The Run for the Elbertas (7 page)

BOOK: The Run for the Elbertas
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The drummer started off. “You stay till I see what my wife's after,” he said. I waited, and soon heard him returning, and the cow tunnels were filled with his laughter. He came back shaking with merriment. “That devil of a pony!” he said. “Oh, hit's a good thing we're leaving tomorry.”

We went to grabble ratsbane and the drummer chuckled all day. He was a fool about that nag. We dug till my back sprung; we dug till the sun-ball stooped in the sky.

Late in the afternoon we stood by the mill with a poke crammed full of roots. I breathed in the smell of cooking victuals and fairly starved. The drummer slapped the poke; he treated it like a human being. “I'll get your pay,” he said, and fetched a bottle out of the mill, a bottle no taller than my uncle-finger. “Hit's strong as Samson,” he said. “And wait. My wife's fixing something for your mother.”

“Is this medicine bound to work?” I asked, sliding the bottle inside of a pocket.

“Hit'll fix that mare right up, shore as Sunday-come-Monday.”

The nag walked around the millhouse. She stuck her head in the door, and drew back crunching an apple. The drummer
smiled. “See that thar. Didn't I say this hardtail's nigh one o' the family?”

“My colt's going to have folk sense,” I bragged.

“This pony's bound to stick her noggin into places,” the drummer said. His face wrinkled happily. The crown of his head shone. “Now, what do you reckon she found this morning? A chap's playhouse. Leave it to a long-nose beast to sniff things out. Me and my wife looked, and what we saw we couldn't believe, but thar it was to prove.”

“I'd give a pretty to know,” I pleaded. “I've got to larn.”

The drummer frowned. “For a good reason I don't want that place disturbed till we leave.” He scratched his headtop, undecided whether to tell. “Swear you won't take a look till we're on the road and gone?”

” 'Pon my word and deed.”

“Hit's yonder then,” he said, pointing to the lower side of the millhouse where the floor rested on high pillars. “I can't blame your sister for trying to scare us with talk o' spiders and lizards. Oh, she's a wild 'un.”

The drummer's woman brought a bowl capped with a lid. The plaits of her hair tipped her shoulders, and her eyes were sad as a ewe's. “Reckon we could steal a child off these folks?” she joked her man. “Five in their house. One wouldn't be missed.” She handed the bowl to me. “Take this cobbler to your mother. Tell her every berry's been split; tell it's safe to eat.”

I ran home, and my heart pounded as I went.

Mother sat alone with the baby. Father stirred soup in the kitchen, and I heard Lark and Zard quarreling there. I uncovered the cobbler, reaching it to Mother. The sweety smell rose in my face. My mouth watered. I spoke loudly, for Mother had plugs of wool in her ears to dim the cry of locusts; I said what the drummer's woman told me to say. The baby leaned to see. Then we heard Father coming, and Lark and Zard following. Mother whispered quickly, “I'm grateful, and hit's a pity to waste, yet we can't trust eating berries. Haste the
cobble-pie to the pig pen, and don't name to the others.” But time was only left to shove the bowl under the bed.

“All the locusts in Egypt couldn't make a racket equaling these two,” Father told Mother. “Fussing o'er nothing but who could blow the largest spool bubble. I mixed hope with that soup you'd soon be up and at these young 'uns. I biled enough to last two days.”

“I'll mend once the plague's ended,” Mother said. “Any day now the locusts will hush. I long to give these chaps a taste o' soap and water.”

“Fern come into the kitchen,” Father said, “and it tuck a minute to tell be she varmint or vixen. Hit'd worry the mare's currycomb to thrash the burrs.”

Zard peeked at the baby and sulled. He was green jealous. He dropped to his knees and crawled toward the bed. He scampered under.

“Another sight I glimpsed today,” Father went on, “and hit was that drummer's woman combing a nag's mane. I never stayed to see if she bowed it with ribbons.” He turned upon me, keeping his face sober. “And I've looked up our mare in the books. One more page-leaf to turn before knowing when.”

“Only would Fern take a lesson,” Mother said uneasily, making a sign. I snatched the bowl, and neither Lark nor Father noticed, for Mother raised the baby's head. Father chuckled, “See the bubble she's pucked with her mouth. Beats any you fellers can blow.”

“No bigger'n a pea,” Lark discounted.

