Simple Jess

by Pamela Morsi

  With his hair slicked down with pomade and the gift of a hair ribbon in his hand, he'd come calling. Immediately she told him what had happened. Oather began to patiently try to talk the little boy into agreeing to his mother's requests, assuring him that swallowing the penny would do him no good and would probably do him bad. Baby-Paisley didn't believe him.

  Eben Baxley arrived during this very long discussion. He listened. Spoke charmingly and reassuringly to Althea and then offered to get the penny for her.

  "I'll just turn him upside down and shake him till it comes out," Eben said simply.

  Baby-Paisley hadn't liked that idea at all. When Baxley had headed toward him, he'd skirted around him and headed out the door at a dead run.

  All three adults joined in the fruitless chase around the yard. Finally, when it looked as if the little fellow was cornered, Baby-Paisley had shinnied up the tree.

  "Please, please come down, sweetheart," Althea pleaded. "Mama's sorry. I won't let anyone hurt you. Please come down."

  A long minute passed before his little baby voice answered. "I can't," he said.

  "Why not?"

  "I'm scared."

  "Oh, sweetheart," Althea pleaded.

  "If I move, I'm 'fraid I'll fall," he said.

  "I'll go get him," Oather suggested.

  "No!" Baby-Paisley seemed more afraid of someone coming up than of being stuck out on a tree limb for life.

  "Baby-Paisley, you either have to climb down or someone has to come up to get you," she told him.

  Whatever his answer to that question might have been, it was never heard. At that moment, noisily arriving on the trail was Jesse Best, pulling Granny Piggott on a skid.

  Jesse's face was red and he was puffing from the effort. Sweat dripped from his brow. He'd shed his coat and his shirt was plastered to his body from his exertions. Granny was laughing delightedly.

  "Lord, what a ride!" she called out to them. "This boy run all the way from my house, pulling me along faster than a racing horse. Whee! Ain't had such a time since I went sledding as a girl."

  Jesse helped Granny off of the skid and to her feet. She was a little unsteady at first and leaned heavily on the strength of the young man at her arm. They made their way to the trio gathered beneath the red oak.

  "So where's the fire?" Granny asked. "Jesse said the boy had swallered a penny. Is he a-choking?"

  "No," Althea answered. "But he did swallow the penny and I can't get him to throw it up."

  "Where is he?"

  Althea pointed and everyone looked up.

  Jesse's expression was puzzled. "Baby-Paisley, what are you doing up there?"

  The little boy pointed an accusing finger at Eben. "I'm stayin' away from him!"

  Granny Piggott huffed slightly and looked curiously at Althea. "That boy don't look in much danger of choking on a penny as he is of falling and breaking his fool neck!"

  "Eben threatened to shake the penny out of him," Althea explained. "And he got away and took off running."

  The old woman shook her head. "What did he swallow a penny for anyway?"

  "Jesse told him to," Eben Baxley said, unkindly.

  "What?"

  Althea felt a traitor as she glanced over at Jesse. "Jesse said that if Baby-Paisley swallowed a penny he'd stop peeing the bed."

  Oather shook his head. "Jesse, you know you shouldn't make up tales to little boys like that."

  "I didn't make it up," Jesse protested.

  Eben scoffed. "Lord knows where he got an idea like that."

  Granny raised her chin and eyed Baxley belligerently. "Why, he got it from me," she said.

  "Oh." The reply came from both men, and Althea, too.

  "When Jesse was about nine, I suspect," she said, "Onery told me that he'd started peeing the bed. Why, the boy'd been out of diapers for a half-dozen years. I looked him over and figured it to be pinworms. Pinworms can cause that, you know."

  "Pinworms?" Althea asked.

  "Yep, indeed," the old woman said, glancing up at the little boy. "And there ain't no better vermifuge than copper. You swaller a copper penny and you'll kill every worm in yer gut."

  "You think Baby-Paisley has pinworms?" Althea asked.

  "Him? Nay," she replied. "He's still a baby. He just ain't quit peeing the bed. When the time's right, he'll quit. That's all to be said of that."

  "That's what I thought, too," Althea admitted. "I tried not to make too much of it."

