by Irene Brand
She nodded, unwilling to use any extra breath for talking. By the time they stopped, she’d gotten her second wind, and her breathing was more regular. They were near the top of the mountain, and they sat on a rocky ledge and looked down into a deep ravine. A well-traveled trail wound its way downward through the creek valley.
“I don’t mean to meddle in your affairs, David, but what do you do? After you’ve seen life outside of these mountains, I can’t believe that you’ll be content to raise turnips and strawberries the rest of your life.” David laughed, and Julia felt her face warming. She turned her head. “I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing for me to say!”
“Hey.” David moved closer and turned her head to face him. “It’s all right. I’m flattered that you looked beyond this rough exterior and saw more than a hillbilly. Not that it’s a disgrace to be a hillbilly.”
“There isn’t anything wrong with farming, either. If you’ve found your calling, so be it.”
“Actually, I’m enrolled at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and my farming is a way to make some extra money. I took the summer off to catch up on work around the cabin. I’m already registered for the fall semester.”
“Really? I’m impressed.” She was deeply interested that he was pursuing his education. “Tell me more.”
David chuckled. “Well, after I finished high school, Granny arranged for me to attend Berea College. You’ve heard of it?”
Julia shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“The college was established before the Civil War by an abolitionist. He wanted to educate black and white students who were too poor to pay college tuition. It was one of the first non-segregated colleges in the South—and one of the few to accept both male and female students in the mid-nineteenth century.”
“Oh, I believe I have heard of it. No tuition is charged, but students have to work to pay their way.”
David nodded. “It was a godsend to me, since we didn’t have any money for college. I attended two years. About that time I—well, something happened that made me want to get away from home. It was obvious that we were going to war, so I enlisted in the army.”
Julia was curious but didn’t pry. “So why didn’t you return to Berea instead of the university?”
“I’m going to college with assistance from the GI Bill, so I wasn’t eligible to continue at Berea. I schedule my classes on just two days so I don’t have to stay in Lexington all week. I have one more year, and then I’m hoping to teach in the high school at Booneville.”
Julia couldn’t understand why David’s answer filled her with such a sense of peace and warmth. This time yesterday she’d never even heard of David Armstrong. Why did it matter to her what he did with his life? David took Julia’s hand to help her to her feet, and she was poignantly aware of the warmth of that impersonal grasp. When he started down the narrow trail, motioning her to follow, she knew that from now on, no matter where she was, she was going to be interested in what David Armstrong did with his life.
It wasn’t until they’d walked down a long stretch of trail that Julia recalled David’s comment about enlisting in the army because he’d wanted to leave Mistletoe. He seemed to have no desire to live any other place now. So what had caused his former disillusionment?
Chapter Six
Tom Morriston was sitting on the porch with Granny when David and Julia reached the cabin. He was bouncing Bobby on his knee, and Julia marveled at the child’s laughter. She’d never known her nephew to be so happy. Could it be that the blood of his ancestors flowing through his veins caused him to sense that he had come home? She wished fervently that Robert was alive to claim his child.
“Auntie!” Bobby squealed when he saw her approaching.
“Hi, Bobby, and you too, Tom.” Julia sighed when she sat in a rocking chair. Their strenuous walk had lasted almost three hours, but until this moment she hadn’t realized how tired she was.
Bobby scooted off of Tom’s lap and came running toward her. She held out her arms, and Bobby crawled on her lap.
“I’ve got my truck fixed,” Tom said, “so I can take you with me Monday morning if you’re still of a mind to go. Granny says she’s tryin’ to convince you to stay on a spell.”
Julia sensed that David watched her closely, waiting for her answer. “I need a few days of rest, but I’ll plan to leave Monday. I don’t see any reason to stay any longer. Have you heard how Mr. Walden carried on when we stopped there?”
Tom nodded. “Yep. David told me when he fetched your suitcases. The man is tetched in the head. A lot of families in Owsley County lost sons in the war. I reckon they miss their boys too, but they’re going on with life.” He unlimbered his sparse frame from the rocker. “Well, I’ve got to move on. If I don’t hear different, I’ll plan on pickin’ you up at eight o’clock Monday mornin’. Maybe I’ll see you at Sunday meetin’ tomorrow.”
