by James Still
Ulysses obeyed, and Aunt Besh raised her sleeves and poked forth her arms. “See my old bones,” she whimpered. “There’s hardly flesh to kiver ’em. I need good treatment, else I’m to bury.” Tears wet her eyes.
“Aunty,” Will comforted, “want to hold a balloon?”
“Keep the nasty things out of my sight,” Aunt Besh said.
Ulysses fetched the stew—whiskey in hot water, dusted with ginger and black pepper. Aunt Besh nursed the cup between quivering hands and tasted. “’Lysses,” she snuffed, “your hand was powerful on the water.”
Supper was announced and Ulysses told us, “Rise up, you fellers,” and Eldora said. “You’ll find common victuals, but try to make out.” We tarried, showing manners. Ulysses insisted, “Don’t force us to beg. Go. Go while the bread is smoking.”
After further prompting we trooped into a narrow gallery lighted by bracket lamps, which was the dining room. John hooked a wrist under Dow’s arm, leading him. Aunt Besh used the fire-poker for a walking stick.
“Why don’t you eat with us women at the second table?” Eldora asked Aunt Besh.
“I don’t aim to wait,” Aunt Besh said. “I’m starving.”
We sat to a feast of potatoes, hominy, cushaw, beans, fried and boiled pork, baked chicken, buttered dumplings, gravy, stacks of hand-pies, and jam cake. Ulysses invited, “Rake your plates full, and if you can’t reach, holler.”
As we ate, laughter rippled in the kitchen. Leander’s wife came with hot biscuits, and her face was so merry, Leander inquired, “What’s tickling you feymales?” She made no reply.
John said, “They’ve been gigglng steady.”
“We ought to force them to tell,” Leander said. “Choke it out.”
“If you’ll choke your woman,” John proposed, “I’ll choke mine.”
“Say we do,” Leander agreed. “And everybody help, everybody strangle his woman, if he’s got one. But let’s eat first.”
A voice raised in the kitchen. “You’ll never learn, you misters.” The laughter quieted.
“We’ll make them pray for air,” Leander bragged loudly. He batted an eye at us. “We’ll not be outsharped.”
“Cross the women,” Ulysses said, “and you’ll have war on your hands.”
“Suits me,” Leander said, and Pless and John vowed they didn’t care. Will, his mouth full, gulped, and nudged Dow. Dow, half asleep, said nothing.
Of a sudden the women filed through the gallery, their necks thrown, marching toward the fire. Only Eldora smiled.
Ulysses said, “You big talkers have got your women mad. But I didn’t anger mine, you may of noticed.”
“Ah,” Pless said, “they know we’re putting-on.”
“Eat,” Aunt Besh commanded, “eat and hush.”
Dow nodded in his chair and Ulysses arose and guided him to a bed.
While we were at table the wives hid the churn, and when they joined us in the living room later in the evening the four estranged couples sat apart, gibing each other. Ulysses tried making peace between them. The wives wouldn’t budge, though the husbands appeared willing.
John sighed, “Gee-o, I’m thirsty,” and his wife asked sourly, “What’s against pure water?” “Hit’s weaky,” was the reply.
Finally Ulysses threw open the door. The wind had calmed, the snowing ceased. Moonlight behind the clouds lighted the fields of snow. Every fence post wore a white cap. Ulysses said, “Maybe the way to end the ruckus is to battle. Who’s in the notion to snowball-fight?”
“Anything to win the churn back,” Leander said.
“The churn is what counts,” Pless baited, “the women don’t matter.”
“A fight would break the deadlock,” Ulysses declared.
The four wives arose.
Will groaned, “I’m too full to move,” and John testified, “I can’t wiggle.” Pless and Leander were as lief as not, yet Pless reminded, “Me and Leander are old-time rabbit rockers.”
Ulysses urged, “Tussle and reach a settlement.”
The wives pushed John and Will onto the porch and shoved them into the yard. “Get twenty-five steps apart,” Ulysses directed, “and don’t start till I say commence.” He allowed the sides to prepare mounds of snowballs.
I had followed to witness the skirmish, as had Eldora and Dow’s wife. Behind us Aunt Besh spoke, “Clear the door. Allow a body to see.”
