To Make My Bread

by Grace Lumpkin

  At the divide over Thunderhead where the trail crossed they stopped to gather stones and build an altar. They built it up slowly. Just above them at the left was the peak of Thunder-head. Now it was half covered with some clouds. They might have gone up into the clouds but the cleared place at the divide was better for a fire, and it was almost the top. Bonnie could not remember whether the Bible had said Abraham went right to the top of the mountain or to a cleared place. The brush was too thick on the peak for a fire, that was certain. Thunderhead had no bald spot, nor a rocky top as some mountains had.

  “There was a ram,” Bonnie said when they were nearly through building the altar, “caught in a thicket.” She looked for a thicket. No laurel grew close by and the blackberry vines were below in the valley. Perhaps they had come up too far, too far away from the thickets. Yet it had to be on a mountain.

  “Maybe the Lord’s in that cloud,” John said. The clouds had come down over the divide. They had become blacker and made a solemn darkness around the top of Thunderhead. The altar of rocks was already high—high enough. It sloped up. On the top they piled the splinters crossways with some dry leaves underneath.

  John kept looking at the clouds. “Do you think,” he whispered to Bonnie, “he’s forgotten us?” His voice now was frightened and mysterious.

  “No,” Bonnie said. Her voice was low and mysterious, too, as if she was already in the presence of the Lord. “We needn’t hurry too fast. Maybe he can’t see us yet.”

  They had forgotten a cord with which to tie up the sacrifice. John broke one of the strings that held up his jeans. Georgy squirmed in rebellion at having his feet tied together. Finally they had him there. He lay on the wood, helpless. And his eyes reproached them. His nose that sniffed so cheerfully when he was happy was quite still. Bonnie stood on one side of the altar and John sat on a rock beyond it. The knife lay on the ground between them, and by it the heavy red flame at the end of the stick of fat lightwood sent up a jet of sooty smoke toward the sooty clouds. But no voice came from the clouds telling them to look for the ram.

  “Maybe,” John whispered, “we’ve got to start before He comes.”

  Bonnie nodded, but she did not make a move to take up the knife. It lay between them, hatefully waiting for one of them to pick it up and plunge it into Georgy’s heart. They could see where the heart was. It was beating in and out in his belly that was turned sideways on the altar.

  If the Lord did come He might be just a second late. So much could happen in that second. The knife would be outside, touching the skin of Georgy’s belly and with a push of the hand it would be inside. In that second between if the Lord did not come He would be too late. Perhaps they were not favored by the Lord like Abraham. Perhaps the Lord wanted them to sacrifice—to go the whole way. It came over John that if they went on the Lord would surely make them sacrifice. He was a jealous God and they loved Georgy. He was a jealous God.

  Suddenly John got up. Bonnie gave a whimpering cry and turned away her head. But John took the puppy in his arms.

  “We ain’t a-going to do it. We ain’t a-going to do it,” he cried shrilly. He took the knife from the ground and began cutting the cords from Georgy’s feet.

  “Look, Bonnie. We ain’t a-going to.”

  “No, we ain’t,” Bonnie said. “No, we ain’t.” She spoke angrily and it seemed that she was talking not to John but to the Lord.

  As they stood over Georgy watching him make unsteady movements with his feet, the rain that had been threatening began to come down. They hurried down to a great rock that bordered the trail and huddled close to it. The black clouds came lower. They covered the whole top of Thunderhead. Wind came up and blew the trees so the smaller ones bent almost to the side of the mountain, bowing and scraping to each other. Down in the valley where Ora lived the sun was shining, but icy rain and wind covered the mountain top. John and Bonnie hugged close together under the rock with Georgy warm and snug between them. And then the lightning began. It was bad lightning for a spring storm. It came darting along the path like the forked tongue of a giant snake. Just in front of them, down the slope a little way, a tree was struck and with a crash split in half. The thunder rattled and banged against the sides of the mountain. It went away and came back with the lightning to rattle and bang again. At the terrible noise so close, Bonnie pushed her head back against the wall of rock. Her face looked green in the pale dark made by the clouds, and then it was blue in the lightning. John hid his own face from her down against the puppy’s warm fur.

  And then as suddenly as it had begun the storm left the mountain. The thunder rolled away like a wagon down a rocky road, the sound of it getting fainter each moment.

  The two small figures walked down the trail. Their clothes were plastered flat to their bodies, and Bonnie’s hair was in wet strings over her face. But her cheeks were rosy now she could reach out and feel Georgy.

  “Let me tote him,” she said. She held Georgy close up to her wet face. To have lost something, parted from something loved, and then to have it again made her feel something like God. She felt big and powerful as if she could reach out and take the whole mountain in her arms.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JOHN dipped the wash pan into the black iron pot. It was early morning of baptizing day. Emma had been there before him to light a fire. He and Bonnie must wash all over with hot water. For their brother Basil, her oldest son, was to be baptized. She had a feeling that all of them must be cleansed outwardly on the day that Basil became white as snow inwardly, washed clean of his sins by the blood of the Lamb.