Father snapped a thumb and forefinger. “Be-jibs, if we hain't got to get rid o' this little 'un. Not a kind word's allowed her.”

I stole away to the pig pen, uncovered the bowl, and found the berry cobbler half eaten. Zard had gobbled it. I was fearful, believing him poisoned, thinking he might die. I remembered the bottle of medicine. Could I persuade him to swallow a dose? A thought sprung in my head. I'd dose all—the mare, Mother, and Zard. The drummer had vowed it
would straighten out man or beast. They'd take medicine, and not know.

I hastened to the barn, pouring a knuckle's depth of the medicine into a scoop of oats. The mare poked her great yellow tongue into the grain; she ground her teeth. She ate the last bit, and licked the trough. She was mighty fat, I recollect.

On I hied to the house. I tipped inside the kitchen. There was the soup pot boiling on the stove, and I emptied nearly all of the medicine into it. All but one draft went into the soup.

Suddenly a
tick tick
sounded behind the stove. I thrust the bottle pocket-deep, and looked. It was Fern, hidden with a comb in her hand.

“Humph,” Fern said, hiding the comb. I could scarcely see her eyes through a brush of hair. She spoke threateningly, “I saw that baldy drummer show you where my playhouse is. If you go there, they's something will scare yore gizzard.”

“Humph,” I said, mocking.

The next morning the locusts had hushed. Cast skins clung to trunks and boughs, and it was as quiet as the first day of the world. Ere dew dried I waited in the bottom for the drummer folk to go. So great the stillness was, my breath seemed a thunder in my chest. I saw the drummer and his woman climb into their wagon and drive up-hill to our house; I saw Father shake the drummer's hand in farewell. Fern, Lark, and Zard were staring.

I crept to the lower side of the mill where the floor stood high. I crawdabbed under. Nothing I saw in Fern's playhouse, nothing save four stone pillars growing up, and an empty pan sitting. “Humph,” I thought.

I heard footsteps. I sprang behind a pillar. Fern came underneath the floor bringing a cup of milk and meat crumbs; she brought the bait from Father's traps. Her hair was combed slick and two plaits tipped her shoulders, woven like the drummer-woman's. My mouth fell open.

The milk was poured into the pan. Fern squatted beside it, calling, “Biddy, biddy, biddy,” and four little polecats came walking to lap the milk, and three big varmints began to
nibble the meat. I blinked, shivering with fright, and of a sudden the critters knew I was there, and Fern knew. The polecats vanished like weasel smoke.

I recollect Fern's anger. She didn't cry. She sat pale as any blossom, narrowing her eyes at me. But not a mad or meany word she spoke. The thing she said came measured and cold between tight lips.

“You hain't heard the baby's been tuck,” she said. “Poppy give it to the drummer.”

I stood frozen, more frightened than any varmint scare. When I could move I ran toward the house, running with loss aching inside of me.

I thrust my head in at the door. Father was carving spool pipes for Lark and Zard. Mother ate soup out of a bowl, and her lap and arms were empty. Mother was saying, “Now this is the best soup ever I did eat. Hit's seasoned just right.”

Father grinned. “You can allus tell when a body's getting well. They'll eat a feller out o' house and home.” He saw me standing breathlessly in the door; he laughed, not trying to keep his face grave. “Well, well,” he said, “I've closed the books on that mare. A colt's due tomorrow or the next day. That's a shore fact.”

“The baby!” I choked. “She's been tuck!”

“Baby?” Father asked, puzzled. “Why, thar she kicks on the bed, a-blowing bubbles and growing bigger'n the government.”

I turned, running away in shame and joy. I ran out to the mulberry tree. The fruit had fallen and the ground was like a great pie. I drew the medicine bottle from my pocket; I swallowed the last dose. I ate a bellyful of mulberries.

Journey to the Forks

“H
IT'S a far piece,” Lark said. “I'm afraid we won't make it afore dusty dark.” We squatted down in the road and rested on the edge of a clay rut. Lark set his poke on the crust of a nag's track, and I lifted the saddle-bags off my shoulder. The leather was damp underneath.

“We ought ne'er thought to be scholars,” Lark said.

The sun-ball had turned over the hill above Riddle Hargin's farm and it was hot in the valley. Grackles walked the top rail of a fence, breathing with open beaks. They halted and looked at us, their legs wide apart and rusty backs arched.

“I knowed you'd get dolesome ere we reached Troublesome Creek,” I said. “I knowed it was a-coming.”

