by James Still
I played shy. I let him beg twice, not to seem too eager. Then I strode to the front. I told of Gulliver riding the waters, of the ship wrecking, and of his swimming ashore. “He took a nap on dry land and tiny folks no bigger than a finger came and drove pegs and tied him flat with threads. They fastened him to the ground limb and hair. And a dwarf mounted Gulliver’s leg bearing a sword, and he was a soldier, and brave…”
I related the voyage to Lilliput beginning to end, though scholars barely attended my words and kept staring along the road. Whether Mittie listened I couldn’t discover, for she loosened the biscuit on her head and let her hair fall over her face.
“Be-dog,” a voice grumbled as I finished, “I’d ruther hear the truth.”
“Ought to hear of Jolly Middleton nearly getting jailhoused,” Rue Thomas said. “A gospel fact.”
Duncil groaned. And he checked the clock. There was still time to reckon with. He gave in. “Maybe we can have done with the subject by talking it to death, wearing it out plumb. Say on.”
Rue Thomas babbled, “Once Jolly Middleton took a trip to town. Rode by the courthouse and blocking his path was a deputy sheriff ready to arrest him for some antic. There stood the Law, a warrant in his fist. You think Jolly would turn and flee? Now, no. Not that jasper. Up he trotted into the Law’s teeth, and he jabbed his beast in the hip, and low she bent to the balls of her knees. He reached and shook the deputy’s hand, and was away and gone ere the Law could bat an eye.”
A primer child whimpered, “What air we aiming to do when the De’il comes?”
We heard a clop-clop of hoofs and saw Uncle Jolly approaching. He lay stretched the length of his critter’s back, a poke of meal for a pillow, lolling in ease. His feet were bare and his shoes dangled at the end of the mare’s tail.
Bull yearlings couldn’t have held us. We rushed to the windows. Even Mittie craned her neck to see, her mouth primped with scorn. And Ard snatched the water-bucket and ran outside. I thought to myself, “Ard Finch couldn’t hit a barn door with an arrow-spike.”
The mare drew up in the school yard and Uncle Jolly lay prone a moment. Then he stretched his arms and legs and made to rise. He yawned near wide enough to split. And, in the middle of a yawn, he gulped unaccountably, his eyes bulged, his tongue hung out. He seemed stricken. He began to twist and toss. He yelled, “Oh,” and, “Ouch!” and, “Mercy me!” As in torment he slapped his breeches, his chest, his skull.
The scholars watched, not knowing whether to pity or jeer.
Uncle Jolly reached inside his shirt and drew out four crawdabbers. He pulled a frog from one pocket, a granny-hatchet from the opposite. His breeches legs yielded a terrapin each, his hat a ball of June-bugs. He rid himself of them and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he straddled his mare, spoke “Giddy-yap,” and started away.
“Humph,” came a grumble, “I thought he was going to do a really something.”
Uncle Jolly gained the road and halted. He looked over his shoulder and a wry grin caught his mouth and he shouted,
School butter, chicken flutter,
Rotten eggs for Duncil’s supper.
Boys hopped through the windows before Duncil could reach for the pointer. Girls and primer children struck for the doors. And Ard came around a corner with a spike fitted to his bow, and let fly. The spike grazed the mare’s hip and she sank to her knees, and caught unawares Uncle Jolly tumbled to the ground headforemost. The poke burst, the meal spilled. Up they sprang as scholars sped toward them. The mare took flight across the bottom behind the schoolhouse, Uncle Jolly at her heels. They ran to equal Sooners. Duncil Burke was left waving a pointer in the yard.
I kept pace with the swiftest. I went along for the running, satisfied we could never overhaul Uncle Jolly, and I traveled empty-handed, having forgotten my book. Uncle Jolly and his beast outdid us, the way we shook the short-legged scholars. They took three strides to our one. And on nearing the creek they parted company, the mare veering along the bank, Uncle Jolly plunging into the willows. When last we saw him he was headed toward the knob.
At the creek we searched the dry bed for tracks. We combed the willows and the canes beyond. We threshed the thicket between the creek and the foot of the knob. And up the knob we went, fanning out, Rue Thomas warning, “Keep your eyes skinned, you fellers. What that mischief will do is untelling.”
