On Agate Hill

by Lee Smith

  Up on Bobcat

  “Final Impressions”

  As duly recorded by Agnes Rutherford

  June 8, 1912

  This piece of fool’s gold was given to me by Molly Petree when she married. I shall never forget it — the blast of freezing air when the door opened, a sort of whooshing sound as she swept across the floor in that blue hooded cloak I knew so well, though in fact it was pitch black, the middle of the night; the feel of her hair on my cheek and her sweet breath in my ear as she said, “Goodbye, Agnes, I love you. Here, keep this, I want you to have it to remember me by,” pressing the fool’s gold into my hand. She had carried it in her pocket since I had first known her. “No, I cannot—,” I began, struggling beneath the heavy bedclothes but to no avail, for she was already gone, leaving only a heady space of cold air to mark her presence. The little Badger girls on either side of me sat up and began to cry. I soothed them as best I could, saying, “There now, go back to sleep, it was nothing, nothing at all,” which was not true, but even then I could never have foreseen the tragic consequences which were to spring from this event.

  Now I hold the fool’s gold up to the sunlight streaming in the kitchen window, turning it this way and that, watching as it throws off rays like little bolts of lightning. I can never decide. Was I, in any way, to blame for what was to come? I have always worried about this, I have always felt guilty. For in actual fact I was responsible for both journeys: that is, first, removing Molly Petree from Agate Hill; and second, removing her from Gatewood Academy and taking her away so precipitously to these mountains.

  See how this fool’s gold sparkles in the sun. I wonder if I could have done anything different, if I could perhaps have waited and chosen a less drastic course, and what would have happened then . . . but it is impossible to wrest a decision out of its time and place, and even now I cannot think what I should have done.

  In fact, old age has been something of a disappointment in that I fully expected wisdom to come to me sometime, certainly by now, perching like a robin on my shoulder. This has not happened. I understand nothing. Yet I shall attempt to set the record straight nevertheless, aware of the all-too-swift passage of time in its flight, how it cloaks even our most important moments like the fog which hides Laurel Knob from view as I look out my kitchen window now.

  Our journey here took days in a public coach, traveling first down to Winston Salem thence to Wilkesboro where we passed the night in a rowdy hotel, its lobby piled high with luggage and boxes and parcels of every sort. Wilkesboro was like a Western town in those days, a “jumping off place” full of men heading out to make their fortunes. As I sat in the bustling lobby on the morning of our departure, I thought that many of them had said goodbye forever to all, mothers and fathers and kin; they might never pass this way again. Then a thrill shot through me as I realized that this was our own situation exactly, though who would have guessed it, of course, a little old-maid schoolteacher and a pretty girl?

  The next day we went in a line of wagons up the turnpike from Wilkesboro toward Jefferson, with teams of extra horses trotting along behind us. Straw hat on her lap, Molly dozed through the hot afternoon while I sat up ramrod straight as if electrified, watching the great blue shapes of the mountains gather around us. Yes, I said to myself. Yes. I thought of the peak in Darien in “On First Reading Chapman’s Homer,” by Mariah’s beloved Keats. I felt that I was truly entering the “realms of gold.”

  At dusk the drivers stopped at the Reddies River in order to rest the horses for the morrow, setting up tents where we passengers might lie down on little cots to sleep, to the chagrin of a pair of thin lady sisters, raven-haired Miss Reedy and gray-haired Miss Reedy, traveling along with us. Necessary functions were performed in the pinewoods while an old wagoneer named Joe kept watch. Molly giggled, cheeks aflame, running back out. After the confines of Gatewood Academy, this was an exotic journey indeed.

  The wagoneers cooked a “pinebark stew” in a big pot over a great fire, ladling it out into enamel bowls for us to eat with tin spoons. It was delicious. The Misses Reedys’ snores did not bother Molly, but I couldn’t sleep a wink all night long, watching the flickering campfire, listening to the men’s indistinct laughter and voices, and now and then, the plaintive strain of a fiddle.

