by Peggy Gaddis
Shelley looked up at the magnificent tree, her eyes following its green feathery tops, and winced.
“And then what happens to the poor thing?” she asked softly.
Jim looked down at her as though startled at the phrase and at her tone.
“Oh, then it will be removed for use as a telephone pole, pulp-wood, railroad cross-ties, posts lumber, and a seedling will be planted in its place and left to grow for twenty years, and then it all starts again.”
Shelley nodded soberly.
They walked on after a moment down the aisle of dry, resinous needles, watching groups of men at various tasks. Jim smiled down at her suddenly.
“I wish you could have seen all this sort of thing years ago, when it was called ‘chipping’ instead of ‘cupping.’ Nowadays the men work on straight salary, not only during the season but twelve months a year; in those days they worked ‘piecework,’ each man being paid for the number of trees he ‘handled.’ Some of them were so skillful they could ‘handle’ from five to ten thousand trees a week. There was a ‘woodsman’ who kept the records so that at the end of the day each man would be sure of receiving full payment for all his work.”
Shelley’s eager interest was very flattering.
“The ‘woodsman’ must have been a very busy man. How in the world could he keep track of all the men and all their jobs?”
“That’s where ingenuity helped,” Jim told her. “Each ‘chipper’ was given a short, easy name like Susie, Mary, Ella, Lilly; usually the men chose their sweethearts’ names. And as each man finished his ‘box’ he called out the name given him, and the ‘woodsman’ checked the name on his list. It was quite a thing; I wish you could have seen it—the men laughing, calling out ‘Mary’ or ‘Ella’ sharp and clear above all the other noises. I used to get a terrific kick out of it. Since I’ve grown up, and have seen Porgy and Bess and heard Ferde Grofé’s stuff, I’ve wished someone could have put it into music, or a play. The sunlight glancing through the pines; the calls floating back, the laughter, the voices—it was something to remember.”
“You love all this, don’t you?”
Jim looked startled, as though the thought had never occurred to him before.
“Why, yes, I suppose I do,” he confessed.
She nodded quietly. “I can understand. It’s beautiful.”
They stood now at the end of the long aisle of grown pines. Ahead of them a tractor was ploughing a wide swath, and beyond the swath, young, vigorous trees were growing lustily, each tree with ample space for its full development.
“Fire-break.” Jim indicated the tractor and the wide, rich dark earth it was cutting. “Beyond this ten-year-old stand, there is another even younger, too young even to be thinned, though we are careful to thin them as soon as possible, and plough our firebreaks good and wide. Fire is our chief enemy; if a fellow who carelessly throws a lighted cigarette from a speeding car, or who leaves a tiny ember of a picnic fire burning could only know what we’d do to him if we could catch him, he’d stay out of the ‘piny-woods’ the rest of his life! We have to worry, too, about the lazy, shiftless, or just plain ignorant farmer who still believes in, and practices ‘burning off’ his woods and fields in the spring and fall. It’s a terribly destructive and dangerous practice, I need scarcely add.”
Shelley lifted her head suddenly, her eyes closed, and whispered eagerly, “Listen!”
The soft, steady murmur of the wind that crept through the pines was intensified here by the smaller growth, and to Shelley it made music so exquisite as to bring tears to her eyes. The warm sun beating down on her shoulders, the fragrance of the pines, the soft murmur of the wind all gave her a feeling she had never experienced before. It was an unforgettable moment in which she forgot everything else.
Jim looked down at her as she stood there, her rapt face lifted, her eyes closed, and suddenly, as though moved by some compulsion he could not evade, he bent his head and set his mouth on her soft, parted lips.
For a startled moment Shelley was quite still, accepting his kiss, savoring it; not quite sure whether she returned it or not; knowing only that it was the final exquisite touch to a perfect moment.
It was Jim who broke the moment. Jim who raised his head and stared down at her, his face taut and pale behind his sun-bronze, and took a backward step, as though startled. His voice came faintly to Shelley, his words scarcely audible, despite the tension with which she listened.
“Now, why the dickens do you suppose I did that?” His tone was one of amazement and honest bewilderment.
For an instant Shelley was shaken to her very toes by that kiss; and then she made a flying clutch at her common sense. Absurdly enough, she had to fight tears before she could manage a gay, flippant answer in a slightly unsteady voice.
