by Pamela Morsi
Chapter Fourteen
The storekeeper's family lived better than anyone on the mountain. The area above the store was neat, cozy, and well furnished. The rugs on the floor were homemade, as were most of the furniture pieces. But throughout the house, in every nook and cranny, evidence of a world outside of Marrying Stone Mountain existed. The corner of the kitchen boasted an ornately designed Acme Regal Cookstove. The cloth that covered their table was bleached linen damask, rather than homespun. The plates were white china stoneware, not tin. And while the members of the Phillips family still carried their eating utensils with them, the kitchen cupboard contained a full complement of Alaskaware knives, forks, and spoons.
The comings and goings of drummers, traders, wayfarers, and strangers had created for this family a tiny peephole on another world. Perhaps there was no intention of ever exploring that world, but simply knowing of its existence gave them a perspective unique among the people with whom they lived. It made them different. On Marrying Stone Mountain, being different was not thought altogether to be such a good thing.
On this morning, as the sunshine edged into the kitchen slantwise from the east window, groggy heads and drooping eyes were much in evidence at the Phillips family breakfast table.
Oather had already shaved before sitting down. His bruised and battered face was beginning to take on its more normal appearance. His expression was grim, determined.
Mavis still had her hair in a long untidy braid hanging down her back. Around her face masses of uncombed curls had sprouted due to the heavy moisture in the morning air. Dark circles beneath her eyes gave evidence of worry as well as sleeplessness.
Lessy Phillips was, as always, perfectly groomed and pressed. Her offering for the morning meal was tasty and sustaining and her movements were swift and efficient, but her facial expression was as weary as those of her children. It had been the middle of the night before they'd come back to the house. The dawn, it seemed, had arrived very early.
There was, unfortunately, an exception to that state of lethargy at the breakfast table. Buell Phillips was wide awake and talking a mile a minute. His family, knowing him as well as they did, remained respectfully quiet and reserved. When Buell Phillips was "having one of his ideas," it was best to keep one's own counsel and pray that the moments would pass quickly.
Which was why no opinion, in word or expression, was ventured concerning Phillips's version of the events of the previous evening.
"By God, it's as if the opportunity has just fallen in our lap," he said. "They were sure to have her married up with Baxley right and proper. They're a devious bunch, those McNees, and Beulah Winsloe could easy be first cousin to the very devil. They sure were going to sew things up last night. And Jesse Best, our Jesse Best, beat them out of it."
Buell hooted with delighted laughter.
"Who'd have believed that!" he said: "Who'd have believed it! I thought old Beulah was going to piddle her drawers when she heard the boy say it."
The storekeeper shook his head in disbelief.
He imitated Jesse's distinctive way of speaking. "She sure slapped me. Yes, I kissed her," he mocked. "She kissed me first. I thought it was all right." Phillips's laughter was hearty. "Lord Almighty! That Baxley was pale as a sheet and then mad as a hen. Here he thinks he's got such a way with the ladies with all his good looks and his charm. He tries to snuggle up to Althea Winsloe and gets nowhere. Simple Jess gets kissed."
Buell slapped his thigh. "Who would a-thought. Not me. Lord knows, I would have paid the boy to do it if it had ever entered my mind."
"I'm sure it wasn't like it sounded, Papa," Mavis said quietly. "Jesse's so sweet, it was probably just a friendly kind of kiss."
Her father huffed in disbelief. "You need to get married, girl," he said. "Learn the ways of the world. That Jesse is got the same interest in what's under gals' dresses as the rest of us."
"Mr. Phillips!" his wife cautioned in a shocked whisper.
"Beg pardon, my dear," he replied with little apology in his tone. "Nope, that gal has been a widow too long. It's time some good fellow takes her in hand before she starts leading a boy like Jesse into more than just kissing."
If Phillips's family disagreed with him, they did so silently.