Ulysses yelled, “Let ’em fly,” and the wives hurled a volley. A ball struck Will’s throat and he appealed to Ulysses, “Rocks, unfair.” Aunt Besh hobbled to the porch, the better to watch; she shouted and we discovered the side she pulled for. Will and John fought halfheartedly, mostly chucking crazy; Leander and Pless, deadeye throwers, practiced near-hits, tipping their wives’ heads, grazing shoulders, shattering balls poised in hands. The women dodged and twisted and let fly.
Will sat in the snow when the hoard of balls was exhausted, and John quit—quit and yanked up his collar. Leander and Pless stopped tossing and batted the oncoming missiles with their hands.
The women crept nearer, chucking point-blank. They rushed upon Will and before he could rise to escape had him pinned. They stuffed snow in his mouth and plastered his face. Then they seized John, a docile prisoner, rolling him log-fashion across the yard. And they got hands on Pless. Pless wouldn’t have been easily caught had not Leander grabbed his shoulders and shielded himself. Leander stood grinning as snow was thrust down Pless’s neck.
Leander’s feet wouldn’t hold at his turn. It was run, fox, run around the house, the women in pursuit. He zigzagged the yard, circled the barn, took a sweep through the bottom. They couldn’t overhaul him. His wife threatened, “Come take your punishment, or you’ll get double-dosed.” He came meekly and they buried him in snow. They heaped snow upon him and packed and shaped it like a grave. He let them satisfy themselves until he had to rise for air.
The feud ended and all tramped indoors good-humoredly, the wives to comb rimy hair, the husbands to dry wet clothes and accuse Aunt Besh of partiality. Hadn’t Aunt Besh bawled “Kill ’em” to the women. An argument ensued, Aunt Besh admitting, “Shore, I backed the girls.”
The husbands fire-dried, chattering their teeth exaggeratedly, and their wives had the mercy to bring the churn from hiding and place it in the gallery. The dipper tapped bottom as its visitors heartened themselves. Aunt Besh eyed the gallery-goers. “I got a chill watching you fellers,” she wheezed.
Ulysses said, “I don’t hear your gums popping.”
“Are ye wanting me to perish?” she rasped.
Eldora chided Ulysses into brewing another ginger stew, and Aunt Besh instructed, “This time don’t water it to death.”
It was Leander who remembered to inquire, “Now, what was it tickled you feymales back yonder?”
The women turned their heads and smiled.
The night latened, and Aunt Besh dozed. Husbands and wives, reconciled, sat side by side. The balloons were kept spinning aloft. Apples were roasted on the hearth, potatoes baked in ashes, popcorn capped, and pull-candy made.
Past one o’clock Eldora made known the retiring arrangements. Aunt Besh would sleep in her chair, on account of asthma. Two beds in the upper room would hold the women, two in the lower provide for the men. Ulysses and Eldora, occupying the living-room bed, could keep the child near the fire and attend Aunt Besh’s wants in the night.
My roommates sauntered off. When I followed they were snoring. John, Will, and Dow lay as steers strawed to weather a blizzard; my assigned bed-fellows were sprawled, leaving little of the mattress unoccupied. I decided to go sleep in front of the hearth, though I waited until the house quieted, until smothered laughter in the upper room hushed.
I found the coals banked, the lamp wick turned low. Aunt Besh sat wrapped in a tower of quilts and I thought her asleep. But she uncovered her face and spoke, “See if there’s a drap left in the churn.” I investigated, and reported the churn empty. She eyed me coldly as she might any creatur
e who had not the grace to be born on Logan Creek. “I’ll endure,” she said.
A Ride on the Short Dog
We flagged the bus on a curve at the mouth of Lairds Creek by jumping and waving in the road and Dee Buck Engle had to tread the brake the instant he saw us. He wouldn’t have halted unless compelled. Mal Dowe and I leaped aside finally, but Godey Spurlock held his ground. The bus stopped a yard from Godey and vexed faces pressed the windows and we heard Old Liz Hyden cry, “I’d not haul them jaspers.”
Dee Buck opened the door and blared, “You boys trying to get killed?”
We climbed on grinning and shoved fares to Roscoe into his hand and for once we didn’t sing out, To Knuckle Junction, and Pistol City, and Two Hoots. We even strode the aisle without raising elbows to knock off hats, having agreed among ourselves to sort of behave and make certain of a ride home. Yet Dee Buck was wary. He warned, “Bother my passengers, you fellers, and I’ll fix you. I’ve put up with your mischief till I won’t.”
