by Pamela Morsi
"Did he leave you anything?" Jesse asked.
"This cap, ain't it wonnerful, and an apple all to myself!"
Jesse was suitably impressed. "That Santy Claus feller is some nice guy," Jesse said.
The little boy looked around eagerly. "Is Mama's present here yet?" he asked in a whisper.
"Not yet," Jesse answered.
He took the little boy's hand and the two walked back through the crowd to Althea. Baby-Paisley took his mother's hand, but held on to Jesse's as well. He stood between them, connecting them.
"Well, let's get on with it before we all freeze to death," Pigg Broody suggested crankily. "Althea Winsloe," he said, slipping into his Judge Broody voice. "You're supposed to choose your husband this morning. We're all here to see the wedding. Are you ready to choose?"
She smiled broadly. "I'm not only ready," she said with a pleasant laugh, "I'm as happy and excited to be getting married this morning as any bride who ever walked up to this stone."
Her words sent a murmur of heightened speculation through the crowd. Had Eben Baxley worked his woman-pleasing wiles on a gal once more? Was this kangaroo courting going to turn into a love match?
"Well, let's be official now," Pigg said, punctuating his words with a spit of tobacco. "Name yer bridegroom."
"I choose," she began and hesitated dramatically before turning her head toward the man beside her. "I choose Jesse Best for my lawful wedded husband."
A gasp exploded from the crowd. Everyone began to talk at once. People were stunned with disbelief. Eben Baxley laughed out loud and shook his head. Beulah Winsloe was spitting fury.
"Do something!" she ordered her brother.
"What?"
"Anything!"
Althea stepped into Jesse's arms and he pulled her close. He wanted to kiss her, to kiss her really good. But he wasn't about to do that with all these people standing around.
Tom McNees stepped up on the Marrying Stone and raised his hands to quiet the crowd.
"We can't allow this," he announced. "We cannot and will not allow this to happen."
Silence settled in.
"There isn't anything you can do to stop it," Althea told him.
"It's against the Bible," Tom said.
A hush went through the crowd. Granny was the expert on family. Pigg Broody the expert on kangaroo court. But the pastor of the church was the undisputed expert on the Bible.
"What do you mean it's agin the Bible?" Granny asked.
"It's writ in the second book to the Corinthians 'be ye not unequally yoked together,'" Tom answered. "Jesse is simple. Althea is not. That's about as unequal as it can get."
The crowd stood silent, considering the truth of his words. People began nodding. They weren't equal and if that was what the Bible said, who could argue. Tom McNees was the preacher. He ought to know.
"That ain't what it says!"
Pastor Jay stepped through the people and stood before the stone, staring up at Tom McNees. "That ain't what the Good Book says at all."
"Pastor Jay!" Beulah exploded angrily. "You just keep talking to your angels. Let our new preacher speak to his congregation."
"I've let him speak," the old man answered just as angrily. "I've let him speak plenty. Most of the time he's speaking for the Lord, but right now he's speaking for you, Beulah Winsloe."
A startled murmur drifted through the crowd.
"The Bible don't say that Jesse can't marry Althea," Pastor Jay told the people loudly. "You say you're taking these words from the Good Book, but you just can't take some words and leave the others. It says 'be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.' Jesse's no unbeliever. He's simple and there ain't no argument about that. But in his way he's as believing as any man here. And I dare any to deny it."
Nobody did.
"Well, even if the Bible don't speak against it," Beulah insisted angrily, "as the girl's family we can't let it happen."
"I don't know why not," Pastor Jay answered.
Beulah turned away from the old man and appealed to the crowd. "He's simple. All their younguns could be simple as well!"
"Now, that ain't the way of it," Granny called out. "We don't know why one is touched in the head and one is not."
Beulah disregarded her. "The McNees family ain't got nothing like this in our blood. You Piggotts," she said, indicating both Granny and Pastor Jay. "You don't mind it so much, 'cause it's part of you. But our folks is clean of this affliction and I won't let this gal bring it among us."
