O stars, and dreams, and gentle night;
O night and stars, return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn;
That drains the blood of suffering men;
Drinks tears, instead of dew;
Let me sleep through his blinding reign,
And only wake with you!
That is from an Emily Brontë poem that is in one of the books that Mama has on her shelf of good books. I thought it was so nice, although sad, that I went and got it so I could read the whole thing. I just cannot help myself. Sometimes I just have to feel sorry for Daddy when he starts speaking sad poetry like that.
Cooling, waning days.
The earth still yields her bounty as my children toil.
They do not stop to see the land turning golden.
Gray clouds gift more fullness, lifting me above my banks.
I flow silver into the sinking sun.
Joy rises, but the weight of sorrow tethers her flight.
October 7, 1931. It rained off and on all day today. It was too muddy to get out in the garden, so we did not have to work after school. A new moon will be coming on in a couple of days, so we had planned on starting in on the potatoes again, but the rain meant we just did not get everything done. This probably means Sardius and I will have to stay out of school tomorrow and Friday. Beryl gets to go to school without us because she cannot work hard on account of her bad headaches. I do not begrudge her that, though. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to have a headache all the time.
Jake Hatton came by today, looking for a pint of whiskey. I told him never to come to the house, but to hide out in the woods down by the creek and wait until he sees me out in the yard. He can whistle a hooty-owl call to me, and I will meet him down by the big sycamore. As soon as I got home, I heard him calling, even though it was raining cats and dogs by then. I got soaked going out to meet him, but I had a pint ready for him, so I made another 50c today. I have $2.63 saved up in my business account, which I keep in the special cherrywood box my Pap-pa made me. I would like to give some of it to Mama, but then I would have to make up a lie to explain from whence it came. I reckon I can say I sold some muscadines on my own.
Jake Hatton is a funny sort. He twitches, as if he has ants in his pants and in his shirt. Sometimes he hops around a little, and he makes funny noises, like barks and squeaks. He cusses up a storm, also, which is why Mama calls him trash. Even when he is trying to be gentleman-like, sometimes he bursts out with the worst language I have ever heard, and then he hangs his head and says, “I am G.D. sorry, G.D. it. I just can’t G.D. help it. It just G.D. falls out of my G.D. mouth,” and then he walks away, his head low, twitching off into the woods and swigging my whiskey. I feel sorry for him. I think there is something bad wrong with his head. Of course, he does not really say just “G.D,” but the real cuss words. I just write that because it hurts my feelings to see the real words written down.
I hate it, but I must cater to Jake Hatton because I like the way the money is piling up in my cash box. Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about what-all I am going to buy with it. I would like to get everybody new clothes, and I would like to get Daddy’s jalopy fixed so we could all go for rides in it. It has been banjaxed off and on for five months now, and I miss riding over to Maryville or up to Indian Gap, which is about the prettiest place I have ever seen. The loggers have not messed up that area like they have over on Little River Road.
October 10, 1931. It has cleared up and dried out some so we have spent the last three days getting in the rest of the crops. Mama has had a hard time of it, especially when she was digging potatoes. She kept putting her hand on her back and making a face. It would help if she were not so fat. A big belly like that is hard on the back, but Daddy says that it is good for her to put on some fat so she can make it through the winter better.
I hope it does not rain, even though we will get to go to school if it does. It is going to be hard to get everything in before the moon turns. Now I am going to bed. I am so tired I feel sick.
October 11, 1931
My Darling Cecilia,
It has been another one of those dreary weeks that I did not get to fulfill my role as a missionary or a teacher. So many of the children are missing school to work in the fields that I wonder why I even bother to hold classes on these days. The church service was next to empty today, as well. In the beginning of the harvest season, people made an effort to take Sundays off, but toward the end, they are so pressed to get it all done, and they are no doubt so exhausted that they no longer can drag themselves in. Their plight is pitiful, and I am in agony for them.
The Wallace family did make it to church today, however, and we all assembled at the Aiken home afterward, as usual. Woodrow seems a mite happier, which cheered me immensely. He wears his heart on his sleeve—I can tell if he is having a good or a bad week the moment I see him. His eyes are so expressive they can hide nothing.
I asked Reverend Miller what might be causing him to be so melancholy at times. He revealed that the poor man’s spirit was badly scarred when he served in the Great War. It pains me to think that this extraordinary man was dealt such a debilitating blow whilst serving his country and fighting for our freedoms! If only there were something I could do to help him recover. It would break your heart to see how he suffers sometimes.
Reverend Miller has recovered some, at least enough to spend a good bit of the day sitting in the parlor and to eat dinner at the table each evening. The doctors are worried about his lungs, however. They fear that he does not have enough strength to keep them clear during the winter season.
I am sorry my letter is so dreary. Believe me, this is temporary! As soon as the children return to school and I can also preach to a full house, my spirits will revive.
Thank you for your cheerful letters. They keep me going in times like this!
My dearest love,
Emily
Cooling, waning days.
