by James Still
“Is this medicine bound to work?” I asked, sliding the bottle inside of a pocket.
“Hit’ll fix that mare right up, shore as Sunday-come-Monday.”
The nag walked around the millhouse. She stuck her head in the door, and drew back crunching an apple. The drummer smiled. “See that thar. Didn’t I say this hardtail’s nigh one o’ the family?”
“My colt’s going to have folk sense,” I bragged.
“This pony’s bound to stick her noggin into places,” the drummer said. His face wrinkled happily. The crown of his head shone. “Now, what do you reckon she found this morning? A chap’s playhouse. Leave it to a long-nose beast to sniff things out. Me and my wife looked, and what we saw we couldn’t believe, but thar it was to prove.”
“I’d give a pretty to know,” I pleaded. “I’ve got to larn.”
The drummer frowned. “For a good reason I don’t want that place disturbed till we leave.” He scratched his headtop, undecided whether to tell. “Swear you won’t take a look till we’re on the road and gone?”
“ ’Pon my word and deed.”
“Hit’s yonder then,” he said, pointing to the lower side of the millhouse where the floor rested on high pillars. “I can’t blame your sister for trying to scare us with talk o’ spiders and lizards. Oh she’s a wild ’un.”
The drummer’s woman brought a bowl capped with a lid. The plaits of her hair tipped her shoulders, and her eyes were sad as a ewe’s. “Reckon we could steal a child off these folks?” she joked her man. “Five in their house. One wouldn’t be missed.” She handed the bowl to me. “Take this cobbler to your mother. Tell her every berry’s been split; tell it’s safe to eat.”
I ran home, and my heart pounded as I went.
Mother sat alone with the baby. Father stirred soup in the kitchen, and I heard Lark and Zard quarreling there. I uncovered the cobbler, reaching it to Mother. The sweety smell rose in my face. My mouth watered. I spoke loudly, for Mother had plugs of wool in her ears to dim the cry of locusts; I said what the drummer’s woman told me to say. The baby leaned to see. Then we heard Father coming, and Lark and Zard following. Mother whispered quickly, “I’m grateful, and hit’s a pity to waste, yet we can’t trust eating berries. Haste the cobble-pie to the pig pen, and don’t name to the others.” But time was only left to shove the bowl under the bed.
“All the locusts in Egypt couldn’t make a racket equaling these two,” Father told Mother. “Fussing o’er nothing but who could blow the largest spool bubble. I mixed hope with that soup you’d soon be up and at these young ’uns. I biled enough to last two days.”
“I’ll mend once the plague’s ended,” Mother said. “Any day now the locusts will hush. I long to give these chaps a taste o’ soap and water.”
“Fern come into the kitchen,” Father said, “and it tuk a minute to tell be she varmint or vixen. Hit’d worry the mare’s currycomb to thrash the burrs.”
Zard peeked at the baby and sulled. He was green jealous. He dropped to his knees and crawled toward the bed. He scampered under.
“Another sight I glimpsed today,” Father went on, “and hit was that drummer’s woman combing a nag’s mane. I never stayed to see if she bowed it with ribbons.” He turned upon me, keeping his face sober. “And I’ve looked up our mare in the books. One more page-leaf to turn before knowing when.”
“Only would Fern take a lesson,” Mother said uneasily, making a sign. I snatched the bowl, and neither Lark nor Father noticed, for Mother raised the baby’s head. Father chuckled, “See the bubble she’s pucked with her mouth. Beats any you fellers can blow.”
“No bigger’n a pea,” Lark discounted.
Father snapped a thumb and forefinger. “Be-jibs, if we hain’t got to get rid o’ this little ’un. Not a kind word’s allowed her.”
I stole away to the pig pen, uncovered the bowl, and found the berry cobbler half eaten. Zard had gobbled it. I was fearful, believing him poisoned, thinking he might die. I remembered the bottle of medicine. Could I persuade him to swallow a dose? A thought sprung in my head. I’d dose all—the mare, Mother, and Zard. The drummer had vowed it would straighten out man or beast. They’d take medicine, and not know.
I hastened to the barn, pouring a knuckle’s depth of the medicine into a scoop of oats. The mare poked her great yellow tongue into the grain; she ground her teeth. She ate the last bit, and licked the trough. She was mighty fat, I recollect.
