Marrying Stone (16 page)

Meggie didn't share his humor.

"Jesse Best, that is just about enough of this kind of talk. Daylight comes mighty early in the morning." Her voice was stern.

"Don't come no earlier than usual" was Jesse's answer.

Meggie might have said something more, but Jesse leaned over toward her and dropped something in her direction. "Did you lose this?" he asked.

With horror Meggie stared at the slimy brown slug that landed on her bare foot.

"Varmint!" she screamed, jumping to her feet and hopping around frantically until the creature fell back to the ground.

"Jesse Best!"

Her brother was roaring with laughter. Roe couldn't help but join him.

"Don't you ever do that again!" she said. "Don't you ever."

"Stop yer yelling, Meggie, you'll wake Pa."

"Promise me, Jesse Best, promise me right now that you'll stop teasing me with these awful varmints."

"Meggie—" he whined.

"Promise."

Jesse sighed reluctantly. "All right I promise."

Roe cleared his throat, deliberately swallowing his own laughter and stifling his grin. "Well, I suppose that we'd better get ourselves to bed, Jesse. We do have quite a busy day planned for tomorrow. We're going to be plowing that cornfield nearly all day and then spending the evening seeing all those pretty gals."

"Oh!" Meggie rose to her feet in a huff and stormed back into the house to the privacy of her pallet.

Roe and Jesse grinned at each other in conspiracy.

THE LITERARY ON Marrying Stone Mountain was held on the new moon Friday, spring thaw through to the first bad weather of autumn, at the schoolhouse. For the Best family it was a two-hour trek walking the ridges. No one, however, complained. Jesse hooked the mule up to the skid: a low, narrow wagon bed on runners. Onery, favoring his bad leg, was seated inside. His clean, much mended overalls were as neat as he could manage and a bright choke rag necktie was knotted hastily around his throat. He made room on the narrow skid for a big black pot of venison stew and Roe's Ediphone Listening Box.

They were to take turns riding the mule. But when Jesse gave his turn to Meggie, Roe felt obliged to do likewise.

Jesse was slicked up brighter than a new penny. His homespun cotton shirt was sun-bleached to milky white and Meggie had carefully pressed the wrinkles out with a heated fireplace stone. His prize fiddle was carefully wrapped in bunting and carried in a tow sack that he slung over his shoulder.

Meggie's dress was plain homespun blue. It was faded now from many washings but still retained enough of the faint original color to bring out the blueness of her eyes. The style was deceptively simple, form-fitting only in the bodice, but it emphasized the youthful uplifted curve of her bosom and the narrowness of her waist, without drawing attention to the ample roundness of her derriere.

"Meggie looks pretty, don't she," Jesse said quietly to Roe.

He nodded. She was pretty in a simple country way. He had always thought so. And after catching sight of her in her bath, he knew it was true. He pushed that vision from his mind. Meggie Best was a kind, hardworking young woman with a bright mind and a vivid imagination. She also had a kiss that was sweeter than wild honey and a passionate side to her nature that could cause him to tremble.

Realizing how inappropriate his reactions to her were, Roe did his
best
to put Meggie completely out of his mind. He was a guest of this family, and should do nothing to take advantage of their hospitality.

"I guess Meggie will be one of the pretty gals we will see tonight," Roe said finally.

Jesse nodded and laughed. "Yep, she's mighty pretty, but she's my sister so I don't never say that to her or nothing."

Roe grinned.

By the time they pulled up in the clearing, the place was already packed. Jesse had hardly tied the mule to a tree when a gaggle of young women came running up to hug Meggie and talk all at once.

They were all dressed in either homespun cotton or store-bought calico, but clearly each and every one of them had prettied up to the very best of her abilities. Crocheted collars and bright satin ribbons were in abundance. Yet most, like Meggie, wore no shoes.

"Althea McNees is getting married!" was the excited news the girls had to deliver.

Meggie screamed with delight. "Who? Who's she to wed?"

The girls looked at each other.

"Paisley Winsloe's declared for her," Eda Piggott said finally.

"I know he was calling on you last winter," Polly Trace said quietly. "But I never heard you say you cared for him."

"Because I don't," Meggie answered, smiling. "But I hope he and Althea are plenty happy together. She's sweet, kindy quiet, but I always liked her."

The young women accepted this statement with complete assurance of its accuracy and the entire group would have run off together to leave the unloading to the menfolks if Eda Piggott hadn't caught sight of Roe Farley.

The young woman's bright brown eyes widened in appreciation and she smiled. Without so much as a word to the other girls, Eda stepped away from the group and approached Jesse.

"Evening, Simple Jess," she said with a quiet warmth that was simultaneously innocent and alluring. "Who's this fellow you got with you?"

Her brown eyes made a quick assessment from Roe's head to his toes. Clearly she liked what she saw.

"Hello, Miss Eda. This here is Roe. He's my frien'," Jesse answered with boastful pride.

