On Snowden Mountain

by Jeri Watts

  I became aware of the lowered tones of Aunt Pearl and Miss Spencer. I casually flipped through the pages again. I realized they thought I wasn’t listening to them at all, and indeed I had not been; they were talking about my classmates and me.

  “A good year overall, then.” Aunt Pearl was concentrating on the material in her hands. She wasn’t looking at Miss Spencer.

  “Well, yes, overall.”

  Even I could pick up on the invitation to be asked about something. I lowered my head deeper into the book. I could feel Aunt Pearl’s quick check on me (did they think I was a moron? they must have, for they kept on talking as if I weren’t there). Aunt Pearl pressed for the details I knew Miss Spencer wanted to give.

  “What is it? One of the children has you worried — it isn’t . . . ?” she asked, inclining her head toward me.

  I practically had my nose in the book. How dare either of them talk about me when I was sitting right there!

  “Goodness no. She’s a delight. In fact, I think she’s been a good influence on him. He’s the problem . . . the Armentrout boy.”

  “Russell?”

  Miss Spencer nodded. “I don’t have any patience with him anymore — he’s never attended regularly, and for years I tried to get him to learn but” — she paused — “I started to see his failure as my failure, and, well, frankly, I’d gotten so I wished he’d just stop coming.

  “But a few weeks ago, he showed up again, I gave a spelling test, and, well, you won’t believe this, Pearl, but he got them all right! All of them!”

  “You’ve done a good job,” Aunt Pearl said, her large hands pulling together in a silent applause.

  Miss Spencer shook her head. “Oh, no. I’ve done nothing for him. Seeing that test made me stop and think of exactly how I’ve treated him, and all I see is that I’ve yelled and sighed and balled up papers and smacked him with the ruler. Yes, I tried to teach him those first few years, but then I gave up, which is something no teacher is ever supposed to do, as you know. I stopped expecting anything from him, and I let him know that. But someone has done a good job with him.”

  “So, what is it you’re worried about?”

  Miss Spencer sighed and cleared her throat. “Well, I want to ask his father if he can come regularly to school. I want to ask Russell to consider letting me teach him. Try again.”

  “That won’t be easy,” said Aunt Pearl.

  My teacher sighed deeply. “No. I don’t know if you remember, I think it may have been before you came here to live, but I used to know Rooster. His older brother actually courted me. I went to their house once.” She took a deep breath. “And I never went again. I don’t think Rooster likes that I saw things there.” She groaned. “No, Rooster won’t cotton to me doing something with his boy. And I’ll never be brave enough to walk up that mountain to ask.”

  Aunt Pearl tutted. Somewhere, in all the talking, I’d closed the book and just listened. They never noticed and it didn’t matter. I smoothed the cover of the beautiful book. Russell would love it, with all of those illustrations. But Russell would never see it, I was sure.

  The next morning, I was surprised to stumble upon Russell’s mama as I returned from the outhouse.

  “Mrs. Armentrout,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you, uh, this early in the morning.” I anxiously looked around, sure Rooster Armentrout must be about.

  She tucked a straggly hair behind her ear. “I’m out early of a morning every day. Morning is my time.” I tried to close my mind to the scene that played in my head — Rooster Armentrout passed out, drunk, Russell sleeping, Hannah Armentrout daring to slip off. I’d have never thought she’d be brave enough to risk it.

  She looked around her, tracing the frost on the fence, gaping at the slight layer of silver hanging on the rim of the trees and grass, edging the world. “I love very icy mornings best. Then you can really see God’s outlining. But this frost works right nice too.”

  I nodded. It did make things pretty, all sparkly and fresh-looking. “Won’t you come in? Aunt Pearl’s making buckwheat cakes this morning.”

  “I’ve et already. Just come to visit your mama. Russell says as how she’s doing poorly. I gather herbs and healing plants in the summer, early fall, and . . . well, I thought I might help her a touch.”

  I nodded, although I didn’t understand. Mama wasn’t ailing in a physical way as best I could tell — I’d asked Aunt Pearl about a doctor before we left Baltimore, and she’d pooh-poohed that idea quickly.

