A Peach For Big Jim

by Lisa Belmont

  Momma and I got the clothes washed real good and wrung out to dry. I’d never been as tuckered as when we hung the last stocking on the line. It was a wonder I had half a mind to remember Big Jim at all.

  Momma went over things with Widow Jones for the morning chores, and I slipped off to the library. Widow Jones had all kinds of books from colorful picture books all the way up to ones that I bet Miss Lilly hadn’t ever read, like Ulysses by James Joyce. I found a stack of Dick and Jane books in a wicker basket and put them in a satchel. On my way out, I asked Widow Jones if I could take them.

  “Sure, honey,” she said, glancing at the covers. I was grateful she didn’t ask me any questions, unlike Pa.

  When I got home, he asked me all about them. I think he was already in a sour mood because he felt like his little Buttercup was having to get a job because he couldn’t support his family.

  “We ain’t taking no charity.”

  “These ain’t charity, Pa,” I said, taking out a Dick and Jane book.

  He looked at the title and said, “What you doin’ reading them kiddy books? Got tired of those snooty English books Miss Lilly has you reading?”

  “No,” I said. “I just like the pictures. I’m learning to draw.”

  “Draw, huh?”

  “Yeah, like Grandma Moses.”

  I’d seen a magazine article about her paintings at Widow Jones’ and figured it sounded reasonable.

  “I expect that’s all right for a young gal to draw,” he said, eyeing Caleb like he’d better not get any ideas.

  Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Chapter Nine

  For the next couple of days, I made an attempt at drawing to convince Pa I was serious. I’d sit outside in one of the spindled chairs and do my best to replicate a squirrel with a bushy tail or a Carolina wren with its signature white throat. I’d watch as it’d hold up its tail while foraging for insects and then put it down when it started singing.

  Course, my drawings were never good, and I finally came up with the bright idea that I’d tell Pa I needed to immerse myself in the woods to really do my artwork justice. That way, I figured, when I went to teach Big Jim to read, Pa would think I was drawing up a storm.

  “Uh-huh,” he said at the breakfast table while reading Li’l Abner. Pa thought the world of that comic strip, always laughing at something Daisy Mae or Pappy Yokum did. I didn’t have the heart to tell Pa that the writer of them hillbilly stories was from New Haven, Connecticut.

  “You just make sure you’re within hollerin’ distance and don’t be staying out after dark,” he said, like he was wishing I’d take up something useful like darning his socks.

  Pa knew I’d never stay out after dark, but I was glad my little story worked anyway. Pa left for the sawmill early that morning, and Momma took off for Widow Jones. I decided I’d head down to the little creek where Caleb and I used to play and, at least, try to come up with some half-decent drawings so I could show Pa if he ever asked. That way, at least I wouldn’t be exactly lying.

  I trudged through the overgrown sedge grass and found a little spot beneath a beech tree. It was a cool, damp spot where the rain had formed little puddles. A few squirrels chattered about, and a rabbit scurried into a hole. I got out the charcoal pencils Miss Lilly had given me at the end of the school year and leaned against the tree, trying to think how in the world I was gonna draw anything worthwhile.

  I made a few haphazard attempts at a river birch and then moved to a moss-covered oak. I never could get the lacy feel of all that spongy moss and finally gave up. Pa would have to be satisfied that he wasn’t gonna have no Rembrandt in the family.

  I gathered the charcoal pencils, thinking I’d go find Big Jim, when I heard Caleb singing up at the house. His voice sounded something awful through the open windows. It was a wonder he didn’t scare away them birds.

  There are a few things I’d never seen my brother do and singing without a fiddle or banjo was one of them. I was curious as all get-out and hightailed it back to the house.

  Rufus met me on the porch and wagged his tail. At least he didn’t get to barking though. I set my drawing materials on the table and walked real slow to the bathroom. Pa was always talking about how we were gonna get indoor plumbing like the rest of the civilized world, but until then, we were stuck hauling water in from the well and heating it on the coal stove.

