by James Still
“While you’re relaxing,” Trulla suggested, “you might begin to make false flowers. We’ll rob our bee gums and have wax in plenty.”
Maybird chuckled. “Then I can start laying-by for my rambling.” She began to laugh. Joy rose in her as cream to the lip of a milk jar. “Only would somebody peddle my bouquets at the camps. Thirty-five cents they ought to bring, fifty if the mines are working double shifts.”
Trulla’s face sharpened. “My man can go sell the flowers. He needs mightily to discover a barber anyhow. He has played Sampson long enough.”
I squirmed. “A man drumming flowers? To sell firewood, or corn, or garden sass, I’d not mind. But peddling wax would be bitter hard. It’s not man’s work.”
Maybird stirred and the hinges of the trunk rasped. She lifted a huge hand. “Just say they’re Maybird Upshaw’s pattern. Summer blooms for dresser tops. Blossoms to brighten a table, never to fade. They’ll remember. Oh I’d go myself if I could get about handy.” She cast a spiteful glance at the narrow door.
I hummed and hawed, and finally to change the talk I plucked courage and asked, “Maybird, how much do you weigh?” I didn’t want to hear more about flower peddling. And if Trulla’s quick look had been a blade my throat would have been cut.
But Maybird was proud of her size. She tossed her great head. “The day I was born,” she said, “I tipped the scales at three pounds and a quarter—so tiny I was bedded on a pillow. At eighteen I weighed two hundred and eighty-five on the steelyards, yet for the past six years I’ve had no way to learn. The check-weigh-man’s scales at the mines won’t register under a thousand. My opinion, I’m safe to weigh four hundred.”
“Your weight might hinder travel,” Trulla remarked sharply.
“Now, no,” Maybird declared, “I’ll go the world around. In Kentucky I aim to see where the Frenches and the Eversoles fit their feud, and the Hatfields and the McCoys. I’ll look on Natural Bridge and the Breaks of the Big Sandy River. I’ll see Abe Linkhorn’s birthplace, and where a battle was fit at Perryville. And I’ve heard afar west the fires of Torment spout from the ground, and the devil’s boiling kettle throws up a steam. I’ll see what there is to see.”
“You ought to of been a gypsy,” I said, “living in a cloth house, reading hands for bread, traipsing place to place,”
Maybird laughed softly. She blushed the mad color of her hair.
I walked to Oxeye mine camp the hottest September day in memory; and I felt like a dunce carrying a mess of false flowers. But Trulla’s one fixed thought was to make certain of Maybird’s departure before she grew too heavy ever to move again. Already it was tuggety-pull to get her through any door.
I knocked at the first house and I was as scared as the day I married. I brushed my hair under the back brim of my hat. Waiting, I spied about. Camp houses marched the hills and gob smoke fed into the sky. Babies were crying. Everywhere hung the smell of soot and dishwater.
A beardy fellow cracked the door, his woman crowding behind him. I lifted a bouquet. “Maybird Upshaw—” I began, and my throat frogged.
“Big May?” he asked.
His wife snatched the blossoms. “One thing about the large,” she said, “they have good hearts. Generous, gee-o! Maybird always gave us flowers. We were neighbors. Thank Maybird. Thanks.”
The door slammed and I was not a chip the richer.
A miner came along, his cap lamp burning in broad daylight. I inquired, “Are there double shifts working these days?”
“Yis.” He stared as if he’d met a witty. “Are you drumming them flowers?” I was holding a bunch as you might a dead cat by the tail.
I dipped my head.
“A carnival has pitched at the ballground and folks won’t spend a dime elsewheres. Oxeye Camp has gone show-crazy.”
I knocked on many a door, not selling a blossom. “For sale?” they would say. “That doesn’t sound like Maybird. She used to give us a vase full. To my knowledge she never sold a petal. She was that freehearted.” Or, “I’ve only the price of the carnival, else I’d buy.” An old-faced child said, “Maybird is the biggest show ever I seed. The awfulest foot! I bet she weighs a jillion.” And she stared at the hair escaping my hat.
In mid-afternoon a woman called after me. She bought a bouquet and paid two dimes and a nickel. “I’ll pitch in to help a widow-woman good days or bad,” she said. “Anyhow, nobody but Maybird can pattern flowers so real-like.” And then I heard music afar and saw tents on the ballground, and a mighty wheel turning and with lights ringing it. People hurried by, and I followed.