“Sure, we’ll bring her with us,” Granny said. “No need to be in a hurry, Tom.”
“Thanks, Granny, but I’ve got chores to do.”
Bobby squirmed on Julia’s lap. “Bobby go?”
“Not this time, buddy,” Tom said, ruffling Bobby’s curls.
Bobby started to whine until Julia said, “You haven’t told me yet what you and Granny did this afternoon.”
Chattering so fast Julia couldn’t understand what he said, Bobby waved to Tom as he stepped off the porch and walked away.
After supper, Julia again sought a comfortable rocker on the porch. Solitude was one of the things she had missed most during her years in the WAC, and she’d often daydreamed of finding a place of absolute peace and quiet. Well, she’d found quietness in Mistletoe, but not peace of mind. David had gone to his cabin, and Granny had walked up the road to visit her son Millard and his family.
Julia had been sitting on the porch for more than an hour, and during that time, she’d seen three people. A man and woman walked off the mountainside opposite Granny’s house and turned toward the church and post office. She noticed that the woman walked several steps behind her husband. Then a boy rode down the hollow on an antiquated bicycle with a hound running beside him. Otherwise, she’d spent an uninterrupted hour.
Before she left, Granny had pulled the playpen to the front yard and put Bobby inside. Julia gave him a set of blocks, and Granny brought him an old catalog from the cabin.
“If he’s like most young’uns, he loves to tear up paper. That and the blocks ought to keep him busy for a while.”
The playpen was soon littered with pieces of paper, but so far, he hadn’t tried to eat any of it. The two hounds dozed in the yard not far from Bobby’s pen. Tired of tearing paper, Bobby stood, picked up his blocks, and threw them at the dogs. Fortunately his aim wasn’t good, and the dogs dozed on.
Julia’s mind swam with thoughts of the past and plans for the future. Physically she felt drained, hollow, and lifeless. She roused from the numbness that seemed to weigh her down when Bobby called, “Auntie! Play with me.”
She sighed, stood, walked down the steps, and lifted Bobby from the pen. “Let’s walk out to the barn and see the animals.”
“Doggies come too?” he asked.
“If they want to, but they look like they’d rather sleep.”
Julia took Bobby by the hand, but he soon pulled away to investigate everything that interested him. He broke into a run when he saw a hen and her chicks scratching in the yard. The hen flew at Bobby with outspread wings, and he ran back to Julia. Then the hen clucked to her chicks, and they fled to the safety of her wings.
“Bad chicken. I scared.”
“And so you should be,” Julia said. “She wasn’t very nice. Maybe you can pet the calf.”
When the cow and her calf didn’t seem friendly either, Bobby started sniffing. Julia finally picked him up and walked back to the cabin.
“Maybe if David takes you to the barn, the animals will let you touch them. They don’t know us very well. Let’s get ready for bed.�
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After settling Bobby down for the night, Julia retired to her room. Remembering what David had mentioned about church clothes, she took a black skirt and a long-sleeved multi-colored rayon blouse from her suitcase before she went to bed. She arranged the wrinkled garments on a wire hanger and hung them on a wooden peg beside the door. Considering Granny’s long, plain dresses with voluminous skirts, Julia had a feeling that her knee-length, fitted skirt wouldn’t be appropriate for the local church, but she didn’t have a simpler garment.
She didn’t want to go, but Julia had surmised that anyone living under Granny’s roof went to church on Sunday. She didn’t expect to be impressed by the local meeting, but she wouldn’t insult her hostess.
When she left the bedroom the next morning, Julia stood before Granny for inspection. “I don’t want to be an embarrassment to you and David. If my clothes aren’t appropriate, Bobby and I will stay here.”
