Fair and Tender Ladies

by Lee Smith

  It is time to go now. Oh Daddy dont you rember how you took us up the mountain ever year about this time to gather birch sap, it was so sweet and tart on yor tonge, and you said, Slow down, slow down now, Ivy. This is the taste of Spring.

  I remane yor devoted daugter,

  IVY ROWE.

  PART TWO

  Letters from Majestic

  To A Nurse.

  Dear Madam,

  Please read the enclosed letter aloud to my sister Silvaney Rowe, she can not read unlessen you have taught her wich I never culd. And I hope you are good to her too. I remane your grateful,

  IVY ROWE.

  My dear Silvaney,

  I think of you so much, and I wonder, now how is my Silvaney? And how is she keeping today? I hope you are well, I have got this adress from old Doc Trout, I went over ther and got it yesterdy at closing time. His ofice is up a big long stairway over Sharps Mercantile, they is nought but a door with a pane of frosted glass up ther at the end of it. They was not a sole in the ofice, not even a nurse, and dust everplace, you culd see the dust just whirling around and around in these little bars of ligt that come down threw his high funny winders. It is dirty to be a doctors ofice. He is not much of a doctor if you ask me. Doc Trout, Doc Trout, I hollered and I heerd a sound then but it was not exackly a anser nor yet exackly a word, I culd not of said what it was. So I went on in ther passed the chairs where you sit, now this was where we sat, Silvaney, the day that we brung Danny to town and got his tonnick. And then I dont know what got into me, I went passed those chairs and strate on into Doc Trouts ofice where he sat with his feet up on the desk drinking outen a fancy coffee cup, he was not drinking coffee ether. Doc Trout looked at me real lazy. Well Miss Rowe, is it not? he said, Is it not one of the Misses Rowe? I can tell by that pretty red hair.

  It is me Ivy Rowe, I said, and I have come to get the adress of the Elizabeth Masters Home where you have sent my sister Silvaney wich I am still mad about. For I will take you out of ther one day Silvaney and bring you back home to Sugar Fork. But now we are living in town you know, and I will write you all about it as soon as I finnish with old Doc Trout.

  So he looked at me awhile and drunk outen his green china cup and said, Well sartinly Ivy Rowe, you are braking my hart, and he rumpled around in the drawer of his desk and come up with a envelop that had this adress in the corner and handed it over to me. Do you want it back I said, and he said, No, Lord no honey, you keep it and write to your sister Silvaney and tell her that old Doc Trout says hello ther why dont you, say hello from old Doc Trout. And then he comences to laghing a lagh wich you dont want to heer, it sounded just like a green persimmen tastes, a lagh like bitter gall. Go then Ivy Rowe, go on, he said, you had best make haste and get out of here, be on your way. Doc Trout was looking at me very hard, he is not so old ether. So I grabbed up the envelop and took off down his long dark stairway and run like hell all the way back threw the streets of town, feeling funny.

  It is the same with the men at the bordinghouse Silvaney, I see them starring at me sometimes it makes me feel funny and bad. I know lots of girls my age is maried but I do not wish to be maried nor have them star untill it is like ther eyes are touching my boddy underneath my dress. I am reading a grate book Jane Eyre, about a orphan, wich I have borried from one of the lady teachers. Now Jane Eyre in the book is little and plane so far, she is like a elf or a fairy. I wish it was me, insted I am getting a bosom like Beulah, this is what they star at threw my dress.

  Oh Silvaney, have you growed too? And wuld you know me? I know you can not write to me so I will dry my eyes up now and try to look on the brigt side as Geneva Hunt tells me to do. For I will come to get you bye and bye.

