Sporty Creek

by James Still

  SPORTY CREEK

  SPORTY CREEK

  James Still

  Illustrated by Paul Brett Johnson

  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

  Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

  Copyright © 1999 by The University Press of Kentucky

  Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,

  The Filson Club Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

  All rights reserved.

  Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

  663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

  03 02 01 00 99 5 4 3 2 1

  Originally published 1977 by G.P. Putnam and Sons

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Still, James, 1906-

  Sporty creek / James Still,

  p. cm.

  Summary: when work ceases in the Kentucky coal mines during the Depression of 1929, a young boy and his family move to the mountains to live off the land.

  ISBN 0-8131-0965-5 (paper : alk. paper)

  [Appalachian Region Fiction. 2. Depressions—1929 Fiction. 3. Family life Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S8565Sp 1999

  [Fic]—dc21

  99-18334

  This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  For

  my brothers and sisters:

  Alfred, Carrie Lois, Comer, Don,

  Elloree, Inez, Lonie, Nixie, and Tom

  Contents

  1. Simon Brawl

  2. School Butter

  3. Low Glory

  4. The Moving

  5. The Force Put

  6. Locust Summer

  7. The Dumb-Bull

  8. Plank Town

  9. Tight Hollow

  10. Journey To The Forks

  I remember my youth and the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth and all men.

  – JOSEPH CONRAD

  1

  simon brawl

  I ran into the fields one April morning, thinking to climb to the benchland where Uncle Jolly was breaking new ground. The sky was as blue as a bottle. A rash of green covered the sheltered fence edges, though the beech and poplar trees were still brown and bare. I began to climb, hands on knees, the way being steep. I went up through a redbud thicket swollen with unopened bloom and leaf, coming at last to where Uncle Jolly was plowing. He had already broken a half acre of furrows in the rooty earth.

  My family had moved from Houndshell mine camp in time to grub* fields for a corn crop and put in a sass† patch. Although I was born on Sporty Creek, more than half of my life had been spent at mine camps where Pap worked in good years. Bad times at the mines brought us back to Old Place, our home seat a quarter of a mile below Uncle Jolly’s farm. Uncle Jolly lived in the head of the hollow. Up Sporty the creek bed was the road.

  “Whoa-ho,” Uncle Jolly said when he saw me. He drew rein and leaned against the plow handles, blowing. He whistled a long redbird whistle. His forehead was moist, his shirt stuck to his back. He’d been hustling the mule and was glad of the rest. “Hain’t you got a sup of water?” he asked. “I’m dryer than a preacher’s hat.”

  “I never thought to bring water,” I said. “I’ve come up to learn to plow.”

  A drop of sweat hung and stretched on Uncle Jolly’s chin.

  “Jumping Josie!” he said. “This gentleman would pull you clear over the plow handles.”

  “Now, no,” I said. “I’m a-mind to learn.”

  I was happy he wasn’t plowing Jenny Peg, his anticky* horse. He had taught her many a prank. Uncle Jolly was a trickster. Said Pap, “Keep your eyes skinned in his neighborhood. Anybody with a standing order for hens’ teeth, wheelbarrow seed, and ’possum bushes needs watching.” On the other hand, our movings were a standing joke to Uncle Jolly. He called Pap “the last of the mountain gypsies.” Pap countered with Uncle Jolly’s courting troubles. Uncle Jolly was thirty and had never found a wife.

  Uncle Jolly grinned, scratching into the thick of his hair. “A tadwhacker† never caught on too young,” he said. “Just you fetch me a jug of spring water, and then I’ll let you try a furrow or two.”

  He hung the reins about his neck and leveled the plow. He dug a shoe toe into the black dirt. “I’m a stump-chewing nag if this ground won’t make corn. It’s as black as Old Scratch’s* heart and as rich as sin.”

  I footed downhill and back, bringing the water. Uncle Jolly stuck a finger into the jug’s ear, swinging it to his shoulder. He drank loud, gulping swallows. Water ran down his neck. It drained under his collar. Not till then did he poke his tongue out, tasting. “Seems to me a family of frogs have been washing their warts in the spring,” he said. “Hit’s got a powerful whang.”† He took another long drink. He must have downed a quart. “I like a wild taste,” he said. “The wilder, the better.”

