by Lois Lenski
“Hidin’ round the corner,” answered the boy.
Jeb opened the door a little wider. “What you want, Bill?”
Billy jumped off the mule and pushed the man aside. He stared into the dusky darkness but saw no baskets there. Not a single basket of his or Uncle Pozy’s hung where they had hung before. They must have been sold. A wave of happiness swept over him. The loss of the dulcimer was nothing. Soon he’d have his banjo.
“What you mean, a-wakin’ a man out of his sleep in the middle of the night? What you want, so soon of a mornin’?” asked Jeb.
“I want my money.”
“What money, Bill?” Jeb scratched his head.
“The money for them baskets I brung you,” said Billy. “You sold ’em, didn’t you?”
“Yep, that Miz Sutherland from Asheville bought ’em as soon as you left that day,” said Jeb. “That was what she was settin’ round here so long for—makin’ up her mind. She’s takin’ ’em to some place down the country to sell ’em again to city folks. She bought all Uncle Pozy’s too. I packed ’em up and had ’em hauled to the depot at Cranberry, to be shipped to her.”
“She paid money for ’em too, didn’t she?” demanded Billy.
“I reckon she did,” admitted Jeb.
“And you gave me credit.”
“I reckon,” said Jeb, “but I don’t recollect——”
“You totted it down in your book,” said Billy. “Go, look-see how much.”
Jeb scratched his head again. “Hit’s done took off the book,” he said, “’cause the transaction’s ended. The trade’s over.”
“What you mean—the trade’s over?”
Jeb began to feel uncomfortable under the boy’s stern gaze. Bill Honeycutt was growing up. He couldn’t be trifled with. Jeb was in a predicament and didn’t well know how to get out of it.
“Get my money, Jeb,” said Billy, “or I’ll call them Buckwheat Holler boys and we’ll come in and help ourselves and mess up your store.”
“Gosh almighty, don’t do that, keep them gamesome boys away!” wailed Jeb. He began to tremble. “I can’t give it to you, ’cause I hain’t got nary a penny of it.”
“What you done with hit?” asked Billy. “You ain’t losted it? Hit ain’t been stole? You said as hit would be safe with you.”
“Your Pap … your Pap——”
“You hain’t give hit to Pappy?” cried Billy in anger and alarm. “I told you this here was my own trade and not my Mammy’s or Pappy’s.”
“You said your Mammy wasn’t cravin’ sugar and coffee, as I recollect hit,” said Jeb. “I asked you if your Pappy kncwed about this deal o’ your’n and you said he didn’t. So I thought hit my bounden duty to tell him about hit, and hit made him mighty cranky, hearin’ you was sellin’ baskets to put Uncle Pozy out o’ business. When I told him you was fixin’ to buy that second-hand banjo of Old Mack Muller’s, he got rarin’ mad.”
Billy stopped to think. So Pappy had known all about it. That was why he was so cross last night, burned the dulcimer and made him carry all that water. Billy’s heart sank, but not for long.
“I ain’t buyin’ no second-hand banjo offen you, Jeb Dotson,” he said.
“Not good enough, eh?” sneered Jeb. “Well, you won’t be buyin’ none at all, that’s sure as the graveyard!”
“Where’s my money?” demanded Billy, suddenly panic-stricken.
“Your Pap bought a hound pup with it,” said Jeb. He smiled broadly as if it were a grand joke.
Billy’s mouth fell open in surprise. Then he recovered.
“No, he didn’t,” he told Jeb. “He swapped Walt Moseley for that pup. He said so, and my Pap don’t tell lies.”
“Hit was this way:” said Jeb, “Walt Moseley and Pappy Weaselface and some other fellers was tryin’ to see whose hound dog was the best fighter. So they lined up all their hounds here in front of the store one day, and turned an old tom cat loose. All the dogs turned tail and run, but that little pup o’ Walt’s. He licked the daylights out of the tom cat. So everybody said that the pup was the fightingest hound in the county. Walt said he come of a possum-dog breed and could smell a possum a mile off. Your Pap said there wasn’t nothin’ he wanted more’n a good possum dog, so——”
“What did he swap for the pup?” asked Billy.
“Er … what?”
“What did Pap give Walt for that pup?” asked Billy again.
Jeb Dotson scratched his head and said, “I done told you before.”