  And in the meantime they is so much hapening, I will dwell on this, and tell you all, so you may feel that you are here in truth as well as spirrit. Well we come to town in a big March wind, Mister Delphi Rolette brung us down here with everthing we own piled up in his wagon, this is not much. This is me and Momma and Garnie and Johnny. It rained off and on that morning, I did not care if it rained or not, nor if I was wet nor dry, I was that sad to be leaving Sugar Fork. Momma sat on the seat by Delphi Rolette and starred strate ahead, I did not see her turn back oncet as we come down the holler. I rember I looked back when we crossed Sugar Fork for the lastest time and I seed that Blue Star Mountain was all covered in mist and low clabbered clouds, and then the wind blowed strong for a minute and I thoght I seed our house, then it was gone. I cryed all the way from Home Creek to Daves Branch, and Momma said nary a word. Finely Mister Rolette said Now Ivy, what ails you? Your mother will need you to be a big girl now, come on, you used to have so much spunk. And looking at Mommas face then I sat up and tryed to quit crying and tryed to say something back to Mister Rolette whose so nice, and something to Garnie and Johnny in the back of the wagon so good and quite. By the time we come into Majestic it had quit raining and the wind was whipping little stringy clouds around in the blue-blue sky and everbodys cloths was blowing on the line like people was in them dancing. The pale yaller sunligt shined offen tin roofs and mailboxes, and when we pulled up to Geneva Hunts bordinghouse, buttercups was blooming early by the gate. I had no sooner clumb down than here come Geneva Hunt herself tearing out of the house like she was blowed by the wind, I had never seed her in person afore this time.

  Maude, Maude, she said pulling Momma up close for a hug—she is as big as two women, Geneva is, or as big as a big old man—Maude, Maude you look like the wrath of God, and you are so skinny, you look like something the cat drug in. We will soon fix that! Geneva cryed, for she is a famous cook. And look at these poor little old boys here, why this one is the spitting image of John Arthur she said, meaning Johnny for Garnie is not. Geneva says, I have got some speshal cookies back ther in the kitchen but I gess I will have to throw them out if I cant find no little boys to eat them. And Garnie says, where is the kitchen at? And then Geneva laghs a deep lagh, I think you wuld call it a chuckle. Ludie, take them on back ther, she says to a fat girl whose come out the door now, and Ludie does, and all of sudden the bordinghouse yard is plum full of people and it dont take a minute for so many hands to carry our things inside.

  Oh Silvaney, I wish you culd see my room! For I have got a room of my own it is the firstest time ever as you know, nevermind it is not as big as a closet, Geneva says it is more like a closet relly. But Geneva says a girl needs a room of her own so I have got one! I love it so. It is at the back of the house on the third story, rigt under the roof. I can look out my winder over all the town. Here is a list of the things in my room. I wish you culd see them to.

  1 Bed, plane white iron with a fluffy blue counterpane too big,

  it comes down to the floor, it is like I sleep in the clouds!

  1 little table, white wood panted, with a oil lamp on it of my own

  1 chester drawers very beat up, and 3 hooks on the wall to

  hang your dresses

  1 rag rug, old.

  And Silvaney the bestest part is, they is wallpaper, for this was the house of Geneva Hunts uncle a very rich man who died. And I do not care iffen the wallpaper in my room is peeling off or not, nor if my cieling is very low and slants over my bed, I am rigt up under the roof as I said erlier. I love it when it rains, it is like a hundred million horses running on top of my head, it is like the Charge of the Ligt Brigade on this old tin roof. But I have not yet toled you of the wallpaper. It is the bestest part. The wallpaper is silver-gray squares with pink ribands running between, and in each square, they is a lady! These ladys are all alike very old fashened with high curly silver hair that migt be wigs, and the most beutiful big pink dresses with a skirt that resembles a bell. So I love them. I love my room. Geneva Hunt says it will get as cold up here as a witches tit come winter, but I dont care. I can go to the winder and push back my gauzy curtin and look out over all the town. It is mine, I say to myself then.

  This town is mine, Majestic Virginia, U.S.A. The Presbyterian Church steeple is
up on a level with me, and I can see the Methodist School down the way with hopscotch chalked out in the dirt. I watch them playing at recess time. I see rigt down on all the screen porches and backyards, the clotheslines and outhouses and sheds and gardens of Shady Lawn Street, and the livery stables way up at the end of it. If I lean way out and strane my neck I can see the roof of the Branhams house that is where Ethel lives. If I look strate down I see our own backyard with the storehouse and the old well and the clothesline and the fethery tree wich is called, Mimosa. It is very beutiful. If we still lived up on the mountain and played party this wuld be my name, Mimosa. But I will write no more of that as it makes me cry and ther is so much else to tell you, for an instance oncet I looked down and what did I see but that fat girl Ludie kissing a boy on the lips out behind the garage where Geneva keeps her automobile! Geneva has got a red touring car, they is not but about four other cars in town at this time. Ludie thinks noboddy can see her because of the forsithia bushes and the garage but this is not true, I can see her just fine! And I am watching now to see if she does it some more, I hope so.

