On Agate Hill

by Lee Smith

  “Molly!” Martha was saying as our horses picked their way through the old wet leaves.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I’m sorry, Martha, I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said, You know you don’t have to do nothing you don’t want to, Molly. Nothing is wrote in stone.”

  “I know that.” I am sick of people telling me what I ought to do or not do.

  “Well, just as long as you do,” Martha said, and we rode along in silence as the sun came out, changing everything. Now the woods went from being a dark woodcut landscape in a Grimms fairy tale to the fairy tale itself. Suddenly the black trees stood swathed in a pale green mist made up of their own tiny new leaves and the rising ground fog, with here and there a cluster of purple judas or white dogwood or red sarvis blooming like a giant corsage. Freshets of water had burst out everywhere — running along the ditch beside us, spurting down the rocky cliff on our right, coursing across the road to run down the mountain on our left. The whole earth seemed to be stretching and yawning, waking up. A robin, back early, sat perched in the crook of a tree ahead, then flew away at our approach. I gulped in the cool moist air like I was drinking the Spring.

  Roxy and Merle have a nice big two-room cabin with a plowed garden beside it, and beyond that we could see the new ground already cleared too, with men still gathered around a pile of burning brush.

  They had hauled all the furniture out into the yard, filled with darting children and standing groups of people talking. Dance music poured out of the house, with every window and door wide open. It looked to me like the house itself was moving, literally shaking on its cornerstones.

  “Why you don’t mean it’s them old Jarvises, down from Plain View!” Martha said.

  “Who is that?” I asked, but she did not answer for then we were surrounded by people glad to see her. “Light and hitch,” they said, and helped to unpack the peach brandy and ginger cakes we had brought in our saddlebags. Roxy ran up and hugged us, big again, dragging a tiny little boy by the hand. “Say hello to Martha now, Troy,” she said, but he would not, hiding behind his mother’s skirts. Oh Lord, I thought. In three weeks I will be married. Martha carried Troy into the house where cornmeal had been thrown down on the wooden floors and both rooms were full of people dancing in the old style, stiff and mannerly above the waist but stomping and shuffling their feet too fast to see, flat-footing they call it up here.

  An old hunchback fiddler crouched on a chair in the wide doorway between the two rooms, grinning fiercely as he thumped his foot on the floor and sawed away on “Rock about My Saro Jane.” The words to this song are

  Rock about my Saro Jane

  Rock about my Saro Jane

  We’ll lay around the shack

  Till the mail train comes back

  And rock about my Saro Jane.

  I had to laugh — Agnes would NOT have approved! And Chattie doesn’t hold with dancing in any form. Martha Fickling set Troy down and jumped right into it, wagging one foot way up in the air while those around applauded, for she was a famous dancer. The old fiddler nodded and winked at her. A fair-haired young boy stood behind the old man, shy but obviously determined, singing right out. Now the floor was full.

  “Come on in, Molly,” Martha yelled, and I joined them, for I have loved to dance ever since I was at Gatewood. I am good at it. They did “Goodbye Girls, I’m Going to Boston.” They did “Shady Grove” which I love even though it has such a mournful sound to it, like all the music does if you really listen to it.

  Shady Grove, my little love,

  Shady Grove I know

  Shady Grove, my little love,

  I’m bound for Shady Grove

  Cheeks as red as a blooming rose

  Eyes of the deepest brown

  You are the darling of my heart

  Stay till the sun goes down.

  The sun was already down by that time, and they were building a great big fire out front when all of a sudden there was a commotion out in the yard and then in walked a man in a wide hat with a banjo slung across his shoulder. “Hey, Jack! Yellowjack! Hey Jack! Jacky-O!” Everybody called out and fell back to make way as he crossed the dance floor. “Where the hell have you been?” the old man grumbled, but the man just grinned as he flung his buckskin coat down on the floor and started right in picking his banjo, jumping all around. He appeared to have no bones at all in his body. He was tall and skinny with yellow-red hair that fell forward into his eyes and a big nose and a wide crooked reckless grin, the kind of a face that you couldn’t quit looking at. He played that old knockdown two-finger way, and had a loud clear singing voice. He was the kind of man that made everybody feel better just because he had walked into the room. The dancing picked up, with several people whooping out now. The music went faster and faster. Martha had long since stopped, and stood fanning herself, but I wouldn’t have quit for anything.