“Why, I asked for it!” she told him then.
Jim was more startled than ever. “Asked for it?”
“Of course! Don’t you know that old trick of counting the stars? When a girl says, ‘Look at the stars. Aren’t they beautiful?’ and tilts her head and closes her eyes—well, only a cad and a bounder would refuse to accept what she offers!”
But Jim did not rise to her attempted flippancy. Maybe, she told herself frantically, because the attempt wasn’t very convincing. After all, she reminded herself shakily, her voice had wobbled a little and there was the silver shimmer of tears in her eyes, and despite the gay attempted smile, her rose-red mouth was tremulous.
“So that was it?” Jim said dryly after a moment. “So you asked for it!”
“Well, you don’t need to be so deadly serious about it,” she flashed, illogically angry. “After all, it’s simply magic. The magic of a spring day, the wind in the pines, and so you kissed me. So what?”
Jim studied her for a moment curiously.
“So a kiss is very unimportant, is that what you mean?”
“Well, for goodness’ sake,” she protested elaborately. “Kisses are—well, sort of small change with which a girl rewards an attentive young man, like shaking hands and saying, ‘Thank you for a lovely evening.’ ”
“Don’t try to sound like Sue-Ellen,” said Jim roughly. “It’s not your line. Sue-Ellen goes around calling everybody ‘darling’ and ‘angel-pie’ and, I have no doubt, scattering ‘small change kisses’ from here to breakfast! But not you, Shelley! Don’t try to kid me. That kiss was—”
“Purely an accident,” she cut in neatly. “Shall we leave it at that? For goodness’ sake! You’d try to analyze the down on a butterfly’s wing, or the quality of a mockingbird’s song, wouldn’t you? So a kiss is a kiss, and one was exchanged, and it’s a glorious morning, shall we get on with the tour?”
She turned and walked briskly back to where the Negroes were “cupping” and watched them with as much interest as though she could see clearly through the shimmer of tears that still fogged her eyes.
Gradually, despite the warm, exquisite stirring of her heart caused by the kiss, she grew more and more fascinated by the work that was going on. And as mid-morning came, the men began to sing, to lighten the monotony of their labor. Her mother had told her about the Negroes and their “work-songs,” and now she was listening, absorbed, eager.
One man, digging away at a huge pine with his “hack,” would start the song, with a long, wailing cry that was almost a chant. Usually only a word or two, repeated over and over in a warm, mellow untrained voice that was rich and deep; singing out of the vast darkness of age-old memories that stretched back into the very beginning of the race in far-away Africa. Gradually, as the chant-like song was lifted into the air, other voices chimed in, with the murmuring pine-wind as a sort of under-theme, and over and above it the chanted “Lawd, oh Lawd” that seemed to hold the song as something almost visible that Shelley could see hanging in the sun-drenched golden air.
At first the men sang their “work-songs” merely as a means of getting through the morning; but as the noon hour approached, and the men worked more swiftly benea
th the lash of growing hunger, the melody grew lighter, caught now and then with rich, deep laughter.
She was standing perfectly still, eager-eyed, entranced, her whole attention centered on the song. And now the men, out of the corners of their eyes, had seen her and knew their music held her, and they began innocently to “show off,” vying for her attention like pleased and happy children.
She didn’t know when Jim came to stand beside her, but suddenly she was aware of him, as the men broke off at the sound of the noon-break signal. They dropped their instruments, and gathered in groups, unpacking lunch buckets, opening fruit jars filled with milk.
“That was beautiful,” Shelley told Jim. “Gershwin would have loved it!”
“Wouldn’t he?” Jim agreed, and tucked her hand through his arm and said lightly, “Lunchtime now. Let’s go. Mam’ Lissie will be wondering where we are.”
She matched her steps to his, loath to leave the woods, where she had spent such an enchanted morning. Jim tucked her into the station wagon and drove for perhaps a half or three quarters of a mile before he turned into a little sandy winding road that ended in front of a neat little two-room cabin, with a small lean-to kitchen the lumber of which was newer than that of the main house, as though its addition had been a hasty afterthought.