  After bitter morning coffee, streaky bacon, and corn cakes fried over the fire—they call these “hush puppies,” and throw them to the dogs too — we set off again, up the mountain which was arduous indeed, the horses straining and foaming with sweat, the men cursing and yelling at them. “I want to walk!” Molly announced at one point, pitying the horses, but as it was muddy along the bank, the men would not allow it, a good thing since the road grew narrower the higher we went, so that each lurching turn sent our hearts leaping into our throats. Below us, off the roadside, the mountains lay spread like the sea, peak after peak like waves disappearing into the misty blue distance.

  “That there’s Grandfather Mountain,” one of the men rode back to report, “see, there’s his nose,” pointing across the airy miles to the biggest mountain of all, with a huge bump halfway down it. Then we passed around a bend, then it was lost from view. We went on, and on, and on, up through the Deep Gap and past Nettle Knob and the great somber Nigger Mountain and thus into Jefferson, a rough but pretty little town with its busy unpaved streets lined by beautiful cherry trees.

  Thoroughly dusty and hot and worn out by then, we disembarked at a kind of depot, handed down by a strapping young man onto a wooden platform. I was so exhausted, my knees nearly buckled under me. All was hustle and bustle and barking dogs. The Reedys were met by three dapper little men half their size. Husbands? Brothers? They all drove off in a big green buggy. Molly and I stood next to our pile of baggage in the full hot rays of the sun. Suddenly the platform was entirely empty, as if all the activity of a half hour before had never occurred.

  “Well, Agnes?” Molly squinted into the sun to smile at me.

  “Ah, ah, Miss Rutherford?”

  We turned around to find a plump red-faced young man in a light blue suit and a straw hat, mopping at his forehead. He was accompanied by a pale long-faced woman in a brown silk dress and hat who held on to his arm with one hand as tightly as she grasped her enormous purse with the other.

  “I am, ah, ah, ah, Augustus Worth.” His speech was a kind of chortle, bubbling up like a spring.

  “I am Agnes Rutherford, and this is Molly Petree, the young teacher I mentioned to you in my letter.”

  “I am so, ah, happy,” he began, but here the woman cut in sharply.

  “And I am Drusilla Worth. Welcome.” She turned abruptly to her husband. “Gus, these girls will not do at all. But there’s nothing to be done for it now, so come along”— to us— “let’s get you out of the sun. Miss Fickling’s boardinghouse is just down the street. Careful now, it’s Court Day.” She turned him around and pushed him off the platform into the dusty road.

  “But what about our luggage?” I called after them.

  “I’ll have it there directly, mam,” said the young stationmaster who had reappeared and stood pointing out the sights, such as they were, to Molly.

  “Come along, then.” I pulled at Molly’s sleeve. She put her hat back on and there we went across the dusty street behind this unlikely couple: her, stiff and narrow as a poker; him, round as a snowman.

  “Look at his feet,” Molly whispered, giggling.

  They turned out almost at right angles to the side, giving him a waddling duck gait.

  Suddenly I couldn’t control myself either, I am ashamed to say. Laughing helplessly, Molly and I clung to each other for support as we progressed in our odd foursome across the main street of Jefferson, dodging wagons and carriages and attracting a great deal of notice. We attained the shade of the cherry trees along the line of stores.

  “Hello, ladies.” Two gentlemen stopped to bow, removing their hats. I took them for lawyers, as I knew Jefferson to be the county seat. A solemn storekeeper in
an apron came to his door to welcome us, followed by his smiling frizzy-haired wife. “Come back and see us!” she said. “If we ain’t got it, you don’t need it!” Indeed it seemed as if they had every possible thing in their window or sitting out along the front. We stepped aside to make way for two men carrying a sack of flour to a waiting wagon. A country woman came by holding two flapping chickens by the neck. Children darted everywhere. A crazy man was preaching on the street corner though nobody paid him the slightest attention. “Hell is a-waiting!” he yelled. “It’s a-waiting for you!” His shirt was filthy. We passed a bank, a pharmacy, a crippled shoemaker sitting on a chair outside his shop, and several nice frame houses where girls came out on the porches to stare at us, pointing. “It is rude to point.” I heard Mariah’s voice in my head. But of course it was entirely possible that no one had ever told these girls that. A little restaurant named Gracie’s was packed with people; several of them came to the window to watch us pass by, napkins tucked into their shirt fronts. I realized how hungry I was. Two men stood outside playing fiddle and banjo; the tune followed us down the street. On we went through this little town nestled deep in the bowl of the mountains, bright blue sky above.