  “What’s the mule’s name?” I asked.

  Uncle Jolly sat the jug down. “Banged if I know,” he said. “If I’ve asked the gentleman once, I’ve asked him a jillion times. He won’t tell me. My opinion, he ought to be called Simon Brawl, he’s so feisty. To start him going, I have to take measures. No trouble to stop him, though. He’s a mule. What he wants is to stay stopped.”

  A flock of flax-birds circled the newground, their cries sowing the air. Per-chic-o-ree, per-chic-o-ree. They settled at the field’s edge, and it was as if the dry stickweeds had burst yellow blossoms. They pecked at seed heads. They rattled the dry pods of milkweed.

  Uncle Jolly studied the plowed area of the field. His furrows were straight as a measure, running true without a bobble. “Hain’t many folks know how to tend dirt,” he said. “A mighty piddling few. Land a-wasting and washing. Up and down Sporty, it’s the same. Timber cut off and rain eating the hills away. Alike, hit is, on Ballard Creek, Cain Branch, Sugar Orchard, and Deer Lick. What’s folks going to live on when these hills wear to a nub?”

  “I aim to learn proper,” I said.

  He lifted the plow, setting the point into the ground. I stood there, not knowing what to do. “Best you walk betwixt the handles to get the hang of it,” he said. I stepped between, holding to the crosspiece. Uncle Jolly grasped the handle ends and clucked. The mule didn’t move. He whistled and shouted, but he might as well have been talking to a tree.

  Grinning, Uncle Jolly said, “See what I mean? This fool beast won’t stir. He’s too trifling even to be called a mule, low as that is. His brains are in his heels.” He tried a string of names: “Git along, Jack! Pete! Crowbar! Leadfoot!” When nothing availed, he reached down and caught up a handful of dirt and threw it onto the mule’s back. The mule started to move, shivers quivering his flanks. “It’s like that every time I halt,” Uncle Jolly said. “A mule has a nature plime-blank* the same as a man. Stubborn as crabgrass.”

  The earth parted. It fell back from the shovel plow. It boiled over the share. I walked the fresh furrow, and dirt welled between my toes. There was a smell of mosses, of bruised sassafras roots, of sweet anise. We broke out three furrows. Then Uncle Jolly stood aside and let me hold the handles. The mule noted the change but kept going. The share rustled like drifted leaves. It spoke up through the handles. I felt the earth flowing, s
teady as time.

  I turned the plow at the end of the third row. “This land is so rooty,” Uncle Jolly said, “I’m going to let you work over what I’ve already broken. You can try busting the balks.* Strike center, and go straight as a die.”

  I grasped the reins and handles. “Get along,” I called, big as life. The mule didn’t budge. Neither did he lift an ear.

  “He’s a regular Simon Brawl all right,” Uncle Jolly said.

  The mule started after I threw dirt on him. He traveled the first row peart† enough, ears standing ends up, for Uncle Jolly began singing at the top of his voice:

  O, I had a little gray mule,

  His name was Simon Brawl,

  He could kick a chew tobacco

  Out of yore mouth

  And never touch your jawl.**

  I plowed three furrows, and pride swelled in me as sap expands a willow bud. I was being master where till now I’d only stood in awe. I was finding strength I’d no knowing of. When I doubled back again, I saw Uncle Jolly sitting on the ground, leaning against a chestnut stump, eyes closed to the sun. The mule saw Uncle Jolly, too, and his ears drooped. He began to walk faster. The harness rattled on his bony frame. The furrow wandered a bit, and I got uneasy. “Hold back there!” I shouted, but he didn’t mend his pace.

  At the fourth row’s end I looked anxiously at Uncle Jolly, hoping he would take over. One glance, and I saw he had gone to sleep. I was ashamed to cry out. The mule hastened the furrow, the plow jiggling, scooping dirt, running crooked as a black snake’s track. I jerked the lines. I shouted all the mule names I’d ever heard. The share hooked a root, and the reins pulled from my hands. Grabbing up the lines, I called Uncle Jolly, being at last more frightened than ashamed. Uncle Jolly slept on.