The carnival folk yawned in the sun, blinking like owls. A music engine played. A weight-guesser held his hat in the crook of an elbow and shouted among a thicket of walking sticks: “I come within three pounds! Your weight within three! A gentleman’s cane if I fail!” Miners and their women and children shucked out money to see MAN OR BEAST and MARVELS OF AMERICA.
I held the flowers behind me, and I asked the guesser a question. “Can you figure a woman’s weight, sight unseen?”
He spoke swiftly, “If I’m given an idea of her measurements.”
“I’ll pay a quarter.”
“Hand over. Right-tow. How tall? Broad of beam? Size of shoe?”
I told the best I could. I spread my arms, holding forth the flowers, though I couldn’t circle so great a space as Maybird covered. I took a walking stick and drew on the ground. “She’s so stout she looks notable,” said I.
The weight-guesser blew between his teeth. “She’s a whale,” he cried. “Gaffney ought to hear about her.”
“It’s my belief she’s a finer view than any you have here,” I bragged.
He jerked an elbow toward MARVELS OF AMERICA.
“We have a dame weighing four hundred and twenty, but no match to the madam you’ve reported.” He clapped the quarter back into my hand, and a ticket beside, and told me to see the show tee-total. “And take a gander at Mary Mammoth,” he said. He didn’t try to guess Maybird’s weight.
“I ought to be going,” I said, but I stayed to watch the acting dogs. I saw a fool swallow a sword; a lack-brain ate fireballs; a human creature reposed on a bed of spikes. I saw Mary Mammoth sitting on a platform, eating a meal. She nibbled a dish of lettuce leaves and drank from a nail hole in a can. Compared to Maybird she looked puny.
The weight-guesser called me over when I quit the tent. “Shake hands with Gaffney, the boss,” he said. And Gaffney asked, “What’s your opinion of Mary?”
“She’ll do in a pinch,” I said, and I felt a wax petal strike my shoe. The flowers were melting in the heat. “But my wife’s sister-in-law dwarfs all womankind—firm-fleshed, plump cheeks, the picture of life. More pounds to her statue than ever I saw a human pack. Why, it took a two-horse wagon to haul her to Shepherds Creek.”
Gaffney lifted an arm. “The lady belongs in a side show. She’d draw customers like honey draws flies.”
“My belief,” I agreed.
Maybird kept gaining weight. And was she an eater! She could stash away a peck at a sitting. She stripped the garden, emptied the meatbox. People came to look at her, and they ate also. I ran up a store debt. And I got joshed. A wag at the post office said, “I hear there’s going to be a trial in the magistrate’s court next Saturday.” I bit, “What over?” Laughed he, “To try and see if Big May can sit in a number two washtub.” The joke was on him. Even a number four tub would have been tight squeezing.
You could nearly see Maybird gaining. Before Gaffney came it got to where she couldn’t pass through the door. We tugged and pulled, shoved and pushed, to no success. Trulla wanted me to widen the opening but I vowed it would destroy the house pattern. You mustn’t fiddle with a butt-notched log dwelling. The building would have to be torn down ridgepole to sleepers to deliver Maybird. She was as trapped as a fox in a hen coop.
Trulla worried and grew cross. She would moan to me, “Of what use for the head of the carnival to come now that Maybird’s prisoned inside
.” And Trulla turned hard to live with. The least thing and she took the rag off the bush. I couldn’t glance at Maybird, much less carry on a conversation with her, without Trulla flying off the hinges. Never could I figure a woman’s mind. Once she got the fidgets and took a notion to cut my hair. I stood in uncommon need of a trimming. But I saw the metal in her eyes, her chin trembling. I inched away, scared to have her near me with anything sharp in hand.
The carnival people came on a Thursday. I was in the barn, spying into a piece of looking glass, trying to crop my temples with mule shears. I heard hoofs rattle rocks, a singing of wheels, and a voice cry, “Whoa-ho!”
I hustled across the lot and sprang over the fence. A wagon and team stood in the yard. I heard Gaffney and the weight-guesser talking to Maybird inside the house. Maybird was sighing, “I’m held here everlastingly. I can’t get out.” Gaffney answered, “I didn’t wrestle ferris wheels and cyclodromes thirty years for nothing. A way will be devised.” The weight-guesser nodded.