Granny’s faded brown eyes regarded Julia’s garments with a speculative gaze. “Well, the skirt is a mite short,” she said, “and that blouse would look a fright on me, but it seems all right for you to wear. Besides, the Bible says that God looks on the heart, not what we look like on the outside. I believe you’ve got a good heart. People are gonna stare at you no matter what you wear, but don’t take it personal. They always look at strangers.”
The door opened and David walked in and took his banjo from the wall. Julia was standing with her back to the door. He stopped dead in his tracks as he recalled an incident that had happened four years earlier, which he remembered as well as if it were yesterday.
He’d been riding a troop train as it slowly approached Washington, D.C., on his way to overseas deployment. On the banks of the Potomac River, a woman stood with her back to him, gazing upward toward a grove of trees. The woman wore a blue coat, and a white scarf was tied around her head. While he’d watched, she’d taken off the scarf and her reddish hair had gleamed in the sunlight. Perhaps because of the sadness in his heart and the loneliness and fear he felt, he took a picture of the woman.
David wasn’t leaving a sweetheart or wife behind, so throughout the war, whenever he was homesick, he’d look at the picture of his “dream woman” and pretend she’d be waiting for him when the war was over. Although he knew it was ridiculous, he stopped in D.C. on his way home and revisited the area where he’d taken the photograph of the woman of his dreams. He was disappointed but not surprised when he didn’t see her there.
His mind came back to the present when Julia turned to face him, and he was reminded again of how beautiful she was. Scanning her from head to toe, he whistled!
“David!” Granny reprimanded him. “She’s already frettin’ whether her clothes are passable. You didn’t help any.”
“Of course her clothes are all right.” He hoped his smile would ease her mind. David wanted Julia to like the people of Mistletoe, and he hoped that they would look beyond the differences in her lifestyle and like her as much as he did.
Bobby toddled out of the bedroom, and David lifted him into his arms. “Let’s go, buddy.”
“Es go, buddy!” Bobby mimicked. All of them laughed, and David hoped that Julia had dismissed the uncertainty about her clothes. As long as she was Granny’s guest, she would be welcomed.
The bell ringing in the church steeple greeted them as they walked toward the road. A cool breeze wafted up the hollow. The sun was shining, and songbirds in the willow trees along the creek seemed to compete for the title of loudest and most melodious. Julia breathed in the fresh air, and for a moment she forgot the past and the future and enjoyed the present beauty of God’s creation.
A family of five waited in the road for them. The man carried a fiddle. Granny introduced Julia to her son Millard, his wife, Hattie, and their three children. Their oldest daughter, Nellie, was a slender girl of medium height. A mass of honey-colored hair capped her head, and blue eyes shone from a pretty, oval face. Julia liked her at once.
Nellie reached her arms toward Bobby, and the grinning child willingly transferred from David to the girl. She hugged him close.
“Who’re you?” he asked.
“I’m Nellie,” she said, giggling. “Who are you?”
“Bobby.”
Nellie bounced him up and down as they continued walking, and Bobby crowed with pleasure, enjoying the attention. Julia wished Bobby would respond to her so easily. Somehow she had to get over her fear of incompetency when caring for her nephew.
Her eyes must have mirrored her frustration. Granny sidled next to Julia and said quietly, “Don’t fret about it. Nellie helped raise her brother and sister, so she knows how to take care of a young’un.”
“I didn’t know my feelings were so obvious,” she apologized. “I’ve never felt so inadequate.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve been around babies much.”
“Not at all. I was older than Margaret but only by a year. Except for the past month, I’ve never lived in a household with a baby.”
“That’ll change when you get one of your own,” Granny assured her. “Do you have a special feller waitin’ for you back in Maryland? Is that why you’re leavin’ us so soon?”
Conscious that David had turned quickly when he heard the question, Julia responded in the negative, but she didn’t think it was necessary to elaborate that she’d never had a “special feller” in her life.
The small party reached the church, and Julia chose a back seat near the door. At her home church, Bobby spent the worship hour in the nursery, and she didn’t know how he would react to these new surroundings. If he became restless and she had to take him outside, she could do it without disturbing the other worshipers. Julia was pleased when Nellie sat beside her, and Bobby seemed content as long as he could switch from her lap to Nellie’s and back again.
