by Jan Watson
Before Darcy knew it, an hour had passed. Time always slipped by quickly when she designed. The high-necked, long-sleeved frock was only pencil on paper at the moment, but Darcy imagined it in pale lavender satin brocade overlaid with ecru lace. The full skirt would be edged with ecru fringe, but to keep the outfit from being too sophisticated, she’d wear a simple pouf of lavender netting instead of a hat.
Goodness, she’d better wake Mammaw and rustle up a little supper. Milk toast would do, easy for her to make and easy for her grandmother to swallow. She stood and stretched. One leg had fallen asleep and it stung like fire. Hobbling around, she gathered up her sewing. The dress design she secreted under a quilt in the corner cupboard with the others. Mammaw wasn’t ready to see that.
Later, over supper, Mammaw was still in a pensive mood. “I don’t have much of an appetite,” she said, pushing half of her milk toast aside.
“Can’t you eat just one more bite?”
Mammaw speared one piece of the toast Darcy had cut up for her; the bread hung from the tines of the fork like a fish on the line. “Someday soon this will all be yours, Darcy.”
Darcy squirmed in her chair. “What do you mean?”
Mammaw swept the air with her one strong arm. “Why, this house, child, and the land that goes with it. All the hills and the hardwood trees and the coal seam buried underneath will belong to you and you alone. I wonder if it will be a blessing or a burden.”
“I don’t understand. What about the other grandkids?”
“Dance has got her share and Dimmert also. You know I deeded them property when they married. My other grandchildren have moved away. You and Dance and Dimmert are the only ones that stayed. The land was meant to have Whitts living on it.” Mammaw shrugged. “That’d please Herbert, I suppose.”
Darcy dribbled honey on Mammaw’s milk toast, then lifted the fork to her grandmother’s mouth. “You’re still trying to please Papaw,” she teased.
Mammaw’s face was hard to read. “That wasn’t an easy job.”
Darcy was taken aback. She’d never heard her grandmother say a word against Papaw. “How so?”
“Herbert Whitt was a rambling, gambling man. That doesn’t make for the easiest life for a woman.”
“Did you ever want to leave?”
“And go where with them young’uns?” Mammaw swallowed a bit of toast. “I made my bed. Besides, ain’t no man is perfect. They’ve all got warts.”
That made Darcy laugh. “You’re a sight, Mammaw.”
“A woman never gets over her first sweetheart, and Herbert Whitt was my first and last. There were as many good times as bad, I reckon.”
Darcy poured more buttermilk into Mammaw’s cup. “Tell me a story about the good times.”
CHAPTER 8
MONDAY AGAIN, Cara trudged to Dance’s under cold and sodden skies that threatened rain. Why must it always rain on wash day? She was sick of hanging clothes indoors to dry like she had done the last two Mondays, especially at Dance’s, where the children made a game of hide-and-seek among the sheets and pillowcases. Her own package of wash—two dresses, one dish towel, and some drawers—was clutched under her arm like a fancy purse.
She was glad for the job, though, and the excuse it provided to leave her own desolate house for the hubbub of the Sheltons’.
“Hello,” she hollered when she reached the yard. “You all to home?”
Jay sped out the door and across the porch. Wilton followed, missed a step, and rolled across the ground.
“Whoa, there, little fellow,” Cara said, tickling his tummy with her bare foot. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“We been watching out the window,” Wilton said.
“For me?” Cara asked, inordinately pleased.
“Sure, Aunt Cara,” Jay replied, “but I ain’t allowed to ask for pennies.”
“You’re not? Forevermore, why?”
“Ma says it’s the same as begging.” Jay tucked his chin, his face crestfallen. “Too bad. Solving riddles was the only way I had to make a living.”
Cara had to hide her grin behind her hand. Jay talked so grown-up. “What if we do riddles for fun? And what if I hide a penny and you happen upon it?”
Jay stroked his chin. “That just might work.”
Cara limped across the yard, Wilton clinging to her lower leg like a baby possum on its mother’s back.
“Get off Aunt Cara’s leg, Wilton,” Jay demanded.
“He’s all right, Jay,” she said, swinging Wilton along. “Now listen up. Katydids can’t cipher, june bugs can’t write, but I know very well a bug that can spell. What is it?”
