Blue Ridge Billy

by Lois Lenski

  “They might could.” Jeb shrugged his shoulders. “But not likely. Nobody in the mountains has got money.”

  Billy knew that was true. Only Granny Trivett with her pockets full to buy a new cow. And nobody could steal that because she had it fastened in safe with safety-pins.

  “You’ll get your credit when the baskets sell,” said Jeb.

  Billy wished Jerusha Wilcox and Lucy Sutherland would go, but they didn’t. They seemed to be waiting for him to leave first.

  He walked slowly out the door, his shoulders hunched. Those last words of Jeb’s kept echoing through his mind: “When the baskets sell …” “When the baskets sell …” He couldn’t forget that long row of Uncle Pozy’s baskets, hanging from the ceiling of the store, that would have to sell first.

  Billy walked slowly toward the hitching rack, when suddenly, out from the corner of the building sprang Burl Moseley. “Where’s my horse?” he demanded.

  Billy laughed. “Don’t you know your Mam’s sick and your Pappy told Granny Trivett to go take care of her?”

  “If that Sarey-gal’s racin’ my horse again, I’ll, I’ll——”

  “Granny Trivett’s takened your nag, I tell you,” repeated Billy. “How else could she get all the way over to Buckwheat Holler? Are you dumb as a dead crow?”

  “Don’t you dare insult me!” shouted Burl. He jumped on Billy and threw him to the ground. They rolled over in a fight.

  “Got a git-tar, have you?” yelled Billy. “Let me break hit over your dumb head. Got new shoes, have you? Go soak ’em in a mud puddle.”

  The guitar was nowhere to be seen, but the new shoes were badly scuffed by the time the fight was over and Burl was left lying in the road. Billy dusted his hands off and walked away.

  Not till he got back to the hitching rack did he notice that Old Bet was gone.

  Then he saw her—Sarey Sue on the little gray mule, with the sack of flour perched up in front of her. She had gone off up the Honeysuckle Hollow road and was coming back. Miss Viney, the postmistress, appeared just as Jerusha Wilcox and Lucy Sutherland came out of the store. Mrs. Pappy Weaselface and her four children got down from a wagon that had just come over and stopped.

  “Lordy mercy!” Mrs. Pappy put her hands on her hips and stared. “A gal young un a-ridin’ a mule, and a-straddle at that!”

  She laughed, and the other women laughed too, as Sarey Sue went trotting by.

  Billy turned away. Women-folks just didn’t ride mules nor sit astride. Sarey Sue was always doing something dumb or silly, and getting herself laughed at. This was even worse than riding other people’s horses. She’d been waiting around, so he would see her. Let her take Old Bet—Billy did not care.

  He drew a deep breath and walked on.

  “You gotta walk that lonesome valley,

  You gotta walk it all alone;

  Ain’t nobody gonna walk it for ye

  You gotta walk it by yourself …”

  The words: You got to walk that lonesome valley kept repeating themselves over and over. A banjo! He’d better forget it—it was an impossible dream. And baskets. Hardest things in the world to make and no sale for them, because all the mountain people had plenty of their own. Why work so hard?

  Billy looked up to see where he was. He hadn’t taken the Roundabout Creek road at all. He had started off in the opposite direction to get away from Sarey Sue, and here he was, well on the road to Last Hope Hollow where Uncle Jamie lived. Uncle Jamie and the boys. He hadn’t seen them for a long time.

  It was wonderful at Uncle Jamie’s house. They were all so glad to see him. It was just dinnertime when he got there.

  “Come set your feet under the table,” called Aunt Tallie in her cheerful voice.

  The invitation brought them all running. Billy sat beside Glen, and Rick beside Jack on the long side benches, with Uncle Jamie at the head. Aunt Tallie and Ettie Bell began to pile fried chicken on their plates, fill their glasses with buttermilk and pass biscuits, hot from the oven every minute or two. Now and then Ettie Bell waved the paper fly-brush over their heads, to shoo the flies away.

  After dinner, Billy told them about his dulcimer, and that got them started on their songs. They were the “singingest family” in the county, everybody said. They sang old songs and made up new ones of their own. Some of their songs were sad and mournful, but many of them were funny. They sang some funny ones today and Billy just had to laugh.

