by Ruth
He was still snarling and growling. But his snarls and his growls sounded strange and choked because his mouth was full of feathers and full of Little Queen’s neck. And Little Queen’s squawks were hardly squawks at all, now. Tough Enough’s jaws were not letting much squawking come out.
Beanie got over his surprise. He ran to his dog. He gave him a good hard spank.
Tough Enough let go of Little Queen. He ran away. At first his tail was down, but then he put it up and waved it around. His eyes were bright and quick with mischief. He looked as if he knew he was bad, but didn’t feel sorry about it.
Little Queen’s squawks had stopped. But she was clucking loudly because her feelings and her neck and her tail were hurt.
Just before she settled herself back on her nest, Beanie saw there were two eggs in there. Had Tough Enough tried to get at them so he could bite into them and suck them? Or did he want to eat up Little Queen?
Beanie wondered and worried.
He felt very sad, one day later in the week, when Annie Mae went to her mother in tears. She said Little Queen hadn’t come at all when she was feeding the chickens. Beanie and a lot of the Tatums looked and looked for Little Queen. But nobody could find her.
Beanie didn’t say anything to anybody. But, over and over, he said to himself, “Tough Enough maybe made a chicken dinner out of Little Queen.”
Beanie didn’t dare tell his father. He was afraid that, if he did tell him, his father might say they just couldn’t keep a chicken-killing dog, so they’d have to get rid of him.
Beanie was still worrying when he was riding in the school bus on his way to school. The other boys and girls were talking and laughing and wriggling and calling back and forth to one another. But Beanie just sat silent. He felt too sad to laugh or talk and he was thinking too hard. Should he tell his father what he had seen Tough Enough doing? That was what he was asking and asking himself.
Even when one of the boys called him a pouty old possum, he didn’t show in any way that he had heard. He just stared straight ahead.
After the bus reached the school and Beanie and the others were in the classroom, Beanie was still worrying. He couldn’t keep his mind on his lessons. It was on Tough Enough and on Little Queen.
When reading time came and he was reading aloud, he forgot his place. When it was arithmetic time and the teacher asked him, “What is twenty plus thirty?” he said, “Eleven.” And when it was nature-study time and the teacher pointed to a picture of an American goldfinch hanging on the wall and asked, “Beanie, what bird is that?” Beanie said, “A banty hen.”
All the boys and girls laughed and laughed and laughed.
After class the teacher said, “Whatever was the matter, Beanie?” But he just looked down at his feet and couldn’t answer. There was a tight lump in his throat.
Pretty soon he got some words out past the lump. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said.
That evening at supper Pa Tatum said, “Annie Mae told me another little banty hen’s missin’. It’s Letty Lou this time. Must be a varmint around, a varmint with a hankerin’ for hens. He’s likin’ ’em more and more.”
Ma Tatum nodded. “That critter could plumb eat us out o’ chickens and most likely he’ll do it. If I got to quit eatin’ fried chicken because there’s no chickens left, I sure will miss fried chicken.”
Beanie squirmed. He felt unhappy. Most of his unhappiness had gone to the bottom of his stomach.
Annie Mae said sadly, “Chicken and dumplin’s, that’s what I like the best. I sure will miss chicken and dumplin’s.”
“I sure will miss scrambled eggs,” said Irby.
“I sure will miss egg custard pie,” Buck said.
“And we won’t have any sweet bread,” wailed Annie Mae.
“Or any stacked cake,” said Serena.
“Or any cake a-tall,” said Ma Tatum.
“When you come right down to it,” said Pa Tatum, “I’ll miss eggs with ramps the worst. Eggs brisked up so strong with spicy-like ramps, they’re ready to jump off my plate.”
Beanie had stopped eating. His mother looked at him, “Beanie, are you sick?” she asked gently.
“I’m just not hungry, Ma,” he said in a small voice.
Pa Tatum tilted his cup and drank the last coffee drops. He stood up. His mouth looked hard and turned-down like a turtle’s mouth.
He strode to the fireplace. He took down his gun and started oiling it.
Suddenly he said, “I’m goin’ to git that critter, sooner or later I’ll git him.”