There was a rickety fence enclosing a garden where flowers rioted in joyous profusion. There were rose bushes laden with small, velvety-red, exquisitely fragrant roses that sprinkled the air with a spicy fragrance. Amaryllis lilies marched in a thick hedge along the fence. A clump of small, fragile, exquisitely pink lily-like flowers she had never seen before flanked beds of riotous verbena and phlox.
As the station wagon stopped, a very old Negro woman in a neat, old-fashioned percale dress beneath a gingham apron came to meet them. A snowy head-kerchief was wound about her head, and she was smoking an ancient yellow corncob pipe.
“I’s beginnin’ to werry ’bout yo’, Mist’ Jim,” she greeted him, her thin old voice warm with affection.
“You knew I wouldn’t fail to show up, Mam’ Lissie,” he told her, and added, “This is Miss Shelley Kimbrough, Mam’ Lissie. I hope you and she are going to be good friends.”
Mam’ Lissie’s old eyes studied Shelley with disconcerting scrutiny before her toothless gums were revealed in a shy smile and she said warmly, “Sho’ us will, Mist’ Jim. How yo’ do, Miss?”
“I’m fine,” said Shelley happily. “Your flowers are perfectly beautiful, Mam’ Lissie.”
“Yassum, dey does right well, thank ye, ma’am,” said Mam’ Lissie, as pleased as a mother whose children are admired. “Come in an’ set, Mist’ Jim, and Miss. De pilau ready right now.”
Inside the main room of the little cabin, a table had been spread with a white cotton cloth that was immaculately laundered and glistening white. Crude heavy white crockery had been put in place for two, and there were bone-handled knives and forks. And from the kitchen wafted a fragrance that made Shelley sniff hungrily.
“Ever eat shrimp pilau?” asked Jim, watching her, smiling.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, even if you had, you’ve never tasted any until you taste Mam’ Lissie’s. You’ve never had anything worthy of the name. Nobody else in the world cooks a pilau like Mam’ Lissie’s.”
“Now, Mist’ Jim,” giggled Mam’ Lissie, pleased but with a becoming modesty.
A little later after Shelley had lifted her fork to her mouth, her eyes widened with startled delight.
“Like it?”
“It’s heavenly!”
“Nothing in the world better than shrimp pilau, made from shrimp caught late yesterday afternoon and cooked up with a lot of stuff Mam’ Lissie isn’t going to tell you about because it’s a highly prized secret recipe.”
“Mist’ Jim alius was one to eat shrimp pilau,” said Mam’ Lissie, and happily filled his plate again. “He say mine is real good.”
“That’s an understatement. I wish you’d teach Mam’ Cleo to make it the way you do.”
“Lawd, Mist’ Jim, do Cleo heah yo’ say dat, she plumb cross heh fingehs ’gainst me,” protested Mam’ Lissie, a trifle uneasily. “She de bes’ cook in de county—she say!”
“She’s good, Mam’ Lissie, but so are you,” Jim assured her.
Mam’ Lissie said gently, “Tells yo’ whut I do, Mist’ Jim. I gives mah recipe fo’ shrimp pilau to you’ wife, does you’ git yo’ one. An’ hit’s long ’past time you’ was gittin’ yo’ one, Mist’ Jim.”
She turned to Shelley and asked gently, like a grave child, “Is yo’ gwine marry wid’ Mist’ Jim, honey?”
Shelley all but choked, but managed a slightly unsteady laugh, feeling her face bright with color as she answered, “Well, now, Mam’ Lissie, it takes two to make a marriage, you know. A girl has to wait until she’s asked.”
“She sho’ do, honey, she sho’ do,” agreed Mam’ Lissie.
“And anyway,” Shelley went on, regaining a little of her poise, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have a chance with your Mist’ Jim. I’m way down on his list of candidates. Another and far more beautiful girl than I is up ahead.”
Jim chuckled, and eyed her sternly.
“She’s talking about Sue-Ellen, Mam’ Lissie. She won’t believe me when I try to tell her that Sue-Ellen is only ‘funnin’.’ ”
Shelley shook her head sadly.
“How many good men have found themselves marched to the altar believing such nonsense,” she sighed.
Jim eyed her sternly, but it was Mam’ Lissie that spoke.
“Miss Sue-Ellen mighty purty and she a nice, sweet gal. But she ain’ de one fo’ Mist’ Jim.”
