The Green Rolling Hills

by V. J. Banis

  Lester lived alone except for his dogs and he was doing all right. But, about the time he turned thirty-five, it dawned on him that he was a mite lonesome sitting out by his front door in the evenings up Dead Bear Hollow. Lester was a churchgoing man, so he talked it over with the preacher one Sunday afternoon after the meeting. The preacher told him it was natural for a man to live in wedlock with a woman and it was time to for Lester to find himself a bride.

  Well, Lester was a shy man, and didn’t know how to go about it. He went to the store at Big Otter, and told the storekeeper, Jesse Harkins, what was on his mind. Jesse kept a kind of call board at the front of the store for people to put up notices of things they needed and things they wanted to sell. He suggested that Lester post a notice giving any particulars he had in mind. As they were talking, Mrs. Harkins came out from the back of the store and listened in. She said there wasn’t any use to put up a sign, because she knew a young lady who would be just right for Lester and he could begin courting that very day.

  She told Lester it was Louella Cummings, who lived a mile down the County Road, had turned at least fourteen, and had left school to help her mother with the chores. Mrs. Harkins said Louella was pleasant to look at and was a good churchgoing Presbyterian. Also, she’d been a bright student in the local school as long as her parents had seen fit to let her attend.

  That sounded good to Lester, so he and Mr. Harkins took off down the road to call on Louella’s folks.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cummings had them sit right down in the parlor, and then Mr. Harkins spoke up for Lester. He told them Lester was a good steady fellow and he wanted their permission to come courting Louella. Lester would have liked to have seen Louella, but Mrs. Cummings went to the kitchen and told Louella to finish the dishes and stay out of sight while they got things worked out.

  After some more talk, the Cummings nodded to each other and told Lester they had no objection to his courting Louella. They said he had to understand that they were poor people and about all Louella owned were the clothes she stood up in. Lester smiled and said that was all right with him, and he’d be obliged if he could meet Louella.

  They all went into the kitchen to introduce Louella and Lester. Everyone stood there looking and listening, and there was a lot of foot scraping and blushing and hemming and hawing while Lester and Louella sized each other up.

  The upshot of the matter was, Lester called on Louella for a few evenings and was even allowed to go out walking with her, provided they stayed within eyesight of the front porch.

  After a good deal of thinking around the point, Lester asked Louella if she would like to marry him. She said she really didn’t understand what marrying was all about, but she thought she’d give it a try. So everything was set up, and two Sundays later they were married in the church with the blessing of the Dead Bear Creek community.

  At the time that the ceremony was to start, Louella suddenly realized that she was going to have to leave home and go away with this man. It really took her back. She sat on the floor and cried and cried, and wouldn’t go to the church until her Ma threatened to whip her for being a baby. And she wore a pretty sober face all through the ceremony. There were some who swore they heard her sobbing when she was saying her “I do’s”. Anyway, there was a big feed, and then Louella and Lester, still dressed up in their Sunday best, walked off up the hollow. Each of them carried a paper sack full of her things.

  Now Lester was a kindly man. He tried to tell Louella what he expected her to do, and what her share in keeping the place up was to be. But there just didn’t seem to be any way he could keep that girl happy. She would pout and holler and cry, and tell Lester how her Ma did things. Lester finally got exasperated with this state of affairs and he told her one night, “If you’re going to act like a child, you’re going to be treated like a child.” He took off his belt, took her across his knee and whacked her a few times to try to get some sense into her head.

  That did it. Louella sat in a corner and cried and sulked all day. At evening time Lester was sitting by the front door sadly wishing he knew what to do.

  A big storm came up; trees swaying, thunder and lightening, rain and hail. Louella came bursting out the door. She ran straight up the hillside through the trees. Lester got a slow start and she was fast as a deer. She went streaking up the mountain, hair flying, rain and thunder booming all around. Lester stopped. He knew he wasn’t going to catch her that night.

  He watched her running up the hill through the flashes of lightning. Then it happened: Louella stopped, turned around and faced Lester. She screamed something at him and flung her arms out wide. Right then she was hit by the biggest bolt of lightning Lester had ever seen. He saw her turn bright white in the lightning and it blinded him for a minute. When he looked again she wasn’t there. He ran to the spot where he’d seen her last, and all he could find was a burned spot on the ground and seared foliage. He searched around halfheartedly in the rain, but finally gave it up and went inside. He was wet and scared.

  The sun shone bright the next day, and Lester and the Cummings hunted all over the hillside for Louella, but never a trace was found.

  They had a funeral service for Louella, but it was short, what with the lack of a body and all. Lester went sadly back up Dead Bear Hollow to his house.

  But Lester was middling young and time is a great healer. He figured he couldn’t be unlucky all of the time, and he decided to try again. That’s when things really started to happen. The truth of the matter is, Lester Cooley got married two more times, and both of his women ran off.

  When he brought the first one home, before they even got settled down, she got nervous and high-strung. She told Lester there was something in the air around the place that wasn’t right.

