by James Still
Within a month’s time we used more than half of the cornmeal and most of the lard. The salt meat shrank. The potatoes left were spared for seed. When the coffee gave out, Pap posed, “Now, what would Old Dan’l Boone have done in such a pickle?” He bade Mother roast pintos and brew them. But he couldn’t help twisting his mouth every swallow. Rabbits and beans we had in plenty, and Pap assured, “They’ll feed us until the garden sass crosses the table.” Holly grew thin as a sawhorse. She claimed beans stuck in her throat and professed to despise rabbit. She lived on broth.
The traps stayed empty, and Pap said, “Fooling a mink is ticklish business. The idea is to rid the suspicion and set a strong temptation.” He baited with meat skins, rancid grease, and rabbit ears. He boiled the traps, smoked them, even buried them awhile. “I’ll pinch toes yet,” he vowed, “doubt you not.”
“The shape your feet are in,” Mother remarked, “the quicker, the better.”
“We’re not entirely beholden to pelts,” Pap hedged. “Even if I had the bad luck to catch nothing, the herbs are ahead of us—ginseng at thirty-five dollars a pound.”
“I doubt your shoes will hold out to tread grass,” said Mother.
Coming in with nothing to show was awkward for Pap, and he teased or complained to cover his embarrassment. One day he saw me wearing a stocking cap Mother had made, and he laughed fit to choke. Again, spying Holly stitching a tiny garment, he appealed to Mother, “Upon my deed! Eleven years old and pranking with dolls. I recollect when girls her age were fair on to becoming young women.”
“Away from other girls,” Mother remarked, “how can she occupy herself?”
“Stir about,” said Pap, “not mope.”
Holly said, “I’m scared to go outside. Every night I hear a booger.”
“So that’s it,” Pap scoffed.
Mother abetted Holly, “Something waked me an evening or so ago. A rambling noise, a walking sound.”
“My opinion,” Pap said, “you heard a tree frog or a hooty owl. Leave it to women to build a haystack of a single straw. Stuff your ears nights, you two, and you’ll sleep better.”
The cold slackened early in April. It rained a week. The spears of ice along the cliffs plunged to earth, and the branch flooded. The waters covered the lumberyard of the sawmill, lapped under the bunkhouse floor, filled the hollow wall to wall. They swept away Pap’s traps. When the skies cleared, there was not a solitary trap to be discovered.
“Never you fret,” Pap promised Mother, “herbs will provide. I’ve heard speak of families of ginseng diggers roaming the hills, free as the birds. They made a life of it.”
“I’d put small dependence in such tales,” Mother said.
The woods hurried into leaf. Dogwood and service bushes whitened the ridges, and wheedle-dees* called in the laurel. One morning Mother showed Pap strange tracks by the door. Pap stood in the tracks, and they were larger than his shoes. He wagged his head. The tracks were every whit the size of the boots found in the keg.
“My judgment,” Mother said, “we’re wanted begone. They’re out to be rid of us. They aim to hound us off the tract.”
“I’m the appointed caretaker of this scope of land,” Pap replied testily, “and I’ll not leave till I get my ready on.”
Wild greens spelled the pintos and rabbit. We ate branch lettuce and ragged breeches and bird’s-toe and swamp mustard. We went back to the beans and rabbit when the plants toughened. By late April the salt meat was down to rind, the meal sack more poke than bread, and the lard scanty. Pap hewed out a sass patch and then left the planting and tilling to Mother. He took up ginseng hunting altogether. He came in too weary to pick at us, and he rarely saw the baby awake. Dan began to look askance at him. As for his shoes, he was patching the patches.
One night Mother said to Pap, “My opinion, it’s time to choose a name for the baby. High time. Name it and be done.”
Pap said, “I’ve considered Sim. Sim Brannon helped us when we needed him. And I’ve considered Cass. Cass Logan has treated us well.” He sighed, too tired to think.
“A pitch-up.”
Said Holly, “I don’t like ‘em.”
“Me neither,” said Dan.
I said naught. But for a baby with a cowlick and two crowns these names seemed unworthy. Mother had told us two crowns meant a noble life on this earth and an assurance of heaven.