Buell reached out and patted his son heartily on the back. "That's where you come in. You're going to woo her and win her. That farm is going to be Piggott ground and the Winsloes can just stamp their feet in indignation forever-more."
Oather suddenly lost his appetite and pushed his bowl of bacon-greased mush away. He gave a moment's glance toward Mavis. She looked worried, unhappy. Deliberately he steeled himself, sighing with resignation.
"I'll do the best that I can, Papa."
"I know you will," Buell assured him quickly. "I know you will. And I'm going to help you, son. I'll tell you how to go about things and you just do what I say."
Oather raised an eyebrow. He knew that it was better not to go against anything his father was thinking. When Buell Phillips was having an idea, dissenters were frequently dealt with harshly. He could follow his father's dictates to the letter. If he won the lady, everything would be fine. If he didn't, his father would have no one to blame. The problem, Oather realized, was that to insure that his sweet sister Mavis was not forced to live the rest of her life in the shadow of the man who had ruined her life and left her like used goods, he actually had to win Althea Winsloe. It was clear to him that he had more chance of that on his own merit than he would ever have as the representative of his father.
"I think I should court her myself," he said, easing into disagreement in the least negative way. "She likes me, I feel pretty certain about that. I believe I can persuade her that I'd make her a good husband."
"Well, for certain you're going to court her yourself. I just know a whole lot about folks and their thinking. You just follow my lead and those Christmas wedding bells will be ringing for you," he said.
Buell leaned closer as if relaying a confidence. "You see the way it is, son, is a woman wants a man," he said. "A man who'll set her straight. One to tell her when to jump and how high."
Buell found a good deal of humor in his own words and chuckled for a minute or two before he continued.
"That Baxley," he said. "He pretends he's a man like that, lots of the gals think he's that way. But he's not. He's weak," Buell explained, smug in his certainty. "Just like his daddy is that one. Clyde Baxley was led around by the ties on a woman's apron for twenty years. His wife Dora was just like our Beulah, excepting Clyde weren't as easy led as Orv is. He never did get around her or loose from her, just one day he finally fell into a bottle of whiskey and never crawled out again."
Mavis raised her chin in surprise. Oather glanced at her. He knew nothing about Baxley's past, but it was not a subject in which he was interested.
"That boy, Eben," his father continued. "He was raised the same way as his father. He was just his mama's little pet." Buell shook his finger adamantly. "Boys raised by women turn out downright boneless. You can't find a man inside 'em if you search with a compass and lantern. Don't never let that happen to a boy of yours, son. You'll probably be called upon to take a firm hand with that Winsloe baby.
Paisley's been dead long enough to have near ruined him for certain. He's sure to grow up as frail as a sapling."
"He seems like a sweet little boy," Oather pointed out.
"Sweet is for girls. Sweet don't make a man of a boy. Why, when you was still toddling around here hanging on to your mama's leg, I said, 'Woman, leave that boy be, you'll ruin him.' I even threatened to take a stick to her once when she was coddlin' you," he admitted proudly, grinning across the table at his wife. She returned his regard with an uneasy smile.
"It's the maddest that woman ever got at me. But I kept her at a distance, that I did, son. You've got me to thank for that."
Oather stared at his father. The taste of bitterness was strong in his mouth. And thank you were not the words that ca
me immediately to his lips. Determinedly, Oather put his feelings aside and deftly brought the conversation back to the subject for discussion.
"You're right, Papa. I'll take an interest in the boy. I just really think that for the courting, I should handle Althea Winsloe my own way," he said.
"I'm trying to help you, son," Buell said.
"I know that, Papa," Oather answered. "But I think Althea Winsloe is going to be very wary of deceit and trickery. I just want to be straightforward and honest with her."
"Well that will never work," Buell answered without the slightest consideration.
"It will," Oather said. The emphatic nature of his words added implacable rigidness to his tone. He watched the inevitable hardening of his father's jaw and waited.
"No, son," he said, evenly, sternly. "This is too important for me to leave it to chance."
