Spencer's Mountain

by Earl Hamner, Jr.

  At the mention of the recipe Zebulon’s eyes lighted up and as they arrived in the kitchen he looked around thirstily.

  “Etta,” said Miss Emma, “find Mr. Zebulon a container so he can sample that new recipe.” She turned to address Zebulon. “I was sayen to Sister just a while ago I think it’s the best run we’ve had in years.”

  Miss Emma rummaged through some cooking utensils in the sink until she found a tin dipper. She handed it to Zebulon, who went to a row of earthenware crocks, uncorked one and filled his tin dipper to the brim with the clear white liquid.

  He took a sip and rolled it around in his mouth, savored it with his tongue, and then swallowed. “That’s one hundred per cent,” he announced and took a longer second drink.

  “I always did say,” remarked Miss Emma, “that nobody ever appreciated the recipe half as much as Mr. Zebulon Spencer. Etta, serve Virgil’s girl some recipe.”

  Miss Etta washed a drinking tumbler and filled it from the same earthenware crock Zebulon had sampled and brought it to Lisa. Lisa raised the glass to her lips and took a small sip. A fire started in her mouth and worked its way down to the pit of her stomach.

  The two sisters looked at her as if waiting for a verdict.

  “It’s strong,” said Lisa. “What is it?”

  “It’s Papa’s recipe,” explained Miss Emma. “Papa used to make it all the time and then when he passed on we used to get so many calls for it that Sister and I just kept on making it. Help yourself there, Mr. Zebulon, there’s plenty.”

  Zebulon poured himself a second dipper of the liquor. “People come from miles around here to buy from Miss Emma and Miss Etta,” said Zebulon.

  “We had a gentleman stop off last week all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina,” said Etta proudly. “He was a traveling man and somebody in Charlottesville told him about the recipe. He loved it so much he took a whole gallon of it back to Raleigh with him.”

  “It gives us something to do in our old age,” said Miss Emma, “and it makes people happy so I can’t see why we shouldn’t keep right on providing. But gracious me, here I am rattling on about myself, and I haven’t heard a word about you. Tell us all about your romance with Virgil Spencer, how you met and fell in love.”

  She waved to the earthenware crocks. “While we’re talking, Mr. Zebulon, since you know your way around, just make yourself at home.”

  Zebulon nodded his thanks and made his way to the row of crocks to refill his empty dipper.

  When Virgil and his brothers returned to Clay’s house they found their wives waiting for them on the porch. Virgil noticed that his car was gone and when he came up to the porch he asked his mother, “Where’s my car?”

  “Your daddy took it and he took your wife with him. I’m near about worried to death he’s wrecked that car and killed the both of them.”

  “We’d better go look for them,” said Virgil to his brothers. They all returned to the car and piled in together.

  “Where you reckon we ought to look for Papa?” asked Virgil.

  “There ain’t but one place Papa goes when he’s on the loose, and that’s down to Miss Emma and Miss Etta’s,” said Clay. “Wouldn’t mind stoppen off to see them old ladies myself,” he added.

  Lisa had just come to the end of her recitation of her romance with Virgil when a horn sounded from somewhere in front of the house, and shortly thereafter a knock sounded at the door.

  “My gracious,” said Miss Emma. “Looks like we’ve got some more company. Go see who it is, Etta.”

  Miss Etta returned in a few minutes, followed by Virgil Spencer and his eight brothers.

  “Well, if this isn’t a treat!” exclaimed Miss Emma. “Etta, find chairs for everybody. Virgil, I want to congratulate you on finding the prettiest girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  “Thank you, Miss Emma,” said Virgil respectfully. He went to where Lisa was sitting and gave her hand a tight squeeze. Lisa, her glass half empty, was relaxed and rid of the nervousness that had nearly overcome her since her arrival in New Dominion and smiled back to tell him that she was all right.

  “Clay, what’s this your daddy’s been telling me about you sending Clay-Boy off to get a college education?” asked Miss Emma.