  She was doing her housework when dark came on, and she came screaming into the parlor to tell Lester she’d seen a face in the window and it didn’t look like a human being. Of course, he hadn’t seen it and he tried to calm her down. She didn’t last two weeks.

  It was the same story with the second one. She was pretty strong of mind and set out to whip the thing. Then one night she got caught in the rain and whatever it was it sent her running home, flashing white and crying out in pain.

  Well, poor Lester gave up. He farmed that little patch all by himself until the day he died. The preacher prayed about the matter and told Louella’s Mama he couldn’t understand why her spirit wouldn’t rest, Lester being such a good man and all.

  Mrs. Cummings studied on it. Then she told the preacher, “You know, Reverend Butts, my maiden name was Belford. I come from over in Nicholas County. If you know the Belfords of Nicholas County, you know they are a pretty strong strong-minded bunch of people. Well, my dear Louella inherited her share of that. I also reckon Louella wasn’t happy with Lester whatever her reasons were. But I reckon, being a Bedford, Louella, dead or alive, wasn’t going to have Lester Cooley messing around with any other women.”

  That’s as near to an explanation we ever got. And ever since he passed, nobody in Dead Bear Hollow has ever been bothered again by the tantrums of the child bride of Lester Cooley.

  THE SHINY BLACK CAR, by Calvert Estill

  It is said in Paramignano that shiny black cars from the South bring no sunshine. Indeed there are many about today who know the reason behind this observation, and can attest to the facts.

  It was only forty or fifty years ago that we had a visitation from the South. You see, our wine had made a name for itself in the cities. There were some there who thought it bitter and acid. But how were they to know, and who knew what poor wines they might have tasted? In any case, our wine had made a name. We were quite proud, and in Paramignano we learned to drink it without screwing up the face.

  All summer the warm sun shone on the south slope where we had our vineyards, and we were happy at wine making. We were content to sit a bit and drink a bit and called it “Our Wine.” What other name was needed?

  Such are the ways of men that this
pleasant state of affairs did not last for long. One day a long, black shiny car pulled into the Piazza Ducale, and a distinguished man of affairs got out, while his driver held the door. This man was in gray, with gleaming black shoes, a red flower in his lapel, a hat that rolled up on one side and down on the other, and, would you believe it, a marvelous gray mustache trimmed down to little spikes at the end.

  This man took a room at the inn while Paramignano buzzed with gossip. Government official, nobility, what then? The bartender at the inn said he drank only a little white wine. His name was Don Marco. He spoke slowly, and seldom smiled. He sent his driver to summon the Mayor, who quickly presented himself at the inn. They spent some time together. We were all waiting and wondering, and the Priest had to come into the street to call us to the Mass.

  Well, it all came out next day. The “Importante” had come to make us rich. He had learned of our wine, and how it was received in the nearby cities. He was there, he said, to help us organize a Communal Cooperative to market our wine at a profit, under an appropriate name. It sounded too good to be true. No one in Paramignano understood such matters except the Mayor who had some background. The Mayor had spent some years in Milan working in a shop.

  Well, there was excitement, and talk, and prayer. The upshot was, we all met with Don Marco in the Piazza Ducale next evening, and he detailed for us his ingenious plan. We didn’t grasp the details, but he spoke of great profits. He said we would have to pledge the crop and stick to the plan. And for all of this he would want a modest forty percent for himself and his associates in the city.

  The Priest then asked Don Marco what was to be the name of the wine on the bright labels he had promised. Don Marco said he had given the matter considerable thoughts, and had decided that “Don Marano” would be the new name. Apparently he did not understand.

  You see we had already labeled it “Our Wine” and this seemed quite good enough. Discord broke out. Angry cries were heard, and some even shook their fists at the Importante who could propose such a foolishness. Everyone was disturbed, and the Priest suggested that we think and pray upon the matter overnight. Cool heads prevailed and everyone went away muttering.

  In the end it didn’t matter. Don Marco told the inn-keeper next day that we were too ignorant to make an important business decision, and that he had pressing business elsewhere. He was preparing to leave when it was discovered that the driver had disappeared. It was rumored the driver had spent the night in a neighboring village with an unnamed lady, but this was never proven.

  We watched in silence as Don Marco loaded his baggage into the car, pumped up a low tire, and drove in stony silence down the mountain.

  Some were upset at losing all the money from the wine. There are always those kinds about. But the Priest pointed out that in some years we barely had enough for Paramignano, much less an abundance to sell to others. The wisdom was clear enough.

  Now we harvest gratefully every autumn, and the children at the schoolhouse prepare small paper labels saying “Our Wine” and sometimes “Paramignano.”

  We’ve never had another shiny black car from the South. But some of us are still on watch.

  LOVE IN A LOBSTER POT, by Calvert Estill

  Although it sounds improbable,

  I know it to be real,

  and share with you the love affair

  of Louie and Lucille.

  The Coast of Maine is rocky

  and forbiddingly austere.

  Unless you have your woolies on,

  you wouldn’t dare go near.