  Caleb was the last one to ever wanna take a bath. That’s what struck me so odd about it. I just stood there with my ear pressed to the door while them lyrics wafted through the house.

  You saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own, blue moon.

  I liked to died. Caleb was smitten.

  “Chloe, that you?” he hollered, as I snickered real loud.

  “No, it’s just Cupid saying I want my arrow back.”

  “Chloe Jane!” he hollered. “You get outta here!”

  I don’t know what got into me, but I went and got the key from Pa’s drawer and shoved it in the keyhole. I covered my eyes and pushed open the bathroom door.

  “Caleb’s sweet on Emma Kate,” I sang.

  “Am not,” he said. “Now get outta here.”

  I peeked through my fingers and saw that Caleb was covered in suds thicker than the meringue Momma put on her pies. He was sunk way down in that claw-foot tub like he was trying to get real good and clean.

  “You know you never take no baths,” I said, wandering to the little vanity where Momma kept her bottles of Yardley English lavender that Widow Jones gave her at Christmas.

  Sitting on the vanity was a navy blue tube of Old Spice shaving cream. Pa never used nothing fancy like that. He’d take a razor and sharpen it on a strap of leather.

  I picked up the shaving cream and pretended like I was reading the label. “Drive the women wild with the scent of the sea.”

  I held the tube to my nose and acted like I was fainting with pleasure.

  “Put that down.”

  “You ain’t got no whiskers no how.”

  “Have so. I just shave ‘em off before you see ‘em.”

  “You ain’t getting all gussied up for the picnic social out at Uncle Hickory’s, are you?” I said, noticing his real nice clothes laid out on the hamper.

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you gonna kiss Emma Kate?”

  “Ain’t none of your business,” he said, throwing a towel at me.

  I grabbed the towel and his good Sunday clothes and locked him in the bathroom. I figured this would get him back for chasing me around the house with a snake.

  I ran outside, past Momma’s clothesline, and made a beeline for the creek. Caleb popped out the screen and climbed out the window like he was fit to be tied.

  Down by the creek, the grass stood taller than a deer antler. It hid me real good until Caleb came barreling through with one of Momma’s sheets tied around his waist. He looked like he was fixing to swat my hide good.

  I panicked and took off for the pond that Pa said was infested with copperheads. Turkey Walk Trail, we called it. It was surrounded on either side by spartina grass. Caleb followed me, his bare feet skimming over pebbles and dried leaves like he was skating on glass. When we were kids, we used to go down to the salt marshes and come back covered in the rich scent of pluff mud. We’d find oysters in their beds and hunt for fiddler crabs, sometimes bringing one home to play with in a bowl of salty water. Sometimes, I wondered if Caleb and I would ever be that close again.

  I stopped at the pond and held Caleb’s clothes over the water. He skidded to a halt and put his hands on his hips, drawing in great gulps of air.

  “You better swear, Caleb Mason, that you won’t chase me around with them snakes no more.”

  “I swear,” he said, holding the sheet with one hand and reaching for his good shirt and pants with the other.

  “Ain’t no going back on your word, now.” />
  Since last year, Caleb’s frame had started filling in so that sometimes I hardly recognized him. His chest was almost as big as Joss’s, and his biceps were downright huge. All that hunting and shooting had kept him in shape, I guess. I don’t know why it startled me, but I suddenly realized my brother was becoming a man.

  Caleb grabbed his clothes and started back to the house.

  I hollered after him, “She’s stuck up, you know.”

  He turned around and gave me a hard stare that kinda melted away in the afternoon light.

  “I know.”

  I ain’t never seen Emma Kate or her little sister, Margaret, for that matter, wear the same dress twice to church.

  “Don’t that bother you?”

  “Not much I can do about it,” he said, kicking at the roots of an old hickory. “A man’s heart does what it wants.”

