Teetoncey and Ben O'Neal

by Theodore Taylor

  As I drew away, Fid stretching out to a gallop, I heard Filene bellowing, in a voice loud enough to flatten the sea, "Ben O'Neal, come back here." Family cousin or not, I had long been petrified of that block-faced keeper, and conversations of any length tied my tongue and ended in untruthful webs. It was far better to pit Mama against him.

  Besides, there was no doubt that Filene would soon board his own pony and trot inland to our house, there to confront Mama with her latest maneuver concerning that girl, absolutely unauthorized by the federal Lifesaving Service, which was law on the Outer Banks. There was also no doubt that Filene would lumber to the recently installed crank phone to ring all the stations—Nag's Head, Bodie Island, Oregon Inlet, Pea Island, New Inlet, Chicamacomico, Big Kinnakeet, Little Kinnakeet, Cape Hatteras. Filene would jubilantly pass the word and hint that he had some part of it: Teetoncey, the castaway girl, had her brains unaddled.

  I understood his point of view more than Mama. Over a period of many shipwrecks, hundreds of them, nothing quite like it had ever happened on the Banks: The sole survivor of the Malta Empress, a snip of a girl of then indeterminate age, had been unable to utter a word, much to the chagrin of Filene Midgett, who prided himself on exacting accounts of wrecks. Regulations required precise survivors' reports and here was one who did not even mumble. Having logged seventy-one wrecks in his own time of heroic service, Filene could not remember such a patience-trying incident and often said so.

  The outer sand trail, wide enough for a pony cart or mule wagon, running north and south just behind the dunes on the ocean side, was still wet from the night's nor'easter, stone gray except where wands of early sun touched here and there. There was another partial main track that followed close to the sounds—Currituck, Roanoke, Pamlico, etc.—on the west side of the Banks, connecting the villages. Then paths for foot or pony, crossing the Banks, extended to the sea between the two parallel trails, which sometimes blended.

  There wasn't much on the beach itself, except the rotting-out hulks of wrecks every few miles, and plenty of driftwood which filtered off the Carolina mainland, washed out to sea through Oregon or Hatteras inlets, and then returned to the beach to soak up sun for a hundred years. Aside from the wrecks and hauling gill nets, stuck with sea trout or bluefish at sunset during spring, summer, and fall, the ocean sand didn't occupy us very much. Mainlanders sometimes sat on it or collected seashells, which was equally ridiculous. What can anyone do with a seashell?

  I steered Fid, his nostrils steaming in the dawn cold, over a dune and dropped down to the beach just south of Heron Head Shoal, where the Malta Empress had broken up, and looked out at the white water churning over the bar. Mean water, always. Smooth as buttertop on a calm day, lapping innocently. Dangerous as a nest of cottonmouths when the blows come down from the north.

  "We claimed her from you, all the way," I remember shouting defiantly toward the sandbar. I meant Teetoncey, of course. Might as well let the shoals know, too.

  Then I cut sharp back inland and rode straight to Mr. Burrus's store at Chicamacomico village, Chicky village, a place of work for me several days a week, and jumped off on the flimsy porch, opening the door that had a brass bell from the wrecked schooner Betty Coffyn strapped to it.

  Mr. Burrus looked around as I came jingling in. Thin sweater buttoned, overshoes and apron already on, felt hat perched low on his forehead, he was ready for the day and hopeful of doing more cash than credit business, an unusual circumstance. Our sand strips were poor, though not impoverished. There was plenty to eat. Gardens, cows, and pigs. Fish by the ton.

  "Teetoncey talked," I had to blurt.

  "I'll swan. You don't say. Well, I'll swan." Mr. Burrus, too, was truly surprised.

  Mis' Burrus separated the burlap curtains that hid their living room from the front of the store. She was never too far from that curtain so as not to miss a juicy word. "She did talk, now?"

  "Name's Wendy Lynn Appleton, and she's from London, like I told you I guessed long ago."

  "That is a miracle," Mr. Burrus said soberly.

  "She and her mama and papa boarded in the Barbadoes on their way to New York and London. That much we know. We hope she'll tell us more today..." My mouth got dry and I had to swallow. "Main thing, she knows who she is."

  "Did it all by herself," Mr. Burrus wrongly concluded.