  We no longer bore north and south. The mule cut northwest, southeast, back and forth, catty-cornered. My feet flew over the ground. We plowed a big S. We made a long T and crossed it on the way back. I reckon we made all the letters of the alphabet. We struck into the unbroken tract, gouging a great furrow, around and around, curling inward, tight as a watch spring.

  I couldn’t shout or raise a sound. There was no breath left in me.

  A voice sprang across the bench. “Hold thar, Bully!” The mule stopped in his tracks, and I went spinning over the plow. I got up, unhurt. A bellow came from the chestnut stump. It was a laugh almost too great for a throat to utter.

  I looked in time to see Uncle Jolly rise to his feet, then crumple to the ground. He threshed about, his arms beating the air, laughing in agony. He jerked. He whooped and hollered. He got up twice, falling back slack-jointed and weak. A fresh squall of joy flowed out of him each time.

  And when Uncle Jolly had his laugh out, he came across the field. The mule watched him come, lowering his head, acting a grain* nervous. Uncle Jolly sniggered when he reached us, and I saw fresh laughter boiling inside him, ready to burst. The mule raised his head suddenly. He licked his yellow tongue squarely across Uncle Jolly’s mouth.

  “I bet that’s a wild enough taste,” I said scornfully.

  *grub: remove sprouts by digging

  †sass: vegetables

  *anticky: clownish

  †tadwhacker: boy

  *Old Scratch: devil

  †whang: taste and smell

  *plime-blank: exactly

  *balk: space between field rows

  †peart: smartly

  **jawl: jaw

  *grain: bit

  2

  school butter

  “If Sporty Creek ever reared a witty,”* Pap used to tell us, “your Uncle Jolly Middleton is the scamp. Always pranking and teasing. Forever traveling the road on a fool horse, hunting mischief. Heading toward middle age and not wed. Why, he would pull a trick even if it cost him his ears, and nobody on earth can stop him laughing. Laughs like a man dying with the cornbread consumption.”†

  Uncle Jolly didn’t actually need to work. He could pick money out of the air. He could fetch down anything he wanted by just reaching. And he would whoop and holler. Folk claimed he could rook** the horns off the devil and go free. Yet he didn’t get by the day he yelled “school butter” at the Sporty Creek school. Why that was such a bad thing to yell nobody remembers. But it had been so almost forever. A person might as well hang red on a bull’s horns as speak that taunt passing a Baldridge County schoolhouse.

  I attended the whole five-month school session, and I was a top scholar.* My sister Holly wasn’t a scimption† to me when it came to spelling. Later, but not that year.

  I could spell down all in my grade except Mittie Hyden. But Mittie kept her face turned away from me. Mostly I saw the back of her head, the biscuit of her hair.

  The free textbooks I learned by heart, quarreling at the torn and missing pages. My old reader left William Tell standing with an apple on his head. Rip Van Winkle never woke. That year Duncil Hargis was the teacher, and I prodded him, “My opinion, if you’ll let the county superintendent know, he’ll furnish new texts. Pap says Fight Creek and Buffalo Wallow teachers have brought in a horse load for their schools.”

  A sixth grader said, “These have done all they’ve come here to do.”

  “Sporty alius** was the tail,” Mittie said. She didn’t fear to speak her mind. “Had my way, I’d drop these rags of books into the deepest hole there ever was.”

  Ard Trent, my bench mate, snorted. He could hoot and get by, for he was so runty he had to sit on a chalk box. He could have mounted to the top of the bell pole and Duncil not said button. Being smallest, he was the pick.‡ He was water boy and could go outside at will. Ard wouldn’t have cared if the books wore down to a single page apiece.

  “New textbooks will be furnished in due season,” Duncil said. He believed in using a thing to the last smidgen.§ And maybe the rumor the Sporty school would be closed in another year had something to do with it.

  He set us to work. I was put to studying a dictionary, and I boasted to Ard Trent, “I’ll lay my eyes to every word there be. I’ll conquer some jawbreakers.” But I got stuck in the A’s. I slacked off and read “Jack the Giant Killer.” Short as it was I had to borrow a couple of readers to splice it together.