"You're not leaving it to chance," Oather said. "You are leaving it to my good judgment."
His father's tone became harsh, reproving. "I think I got a pretty good idea last night of the uncertainty of your good judgment."
"What do you mean?"
"When she put up that nonsense about not having babies. You shouldn't have given in so quickly," Buell insisted. "It looked strange, mighty strange, and it's sure to have folks talking."
"I did what I did, Papa," Oather answered. "Baxley agreed to it, too."
Buell Phillips made a sound of dismissal as he turned back to his plate and used his fingers to help himself to another huge piece of side bacon. "Well, Baxley is Baxley," he said. "He has nothing to prove to anybody. You should have let Baxley say it first. It would have looked a whole lot better if Baxley had said it first."
Oather bristled and his eyes narrowed. "I don't have anything to prove to anybody either," he said.
Phillips made no comment on his own words, but the expression on his face indicated that he wasn't in complete agreement.
'The important thing now is to actually marry the girl," he said. "I'm the one who can help you make that happen. After you're wed you can get a child in her belly and folks will forget about what you said."
"I promised her I wouldn't do that," Oather pointed out quietly. "And I believe I have a better chance of getting her to marry me because she can believe me."
"Now that ain't totally wrong, son," Buell agreed. "You just keep telling her she's going to get her way. That's fine if she believes it. Of course, nobody's going to hold you to that."
"I thought marriages were supposed to be built on honesty and trust," Mavis piped in. Her words echoed with volumes of hidden meaning. Oather could only speculate on their wellspring. Buell waved them away.
"That's the reason you still aren't married," he speculated unkindly. "You don't understand nothing about the truth of things between men and women." He turned his attention once more to his son. "You wed Althea Winsloe and then you bed her," he said, taking a big bite of the mush. "It ain't natural otherwise and we all know it," he added, his mouth still very full.
Oather felt uncomfortable about commenting on what was natural. "Althea Winsloe may well want to hold me to my promises."
Buell shrugged, unconcerned. "By then she'll be your wife and what she wants won't matter a hoot. Look at your mother."
Both Oather and his sister did.
"Her opinion doesn't count for a thing in this house," Buell pointed out. "And she's very happy, aren't you, my dear?"
Mrs. Phillips didn't answer, she only smiled shyly and hurried to the stove for more coffee. Her husband took this as a yes.
"Just don't worry about that part of it now," Buell counseled his son. "There'll be time enough after you're wed. We've just got to see that you're wed. I'll tell you how to get there, step by step."
Oather sighed heavily and raised his chin, forced into obstinacy. "I'll call on her. I've known her a long time. We are, I suppose, friends. But I'll follow no one's lead on this but my own. I'll do what I can to try to win her over."
Buell stopped eating in midbite and stared at his son in disbelief. As the reality of the unanticipated rebellion settled over him, his complexion turned florid and his expression to anger.
”Try? Try?" Buell mimicked in sarcastic indignation. "That's what you always do, isn't it, Oather. You try. Well, this is one time where you can't just try, son. You've got to wed her!"
The depth of his father's reaction didn't surprise Oather, but neither did his expectation in any way diminish the difficulty in facing it.
"You make it sound like life and death," Oather said, purposely moderating his tone.
"And that it is. Our honor is at stake."
Oather's eyes widened and he glanced at Mavis. She'd paled behind startled eyes. He turned his gaze back to his father, who had fortunately not noticed the exchange between his offspring.
"What do you mean 'our honor is at stake?"' Oather asked quietly.
Buell's answer was brusque. "Why, the good name of this family. We're the Piggott family, by God! We're the people that first come to this mountain. It's ours by right. These McNeeses are just breeding like field mice and taking the place over."
Oather allowed himself only a moment's sigh of relief. "Papa, these days the two families are so intermarried, folks have to decide which name they belong to."
"And if they have to decide, we want them deciding to be Piggotts. We're the first family here."
"Papa, that's just not important to me."