Julia estimated that seventy or more people could be seated in the church, but the pews weren’t more than half-full. She frowned when she noted that men sat on the right side of the aisle, women on the left. She’d also noticed that Hattie had walked a few paces behind her husband as they came to church. Didn’t these mountaineers know they were living in the twentieth century?
Pastor Kenneth Brown was a tall, plain, full-bearded man dressed in an open-necked plaid shirt and bib overalls. His wife, Sadie, was short and shaped like a partridge. Her hair was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck, and she wore a black dress—not the kind of clothing Julia was accustomed to in the pastoral family. She’d learned not to judge by appearances, however, and she looked forward to hearing the preacher’s message.
She anticipated that the worship hour would provide an opportunity to reflect on whether this trip had been necessary. At one time she’d believed that God directed her life and activities, but if so, why had He sent her to Mistletoe?
Instead of the majestic organ music associated with her childhood worship, Julia’s ears were soon greeted with a cacophonous musical blend of David’s banjo, Millard’s fiddle, Tom Morriston’s guitar, and the piano chords of Sadie Brown. After a full five minutes of instrumental music, Pastor Brown swung his arms and kept time with the music as the congregation belted out the words of “He Will Set Your Fields on Fire.” Accustomed to traditional hymns, this type of music—if it could be called such—grated on Julia’s nerves.
With a loud squeal, Bobby clapped his hands over his ears and turned a frightened face toward Julia. “Boom! Boom!” he shouted, and Julia suppressed a smile.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. Julia pointed to Nellie, who didn’t hold a songbook but was singing merrily, her long-lashed blue eyes glowing with inner satisfaction. “They’re singing.”
“Sing?”
“Yes.”
Bobby opened his mouth and tried to imitate Nellie as she sang fervently.
“From the blessed Lord and His own true word
But still you say retire.
Leave the downward path, kindle not His wrath
Or He’ll set y
our fields on fire.”
Is there no end to the verses of this song? Julia wondered how long she could endure the clamor. She admired Nellie’s strong, contralto voice and was amused by Bobby’s efforts to mimic her. Recalling the old adage, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Julia flung dignity to the wind and sang with the congregation as they repeated the same lyrics over and over.
“Now, my friend, if you desire
You may join the heavenly choir
And rejoice with Him, free from every sin,
When He sets this world on fire.”
After half an hour of music and testifying, the congregants stirred to greet one another by hugging or shaking hands. At the beginning of this fellowship time, Granny came to stand beside Julia and introduced her to everyone who came to shake her hand. Granny’s comment was simple: “This is Julia Mayfield and her nephew, Bobby. They’re stoppin’ with us a few days.”
When the pastor asked for announcements, his wife stood. “It might seem like a long time until Christmas,” Sadie Brown began, “but the weeks will pass before we’re ready. It’s time to start making comforters and lap robes as Christmas gifts for the residents in the old folks’ homes in Booneville and Beattyville. We’ll meet at our house on Tuesday afternoon.”
Two announcements followed, and then the preacher called for another song. Granny stayed on the seat beside Julia. Bobby crawled on her lap and snuggled contentedly in her arms. When at last Pastor Brown opened his Bible and prayed, Julia looked surreptitiously at her watch. The meeting had already lasted more than an hour. She smothered a sigh and squirmed on the hard, wooden bench, trying to find a comfortable position.
Julia hadn’t had a preconceived notion of what she would find in Mistletoe, but in her wildest imaginings, she had never expected any of this! In the past two days she’d been stranded in the middle of a muddy creek and rescued by a handsome mountaineer, who had stirred her emotions as no man ever had. Then the man she’d traveled hundred of miles to see had threatened to kill her. She’d been accepted like family by a mountain woman and her son, and she’d been confronted with local customs that were fifty years behind the outside world’s. She felt as far removed from her normal lifestyle as if she’d suddenly landed on the moon. What else might happen to her before she left Mistletoe?