The crowd immediately began to divide up into two camps. Piggotts and McNees. Jesse turned to look at Althea. He was scared. And he could see in her eyes that she was, too.
"What's happening?" he asked. "I cain't understand when they all talk at once."
"We'll go away, Jesse," she said to him quietly as the battle of words raged around them. "If they won't marry us, we'll go away until we find someone who will."
He nodded, but she looked unhappy about the prospect. Jesse needed to say something, to do something.
"What's happenin', Mama?" Baby-Paisley looked out among the angry voices of the crowd curiously. From the corner of his eye he spied a group of strangers coming up the path and his mouth formed a little O of delight. "Jesse, Jesse," he said excitedly. "Is them Mama's present?"
Jesse gazed in the direction of the approaching men. Althea did also, curious. As recognition dawned her eyes widened in disbelief.
"Daddy?" she whispered the word as if it were unfamiliar to her own ears. "Daddy!" she called out louder.
All around the clearing voices hushed one after the other as people realized what was happening. Althea took a step forward, then two, then she was running into the arms of the man who was her father. "Daddy, Daddy, what are you doing here?"
She wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him closely. He hugged her back, clearly startled at the young woman in his arms.
"Althea! Is this my little Althea?"
"It's me, Daddy," she answered eagerly. "It's me."
"My heavens, you are the image of your mama, darling. I would have known you anywhere in the world."
"What are you doing here?" she asked, still stunned almost disbelieving.
"Why, I got a message from a couple of fellers named Jesse and Paisley. They said you was getting married on Christmas morning and that you wanted me to be here."
"Jesse and Paisley? They got a message to you?" she said.
"It's our Cwissmas present to you, Mama. Jesse tol' me it was the thing you wanted mostest in the whole world."
Althea looked down at her little son, standing so eagerly beside her.
"Yes, yes," she said. "Jesse remembered. It is the thing I've wanted most in the world. Oh, Daddy, this is Paisley, or, well, we call him Baby-Paisley. He's your grandson."
The man looked down at the little boy and ruffled the child's hair. "Well, I'm very pleased to meet you, Baby-Paisley, my grandson."
Althea turned to the man behind her. "And this is Jesse. Jesse, this is my father, Jubal McNees."
"Jesse." The man offered his hand. "Thank you boys for sending me the message. Last time she got wed up I didn't hear about it 'til it was all over."
"I wrote you," Althea said.
He gave her a long curious look and then shook his head. "I cain't read, darlin'," he answered quietly. "I save yer letters till a penman comes 'round and he reads them all. Sometimes we get two years' worth of news in one night."
"You can't read? I never realized." Althea just stood staring at her father. "I can't believe you've come to see me," she said. "After all these years, I can't believe you're here."
"I should have come before," he said. "I should have come years before," he said. "I guess, well, I guess the years just got away from me."
"But you came today," she said.
"Lord, yes, as soon as I got the word from that peddler man, I hustled up some grub and yer brothers and we walked all night and all day to get here."
"Brothers?"
&nbs
p; "Yes indeed." Jubal turned to the men standing behind him. "These is your brothers. There's Wendall and Cotton, that tall one is Howell and this mean little devil here is Bill-Tommy."
"Hello," she said lamely, then, "Hello! I have brothers!"
"That's what you got, Althea," her father said. "I didn't have no other little daughter ever but you."
"Where . . . where is your wife?"
"Nettie? My Nettie's been dead ah . . . going on five years, ain't it, boys."
The quartet nodded in agreement.
"Why didn't you send for me?" Althea asked.
"Why didn't I send for ye? Why, you was here with all the folks. The White River is rough country, hardscrabble living. That's why we didn't take you with us in the first place. Afterward, well, you was settled in and happy here. I didn't think that you'd want to come our way."
"Oh, Daddy," she whispered, pulling on his coat sleeve. "I thought ... I thought ... oh, never mind what I thought." Althea smiled and smiled until she laughed out
loud. "You're here now, Daddy, and that's all that matters. Daddy, I'm going to get married."