  I don’t know what got into me, Mary White, but it has still got into me!

  After a while I noticed he was looking at me, I mean Jacky Jarvis, and he was still looking at me when he sang

  I’ll tune up my fiddle and rosin my bow

  And make myself welcome wherever I go.

  I’ll buy my own whisky and make my own stew

  If it does make me drunk it is nothing to you.

  I’ll eat when I’m hungry and drink when I’m dry

  If a tree don’t fall on me, I’ll live till I die.

  They set lanterns in the windows and stirred up the fire in the hearth while I danced on, now with one, then another. Up there on Red Hill, there was nobody that knew I was engaged, nobody to whisper to each other that I should not be dancing. The old man called out the dances in a high singsong voice. “All hands up and go to the left. Corners turn and sash-i-ate. First couple cage the bird with three arms around. Bird hop out and hoot owl in, three arms around and hooting again!” I didn’t know what I was doing but it was all right and it was the most fun I have had since Henderson went back to Salisbury.

  Finally they quit playing, and I was dying for air. I pushed my way outside where the cold night was filled with the smell of smoke and coffee. The big fire blazed. “Here, honey.” Somebody handed me a tin cup with coffee and whisky in it. Now they had put a table of food out there too, but I couldn’t eat for the stitch in my side from dancing. I stood back in the trees away from the fire and sipped at the cup. My hair was falling all down my back and my blouse was wet clear through from dancing.

  “My name is Jacky Jarvis,” he said into my ear, “and I’ve been looking for you all my life.”

  I whirled around. “That’s a lie,” I cried. “You never even heard of me before.” His breath on my neck gave me the shivers.

  “But I been dreaming about you every night,” he said. “So I knowed you right off. Maybe I just dreamed you up.” His face was real close to mine, he was grinning such a wide devil-may-care grin that he made me dizzy.

  “Oh, is that a fact?” I said, stepping back from him. “Well, too bad, you’re too late.” I held up my hand and my ring caught the firelight, winking at him.

  He gave a long low whistle through his teeth. “Mighty fine ring,” he said. “Who is the lucky feller?”

  “Nobody you know.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he said, looking at me. He kept on looking at me until I couldn’t breathe.

  “Molly!” Martha called, peering across the fire. “Come on, honey, we’ve got to go.” I knew she couldn’t see me back there in the dark.

  He touched my elbow. “Listen, I’m coming to see you tomorrow.”

  “You are not,” I said. “You haven’t been invited. You don’t know where I live. You don’t even know who I am.”

  He smiled out from under the brim of his hat. “I’ll find out. I’ll give you your own private music show.”

  “Molly,” Martha was calling.

  I turned to go, then turned back. “Don’t come tomorrow,” I said. “Come Su
nday.”

  Then I ran around the circle and grabbed Martha and said, “Here I am,” and we set off through the night on our horses with a burning pine knot to light our way. Martha rode ahead with it flickering. “That Jacky Jarvis is a natural antic, ain’t he?” she said over her shoulder. “But them Jarvises are purely no good. They never have been any good, the whole lot of them. They run a store up there on the Tennessee line, there is a whole bunch of them up there. It’s a sight. Folks come from all around for dances. Why I used to go up there myself, time was . . .” and then she was off and running, giving me the lowdown on everybody else who had been at the dance but I didn’t even listen after she quit on the Jarvises. “Oh, is that right?” I said, riding, or, “I’ll swear,” whenever she slowed down. I was humming under my breath all the way, my whole head full of music. It was real late when we got in.