  I was relieved when the Worths opened a gate and stepped up on a friendly porch lined with rocking chairs and blooming flowers in pots. A hanging swing moved slightly in the breeze. Two cats slept on a blue hooked rug before the screen door, which opened immediately. “Scat!” cried the fat red-headed woman who emerged smiling broadly with one gold tooth in front. “Well, Lord, look-a-here what the cat drug in! I’m Martha Fickling, and you all are the new schoolteachers, ain’t you a sight, Lord, Lord! You must be all wore out. Come on in here and get yourselves some lemonade and pound cake, I’ve been a-waiting on you. Gussie, you and the missus can come on in and help yourselves to some pound cake too, iffen you want, but one way or another you’ll have to move outen the door,” she said severely to Mr. Worth, who was rolling his eyes and blubbering something to his wife. “You know he wants some of my cake,” she said to the wife. “Why, I’m famous for it!” To him she said, “Gussie, I swear to God. Get in or out, one! These girls is starving. Can’t you move him?” she asked Mrs. Worth.

  “That’s enough now, come along,” Mrs. Worth said to Mr. Worth as one would speak to a dog, and off he went with her reluctantly, out the gate and up the busy street, having promised to meet us on the morrow to show us the school and further explain our positions.

  “Lord, Lord!” Martha Fickling drew us inside through the cozy parlor where she evidently slept as well, for a big brass bed stood in the far corner next to an enormous parrot in a wooden cage.

  A round oak table in the dining room held a sweating blue pitcher of lemonade and a large pound cake, the most luscious thing at that moment that I had ever seen. “Now get yourselves a piece, that’s right, honey,” to Molly who had thrown her hat on the floor and grabbed the knife. “Well, sure, I’ll have one too. Now you all just make yourselves comfortable. Take them old shoes off. Shoes makes a person hot, in my opinion.”

  We did so, and she was right. Furthermore, it was the best cake I had ever tasted, bar none. I had two pieces, Molly three. The bird in the cage called, “Hi-ho! Hi-ho!” The luggage arrived and the young stationmaster got a big chunk of cake for his trouble, but Martha Fickling wouldn’t let him come in. “You be on your way now, Johnny,” she said. “She ain’t going noplace, and Lord knows, neither are you. Go on, now.” He went. I relaxed, beginning to like Martha Fickling very much. I had worried most about our accommodations, yet these seemed ideal. And Martha knew “the dirt,” as she called it, on everybody.

  Of Augustus Worth she said, “Why, he’s right from around here, son of the old Judge and that flighty young wife of hisn that run off with the peddler. So everbody has knowed him all along, and knowed what he was like, full of book smarts but no common sense, the kind of kid that couldn’t park a bike. Old Judge sent him down to the University at Chapel Hill and he never got over it, in my opinion. That’s where he picked up his bossy woman, she’s a lot oldern him, can you tell? He’s blinded by pussy, I say.” Of course, Molly was enchanted by this inappropriate information about our “boss,” for Dr. Worth was the newly appointed superintendent of schools.

  We slept like the dead in our cheerful bedroom overlooking the street, waking to the smell of coffee and the sound of conversation. Several lumbermen — “speculators” — had arrived in the night. Wearing an enormous red-flowered dressing gown, Martha Fickling served up pancakes and sausage and fried apples, joking with everybody. “Go to hell, fare thee well!” sang the bird.

  Dr. and Mrs. Worth arrived promptly and walked us to a fine two-story establishment at the end of Main Street. I was delighted, having expected much more primitive conditions. There were eight classrooms here, four up and four down. As the term was soon to begin, several men were putting the finishing touches on a sparkling new coat of whitewash. Inside we met a jolly bald man who introduced himself as Felix Boykin, botanist and principal. “I want to show you something,” he said to Dr. Worth, demonstrating a clever sliding wooden door he had put between two classrooms on the ground floor. “Now we can open it up for assemblies,” he said, “or use it like a curtain for plays and performances. See, the audience can sit here, and this can be the stage.”