  I stayed there awhile more, watching as he took off through the overgrown sedge. It kind of waved around him, like it understood where he was coming from.

  Maybe that was my problem, too. My heart was doing what it wanted.

  A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, I stuffed my satchel full of Dick and Jane books and left for the woods. It didn’t take long to find Big Jim. He was down by the swamp near a willow tree. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what he was looking at until I got real close and saw a beehive. Them bees were all riled up, buzzing like they were ready to sting the heck out of something.

  “What ya doin’?” I hollered.

  “Them bees like me,” Big Jim said, reaching his hand right into the middle of all that buzzing. I waited for him to start caterwauling like Caleb did last summer. He’d treed a coon and darn near shot the hive to pieces. Those bees were mad as all get-out and got him good.

  Big Jim took his hand out, real slow and steady like. The bees crawled over his fingers like they were dripping in honey, but not a one of them stung him. I think they knew how gentle he was. That, no matter what, Big Jim wasn’t gonna hurt nobody.

  The bees stayed on his fingers awhile longer, like they’re wondering if he was a flower. They were probably so gorged on honey; they couldn’t fly straight. He spread his fingers wide, and they got to moving some like they were saying, We’d love to stay, but we’ve got to be going. The queen will be mad if we don’t get back to the hive.

  I watched a few of them take off, one after the other, slowly making their way back to the hive. A few of them lingered though like they couldn’t bear to leave.

  “If that don’t beat all,” I said.

  It did, too. Most folks around here got stung bad when they messed with a beehive.

  I pulled a Dick and Jane book out of my satchel. “This is for you, Big Jim. I’ll teach you to read.”

  “You’ll teach me?”

  “Sure as I’m standing here.”

  He looked at the cover with a blond girl and brown-eyed boy.

  “I ‘spect that’s where I need to start. With them kids.”

  “Don’t pay no attention to them folk over on Ashford, Big Jim. You ain’t feebleminded.”

  “I ain’t?”

  “Ain’t no way no feebleminded person can stick their hand in a beehive. Or catch as many fish as you do.”

  “I reckon so.”

  He said it so serious that we looked at each other and broke out laughing. It was one of them real good belly laughs that goes all the way down to your toes. I think it caught us both off guard, and we just stood there while the rest of the bees flew from his hand.

  I couldn’t explain how knowing he’d protected me made all the other things I’d heard about him disappear. I think that’s why I led Big Jim to the swamp chestnut that grew a ways back from the water. It had a huge trunk that soared to the sky and a crown of leaves that gave lots of shade. It was infamous in these parts. Some folks said the legendary Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, had shot British soldiers during the Revolutionary War from this tree. I doubted it was that old, but still, it gave me and Big Jim a place to read without having to worry about the gators.

  “You know your ABCs?” I said, as I sat against the tree.

  “Don’t know nothing ‘bout readin’.”

  “Okay, then we’ll start with the letter A,” I said, drawing it in uppercase. “It’s the first letter of the word apple,” I said, drawing a little apple beside it.

  Big Jim nodded, and I kept going until I’d drawn a bee beside the letter B, a cat beside the letter C, and so on.

  “There shore is a lot of them letters,” Big Jim said, scratching his head.

  “I know. It must look awful intimidating,” I said, wondering if Hattie Mae could read. “Okay, so you learn these letters and the sounds they make and then we’ll move on to putting letters together. That’s how you make words.”

  “Yessum,” Big Jim said, looking at the piece of paper.

  “You can make any word you want just by putting them letters together.”

  Big Jim nodded like he was mulling the whole thing over.

  “Miss Chloe?”

  “Yes, Big Jim.”

  “How long you ‘spect this is gonna take?”

  “To learn to read? Quite a while, I’d say.”

  Big Jim looked up at the branches of the swamp chestnut. Soon they’d be dripping in acorns that the deer and squirrels would eat.