  Oh Mary White, he is insolent. I like him and I don’t, I feel like running down the mountain drooping trees the way we used to at Agate Hill but you know I am always still your

  Molly

  Monday, April 14, 1883

  Dear Mary White,

  On Sunday I lay in the girls’ bed and watched them all pack up to go to the annual Association meeting. This would take place down on the river at the Pine Swamp Church near Windfall, with dinner on the ground and singing afterward. They would take the wagon, and Cicero Todd was to come with his wagon too, as they were carrying food, and quilts, and all the children, and picking up old Memorable Jones on the way. “Oh, I hate for you to miss it!” Chattie cried, for it was the highlight of her year. She had been cooking for days.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay here with you?” Agnes asked, though she had already put on her hat.

  “Oh no, I will be fine,” I told her. I was claiming female troubles. But in all truth, by then I couldn’t decide if I really was sick, or just acting sick, I felt so “strange-like,” as Hattie would have put it. “Don’t worry,” I told them as they went out the door. “I’ll make sure Granny Took gets something to eat while you’re gone.”

  The minute they left, I jumped up and heated some water on the stove and washed my hair and sat down to let it dry over a chairback near the fire.

  “Good morning, Granny,” I said to Granny Took, who was watching me out from under her pile of coverlets. She has not spoken for months now.

  I knew he wouldn’t come but I was nervous as a cat anyway, watching out the window. I could hear the grandfather clock ticking, and the crackle of the fire. Pale sun slanted across Chattie’s bright rag rugs.

  “Hidy.” Suddenly he was behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders. I had not seen him come out of the woods, nor heard him open the door.

  I jumped up and screamed bloody murder.

  “Lord God, you’ll raise the dead,” he said, which was exactly what I wanted to do suddenly, scream and holler and raise the dead. I felt like I was tingling from head to toe.

  “Where’d they all go?” he asked. “I passed them on the road coming.”

  “To the protracted meeting,” I said. “It will last all day.” Then I could have bit off my tongue.

  “It will, huh?” He ran his fingers down my damp hair. “Well, that’s good, then. How come you didn’t go to church with the rest of them? What are you, a heathen girl?”

  “I’m sick,” I said.

  “That’s too bad. I reckon I’ll just have to hold church for you right here then.” He nodded at Granny Took. “Who is that? She can come to my church too.” He was still touching my hair.

  “I don’t know if you’ll let me into your church,” I said. “I’m a bad girl.”

  “There ain’t no such of a thing in my church,” he said.

  “What’s the name of your church?” I asked.

  “It’s the Jacky Jarvis Church of Love and Light and Redemption for All,” he said. “I’ll preach to you, sing to you, and save you too. Everybody gets saved in my church. You’re welcome any time.” Now he pulled up another chair and straddled it and sat facing me. “That ain’t such a joke. I’m supposed to be playing gospel music right now, over in Bee Gum with the rest of them. We’ve got a little gospel group, well actually it’s the same one as you heard up at Merle’s place, me and granddaddy and Biddle, that’s my nephew. We’re the Rag Mountain Ramblers on Saturday night, the Angel Band on Sundays.”

  “Don’t you get confused?” I asked.

  “Not hardly.” He grinned. “Matter of fact, I just quit playing a while ago, up on Rip Shin. Ain’t even been to bed yet.”

  “Aren’t you sleepy, then?”

  “I figure I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he said. “The way I’m going, it won’t be long neither. But that’s all right, I never figured on getting old, anyway. I ain’t got a plan for it.” Close up, he has these sort of hazel eyes with shiny gold circles inside them, around the pupil. I have never seen anything like them. “I wouldn’t mind some of that coffee, though.” He gestured to the stove where it was still hot.

  I got up and got him some. “So when does your church start?”

  “Right now.” He took a big drink of coffee and leaned his head back and closed his eyes and started right in singing “There’s Going to Be a Meeting in the Air” at the top of his lungs, startling me. “How did you like that, Granny?” he said when he was done.

  To my surprise the tears were running down her knotted old apple face. When he sang “I’ll Fly Away” she beat out the time on the side of the bed with her little claw hand.

  “She’s having a big time, ain’t she?” Jacky said when he was through.

  She was, but I was not, thinking what would happen if somebody came. And anybody might — Chattie leaves the door open all the time, with friends and neighbors always welcome.