My breath is slow and deep; I am fat and sated.
The taste of something like a lusty spring sways:
The coming of new life, of unbidden yearning.
Pain will descend upon them, but I cannot warn them,
Even if it were my desire.
The Spirit broods and waits, watching as the pall approaches.
October 12, 1931
My School Journal, grade 7, Miss Weston’s class
By Pearl Wallace
My mother is very educated. She did not go to a regular school because they did not have them here when she was growing up, so she studied at home, with her own mother as her teacher. She had already finished the examination to complete high school by the time she ran away and married my daddy when she was 17 years old. She knows a lot about science, and she can even speak French and German. She had planned to go up to the part of Canada where they speak French to visit her great-aunt Sarah Wisnet when she turned 18, but then she met Daddy and she changed her mind and married him instead. I, personally, would prefer a trip to another country to getting married. I may not even get married at all, ever, because I intend to go to college to learn to be a missionary and be a Bible scholar like Miss Weston. Men do not like it if their wives are smarter than they are.
October 13, 1931. Hallelujah! We have finished with the harvest enough that we can go back to school on Monday and not miss any more for the whole winter. I cannot wait! We will be canning all day tomorrow, but after that, it is clear sailing.
It is nice to see rows and rows of jars of food we have put away down in the cellar. We have tomatoes, corn, pickles, molasses, jellies, and beets in jars, and piles of potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, and apples laid out on newspapers. Now I am going to bed, and will I ever sleep!
October 14, 1931. We got to go to school today! That is, Beryl and I went to school. Sardius laid out one more day to help, but Mama said she did not need us girls. It was wonderful being back! Miss Weston had on
a beautiful dress. It was blue, with a brown belt. She looked just lovely in it. I worked up the gumption to talk to her about how Darlene looks and asked her why she thought Daddy says she is a Negro even though she is white and why he does not like her, even though she is not mean at all. She chewed her lip and told me that Jesus loves all children, no matter what their color is, and then she had us sing Jesus Loves the Little Children, All the Children of the World. I got confused, because she never did really answer my question about why Daddy would call Darlene a Negro even though she is white. Black and white are the opposite, are they not?
October 14, 1931
Darling Cecilia,
I have an interesting situation here. Pearl, the little Wallace girl that I like so much, has informed me that an odd family has moved in next door to her. The neighbor, a native of these parts, has married a woman who has a Negro child, and Pearl’s father disapproves of her associating with his children. Pearl, in her innocence, cannot understand why Negroes, especially light-skinned ones, should be treated differently than Caucasians.
I do not see it as my place to contradict Pearl’s father in this matter, for I see my duty is to eventually convince him of the error of his drinking. If I come between him and Pearl in this point, I may poison any positive influence I may have over him. I just explained to Pearl that in God’s eyes, all people are the same, without validating or denying her father’s concerns. Sadly, I think I just confused her more, and I am not sure I am approaching this in the right way. What would you do in this situation? It is clear Pearl loves the little Negro girl and that her heart is crushed that her father is so negative toward her.
I find myself more than a little confused about the situation, and I wonder if I do not also harbor a less than generous spirit toward people of color. I fear that Father’s disapproval of the darker races may be influencing me to regard Negroes with some disapprobation. But if the Lord God Almighty loves all people equally, male and female, slave and free, then should not we all love all equally as well? I do wish you were here so that we could talk this over! I never realized how much our sheltered upbringing would hinder me in the fulfilment of my role as mentor, guide, and teacher.
On a lighter note, I was amused at your hinting that I might be losing my heart to Mr. Woodrow Wallace! Rest assured that I merely am concerned about the poor man’s fears and weaknesses. I hate to see any potential such as his be undermined. Of course, I would never consider someone like him to be a suitor to me! Our worlds are too far apart.
I miss you, Cecilia, and our long chats. I wish you were here to help me sort out my thoughts. I cannot tell you how important your letters are to me, and how I glean such pleasure from them!
Your loving sister,
Emily
October 15, 1931. We had a good thunderstorm today. Poor Beryl was ascared to death by the time we got home, drenched to the bone. She screamed every time the lightening flashed and the thunder crashed. Beryl is ascared of a lot of things. Thunder and lightning, and big dogs, although she is not ascared of Daddy’s fox hounds because she knows them well. She is ascared of snakes and spiders and even hooty-owls at night because she thinks that maybe there are still some wild Indians around who can mimic hooty-owls perfectly. She heard a story once about a woman who was carried off by wild Indians, and before they snatched her, they called to each other outside all around her cabin with hooty-owl calls.
It is a mystery to me why Beryl is ascared of Indians. In the first place, the Indians that lived around here were Cherokee, and they were peaceful, nobody to be ascared of. In the second place, there are not any left around here, not any more. I know there used to be a lot of them because I find arrowheads down by the river and up in the bluffs above it. One time Sardius found the head of a tomahawk, as perfect as if it were just made.
