Her face pale, Meggie was deliberately calm. "What in the world would I have to be worried about?"
Onery shrugged and gave his daughter a long knowing look. "Oh, I don't know for sure, darlin'. But I'd suspect you might be a little worried over whatever it was you done alone with that Roe, out in the woods last night 'til dawn."
Meggie's hand trembled as she forked the frog legs out of the grease and onto a platter. She said nothing, but her face was pale and she swallowed nervously.
"So," Onery continued. "Are you and him really married now, or are ye still just pretending?"
Meggie glanced nervously toward the cabin door as if looking for help. Roe ought to be coming in for his meal soon. She didn't know whether to wish he would hurry or that he would never come.
She grabbed up a tin plate from the shelf. "I don't know if I should take a plate of this out to Jesse or help him come in to the table."
Onery reached across the table and stilled his daughter's hand with his own.
"Meggie, are you married to that feller now, or are you two still pretending?" he asked again with a quiet intensity that was disconcerting.
Meggie raised her chin. "We're still pretending."
Onery's eyes narrowed. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her, his expression belligerent. "I ain't liking that, Meggie-gal. I ain't liking it at all."
Ignoring his words, she began dishing up a generous portion of the frog legs into her father's plate.
"I thought that Roe to be a pretty fine feller," Onery continued. "But it sure don't sit well, him playing fast and loose with my youngun."
"Now don't get ole-outraged-papa on me," Meggie told him. "I'm a grown woman as you well know. I can make my own mistakes and considering the mistakes you and Mama made, well, I reckon that I'm due some."
"Maybe you are, but that doesn't mean I can let some sweet-talking city slicker take advantage of your good nature."
"No, Pa, don't," Meggie said too loudly. She dropped the serving spoon into the skillet and splashed hot grease across the clean oilcloth.
Her father looked at her sharply and she deliberately moderated her tone, but the words still trembled in her throat. "He's already asked me to wed him, Pa, and I wouldn't. So that's the end of it."
"You wouldn't?"
Meggie shook her head. 'There was just no sense in it."
Onery raised an eyebrow in displeasure before tucking his napkin into his shirt collar. "It makes a good bit of sense to me."
"Pa, he's from another place and he's going back there," she explained. "I'm from here and I ain't about to leave."
His brow furrowing in puzzlement, Onery eyed her curiously. "I thought that's what you wanted, Meggie," he said. "I thought you wanted some furriner to come and take ye from this mountain."
“That was just a dream, Pa. Just something for me to set and ruminate about." She sighed heavily as if she had just left all her childish fancies behind. "I won't never leave this mountain. I won't leave you or Jesse. Truly, I don't long for far-off places, except just to see them. I love this mountain and the mists in the woodlands and the changes of season. My life is here and my family, too. I won't never be leaving Marrying Stone."
Her father nodded thoughtfully. “Then maybe Roe could take it in his mind to stay."
"I don't want him to," Meggie said adamantly. "He's got his own work in the Bay State. If he was to stay here he'd need another string for his bow. Granny's right about that. There is no call for scholars in the Ozarks."
Onery shook his head in exasperation. "The feller's been doing pretty good work 'round here. I suspect we can afford to keep him. But, Meggie, this is not the thing that ye ought to be a-dwellin' upon. How he makes his living has not a thing to do with his duty to you. Don't you remember, I couldn't make my living as a fiddler on this mountain neither. But it didn't mean I wasn't willing to lend my hand to farming or try something different for the sake of your mama."
"There is just no sense in that, Pa, no sense in it at all."
Onery huffed in disagreement. "Seems to me that you two have done crossed the line of deciding this thing with common sense, Meggie. Now you've got to decide with your hearts. You love this man, don't deny yourself that on the grounds that it ain't good judgment or that he don't owe ye no happily ever afters. Love is rare enough in this life that when you come acrost it, you'd best grab ahold, little gal, and hang on for dear life."
"I didn't say that I love him."
He eyed her skeptically.