His reply disconcerted Eda. Her face fell and she looked more closely at Roe as if to spot an expected weakness in his mind.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Eda," Roe said, bowing formally over the young lady's hand. "I'm a visitor to this mountain. And, as Jesse said, I'm his friend."

"Are you—? You're not—?" Eda couldn't quite get her question out.

She was saved by the arrival of the entire gaggle. Meggie, her chin held haughtily high, did the introduction. 'This is Mr. J. Monroe Farley who is visiting with us for the summer," she announced to the young ladies. "He's a scholar collecting songs and he has a machine that listens and repeats what you sing or say."

"For truth?" a redheaded girl asked. "I never heard of such a thing."

Surrounded by the group of mountain beauties, Roe explained, as best he could, the purpose and the performance of his work.

When the group, at Meggie's insistence, finally left to find Althea McNees and congratulate her, Roe chuckled. "No matter where you are or what are the circumstances, women are all the same."

Jesse nodded. "Yep. They all smell good."

"Yes, I guess that is so."

"That Eda Piggott she smells better than most, but she most times don't come close enough to speak to me."

Roe agreed. "Yes, I suspected she was rather shallow."

"Shallow?" Jesse asked. "Like in the river?"

Grinning, Roe nodded. "Yes, I guess so."

Jesse was thoughtful for a moment. "Oh, I see. A shallow woman is like a shallow place in the river. A man is not likely to find much of value there."

Roe clapped his friend on the back proudly.

The two men made their way up to the crowd gathered at a raised place on the hill between the poled pine school-house cabin and the tiny native stone church at the summit.

The church had been built by the two families to first settle on the mountain of the Marrying Stone, the Piggotts and the McNeeses. The late-afternoon sun cast shadows over most of the ground, but the church itself shone with bright golden highlights that disguised the faded whitewash on the pointed clapboard steeple.

The innocent-looking steeple had caused a long-standing feud in the community. Twenty years earlier it was decided that a real church needed a real church bell. The Piggott family had agreed to build a bell tower. The McNees brothers were charged with going down the mountain to find a proper church bell. And they had.

Spending the church's entire cash savings, they'd bought
an enormous brass bell from a near-empty Catholic monastery near Calico Rock. Hauling the huge piece of molded metal up the mountain had been a monumental task. The proud young men had been expecting the congregation's grateful thanks. But it hadn't worked out that way.

The bell was clearly too large and heavy for the flimsy tower built by the Piggotts. The McNees family wanted a new steeple. The Piggotts wanted the giant bell carted back down the mountain and traded for one of more reasonable size. It was typical of the Marrying Stone congregation that now, nearly twenty years later, the tiny steeple still rose over the large stone church and the huge brass bell sat on a small rock platform near the church's front door.

As Roe circulated among the menfolk gathered on the rise, Onery introduced him to all sizes and asundry of men named Piggott and McNees as well as in-laws, cousins, and shirttail kin of all descriptions. Roe attempted to talk about his project and ask about the local songs, but Onery interrupted him so frequently and changed the subject with such precision, he finally realized that maybe bringing up the subject on the first day of his introduction was not the best idea.

Following Onery's direction, Roe met and shook hands and shared pleasantries with man after man.

Buell Phillips, the storekeeper, was the leader of the small community. Although clearly Buell was more certain about his position as leader than any of the men he tried to lead. He kept his gangly young adolescent son, Oather, beside him. The boy was generally ill at ease among the menfolk and he spoke with gravity and feigned maturity; Roe wished he could simply instruct the fellow to go find his friends and have some fun.

Phillips was part of the Piggott family as was the tobacco-spitting Pigg Broody. The old man's streaked gray beard hung down nearly to the middle of his chest. His eyes were rheumy and glazed, but Roe thought he had a pretty lucid vision of the people and politics of his little community. He also had a wry humor that Roe could appreciate. And his way of talking was punctuated by amazingly propelled spits of tobacco and flourished with some of the most raw curse words that Roe had ever heard uttered.

Pastor Jay, the very aged and bent old man who tended this mountain flock, appeared not to notice Pigg's raucous speech. But then, the old preacher may not have noticed anything at all. Three different times he asked Roe who he was. And still, before the old man wandered off he told Roe that he "recognized him as one of Gid Weston's boys" and to "tell Gid that the preacher had asked about him."

Tom McNees was the undisputed head of the McNees portion of the Marrying Stone community. A rangy bachelor of middle years, Tom was a deep thinker and a thoughtful speaker. Not so his brother-in-law, Orv Winsloe, who seemed to say out loud whatever foolish, ignorant thought passed across his brain. Apparently the only thing that Tom and Orv had in common was Beulah Winsloe, Tom's sister and Orv's wife. Without even meeting Mrs. Winsloe, Roe was quite certain who ruled the roost at the rugged little farm that the three shared.

After nearly three quarters of an hour of meeting the menfolk and listening to their problems (coons in the corn crib) and successes (shot that thieving panther that was holed up near the summit), Roe found himself relaxing with these men as if they were simply more underclassmen at school.