On I hied to the house. I tipped inside the kitchen. There was the soup pot boiling on the stove, and I emptied nearly all of the medicine into it. All but one draft went into the soup.
Suddenly a tick tick sounded behind the stove. I thrust the bottle pocket-deep and looked. It was Fern, hidden with a comb in her hand.
“Humph,” Fern said, hiding the comb. I could scarcely see her eyes through a brush of hair. She spoke threateningly, “I saw that baldy drummer show you where my playhouse is. If you go there, they’s something will scare yore gizzard.”
“Humph,” I said, mocking.
The next morning the locusts had hushed. Cast skins clung to trunks and boughs, and it was as quiet as the first day of the world. Ere dew dried I waited in the bottom for the drummer folk to go. So great the stillness was, my breath seemed a thunder in my chest. I saw the drummer and his woman climb into their wagon and drive uphill to our house; I saw Father shake the drummer’s hand in farewell. Fern, Lark, and Zard were staring.
I crept to the lower side of the mill where the floor stood high. I craw-dabbed under. Nothing I saw in Fern’s playhouse, nothing save four stone pillars growing up, and an empty pan sitting. “Humph,” I thought.
I heard footsteps. I sprang behind a pillar. Fern came underneath the floor bringing a cup of milk and meat crumbs; she brought the bait from Father’s traps. Her hair was combed slick and two plaits tipped her shoulders, woven like the drummer-woman’s. My mouth fell open.
The milk was poured into the pan. Fern squatted beside it, calling, “Biddy, biddy, biddy,” and four little polecats came walking to lap the milk, and three big varmints began to nibble the meat. I blinked, shivering with fright, and of a sudden the critters knew I was there, and Fern knew. The polecats vanished like weasel smoke.
I recollect Fern’s anger. She didn’t cry. She sat pale as any blossom, narrowing her eyes at me. But not a mad or meany word she spoke. The thing she said came measured and cold between tight lips.
“You hain’t heard the baby’s been tuk,” she said. “Poppy give it to the drummer.”
I stood frozen, more frightened than any varmint scare. When I could move I ran toward the house, running with loss aching inside of me.
I thrust my head in at the door. Father was carving spool pipes for Lark and Zard. Mother ate soup out of a bowl, and her lap and arms were empty. Mother was saying, “Now this is the best soup ever I did eat. Hit’s seasoned just right.”
Father grinned. “You can allus tell when a body’s getting well. They’ll eat a feller out o’ house and home.” He saw me standing breathlessly in the door; he laughed, not trying to keep his face grave. “Well, well,” he said, “I’ve closed the books on that mare. A colt’s due tomorrow or the next day. That’s a shore fact.”
“The baby!” I choked. “She’s been tuk!”
“Baby?” Father asked, puzzled. “Why, thar she kicks on the bed, a-blowing bubbles and growing bigger’n the government.”
I turned, running away in shame and joy. I ran out to the mulberry tree. The fruit had fallen and the ground was like a great pie. I drew the medicine bottle from my pocket; I swallowed the last dose. I ate a bellyful of mulberries.
Hit Like to ’a’ Killed Me
Some fellers don’t never git growed up. They git killed down.
One time I like to ’a’ got killed down. I was a leetle boy, and I tried to go a steepy place and thought I’d take a shortcut. They was an ol’ path right side by the hill, and they was a big lot o’ bushes thar. I fell amongst the bre
sh, went a-rolling down that hill, and my leg got hung in a fence at the bottom, and like to ’a’ broke hit.
But that hain’t all. That’s a beginning. Once Grandpaw he tuk me up to the hills a-logging. I climbed a leetle bud bush and ’gin to swang ’round in it, a-having me a time, and they was a big log above me, and hit was propped. Grandpaw he got to pushing the log, and hit come loose and rolled toward me. I seed hit a-coming. I was so scared I was afraid to jump. I nigh froze. Jist as I see the log got close to my bush I swung back, a-scrouging away far as I could git, buddy, and that ar log didn’t miss me a hair. Boy, I was scart!
