Spencer's Mountain

by Earl Hamner, Jr.

  Now at the breakfast table the announcement had been made and the day took on new meaning.

  “I reckon spring really is here if you’re goen to start work on the house,” said Olivia.

  “I may finish that house this year,” boasted Clay.

  “It’s spring all right,” said Olivia dryly.

  “You’d better fix us up a little lunch to take up on the mountain,” said Clay. “You bring it on when it’s ready, son. I’m goen on to the barn to put a rope on Chance.”

  Chance was the family cow. She had received her name when Old Mrs. Frank Holloway had sold her to Clay on the strength that “she give a good chance of butter.” Old Mrs. Frank Holloway used the word chance in its ancient English sense of a sizable amount.

  “Why are you putten a rope on Chance?” asked Olivia.

  “I’m taken her down to Percy Cook’s bull. I’m goen right past his place and I’ll just drop her off,” said Clay.

  “I don’t see why you got to take Chance today,” said Olivia.

  “Because I’m goen right past Percy’s place.”

  “Then Clay-Boy can just stay home. I don’t want him seein’ things like that.”

  “What are you talken about, woman?”

  “You know what I’m talken about. Clay-Boy’s too young.”

  “If this boy don’t know what a cow and a bull does by this time it’s time he’s finden out.”

  “There’s plenty of time for finden out about such things when he grows up.”

  “Livy, this boy has killed the biggest deer ever seen in this part of the country. He’s a man now. It’s time he’s finden out what a man needs to know.”

  “Killen things don’t make a man out of a boy,” objected Olivia.

  “Sweet merciful Moses! How do you talk sense to a woman! Fix us some lunch, woman, and when it’s ready, boy, bring it on up to the stable.”

  “All right, Daddy.”

  Clay left the house and Olivia began to prepare sandwiches for lunch. She looked at Clay-Boy uncomfortably once or twice but said nothing. When she handed the lunch to him in a brown paper bag she said, “Down there at Percy Cook’s when you see what happens you remember that there’s a difference in what happens between cows and bulls and two human beings.”

  “Yes’m,” he said.

  “What cows and bulls do has got nothing to do with love. You remember that,” she said, and then Clay-Boy fled to the barn where his father was waiting.

  Most of the time Chance was a good-natured beast who grazed quietly in the crabapple orchard. Today she was fractious and full of devilment. When Clay-Boy approached she lowered her horns menacingly at him until Clay tugged her by the rope attached to her halter.

  “Come on, you sway-backed old hellion!” shouted Clay, “You won’t be half so friskey comen home.”

  The cow seemed to know where they were headed, and in her eagerness to get there ran, trotted, galloped and sprinted so that they covered the five miles to Percy Cook’s in near-record speed.

  Percy Cook was a farmer who had a mania for building small sheds on his land. The house he and his wife Ottalie and their countless children lived in was hardly more than a shack; surrounding it there were other shacks built of boxes, tarpaper, sticks and boards.

  There was a shack for the chickens, another for a tool shed, another for a spring house, another for the cows, another for the pigs, another for feed, one for the sheep, one for the goats and still another for the dogs. If Percy Cook was fond of building shacks, his wife’s hobby was having children. They lived on an untraveled road and never left the farm. Once, some years before, a hunter had driven a car back along the old river road to Percy Cook’s place, and the car had so frightened the hoard of children that all the driver had seen as he drove up into the back yard were countless little naked behinds disappearing under the porch where they had remained until they were overcome by their curiosity; later the whole army of little white-headed, buck-naked children had poked their heads out from under the house and remained there until they were sure it was safe to come out again.

  As Chance, Clay and Clay-Boy came to the Cook place, Percy had just finished milking his own cows and was carrying the milk toward the house. He was a lean, tanned, wrinkled, shriveled little old man with a high, carrying voice.

  “Lord God Almighty, if it ain’t Clay Spencer. Howdy there, Clay!” he called.

  “Percy,” called Clay as he struggled to hold onto Chance, “this bowlegged old butter churn has pulled me all the way from New Dominion. Which way you got Methuselah?”