  “Oh, excellent, excellent,” burbled Dr. Worth while his wife frowned, running her finger along a sawdust-topped desk.

  “I just love to put on plays,” Molly said suddenly. “Did Agnes tell you that?”

  Felix Boykin raised his eyebrows to look at her, then at me, then at Dr. Worth.

  Mrs. Worth poked him in the side.

  Dr. Worth cleared his throat. “Ac-ac-actually, you will not be teaching at this school, ladies.”

  “What?” Molly said immediately.

  “If you teach in this county at all,” Mrs. Worth threw in darkly.

  “Now, Drusilla,” Mr. Worth said.

  I sat down in one of the children’s desks, for I could not stand, motioning Molly to do the same. A pleasant morning breeze blew through the double classroom. “Now,” I said, looking at them, “perhaps you had best begin at the beginning, and tell me everything.”

  “Let me do the honors.” Felix Boykin faced us solemnly, straddling the desk in front of us. “And let me apologize for this misunderstanding.” (Though I was sure it was not his fault, since by now I was convinced that I had never met more of a nitwit than Dr. Worth, who took this chance to flee.) Felix Boykin explained that Jefferson Academy was attended not only by children from Jefferson but also by boarding students from the surrounding communities who wanted more education than could be got in their own one-room schools. “Which are quite good,” he emphasized. “Some of them, especially in the Old Fields and Helton Creek area, are very old, with fine reputations. I am a strong proponent of the one-room schools in general.”

  “You are a stranger here yourself, aren’t you?” I realized suddenly, for there was only the slightest trace of a mountain accent in his speech.

  “Yes.” He smiled. “To make a long story short, I fell into a bit of trouble as a young man, then decided to make a new start, mend my ways, and preach. I came to Ashe County fresh out of seminary, as a circuit rider, intending to return for further schooling at Harvard University the next year, but as you see, I’m still here.”

  “But you are no longer a minister . . . ,” I said.

  “No. I lost my faith, such as it was, I lost my ambition and my family, such as they were, but I fell in love with a local girl, one of the Colvards, and took up teaching, and have stayed on here to raise eight children — one of them, ironically, is studying at Harvard University right now.”

  “Really!” I could not help exclaiming.

  “This country suits me,” he said. “It does not suit everyone. Mrs. Worth will not last long, for instance. But it has gotten into my blood. This is a big, rugged county, ladies, and there are, to this day, many unmapped
and even impenetrable areas. Maybe you don’t know that we were once part of the State of Franklin, an area formed from western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee which seceded from the Union right after the Revolutionary War.” I certainly did not know this. I stared at him, amazed. He went on. “Well, the great State of Franklin did not last long. But you will find the people here fiercely individualistic, not to say cantankerous, and so removed from the mainstream that to this day we are called the Lost Province. Some of us, such as myself, like to be lost. This is a different world, as you will see if you choose to stay.”

  “But if there is no position for us here . . .”

  “The post in question is a one-room schoolhouse up in the Grassy Creek area near Hidden Valley and Chestnut Hill, on the South Fork of the New River. Of course these names mean nothing to you now. But I shall tell you about it. The Bobcat School has long since fallen into disuse. Recently, however, due to timber interests in the area, there are more jobs and more children, and six months ago, I had a visit from an old man — ninety if he is a day — named Memorable Jones. He had walked all the way out of the holler and halfway down the road to Jefferson before someone picked him up and brought him here. He had come looking for a teacher, he said, to ‘open up the Bobcat School and teach the younguns,’ for he has a smart little grandson and he doesn’t want him to ‘grow up like me,’ as he said, ‘can’t read a lick and ain’t got a pot to piss in’ — ladies, pardon my French. So it is a remote school, but you would find enthusiastic parents, willing scholars, and you would certainly have a powerful advocate in Memorable Jones.”

  “But what did Mrs. Worth mean,” I asked, “when she said we wouldn’t do?”

  “She has absolutely no authority; the board has already acted,” Felix Boykin assured us. “Customarily they try to hire men for these remote schools, as the older boys come in the winter term when there is no work in the fields, and it is generally felt that a man can handle them better. Or perhaps a more experienced schoolteacher.”