“Aunt Cara’s gonna stop coming if you two boys don’t quit pestering her.” Dance leaned against the doorframe, her hands tucked under her armpits. “You ain’t aiming to wash today, are ye? I cain’t stand another day of dripping clotheslines in my kitchen.”
“I’d thought to,” Cara replied. “It is Monday.”
“I know what day it is,” Dance barked. “I ain’t as stupid as you and Ace think I am.”
Cara hesitated in the doorway and then held forth her little bundle. “I’m sorry. I never thought anything of the sort. It’s just—well, it is wash day.”
“It ain’t like it’s a law. Monday wash day! Tuesday ironing! Friday scrubbing! Saturday baking! The world wouldn’t come to an end if we mixed those days up, now, would it?”
“I reckon not,” Cara replied. “What if I scrub the floors instead of doing a wash?”
Dance motioned Cara to look at the dark clouds. “Cain’t you see it’s coming a frog strangler? Why do I need clean floors when these young’uns is going to be tracking in and out all day?”
Cara had had enough of Dance’s peevish mood. “I think you’re overtired. I’m going to gather your dirty clothes and take them to my house. I’ll bring everything back when it dries.”
Dance picked up Pauline and sank into a chair at the kitchen table, resting her head on her folded arms. Like little sentries, her children gathered round her. Jay patted her shoulder, and Merky and Wilton leaned upon her knees. Cleve crawled between her feet. Pauline lay across her lap. “It don’t matter none to me. Do whatever you want.”
“Jay,” Cara said, “can you go to the barn and fetch the wheelbarrow?”
Jay looked into Dance’s face. “Ma?”
“Go on,” she said.
Cara went to the double bed in the corner of the room. She straightened the covers and fluffed up the feather pillows. “Come lie down, Dance. You need some rest.”
Dance didn’t need much prodding. Cara nestled Pauline by her side. “I’m taking the other kids with me,” she said.
Dance sighed with not enough wind to blow out a candle. “Would ye bring me the starch from the table before ye go?”
Cara didn’t argue. Finding the small blue box, she handed it to Dance. “Will you and Pauline be okay until Ace gets home?”
Dance nibbled the edge from a lump of starch. “You sound just like Ace, forever minding me,” she retorted, then grabbed Cara’s wrist. “I don’t mean to be ugly to you. I’m just at the end of my tether.”
Cara’s heart turned over. “That’s all right, Dance. You get some rest.”
Soon the wheelbarrow was loaded with laundry tied up in a bedsheet. Merky and Cleve perched like monkeys on top. Jay and Wilton walked alongside.
“I can push that for you, Aunt Cara,” Jay offered.
“That’s okay, honey. I’ll push while you figure the riddle.”
“Fun,” Merky squealed and clapped her hands. “We having fun.”
“You hold on to your brother, Merky,” Cara said, straining to push the ungainly conveyance over a tree root.
All of a sudden, the barrow tipped to the right. Children and soiled clothing spilled out onto the muddy path. Merky’s happy smile turned upside down. She’d landed on her bottom, but where was Cleve?
“Uh-oh,” Jay said, on his knees digging under the laundry.
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br /> “Uh-oh,” Wilton repeated.
And there was little Cleve, muddy as a piglet in a hog wallow but none the worse for wear. Cara repacked the barrow and started up again.
There were no more mishaps during the rest of the journey, but the cold rain that had sprinkled on and off all morning broke loose just as they approached the barnyard.
“Hurry,” Jay called as he ran across the yard with Wilton. “Hurry, Aunt Cara.”
Cara unloaded Merky and Cleve at the end of the porch. The children were soaked; the laundry lay in a heap like a dirty reproach. Beyond her closed door there was no warmth. She knew the fireplace was stone cold. What a stupid thing to do—bringing these little ones out in this weather. They’d probably take pneumonia. No wonder God had never sent her children of her own. She’d make a terrible mother.
“Is it a spelling bee, Aunt Cara?” Jay asked, while Merky did a dance on the porch and Cleve laughed in delight at her antics.
Wilton pushed at the door and it popped open. “Why are you standing in the rain?”