  “’Thusela’s down yonder by the creek last time I laid eyes on him. He goen to be powerful glad to see that little heifer. Turn her loose. She’ll find him.”

  Clay loosened the rope he had attached to the cow’s halter while Clay-Boy ran over to open the gate that led to the bull’s pasture. Freed of the rope, Chance trotted about uncertainly for a few minutes, then ran into the pasture. When Clay-Boy closed the gate behind her she turned and looked at him hatefully.

  “Lemme take this milk to the house, and then I’ll be back in case they need any help,” said Percy.

  “They don’t need no help from us, Percy,” said Clay. “They’ll find each other.”

  “How do you know they’ll find each other, Daddy?” asked Clay-Boy.

  “It’s nature, son,” answered Clay.

  “I reckon you’re right, Daddy,” said Clay-Boy. “There comes Methuselah now.”

  Methuselah, a magnificent old black warrior, had already sensed the presence of the cow and had come halfway up the field in search of her. Now that she was in sight of the object of her desire Chance pretended he was nowhere in sight. She seemed to have decided to ignore him and began calmly grazing in the short grass.

  “If that cow don’t beat all,” said Clay-Boy. “Pulled us all the way down here to get to that bull and now she won’t pay him any attention.”

  “She’s bein’ a lady,” chuckled Clay.

  Percy returned and joined them at the fence. Chance continued to graze in the grass, apparently indifferent to the performance Methuselah was putting on for her benefit.

  When he had first observed her he had come toward her in a trot, but now he stopped almost three hundred feet away, lowered his head almost to the ground and gazed at her in an appraising way. Next Methuselah moved about Chance in a circle, occasionally trotting off the way a dog will which wants to be chased.

  “He sure is acting silly,” laughed Clay-Boy.

  “You’ll act silly too when the love bug bites you, boy,” said Percy.

  Methuselah looked back and saw that he had not aroused any interest on Chance’s part. Now he drew himself up, gave a bellow that shattered the air and began an aggressive, belligerent stiff-legged march toward the cow.

  “He’s ready,” chuckled Percy Cook. “He’s tired of footen around.”

  Chance grazed on, seemingly unaware of Methuselah’s attentions, but when he had advanced within about twelve feet of her she reared up and shook her horns at him. When Methuselah ignored her protestations she began to back away and suddenly broke into a run. As suddenly as the running began she stopped and waited. When the bull reached her he mounted her with one awkward attempt and they remained locked together, wild-eyed. To Clay-Boy what then transpired appeared not merely outlandish, but most uncomfortable.

  “I don’t think they’re goen to need any help, Percy,” said Clay turning away.

  “’Thusela never did,” said Percy, with one backward look at the communion of the two animals.

  “You just goen to leave ’em like that, Daddy?” asked Clay-Boy.

  “Sure, son. They’ll know when to stop,” replied Clay.

  “What’s the matter with you, boy?” asked Percy Cook. “Didn’t you ever see a cow and a bull before?”

  “No, sir,” said Clay-Boy. “I never saw anything like that before at all.”

  Percy winked at Clay. “Son,” he said, “the best part of liven is all
ahead of you,” and then he grasped Clay by the arm and said, “I declare I’m glad to see you, Clay Spencer. Why don’t you and your boy come on up to the house and enjoy a cup of coffee with us?”

  “Thank you all the same, Percy,” answered Clay, “but me and this boy are doen some work on my house up there on the mountain. I’ll pick up Chance on the way home.”

  “Tell me somethen, Clay,” said Percy. “You know we don’t get no news down here in the sticks. What’s goen on in the world?”

  “Well,” said Clay, “them Huns is at it again.”

  “What they up to this time?”

  “Some bohunk named Hitler has took over the country and is raisen Cain. Them fellers that talk about the news on the radio seem to think he goen to cause trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “War maybe.”

  “I don’t know,” said Percy. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Them old Bolsheviks is always fighten amongst themselves.”

  They parted from Percy at the roadway; Clay promised to pick up Chance that evening, then he and Clay-Boy continued on toward the mountain.