"I see it's not!" Buell was livid. "I see that for my son his name and his family's honor mean nothing."
He banged his fist on the table. The dishes jumped and clattered.
"Well, if you don't care about the McNees taking over the mountain, at least don't tell me that you weren't aware of the slight he made on your manhood."
Oather's reply was even. "I was aware of it, Papa, but I didn't concern myself with it. I care nothing about Baxley's opinion of me."
"What about the opinion of all the others standing there?"
"Honestly, I don't much care what they think either."
Phillips cursed lividly. "Well, I do care. Any slight on you is a slight upon me and a slight against all the Piggotts. I don't allow no slights, no time, by no one, ever."
"We can't control what other people say."
"I can," Buell insisted furiously. "And if you are any son of mine, you'll do the same. You'll command respect in this family and on this mountain, they'll follow your lead and they'll never speak a word against you."
Oather's own anger was rising. He wanted to yell out to his father that Buell Phillips was given respect on the mountain because Buell Phillips could give credit at the store, nothing more than that. He wanted to proclaim, once and for all, that he was not like his father and never would be. And he wanted to walk away from his home and never look back. He did none of these things. He stood mute and accepting as his father's wrath spewed out all over him.
"I have had just about enough disappointments from this family," Phillips declared, letting his angry gaze fall on the trio sitting with him around the kitchen table. "It's bad enough that your mother doesn't take her rightful place in this community and your sister just refuses to marry, but you, son, you have been the biggest disappointment to me of all."
Oather winced as if he'd been slapped.
"You are the heir to a thriving business for which you show little interest or aptitude. You've got your nose stuck in some law book ever' minute. Anyone can see that ain't natural. Now, you should have been married long since, but you don't even call on the gals. When you, for some foolish reason, decide to pick a fight with a well known scrapper, you manage to get the life nearly beat out of you. Now here I am trying to help you with your chance at last to prove yourself—"
"I told you I have nothing to prove!" Oather roared.
"Well you may not think you have anything to prove to yourself, and maybe you don't think you need to prove anything to your friends and neighbors, but I am your father and it is damn well time
that you prove something to me. You go get that woman and that farm, Oather Phillips, or you and I will see a parting of the ways."
* * *
It was full daylight, the chores done and the breakfast cleared. Althea was wiping up the crumbs and grease from the sideboard. Her mind was blank, deliberately blank. She watched the progress of her scrub rag as she cleaned the worn, pocked wood of the table. Maybe for Christmas she'd put out the tablecloth she'd gotten for her wedding from Aunt Ada. The reminder that at Christmas she would be remarried was hastily pushed to the back of her thoughts. At Christmas she'd shine up an apple real fine for Baby-Paisley and knit him the voyageur's cap. She already had the yarn dyed in blue and white. She'd make it to hang down midway on his back and finish it with a fancy tassle. She smiled thinking how delighted he was going to be.
At that moment she heard him coming down from the loft ladder and she glanced up. Today he looked dejected. The now serious, solemn, sad little fellow was dragging his damp bedclothes down the ladder.
"I peed the sheets again, Mama," he told her, shamefaced.
"Well, just put them by the door and I'll hang them out in a little bit," she promised. “Today at least they'll dry instead of freezing to the line."
He nodded, but his mood didn't lift. "Am I always gonna pee the bed?"
"Well, of course not," Althea answered, turning to survey her son's little face. “That's a foolish question. I've told you plenty of times that it will stop. It's just a matter of time. Maybe today is the very last day."
The little boy nodded, but he didn't appear convinced. "Gobby Weston says only babies wet the bed," he told her.
Althea hung the scrub rag on its nail, wiped her hands on her apron, and knelt down beside her child.
"Gobby Weston said that?"
Baby-Paisley nodded.
She tutted disapprovingly. "Well, I know something about Gobby Weston."
"What?"
"Gobby Weston isn't nearly as smart about the world as he thinks he is," she told him.