  Uncle Jamie got out his fiddle and played. Even though there were crops to make, Uncle Jamie sat down and fiddled and patted his foot as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  Billy watched, fascinated. “How do you do it, Uncle Jamie?”

  “Well, you just scatter about and pick up a tune,” said Uncle Jamie, smiling, “and then you rattle hit out with your fingers and the bow. You don’t use notes, you just play by the feel of it.… If you ever want to try hit, son, I’ll learn you how.”

  Billy liked the new song that Glen and Rick had made up, and he sang it all the way home:

  “Rye straw,

  Rye straw,

  Rye straw!

  I wish I had a thousand bricks

  To build my chimney higher,

  To keep the neighbors’ cussed cats

  From scratching out my fire!

  Rye straw,

  Rye straw,

  Rye straw!

  I bored a hole in Brindle’s horn,

  And there I tied a string;

  I led her to the river side

  And there I plunged her in!

  Rye straw,

  Rye straw,

  Rye straw!”

  CHAPTER IX

  The Hound Pup

  “What you doin’, son?” asked Mammy.

  “Just a-lookin’ at the wish-book,” answered Billy. He was stretched out on the porch, his chin cupped in his hands, with the open mail-order catalogue before him. One page showed banjos and the other guitars.

  “Don’t set your heart on the moon, son,” said Mammy.

  She sat down in the split-oak rocker and took up her mending. Billy hadn’t told Mammy what he was looking at. He wondered if she knew. If he couldn’t get the banjo in Jeb Dotson’s store, he’d send away to the mail-order house and buy one. But first he’d have to get money for his baskets.

  The sound of squeaking wagon wheels down in the valley reached his ears. His mother turned her head and listened too.

  “Hit might could be Pappy a-comin’ home,” said Billy. He closed the book and took it into the house.

  The old hounds, Drum and Major, went running out. Yes, it was Pappy. The team splashed through the ford, came part way up the barn road and stopped. The wagon was empty of logs now, but carried several sacks of wheat flour and a supply of feed. And there at Pappy’s feet in front sat a new hound dog—a puppy. Drum and Major began to growl.

  Mammy looked on and didn’t say a word. Pappy handed the flour sacks down to Billy and talked loudly.

  “Stone Mountain’s a tough little ole hill to haul over,” he said. “I most got drownded over there in Tennessee. Water was mighty high on the way back. When we forded Forge Creek, hit carried me and the horses down a fur piece. Lucky some Tennessee feller come along just then with a yoke o’ oxen and pulled us out.”

  Billy stared at the hound pup. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know whether to be glad or sad.

  “Where’d you get the pup, Pappy?” he asked. He patted it on the head.

  “Oh, that critter!” Pappy laughed. “Got him off Walt Moseley. He’s a born possum dog, I can tell by the look of him.”

  “We got plenty good-for-nothin’ hounds already,” said Mammy. “There’s a heap o’ things we need more’n new hound dogs. You’re gettin’ to be as bad as that low-down Pappy Weaselface—he’d give his last shirt for another huntin’ dog.”

  “Now, Ruthie,” said Pappy, “you said you was tired o’ havin’ them possums steal all your young chickens.”

  “He’s only a pup,”
said Mammy. “Precious lot of possums he’ll catch.”

  “He’ll be a right smart possum dog come fall,” said Pappy.

  The pup followed Billy up the steps and into the house. In the kitchen Mammy shook the ashes down in the step-stove, got the fire going and lifted the cloth that covered the food still sitting on the table.

  Billy took his dulcimer from the fireboard in the front room and sat down on a chair, with the new hound pup at his feet. A small fire was burning in the fireplace. He began to strum the dulcimer with the noter. His mind was made up. The wish-book had decided the matter. He didn’t like the way Jeb Dotson had acted about his trading. He wouldn’t buy the second-hand banjo from Jeb after all. He’d choose a new one from the mail-order catalogue and send away for it. He began to sing softly:

  “Whet up your knife and whistle up your dog,

  Whet up your knife and whistle up your dog,

  We’re going to the holler to catch a ground hog,

  Ground hog!

  Too many rocks and too many logs,

  Too many rocks and too many logs,

  Too many rocks to hunt ground hogs,

  Ground hogs!