  The boy and his father walked for some time in silence. Clay had observed his son from time to time but the boy was lost in deep thought.

  “Is somethen botheren your mind, boy?” Clay asked.

  “No, sir,” replied Clay-Boy. “I’ve just been thinken.”

  “You want to talk about anythin’?”

  “Well, sir, yes sir. I’ve been puzzlen about Chance and that bull.”

  “Ain’t nothen puzzlen about it, boy. That bull just naturally needed that cow and she naturally needed him. That’s all there was to it.”

  “What I mean is he didn’t appear to be having a very good time.”

  “Honey,” said Clay, “you don’t know much about the subject, do you?”

  “I don’t know a thing about it, Daddy,” said Clay-Boy regretfully.

  “Well, son, it’s time you did.”

  Clay walked over to the grass beside the road and sat down.

  “Come here, boy,” he said. “I’m goen to tell you everythin’ about it you’ll ever know.”

  Clay-Boy sat down and waited while his father assembled his thoughts.

  “Now in nature,” Clay began, “everythin’s either male or female. It’s that way with cows and turtles and flowers and chickens, same as it is with people. Now the male has got male seed in him and the female has got female seed in her and it takes both kind to start out a new life.

  “Ever’ so often male and female things get a loven feelen for each other. They want to get close to each other. The old male he’ll strut up and down a-flappen his wings or throwen out his chest like old ’Thusela did, and the female will run six miles to meet him and then pretend the thought never crossed her mind, just like Old Chance did. But somehow they get together so the seed can go from him to her, and if you’ll take notice sometime of the way male and female things is built, that is about the closest two bodies can be to each other.

  “You’ll know what it’s like one day and when you do, remember that you ain’t any bull and that little girl ain’t any cow. You be easy and gentle with her, and if she loves you a little bit before, she’ll love you a lot more when it’s over. And don’t get the notion there’s anythin’ lowdown about it, because the Lord Himself thought it up and made us the way He did. That’s how He figured out to get new life on this old earth and this old world would just dry up and blow away if it wasn’t for what I just explained to you. You understand what I’m tellen you, boy?”

  “I reckon I do, Daddy,” said Clay-Boy.

  “Not by a long sight you do,” said Clay with a grin. “You won’t ever understand it.”

  “Why not, Daddy?”

  “There ain’t nobody that understands it.”

  And that was the end of the matter.

  ***

  When they arrived at the site where Clay planned to build the house Clay looked ruefully down into the muddy hole which only last autumn he had referred to as “the cellar.”

  “Love of mud!” he grumbled. “Seems like I waste half my time diggen this celler all over every spring.”

  He walked around and around the hole, finally squatting beside the boy.

  “Son,” he said, “I’m tired of throwen the same dirt out of this hole every year. This time we’re goen to shore up the walls so they’ll stay. Now there’s a rock pile over at the edge of the field near the foot of that big pine tree. Start toten that rock over here while I get this dirt out of my cellar.”

  Clay took a shovel from underneath a tarpaulin where he stored some tools, jumped into the hole and began throwing shovelsful of earth up out of the hole.

  Clay-Boy found the rock pile where his father had told him it would be. All morning the boy carried the rocks from the pile to the edge of the hole. He worked diligently, carrying as many rocks as he could, but on his return trip, empty-handed, he could look around him and enjoy the warmth of the sun, watch the slow majestic flight of a buzzard gliding high off in the sky or the scurrying flight of a field mouse he frightened in the fresh new broom sage that covered most of the field.

  Clay worked briskly. It was such a joy to be at work on the house again he was tempted to overdo himself, but he had done hard labor for long hours before and knew he had to slow down his pace or else he would not last out the day. He fell into a rhythm, sinking the shovel into the yielding earth with his hands, tamping it with his foot and lifting it up and out of the hole and flinging its load of earth to one side. He interrupted his rhythm only once; that was when he found an arrowhead and bent over to pick it up to save for Clay-Boy, who had a collection of Indian relics.

  Once Clay caught sight of his son as Clay-Boy came to the edge of the hole to drop his load of rocks.