  “That’s how it looks, Miss Emma,” said Clay. “His teacher up at the school seems to think they can get him a scholarship or something. We’re waiten to hear from it.”

  “Well, this certainly is a red-letter day for us, having all the Spencer boys and their daddy visit us on the same day. Etta, get everybody some of the recipe and let’s celebrate this grand occasion.”

  Darkness was falling across the hills when Olivia went for what seemed the thousandth time to the front door to see if there were any signs of Clay, his brothers and Lisa. Her sisters-in-law were all in the kitchen and the cousins, tired from playing and hungry from the long wait for their Sunday dinner, were fighting and grumbling down in the yard.

  “See anything of them, Livy?” asked Eliza, who had come up and stood behind her.

  “Not a thing, Miss Eliza,” said Olivia.

  “They’ve got into whiskey somewhere,” said Eliza darkly. “You watch what I tell you. Oh, I could just shake that old man for runnen off with that girl in the first place.”

  “I hate whiskey as much as the next one,” said Olivia, “but I’d almost rather it be that than to have ’em off dead in a ditch somewhere in an accident.”

  It had been a frustrating day for Olivia. All day long she had wanted to speak to Virgil in private to find out if he might still consider taking Clay-Boy in with him and Lisa when it came time for Clay-Boy to go to the University of Richmond.

  “I reckon we might as well go ahead and feed the children, Miss Eliza,” she said. “If the Spencer boys are in their whiskey they won’t be back till it’s all gone, Lord knows.” Raising her voice, she called, “Y’all come to supper,” and an eager and hungry army of little Spencer cousins roared toward the house.

  After the children and their mothers had eaten, Vinnie, Rome’s wife, packed all the guests into Rome’s car and began delivering them to their homes. Olivia sent all her children except Clay-Boy to bed and finally the house fell silent except for the sounds made by Clay-Boy and his mother as they washed the dishes. Eliza was upstairs hearing the younger children’s prayers when Olivia heard a car stop down at the front gate.

  A woman’s footsteps echoed on the front walk and onto the porch; as Olivia came to the long hall that led to the front door she saw that the woman was Lisa. The girl was weary and exasperated.

  “Olivia,” she said. “They’re all down in the car. They said they wanted to sit down there and sing a while.”

  “It’s the whiskey,” said Olivia. “They’ll wear it off after a while.”

  From down at the front gate the strains of “The Old Rugged Cross” drifted up to them across the darkening lawn:

  “…I will cherish the old rugged cross

  And exchange it some day for a crown.”

  Olivia smiled at the girl.

  “Now you’re getten some idea what it’s like to be married to a Spencer.”

  “You know,” said Lisa, “I’ve been in New Dominion all day and still haven’t met the one person I wanted most to meet.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Clay-Boy,” she replied. “Virgil says he’s coming to live with us this fall.”

  The frustration and annoyance that had been building in Olivia all day long fell away. She took Lisa’s hand to express her gratitude and then changed her mind and embraced her instead.

  “Are you sure you can take two Spencers at the same time?” asked Olivia.

  “It looks to me when you take one of them you take the whole family,” said Lisa. “I won’t be able to help him with his homework because I only had high school myself, but I’m a good cook and I’ll see he gets plenty to eat.”

  “Bless you, honey,” said Olivia. “Come on back here in the kitchen and get somethen to eat.
I’ll bet you’re starved to death.”

  After Lisa had her supper, she sat at the table with Olivia and Clay-Boy. All the time she had been eating Clay-Boy had been looking at her with a curious gaze.

  “Is there anything you want to ask me, Clay-Boy,” Lisa said finally.

  “Yes,” he said, “but I’m not sure it would be all right.”

  “Well, try me,” she said.

  “What is a Jew?” asked Clay-Boy.

  “I’m a Jew,” Lisa replied.

  “I mean what makes you so different?”

  “Do I look so different?”

  “That’s what I mean,” the boy said. “You don’t.”