Now, they was another time. I liked to got drowned. I was jist a tadwhacker, six years old, and Grandmaw she tuk me down to Redbird River to wash me with a ball o’ soap and rag. They was a “tide” on Redbird, but I aimed to wade me some anyhow. I was naked, and I waded a leetle. Grandmaw she hollered me out. Well, I caught her a-looking some’eres else, and I jumped in agin. Water was so swift hit washed me down to the deep part, in a whirly hole. I ’gin to go ’round and ’round. I was too scared to holler, and too ’shamed to holler. Dee Critch happened to be a-passing in a wagon and seed me, and pulled me out.
But that hain’t the only time I liked to got drowned. One time Mam tuk me up Goose Creek above Grandpaw’s to pick beans, and I got to playing in the creek mud. Mam told me to git out o’ that mud, or I’d stick something in my foot. I thought she’d whoop me so I come out. I come out ’cause I thought she’d whoop me, and I got in my head to slip down to Grandpaw’s, so I went down-creek and tuk up by Grandpaw’s orchard. Now, Mam didn’t know where I was at. She got worried to see I was a-missing. She ast my brother where I’d gone to, and he was scared to tell, thinking I’d git a whooping. Mam she saw my foot tracks where I’d went to the edge o’ the creek, and thought I was drowned. She fotched Uncle John in a hurry. He got an ol’ long pole and went a-punching ’round next to the bank, and struck a log and thought hit was me. Then he said, “Luley, here he is,” and tears ’gin to roll down his cheeks. They went out to Grandpaw’s house. Quick as Grandmaw saw ’em she knowed they was something wrong. Grandmaw ast ’em what was wrong. And they told her I’d got drowned shore, and they wanted to borry some hooks to scratch me out. Grandmaw she jist laughed. She knowed I was alive.
Well, once Grandpaw told me he’d take me and my brother ’possum hunting. We got axes and a lantern ready. We walked up Sprang Branch, and we’se going up ’round a ridge, me behind, and I hurt my leg. They went on, paying me no mind, and they went on ’round the ridge. I heered a dog a-barking. I made to go to it. I ’gin to run. I run, and I heered a big noise right behind me. I run to the house nigh dead. Grandmaw ast me what was the matter, and I told her and said they was something up thar like to got me. Grandmaw said hit was jist a big hoot owl. I’d ruther be killed than scart to death.
You want me to tell ’bout slang-shot fighting? One time I went over on Redbird. I met a boy over thar and he told me o’ slang-shot fighting. He said they was the best fun in it ever was. When I come back home I told Mace Nevell, and Mace was my buddy, and Mace said we’d git ready to have a battle with some fellers we knowed. We went and had a leetle cabin in the hills. We piled a lot o’ logs ’round it, and packed a lot o’ gravels up from the creek and got us ready. We’d told them fellers we knowed, and give ’em to the top o’ the hill, safe. Me and Mace had two good slang-shots in that ar cabin, and we had us a hole to shoot through and a lid over for kiver. We shot and shot. We shot a pile of rocks. Then Mace forgot and left the kiver off that hole and a rock come through and hit me on the head. Hit like to ’a’ killed me.
I don’t know how fellers git growed.
Mrs. Razor
“We’ll have to do something about that child,” Father said. We sat in the kitchen eating our supper, though day still held and the chickens had not yet gone to roost in the gilly trees. Elvy was crying behind the stove, and her throat was raw with sobbing. Morg and I paused, bread in hand, and glanced over our shoulders. The firebox of the Cincinnati stove winked, the iron flowers of the oven throbbed with heat. Mother tipped a finger to her lips, motioning Father to hush. Father’s voice lifted: “I figure a small thrashing would make her leave off this foolish notion.”
Elvy was six years old. She was married, to hear her tell it, and had three children and a lazy shuck of a husband who cared not a mite for his own and left his family to live upon her kin. The thought had grown into truth in her mind. I could play at being Brother Hemp Leckett, climb onto a chopblock and preach to the fowls; or I could be Round George Parks, riding the creeks, killing all who crossed my path; I could be any man body. Morg couldn’t make-believe; he was just Morg. But Elvy had imagined herself old and thrown away by a husband, and she kept believing.
“A day will come,” Elvy told us, “when my man’s going to get killed down dead, the way he’s living.” She spoke hard of her husband and was a shrew of a wife who thought only of her children; she was as busy with her young as a hen with diddles. It was a dog’s life she led, washing rags of clothes, sewing with a straw for needle, singing by the half hour to cradled arms, and keeping an eye sharp for gypsies. She jerked at loose garments and fastened and pinned, as Mother did to us.