  Entering the kitchen with Mrs. Armentrout made me realize the wonderful smell that always filled that room. Aunt Pearl had a pan of fried apples already finished, so the thick aroma of apples and cinnamon hung close; shortening sizzled, waiting for buckwheat batter to hit it, and my mouth watered in anticipation.

  Aunt Pearl showed no surprise but greeted Russell’s mother with “Stay to breakfast.” Her firm hands spread toward the table. Mrs. Armentrout explained her purpose, and then I showed her to Mama’s room.

  I paused at the doorway to watch her. Russell’s mother had a bruise below her left eye and a red ring, shaped like fingers, around her neck that I noticed as she took off her scarf.

  She stepped into the room carefully, as if afraid she might shatter something. Mama perched on the edge of her rocker, looking at the world framed by her window. Mrs. Armentrout approached her with, I wasn’t sure, maybe caution? Reverence?

  “Martha? It’s me, Hannah. Hannah Tucker. Well, Armentrout now. I married Rooster. You remember him? He took a shine to me when I was sixteen, the year after you left for boarding school.” Mrs. Armentrout looked down at her shoes. “Well, anyway, my boy says you’re poorly, and I thought maybe I could help you.” Mama looked blankly at Russell’s mother.

  Mrs. Armentrout smiled. “I brought some goodies here in my basket. Let’s just see what we might put to use. I got some elderflower tea. You remember how we used to gather the elderflowers for my mama? She taught me to steep it in boiling water, only I do it for a tad longer than she did, and you can sweeten it, if you like.” She smiled at Mama, but Mama simply stared back.

  “Or how about some lady slipper? I got me some yellow lady-slipper root and boiled it and strained it, and it’s ready for you to drink just like it is.” She held up a jar filled with a brownish muddy-looking liquid.

  I wondered at Mrs. Armentrout. She’d seemed so timid and scared when up on that mountain. Yet here she was, trying to help Mama. And apparently, it wasn’t her first time away in the morning. What made her risk everything to come out of her world for a time? Did she, like Russell, feel God’s arms around her? Did she know that feeling he described, know it for herself especially in the morning?

  A tap on my shoulder startled me. My first thought was that it must be God, but Aunt Pearl spoke in a low tone and I knew it was no omnipotent being. “Cakes are ready.”

  “But . . .”

  “You can’t help here. Hannah will either get her to take something or she won’t.”

  I followed her to the kitchen and sat before my steaming stack of buttered buckwheat cakes. “Can she help Mama?”

  Aunt Pearl set a bowl of fried apples on the table and eased into a chair. “I don’t know, girl. But it certainly can’t hurt.”

  I stared at Aunt Pearl, willing her to go on. She cut a triangle, settled it on her tongue. She chewed, struggled. “Old Lady Tucker knew right much about healing. I suppose she could have taught Hannah. Once I had a bad earache. Hannah’s mama came and blew smoke from rabbit tobacco in my ear, and it stopped hurting before you could say ‘Bob’s your uncle.’”

  I cleared the syrup from my willow tree. “Maybe she’ll help Mama, then.”

  Aunt Pearl loaded her fork with another huge triangle of cakes. “Hope so. But it’s not an earache your mama’s got. So, don’t count on it, Ellen. Don’t count on it.”

  I swallowed a buckwheat bite and let the syrupy warmth ease down my throat. I thought of my daddy, swallowed up and gone a continent awa
y from me, and of my mama, two rooms and a world removed . . . and I counted on it with every breath I had in me.

  RUSSELL’S MAMA CAME VISITING almost every other morning. She brought all sorts of brews and chattered with Aunt Pearl about the concoctions — tincture of ginseng, a small plug of sweet-potato root mixed with maple syrup — I couldn’t keep up with the variety of homemade remedies. Some glowed beautiful colors, oranges and deep reds and bright yellows, like the leaves that had decorated the forest floor earlier in the fall. Some were mired in their jars, murky and muddy and dark. When Mrs. Armentrout spoke of each one, she held it as if it were a jar of gold, her fingers circling the glass reverently and gingerly, before she placed it carefully back inside her basket.

  Mostly, though, she talked to Mama. Sometimes I listened; other times I had to head off for school, gather kindling, or shake out rugs. Mama never answered, but she watched Mrs. Armentrout closely. And, after a few visits, she smiled. She smiled the way the moon smiles down on the night.

