got there in time. Swain had said, “First come, first served.” Most of the men in the settlement wanted to go down for the trial, partly for the excitement, but mainly because they wished to show Granpap faces of neighbors and kin in the court.
During the long late afternoon Emma and Ora sat in the doorway watching the children, who played Ant’ny Over with John’s ball. All of Ora’s tribe except the baby played. John, Young Frank, and the next oldest McClure played against Bonnie, Sally, and Ora’s four others.
Sally called “Ant’ny” from behind the cabin and when the boys who were in front of Ora and Emma heard they called back “Over!” and the ball came bouncing over the roof because Sally could never learn to throw it high. Young Frank caught it and the three boys scurried around the house so that Young Frank could hit one of the other side. If he did this then the person who was hit would be his captive.
Emma could hear Bonnie laughing before she came running around the right side of the cabin. Her hair was down and flying back behind her. She was the first. Behind her came Sally and then the four young McClures, the last toddling along on his short legs. He did not look very formidable, but he got in Frank’s way just as he was throwing the ball at Sally, and the ball missed. The dogs ran in circles barking at the children, and with their own pleasure in the excitement. And the children laughed and shouted. Sally and Bonnie yelled at Frank.
“You’re no good.”
“You couldn’t hit a dead possum.”
“Look at that little toddler,” Ora said, pointing to her next to youngest. “Running along, a-laughing—not knowing that trouble and sorrow are ahead of him.”
“Hit’s best they don’t know,” Emma said. She was glad to see John and Bonnie playing—yet she felt a disappointment that they could be so happy when they knew that Granpap might be put away for a long time if the trial went against him. They could forget so easily.
About dark Emma called the children to go home.
“Kirk might be till to-morrow,” she told Ora.
“You’re welcome to stay,” Ora said.
“I know.” And Emma did know. But she wanted to get back to the cabin where she was on her own familiar ground. On the trail she walked along slowly. John and Bonnie kept close to her and she felt warmed because it seemed they were remembering Granpap again, though they did not speak. The rustling and panting of the dogs chasing imaginary animals in the bushes made sound for company, and this was enough. She did not wish to talk.
At the cabin Bonnie and John would not go to bed. Emma sat down on the door log.
“Get my shawl, then,” she told Bonnie, “and bring a quilt.”
She was still hoping to see Kirk and Granpap come along, Granpap riding the horse and Kirk walking behind. They were like this in her mind while she tucked the children up in the quilt. The shawl she drew close around her shoulders and held it with her arms crossed. Bonnie leaned against her, and on the other side of Bonnie John sat upright against the house with the corner of the quilt behind him.
Presently Emma’s tongue was loosened. She had tired of peering into the dark and listening for a sound up the trail.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, “Granpap used to tell about the Civil War.” It comforted her to think of her pap back there and to talk about him. “He used to say as far as he knew there wasn’t any civil kind of war. Not that he knew about.
“He said they was miserable, just miserable. He fought most two years. The last year there was a rich man’s son, one of them that owned slaves before they was freed, and he was one of their army and only sixteen. He had a slave to take care of him like a nurse. And the slave had stayed on, taking care of the boy even after he knew he was freed. By that time, toward the end of the war, nobody, rich or poor had anything to eat.
“The soldiers used to sit around a campfire at night and the rich man’s son had a book cal
led ‘Lee’s Miserables.’ He’d read to them. The General that owned the army was named Lee. And after hearing the book the soldiers called themselves Lee’s Miserables. Granpap said he used to get s’ hungry . . . . Once he was a-scouting and he came across a little nigger. The little nigger was eating a piece of cornbread. Granpap said snot was running from the little nigger’s nose on the bread. But Granpap hadn’t eaten a thing for two days. He took the bread away from the little nigger and ate it. And it was the best meal, he said, he ever had.”
Bonnie raised up. She was almost asleep. Perhaps she had been asleep. She had heard the story before. But so had John heard it. Yet he was never tired of hearing it again, or of asking his own questions.
“Did he come?” Bonnie asked.
“No, but maybe he will. Maybe hit’s why Kirk’s s’ late. They had to take turns one a-walking and the other a-riding.”
About daybreak Kirk returned. Emma was propped up against the door and Bonnie was lying against her. John had stretched out on the ground with only a piece of the quilt over him. They were all wet with dew. Emma waked up at once. At once she looked into the dark behind Kirk.
“Ye alone, Kirk?”
“Yes, Ma.” Kirk’s voice came lost and hollow from the half dark.
“Come in and have coffee,” Emma said. The strain was over and she could wait to hear the rest. Granpap had been put away.
Kirk brought in wood. His head hanging with sleep, John followed Kirk to the woodpile and back again. Bonnie stayed close to Emma. When the fire was built up they sat around it to warm up while the coffee boiled.
“He got two years,” Kirk said.
“Two years,” Emma repeated. “Hit’s s’ long.”
“He stood up in court and talked to the judge,” Kirk said. “He said he’d fought in the Confederacy, and he’d done his duty and had a right to make money when his folks needed money. No government could take that right away.”
To Make My Bread Page 9