  "Not at all," I was quick to say. "Mama sent me to the beach with her last night in the thick of that gale of wind. Hair of the dog that bites you! She come unloose at Heron Head, soon's she saw that wild water. Screaming and everything. I had a time with her. Whatever it was that got locked up in her mind because of the wreck got unlocked and she remembered it all, and got her speech back..."

  I knew what Mis' Burrus would say next: "I do deceive the good Lord had a hand in this."

  "Yessum," I answered respectfully, but I wondered where the good Lord had been hiding the night the Empress laid her splendid keel on the sand. That barkentine had been firewood in five minutes. Thirteen dead that the Lord didn't have to fret about again. I added pointedly, "But He also robbed her of every living soul she had. That girl is a convicted orphan now."

  Mis' Burrus frowned at my notion that He had overstepped His bounds but Mr. Burrus only clucked sadly, rotating his round cheeks at Teetoncey's plight. He'd grown to like the girl, even when she couldn't talk.

  A sallow man from the Post Office department, down from Elizabeth City, was in the store after having spent the night on a cot midst the cheese and dried apple smells. He asked what everyone was so excited about.

  "Tell him, Ben," said Mr. Burrus.

  I took a breath and retold it briefly, not that I minded. How the Empress had wrecked, and the sea had given up the girl, sprawling her icy on the beach to be found by Boo Dog and myself. How I'd carried her home and Mama nursed her back to life only to have Doc Meekins, with his noble book learning and in his whiskey breath, say she had a type of "catatonia," a shock of some kind. Now, she was cured.

  Mis' Burrus, every bit as religious as my mama, added, like an amen, "Glory be!"

  "You and your mama did a good turn," said die eye-shaded man from the P.O. department, and kept on counting to make sure Mr. Burrus hadn't stolen any stamp money. There were no thieves on the Outer Banks and no door locks, but the government was always suspicious. To quote Jabez Tillett, "We are a damn sight more honest than any politician."

  I bought a stamp in full view, licked it, pounded it on the Chicago letter, and then dropped it into the wire basket which was the total Post Office department at Chicky—wire basket so Mis' Burrus could easier snoop the addresses. The mail boat was still at the dock waiting for this beady-eyed man to finish his quarterly tabulations. There was no more business to transact in Chicky, and nothing more to say, so I departed.

  Fid trotted south again along what was the narrowest point of the Banks, the stretch between Chicky and Clarks. There were a few houses in the hammocks south of Chicky; not enough to warrant them village status. The sand strips broaden out nearing Buxton Woods and Cape Hatteras, the widest part of the Banks.

  The shallow Pamlico was still choppy from the dregs of the gale, mud-spoiled, and I couldn't see any boats out as yet. Not a sharpie, bugeye, or skiff anywhere. In the winter, especially in rough chop, no one was too anxious to check the fish nets, strung between poles, until the sun was nine o'clock high. Anything caught by the gills was safe until frost was off the boat seats. But the Pamlico could be treacherous any time of the year as my late brother Guthrie had discovered on a squally spring afternoon at the age of thirteen, manning a shad boat for Old Man Spencer.

  Arriving home, I found Teetoncey was still asleep and I hadn't been there for more than two minutes when I looked out and saw Filene dismounting from his tackie that had no name beyond "hee" or "haw." A notebook was tucked beneath the keeper's arm and a stub of pencil was up behind his red right ear.

  He tapped on the door and it was opened by Mama who said, "I was expectin' you, Cousin."
<
br />   The surf captain tromped in, asking, "That girl awake?" He looked at me and just grunted, but then changed his mind. "Boy, when I call you, come back!" His eyes bored at me under bushy brows.

  I said meekly, "Yessir." And meant it.

  "No, she isn't awake, Filene," Mama said.

  He frowned. "How long she been asleep?"

  "'Bout twelve hours. I give her some Purple last night."

  Filene said, "Can't you wake her up? That's enough sleep for anybody." He peered toward my room where he knew she'd been residing since early November. "She ain't sick, is she?"

  Mama answered, "I don't intend her to be, an' I don't intend to wake her up. Come on in the kitchen where that bullfrog voice o' yours don't disturb her."

  Filene took a deep, exasperated breath and followed Mama toward the kitchen. He was only trying to do his duty and get the wreck details. He had a responsibility to the Lifesaving Service.