  Ludie comes from up in the mountains too near Smoky Gap, but she lives here now and cleans for Geneva. She is a fat girl with braids wound around and around on top of her head, whose looking hard for a husband. Also she is not very smart. Ludie cleans, and Geneva cooks her own self with two other women Mrs. Crouse and Mrs. Viers to clean up after her. Mrs. Viers has got big moles all over her face. Geneva makes the bestest chicken and dumpling in the world, and also pies. Her lemon merang pie is famous it is five inches high, she makes ten at a time in them big black cookstoves. People come to the back door from all over town and try to buy them a pie. Sometimes we will sell them, sometimes not. It depends on how many borders we have got, plus Judge Brack who takes his meals here and some others when Geneva will give them a place at her table. It seems like everbody wants a place at her table. So you wuld think that Momma wuld fatten up finely, but this is not the case. Momma is still as thin and as flat as a bord despite of Genevas cooking. Her black hair has got gray streaks in it now and she pulls it strate back in a bun on the back of her neck and it looks pretty good, I have to say, but her face is still halfway hanted. Momma is like she is scarred of fun. It is hard to see how her and Geneva got to be such good frends as they are so diffrent, but Geneva says when you grow up so close together like they done in Rich Valley, and are only children both of you, you are just naterally closer than kin. And I have read it in a book that oposites attrack, well Geneva is surely the oposite of our Momma! Geneva is so big and soft and easy-going with curly yaller gray hair and dimples and lots of chins, and she has spectacles on a gold chane around her neck, they rest on her bosom like it was a shelf. She claps her hands when she laghs and it seems to me that half the men at the bordinghouse wuld not mind to mary Geneva, that is the ones that are old enogh of coarse, but when I said as much she clapped her hands and laghed and said she wuld not have a one of them on a silver platter! Geneva has had three husbands, she says she is throgh with all of them and has washed her hands of men but I am not sure that this is true, I am watching to see what hapens.

  I am watching everbody Silvaney, it is fun. We keep the teachers from the Methodist School, it is Mister Dudley Slade who is little and mean and we all hate, and Miss White who is old, and Miss Mabel Maynard who is rich I belive as she wears such lovely cloths. But Miss Maynard is moony and plane, and blushes at any attenshon. We have drummers that come to town to sell, such as rigt now some yung men Robert Street and Wayne Crabtree and a boy named Lonnie Rash who is with the lumber company. These are the ones that star at me as I serve, they look rigt throgh my cloths. Then we have lawyers that come to town on business and men from the mining companys and may be we will have a circuit rider, then you have to say grace at the table. One time we had the Methodist circuit rider and he said, Judge Brack, I have long been your admirer sir, I defer to you on this day of our Lord, and Judge Brack said, Good food, good meat, prase God, lets eat, and the circuit riders mouth dropped open. I got so tickled I like to of dropped the potatos.

  Another time we had us a fancy preacher man here, Sam Russell Sage who is famous and holds camp meetings everplace and has a big head of curly black hair, he will be back for some more of Genevas vinegar pie for sure, he said. And yet another time when we firstest got here we had two big shots from Detroit who own one of the coal companys I forget wich, and come here to go up in the mountains hunting. Some company men had got the Green boys from Hell Mountain all lined up to take them, and the company men gone too, and they all come back after three days with a bunch of dead deer that Geneva says they will pack up and hall back on the train and stuff them and put them in ther liberries, have you ever heerd the beat of that? I belive it wuld look so ugly. And Geneva says it is a shame because a deer culd meat a mountain family for nearabout a year. But these Detroit men was full of the sites that they had seed and tales of a big bear up on Hell Mountain that had outsharped them, and said that they was coming back to get him another day, and I thoght to myself, it is Whitebear Whittington! but I never asked them if it was white. For I did not want to know, if it was NOT.