  But L. & L. were lobsters

  of the very finest sort;

  they lived right in Bar Harbor, Maine,

  a very posh resort.

  The Arctic cold was fine for them,

  they handled it quite well,

  because there’s thermal underwear,

  beneath a lobster’s shell.

  And Louie was a mobster lobster,

  leader of a gang

  who sat right out on the shiny rocks

  and didn’t give a hang.

  And Lucile was his lobster moll,

  and he found her exciting;

  she’d scuttle underneath a rock,

  which Louie found inviting.

  And everything went swimmingly,

  they lived a lively pace,

  till Louie came home late one night,

  with ink marks on his face.

  It seems he’d met this sexy squid

  and really blown his cool.

  She fired him up with ink blots

  as they scuffled in the pool

  Then Lucille raised such merry hell

  that Louie turned to flee;

  she chased him from their sheltered pool;

  they headed for the sea.

  Lucille caught up with Louie

  and she gave his head a rap,

  and neither of them noticed

  they had run into a trap.

  The danger was apparent;

  Lucille fell into his arms,

  and Louie swore three hundred times

  that only she had charms.

  So Lucille felt much better,

  though the damage to her Id

  would have been much less destructive,

  if it hadn’t been a squid.

  The next few hectic hours

  they were flung into a tub

  with lots of common lobsters,

  whom they felt they ought to snub.

  In the end it didn’t matter,

  for they wound up in a trice

  in a fancy seafood restaurant,

  bedded down in clean shaved ice.

  They settled down to take a nap;

  there wasn’t much to do;

  no matter what the future held,

  it did no good to stew.

  And then they were awakened

  by a cultured, loving voice,

  instructing Jacques the waiter,

  that these two would be his choice.

  His name was Bernhard Theiling,

  a man of high position;

  he was in fact, acknowledged,

  a gourmet lobstertrician

  Well, Louie and Lucille

  were pleased to be selected by

  a man whose words were Gospel

  in the world of broil and fry.

  They thought it quite appropriate

  that this should be their lot,

  and plunged into the water

  of the lobster cooking pot.

  The water warmed up quickly;

  they became a lively pair;

  he chased her round the kettle,

  and they didn’t have a care.

  And Louie said, “When we made love,

  back in our ice-bound cove

  I wish someone had told us

  that we ought to buy a stove.”

  And Lucille said, “You were so great,

  I never thought there’d be

  love-making of a better kind;

  this suits me to a tee.”

  And so they boiled in ecstasy,

  they had their last hot date;

  and now they’re piles of whitened shells

  upon the Gourmet’s plate.

  HARAI, by Christine Kaye

  He woke to early morning light slanting through the high little window. Curling into a protective ball, he listened for the footsteps on the stairs—the heavy ones that made him shiver. He waited, watching the shaft of light grow steeper as it crept across the room. Just before it disappeared, it touched the table and its tray of hurtful silvery things, made them shine, making him afraid. But it meant that morning was gone, and that was good. Realizing he would be safe for the rest of the day, he began to relax. If The Man came at all, it wouldn’t be until after dark. They came all too seldom, these peaceful days, and he treasured them as precious gifts.

  Harai had nothing in his cage, not even a blanket to keep away the cold and damp, but he knew how to warm himself deep ins
ide. He couldn’t do it if he was afraid or hurting but, for the moment, there was no pain and he set aside his fear. Uncurling his body, he drifted into daydreams of his life in the deep forest. He could smell the rich damp earth, and the sharp scent of pine needles. He heard the birds in the branches overhead, singing and calling to each other; the furtive scuttling of small animals in the undergrowth. He remembered how his body had been quick and agile, his muscles strong and tireless. He climbed, effortlessly, over fallen logs and boulders, traveled miles of narrow track. There had been no keeping him; he went wherever he wanted, unafraid and full of curiosity.

  Glancing at the window to judge the time, he remembered the sky. What he could see now was a tiny dust-hazed piece, about as long as his arm. But long ago, when he had climbed the mountain and left the forest far below, the sky stretched from horizon to horizon. Sometimes it was a vaulted blue with piles of white clouds. Sometimes it was close enough to touch, hanging low with heavy gray clouds that meant rain. Best of all was the infinite black sky, shimmering with stars; the sky that made him feel limitless, disembodied.

  A growling from his stomach distracted him. He crawled over to the bowl of food, now two days old, and sniffed at it. Disgusted, he decided to wait, and turned away. Instead, he thought about ripe fruit; recalled the sensation of sinking his teeth into the sun-warmed flesh, the juice squirting into his mouth; jaws working, teeth grinding—filling his mouth with sweet-tart, perfumey pulp. He imagined this so completely, his mouth filled with saliva, and he had to swallow to keep from drooling.

  There had been a summer day...how long ago? Months, maybe. Stretched out on a rock outcrop, the sun and stone warming him, the breeze brushing him like feathers. Colors, mostly red and gold, dancing behind his closed eyelids. The air soft with the scent of recent rain and the fragrance of life. He had taken it all so for granted. How he longed for a breath of fresh air, the kiss of the sun....