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Authors: Jan Watson

BOOK: [Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek
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“Is that an appropriate thing for a young lady to say?” Mam arched an eyebrow. “Though the thought does have merit. Let’s sit on the porch in the shade for a minute and catch our breath. I’ll get some tea.”
Copper sat on the plank floor, letting her legs dangle off the side, watching the wash flap in the summer breeze. Mam was being nice; it made her feel guilty about sneaking out of the house last night.
Lord,
Copper prayed silently, selfishly,
please don’t let Mam find out.
“Laura Grace,” Mam said through the screen door, “have you seen the blackberry jam? I thought I put out a new jar this morning.”
“No, ma’am. I had honey on my biscuit.”
“I don’t understand what is happening around here lately.” Mam handed Copper a glass of tea. “Things keep disappearing. Last week it was the sugar bowl. The week before, my tortoiseshell comb. I’ve got to keep a better eye on the boys, though they deny any wrongdoing.”
“Maybe it’s a raccoon. Remember a couple of years ago when one stole all of Daddy’s quarters?”
“But a sugar bowl, Laura Grace?” Mam took off her spectacles and pinched the bridge of her nose. “That doesn’t seem possible.”
“I don’t know, Mam. They have hands just like a man. Maybe they pair up and one holds the door open while the other one pilfers from our kitchen.”
Mam shook her head. “Your imagination. I sure miss my comb. I’ll have to order another. . . . If it is coons we’ll have to keep the windows down at night. They’ll tear up the screens.”
Copper fanned her face with her hand and sipped her tea. “Oh, that would be miserable hot, Mam. We should just let Paw-paw sleep in the kitchen. He’d scare the varmints away.”
“Yes, and eat everything in the house at the same time,” Mam declared. “That dog would be worse than the raccoons.”
After a few minutes of resting from the morning’s labor, Copper stood and stretched, rubbing the sore spot on her lower back—the one that appeared like clockwork every Monday, following hours of stirring a pot of heavy laundry.
By afternoon, Mam went inside to start supper, saying she had a mess of pole beans to snap.
Copper gathered the sun-dried, sweet-smelling laundry, then folded towels, dishrags, and the boys’ everyday clothes. She piled them in a basket to put away directly. After supper, she’d sprinkle clean water over the starched whites and Sunday clothes. Then she’d roll them up, tuck them into the woven laundry basket, and cover it with a damp towel ready for ironing. She’d help Mam with that tomorrow.
She’d saved her least favorite job for last—scrubbing down the outhouse. She poured a bucket of soapy water from the cooling copper kettle and carried it to the two-seater. They kept an old, nubby straw broom in the corner, and she used its handle to knock down a fresh mud dauber’s nest, closing her eyes against the dust, hoping the wasp wouldn’t fly in and take revenge.
Just who,
she wondered,
would scrub the outhouse if Mam sent me away? And who would milk the cow? Who would mind the boys?
It seemed like she did enough work to warrant her place in the household. She felt certain that if she left for a few days Mam would see that she couldn’t get along without her.
Sticking her broom in the bucket of water, she scrubbed the bench seat, then sluiced water out and washed the floor. She used the damp broom to swipe spiderwebs out of the corners and sprinkled lye down the toilet hole. It left a fresh, clean smell.
Pleased with a job well done, Copper finished the task by placing sheets of torn newsprint in the basket kept for that purpose. She put the broom back in the corner. It would be handy in case there was a lizard lurking about. One good whack against the bench would send the beady-eyed, nosy little creature scurrying away. Lastly, she propped the door open so the sun and breeze could freshen and dry the toilet.
She dreaded the thought of more work waiting for her back at the house. The porch needed mopping; the steps needed scouring. And the rinse water needed emptying into the barrel kept to store water clean enough to use again for baths or to clean the house. Nothing was wasted.
As she worked, Copper pondered things she’d heard Mam and Daddy say. She’d caught snippets of conversation before— “finishing school,” “old enough,” “better for her,” and the dreadful “young lady”—but she’d always thought Daddy’s will would prevail. She’d never fretted about it. But since her fifteenth birthday, things had subtly shifted. She was afraid Mam was wearing Daddy down.
She was glad she’d met with John last night. He would help her find a place to hide out when she needed it. One thing was sure and it grew surer as each day passed: Copper Brown was not going to boarding school. She was not leaving Troublesome Creek.
 