  The next visit Uncle Jolly made to our house I told of Sporty’s book problem. I said, “Duncil’s too big a scrimper to swap them in.” And I spoke of another grievance. “School reader stories are too bobtailed anyhow to suit my notion. Wish I had a story a thousand miles long.”

  Uncle Jolly cocked his head in puzzlement. He couldn’t understand a boy reading without being driven. He peered at me, trying to figure if I owned my share of brains. He tapped my head and listened. He claimed he couldn’t hear any. “Empty as a gourd,” he said.

  At this Pap keened his eye at Uncle Jolly and spoke an old verse which, according to him, fitted Jolly to a T:

  Sporty Creek, Sporty Creek,

  Born and bred,

  Strong in the arm,

  Woolly in the head.

  Uncle Jolly only grinned. He could take a joke as well as dish them out. He could beat Pap at making verses, and he didn’t have to rub up mossy ones either. His were fresh from the teeth. At the moment he was busy counting my brother Dan’s toes. He counted five on a foot and said, “I’d have wagered a kneecap there were more. With such a pappy as yours there might have been.” Dan looked solemn. He was six and believed all he heard.

  Trying to outdo Uncle Jolly was Pap’s delight. When he didn’t get a rise out of him on account of the verse, Pap asked, “How are you and that switch of a girl on Bee Branch making out?”

  “Courting to marry,” said Uncle Jolly.

  “Tall time,” said Pap, and Mother, who let Pap do most of the talking, nodded accord.

  Holly, at the age when nothing we said was accounted worth hearing, grunted, “Humph.” She was eleven, two years my elder.

  “You’ve been sparking* several moons,” Pap reminded, “’Tis said,

  Those who court too awful slow

&nb
sp; In the end have naught to show.”

  “I’m allowing her to get used to me. Breaking her in.”

  Said Pap, “Don’t let her learn too much. She’ll throw you down, and who could blame her?”

  Uncle Jolly laughed. “Right as a rabbit’s foot,” he said.

  Pap had to hush. If a body agreed, there was no argument.

  Uncle Jolly set Dan on his feet and drew two corn cobs from a hip pocket. He knew a bushel of tricks but talking two cobs together was the one we most fancied.

  Placing the cobs a span apart on the floor, Uncle Jolly spread palms over them. He passed his hands back and forth an inch above the cobs. He smoothed the air and mumbled, “By hokus, by pokus, legi’maint†, kick, Tom, spur.”

  Over and over he breathed the incantation as the cobs crept closer and closer. They moved by the littles until they tipped. Then Uncle Jolly glanced up at Pap. “Now, what were you saying about my cha-racter?”

  “Cha-racter is something you’re not bowed down with,” said Pap.

  As the saying goes, Pap was talking to hear his head rattle. We owed Uncle Jolly a lot. When we were starved back to Sporty from Houndshell mine camp during the panic,* he saw to it we did not lack corn for bread. He furnished us meat from his smokehouse and loaned us a milk cow.

  Mother brought up a matter which was a botherment. Pap intended to move to Houndshell again when the school term ended, and she was certain Uncle Jolly would support her cause. Wherever we lived, when we said the word “home,” we meant Old Place. Sporty was where Mother wanted to remain.

  We had lived in Houndshell during the bad days. The mine bore the nickname Low Glory owing to an unreliable ceiling, and many applied it to both mine and camp. At Low Glory eleven men had perished under dislodged pot rocks, fourteen in a wink in a general fall,† and two at the tipple.**

  I remembered the smoky air of the camp, the rusty groaning of metal at the mine face. Our stay at the camp had been a misery. Mining dwindled from five days to none. Then Low Glory closed, and nobody worked. The shelves of the commissary‡ went bare, and patched breeches and gaunt faces became common. The Red Horse* spared many from starvation. Even Sim Brannon, the mine foreman, claimed his monthly sack of free flour. Although there was talk of a peg† on coal, we understood hard times were everywhere. We had hung on until three-quarters of the houses were empty.