That set Godey and Mal laughing, for Dee Buck was a bluffer. We took the seat across from Liz Hyden and on wedging into it my bruised arm started aching. Swapping licks was Godey’s delight.
The bus wheezed and jolted in moving away, yet we spared Dee Buck our usual advice: Feed her a biscuit and see will she mend, and, Twist her tail and teach her some manners. The vehicle was scarcely half the length of a regular bus. “The Short Dog” everybody called it. It traveled from Thacker to Roscoe and back twice a day. Enos Webb occupied the seat in front and Godey greeted, “Hey-o, chum. How’s your fat?” Enos tucked his head, fearing a rabbit lick, and he changed his seat. He knew how Godey served exposed necks. Godey could cause you to see forked lightning and hear thunder balls. Though others shunned us, Liz Hyden gazed in our direction. Her eyes were scornful, her lips puckered sour. She was as old as a hill.
Godey and Mal couldn’t sit idle. They rubbed the dusty panes with their sleeves and looked abroad and everything they saw they remarked on: hay doodles in Alonzo Tate’s pasture, a crazy chimney leaning away from a house, long-johns on clotheslines. They kept a count of the bridges. They pointed toward the mountain ahead, trying to fool, calling, “Gee-o, looky yonder!” But they couldn’t trick a soul. My arm throbbed and I had no notion to prank, and after a while Godey muttered, “I want to know what’s eating you.”
“We’d better decide what we can do in town,” I grouched. Roscoe folk looked alive at sight of us. And except for our return fares we hadn’t a dime. The poolroom had us ousted. We’d have to steer clear of the courthouse, where sheriffs were thick. And we dare not rouse the county prisoners again. On our last trip we had bellowed in front of the jail, “Hey-o, you wife beaters, how are you standing the times?” We’d jeered and mocked until they had begged the turnkey to fetch us inside, they would notch our ears, they would trim us. The turnkey had told them to be patient, we’d get in on our own hook.
Godey said, “We’ll break loose in town, no two ways talking.”
I gloomed, “The Law will pen us for the least thing. We’ll be thrown in amongst the meanest fellers who ever breathed.”
Godey screwed his eyes narrow. “My opinion, the jailbirds have you scared plumb. You’re ruint for trick-pulling.” He knotted a fist and hit me squarely on my bruise.
My armed ached the fiercer. My eyes burned and had I not glanced sideways they’d come to worse. “Now, no,” I said; but Godey’s charge was true.
“Well, act like it,” he said. “And pay me.”
I returned the blow.
Old Liz was watching and she blurted, “I swear to my Gracious. A human being can’t see a minute’s peace.”
Godey chuckled, “What’s fretting you, old woman?”
“Knock and beat and battle is all you think on,” she snorted.
“We’re not so bad we try to hinder people from riding the bus,” he countered. “Aye, we heard you squall back yonder.”
Old Liz’s lips quivered, her veiny hands trembled.
“Did I have the strength to reach,” she croaked, “I’d pop your jaws. I’d addle you totally.”
Godey thrust his head across the aisle and turned a cheek. He didn’t mind a slap. “See your satisfaction,” he invited.
“Out o’ my face,” she ordered, lifting her voice to alert Dee Buck. She laced her fingers to stay their shaking.
Dee Buck adjusted the rearview mirror and inquired, “What’s the matter, Aunt Liz?”
“It’s these boys tormenting me,” she complained. “They’d drive a body to raving.”
Dee Buck slowed. “I told you fellers—”
“What’ve we done now?” Godey asked injuredly.
“Didn’t I say not to bother my passengers?”
“I never tipped the old hen.”
“One more antic and off you three go.”
Godey smirked. “Know what?” he blatted. “We’ve been treating you pretty and you don’t appreciate it. Suit a grunt-box, you can’t.”
“You heard me,” Dee Buck warned.
When the bus stopped for a passenger at the mouth of Willow Branch, Dee Buck called back to Aunt Liz. “How are ye, Aunty?”
“Doing no good,” said Aunt Liz.
The twins got on at Lucus. They were about nine years old, as alike as two peas, and had not a hair on their heads. Their polls were shaven clean. Godey chirruped, “Gee-o, look who’s coming,” and he beckoned them to the place quitted by Enos Webb. Dee Buck seated the two up front and Godey vowed, “I’ll trap the chubs, just you wait,” and he made donkey ears with his hands and brayed. The twins stared, their mouths open.