Lark drew his thin legs together and rested his chin on his knees. “If'n I was growed up to twelve like you,” he said, “I'd go along peart. I'd not mind my hand.”

“Writing hain't done with your left hand,” I said. “It won't be ag'in' you larning.”

“I oughtn't to tried busting that dinnymite cap,” Lark said. “Hit's a hurting sight to see my left hand with two fingers gone.”

“Before long it'll seem plumb natural,” I said. “In a little spell they'll never give a thought to it.”

The grackles called harshly from the rail fence.

“We'd better eat the apples while we're setting,” I said. Lark opened the poke holding a Wilburn and a Henry Back.
“You take the Wilburn,” I told him, for it was the largest. “I choose the Henry Back because it pops when I bite it.”

Lark wrapped the damp seeds in a bit of paper torn from the poke. I got up, raising the saddle-bag. The grackles flew lazily off the rails, settling into a linn beside the road, their dark wings brushing the leaves like shadows.

“It's nigh on to six miles to the forks,” I said.

Lark asked to carry the saddle-bag a ways, so I might rest. I told him, “This load would break your bones down.” I let him carry my brogans though. He tied the strings into a bow and hung them about his neck.

We walked on, stepping among hardened clumps of mud and wheel-brightened rocks. Cow bells clanked in a redbud thicket on the hills, and a calf bellowed. A bird hissed in a persimmon tree. I couldn't see it, but Lark glimpsed its flicking tail feathers.

“A cherrybird's nigh tame as a pet crow,” Lark said. “Once I found one setting her some eggs and she never flew away. She was that trusting.”

Lark was tiring now. He stumped his sore big toe twice, crying a mite.

“You'll have to stop dragging yore feet or put on shoes,” I said.

“My feet would get raw as a beef if'n I wore shoes all the way till dark,” Lark complained. “My brogans is full o' pinchers. If'n I had me a drap o' water on my toe, hit would feel a sight better.”

Farther on we found a spring drip. Lark held his foot under the cool stream. He wanted to scramble up the bank to find where the water seeped from the ground. “Thar might be a spring lizard sticking hits head out o' the mud,” he said. I wouldn't give in to it, so we went on, the sun-ball in our faces, and the road curving beyond sight.

“I've heared tell they do quare things at the fork school,” Lark said, “yit I've forgot what it was they done.”

“They've got a big bell hung square up on some poles,” I
said, “and they ring it before they get up o' mornings and when they eat. They got a little sheep bell to ring in the schoolhouse before and betwixt books. Dee Finley tuck a month's schooling there, and he told me a passel. Dee says it's a sight on earth the washing and scrubbing and sweeping they do. Says they might' nigh take the hide off o' floors a-washing them so much.”

“I bet hit's the truth,” Lark said.

“I've heard Mommy say it's not healthy keeping dust breshed in the air, and a-damping floors every day,” I said. “And Dee says they've got a passel o' cows in a barn. They take and wet a broom and scrub every cow before they milk. Dee reckons they'll soon be breshing them cows' teeth.”

“I bet hit's the truth,” Lark said.

“All that messing around don't hurt them cows none. They get so much milk everybody has a God's plenty.”

The sun-ball dropped behind the beech woods on the ridge. It grew cooler. We rested again in a horsemint patch, Lark spitting on his big toe, easing the pain. Lark said, “I ought ne'er thought to be a scholar.”

“They never was a puore scholar amongst all our folks,” I recalled. “Never a one went all the way through the books and come out yon side. I've got a notion doing it.”

“Hit'd take a right smart spell,” Lark said.

We were ready to go on when a sound of hoofs came up the valley. They were far off and dull. We waited, resting this bit longer. A bright-faced nag rounded the creek curve, lifting hoofs carefully along the wheel tracks. Cain Griggs was in the saddle, riding with his feet out of the stirrups, for his legs were too long to fit. He halted beside us, looking down where we sat. We stood up, shifting our feet.

“I reckon yore pappy's sending his young 'uns down to the forks school,” Cain guessed. “Going down to stay awhile and git a mess o' fool notions.”

“Poppy never sent us,” I said. “We made our own minds.”

Cain lifted his hat and scratched his head. “I never put much store by all them fotched-on teachings, a-larning quare onnatural things, not a grain o' good on the Lord's creation.”

BOOK: The Run for the Elbertas
7.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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