They are gone now, every single one of them, marched off to Oklahoma by Mr. Jackson back in 1838, which I think is a disgrace. The land around these parts was theirs first, and no one had any right to take it away from them and make them walk all across the country to Reservations out West where it is hot and dry. I bet it was hard to get used to after living in these cool, wet mountains. Some of them hid out and did not go, but they mostly live over in North Carolina now. There is a Reservation there, too, but at least it is in the mountains.
I told my Uncle Woodrow about how I did not think Mr. Jackson should have just run the poor Cherokee off like that, and he looked sad, and then said if he had not, I probably would not be alive today because none of my great-grandpappies would have been able to buy land here and my mama and daddy would never have known each other if the Indians still owned it all. That is hard to think about. I am glad I am here, but sad it means somebody else suffered. I do not know what is right.
Except for cannibals, I am not ascared of anything. Not snakes, not even copperheads, not spiders, and certainly not lightning and thunder. There is nothing I love more than a good thunderstorm with lightening slashing all around like Taranis himself is throwing bolts down on our little house. I like to sit up under the eaves in the loft and watch out the window, and I love to be out in it and watch the air turn green and see the trees seem to jump all over the place when the lightening comes fast and furious. I always love it when a storm comes when I am over at Pap-pa’s house by myself. That way I know the others are there to be with Mama, and she will not worry about me, knowing I am safe at her daddy’s house, and I can go and sit out on the big sleeping porch and watch her rip.
Cool, waning days, cold nights.
A shadow of my first upright children rises from my bedrock.
They gave me the first name that was spoken aloud: Tanasi
As Tanasi, I was revered, I sang with abandon,
Mother Earth lost none of her soil to me;
Her greenleaves numbered many and were not slaughtered.
My memory sees skies blackened by wings of birds,
Banks solid with otter and deer.
The greenness rolled far across the land.
Where have my first children gone?
I know the taste of metal, of hate and fear.
They vanished into the maw of suffering.
October 16, 1931. Mama was sick today and when we got home, she was in bed, Daddy was trying to make up a batch of cornbread and making a right mess of it, and Ruby was sitting in the middle of the floor squalling. Beryl and I took over cooking supper and tending to Ruby, and then Daddy took off right after supper, saying he felt like the house was closing in on him. Jasper and Sardius both went out, too, to patch a leak that had sprung up in the porch during the storm yesterday, and Uncle Woodrow was nowhere to be seen. I had to do the dishes by myself so Beryl could get to bed on time. She had a bad headache. She gets them if she does not get enough sleep, and she has not gotten full rested up from all the hard days of harvesting.
Today was not all bad. Miss Weston asked Beryl and me to sing Shall We Gather at the River in church on Sunday. I look forward to that! I like that song very much because I like the thought of the beautiful, beautiful river that flows by the Throne of God, covered in precious gems that look like me and Beryl, Jasper, Sardius, and Ruby. I can imagine our faces stuck all over the Throne, peering over God’s shoulder as He makes His judgements. I bet He got mad at Mr. Jackson for making all those Cherokee march off to Oklahoma. I would like to see the look on his face when he found out how much trouble he was in.
Daddy is still not back. I bet he has slipped out to the woodshed, getting blootered.
October 16, 1931
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for your kind letter, and thank you for your offer to help me help the good people of this community. To be honest, they need everything! Their clothing, household goods, farm implements, books, everything--! is inadequate, and how I wish we could give them so many of the things they so desperately need. Whatever you can do, whatever items you can gather or money you can raise would make a difference in the lives of these people I have co
me to love so much.
Thank you a thousand times for your kindest of offers! I am so happy that we are friends again.
Fondly,
Emily
Cool, waning days, cold nights.
The greenleaves have changed their mantle to gold and red,
First, slowly, then swiftly, they have begun to undress.
Days are as silver as my children. Nights are gossamer.
For now, I am free of the great Orb, but she begins to turn.
Her face in profile, she listens to the humming of the Spirit.
October 17, 1931. I am sorry to say that we all have brought shame on our family. This morning I put on britches because I was going fishing with Darlene, and we have to wade through a briar patch to get to the best spot, but before I got out the door, Miss Weston came calling. She took one look at me and said, “Pearl, dear, why are you wearing trousers? Young ladies should not dress like boys.”
I was scundered to death. I tried to tell her I was going to be wading through a briar patch, but then Daddy came in from a night out in the woodshed, and I could tell right off he was drunk as a skunk. He was hollering at us before he even got into the front yard, cussing and carrying on because Miss Weston had left the gate open and one of his pups had gotten out. It had not gone any further than the springhouse, but he acted like it had been run over or drowned in the creek. Mama came running out of the bedroom, trying to put up her hair as she was coming out, but most of it was still hanging down her back, and she looked just awful. Her face and her legs were swole up bad, so that she looked fatter than ever. Then to make matters worse, Ruby came running out after her, dressed only in her step-ins, and they were so ragged, they barely covered her bottom.
In the Midst of Innocence Page 6