  “It’s too pretty of a day to stay in the house,” Jacky said, like he could read my mind. “Let’s go someplace. Don’t never stay inside if you can stay outside, that’s my motto.”

  I was relieved. “Let me just get her some food, then,” I said.

  Jacky whipped out a harmonica and played “Amazing Grace” on it for Granny Took while I cut up some johnnycake into little bitty pieces and put them on her blue plate and poured some buttermilk over it. I have not heard anybody play a harmonica like that since Spencer at Uncle Junius’s bedside, and all of a sudden I was crying because that time came flooding back to me, and the music was so beautiful, and because I missed Spence so much. I guess I always will.

  Jacky Jarvis put the harmonica back in his pocket and came over to touch my wet cheek with his finger. He has real long fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, grabbing up my cloak.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said, “and don’t never apologize for a thing, that’s my motto too. Hit’s a lot to cry about in this world, a vale of tears as the feller said. Come on now. Bye-bye, honey,” he said to Granny Took, who stared at us with her dark button eyes all the way out the door.

  Outside, it was a windy, changeable morning. I hoped it would stay dry for the Association meeting and then I didn’t think about the Association meeting anymore as Jacky took my arm and escorted me down off the porch real formal, like we were sashiating in a square dance. His brown horse Betty was tied to a tree in the woods, pack and banjo slung on behind. “Can you ride behind me?” he asked. “Can you jump up?”

  “Bring her over here by the fence,” I said, and I jumped up easy as pie and then we were off, I never thought to ask where we were going. Jacky Jarvis was skinny as could be, underneath that buckskin jacket. My arms went all the way around him. “Oh do you remember sweet Betsy from Pike?” he sang as we trotted back down the road to Jefferson. The wind blew my hair dry. A pair of bluebirds flew in and out of the fencerow ahead of us. Suddenly I didn’t even care who heard him singing, or who saw us riding along, because by then it had become perfectly clear to me that I am not going to marry Henderson Hanes, no matter what else happens.

  Jacky pulled at the reins and we turned off Pi
sgah Ridge Road. “Whoa now,” he told Betty as she picked her way down a steep trail through thick mountain laurel, a trail I had never noticed before in all my three years of traveling that road to town. It was like going down a tunnel. We went a long way. Finally we came to a windy open field of blue trillium sloping down toward two tall pine trees and a rocky outcropping at the edge of the mountain. I have never seen anything so beautiful.

  “Did you know this was here?” I called over the wind, and he hollered back that he remembered it from when he was little. “They call it Bone Valley,” he said, “and over there is Manbone Rock.” He pointed to a huge white rock which stood alone on its little hill. It was as big as a cabin.

  “Why in the world do they call it that?” I asked him.

  “I have heard it said that they found a man’s bones up on top of it, long time ago. Of course they’s a tale about everything.” He stopped to grin at me. “We used to run these hills like bird dogs, me and BJ.”

  “Who’s BJ?” I asked.

  “BJ’s my cousin,” he said, helping me down. “You’ll meet him directly.”

  “Well, I doubt that,” I said.

  Jacky just grinned at me, clicking to the horse as he led her down toward the rocks. The wind blew all around us, whipping my skirts and rippling the trillium. It reminded me of that line from the song, Bow down ladies, bow down.

  “Whoa now.” Jacky stopped at an outcropping of big white boulders that looked like playing blocks abandoned by some giant child. He took a rolled-up green blanket off the back of Betty’s saddle and spread it out on one of the rocks to make a kind of bench, with another rock for us to lean against, while I stood looking off down the mountain toward Jefferson, or where I thought Jefferson ought to be. Hawks dipped and wheeled through the wide blue air. Nothing looked familiar to me. I felt like I was in another country. We were not on a cliff exactly, just a rocky point that the land fell away from in scrub brush. I felt funny out in the open like that, without the sheltering trees I had gotten so used to at Chattie’s and the Bobcat School and even down in town, surrounded as it is by the mountains, like a town in the bottom of a teacup. Here I felt exposed, and a little bit afraid, and nervous. Anybody could see us, I thought, though I knew that nobody would. For a minute I thought I could hear their voices in the wind, singing church songs.