“See?” Jim demanded triumphantly of Shelley. “What did I tell you?”
“Miss Sue-Ellen, she lak’ to dance and play-party an’ look fine an’ purty. But she ain’ lak’ de piny-woods an’ she want Mist’ Jim go up to Atlanty wid all heh fine frien’s. Mist’ Jim gotta stay heah in de piny-woods an’ look after all his peoples. Us is Mist’ Jim’s peoples an’ us don’ wan’ no mens runnin’ de stores lak’ dey was machines. Us is peoples and Mist’ Jim treats us lak peoples. If us gits sick, Mist’ Jim he werries ’bout us an’ sees do we have a doctoh, an’ is we got vittles. If us gits in li’l trouble, den Mist’ Jim he teks us to de county seat and he fights for us if we ’serves it lak some of us does; an’ if we’s be’n mean and cuttin’ up an’ gittin’ in sho’-nuff trouble, den Mist’ Jim he teks cah of ouah families whilst we’s doin’ ouah time. No’m, us ain’ gwine let nobody, Miss Sue-Ellen ner nobody, tek’ Mist’ Jim ’way from us.”
Shelley drew a deep breath and smiled mistily at Jim.
“I don’t think I ever heard a nicer tribute.”
“Nor a heavier load of responsibility,” said Jim quietly, looking with affectionate, slightly troubled eyes at Mam’ Lissie.
“No, suh, ain’ gwine do Miss Sue-Ellen a speck o’ good tryin’ to tek’ Mist’ Jim ’way from us. Us puts de cross fingers on her, do she try it.” Mam’ Lissie checked herself guiltily as though she had said more than she had intended.
Jim stood up and patted the thin old shoulder.
“Well, don’t you give it another thought, Mam’ Lissie,” said Jim firmly. “I can handle Sue-Ellen.”
“You hope!” murmured Shelley impishly. Jim glared at her, but she only smiled at him and bade Mam’ Lissie a warm good-bye.
Later, back in the station wagon, driving away from the neat little white-washed cabin, Shelley asked curiously, “What’s all this business of ‘crossing the fingers’ that Mam’ Lissie seems to think is such a powerful threat?”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Jim admitted frankly. “Minnie-Ola, the kunjur-woman, does the ‘pointing,’ for a price, of course. If someone has an enemy too powerful to handle personally, he goes to Minnie-Ola, and buys a charm, or a ‘potion’ guaranteed to wreck the enemy’s evil plans. Or if he wants to get the enemy safely out of the way, in a permanent manner, Minnie-Ola make
s a tiny doll of wax, names it for the enemy, and pins are stuck into it in various ways, any one of which guarantees a slow and painful demise for said enemy.”
Shelley was staring at him, wide-eyed, even shocked.
“Oh, but isn’t that voodoo?”
“I suppose so—a form of it, anyway.”
“But for Heaven’s sake, surely they don’t believe—”
“I’m afraid most of them do, the black people anyway, and that’s why Minnie-Ola is perhaps the most powerful person for miles around,” Jim admitted reluctantly. “My father tried to get rid of her; no soap. I came home with some ideas on the subject. But like my father, I soon discovered that unless I wanted a ‘mass migration’ of the turpentine hands and all those connected with them, which would, of course, mean ruin to the naval stores, I had better let Minnie-Ola alone. Usually, I can keep her pretty well in hand; but now and then things crop up. Minnie-Ola is invariably in the clear, of course, when trouble shows up. The victim of the shenanigans refuses to name the one he suspects; and you’ve never really run into an ‘iron curtain’ until you try to get one Negro in these parts to testify against another. Ordinarily, they’re the gentlest, mildest of people; friendly and warm-hearted, laughing and singing at their work as you saw them this morning. You see the door-yards spilling over with tumbling laughing youngsters; the women busy with their work inside the house or in the yard; a picture all bright and gay and carefree. But at the first whiff of trouble, they simply vanish; the women and children fade into the house and you’d think you were walking down a road in a deserted village. The men are still working in the woods, or on the loading platform, but working in a grim silence, sullenly. It beats you completely.”
Shelley shivered a little at the picture his words drew so graphically.
“And all just because of Minnie-Ola?” she asked.