“What?”
“He said you was too young to go tradin’ around for yourself, so your money rightly belonged to him. What you earn until you’re twenty-one is your Pap’s—don’t you know that? He told me to hand the money over, so there wasn’t nothin’ else I could do. He didn’t make a swap, he bought that pup.”
Still Billy could not believe it.
“What did Pap give for that hound pup?” he asked again.
“Your money!”
Jeb shouted the two words, shut the door quickly and snapped the padlock.
CHAPTER X
Old-timey Chimney
Billy couldn’t bear to look at the hound pup for a long time. He tried to shut it out of the house. He refused to feed it. He kicked it with his bare foot every chance he got. He hated seeing it around, because it was a constant reminder of his loss.
The day Pappy named the pup “Banjo,” Billy went off roaming in the woods and didn’t come back until nightfall.
But there was nothing he could do about it. Banjo stayed and became one of the family. Pappy bragged about Banjo, and said he was getting bigger and smarter every day. Still Billy could not look at him.
But the time came when the boy’s troubles were swallowed up in a greater calamity, and he had to forget himself. Warm summer weather had come quickly as it does in the mountains. One day Billy heard surprising news. Pappy was telling it to Mammy.
“I stopped to see the high-sheriff again,” said Pappy, “and he says I can turn them Trivetts out of that shack up on the mountain. The surveyor’s been here and says all that land up there is set down in my deed. Hit belongs to me, so now I can get shet of that troublesome pair. I won’t law ’em for trespassin’. I’ll just dispossess ’em, move ’em out.”
“Where will they go, Rudy?” asked Mammy in a low voice.
“To their kinfolks, I reckon.”
“Down the country?” asked Mammy. “You can’t transplant old Gran no more’n you can that big cowcumber tree, you know that, Rudy.”
“That’s their business,” said Pappy.
“So that was the surveyor that day,” said Mammy, “that fat feller with the possumy grin on his face.”
“He said he come while I was on one of my jaunts to Mountain City,” said Pappy.
“Yes, he come here and scared me half to death, after goin’ up to Gran’s and scarin’ the life out o’ her. We thought he was the high-sheriff,” said Mammy.
“Why, he’s a right nice-lookin’ feller,” said Pap, smiling. “Nothin’ scary-lookin’ about him.”
Pappy sat down on a chair and tried to be agreeable.
“The high-sheriff advised me against turning the Trivetts out by force,” he said. “Advised more peaceable ways. Now, Ruthie, I want you to do somethin’ for me—go up and see old Granny and try to argify her peaceable-like to go and live with some of her kin. I’ll be willing to carry all her plunder in my jolt-wagon, even if I have to go clean to the level lands with it …”
“Rudolphus Honeycutt!” cried Mammy, her eyes ablaze. “You are a low-down wretch!”
Pappy saw there was no use trying to be tactful any longer. Besides, he was angry.
“Either you go do what I say,” he said in a low tone, “or I’ll down that cowcumber tree this day.” He got up and went out.
Mammy was always quiet, obedient and soft-spoken. But now she too was angry. “I’ll wait on you hand and foot, Rudy Honeycutt, to my dyin’ day, as a dutiful wife is bound to do
,” she called after him, “but I’ll be horn-swoggled if you can scare me with your wicked threats.” Then she added: “You don’t want the high-sheriff comin’ round here, do you, Rudy? You don’t want him to see what’s goin’ on, on yon side of Laurel Mountain, do you?”
Pappy did not answer.
“The crops need tendin’, Rudy.” Mammy stood on the back porch and made one final appeal. “Stay home and make the crops, Rudy, so we can eat hearty come winter.”
Pappy stopped in his tracks to answer back: “What have I got me a wife and young uns and a son almost growed for, if not to tend the crops? I’m a hunter and a horse-swapper and a logger—not a farmer.”
He went to the barn to get his logging chains and started off with the team. Billy and Mammy watched him go, splashing through the ford.
“You go up the trail, son,” said Mammy. “If he starts to saw down that cowcumber tree, come and tell me. No—maybe you’d better go warn Granny first. Tell her your Pap’s comin’ to throw her out, and if he does, she’s to come here.”
“Here, Mammy?” cried Billy, astonished. “What will Pap say to that?”