  “What’ll we do when it rains?”

  I hadn’t thought about it.

  “I best be building us a shelter,” he said.

  If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

  Frederick Douglass

  Chapter Eleven

  It was three days later when I met Big Jim at the swamp.

  I hurried through the tall grass, letting Rufus chase me. When I got to the swamp chestnut, I couldn’t believe what Big Jim had done. He’d built a fort tucked way up high in the branches. You had to crane your neck to see it, but it was there – the boards the same color as the tree limbs. I was glad it was disguised so well. Made me think Pa wasn’t gonna find us.

  There was even a rope ladder that hung down so you could climb up. I think that’s when I knew how much reading really meant to Big Jim.

  I climbed the rope ladder and stepped onto the weathered slats he’d used to make the floor of the fort.

  “Where’d you get all these boards?” I asked, admiring the four walls and flat roof.

  “Them boards are left over from the sawmill.”

  The sawmill? I hoped Pa and Joss didn’t see him taking no boards. I got to feeling kinda nervous and looked out the cutout window.

  “You sure this will hold?”

  “This fort ain’t going nowhere. Not unless you plan on burning down the tree.”

  I had to admit it was framed up real sturdy like.

  “Big Jim, I’d say you’re a regular carpenter.”

  “Yessum.”

  I’d brought a satchel full of pencils and paper and sat beside him, asking if he’d studied his letters.

  “Yessum,” he said, looking down at the sheet of paper I’d made for him. “I studied ‘em real good.”

  “Why don’t you tell me the letters starting with A.”

  “Yessum,” he said, putting his finger on the letter A.

  He struggled with a few of the letters, like Q and W, but all in all, we got through them without much problem.

  “You did study, Big Jim,” I said, beaming like Miss Lilly when she’d hand out them papers marked 100 %.

  “Okay, now we’re gonna learn how to write ‘em,” I said, handing Big Jim a pencil. “You copy those letters just like I wrote ‘em.”

  Big Jim took the pencil and did his best to copy them. I’d never seen someone so consumed with trying before.

  I watched him a spell, his brow wrinkled up real serious like. I hoped he wouldn’t take it the wrong way,
but I asked anyhow.

  “How come you wanna read so bad?”

  He looked up, thinking about what I’d asked.

  “I ‘spect it’s cuz I can’t,” he said. “Ain’t nothing a body wants to do more than something it can’t.”

  He went back to writing, and I thought about all the nights I’d sleep with a kerosene lamp glowing like a lightning bug at my side. Or the times Pa would get up and walk me to the outhouse. Sometimes I didn’t know what to pray for – a bigger bladder or not to be afraid of the dark.

  It didn’t seem like I had much chance of either one. That’s why I knew what Big Jim said was true. Ain’t nothing more you want than something you can’t have.

  Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning at breakfast, Caleb asked me if I wanted to go down to the river. One of his favorite things to do was go looking for old shipwrecks along the Ashley. He and Henry would usually go, wading along the muddy banks and stirring up the sediment something awful. Seemed like they were gonna come home with a sack full of gold coins, but all they ever found was an old gator skull, a wood cask, and some musket parts.

  Over the years, a lot of boats had sunk in the Ashley, including a plantation ship from 1792. I didn’t especially like the idea of dredging up some old pirate ship, but Caleb convinced me, telling me he’d take over for a week in the vegetable garden if I helped him search along the shore.

  Momma didn’t like the idea, but she didn’t stop us. She tossed a handful of birdseed to the larks and told us to be careful.

  “Rumrunners and slave owners,” Caleb said, with a gleam in his eye. “Who knows what they had on them ships?”

  After lunch, Caleb and I put on our denim britches and I stuck my hair in a couple of pigtails. We took a knapsack, in case we found anything interesting, and started off for the Ashley. It was a warm afternoon and Rufus tagged along, stopping at the swamp every so often to get a drink.