Why indeed? Cara wondered, hurrying to shoo the kids inside and bundle them in quilts. Dry kindling filled the wood box, and she had plenty of coal in the coal bucket. First she’d start the fire and then make some cocoa and pop some of the corn Darcy had sent home with her last week. The children would dry. The laundry would get done—if not today, then tomorrow. As Dance would say, “The world wouldn’t come to an end.”
“Is it, Aunt Cara? Is the bug that can spell a spelling bee?”
Cara hoped her smile warmed her small niece and nephews. “That’s exactly right,” she answered, scooping Merky up in her arms. “Now who wants hot chocolate and popcorn?”
The children chorused, “Me!”
It was way past pitch-dark when Ace came for the children. Cara had pulled two straight-backed chairs to face the fire, and now Cleve and Merky shared them with her. Jay and Wilton lay on their full bellies, drowsily drawing with fat red pencils on a used brown paper sack.
“Hey, fellows,” Ace said as he ruffled first one head and then the other.
“Daddy,” Merky squealed, holding up her arms.
“Hi there, princess.” He took Merky from Cara, settling down on the hearth. “Thank ye, Cara. I don’t know what I was thinking leaving Dance alone so long. You’ve been a right smart help.”
“I don’t have so much time for thinking when I stay busy,” she replied.
“Thinking can get you in trouble; that’s for sure.”
“Ace, Dance was eating starch today.”
Ace’s forehead knit. “I know. I’ve packed three boxes of the stuff home from the store in the last couple weeks.”
Cara laid Cleve down beside his brothers. “I’ve heard of women eating dirt and even wallpaper paste.”
“Why do ye reckon?”
“Mama always said it was low blood. Beef liver’s the only cure I know of.”
“That’s hard to come by.” Ace scratched his chin. “I can go into town tomorrow, ask around, see if anybody’s butchered a calf.”
“Then you might as well leave these young’uns with me for the night,” Cara said. “Drop Dance off here in the morning. A change will do her good.”
Ace stood and stretched. “I don’t rightly think I’d like to leave the kids.”
Cara bit her tongue. “Mercy sakes, they’re all asleep.” Indeed Cleve’s and Wilton’s cheeks puffed out with soft little boy snores. Even Merky drooped against her father’s shoulder, and Jay was losing his fight, yawning mightily and rubbing his eyes with balled fists.
“You win,” he said. “I’ll be back in time for breakfast.”
“Bring some eggs then. All my chickens ran off.”
Ace smoothed his hair and positioned his hat just so. “Chickens don’t run off. Weren’t you feeding them?”
Cara could feel anger flare, staining her cheeks. “Well, of course,” she snapped. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“Whoops.” Ace smiled and danced some clogging steps. “Looks like I stepped on somebody’s toes.”
“Sorry,” Cara said. “I don’t know why those chickens up and left. I think they went looking for Dimmert.”
“Did they pack little valises?” Ace asked, his eyes twinkling. “Did the rooster have train tickets? I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole lot of them was setting off for the Kentucky State Penitentiary.” He bent down so he could look in Cara’s eyes. “It is a fowl place, you know.”
Cara’s fit of giggles lasted well past Ace’s leave-taking. As she tucked Merky and Cleve in her bed and covered Jay and Wilton where they lay, notions of hens with tiny suitcases tucked under their wings entertained her. All in a flock, they tittered and cackled, following the proud red rooster as he hurried toward a westbound train.
Finally settled down with an ironstone mug of hot sweet tea, Cara took stock. Even though a week’s worth of dirty clothes lay waiting in the corner, and even though she’d had to scramble through every cup and tin in the corner cupboard to find a penny for Jay, her heart was light. She tested a grin, then let a full smile spread across her face. Her problems no longer seemed insurmountable. After all, two years wasn’t a life sentence, and she would find a way to make ends meet until Dimmert was home again.
She spread her arms and breathed deeply. She hadn’t felt so free since she was a girl. Dreamy, half-formed memories of her growing-up years crowded her mind, begging for attention.