  “It’s a religion,” said Lisa. “We believe in God and the Ten Commandments. We believe that man has a soul, that he should love good and hate evil and that his soul is eternal. We don’t think we’re the only religion there is. I remember hearing a rabbi say once, ‘We Jews know there are many mountain tops and all of them reach for the stars.’”

  “It’s just what I thought it would be,” said Olivia. “It’s just about the same thing as being a Baptist.”

  Down at the car an unsteady voice started a new hymn.

  “Throw out the lifeline!

  Throw out the lifeline!

  Someone is drifting awaaaaaaaaaaaay.”

  One by one the other voices blended in harmony.

  “Throw out the lifeline,

  Throw out the lifeline,

  Someone is sinking today.”

  “You want me to go down and see if I can get ’em to turn in for the night, Mama?” asked Clay-Boy.

  “Wouldn’t do any good,” said Olivia. “They’ll just pull you in the car and keep you down there singen with ’em. You go on to bed if you’re tired.”

  After Clay-Boy went to bed, Olivia and Lisa sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking.

  It was midnight before the singing down in the car came to a quavering halt. After a while Olivia and Lisa took a flashlight and went down to investigate. With their arms around each other and tired happy grins on their faces, the Spencer men had gone to sleep.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Lisa.

  “I reckon we’d better get some sleep too,” said Olivia, and they followed the circle of light from the flashlight across the dew-covered grass toward the house and rest.

  Chapter 11

  It was good for all concerned that Friendship Corner, as Clay-Boy’s library had come to be called, was not run on a profit-making plan. During the weeks it had been open the library had attracted only a few regular customers. Geraldine Boyd came once a week. If Clay-Boy were alone she would stay and make stilted bookish conversation. If Claris happened to be there Geraldine would make her selection quickly and escape as soon as possible from Claris’ curious and merciless questions. Alabama Sweetzer quickly exhausted the supply of Western books which she supplied to Craig Godlove. At Clay-Boy’s suggestion she had switched to murder mysteries, but Mr. Godlove consumed them so quickly that Clay-Boy was already wondering what to recommend when his supply of mysteries was exhausted.

  Most of the time, left alone, Clay-Boy spent reading. He consumed more books during that summer than probably the entire population of New Dominion had read in a lifetime. At first he read indiscriminately. He would take down any volume from the shelf and paying no attention to the title or whether it was fiction or biography, a book on medicine or a single volume of an encyclopedia, he would read it from cover to cover. Every book he read only whetted his appetite to read more and he began forcing himself to read more slowly lest he finish all the books in the library before the summer was over.

  Late one afternoon a shadow fell over the page he was reading and he looked up to see Claris.

  “You and I are going places, son,” she announced.

  “I’m going home to supper,” said Clay-Boy.

  “Where would you like to go? Name it.”

  “Well, I’d like to go to Jerusalem and see the Dead Sea. I was just reading it’s got so much salt in it you don’t have to swim. You just float automatically.”

  “Would you settle for the Dixie Belle Traveling Tent Show? It’s over at Faber.”

  “Sure I would, but how would we get there?”

  “I’ll drive us. The Colonel’s gone to Tennessee on business and left the car. Said I could use it.”

  “I’d sure like to go,” said Clay-Boy, “but I don’t know if Mama and Daddy will let me.”

  “Son,” said Claris, “you disgust me. Here you are, about to go out in the world and get yourself an education and you’re still asking permission to turn around. When are you going to stop asking them if you can go and just go?”

  “If I told them I was going to a carnival, I’d never get out of the house. Mama would say it was sinful and Daddy would want me to go with him to work on the house and there I’d be.”

  “Don’t tell them you’re going to the carnival. Tell them you coming over to see me and I’m going to teach you to play the fiddle or something. God, you’re dumb. I can’t stand you.”

  “Then how come you’re always hanging around?”

  “I guess it’s that soulful little choirboy face and the fact that you’re the only hillbilly in a hundred miles I can talk to. Now, do you want to go or not?”

  “If I can get away.”

  “I’ll wait until eight o’clock. If you’re not there by then I’m coming over and tell your family you’ve ruined me and you’re going to have to do the right thing and take me to the preacher.”