Once we spied her in the grape arbor making to put a jacket on a baby that wouldn’t hold still. She slapped the air, saying, “Hold up, young ’un!” Morg stared, half believing. Later she claimed her children were stolen. It wasn’t by the dark people. Her husband had taken them—she didn’t know where. For days she sat pale and small, minced her victuals, and fretted in her sleep. She had wept, “My man’s the meanest critter ever was. Old Scratch is bound to get him.”
And now Elvy’s husband was dead. She had run to Mother to tell this thing, the news having come in an unknown way. She waited dry-eyed and shocked until Father rode in from the fields in middle afternoon and she met him at the barn gate to choke out her loss.
“We’ve got to haste to Biggety Creek and fetch my young ’uns ere the gypsies come,” she grieved. “They’re left alone.”
“Is he doornail dead?” Father had asked. And he smiled to hear Biggety Creek named, the Nowhere Place he had told us of once at table. Biggety Creek where heads are the size of water buckets, where noses are turned up like old shoes, women wear skillets for hats, and men screw their breeches on, and where people are so proper they eat with little fingers pointing, and one pea at a time. Father rarely missed a chance to preach us a sermon.
“We’ve got to haste,” Elvy pled.
“Do you know the road to Biggety Creek?”
Elvy nodded.
Father keened his eyes to see what manner of child was his own, his face lengthening and his patience wearing thin. He grabbed his hat off and clapped it angrily against his leg; he strode into the barn, fed the mules, and came to the house with Elvy tagging after and weeping.
“Fix an early supper,” he told Mother.
Father’s jaws were set as he drew his chair to the table. The day was still so bright the wall bore a shadow of the unkindled lamp. Elvy had hidden behind the stove, lying on the cat’s pallet, crying. “Come and eat your victuals,” Mother begged, for her idea was to humor children and let them grow out of their notions. But Elvy would not.
We knew Father’s hand itched for a hickory switch. Disobedience angered him quicker than anything. Yet he only looked worried. The summer long he had teased Elvy, trying to shake her belief. Once while shaving he had asked, “What ever made you marry a lump of a husband who won’t come home, never furnishes a cent?” Morg and I stood by to spread leftover lather on our faces and scrape it off with a kitchen knife. “I say it’s past strange I’ve not met my own son-in-law. I hunger to shake his hand and welcome him to the family, ask him to sit down to our board and stick his feet under.”
Father had glanced slyly at Elvy. “What’s his name? Upon my honor, I haven’t been told.”
Elvy looked up. Her eyes glazed in thought. “He’s called Razor.
”
“Given name or family?”
“Just Razor.”
“Ask him to visit us,” Father urged in mock seriousness. “Invite him up for Sunday dinner.”
Elvy had promised that her husband would come. She had Mother fry a chicken, the dish he liked best, claiming the gizzard was his chosen morsel. Nothing less than the flax tablecloth was good enough, and she gathered day-eye blossoms for the centerpiece. An extra chair was placed, and we waited; we waited noon through, until one o’clock. Then she told us confidentially, “Go ahead and eat. Razor allus was slow as Jim Christmas.”
She carried a bowl of soup behind the Cincinnati stove to feed her children. In the evening she explained, “I’ve learnt why my man stayed away. He hain’t got a red cent to his pocket and he’s scared of being lawed for not supporting his young ’uns.”
Father had replied, “I need help—need a workhand to grub corn ground. A dollar a day I’ll pay, greenback on the barrel top. I want a feller with lard in his elbows and willing to work. Fighting sourwood sprouts is like going to war. If Razor has got the measure of the job, I’ll hire him and promise not to law.”
“I ought never to a-took him for a husband,” Elvy confessed. “When first I married he was smart as ants. Now’s he turned so lazy he won’t even fasten his gallus buckles. He’s slouchy and no ’count.”
“Humn,” Father had grunted, eyeing Morg and me, the way our clothes hung on us. “Sloth works on a feller,” he preached. “It grows roots. He’ll start letting his sleeves flare and shirttail go hang. One day he gets too sorry to bend and lace his shoes, and it’s a swarp, swarp every step. A time comes he’ll not latch the top button of his breeches—ah, when a man turns his potty out, he’s beyond cure.”