Her family had been poor but proud all those years ago on Little Creek. Folks said Cara favored her mama, with her high cheekbones and dove gray eyes. But really, it was her father she pined to be like. Unafraid of the slightest thing, he was a strong and determined man.
A remembrance of him slid into place like a picture card in a stereoscopic viewer. Tall and broad shouldered, he was captured midstride, arms outstretched, blacksnakes hanging by their tails from each hand. She remembered as if it were yesterday her nine-year-old self running to meet him, fascinated in spite of her natural fear.
“What you aim to do, Daddy?” she’d asked. “Why’d you bring them snakes home with you?”
“Run open the corncrib door, Daughter,” he’d replied. “I caught us some good mousers.”
From that day after, it was her job to rummage in that corncrib for feed for the chickens. At first she had to force herself to approach the round wired bin, but she’d gotten used to it—just like her father said she would.
Cara began to unwind her braided hair. She laid her combs and pins aside and brushed a hundred strokes as her memories continued. She liked high places when she was a girl, liked climbing to the tops of trees, liked scaling the beams in the barn. She liked the going up but not the coming down. More than once she’d gotten herself stuck and had to wait for her father to come in from the fields to get her down. He would stand under the tree she was in or under the trusses in the barn and encourage her descent until she could step out onto his dependable shoulders. He’d swing her down, and she’d be out of harm’s way once more.
Wearing britches like her brothers, she was always up for adventure. There was that one time—egged on by the boys—she’d hopped on the back of the big red bull and rode him like a horse until he flipped her off in a pile of manure.
A sip of hot tea, and her mood turned contemplative. When had she lost that girlish bravery? The teaspoon clanked against the mug, round and round like her mental whirlpool of apprehension. She’d held these thoughts off for so long. Why did they have to come knocking at her door this particular night? It was the children, she supposed, those sleeping innocent bodies surrounding her with untested faith. Like she’d once had: faith in her daddy, faith in her husband, faith that countenanced courage because of someone else you could lean on when you faltered.
Cara stood so quickly her head got swimmy. Sliding her mug and spoon into the dishpan with the children’s cocoa cups, she washed and rinsed them slowly, stretching out the task, keeping ruin at bay.
There now�
��all was tidy; all was secure. All she needed to do was turn out the coal-oil light and slip into bed between Merky and Cleve. The children would warm her body, calm her mind, and chase her worry—that old, sick trepidation—away.
Cara’s hand trembled at the lamp. Her fingers stiffened, refusing her mind’s order to blow out the light. It was time to look backward, time to figure out how she’d gone from being a stalwart, fun-loving girl to an insecure woman with a heart full of dread.
She turned the wick just a bit, then found her Bible. This very book was what had kept her mama together when Kenny died. Cara flipped through some pages, wondering where to find succor there. “‘And they removed from mount Shapher, and encamped in Haradah,’” she read, her tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar names. “‘And they removed from Haradah, and pitched in Makheloth.’” This was the book of Numbers, she made out. It seemed like a history of some sort. She’d have to ask Ace about it. He’d know the books of comfort. This couldn’t be what Mama had read during that awful time.
Kenny, poor little buddy. Just a tad of a boy, looking for fun on a hot Sunday morning, swinging out over the swimming hole on a grapevine. Then falling . . . falling . . . to land so badly on a piece of debris caught in the creek. It was hard to lose a brother that way—his lifeblood flowing out like spilled milk from a glass.
Cara had been brave then. She was the one who’d thought to go get Miz Copper, who was the closest thing to a doctor they had. And she was the one to help Miz Copper bind Kenny’s wounds. Cara remembered standing at the edge of Kenny’s grave the next day, shoring up her mother, shedding not one tear.
Absently, Cara stroked the Bible’s worn leather cover as her memories continued. Miz Copper had come again on Christmas of that very same year, when Mama nearly died birthing the twins. “Pray out loud,” Miz Copper had shouted as she struggled with the birthing, finally guiding two tiny slippery bodies into the world. “Pray hard.”
Miz Copper had bragged on Cara’s strength and fortitude that night, and Cara had been proud. So proud she’d tucked her fear way back in the farthest corner of her mind. There wasn’t time to sort things out right then. Too many brothers and sisters to help care for, too much worry about her mama to think about herself.