Mal suggested, “Why don’t we have our noggins peeled?”
“Say we do,” laughed Godey, cocking a teasing eye on me. “They can’t jail us for that shorely.”
I replied, “We’re broke as grasshoppers, keep in mind.”
It didn’t take Godey long to entice the twins. He picked nothings out of the air and chewed them, chewed to match sheep eating ivy; he feigned to pull teeth, pitch them back into his mouth, to swallow. The twins stole a seat closer, the better to see, and then two more. Directly Godey had them where he wanted. He greeted: “Hey-o, dirty ears.”
The twins nodded, too shy to answer.
“What is you little men’s names?” he asked.
They swallowed timidly, their eyes meeting.
“Ah, tell.”
“Woodrow,” ventured one. “Jethro,” said the other. They were as solemn as fire-pokers.
“Hustling to a store to spend a couple of nickels, I bet.”
“Going to Cowen,” said one. “To Grandpaw’s,” said his image.
“Well, who skinned you alive, I want to know?”
“Pap,” they said.
Godey gazed at their skulls, mischief tingling him. He declared, “Us fellers aim to get cut bald in Roscoe. Too hot to wear hair nowadays.”
I slipped a hand over my bruise and crabbed, “I reckon you know haircuts cost money in town.” Plaguing Godey humored me.
“Witless,” Godey said, annoyed, “we’ll climb into the chairs, and when the barbers finish we’ll say, ‘Charge it to the sand bank.’”
“They’d summons the Law in an eye-bat.”
“Idjit,” he snapped, “people can’t be jailed for a debt.” Yet he wouldn’t pause to argue. He addressed the twins: “You little gents have me uneasy. There are swellings on your noggins and I’m worried on your behalf.”
The twins rubbed their crowns. They were as smooth as goose eggs.
“Godey’s sharp on this head business,” said Mal.
“Want me to examine you and figure out your ailment?” asked Godey.
The twins glanced one to the other. “We don’t care,” said one.
Godey tipped a finger to their heads. He squinted and frowned. And then he drew back and gasped, “Oh-oh!” He punched Mal and blabbed, “Do you see what I do? Horns, if ever I saw them.”
“The tom truth,” Mal swore.
&nbs
p; “Sprouting horns like bully-cows,” Godey said. “Budding under the skin and ready to pip.”
“You’re in a bad way,” Mal moaned.
“In the fix of a boy on Lotts Creek,” Godey said. “He growed horns, and he turned into a brute and went hooking folks. Mean? Upon my word and honor, the bad man wouldn’t claim him.”
“A feller at Scuddy had the disease,” Mal related. “Kept shut up in a barn, he was, and they fed him hay and cornstalks, and he never tasted table food. I saw him myself, I swear to my thumb. I saw him chewing a cud and heard him bawl a big bawl.”
Godey sighed. “The only cure is to deaden the nubs before they break the skin.”
“And, gee-o, you’re lucky,” Mal poured on. “Godey Spurlock is a horn-doctor. Cured a hundred, I reckon.”
“Oh I’ve treated a few,” admitted Godey.
“Spare the little masters,” pled Mal.
Dee Buck was trying to watch both road and mirror, his head bobbing like a chicken drinking water. Old Liz’s eyes glinted darkly. I poked Godey, grumbling, “Didn’t we promise to mind ourselves?” But he went on: “They may enjoy old long hookers, may want to bellow and snort and hoof up dirt.”
“We don’t neither,” a twin denied.
Godey brightened. “Want me to dehorn you?”
The boys nodded.
Though I prodded Godey’s ribs, he ignored me. He told the twins, “The quicker the medicine the better the cure,” and he made short work of it. Without more ado he clapped a hand on each of their heads, drew them wide apart, and bumped them together. The brakes began to screech and Old Liz to fill the bus with her groans. The twins sat blinking. Dee Buck halted in the middle of the road and commanded: “All right, you scamps, pile off.”
We didn’t stir.
“You’re not deaf. Trot.”
“Deaf in one ear, and can’t hear out of the other ’un,” Godey jested.
Dee Buck slapped his knee with his cap. “I said go.”
Old Liz was in a fidget. “Get shut of them,” she rasped her arms a-jiggle, her fingers dancing. “See that they walk. Make ’em foot it.”
“Old Liz,” Godey chided, “if you don’t check yourself you’re liable to fly to pieces.”