Beanie gave a jump, almost as if something had struck him. “I got to tell pa right now,” he said. But he said it to himself.
He took a deep breath and began, “Oh, Pa.…”
“Yes, son?” his father asked.
But Beanie couldn’t get out the words he had meant to say. He just said, “Wish spring would come. Looks like the ice won’t ever melt. Looks like I won’t ever get to play with the old-timey waterwheel grandpa whittled out for me.”
Beanie’s father nodded. “Spring’s late. Winter keeps a-clampin’ down. It won’t move, seems like, and it won’t let anything else move. The cold won’t move and the clouds won’t move and let the sun shine down. Why, even our truck won’t move. I’ve tried and tried to start her, but there she sets.”
Beanie’s mother said, “They say spring’s in the valley, deep down, but everything’s still waitin’, up here. Waitin’ and waitin’ for spring.”
“Seems like,” Beanie said sadly.
That night he found it hard to go to sleep. Words were chasing each other round and round in his head: “I got to tell pa. I don’t want to but I got to. Tomorrow, soon as I’m up, I’ll go right down and tell pa.”
Dark minutes dragged on and on. Night noises came into the room. They made Beanie feel little and lonesome. Somewhere, far away, a fox was barking like a small dog. Quite near, something went crack in the deepening cold. An owl was hooting “Oh whoo are you, oh whoo are you.”
Minutes turned into hours. Beanie dozed and wakened and dozed and wakened again. His open eyes saw the first faint light of day.
“Now it’s tomorrow and I got to tell pa,” he whispered over and over and over. But at last he stopped.
He was asleep.
VOICES wakened Beanie. His brothers, Buck and Irby, were getting up early, as usual, though it was Saturday. Before long they went clunking downstairs.
But Beanie still lay in bed. He was lonesome, but he couldn’t make himself get up. He had never felt so lonesome in all his life. It was a sort of chilliness inside.
He heard a scratch-scratch-scratching coming up the stairs to the loft. Tough Enough came rushing in. He jumped up on the bed and began to lick Beanie’s face. That made the thought of getting up even harder to bear—the thought of telling his father what Tough Enough had done.
From below he heard a voice—his mother’s. It was high and impatient: “B-e-a-n-i-e! You come right down to breakfast this minute.”
“I’m comin’, Ma,” he called back. But still he didn’t get up.
Pretty soon he heard footsteps—his mother’s steps coming up the stairs. He knew his mother would not want Tough Enough there on the bed. Quickly he tried to push his dog off, but he didn’t push hard enough. The dog spread out all four feet, bracing himself. Beanie pulled a quilt over him in a hurry.
Ma Tatum came in. She hurried to the bed. She put a hand on Beanie’s forehead to see if he had fever.
“Do you feel hot?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t, because he couldn’t speak. He was pressing his lips together and holding his breath, trying not to laugh. Tough Enough was tickling him, digging his nose into his ribs.
After a few tickling seconds Beanie couldn’t hold back any longer. His big breath burst out in a giggle. He shoved the dog away from him.
His mother whipped back the bedclothes. “Sakes alive!” she cried.
There lay Tough Enough himself in full v
iew. He rolled over on his back. He stuck up his paws and he stuck up his soft fat stomach that was pink in places. He wiggled.
Beanie’s mother caught him by the collar. “Bad dog, bad dog, bad dog,” she said. She pulled him off the bed and then she looked hard at Beanie.
“Beanie Tatum,” she said, “you know that dog of yours isn’t allowed in bed. I declare, you’re as bad as he is. And now you git right up and dress and come down to breakfast. If you’re well enough to laugh and carry on with that dog, you’re well enough to eat.”
Beanie dressed fast. He clunk, clunk, clunked downstairs, two steps at a time, and he jumped the last three steps and landed CLUNK on the floor.
The other Tatums were eating the last bites of their fried eggs. Beanie sat down at the table. His eyes went to his father’s gun above the fireplace. Then he looked at the fried eggs on his plate. He didn’t feel like eating them, but he got down three forkfuls.
After breakfast he went outdoors. He told himself he just couldn’t put it off any longer. But he wondered if he could make himself tell.