Dan and I gradually forgot Old Jack. We waded in the branch and played at the sawmill. We pretended to work for Cass Logan. With poles for peaveys we rolled play logs, buzzing to match steel teeth eating timber. Dan’s crippled hand was no hinder. And we chased cowbirds and rabbits out of the garden. Rich as the ground was, the seeds sprouted tardily, for the sun warmed the valley floor only at the height of the day. Mother fixed a scarecrow and dressed it in Pap’s old clothes. We would hold the baby high and say, “Yonder’s Pap! Pap-o!” The baby would stare as at a stranger.
Pap happened upon the first ginseng in May and bore it home proudly. We crowded to see it—even Holly. Three of the roots were forked and wrinkled, with arms and legs and a knot of a head. One had the shape of a spindle. Tired though he was, Pap boasted, “The easiest licks a man ever struck. Four digs, four roots.”
“Dried they’ll weigh like cork,” Mother pronounced. She asked. “Why didn’t you hit more taps, make the tramping worth the leather?”
His ears reddening, Pap stammered, “The stalks are barely breaking dirt. Hold your horses. You can’t push nature.”
Pap glanced about for the baby, thinking to skip an argument. The baby was asleep. He complained, “Is the chub going to slumber its life away?” He eyed Dan leaning against Mother and said, “That kid used to be a daddy’s boy. Acted to be my ’possum baby.* Used to keep my knees rubbed sore.” He took a square look at Holly and inquired, “What ails her? I want to know. She’s nothing bit skin and bones.”
“You’re the shikepoke,” Mother replied. “You’ve walked yourself to a blade. If you came home earlier, you would find the baby wide-eyed.”
The baby happened to be awake one evening—the evening we’ll forever recall. The little one had pulled himself up by a chair or by a knee, yet had never walked. On this particular evening he hoisted himself, stood alone, and took the first tottering steps. In the garment made of my striped shirt he looked like a stick of candy. He fell. Up he came again, with no help, and waddled on. He headed toward none of us. He walked as independent as a hog on ice.
One day Pap arrived in the middle of the afternoon swinging two squirrels by the tails. He came grinning in spite of having found no ginseng. He crowed, “We’ll allow the beans and the bunnies a vacation. We’ll feast on squirrel gravy. Break out Old Huldey.” Pap jiggled them to make the baby flick its eyes. It barely noticed, for it was playing with Mother’s locket. After skinning the squirrels, Pap stretched the hides across boards and hung them to cure.
The gravy turned out grainy and tasteless. Lacking milk, and with bran substituted for flour, there was no help for it. Yet Pap smacked his lips. He offered the baby a spoonful, and it shrank away. He ladled Dan a serving, and Dan refused it. Tempting Holly, he urged, “Try a sop, and mind you don’t swallow your tongue.” Holly wrinkled her nose. “Take nourishment, my lady,” he cajoled, “or you’ll dry up and blow away.”
“Humph!” Holly scoffed and left the table.
Pap’s patience shortened. “Can’t you make the young-‘un eat?” he demanded of Mother. “She’s wasting to a skeleton.”
“We’ll all lose flesh directly,” Mother said.
Holly said, “Was I on Sporty, I’d eat a bushel.”
Pap opened his mouth to speak but caught himself. He couldn’t outtalk the both. He gritted his teeth and hushed.
When ginseng proved, scarce and golden seal and seneca very scattering, Pap dug five-cent-a-pound dock and twenty-five-cent wild ginger. He dug cohosh and crane’s bill and bluing weed and snakeroot. He worked like an ant. Mornings he left so early he carried a lanter
n to light his path, and he returned after we children had dozed off. Still, the bulk of herbs drying on the hearth hardly seemed to increase from day to day. Again Mother reported strange tracks, but Pap shrugged. “It’s not the footprints that plague me,” he said, “hit’s the puzzle.”
The sass patch failed. The corn dwarfed in the shade, the grains mere blisters on the cob. The tomatoes blighted. The potato vines were pale as though grown under thatch. We ate the last of the bread, and then we knew beans and rabbit plain. We must have all dreamed of the salt mackerel at Houndshell and the giant wheel of cheese. Pap hammered together box traps and baited for groundhogs, but the groundhogs were too wise for Pap.
Awaking one evening as Pap trudged in, I heard Mother say direfully, “We’ll have to flee this hollow, no two ways talking. They’ll halt at nothing to be rid of us.”