  I went as far as the door, reaching it at the point Mama said, "Write down your questions an' I'll have her answer 'em in her own good time."

  Leaning up against the wooden sinkboard, looking around for what might be cooking, rubbing a large thumb over a ripe persimmon, the keeper shook his close-cut head. He cut the top himself but let Jabez use an extra-large china bowl to get a straight neckline in the back "I can't do that, Rachel," said Filene. A widower, with his children grown and gone, our cousin was more or less married to the surfboat station. "I cannot do it," he repeated.

  "You might have to. I have no ideer what shape she's gonna be in when she wakes."

  Filene studied Mama a minute and then his heavy jaw took a stronger set. "Ever since you got your hands on that girl, you have defied authority. Now, I'm tellin' you, Rachel O'Neal, she is the sole responsibility o' the Lifesavin' Service, an' now that we know for sure her citizenship, she is also a ward o' the British governmint. You have nothin' to say about her as o' this mornin'."

  Mama was squinting. "Is that all?"

  The keeper nodded.

  I thought, Hang on to your tiller, Filene. You have no idea what this woman is planning.

  Mama began quietly. "Allow me to say this, Cousin. We learned last night that when the great Lifesavin' Service didn't git to that ship in time, she lost her only livin kin." Mama let that sink in and then added deftly, "She is twelve years ol' an' hasn't a solitary human to call her own."

  Filene winced a bit. "I'm sorry to hear that." But he also quickly recovered from his sorrow. "You can't blame me for losin' her parents."

  Mama answered softly and understandingly. "Havin' been a surfman's wife, I'd never place blame. But I do want to politely ask—did you call the assistant inspector in Norfolk?"

  "I have those intentions when I git back to the station. This survivor can talk now. I cannot delay information of this importance. Inspector Timmons can then notify the consul."

  Mama pleaded, "For her sake, don't call for a week." I suppose Mama figured that would give her time to entice Teetoncey to stay on.

  The keeper shook his head. "I can't do that."

  I saw Mama begin to harden when she used a John Rollinson preachment on him: "A man o' words an' not deeds is like a garden o' weeds."

  Filene had heard it many times. He repeated stubbornly, "I cannot do it."

  Mama then poured lye into her next words. "Well, then I'm gonna ride to ever surf station on these Banks an' tell ever surf cap'n what an unfeeling jackass you are." Most people are more respectful to surf captains.

  Filene clubbed the sinkboard with a heavy hand, causing a pot of soaking white beans to bounce. "Jackass, am I?" he exploded.

  That woke the girl because we heard a startled cry from my room. In a fury, Mama chased the keeper out of the house. I hid my face so he couldn't see me laughing.

  Later, I learned that he was so upset that he forgot to tell us that a brigantine, a small square-sailed ship, had wrecked off Bodie Island during the gale. Every man was saved by Keeper Filene Midgett and his crew.

  3

  AFTER THE DOOR slammed behind Filene, the girl came out of the room, a little wobbly legged and looking dazed. Purple could do that to you. Mama rushed over. I stayed back. During female crisis, whether it is a midwife problem or swampwater-juniper stains on a new dress, I do not think males are of much use.

  Teetoncey stared at us as if we were total strangers, and I suppose we were, more or less.

  Mama asked, very tenderly, "You feel better, child?"

  She nodded, eyes scanning around the room as if she might have awakened in a feed bin. She blinked when she looked at Reubens beautiful stuffed buck head on the west wall. Cletus Gillikin had done a lifelike job with the deer's eyes.

  Later, I found out she'd also had quite a jolt waking up in my room, though she vaguely remembered it despite catatonia. Guthrie's Poteskeet arrowheads were wired to one wall; Reuben's baleen, which is filter for toothless whales, black, shiny, and curving, hairy fibers on one edge, was on another wall. My duck decoys were in one corner. Another corner had a big dried turtle shell sitting on a mullet throw net. For certainty, it was not like her own fancy room back in London. She could also smell seaboots and oakum boat caulking which I had never smelled in there before.

  Though it was against my grain, I felt I had to say something. I asked, "How do you feel?"

  She gazed at me with gray green eyes and answered mechanically, "Quite well, thank you."