"So who you marrying?"
The folks around who had watched the family drama from the sidelines now hurried in to confront the newcomers.
"She thinks she's marrying up with Simple Jess," Beulah Winsloe informed him. "But we're putting a stop to it."
"Beulah? Beulah Winsloe?" Jubal asked. "Lord, I wouldn't have known you."
"Her daddy is here now. A woman has to do what her daddy tells her, that is in the Bible," Tom McNees announced.
“Tom McNees?" Jubal seemed surprised. "You've taken up preaching?"
"The McNees are standing together on this," Beulah Winsloe said pointedly to Jubal.
"The McNees stand together on what?"
"We stand agin bringing the blood of the feebleminded into our family!"
The crowd reaction was a roar.
"Jesse's troubles ain't in the blood, Beulah Winsloe," Granny Piggott protested. "And I ain't going to listen to you saying so."
"Good day to you, Granny," Jubal said, doffing his hat. "You don't look a day older than the last time I seen ye."
"I was old as dirt even then," the old woman admitted. "Are you going to let Beulah Winsloe tell your daughter who to marry?"
"I got a right!" Beulah began arguing. "She's my boy's widow."
"No, you don't and I won't listen," Althea answered back.
Within a minute everybody was talking at once. The din got louder and louder and louder—each word drowning out the others until nothing, nothing could be heard but the noise.
Jesse Best covered his ears in self defense and then raised his hands to heaven and screamed.
"HUSH!"
Startled, they did.
Jesse turned to face Jubal McNees. "I am going to marry your daughter," he said. "The problem is that I'm simple. I don't deny it. Everybody knows it. But Miss Althea loves me and so does Baby-Paisley. They love me and I've already promised to take care of them. We are going to marry. We would like your blessing, sir. But we are marrying just the same."
"Is that so?" Jubal's tone was challenging.
"It's so," Jesse answered evenly.
Jubal looked at Beulah. "He wasn't so simple that he didn't know to send for a feller when his daughter was getting married," he said. "If you'd have been that bright, I'd have been here for her last wedding."
Beulah's mouth dropped open in angry disbelief. The crowd hooted with laughter.
Jubal McNees looked down at his daughter, a young woman that he hardly new. "This man, Althea, this simple man, he suits you?"
"He suits me. Daddy."
He smiled at her. It was the handsome smile that she'd always remembered, the smile that she'd always dreamed of seeing again. Jubal raised an eyebrow and then spoke loud enough for all to hear. "If he suits my Althea, then he'll suit the rest of us."
* * *
Eben Baxley watched the wedding of Althea Winsloe and Jesse Best, shaking his head in disbelief. He should have known she was going to pick Jesse. It hadn't even occurred to him. And it was right in front of him all the time.
Pastor Jay performed the ceremony, Tom McNees having stormed off in a huff with Beulah and Orv. Althea's father gave her away and after they'd repeated their vows, she and Jesse jumped off the stone, the official declaration of being man and wife on Marrying Stone Mountain. And they did it as happily and eagerly as it had ever been done.
And Jesse had kissed her, too. In front of her father and Pastor Jay and practically the whole congregation, he'd kissed her. And it appeared to Eben that the two had had a little more practice than folks had heard about.
Althea invited the whole crowd back to her place. She'd made extra Christmas cakes, she announced, and there were plenty for everybody. Baby-Paisley, reveling in the attention of his new uncles, was regaling all within hearing distance of the evidence on his chimney of Santy Claus coming to visit.
With her father beside her and Jesse's hand in her own, Eben watched Althea Winsloe, the owner of the finest corn bottom on Marrying Stone Mountain and probably the best chance Eben would ever have for a fine farm, walk away from him.
“Told ye so."
Eben glanced, startled, to the man who'd slipped up beside him.
"Hello, Pastor Jay," he said.
"Didn't I tell you that Jesse was in love?"