  “How we doen, boy?” Clay shouted.

  “Right fine, I reckon, Daddy,” the boy answered, a smile lighting his thin freckled face.

  “You’re damned tootin’,” his father shouted.

  “Damned tootin’,” the boy echoed gleefully under his breath and they fell again to their work.

  The sun was setting behind the mountains, sending up splendid shafts of light against the western sky when Clay and the boy quit work. The basement was almost rectangular again and Clay looked down into it with satisfaction. Tomorrow they would come back and start shoring up the walls with the rock Clay-Boy had carried from the field.

  Clay returned his shovel under the tarpaulin and they walked a little way down the hill. Once Clay stopped and turned to look back.

  “I can see it now,” he said. “Your mama sitting up there on the front porch resten of a Sunday. It’ll be pretty, boy, you know that? Your mama will plant flowers comen down the walk on either side and I’ll put in a bed of grass where my babies can play.”

  “It’s getten dark, Daddy,” the boy reminded him.

  “We’ll be getten along in a minute, son. We got till Monday mornen in front of us. Can you see the house, son, the way it’ll be and all?”

  “I got an idea what it’ll look like,” said Clay-Boy, impatient for home and supper.

  “It ain’t the looks, son. It’s a feelen I want you to have about this house. First place, it’s goen to be yours one of these days. And it won’t be none of them thrown-together company houses either. This will be your own house that belongs to you and can’t no landlord ever tell you to move or get off the place because you’ll be standen on your own ground. You understand, son?”

  “Yes sir,” replied the boy.

  “You’ll sit up in that house one day with all your babies playen around you and you can tell ’em you helped build it. You can tell ’em you helped lay the foundation, and helped nail every two-by-four together. You tell ’em that and it’ll be a thing to be proud of and glory in. Along with that you’ll see the sweat and the work and the know-how that goes into a house, and what makes a house strong, one that won’t fall down in a million years. You’ll tell
that to your babies, son, and they’ll feel proud and safe because they’ll know the house they live in is good and solid.”

  “Aw, Daddy, I haven’t even got a girl yet,” the boy said sheepishly.

  “You’ll be getten one,” said Clay. “Let’s go home to supper.”

  They picked up Chance at Percy Benson’s farm and the man and the boy and the cow plodded home together. It would be hard to say which of them was the most tired.

  By some magic Olivia always had supper ready when Clay arrived home. The table was set, the children and the two grandparents were already assembled at the table when Clay and Clay-Boy walked in the door.

  “Y’all get washed up and come on to supper,” said the old grandmother. “Livy’s fixed up a meal here that’s too good for poor folks.”

  That they were poor had never really occurred to any of the Spencers. They were familiar with the absence of money, but this was the common condition of all the people in the village, so they were not only ignorant of their condition but even managed to be happy in it.

  This very lack of material things created often a curious paradox. Once in a while they could not afford such luxury items as toothpaste, yet they fed on quail, pheasant, wild turkey and duck and venison. Once Clay had brought home a possum, the trophy of a night’s wild scramble through gullies and pine forest, over creeks and swampland after the hounds. Protesting, Olivia had cooked the thing, but everyone agreed the meat was fatty, too gamy and disagreeable. From the summer garden Clay brought home sweet young ears of corn, great beefsteak tomatoes, mealy butterbeans, snap beans, peas, squash. All summer long, at least once a week Olivia spent a day canning vegetables from the garden, blackberries, dewberries and wild strawberries the children would pick by the gallon. If the frost came early and killed the tomato plants she would gather bushels of green tomatoes and fill the kitchen with the vinegary aroma of green-tomato relish.

  “Don’t tell me nothen about bein’ poor,” said Clay, sitting down to the supper table. “When I was a little old shirttail boy we used to go sometimes all week long on nothen but what we could shoot or steal.”

  “Oh now you heish tellen them children that, Clay,” protested the old grandmother. “You know I never taught one of you children to steal, and your daddy would have thrashed you within an inch of your life if he ever caught you doen such a thing.”