“Never mind, son. You go do as I bid you.”
Billy climbed the trail to the Half-Way-Up House.
“Hello! Hello, Granny! Hello!” he called.
He paused, hearing a voice. Sarey Sue was singing:
“Oh, fly around, my pretty little miss
Fly around, my daisy;
Fly around, my pretty little miss,
You almost drive me crazy.
Her cheeks as red as a red, red rose,
Her eyes as a diamond brown;
I’m goin’ to see my pretty little miss,
Before the sun goes down.
Every time I go that road,
It looks so dark and cloudy,
Every time I see that girl
I always tell her howdy.…”
The song trailed off and Billy could hear the girl talking. He called again. Sarey Sue came out on the porch.
“Where’s Granny?”
“Out somewheres,” said Sarey Sue, nodding vaguely.
“Who was you a-talkin’ to in there?” asked Billy.
“Only myself,” giggled Sarey Sue. “When I’m by myself, I talk to myself just like as if I had somebody there to talk to.”
Billy stared at the girl. “Law sakes! What a sight!” he exclaimed. “You’re a sight on earth!”
“Who? Me?”
“Yes, you.”
Sarey Sue was indeed a sight. Her face, arms and legs were covered with soot.
“What’s happened?” demanded Billy.
“That blame chimney keeps a-fallin’ down,” said Sarey Sue. “Hit’s an ole-timey one and we never know when the rocks will fall. I was tryin’ to be real careful, so I made a little bitty oak fire to get my breakfast—Gran, she et some corn-bread and left afore sun-up. So I takes my case knife and leans down to turn my meat in the fryin’ pan on the coals, and wham! If a big rock don’t fall plumb on my hand and make a big lump and a bruise.” She held out her hand. “Hit’s a sight! I jumped back just in time, for more rocks come bouncin’ down right on.…”
“You’re the smuttiest person ever I did see,” said Billy. He went in the house and looked up the chimney. “Reckon I’ll have to tote them rocks out o’ the fireplace for you,” he added, “or you can’t cook no more vittles.”
“You’ll be a sight, too!” laughed Sarey Sue.
“You ain’t told me where Gran is,” said Billy, carrying rocks out the back door. “She ain’t gone clear over to Three Top to tend Liza Moseley, has she?”
Sarey Sue shook her head. “Sereny Holbrook’s ailin’ and ’lowed she needed a tonic, so Gran brewed her some bitters out o’ wild cherry bark and sassyfrack and takened it down to her. Then she come back home and——”
“Where’s she at now?” Billy remembered his errand.
“Out somewheres,” said Sarey Sue, waving her blackened arm. “She’s just like a butterfly, here and yonder where there’s anything to git.”
“What’s she after?”
“If hit ain’t yarbs, hit’s berries,” said Sarey Sue. “She’s a regular berry picker—strawberries, poke berries, huckleberries, but just now, hit’s blackberries she’s after—gonna dry ’em for winter. Some folks dig blackberry roots to sell, but we don’t. We want the berries on ’em.” Sarey Sue smiled with pride. “Law, Granny’ll pick fifty gallons of ’em before she’s done. I can’t never keep her in her chair, she just won’t stay sot.”
Billy brought another load of stones out.
“But whereabouts is she?” he asked.
“Lordy mercy!” Sarey Sue threw up her hands. “How should I know? She might be on Three Top, she might be on the Peak … she might be anywheres.”
Billy looked up at the chimney again. “Hit ain’t safe,” he said. “This house ain’t fitten for you folkses to live in. Maybe Pap’s right.” He remembered Mammy’s message, but how could he break the news to Sarey Sue, so gay and cheerful?
“I got somethin’ to show you,” said Sarey Sue. She ran to a pile of quilts stacked on the chest by the loom. She pulled off the top one.
“What’s that?” asked Billy.
“Hit’s a new quilt-top I pieced up,” said Sarey Sue, filled with pride. “I’m good at finger-sewin’. I make Granny’s aprons and sew pockets on ’em too. Looky! See all them nice, even, teeny-tiny stitches?”
Billy took one look and started to go.
“I had a dream last night,” Sarey Sue went on gaily. “I was sleepin’ under my quilt-top for the first time. Know what they say about that? Your dream’ll come true! Guess what my dream was. Hit was about you!”