  "And yer right," Granny said. "Making too much of it is the cause of lots of grief in little ones. But how come you didn't ask me about this before?"

  "I just didn't," Althea answered.

  "Did you ask Beulah?"

  "No."

  "You didn't ask anybody, did you?"

  "I didn't think it was necessary."

  "When you got a problem with your children, Althea," Granny said, "you shouldn't keep it secret."

  "I wasn't keeping any secret," she assured her hastily.

  Granny raised a skeptical eyebrow and then reached into her pocket for her pipe and fixings. "Yep, that's just exactly what you were doing," the old woman said. "You keep it to yourself and don't know for sure if yer doin' right and then something like this happens."

  Althea felt scolded and a little bit guilty. "I wanted to handle things myself," she said.

  Granny nodded knowingly. "Jesse, go get me a fire twig to light my pipe," she ordered. "Oather, you and Baxley get the things I brung on the skid and take them to the house. I need a minute with Miz Winsloe here alone."

  As the young men hurried to do her bidding, once more she turned her attention to Althea.

  "Lord Almighty, girl, what do you think you have family for if not to call upon with questions?" Granny asked.

  Althea didn't know quite what to say.

  "I know, ye don't like prying in-laws. There ain't a wife and mother, living or dead, that does," she said. "But just 'cause you don't want prying, don't mean you have to give up the helping."

  "It's best not to be a bother," Althea asserted.

  Granny chuckled in disbelief. "A bother? The only reason on earth why the Good Lord has let me live this long is to pass along what I done learned to the younger ones, like yourself. If I can't do that, then I got no purpose for taking up space, now do I?"

  "I . . . well, I want to raise Baby-Paisley my own way," she tried to explain.

  Granny nodded. "I know that. It's what your mother-in-law is all het-up about, ain't it?"

  Althea nodded.

  "Well, my advice then, girl, is to let the woman tell you each and every thing on her mind," the old woman said. "Listen and learn. What is worthwhile—and for all that I don't take great store by Beulah's pronouncements, there is bound to be some worthwhile—that you keep. The rest you just smile and say thank you, and forget you ever heard it."

  Althea almost smiled. "Do you think Beulah Winsloe would let me get away with that?"

  "It'll be tough," Granny said. "I grant you that. But it'll give her some purpose, something that woman sorely needs. And," she said, pointing to the little boy still in the tree, "it will teach your boy, by example, to respect his elders even when he don't really want to."

  Althea nodded.

  "And it'll make you a more patient person. A more patient person is a more patient mother, I suspect."

  "I suppose you're right."

  "For sure I am," Granny asserted. "And if you just can't go to Beulah, you come on to me. We ain't really kin, but everyone on this mountain is close to me. I ain't promising that I'll always have the answers for you, but I won't be a-telling you how to raise your boy. You'll raise him just like we all do. Trying not to make the mistakes we think our folks made with us, and then ending up making mistakes of our own that they never thought of."

  Granny's chuckle was almost self-derisive. "But when you got a question or a concern, you come to me—or Beulah, if you got a mind to—we'll tell you what we think, based on the long life we've had to live. The
n you either follow the advice you get, or you don't. It's still your boy and nobody can really get between that."

  "All right, Granny," Althea said. "I . . . I'm sorry."

  "Ain't no call for sorry," the old woman assured her. "I know how you've lived, girl. I know you been spare relation around here since your daddy moved to the White River. But you're ours now and we care about you." Granny gestured toward the three men who were hovering close by. "You're ours and we care about you, no matter which of these jackanapes you marry up with. Jesse, come light my pipe."

  Jesse hurried forward with the glowing twig of green wood. Oather and Eben eased back up into the area beneath the tree also.

  "Did you figure out how to get him to retch up the penny?" Oather asked.

  "Well, I'd say you're not going to get him to," the old woman answered. "Just let it be," she told Althea. "Feed the little feller a big bowl of bread and greasy gravy for supper the next couple of nights. That penny'll pass the other direction. You can even put him to watching for it, to get it back."

  "It won't hurt him inside?" Althea asked. "It won't get caught in his belly someplace?"