  “Martha, do you remember that time we made a pokeberry pie? Lord, but it was horrible!” Or “Martha, do you know I can see Three Sisters’ Knob as I come down our mountain and it makes me think of you? You always loved to make up stories of how that old mountain got its name.” Mama smiled and leaned toward Mrs. Armentrout and swallowed the elixirs offered. One day she even dressed herself and was waiting in the chair when Russell’s mama came in. But she still didn’t talk.

  One day, Aunt Pearl met up with me after school, and we walked to the market. Mr. MacIntosh had an order of spices in, and Aunt Pearl wanted to get some paprika to use on her Thanksgiving turkey. I hoped I’d get a stick of hard candy.

  Aunt Pearl deliberated carefully over the spices, sniffing them, fingering the jars. I hung over the pungent thyme, closed my eyes to imagine stories of Europe, stories that would have the purplish flowers of the bushy thyme plant. A boot-scraping sound interrupted my daydreaming. I opened my eyes to Mr. Armentrout.

  Not him again, I groaned to myself.

  His smell was overpowering. It wasn’t the musky smell his son exuded, however — or even his usual mint odor — it was the sharp smell of whiskey. He reached out and grabbed my wrist.

  “Thought I told you to stay away from my boy.”

  “I haven’t been near him,” I murmured.

  Aunt Pearl put her hand on Mr. Armentrout’s. “Let go of my niece.”

  Rooster Armentrout glared at Aunt Pearl with those lightning eyes, but when she didn’t lower her gaze, he released my arm. “She’s been told to do something; she ain’t doing what she was told.”

  Aunt Pearl put herself between Mr. Armentrout and me, blocking my view. I huddled behind her as she said, “What have you told her to do?”

  “Stay away from my boy. He don’t need her teaching.”

  “Ellen” — Aunt Pearl turned to look at me — “have you been seeing Russell since Mr. Armentrout told you not to do so?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She raised her head back to Mr. Armentrout. There wasn’t even a tremor in her voice. “You must be mistaken, Rooster. If Ellen says she hasn’t, then she hasn’t.”

  “Stay away,” he said to me, his eyes narrowing.

  I nodded and hovered near Aunt Pearl as Rooster Armentrout circled the store, watching me as he did.

  Aunt Pearl acted as if nothing were wrong. She fingered the paprika jar she wanted and handed it to Mr. MacIntosh, a burly man who, like me, kept one eye on Rooster Armentrout. She said, “I love the smell of that, Mac, don’t you?” I raised my eyes in surprise — did she notice smells too? Then Aunt Pearl lingered over the meager button selection, edging a packet of large gold ones with her squarish nails.

  Suddenly, she turned to Mr. Armentrout, hovering near the cheese wheel. “Rooster, seeing you reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to ask you. You saved me a trip up your mountain.”

  Mr. Armentrout brightened at sounding like he’d done a service, and I realized with a start that even men like him appreciate a compliment. He smiled and I saw his teeth, those gleaming white teeth. They were so pure white, they were dazzling.

  “As I’m sure you realize, it is just Martha and her girl and me, and it’s been years since Daddy passed. I have a few chores need doing around the house . . . I was wondering if you could spare Russell for a few hours every day to do, oh, odds and ends I need help with.”

  The smile disappeared. “Russell’s a boy.” He slicked a hand through his hair, preening for all the world like a male peacock. “If you’re looking for a man, might need me.”

  I thought of Mr. Armentrout shingling the roof above my room, his face close to my window, or fixing the small hole in the outhouse wall where cold air crept in and filled the spaces with chill and damp. I shuddered.

  Aunt Pearl shook her head. “I wouldn’t dream of taking a man like you away from all you have to do to keep food on the table. Hard times these days and all. Still, I know Russell is big and strong. Perhaps you could loan him to me for . . . various jobs and I could pay him.”

  Mr. Armentrout wavered. Aunt Pearl pressed her point. “I know Russell traps in the morning hours . . . a family tradition. But I wouldn’t need him until afternoons, say about three? Just for a couple of hours a day. Still leaves him plenty of time for his chores.”