  Hah. If somebody had opened the door, the breeze would have knocked her over. But I did sense a weakening in the back of my own legs. I was not accustomed to a London voice and no one had ever thanked me for asking how they were. Quite well, thank you.

  Mama said, "Ben, you go on about your business. We have to tidy up." That meant showing her to the outhouse, a chill trip in early December; changing from her wool nightshirt (one of mine) to a dress; some water on her face in the kitchen and a hair brushing. That routine had been staple for a month though Teetoncey hadn't been aware of it.

  I had to split some wood, anyway, and went out back, keeping the seat of my pants in the direction of the outhouse, which was southwest of the woodpile.

  A little later, when I filled the wood boxes in the front room, Mama was watching her brush her hair. Well, that was progress. A few minutes later, when I filled the wood box for the kitchen range, she was settled down at the table and ready to eat some cornbread with blackberry jam on it. There was pure cow milk—not goat milk—to go with it. Eggs, if she wanted them. Fried fatback for the asking. We ate well.

  I said, "You feel better, huh?"

  She nodded and smiled nervously. I'm still glad there was no sudden thunder or lightning cracks that forenoon. She would have gone up like a rocket.

  I said, "You look better."

  She smiled again. "Thank you."

  I desperately wanted to talk about that wreck but thought it should wait awhile. She seemed too ginger as yet; still dazed and foggy in the head; viewing her new surroundings with all the courage of a lost doe.

  Mama went on, "While we was hair brushin', I tol' her exactly where we lived. Between the ports o' Norfolk an' Charleston out on sand islands." Mama laughed happily. "She'll see 'em soon enough."

  She'd already seen them but it hadn't mentally registered. I'd taken that girl from Hatteras Lighthouse to the snow-geese grounds at Pea Island. There wasn't a thing she hadn't seen but was unknowing of it all.

  I took another long look at her while she nibbled. Her daisy hair was neatly done and Mama had her in a long skirt and blouse, Lucy Scarborough's old shoes on her feet. There was some color back in her cheeks. She looked real fine.

  Mama said, "I tol' her we'd probably be callin' her Teetoncey a lot since her true name is new to us."

  Then this girl did a nice thing. She looked at Mama and said, "I understand."

  That proved to me she was refined and had good manners. I had earlier suspected, from the labels on her dress and in one shoe, worn the night she was flung up on the beach, that she
was also of means. No girl on the Banks had anything but a mail-order label on their dress collars. Of course, none of us knew much about rich people. Some came to Nag's Head in the summer to get away from miasmi, which is inland stinkery and germs. They seldom ventured this far south.

  Mama then said to Teetoncey, "That man who so rudely woke you up is Filene Midgett, of some kin to us. He's been pesterin' us for weeks about that wreck, an' wanted to talk to you. But I run him out an' I doubt he'll be back for a day or so."

  Having an interest in that possible discussion, I added, "He's a keeper with the Lifesaving Service. They have to make out wreck reports."

  The girl glanced over. "I'll be glad to talk to him although it all happened very quickly." A shadow passed over her face and Mama changed the subject but not before tears began to stream down from Tee's eyes.

  Mama gave me a sign with her head and I departed to go down to our little dock on the sound to work on my sailboat, Me and the John O'Neal Just putter around.

  That first day after Tee came out of her catatonic state was vexing for everyone. Coming into a strange place, with strange faces, knowing her folks were dead, it's a wonder she didn't crawl back into her head and never come out again.

  A little later, Mama walked down to the dock and said, "Go over to Mis' Scarborough an' ask her to git word to all the women that we're not to home for twenty-four hours. No visitin. Especially Hazel Burrus." That was wise.

  "How is she?" I asked.

  "Poor thing. She's either weepin' or jus' starin."

  As I went to the shed to get Fid's bridle, Mama called after me. "Keep Kilbie an' Frank away, too." They were my best friends and never off-limits. Harboring a castaway has its penalty.

  I nodded.

  Supper that night was not much better and Teetoncey had no more words than a baked duck, which is what we had to eat. But Mama went on, as usual. Tee fled the table midway and sprawled out on the bed, Mama following her close. I went on eating, unable to assist. The last I saw of Tee before I went to bed, she was on her belly on the rag rug, stroking Boo Dog, who was getting more enjoyment out of this than anybody.