“What now?” Pap asked wearily.
“Next they’ll burn us out,” Mother said, displaying a bunch of charred sticks. “Under the house I found these. By a mercy the fire perished before the planks took spark.”
“May have been there twenty years,” Pap discounted. “Who knows how long?”
“Fresh as yesterday,” Mother insisted. “Smell of them.”
“To my thinking,” Pap ridiculed, “scorched sticks and big tracks are awful weak antics. The pranks of some witty, some dumbhead.”
“We can’t risk guessing,” Mother begged. “For the sake of the children—” She threw up her hands. “You’re as stubborn as Old Billy Devil!” she cried.
Pap yawned. He was too exhausted to wrangle.
The day came when Pap’s shoes wore out completely. He hobbled home at dusk and told Mother, “Roust the old boots that were found in the keg. My shoes have done all they came here to do.”
“They’ll swallow your feet,” Mother objected. “They’ll punish.” She was close to tears.
“It’s a force put,” Pap said. “I’ll have to use the pair even if they cost me a yard of skin.”
Reluctantly Mother brought the boots, and Pap stuffed the toes with rags and drew them on. They were sizes too large and rattled as he walked. Noticing how gravely we children watched, he pranced to get a rise out of us. Our faces remained solemn.
“I’ll suffer these till I can arrange otherwise,” he said, “and that I aim to do shortly. I’ll fetch the herbs to the Kilgore post office tomorrow.”
“They may bring in enough to shod you,” Mother said, “if you’ll trade with another pack peddler.” She dabbed her eyes. “A season’s work not worth a good pair of shoes!”
His face reddening, Pap began sorting the herbs. But he couldn’t find the ginseng. He searched the fireplace, the floor. He looked here and yon. He scattered the heaps. Then he spied Holly’s dolls. The forked ginseng roots were clothed in tiny breeches, the spindle-shaped ones tricked in wee skirts. They were dressed like people. “Upon my deed!” he sputtered.
Pap paced the bunkhouse, the boots creaking. He glared at Holly, and she threw her neck haughtily. He neared Dan, and Dan sheltered behind Mother. He reached to gather up the baby, and it primped its face to cry. “Upon my word and deed and honor,” he blurted, and grabbed his hat and the lantern. “Even the Grassy Creek folks wouldn’t plumb cold-shoulder me. I’m of a notion to spend a night with them.” He was across the threshold before Mother could speak to halt him.
Pap was gone two days, and Mother was distraught. She scrubbed the bunkhouse end to end. She mended garments and sewed on buttons. She slew every weed in the puny garden. When there was nothing more to do, she gathered up the squirrel skins and patterned caps.
The afternoon of the second day she told us, “I’m going downcreek a spell. Keep the baby company, and don’t set foot outside.” Taking Pap’s rifle gun, she latched the door behind her.
We watched through cracks and saw her enter the garden and strip the scarecrow. We saw her march toward the mouth of the creek, gun in hand, garments balled under an arm. She returned presently, silent and empty-handed, and she sat idle until she saw Pap coming.
Pap arrived wearing new shoes and chuckling. I ran to meet him, the tail of my fur cap flying, and he had to chortle awhile before he could take another step. He chirruped, “Stay out of trees, mister boy, or you may be shot for a critter.” But it wasn’t my cap that had set him laughing. Upon seeing Mother, he drew his jaws straight. He wore a dry countenance, though his eyes glittered.
Mother gazed at Pap’s brand-new boots. They were as shiny as my own though the toes were not pointy. “How are the people on Grassy?” she asked.
“They’re in health,” Pap replied, hard put to master his lips. “And from them I got answers to a couple of long-hanging questions. I learned the location of the closest schoolhouse. I know who kindled the logs in our fireplace back yonder.”
Dan, hiding behind Mother, thrust his head into view. Holly put aside her dolls and listened, and the baby widened its eyes. Then Pap greeted the baby. “Why, hello, Little Jolly,” and that was the first we knew of its name.
Mother looked startled and pleased.
“I was stumped between Cass and Sim,” Pap explained. “Couldn’t choose one without slighting the other. So, as it appears Uncle Jolly will never have a namesake of his own, I’ve decided to furnish him one.”
“Never give Jolly out,” said Mother, brightening. “He may fool you.”