A chilly cloud, sitting on the mountain farm, was hiding things. Beanie shivered. His eyes strained through the fog as he picked his way along to the barn. Inside, he found his father mending harness.
Beanie said, “Pa. …”
His father looked up. “It’s the beatin’est thing,” he said, “how harness wears so thin so fast.”
There was a tight ache in Beanie’s throat, but he tried again. “Yes, but Pa. …”
“Wears all thin and frazzled,” said his father, “long before it ought to.”
“Pa,” Beanie said, and his voice went high, “I got something to tell you. I don’t want to, Pa, but I got to. It’s about—Tough Enough.”
His father put down the harness. “What is it, son?”
“Maybe—maybe Tough Enough ate up Little Queen and Letty Lou.”
And then, at last, Beanie told all. When he had finished, his father didn’t say a word, at first. He seemed to be thinking hard.
Pretty soon he said, “Beanie, tell me this. Did you ever see Tough Enough kill a chicken?”
“No, Pa,” said Beanie. “I never did.”
His father said slowly, “Well-l-l-l, that Tough Enough, he’s an into-everything dog, Maybe he was just foolin’ round with Little Queen, just bitin’ to tease, not to kill. Maybe he’s just one o’ those natural chicken-teasin’ dogs.”
“Maybe,” said Beanie. His throat had stopped aching. He did not feel lonesome now.
His father went on, “Could be, it was some wild woods varmint made a meal out o’ those hens. A possum or a bobcat if it was at night, or a fox. Or a hungry hound from some neighbor’s place, or a chicken hawk, if it was in the day.”
“Maybe so,” Beanie said.
“But anyhow,” said his father,” we’d best chain Tough Enough up, in case he done it. If he done it he’ll keep a-doin’ it and we just won’t be eatin’ many eggs or chickens. Might take time to catch him at it and cure him of it.”
So Pa Tatum hunted and rummaged around for a chain. But the only chain he could find was a rusty one that snapped apart in his hands when he gave it a jerk.
He said, “Maybe that dog will keep raisin’ a ruckus after he’s chained up. Maybe there’ll just be no livin’ with him. Maybe it won’t work out a-tall. But we’ll try it, so here’s what you do. Go down the Tatum Creek short cut, down to the store in the deep valley, and buy a new chain.”
“Yes, Pa,” said Beanie, “and I’ll take Tough Enough along. It’ll maybe be his last chance to run loose.”
Beanie went to his mother. He told her he was going down into the valley to buy a chain to chain up Tough Enough.
She nodded her head. “Annie Mae had better go, too, to keep an eye on you and that dog.”
Beanie straightened his back and his neck and stood taller. He said, “I’ll be the one keeps an eye on ’em both.”
“Well, good,” said his mother. “Everybody will keep an eye on everybody else.”
She began to put up a picnic lunch for Beanie and Annie Mae and Tough Enough. Beanie watched her do it. There was corn bread and ham and stacked cake for him and Annie Mae and some scraps for Tough Enough.
Before the three started off, Pa Tatum said to Beanie and Annie Mae, “If I can start that ornery, half-froze’ truck I’ll pick you up at the store or when you’re on your way home. If I can’t git the truck a-goin’ you can hitch a ride back with one o’ the neighbors, most likely. Either way you’ll do all right.”
Beanie put up his chin. “I’ll manage things fine,” he said.
Off he started. Annie Mae caught up with him, and Tough Enough went racing ahead through mists that were lifting a little. Beanie had the lunch in a paper bag. His waterwheel was hanging from his belt, tied there with a piece of string.
They reached the place where Tatum Creek started. It came up in a deep bowl in the rocks. From ledges behind and above, Christmas ferns were hanging, and spongy green-brown mosses and long melting icicles drip, drip, dripping.
Sheets of ice covered the rocks, with water drops crawling down beneath them like fat brown bugs in a hurry. Ice lay hard and clear on top of the pool. Below, grains of sand rose and settled and rose again in a little up-and-down dance. That was where the water came spurting up out of the sand.
Tough Enough bit off an icicle. But then he began to bark and it fell out of his mouth. He was pointing his nose at an old hemlock that the Tatums called the roosting tree. Chickens were still perching on its branches.