I went in to bid the visitors welcome and offer chairs. Trulla stood back, shut-mouthed, too timid before strangers to practice manners. The first chance I whispered to the weight-guesser, “How much do you figure Maybird will pull on the scales?”
The weight-guesser calculated, one eye squinted to sharpen his view; he dug fingers into his scalp. “Five hundred and seven,” he blurted, “and I’ve not missed three pounds.”
Gaffney snapped his fingers with satisfaction. “We’ll bill her as THE WORLDLY WONDER,” he said. And directly he set about inspecting the butt-locked logs of the front wall. He surveyed inside and out.
I was uneasy. I said, “Could we get a block and tackle, we might lift her up through the roof. No harm done to tear off a few shakes.”
“Ah, no,” he said. “Twisting the wrist is my calling. And all I’ll need is a crowbar and a hammer.” With a hammer’s claws he pried loose the door facing and set it aside. The logs to the height of the door were left supported only at the corner.
I swallowed air. My Adam’s apple jerked. I was in misery.
“We’ll not damage,” he said, and he and the weight-guesser worked the bar between the bottom log and the sleepers and prized up and forward.
I expected the worse. My breath caught.
The walls budged. Five logs raised in their notches and swung gate-fashion. The house opened like a turkey crate. A passage was made and Maybird walked through. Then the logs were jimmied back into place and the facing restored.
We hoisted Maybird into the wagon. She sat on the wagonbed and laughed, her face bright as a wax blossom, her hair wealthy as the sun.
Gaffney and the weight-guesser climbed onto the spring seat, and they rode away. And Trulla began to cry. She clapped a hand on my shoulder and her eyes had the glint of new nails. She got me into the house, found scissors, and worked me over. She whacked and gapped. She nearly ran out of hair. She skinned me alive.
Pattern of a Man
Salt Springs, Kentucky, May 17th
Mr. Perry Wickliff,
Roaring Fork, Ky.
Sir:
I take my pen in hand to ask your support of my candidacy for jailor of Baldridge County on August 5th. I’ve heard you lost out in a school shuffle last year. They say you were ousted as teacher at Spring Branch in the middle of the term and have rented land off of Zeb Thornton and are trying to farm. It chokes my heart to think of one with your learning digging holes and plowing balks. A schoolteacher with paper hands battling dirt!
If any county needs top scholars, it’s Baldridge. I’m bound there’s a politician behind the deal, and it stands to reason you’re bitter as an oak gall. When elected I’ll use my power in your behalf. Whoever the gentleman who frisked you out of a job, I’ll have him out on a limb like a screech owl shoving a chicken.
In a jailor race any hound dog can run and candidates are thicker than yellow jackets at a stir-off. You don’t have to know book letter from cow horns, or to have ever darkened a schoolhouse door. On that account a big bunch will file for office. I’ve underwent six years of education and I’m no dumb-head. I’ll be the only candidate who can make out print bottom up—a trick I learnt reading newspaper wallpaper in boyhood. Many a deputy sheriff has scratched his head at my recital of a warrant in this fashion. I’ve been unlucky in the way of getting indicted for this and that and have spent more time in jail than any other innocent man in the mountains. Point a finger at me and I look guilty. Yet I’ve kept my name clear. Nothing ever stuck on me.
Before the election ends you’ll hear lies, candidates smutting each other’s reputations. They’ll wear the hollows out slick rooting for votes. Oh you can’t run a race without getting banged. The strongest they’ll hit the hardest. Already they’re spreading a tale about me and a gum of bees. I ask Justice, Can I rule what bees will do? I sold gum to a neighbor and nine days later the critters came swarming home.
On account of the contrariness of bee nature I suffered a month’s confinement in the Crossbar Hotel. That’s what the jaspers on the inside call it. I ate victuals Lazarus would of culled, slept on a mattress jake-walking with chinch bugs. And fleas! The cracks were hopping with them! As we’d say, if the flats don’t bite you the sharps will. And hear me. Floors and walls begged for lye soap and shuck mops. The grub was so rough we used to swear you had to wear gloves to eat it. And that’s where I struck my notion.