We climbed to the first bench of the knob and paused to catch our breaths. We looked abroad. We stared upon the schoolhouse roof; we could almost spy down the chimney. From somewhere Duncil’s voice lifted, calling, calling. Of a sudden we saw scholars hurrying back across the bottom, crying shrilly. We saw Uncle Jolly run out of the schoolhouse and papers fluttered from his arms like butterflies.
We plunged downhill. We fell off of the knob, mighty near, and tore through the canes. We scurried to join the scholars gathering beyond the play yard. And there under a gilly tree Uncle Jolly lay snoring, a hat covering his face, bare feet shining. The mare was nowhere in sight. Ard Finch stood close, but only Mittie Hyden wasn’t the least afraid. She walked a ring around him, scoffing, “He’s not asleep. Hit’s pure put-on.”
The bunch crept closer.
A little one asked, “What air we aiming to do?”
“We’d duck him in the creek if it wasn’t dry,” Rue Thomas said.
“It would take a block and tackle to lift him,” a scholar said.
“He’s too heavy to rail-ride,” another made excuse.
Mittie accused, “I’m of a mind you fellers are scared.”
“I hain’t afraid,” Ard said, and he moved alongside Uncle Jolly to prove it.
“Better not tip Old Scratch,” Pless Fowley’s child wailed, and she ran away to the schoolhouse.
Ard said, “I know a thing we can do. Fix him the same as the Lilliputians done Old Gulliver. Snare him plug-line.”
“Who’ll tie the first string?” Rue Thomas posed.
“I will,” said Ard. “Fetch me some sticks for pegs and I’ll show you who’s game.” And after they were brought he pounded them into the ground beside Uncle Jolly’s feet. He cut his bowstring into lengths and staked the toes.
Uncle Jolly snored on.
The scholars grew brave. They dug twine and thread out of pockets. They unwound three stocking balls. They fenced Uncle Jolly with pegs and made fast his legs, arms, neck and fingers. Fishing lines crisscrossed his body, pack threads tethered locks of his hair. Even the buttons of his shirt suffered tying. They yoked him like a fly in a web, and still he kept snoring.
And when they had him bound Ard played soldier. He stepped onto Uncle Jolly’s thigh and mounted proudly to his chest; he balanced his feet and drew forth his knife and brandished it for a sword.
The hat slid from Uncle Jolly’s face. His eyelids cracked. His eyes flew wide at sight of the blade. And of a sudden he bucked. Strings parted and sticks went flying, and Ard teetered. He bucked again and Ard upset and fell, and the blade raked Uncle Jolly’s nose from saddle to tip.
We stared, not moving though we heard the mare’s hoofs rattling, though we saw Duncil coming pointer in hand. Pless Fowley’s child ran among us, holding an empty poke, crying, “All the books have been dropped into the well. Nary a scrap is left.” And Mittie Hyden looked squarely at me. She said, “Jolly Middleton is the best devil ever was.”
Uncle Jolly sat up. He pinched his nose together, and his face wrinkled with joy. “I can’t laugh,” he said. “Upon my honor, I can’t.”
The Moving
WE stood by the loaded wagon while Father nailed the windows down and spat into the keyholes to make the locks turn. We waited, restless as the harnessed mare, anxious to hasten beyond staring eyes. Hardstay mine was closed for all time and idle men had gathered to watch us leave. They hung over the fence; they crowded where last year’s dogtick stalks clutched their brown leaf-hands into fists.
I saw the boys glance at our windowpanes, their pockets bulging with rocks. I spied into their faces and homesick
ness grew large inside of me. I hungered for a word, a nod of farewell. But only a witty was sad at my going, only a child of a man who valued strings and tobacco tags, a chap in a man’s clothes who was bound forever to speak things backwards. Hig Sommers stood beg-eyed, and fellows were picking at him. One knelt and jerked loose the eel-strings of his brogans.
Though women watched from their porches only a widow-woman came to say a good-by to Mother. Sula Basham came walking, tall as a butterweed, and with a yellow locket swinging her neck like a clockweight.
Loss Tramble spoke, grinning, “If I had a woman that tall, I’d string her with gourds and use her for a martin pole. I would, now.” A dry chuckle rattled in the crowd. Loss stepped back, knowing the muscle frogs of her arms were the size of any man’s.