Meggie picked up the knife and began sawing away at the light bread with the energy required for butchering a hog. "Pa, I done what I done with him. And I ain't sorry about it. I pure-dee liked it. But I ain't about to marry Roe Farley and you, nor no one else, is going to make me."
"Ye might be carryin' a babe."
"If I am then I am. It makes no difference."
Onery cursed under his breath and looked with dismay at the young woman who was his daughter. "Just like yer mama," he complained.
Chapter Twenty
FROM THE JOURNAL OF J. MONROE FARLEY
June 16, 1902
Marrying Stone, Arkansas
A more beautiful place to spend the springtime than this mountain, I cannot imagine. Wildflowers bloom everywhere and food is in abundance. The woods and creeks are full of game and fish and even in the hottest part of the day the weather is quite bearable.
Almost unassisted I have finished the cabin room add-on. Yesterday I cut the doorway into the back of the main cabin. I can’t express the tremendous sense of satisfaction that I felt when I nailed the last shake shingle to the roof. It must be the same feeling a master has upon completion of a piece of music. This little room is something I created, and unworthy as it may be, it is mine. I am thinking to build something else before I leave at the end of summer. A privy for this homestead would be a fine luxury.
The collecting continues to go very well. Now that I am considered somewhat as a part of the family, everyone is only too eager to be of assistance to me. I am recording so much in fact that I begin to run short of cylinders and may be forced to leave the mountain earlier than anticipated. The diversity of the repertoire I have encountered is startling. A scholar could spend years on this project.
Chapter Twenty-One
The rain came down, not in spurts or drizzles but full drenching all morning long. Roe and Jesse were in the woodshed riving cedar shakes for the roof of the planned privy. The activity was simple, monotonous, and requiring great spurts of pent-up energy. Perfect for Roe's current frame of mind. He set the froward rending ax carefully at the right width of the cedar block. When he slammed the blade through with a burl maul, he twisted the froe handle to split the board with the grain. It was a skill that had taken more than a couple of days to perfect, but now Roe did it easily as he allowed his mind to wander.
His privy plan called for a four-by-four post and beam shed with diagonal bracing set on skids. The skids could be used to move the outhouse to another site when necessary. Onery Best was not impressed by the idea, considering it an unnecessary luxury. But Meggie had been pleased.
"Oh, wouldn't it be grand," she had whispered in that breathy, dreamy way he'd seen so little of lately.
If Meggie wanted an outhouse, if she thought having it was something grand, then Roe would make certain she got one.
He'd spent the bulk of his waking hours the last few weeks thinking about Meggie Best, what she might want and how he might provide it for her. While his mind should have been filled with excitement at the growing collection of Elizabethan music that was to be the centerpiece of his fellowship presentation, he found his thoughts and his eyes constantly strayed to the barefoot woman who had shared an evening of passion with him in a bed of clover.
"My foot's just as good as new now," Jesse told him.
Roe glanced up a moment from his work and nodded. "I'm glad to hear that, Jesse." He turned his back to his work and his thoughts once again to his fa
ncies. But the young man did not.
"I 'spect I'm about as well as I'm gonna be," he continued a little more loudly than was necessary.
Murmuring agreement, Roe split another shake of cedar as he turned to his own thoughts. Meggie hardly had a word to say to him these days. In fact for the most part she pretended he was not there at all. The days immediately following their illicit night were awkward for both of them.
Clearly, Onery had guessed and was not at all pleased. How Meggie prevented her father from coming for Roe with a shotgun, he didn't know. But he hadn't, and he and Meggie had settled into a quiet, polite coexistence; however, sometimes when neither of them had a guard up, their eyes would meet across the room, and it was there once again. The shattering intimacy they shared had not dimmed with time but had grown into something stronger, sterner, more formidable.
"You forgot, didn't ye?" Jesse said.
Puzzled, Roe hesitated at his task and looked up. He was hardly aware that Jesse was present. "Forgot what?" he asked.