  Over the hills and through the bresh,

  Over the hills and through the bresh,

  There we struck that hog-sign fresh,

  Sign fresh!

  Two in the clift and one in the log,

  Two in the clift and one in the log,

  I saw his nose and I knew he was a hog,

  Was a hog.…”

  After unhitching the horses at the barn, Pappy came in through the kitchen, but he did not stop to eat. He came straight into the front room to see where the music was coming from. He planted his two feet wide apart and looked at Billy, astonished.

  “So this is what’s been goin’ on while I been gone,” he said.

  Letty Jo and the little ones came out of the bedroom.

  “Bill, what you think you’re doin’?” asked Pappy.

  The boy jumped to his feet and hung his head. Pap’s voice sounded very cross and made him feel guilty. He thought quickly and could not remember any wrong he had done. He started to speak, but could not think what to say.

  “What’s that ere thing you’re a-holdin’ in your hand?” demanded Pappy.

  “Hit’s … hit’s a dulci-more.”

  “Who does hit belong to? Uncle Pozy?” demanded Pappy.

  “No, hit’s … hit’s mine,” answered Billy. “I made it. Uncle Pozy helped. He showed me how.”

  “Now, Rudy, don’t you go pesterin’ the boy,” said Mammy, looking in from the kitchen. “He’s been workin’ so hard all spring, I ’lowed he could go over to Uncle Pozy’s and pleasure himself a bit, and he was takened with the i-dee he’d like a dulci-more.…”

  “Fool business!” cried Pappy angrily. “Fine way to carry on while I’m gone, when I told him to tarry at home and tend to weedin’ and hoein’ the crops.” He looked at his wife. “The Bronson music comin’ out, I s’pose. He’s gonna be like them shiftless brothers and nephews o’ your’n, who druther play and sing than dig and hoe.”

  “Where’s the harm in playin’ and singin’?” asked Mammy.

  “I never seen a good fiddler or banjo picker that was worth his salt for anything else,” said Pappy. “Fiddlers are not even worth shootin’. There’s that brother Jamie o’ your’n—he’ll sit and fiddle and pat his foot and forget to put in his crops. Is that the way you’re raisin’ up this boy?”

  “None of the Bronsons has starved yet,” Mammy held up her chin, “and they all know how to get a little joy out o’ life. There ain’t no harm in a little music, if hit pleaures the boy to make it. Hit keeps us from gettin’ lonesome up here in this dark valley, when we’re all alone by ourselves. Billy’s that bright and gaily, I miss him when he goes off anywheres, but you can’t keep a boy tied up like a dog.”

  “Goin’ off somewheres,” said Pappy. “He’s good at that. Always traipsin’ and gallivantin’ away from work. Goin’ to Uncle Pozy’s, goin’ to Uncle Jamie’s, goin’ to mill, goin’ a-roamin’, goin’ to Jeb Dotson’s store.… Yes, I heard you been down there.” He glared at the boy.

  Mammy came in and wiped her hands on her apron.

  “If you don’t like the way I’m raisin’ the boy, Rudy, you’d better bide home and raise him yourself,” she said.

  “How can I bide home when I’m loggin’? Why should I bide home when I got a wife and young uns, and a son most growed to look after the crops?”

  “He’s only ten, Rudy,” said Mammy, “though he looks like a little ole man already, the way he’s been worked. Hit’ll be many a day afore he’s growed.”

  “Think money grows on bushes, don’t you?” Pappy went on. “Work never stunted a young un yet.” He turned sharply to the boy. “Did you get them beans hoed, like I told you, son?”

  “No sir,” faltered Billy, “I didn’t know just when you was a-comin’ home and——”

  “Hand me over that ere dulci-more,” said his father in a quiet voice.

  Billy clutched it tighter and looked up with pleading eyes. Mammy and Letty Jo and the little redheads stared. They all loved the tune-box that Billy had made, but they couldn’t say anything. Billy stood still. Surely Pappy wouldn’t take it from him.

  But Pappy did. He seized the dulcimer and threw it into the open fireplace. He found some kindling and started a blaze.

  Billy looked on. His face turned white, but he made no sound. No sign of emotion betrayed the turmoil of his feelings.