  “Boy, you really talk big. I bet if I said boo to you you’d break a leg getting out of here.”

  “I really don’t know what you mean,” said Claris airily.

  “I mean if I tried to do it to you,” said Clay-Boy.

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “You know,” said Clay-Boy and blushed.

  “Pow!” exclaimed Claris and jumped up from her chair and strode around the room. “Pow! Pow! Pow!” she said, striking her fists against the book-lined shelves.

  “What’s the matter with you now?” cried Clay.

  “Oh you hillbillies!” she cried. “All you can think of is sex, sex, sex!” She stood in front of him now, mocking and teasing him with her eyes. “I came down here, an innocent girl from the city, trying to be friends, trying to invite you to enjoy a pleasant evening with me at the Dixie Belle Traveling Tent Show, and I haven’t been here more than ten minutes before you start making indecent proposals.”

  In spite of her words Claris was daring him with her body and suddenly, as much to his own surprise as hers, he reached out and took her into his arms. Her lips were still curved in a smile but no sound of laughter came from them. Through her half-closed eyes he saw that she had no fright and that she was merely waiting to see what he would do. He bent his lips to hers and held her in a long kiss.

  With his body pressed close against her, Claris felt what the excitement was doing to him and whispered, “Not here. It isn’t safe.” But Clay-Boy hardly heard her. His hands began to explore the places they had longed to touch and the girl began to respond, guiding his hands and moving her body against his.

  It was Claris who heard the sound. A high amused giggle sounded from the door. She began to struggle and Clay-Boy, mistaking her struggle for passion, struggled with her, whispered words to reassure her, until finally when she could rid herself of him no other way, Claris shouted, “Let go of me!

  She twisted out of his arms and retreated. When Clay-Boy started to follow her, Claris inclined her head toward the door. Clay-Boy looked and there stood his little sister Becky, looking at him indignantly.

  “What do you want?” he demanded.

  “Mama says she needs you. You come on home right away she says.”

  “You run back to the house and tell her I’m on the way.”

  “I’ll wait and go with you, Clay-Boy.”

  “You do what I tell you. I’ve got to put the windows down and lock up h
ere and everything.”

  “I won’t,” declared Becky.

  “If you don’t I’m going to spank your fanny,” he shouted.

  “If you lay hands on me, I’ll tell Mama what I saw,” threatened Becky.

  “What you saw, Little Miss Smartie Pants, was Clay-Boy trying to get something out of my eye. I got a piece of mill dust in it walking around from the post office and Clay-Boy was just taking it out for me, weren’t you, Clay-Boy?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He didn’t have his hands nowhere near your eyes,” objected Becky.

  “You say that again, kid,” said Claris, “and I’m going to clobber your jaw so hard you’ll look backwards for the rest of your life.”

  Becky turned and ran out of Friendship Corner. Once she was safely out of the door and up the path to the road she shouted, “I’m goen to tell Mama on you-all!”

  “Oh God,” cried Clay-Boy, “I’ve got to shut her up before she tells the world. You lock up here.”

  As he ran for the door Claris called, “What about the carnival tonight?”

  “I’ll be there if I can get away,” he promised.

  “If you don’t show up by eight o’clock, I’m coming over there after you,” she threatened. “I’ll tell your Mama what you tried to do to me down here, too!”

  “I’ll be there,” he shouted in desperation and ran after his little sister who, safely halfway up the hill, was shouting her threat.

  He saw Becky enter the house and doubled his speed, but it was too late. When he walked in the kitchen he found Olivia seated on a stool beside the kitchen range. She was cutting some vegetables into the soup she was making for supper and listening to Becky’s story.

  “And then,” Becky was saying, “Claris said she was going to slap my face around to the other side if I said anything so I ran away from them.”

  “What’s this child tryen to tell me, Clay-Boy?” asked Olivia.

  “I don’t know, Mama,” said Clay-Boy. “What did she say?”

  “She says that you and Claris were doen somethen bad.”