"You forgot about what you tole me the night we went giggin' and drunk the donk."
Roe stared for a long moment, trying to recall what he might have said to Jesse, then he simply smiled and shook his head. "I may have forgot. That donk does take the brains out of a man, doesn't it?"
Jesse didn't return his smile, but bent to his own work. Roe might have returned to his own task, but the aspect of the young man's movements was slow and sad. Something was definitely wrong.
"What is it, Jesse?" Roe asked. "What did I forget?"
He shrugged. "It don't matter."
Roe stopped his work completely, resting the froe against the cedar block, and walked over to Jesse's side. “Tell me, Jesse," he said.
Jesse smoothed his pale blond hair out of his eyes, but he didn't immediately answer.
At his hesitation, Roe continued, "I thought we agreed that friends tell each other the truth."
That caught the young man's attention and his blue eyes looked directly into Roe's brown ones.
"Yep, that's what we said."
"Well, I think that not saying anything at all is a bit like telling a lie."
Jesse considered his words for a long moment. "Yep, I guess ye could say that."
Roe grinned. "So tell me, Jesse my friend, what did I forget?"
Jesse became somewhat flustered. His cheeks turned bright pink and he dropped his head to stare at his own bare feet.
"What is it?" Roe prodded.
When he finally spoke, Jesse's voice was so low Roe had to strain to hear the words.
"You said that maybe we could visit the widder."
"The widow?" Then in a flash of remembrance, he recalled their conversation.
Roe had spent so much of the last weeks thinking about his own problems, he had forgotten about Jesse's.
"The Widder Plum, I tole you about her," Jesse said. "She ain't really a widder the fellers says and she'll let a feller play fast and loose with her fer some fresh-killed game or a trinket from Mr. Phillips's store. I ain't never seen her, but fellers say she's pretty and kindy young. Course, they said that when I was still shorter than Meggie, so I reckon she cain't be so young no more."
"I remember now," Roe said. "Jesse, I'm sorry that I forgot, but yes, I clearly remember it now."
Jesse looked up at him. "Was it just donk talking or do you think I could maybe . . ."
"Well of course, Jesse," Roe answered. "It's just that—"
"Just what?"
"Just ... I don't know." Roe was surprised at his own hesitation. "It just doesn't seem like as good an idea as it did that night."
Jesse nodded solemnly. "No, I don't guess that it does," he said, clearly not believing that at all. Stoically he sighed. "It don't matter, Roe."
"Of course it matters," he answered. "You are a man just like any man. You work and worry and die just like the rest of us; you deserve to live your life like any other man would."
"But you don't think I should... get to lay with a woman?"
"Jesse, honestly, I don't know," Roe admitted. "I think, yes, I think that you should get to do that if it's what you want. But somehow things seem different to me now than they did that night. Maybe. . . maybe I just need to give the idea some more thought."
The young man appeared satisfied. "It's all right. Yer still my frien' even if I never get to. . . get to do that."
"Now I haven't said no," Roe assured him. "I just. . . well, I think we need to think about it a little more. Women are. . . well, Jesse, women are kind of complicated."
The young man nodded. "Like ciphering?"
"At least as complicated as ciphering," Roe said. "You think, when you're just thinking about them, that you can lie with a woman and have a little pleasure and then it's over."
Jesse nodded enthusiastically. "Yep, that's what I want."
"But it's not simple like that. When it's over, it's not over."
Jesse eyed him curiously. "You mean you still remember it," Jesse said. "That's all right with me, Roe. I want to remember it."
"But it's not just remembering," Roe said.
With exasperation he ran his hand through his thick black hair that had grown a bit too long during his sojourn in the mountains. He didn't understand it himself, how could he explain it to Jesse.
"It's more than that. It's like. . . like. . . well, when we took that licking from your father together."
Jesse nodded.
"It doesn't seem that a thing like getting hit with a hickory switch would do much to a couple of big fellows like ourselves."