Sula towered over Mother. The locket dropped like a plumb. Mother was barely five feet tall and she had to look upward as into the sky; and her eyes set on the locket, for never had she owned a grain of gold, never a locket, or a ring, or bighead pin. Sula spoke loudly to Mother, glancing at the men with scorn: “You ought to be proud that your man’s not satisfied to rot in Hardstay camp, a-setting on his chinebone. Before long all’s got to move, all’s got to roust or starve. This mine hain’t opening ag’in. Hit’s too nigh dug out.”
The men stirred uneasily. Sill Lovelock lifted his arms, spreading them like a preacher’s. “These folks air moving to nowheres,” he said. “Thar’s no camps along the Kentucky River a-taking on hands; they’s no work anywheres. Hit’s mortal sin to make gypsies of a family. I say as long’s a body has got a rooftree, let him roost under it.”
Men grunted, doddering their heads, and the boys lifted their rock-heavy pockets and sidled toward the wagon. Cece Goodloe snatched Hig Sommers’s hat as he passed, clapping it onto his own head. The hat rested upon his ears. The boys placed their hands on the wagon wheels; they fingered the mare’s harness; they raised the lid of the tool box to see what was in it. Cece crawled under the wagon, back hound to front hound, shaking the swingletree. I watched out of the tail of my eye, thinking a rusty might be pulled.
Father came into the yard with the key, and now the house was shut against our turning back. I looked at the empty hull of our dwelling; I looked at the lost town, yearning to stay in this place where I was born, among the people I knew. Father lifted the key on a finger. “If a body here would drap this key by the commissary,” he said, “I’d be obliged.”
Hig Sommers lumbered toward Father, his shirttail flying. Someone had shagged his shirt out. “I’ll fotch it,” Hig cried, stretching both hands for the key as a babe would reach.
“I’m not a-wanting it fotched,” Father said. He’d not trust the key to a fellow who wasn’t bright. “You’ve got it back’ards, Hig. I’m wanting it tuck.”
Sill Lovelock stepped forward, though he didn’t offer to carry the key. “They’s Scripture ag’in’ a feller hauling off the innocent,” he vowed gravely. “I say, stay where there’s a floor underfoot and joists overhead.”
Father said testily, “There ought to be a statute telling a feller to salt his own steers. Ruther to drown o’ sweat hunting for work than die o’ dry rot in Hardstay.”
Loss Tramble edged near Father, his eyes burning and the corners of his mouth curled. He nodded his head toward Sula Basham. “I’ll deliver that key willing if you’ll take this beanpole widow-woman along some’eres and git her a man. She’s wore the black bonnet long enough.”
Laughter sprang forth, gulping in throats, wheezing noses. Sula whirled, her face lit with anger. “If I was a-mind to marry,” she said, grudging her words, “it’s certain I’d have to go where there’s a man fitten. I’d be bound—”
Sill Lovelock broke in, thinking Sula’s talk of no account. He asked Father, “What air you to use for bread along the way? There’s no manna falling from Heaven this day and time.”
Father was grinning at Sula. He saw the muscle knots clench on her arms, and he saw Loss inch away. He turned toward Sill in good humor. “Why, there’s a gum o’ honey dew on the leaves of a morning. We kin wake early and eat it off.”
“The Devil take ’em,” Mother said, calming Sula. “Menfolks are heathens. Let them crawl their own dirt.” She was studying the locket, studying it to remember, to take away in her mind. I thought of Mother’s unpierced ear lobes where never a bob had hung, the worn stems of her fingers never circled by gold, her plain bosom no pin-pretty had ever hooked. She was looking at the locket, not covetously, but in wonder.
“I’ll take the key,” Sula told Father. “Nobody else seems anxious to neighbor you.”
Loss opened his hands, his face as grave as Sill Lovelock’s, mocking. He pointed an arm at Sula, the other appealing to the crowd. “I allus did pity a widow-woman,” he said. He spanned Sula’s height with his eyes. “In this gethering there ought to be one single man willing to marry the Way Up Yonder Woman.”
Sula’s mouth hardened. “I want none o’ your pity pie,” she blurted. She took a step toward Loss, the sinews of her long arms quickening. When Loss retreated she turned to Mother, who had just climbed onto the wagon. Sula and Mother were now at an eye level. “You were a help when my chaps died,” Sula said. “You were a comfort when my man lay in his box. I hain’t forgetting. Wish I had a keepsake to give you, showing I’ll allus remember.”
“I’ll keep you in my head,” Mother assured.
“I’ll be proud to know it.”