  And soon they will build the railroad clear to Kentucky, and I reckon that more company men and more railroad men will stay here then, and so on. This bordinghouse is a busy place, belive you me! It is easy to see how Geneva relly needed Momma to look after the rooms and see that the washing and cleaning gets done, and even me thogh I only serve at table but sometimes on Sunday when Geneva has two sittings, this is hard. Sometimes my arms hurt awful. But then when it is done I can go in the kitchen and hang up my apron and come and go as I please for the rest of the day, for ther is so many people coming and going in a bordinghouse that a girl can slip away to come and go all over town, and see what ther is to see!

  And this is a lot, belive me! For it is coming on to wartime and the econommy is booming, Judge Brack says. We have got the lumber business wich is booming, this is where Beulahs husband Curtis Bostick works, and the coal business wich is booming too. But Curtis Bostick toled Momma he will go into coal now he thinks as these mountains is dam near timbered out. The railroad takes out the coal, when you stand by the tracks the railroad men allways wave back if you wave.

  But the logs go out on the river, and oh Silvaney, I wuld give a million dollars to go along. All winter they are halling in timber and cutting the logs and you can hear the high shrilly whine of the crosscut saw, from the lumberyard. This is where Curtis Bostick works in the ofice. They have to cut them up so they can tie them into rafts come spring. One time a man got his foot cut off and died and another time a man got his hand cut off but lived, Curtis Bostick showed me rigt where it happend, it was awful!

  And they pile them up in log dumps all along the bluff above the river just past town, untill they is a reglar mountain of logs just waiting for the big spring tides that carrys them down to Kentucky. Ever day after breakfast is over and the dishes is done, I walk to the bluff and see. They is men ther watching the river, deciding when to go. The river is brown and swirly, it has waves and foams up the bank. When will you go? I ax them. The river is getting high. Not yet, they say. Not yet. And ther is a bunch of boys with ther sacks all ready to ligt out on the rafts when the river is risen enogh. They hunker on the bluff looking down at the foamy water, chewing tobaccy, waiting. They star at me. But oh Silvaney I wuld give anything to be one of them boys and ride the rafts down to Kentucky on the great spring tide! They pay you three dollars a day and you have to walk back wich takes four days, they pay you for walking back too. I will say I have even thoght of waring jeans and a boys shirt and shoes and trying to sneak along, but Momma and Geneva wuld have a fit.

  Silvaney, they left today.

  Something awoken me erly, I culd not say what it was. But I waked up afore full ligt when all was pale and gray and I thoght to myself, It is today. Today is the day! Still I had half a mind to try and go as a boy and ride a raft myself but I said, Now Ivy
you know you can not, you will never get away with it. So I jumped up and dressed and determined to run rigt out ther and see them off.

  First I went down in the kitchen where Geneva was up all ready and boiling the coffee and said, Geneva I belive it is the day the rafts will leve. And she laghed her deep lagh and said Well go then Ivy, go on and watch it if you must, here take you a biskit to eat, and she given me a biskit that she had ther, and said I did not have to come back for breakfast atall! I will get Ludie to serve, she said, and I said, Thanks. Here now, she said and she given me one more biskit.

  Ivy, you are a case, she said. And I taken the biskits and run out passed Mrs. Crouse just coming in, and I run out the front door and down the street and the sun was just peering out, and I run passed the iceman in his wagon and the milkman, and when I got close to the river I fell in with a whole bunch of peple going the same way because the news was all over town, It is today. When we got to the bluff I pushed threw and got up front where I culd see good. The river was wellnigh up to the bluff, brown and boiling it put me in mind of Genevas coffee. And it was covered bank to bank with patches of swirling mist. Get back! Get back! Everybody hollered. A whole bunch of men was on the bank pushing the logs down with canthooks and hollering Whoa now! and Watch out! when they hit the water. And men in the water is binding them into rafts with chains and tie-poles, then the boys wuld jump on hollering, two to a raft, and the river wuld seze them and spin them away, and off theyd go in the mist, bound for Kentucky, untill the whole river was full of rafts some from upriver too where they had took out the chaindogs and loosed the splash-dams. And off they went! It taken hours and hours.