  I could see Mr. Armentrout wanted to say no. It was like his whole body was repulsed by the idea. His shoulders were tight up close to his neck; his body leaned away from Aunt Pearl’s words. But he licked his lips a few times and nodded.

  “Thank you for being such a kind neighbor. I’ll look forward to seeing Russell tomorrow?”

  Mr. Armentrout nodded again.

  “Wonderful. Ellen, get a stick of that candy. Mr. MacIntosh, thank you for charging these items to my account.”

  I wrapped my lips around a butterscotch and tried to keep up with Aunt Pearl’s huge strides.

  Aunt Pearl’s voice shattered my thoughts. “It’d be helpful to me in the future if you would tell me what’s going on with you so I don’t have to learn it from the community.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Aunt Pearl hesitated for a step to allow me to catch up. She glanced at me. “I told you before that Moselle Toms said as you were friends with Russell Armentrout. I dismissed that as ridiculous, but I didn’t know before she said something that you even had more than a passing acquaintance with the boy. Have you been teaching him?”

  I lowered my head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, good for you, child. Why did you stop?”

  “He, Mr. Armentrout, told me to.”

  We walked on, Aunt Pearl’s hurried gait moving us quickly to her house as she pursed her lips. “I’m paying for Russell’s time now. What I pay him to do in that time is up to me.” She strode on and I jogged, trying to stay with her. “You’ll be excused from gathering kindling and from washing dishes. That should free you up to teach him.”

  I thought of the lovely china, my willow trees, and the path Russell and I found for collecting kindling — the one that let me watch a squirrel nest and the tiny burrow of a deer mouse. I’d found that; Russell hadn’t even noticed it until I pointed out to him the minuscule tracks I’d seen. “I don’t want to be excused. Please, ma’am. I’d like to just keep doing what I’ve been doing.”

  “And teaching Russell?”

  I thought of the lightning eyes of Rooster Armentrout. I thought of Aunt Pearl’s body, firmly planted between him and me. “Yes. I’d like to teach Russell again.”

  The next day, Russell came at three. He shucked his coat and joined Aunt Pearl and me at the kitchen table.

  “Russell,” she said, “I’m paying you to be here in this house. You’ll find that I can do most anything a man can do, sometimes better. But I don’t want you lying to your father. I’ll have you help me with one or two chores every day. What you and Ellen find to do after that, well, I can’t really say.”

  “Yes’m.”<
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  Russell and Aunt Pearl went out and patched the outhouse “situation.” Aunt Pearl poured Russell a glass of sweet buttermilk, and when she went to get Mama up from a nap, Russell slid in the chair next to mine and pulled some paper out from beneath his coat.

  “I got some paper from Mr. MacIntosh. Look what I been doing.”

  It was a book. Not like a book you see in a library, with binding and printed words and all. But each page of Russell’s book had words and illustrations, fabulous illustrations that jumped off the page and filled your mind with the life of them.

  There was a porcupine, the quills looking so real, I was afraid to touch the page. He’d written that a porcupine must keep its teeth worn down, since it is a rodent, and that because porcupines love salt, they look for things, like canoe paddles or ax handles, that have been touched by sweaty human hands. He put it down in rough words of his own and the spelling was horrible — there weren’t many vowels — but I could tell what his message was.

  The next page had footprints of different animals. He’d drawn the hooves of a white-tailed deer, the splayed step of a raccoon, the tiny marks of a deer mouse. The drawings were shaded, so lifelike that I felt I could reach out, touch them, and feel the heat of an animal that had stood in that spot seconds before.

  “Russell, this is marvelous.”

  He beamed.

  “And you’re doing well with your writing too,” I said. “But you left out a few letters.”

  “I know,” he admitted. “But I can’t keep them vowels you taught me straight. So, I just didn’t put in any of ’em.”

  I shook my head. “Got to have vowels to have words.”

  Russell sighed. “Go over the sounds again?”

  We wrote and wrote, Russell confusing i and e and o and u over and over and over. I slid my chair back, its feet scraping across the floor, and explained again.

  He nodded and said he’d think on it; time for him to head out. He decided to leave the book with me so I could write more on the word suggestions. He went to the living room, where Aunt Pearl had moved Mama. Mama was listening to Aunt Pearl reading from Psalms.