  "If it was gonna catch," Granny assured her, "it would have been in the throat. If he swallered it as easy as all that, he won't have no trouble passing it through."

  Althea sighed heavily, relieved. "Now if we could only get him down," she said.

  "You want him down?" Jesse asked.

  "Yes, of course."

  Jesse walked to the spot directly beneath the branch where Baby-Paisley was perched. He held open his arms and looked up at the little fellow in the tree above him.

  "Jump!" he called out simply.

  Before Althea could even get a scream out of her throat, Baby-Paisley pushed off from the branch and dropped immediately into the safe, dependable, and waiting arms of Jesse Best.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Perhaps it was pinworms, or just a pure miracle, but the morning after swallowing the penny, Baby-Paisley's bed sheets were dry. The little fellow strutted around like the cock of the walk that morning. His mother could hardly keep a straight face watching him.

  When Jesse arrived, the boy confidently told him that he was cured. Jesse didn't argue. He shared a conspiratory grin with Althea. The two of them began the morning working together to get the venison jerky hung in the smokehouse.

  The rib meat of the deer had been trimmed of any fat and sliced in long thin strips. After being rubbed down with sugar and drained from a drip box for a week the meat was put to soak in a crock of brine. When the strips quit rising to the top after stirring, they were ready for smoking. Most of the deer meat had merely been hung and dried, but jerky required smoking and Jesse had gathered plenty of hickory sawdust and corncobs to do the job.

  Althea was still slightly off balance from the previous afternoon. Granny had stayed the rest of the day. She ran off the visiting suitors, telling them plainly to show up the next day ready to work.

  "You want to prove you are a good provider," she'd told them. "Then you'd best show up and help provide something."

  She spent her time at the Widow Winsloe's home peeling beets, rocking in the chair, and entertaining Baby-Paisley. She also apparently felt it was her duty to offer Althea help and advice.

  "Well, the only wisdom I can offer about men and marriage is don't expect no changes after the wedding day," she said. The old woman shook her head and waved the stem of her pipe in Althea's direction. "Menfolks is most steadfastly set in their ways. Many a well intentioned woman has wed up with a fellow she thought she could make a better man and spent the rest of her life not succeeding at the task."

  Granny tapped out the spent tobacco and cleaned the pipe bowl with her finger. "But if you can give a man a good reason for doing something different," she continued, "it'll go a lot further than nagging or tears. Men like to think of themselves as reasonable."

  Smiling, Althea shook her head. "Thus far I haven't seen anything about my remarriage plans that I would think of as particularly reasonable."

  Granny chuckled and nodded in agreement. "There is something about a woman sitting pretty on a fine piece of land that'll get folks into her business in a whipstitch."

  Her expression sobered and she eyed Althea shrewdly. "You're going to have to marry, just as sure as the world. You got any preference in them fellers?" she asked.

  Althea shook her head. "You know I don't, Granny. I really don't have any feelings toward either of them."

  "Well," Granny sighed with resignation. "It ain't the best way of starting a marriage. But you wouldn't be the first to start from nothing."

  The old woman continued to rock back and forth, her expression thoughtful. "That Eben Baxley, he's not a bad feller," she said. "Though don't you be telling him I said that. He ain't half bad and he's going to straighten out in time, I've no doubt of it."

  Althea gave her a skeptical look. "If you say so, Granny."

  "And I do," she said. "He'll keep a woman a-Iaughing, Eben Baxley will. If she ain't crying, that is. Either, and a little of both are highly likely with that one."

  Granny tapped the pipe stem against her teeth as she pondered. "Either, and a little of both," she repeated. "Now, that Oather, well you know I like that young fellow mighty fine."

  "He's always seemed like a really nice man," Althea said without enthusiasm.

  The old woman chuckled. "Oh, he's real nice, especial nice. It wouldn't be so noticeable in another man, but it stands out on him 'cause his daddy is such a failed-dough biscuit."

  "A 'failed-dough biscuit?'"

  Granny nodded her head with conviction. "Hard as rock outside and not baked all the way through."

  Althea laughed delightedly at her description.