I struck on a notion to become the jailor. I swore to myself I would run for it next go-round, and when I’d nailed the job down, to bring my woman and live in the jailhouse. My woman would keep the place as clean as snow. Where my dough-beater has a hand you’ll not find a speck of dust big enough to put in your eye. And we would feed meals a man could enjoy picking his teeth after. Chicken and dumplings every Sunday. A county lockup needs a woman’s fussing, and a woman’s hate of gom.
I crave your vote and influence, for I hear you’re well thought of over there. Canvas the Roaring Fork people in my behalf and I’ll pull ropes to win you back a school job. Once I knew Roaring as I know my a-b-ab’s, and many the woman will recollect me and my rounding ways. It happens I’ve not set foot in the section for a couple of years. But I found my wife on Fern Branch, a prong of Roaring, and I’m married-kin to plenty of folks in your territory.
Now, listen to me. While canvassing you might see a girl fair to the eye who can be talked into matrimony. I hear you live by your lorn self. Twenty-six years old and not wed! What in thunder! Can you stand to eat your own cooking?
Till I get there myself to clap the hands of the voters, begin swinging them in my favor. I stand well in the opinion of all, except Zeb Thornton—a tough one to deal with, as you may have discovered. A hard number, that Zeb.
It’s my aim to travel the length of Roaring Fork, up every draw and trace and hollow. First my pieded pony must be shod before she walks the rocks, and I’m waiting to see who and how many join the race. The county court clerk says sixteen have filed and a big lot are on the borders of it. The more candidates, say I, the better.
I lay down my pen.
Crafton Rowan
Salt Springs, Ky, May 28th
Dear Perry Wickliff:
I’ve been plaguing the mail rider ten days. After the trouble I took writing to you I feel a reply is my right. Has a body spoken against me, or are you busy trying to raise a crop? A farming life is contrary to education. Why, I bet you don’t know what makes a pig’s tail curl. And you may be one of these sharp tacks who scorn to plant by the almanac. Being Zeb Thornton owns the land, I’m bound he has put his worst off on you. Land so clayey you can hear corn sprouting at thirty yards. Did my pony have shoes, I’d trot over and see how you fare.
Now, before Zeb Thornton poisons your mind against me I’ll tell you the law trouble we had three years ago. Zeb, to my shape of thinking, is a form of cattle buyer it pays to have few dealings with. Mealy-mouthed, two-faced, slick as a dogwood hoe handle. That’s Zeb all over.
I had a heifer growing
into a cow, nubbins of horns blossoming, petted nigh to death. My woman had set stake on keeping her for milk and butter. Comes Zeb knocking at the door of a winter evening, trailed by a drove of cattle. I welcomed him under my roof as I would any of God’s creations, and I fed and quartered his stock. Next morning he spied my heifer and took advantage of being company. He wore my mind down bargaining and paid me eight dollars. Cold robbery, ever I named it, and my woman came within a pea of leaving me.
Zeb mixed my calf amongst his brutes and went herding downcreek, acting like the king of the pen-hookers. But my heifer had a will of her own. She stole away and hid in my barn. The next shot out of the barrel Zeb arrived with a deputy sheriff, bearing a warrant. Nine days I suffered the lock-up before making bail, although I later proved my innocence in court. Was Zeb Thornton the last man earthly, I wouldn’t do another lick of trading with him.
Twenty-one candidates have filed in the jailor race and a rumor goes a wad more are ready to jump in. There’s even a woman on the ticket, with about as much chance as a snowball in Torment. She’s as pretty a fixing as I ever saw, but that won’t help her at the polls. In my time Baldridge County won’t vote itself under a petticoat government. I say, let as many as wants pitch in their hats, be they hens or roosters, boars or sows. They’ll split the vote more directions than a turkey’s foot. They’ll whittle their following to a nub.
All the main creeks have one candidate at least, except Roaring. Roaring Fork is virgin territory. Broad Creek has five, Grassy Branch three. Big Ballard has nine. Others here and there. I’m counting to go solid around Salt Spring as I’m kin to everybody and his pappy, kin through my wife. And in spite of Garlan Hurley who has filed against me. My opinion, he’ll get two votes, his own and his woman’s. Beyond that he won’t stain paper. And I ought to run well on Roaring due to my wife. Aye, could I stack Roaring’s votes on top of Salt Springs I’d be as good as elected. For once I’d go into jail by law and right, the key in my hand.