Billy went right on walking out the door. He had wasted a lot of time and he must find Granny and tell her.
“I dreamed you had a fotched-on fiddle——”
The boy turned and glared at her. “Ain’t I told you——”
“And you went to the Fiddlers’ Convention,” Sarey Sue went on, “and took first prize you played so good. You was the Champion Fiddler of the County—but that wasn’t all. After that, you was the Champion Fiddler of North Caroliny, and better than that, you got to be Champion Fiddler of the whole U. S. Nation!”
The boy stood still, his back turned, and said not a word.
“I believe in dreams, don’t you?” Sarey Sue’s voice sounded so bright and happy. “When a girl sleeps under a quilt for the first time, her dream’s obliged to come true, ain’t hit?”
Billy clenched his fists at his side. He turned his head and spoke bitterly. “Pap burnt my dulci-more in the fire, and he took my banjo money and bought a hound pup with it!” He blurted out the words. Sarey Sue might as well know the truth and forget her silly dreams. “How could I ever get to be a Champion music-player?”
“Oh!” said Sarey Sue, in a sharp cry of pain. “I didn’t know.… How could he be so mean? How could he? I wouldn’t take that offen him, if he was my Pappy.”
Billy turned his back again and gulped. “When hit’s your own Pap, you take hit,” he said. “No, he ain’t mean. He just says music don’t grow corn and beans, and I reckon hit don’t. He says he don’t want no little ole timidy men around, and he’s raisin’ me up to be tough.…”
“But oh, I do believe in dreams, don’t you?” cried Sarey Sue. Her voice was filled with sadness, but it had not lost hope. Then she burst out crying: “I’m goin’ right on believin’ hit.…”
Billy understood how the girl felt. She had nothing—only dreams to believe in. When you had nothing at all, you could have everything in dreams … even if they never came true. But he could not find the words to say this to Sarey Sue.
“I got to find your Gran,” said Billy, starting off. “I got bad news for her.”
“Bad news?” Sarey Sue stared. “Why didn’t you say so? I’ll go along. You’d never find her.”
It wasn’t as hard to find her as they thought it would be. They st
arted back up the mountain and heard voices. The voices led them to the cowcumber tree on the ridge. The air was bright and clear today, and the far-off mountains were cut sharply in a pattern of deep blue.
Billy was too late with his warning. Granny Trivett was not picking blackberries, she was talking to Billy’s father and Ollie Holbrook. She looked like a statue. She was standing in front of the big tree, her thin old arms outspread to protect it.
“Ye’ll cut it down, Rudy Honeycutt, over my dead body.” Her voice was firm and low, without a tremor in it.
“This is my land,” answered Pappy. “I’ll cut what trees I please.”
“Hit ain’t your land,” insisted Granny. “Hit belonged first to my Great-Granpap Goforth and he handed it down to me. I got a paper with writin’ on, to prove hit.”
“Where’s your paper?” asked Ollie Holbrook. “Maybe she’s right, Rudy.”
“Where’s your paper?” demanded Honeycutt.
Granny hesitated. “I can’t seem to recollect …” Her voice grew vague. “I put hit somewheres.…”
“Well, my paper, down to the Court house,” Rudy Honeycutt pulled the copy out of his pocket and read aloud: “says my line runs along the ridge ‘westward to a poplar tree and then to an old fence row at an agreed corner …’ so this is my tree and I’ll chop hit down whenever I’m a mind to.”
“A cowcumber tree ain’t a poplar, Rudy. A tulip tree’s sometimes called a yellow poplar, but not a cowcumber.” Ollie Holbrook’s voice was patient. “And ‘to an old fence row at an agreed corner’—that ain’t what you’d call precise.”
“This is the oldest tree on the ridge,” said Rudy. “Hit’s the only tree that could a been standin’ when this deed was writ.”
“That air a true word,” said Ollie.
“But a cowcumber ain’t a poplar,” interrupted Granny. “Any old fool knows that.”
“She’ll stand there all day, Rudy,” said Ollie in a low voice. “Don’t see how we can saw the tree down as long as she’s there.”
Rudy hated to admit defeat. Without saying more to the old woman, he began to gather up his axe, crosscut saw and chains. Then he saw Billy, with black-faced Sarey Sue beside him. “What you doin’ here, son?” he growled.