  "That Oather, well there is no telling what that boy is, or will be, until he gets out on his own," Granny said. "A woman marrying him would be getting a pig in a poke for sure. Ain't no telling in this world how he's to turn out. And if he never gets shed of Buell Phillips, that man will be running him and the woman he marries till he draws his last breath."

  Her brow furrowing, Althea was momentarily puzzled. "You think I should marry Baxley then?"

  "No, I ain't saying that," Granny replied, packing a new wad of tobacco in her pipe. “Truth is, I don't much envy your choice, girl. But you done lived with Paisley Winsloe. I suspect you ain't got a lot of stars in your eyes about the joys of marriage."

  Althea chuckled without humor. "I suppose you're right. I have given up the silly notions I once had about love and romance. I know there's no truth in that nonsense."

  "No truth in it?" Granny tutted in disapproval. "I wouldn't say that, girl. Next time you're in church, you cast your eyes on Polly and Newt Weston or Grace and Labin Trace or Jesse's sister Meggie and her Roe Farley. There's truth to it, young lady, and a-plenty. But it don't happen for all and some throws it to the scraps as quick as it comes their way."

  As the darkness came on early, Althea invited Granny and Jesse to stay for dinner.

  Granny took a seat and put away her pipe. Althea expected the old woman simply to rest from her busy afternoon. Granny Piggott surprised her, choosing instead to entertain Baby-Paisley, leaving his mother free to cook without him underfoot.

  Granny folded and tied a dishrag till it resembled a doll, whom she called Little Mary. When Baby-Paisley protested that boys didn't play with dolls, Granny looked surprised and told him that Gobby Weston did.

  Won over, Baby-Paisley sat on the rug in front of the old woman's chair. Granny set the doll on the arm of the chair, carefully spreading out the dishrag's skirt, and in a little squeaky voice, supposedly the doll's, she told Baby-Paisley a story. It was about a chicken named One-Wing who got up in the tree and couldn't get down. The little boy was wide-eyed, listening.

  When Jesse had come in, cleaned up and his hair still slicked back with water, he'd sat at the table, ostensibly waiting for his dinner. But Althea noticed him listening, too. He'd glanced over at her and
smiled.

  "Granny can sure tell a tale," he pointed out.

  The old woman could tell a tale, indeed. And after supper, Baby-Paisley had begged another. Granny made it short, but not short enough. The little fellow had fallen fast asleep before it was through.

  "I'll take him up," Jesse said.

  Althea watched him easily managing the ladder with the little boy in his arms.

  "There's something that looks right about that," Granny said suddenly.

  "What?"

  Granny pointed in the direction of the disappearing twosome. "There's something right about Jesse Best with a child in his arms. I'd never thought of it till I saw that little fellow land in them this afternoon. I always thought that Jesse wasn't smart enough to be a husband or father," the old woman said. "But now that I think about it, being good at those things don't take a heap of knowledge. It takes more feelings than learning. Jesse ain't been slighted on that account."

  "No, he certainly has not," Althea admitted. A strange tingling commenced inside her. She pressed her lips together, attempting to make the curious feeling stop. She glanced guiltily at Granny, hoping the woman had noticed nothing amiss.

  Gratefully she saw the old woman's attention was still focused on the two people disappearing up the loft ladder.

  Granny was nodding and spoke thoughtfully. "Yep, I suspect I'd better get to thinking about finding a bride for Jesse. There's bound to be a woman somewhere who can love a man for what he is, not how he thinks."

  * * *

  The next morning, as she squeezed the salty brine out of the strips of venison, she was reminded of Granny's words. She looked up at Jesse, carefully hanging each long thin piece of deer meat on dowel rods so that they did not touch each other. He probably could be a husband, she thought. Some not very bright girl would surely be lucky to find such as him.

  Jesse worked with the certainty and confidence that Althea had grown used to. Jesse had struggled to learn the tasks that he knew. Once mastered, however, he never forgot them and he rarely allowed his concentration upon them to slip. If his quietly whispered instructions to himself were a little unusual, Althea didn't find it particularly annoying. Jesse worked steady and sure, long after others had tired, and he always seemed quite happy to do so.