Said Pap, “Fooling is the best thing he does.” He blinked. He held himself in. “And he’s not alone. Today I’ve met his match.” And Pap went on with explanations. “Kilgore has the closest school. A mite farther away than I had counted on. So it’s the Settlement School at the forks of Troublesome for the boys. They’re to go right shortly, for I’ve signed ‘em up. As for the fire, why, the Grassy man made it to welcome us the day he expected us to move here. Recollect we were a day late. But he’s not the mischief who planted tracks and pitched burned sticks under the house. Nor the one who waylaid me at the mouth of the hollow while ago.”
Mother cast down her eyes.
Pap went on, struggling not to laugh. “A good thing I made a deal with Cass Logan to haul our plunder to Sporty. Ay, a piece of luck he paid me rent for our horse, and I could buy footgear to run in when I blundered into the ambush.”
Mother lowered her head.
Swallowing, trying to contain his joy, Pap said, “Coming into the hollow, I spied a gun barrel pointing across a log at me—a gun plime-blank like my own. Behind a bush was a somebody rigged in my old coat and plug hat. Gee-o, did I travel!”
Mother raised her chin. Her eyes were damp, yet she was smiling. “If you’d stop carrying on,” she said, “you could tell us how soon to expect Cass.”
A gale of laughter broke in Pap’s throat. He threshed the air. He fought for breath. “I can’t,” he gasped. “You’ve tickled me.”
*hobby bread: bread baked in a slab
†rasher: slice of meat
*Old Huldey: common name for a skillet
*mast trees: trees producing nuts
*wheedle-dee: wood thrush
*’possum baby: favored child
10
journey to the forks
“Hit’s a far piece,” Dan said. “I’m afraid we won’t make it against dusty dark.” We squatted down in the road and rested on the edge of a clay rut. Dan set his poke on the crust of a mule’s track, and I lifted the budget off my shoulder. The cloth was damp underneath.
“We ought never thought to be scholars,” Dan said.
The sun-ball had turned over the ridge above Gideon Whitfield’s farm, and it was hot in the valley. Grackles walked the top rail of a fence, breathing with open beaks. They paused and looked at us, their legs wide apart and rusty backs arched.
“I figured you would get homesick before we reached the forks of Troublesome,” I said. “I knowed it from the time we left Sporty.”
Dan drew his thin legs together and propped his chin on his knees. “If I was growed up as old as you,” he said, studyin
g his toes, “I wouldn’t care. I’d not mind my hand.”
“Writing hain’t done with your left hand,” I said. “It won’t get in the way of learning.”
“I shouldn’t of been playing at the sawmill,” Dan said. “Two fingers gone is a hurting sight.”
“By and by it will seem plumb natural,” I said. “In a little while they’ll forget it. The scholars won’t notice.”
The grackles called harshly from the rail fence.
“We had better eat the apples while we’re setting,” I said. Uncle Jolly had given them to us when we stopped at his house for a drink of water in passing. “You take the Wilburn,” I told him, for it was the largest. “I favor the Pippin because it pops when I bite it.”
Dan wrapped the seeds in a scrap of paper torn from the poke. I got up, lifting the budget, a meal sack with our clothes in it.
“It’s near on to six miles farther to the forks,” I said. To spell me, Dan asked to carry the budget a ways. I told him, “The load would break you down.” I did let him pack my calf boots. I had on my clodhoppers. He tied the strings into a bow and hung them with his own about his neck.
We trudged on, stepping among hardened clumps of mud and wheel-brightened rocks. Cow bells clanked in a redbud thicket on the hills, and a calf bellowed. A catbird mewed in a persimmon tree. I couldn’t spot it, but Dan glimpsed it flicking its tail feathers. Dan was tiring now. He stumped his sore big toe twice, crying some each occasion.
“You’ll have to stop dragging your feet or put on your shoes,” I said.
“My feet would get raw as a beef if’n I wore shoes the whole trip,” Dan declared. “Mine are full of pinchers. Did I have a drop of water on my toe, it would ease it.”
Farther along we discovered a spring drip, and Dan held his foot under it. He wanted to skin up the bank to where the water seeped from the ground. “There might be a water dog* sticking its neck out of the mud,” he insisted. I shook my head, and we went on, the sun in our faces, the road curving beyond sight.