We were ready to go. “Climb on, Son,” Father called. I swung up from the hindgate to the top of the load. Over the heads of the men I could see the whole of the camp, the shotgun houses in the flat, the smoke rising above the burning gob heaps. The pain of leaving rose in my chest. Father clucked his tongue, and the mare started off. She walked clear out of the wagon shafts. Loose trace chains swung free and pole-ends of the shafts bounded to the ground.
“Whoa ho!” Father shouted, jumping down. A squall of joy sounded behind us. Cece Goodloe had pulled this rusty; he’d done the unfastening. Father smiled while adjusting the harness. Oh, he didn’t mind a clever trick. And he sprang back onto the wagon again.
Loss Tramble spooled his hands, calling through them, “If you don’t aim to take this widow along, we’ll have to marry her to a born fool. We’ll have to match her with Hig Sommers.”
We drove away, the wheels taking the groove of ruts, the load swaying; we drove away with Sill Lovelock’s last warning ringing our ears. “You’re making your bed in Hell!” he had shouted. Then it was I saw the gold locket about Mother’s neck, beating her bosom like a heart.
I looked back, seeing the first rocks thrown, hearing our windows shatter; I looked back upon the camp as upon the face of the dead. I saw the crowd fall back from Sula Basham, tripping over each other. She had struck Loss Tramble with her fist, and he knelt before her, fearing to rise. And only Hig Sommers was watching us move away. He stood holding up his breeches, for someone had cut his galluses with a knife. He thrust one arm into the air, crying, “Hello, hello!”
One Leg Gone to Judgment
IT was quiet on that day, and the willows hung limp over Troublesome Creek. The waters rested about the bald stones, scarcely moving. I had walked along the sandy left bank to Jute Dawson’s homeseat, and in the soundlessness of afternoon young Clebe had not heard me enter the yard and climb the puncheon steps.
He sat at the end of the dogtrot with a rifle-gun sighted into the kitchen, his crutch leaning against a knee. His eyes were closed to a bead. I watched without speaking until he had fired, and the sound of a bullet striking pots and pans rang from the room.
Clebe hopped inside on his one leg, fetching out a fox squirrel by its grey brush. As he came out he saw me and held a quivering body aloft in greeting. There was a purple dent in the furred head, and red drops of blood trickled across the glassy eyes and twisted mouth. Clebe tossed the squirrel into a wooden bucket and hopped the length of the dogtrot for a chair.
“Fox squirrels are taking the place
,” he said. “We had a pet one and he drawed the rest out of the hills.”
He laughed, his thin face spreading. “Nothing puts the lean in your muscles like squirrel gravy. When I spy a bowl of it on the table I have to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting.”
We settled into white-oak splint chairs and looked out on the untended patch before the house, now thick-growing with purple bonnets of stickweeds. Field sparrows were working among the slender stalks and the dark blossoms shook in the windless air.
“Poppy and Mommy are swapping work today,” Clebe said. “Lukas Baldridge holp us lay-by our crap, and they’re helping him stirring-off his sorgham to pay back. And I reckon they’ll fetch us back a jug full of molassas.”
Our chairs were leaned against the log framing and I sat there thinking of the wooden leg Jute had ordered for Clebe. The word had gone up and down Troublesome and its forks that a store-bought leg was coming for him, but the weeks had gone by and he had not been seen at either the horse swapping court, or the gingerbread election.
“I figure Lukas Baldridge is a clever man,” Clebe said, “but Poppy says he’s a straddle-pole of the worst kind. Poppy says he’s got one foot that’s a democrat and the other one a republican. And he can skip either direction, depending on who’s handing out the money. He tuck a sled full of gingerbread to the last election and sold it near five times over to the candidates before he told folks to come and eat till they busted. He saw to it every candidate paid in.”
The sparrows set up a clatter in the field patch. Their dull chirps were hollow and rasping, and their grey bodies blew dustily through the weeds.
“Even a sparrow-bird’s got two wings,” Clebe said at length, watching them work among the brown stalks. “A pure pity I hain’t got two legs.” He drew the palms of his hands tight and bloodless over the posts of the chair.
“Poppy ordered me a wood leg and it’s an eternal time a-coming. A leg drummer come and measured me up careful. I reckon he counted every toe of mine and measured them before he got done, but I’m of a mind Poppy’s been beat out of the fifty dollars he paid him. My opinion, he’s tuck off like Snider’s hound with Poppy’s money.