A hint of fall tinted the air the next day when Copper went out to milk. She was sure she could smell burning leaves, though they were just beginning to turn, and the early morning air had a crispness about it, but that wouldn’t last much past sunup. It was so quiet she could hear the creek burbling down its bed, and the mountains that surrounded their cabin stood like noble sentries, guarding her day. Oh, she loved this place.
Her favorite Scripture played like a familiar melody in her mind:
“Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer.”
She couldn’t wait to get up there where the morning’s hush would surround her with peace so palpable you could wear it like a shawl.
She found her cow at the stable door waiting for breakfast. “Come on, Molly.” She pestered the fat cow, holding her feed bucket just out of reach, making the lazy animal enter the stall before she got a bite. “That’s a good girl. Have some.”
Molly licked the corners of the grain box with her big rough tongue, enjoying every morsel of her breakfast, then nibbled at the hay sticking out of the manger before leaning her head against it and falling asleep. The cow snored like a man. There was something hypnotic about the pull and swish of milking: the same movements over and over ’til all four teats were stripped, Molly’s udder was empty, and the bucket was full.
Copper patted the cow’s round, fawn-colored side. She remembered the malicious Beulah who would wait until the milking was nearly done, then shift her weight and stick one manure-clotted foot right in the bucket or swing her tail hate-fully, catching Copper upside her face. She’d take Molly over Beulah anytime, especially today, when she was in a hurry to finish her morning chores. She had to act as if she wasn’t, though, as if it were any other Tuesday.
She carried her full bucket to the springhouse. Daddy’s daddy had built it out of thick blocks of limestone over a spring that bubbled up icy cold from the ground; it was always cool. There were square openings in the stone floor through which you could lower the milk or whatever else needed to be kept cold into the water below.
She poured the milk through a strainer into another bucket, tapped the lid on, hung the bucket on a rope, then gently lowered it into the water. They always had fresh milk, plenty of butter and cheese, and every third day, Mam gave the milk to whoever came to the door for it. Aggravated as she was with Mam, Copper had to admit that she was awfully good to people. She kept a little purse tucked away in the chiffonier and every so often, when Brother Isaac—who had taken over the pulpit when his father, Nathan, died not long after he had returned from Lexington with this teaching certificate—told her of a need, she’d take it out and press bills into his hand. Her only request was that he not tell where the money came from. Sometimes Copper wondered what Mam’s life had been like before she came to live with them. Daddy told her a little bit, but Mam didn’t want to talk about it.
Copper liked the springhouse and usually lingered there looking through the holes to spy frogs or turtles. But she hurried now, scouring the milk bucket and the strainer, anxious to be off.
She carried a crock of fresh cream to the house, where Mam was ironing, then sat at the table and ate her breakfast. The heavy sadiron hissed when Mam took it from the stove and pressed it across the damp starched fabric of Daddy’s Sunday shirt.
“I never found that jar of jam,” Mam fussed as if the missing fruit were a personal affront. “And it was the final jar of blackberry from last year too.” She sprinkled water from her hand across the yoke of the shirt.
“That’s okay, Mam. This marmalade’s fine with me. I like how we wait ’til the first snowfall before we open the summer’s canning. Seems that makes it all the sweeter.”
“I should be finished with the whites by noon.” Mam finished the shirt, then folded a sheet in quarters and smoothed it across the ironing board. “Then you can get to the rest of the ironing. I’ll save the pillowcases for you.”
“Thanks.” Copper loved to do the pillowcases. They were so easy, and she liked the embroidered edges. “I’ll be really careful not to scorch them today.”
“Everyone has to learn. I burned my share of linens,” Mam admitted.
Copper nearly choked on her biscuit. Mam burned linens? Copper was sure that never happened but once.
“I was married to your father before I ever hefted an iron. At home we had a woman who came in and did the wash.” Mam’s voice was wistful.
She was making Copper feel guilty, being so nice. Copper could almost forget that Mam was plotting to send her to boarding school. Almost.
 
After breakfast, Copper sneaked off to meet with John Pelfrey, but Paw-paw wouldn’t stay behind. “All right, but you’ll have to keep my secret. No telling the barn cats!”
Paw-paw snuffled at her hand, then trotted to keep up. He was Copper’s pet—a gift for her fourth birthday. Eleven years later, his muzzle was gray, and one leg didn’t bend anymore. Daddy said he had rheumatism and let him sleep in the house by the fireplace on cold nights.
John was waiting for her at the edge of the cow pasture. “I was thinking we’d look there.” He pointed up the mountain. “Yonder, past the graveyard. I remember some caves from once when I was fox hunting.”
“How did you get away today?”
“I just laid down my shovel and walked off. Ain’t like nobody watches me work, Pest.”
“You’re so lucky to be a boy.” Copper kicked the dirt, frowning. “Every move I make is minded.”
They climbed steadily—she trying to match his long stride, he pausing occasionally to let her catch up.
“Have you been here ’fore today?” he asked, stopping at the entrance to the cemetery.
“Only when Granny Pelfrey died. I was maybe five. Why do you think our folks are all buried in the same place?”
“Probably because we’re close as kin. You want to go in?” He tore a length of Virginia creeper vine from the iron gate and forced it open.
“I don’t think so,” Copper replied but took his hand as he led the way inside the graveyard. “It’s creepy in here, John.”
“Nah, it ain’t. There’s nobody in here that’s not family. Mind the poison ivy.” He gestured to a thicket not six inches from her foot. “Hold your skirts up. The poison will climb right up you.”
“Look, here’s Granny Pelfrey’s grave. Do you remember her?”
“’Course I do. Don’t you recollect she lived with us ’til she died?”
“She used to take me up the mountain to look for herbs and mushrooms.” Copper brushed some twigs from the grave. “I still remember lots of things Granny taught me. She knew how to fix about anything that ails a body.”

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