  Red Top and Mazie ran over to watch the dulcimer burn. Mammy took one look at the stricken boy and went back to the kitchen.

  “Music won’t grow corn and beans,” said Pappy in a low, meaningful voice. Then he went out to get his supper.

  Billy knew the dulcimer would never be mentioned again. What was settled, was settled. That was Pap’s way. The boy sat down on his chair, his arms hanging limply at his sides, his eyes on the fire. He felt as if a part of himself were being destroyed, and he had no more strength left in him.

  Letty Jo suddenly burst out crying.

  “Hush up!” called Pappy, from the kitchen.

  Letty Jo hushed. The little ones forgot the dulcimer and began to play with the new pup.

  Billy could hear his father’s voice demanding food: “Corn-bread.” He knew his mother was waiting on him. After a while, “Beans.” “More beans.” “Biscuit. Where’s the biscuit-bread?” “Well, I brung you plenty white flour, now you can make biscuits again.” Then, “Corn-bread.”

  Not a word from Mammy.

  Then an angry shout: “Ain’t that sorry, good-for-nothin’ boy keepin’ the water-bucket full? Bill! Bill Honeycutt!”

  Billy ran out.

  “Go to the spring and fill that bucket for your Mammy. Hain’t I told you to keep it full?”

  Billy took the cedar bucket and ran out the back door to the branch. He skipped over the plank, dipped the bucket into the pool at the spring and filled it.

  When he got back to the house, his father was standing at the door. He took the bucket from him, dashed the water on the ground, and handed it back to the boy without a word.

  Billy didn’t know what to think. He walked slowly to the spring and filled the bucket again. When he brought it back to the door, his father dashed the water on the ground the second time.

  Five times he filled it, and each time his father emptied it. Billy knew now that he was being punished.

  The sixth time his father poured the water into his mother’s dishpan, and the seventh into one of the milk-piggins. It took a great many buckets of water to fill all the receptacles in the house, including the two washtubs. It took so many, Billy lost count.

  He was very tired when, at last, his father set the final bucket of water on the kitchen table, dipped the gourd dipper in it, and drank.

  The boy was thirsty too, but he did not ask for a drink.

  “That’ll learn you to keep your Mammy’s water buck
et filled,” said Pappy in a low tone, “and hit’ll learn you who’s boss in this house.” He lifted his foot and gave the boy a kick. “Now, git yourself to bed!”

  Billy climbed wearily up to the loft, sick at heart.

  The next morning he woke early. It was hardly light when he crept down the stairs, past the bedroom where his father lay snoring, and out the back door. He jumped on Old Bet and rode as fast as he could down Roundabout Creek.

  Before he reached the Turn-Off, he heard hoofbeats. Wondering who might be out so early, he pulled the mule up and waited under an overhanging tree. Out from the Turn-Off came a spotted horse and a skinny black horse. The men riding were Walt Moseley and Pappy Weaselface. They were riding silently, without saying a word.

  Billy waited until they had been gone a long time, then he started on again and rode to Jeb Dotson’s store. Dawn glowed pink over Solitude as he rode up.

  Jeb Dotson was still in bed. Billy rattled the store door, then rode round to the bedroom window and pounded on it. Jeb had his windows barred with heavy iron gratings. Jeb knew well the tricks of mischievous boys, and was anxious to protect his store and its contents from the damage and breakage of possible marauders.

  He raised himself up on one elbow and, wild-eyed and tousle-headed, stared out through the unwashed glass window.

  “Unlock the door!” called Billy Honeycutt. He spoke calmly, though he was burning up with excitement inside.

  “I’ll hand over all the money I got,” Jeb called in a frightened voice, “if you’ll promise not to shoot.”

  “I won’t shoot,” answered Billy. “Unlock the door.”

  By the time Jeb reached the door and unlocked it, he had had time to think. “You’re just a bunch o’ sorry old gamesome boys!” he yelled. “What you want?”

  “Unlock the door, I said!” called Billy.

  With trembling hands, Jeb Dotson put his key in the padlock and turned it. He removed the lock and slowly opened the door. He stood in his nightshirt and peered out. He saw Billy Honeycutt but no one else.

  “Where’s the others, Bill?” Jeb whispered.