"It sure hurt like the devil," Jesse said.
"Yes, it did, but more than that, because we did that together, because it was something that we shared, it made us closer. We became better friends that night and long after the sting of that switch is gone, the friendship remains."
Jesse's expression was bewildered. "Do you mean that laying with a woman is kindy like taking a switching?"
"No, Jesse, that's not what I mean at all." Roe sighed in exasperation at his inability to express himself. "I'm not sure what I mean," he admitted. "But I do think that we need to think about it some more."
Jesse nodded and sighed. "I been thinking about it. At night I cain't hardly think of nothin' else."
Reaching out to his friend, Roe wrapped an arm around Jesse's shoulder. It wasn't until he saw the surprised expression on the young man's face that he realized what a new and unexpected gesture it was. Jesse had always hugged Roe. This time Roe hugged Jesse. The two grinned at each other.
"Don't worry about thinking on women all the time, Jesse. That seems to be about all I can think about these days, too. It must be this mountain air."
Jesse answered seriously. "I don't think it's the air, frien'," he said. "For you, I'd bet it was that new door between your sleeping place and where Meggie lays out her pallet."
Roe's mouth opened in shock. Clearly, Jesse saw more of the world than he was given credit for.
The sound of splashing captured their attention and they glanced out the door to see Meggie hurrying across the yard. She held an apron of plain cotton homespun over her head to keep off the worst of the rain. It did not, however, manage to keep her from splashing her skirt hem as she rushed barefoot across the ground.
She was quite damp when she raced through the woodshed door.
"It's really coming down out there," she said breathlessly.
Her smile was beautiful and so welcome to Roe's eyes. He couldn't remember when he'd seen it before. No, he could remember when he'd seen it and it was part of the memory that haunted his dreams.
"How's your father?" Roe asked, grateful to have reason to speak to her.
"Not much better," she answered. "He's sleeping finally but the rheumatism in his gimp leg is as bad as I've ever seen it."
"He's been working too hard," Roe said.
"It's my fault," Jesse admitted quietly. "With me laid up, there was just more work to do this summer."
&nbs
p; "It's nobody's fault, Jesse," Meggie quickly assured him. "Onery does exactly what he pleases. His mind is a bit troubled this summer is all. And he stands on his bad leg too long trying to forget his worries."
Jesse looked puzzled. "What could Pa be worried about?"
No one answered him.
"I would think that this rainy weather would have as bad an effect on his rheumatism as anything else," Roe said.
Meggie nodded. "I've been making his bark tea from wild cherry and wahoo to ease him. But I usually put snakeroot in it and I ain't got a bit."
"I could go out and pick some," Jesse volunteered.
"In this rain?" Meggie asked. "You'd catch the pneumonia for sure yarbing in the woods in a frog-strangler like this."
Jesse temporarily acceded to his sister's wisdom, then his eyes brightened. "I could take the mule down to Broody's place. Ma Broody keeps yarbs, don't she?"
"Yes, she does," Meggie admitted.
"It's on the ridge's path near the whole way," Jesse pointed out. "And I could wear Pa's pommel slicker and I wouldn't hardly get wet a'tal."
She hesitated.
"I know the way as well as I do my name," he assured her. "I ain't about to get lost betwixt yeer and thar."
Meggie nodded. "I'd be pleased if you went, Jesse," she told him.
The young man grinned broadly, "I'll be there and back before sunset," Jesse promised. "I'll bring you snakeroot."
"And you could ask Ma Broody if there is anything better I could be giving Pa."
"I'll ask," Jesse told her. "But I know that if there was, you'd already be giving it to him."
He turned to Roe with light apology. "Sorry I cain't stay here and rive shingles with ye, Roe. But I got to get yarbs for my pa."
"It's all right, Jesse. I think I can manage the rest by myself."
The young man nodded. He was clearly delighted, aware of the responsibility that he'd taken upon himself.
"I best get started right now," he said, grabbing his broad-brimmed hat from the peg.
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