"Yes, Pastor Jay, I believe that you did."
"I ain't claiming no powers, now," the old man insisted. "I cain't see into the future or any such nonsense as that. Them angels, though, sometimes they tell me things."
"So you've said."
"Well, get on about it," Pastor Jay urged him. "I cain't be waiting here in the cold all day."
"What are you talking about?"
The old man gave a long suffering sigh. "Eben Baxley, we both know what I'm talking about. Now get on with your business. I'll be waiting here when you get back."
Eben gave the old man a strange look, bid him good day. As he started walking away, he shook his head.
"Crazy old man," he said to himself.
Inexplicably, Eben started to whistle. He went down the wide road that this morning was a slippery slope away from the Marrying Stone. Then up the small, hardly recognizable trail along the side of the store until he came to the family entrance where the Phillipses lived. He waited. He stood alone in the cold waiting. It seemed that he had waited a very long time. Thinking. Waiting and thinking. Finally the back door opened and, wearing a heavy work dress, boots, and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, Mavis Phillips emerged on the porch, broom in hand.
"Morning, Mavis," he called out as he walked toward her.
She stopped to stare at him. Then raising her chin proudly, she answered, "Good morning."
Without another word she began to sweep the porch.
Eben waited. She didn't speak but her expression was troubled.
"I heard you're getting married this morning," she said finally.
"Yes, I am. I believe that I am."
She hesitated a minute in her stroke and then continued her sweeping.
"Don't you think that I should?" Eben asked her.
She glared at him.
He shrugged. "I just wanted your opinion."
"I don't know why."
"What you think matters to me."
"What I think?" she asked furiously. "I'll tell you what I think. You're always saying that you don't let anyone tell you what to do and that no one can make you marry anyone. But that is exactly what Beulah Winsloe is doing, making you marry."
"No," he answered. "I believe Beulah's given up on making me do things. I only marry the woman of my choice. Course, I don't think she'll be unhappy about it."
Eben sighed with satisfaction.
"Oather probably will be, but he'll get over it eventually."
"I doubt that Oather would even care," she said. "We may never see him again."
"But you'll hear from him.
And he'll care all right. That's the kind of feller he is. He loves you and cares about you and wants only good things for you. He and I have that in common. So eventually I think I can win him over."
"Why would you even want to?"
"Well, it's just not good form to have a brother-in-law that doesn't like you," Eben answered.
"A brother-in-law?" Mavis looked at him, confused. Then her eyes widened.
Eben grinned.
"Pastor Jay is waiting on us. If we don't hurry, I'm afraid we'll be the first couple to jump the Marrying Stone over a frozen body."
And it was cold out on the Marrying Stone. But Pastor Jay didn't notice. He was busy talking to himself, or rather to the angels.
"Well I just worry about the boy. —He's different, always has been. But when you know a person from the time he's a baby, you cain't help but take an interest. —You can show me his future? Now that's a neat trick if I ever heard one. Let's see you try. —Why yes, I see it. I see it now. Ain't this pretty. What a beautiful place. The boy looks so happy. All those friends around. Everybody laughing. What a wonderful place. Oh, Lord, it's not what I think, is it? —It's Heaven, ain't it? Poor Oather dies young and goes to Heaven. —It's not Heaven. Then where is it? —New Orleans? Hmmm. Sure looks like Heaven from here."
More Books In This Series
Marrying Stone
The Lovesick Cure
A Marrying Stone Christmas (coming soon)
Also by Pamela Morsi
Territory Trysts
Wild Oats
Runabout
* * *
Tales from Marrying Stone
Marrying Stone
Simple Jess
The Lovesick Cure
A Marrying Stone Christmas (coming soon)
* * *
Small-Town Swains
Something Shady
No Ordinary Princess
Sealed With a Kiss
Garters
The Love Charm
* * *
Women’s Fiction
Doing Good/Social Climber of Davenport Heights
Letting Go
Suburban Renewal