“Hey, Tough Enough!” Annie Mae called out. “You quit pesterin’ those hens. Bad dog!”
Beanie said unhappily, “He’s just tellin’ ’em it’s time to get up. It’s still so dark and foggy, they don’t know it’s past break o’ day.”
The three began to go down the trail that followed the tiny stream. Here the brook was just a ribbon of ice with a trickle of water flowing over dark leaves underneath.
“I like a talkin’ creek,” said Beanie. “I like to listen to it talk. But our creek’s froze’ so hard on top, it can’t say a word.”
“Not a single little water word,” said Annie Mae.
From time to time, Tough Enough’s nose would bring him news. He would go barking and bounding off the trail on side trips of his own.
“He’s feelin’ mighty frisky now,” said Beanie. “He’s feelin’ ’way, ’way up. But he’s goin’ to feel ’way, ’way down after he’s chained.”
“Yes,” said Annie Mae, “just wait. Well likely hear such tall howlin’, I reckon ma and pa just won’t stand for it.”
Beanie kicked a stone and sent it skittering.
“Beanie, you quit that,” Annie Mae called out. “You’ll scuff up your shoes.”
He didn’t answer. His eyes were on a thing like a giant snake—the stem of a grapevine looping and twisting among the branches of oak trees. He leaped up. He caught a loop and swung back and forth, with Tough Enough barking below.
“Hey, Beanie!” called his sister. “Come down from there before you snag your britches.”
“Look-a-here, Annie Mae,” said Beanie, “you quit talkin’ at me. Even if I am the youngest you got no call to boss me.”
Annie Mae said, “I’m not bossin’ you. Ma told me to keep an eye on you and that dog and I’m doin’ it. Now you get down from there.”
But Beanie didn’t let go until he was tired of swinging.
They went on down, on down, on down.
All of a sudden Annie Mae said, “Listen! Do you hear something ahead?”
“Why, yes,” said Beanie happily. “It sounds like—it sounds like our creek. Our creek’s talkin’.”
“Whisperin’, like,” Annie Mae said.
“Whisperin’,” said Beanie.
They went faster. Pretty soon they came to a place where all the water in the stream was flowing, flowing down.
Above, the high morning fog was thinning. The sun was burning it away. Then the
sun itself came out, bright and strong. It drew sweet scents from brown hemlock needles and dead leaves.
Annie Mae and Beanie took off their winter jackets and tied them around their waists by the sleeves. Tough Enough’s tongue was hanging out.
They went on down, on down, on down. Past the yellow-browns and silver-grays of tree trunks, branches, twigs. Past the pale leaves still clinging to some trees. Through green laurel thickets and tangled dead briars.
And little by little they found spring.
Spring was in the first flowers they saw—trailing arbutus blossoms hiding under shiny leaves. Annie Mae touched them with her nose, drawing in their fragrance.
Spring was in every bluet. It was in the bloodroot, it was in the hepatica, it was in the jack-in-the-pulpit. It was in a family of birdfoot violets shyly at home in a hollow in an old beech tree.
Spring was in the new fly Tough Enough went snap at. It was in the red salamander he poked with his nose. It was in the tiny blue butterflies he chased off the trail.
It was in a spider warming himself on a rock.
Spring was in the foam flower farther down below. It was in the honey scent of service tree blossoms, in the orange-reds of bursting buckeye buds, in the russet haze of new maple leaves. It was in the painted trillium, in the wind flower, in the witch hobble. It was in the tufty blooms of little pussy-toes.
Spring was in the song of a white-throated sparrow, pure and sweet as a lonesome flute.
Spring was all around.
Other streams joined the creek. It was much wider now. It was a little river.
“Listen ahead,” said Beanie. “Listen to our creek. It’s a-shoutin’ now.”
They came to a place where the creek plunged off a ledge. It went tumbling and sparkling down into a foamy pool. They could feel the fresh misty breeze the falling waters made.
They went on down, on down, on down. Birds were lifting their voices. A robin was singing “Cheer up—cheerily, cheerily—cheer up.” A cardinal was calling “Purty, purty, purty.” And a flicker was repeating “Wet-wet-wet-wet-wet-wet-wet-wet-wet” as if he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