  At a protracted meeting that summer which lasted a week, Basil joined the church the second night. The Lord claimed him. Perhaps Basil had always belonged to the Lord. He had certainly attended church regularly every summer since John could remember. Though since he was older, there were times when he got drunk and became anything but religious. Drink made Kirk happy and cheerful but it made Basil glum and ugly for days afterwards. Granpap’s defiance of the preacher had made Basil plunge deeper into religion, as if he wished to make up for the old man’s defection. He had long talks with the preacher, and afterwards went about looking very important and full of news.

  John set the pan of hot water on the wash bench. Off came the jeans and shirt Emma had washed the day before. He hung them carefully on a bush and began to make suds with the homemade lye soap. Disgusted sputtering sounds came from his mouth as he rubbed the suds lightly over his face. They stung his eyes until one hand groped for the jeans and rubbed the soap out.

  As a special concession to cleanliness he broke off a soft green twig of sassafras from the bush and cleaned around the navel which protruded a little from his body. Looking down he watched his body curiously. It was not often he saw himself naked, for clothes were made to be worn day and night. The protruding navel, he knew, had something to do with his birth and the fact that Granpap had cut the cord instead of some woman who knew her business. He knew because he had ears with which to listen to the grown-ups talk. He was a little vague about all the details of the business. But it must have been very important, for it had brought him into the world.

  To wash the rest of his body John raised the pan high above his head with both skinny little arms and tipped the pan. The water came down on his head and shoulders. It splashed from his shoulders and touched the prominent parts of his body, and trickled along the curved indentation down his back that was like the shallow bed of a stream.

  He ran up and down the spring path in the early sunshine to dry. He trotted like the preacher’s horse, as it came up the road to church. At the end of the trot he halted at the sassafras bush and nibbled at the leaves. His upper lip curled back and his teeth clicked together, except where two were missing. Reluctantly he put on his jeans when he heard Emma calling.

  At the cabin Emma looked him over and was satisfied. With his hair slicked back with water, the boy looked as clean as a peeled hickory.

  Basil was having trouble with his
shoes. Preacher Warren had given him an old pair of his own. The day before to make them bright and shining Basil had taken some molasses and mixed it with soot from the chimney into a black paste. Rubbed with the paste, the shoes looked quite new. In his pride Basil had put the shoes on when he got up, though he would have to take them off later to walk across Thunderhead. From the very first moment he put them on the flies began to settle on the molasses. Basil shook one foot and then the other. Some of the flies left the shoes, but most of them were stuck fast. Those that had left came back again and settled so that their legs were caught in the mess. And after getting stuck from their own foolishness they buzzed their distress and struggled frantically to get off.

  Their distress was not greater than Basil’s. At last he was forced to scrape off the whole mess, flies and molasses together, with a stick, and wipe the shoes clean with leaves. He still looked harassed as he went up the trail, with the shoes in his hand and the bundle of baptizing clothes slung across his back. Kirk did not go with him. He waited until Basil was out of sight and struck off to the left, making for the short cut over Barren She Mountain.

  On the meadow side, near Laurel Creek, the gray cliff of Barren She Mountain was split open from top to bottom. In the space between the two walls there were enough jagged projections to make a rough stairway to the top. From these the trail led to the McClure cabin. This short cut was a hard climb both ways and few people used it from the south side unless like Kirk they wished to pass the Hawkins’ cabin that was at one side of Swain’s meadow. But there was an important reason for the use of the trail from the north on the meadow side. In a little hollow halfway up the mountain there was a small still. The narrow stream that ran by this still dripped over the face of the cliff. Occasionally when some careless person dropped sour mash full of carbonic acid and alcohol into the stream the stink was strong enough to make a pig squeal. Sometimes cattle pastured in Swain’s meadow had been known to get drunk from licking the water that came over the face of the cliff. This had happened perhaps once, only. But the tale went around and even the children knew where the still was located.

  Because of it Emma was sorry to see Kirk taking the short cut. She knew he had begun to drink, and she meant to say nothing against it. He was almost a man. But on this day when his brother was to be baptized she wished for Kirk to be sober and thoughtful. She, herself, went about looking sober enough for both of them as she prepared the lunch. Her two oldest were grown men—almost. They were going different ways. And where those ways would lead them only the Lord could tell.

  Across from the upper end of Swain’s meadow, Laurel Creek made a bend around the base of Little Snowbird Mountain. At this bend was Fraser McDonald’s cabin. Just before it was the old ford. Now there was a rough log bridge built across. The road that led from this bridge went past Fraser’s cabin and followed the creek around the base of Snowbird until it turned into a sledge trail further on. About a mile beyond Fraser’s a sand and rock beach in the creek sloped down into deep water. This was where the baptizings were held.

  Baptizing day came early in August. Whether a person was religious like Basil, or defiant like Granpap, they all attended Baptizing. It was an occasion for neighbors and kin who had not seen each other for a year or more to meet. People came from miles around, some even from the distant South Range neighborhood. In some way the news traveled that on such a day there would be baptizing on Laurel Creek; and the poorest and most isolated tied up some corn pone and cold potatoes in a cloth and set out before day to reach the place in time.

  On the other side of the creek a low hill rose up almost from the water. Behind the hill were higher mountains enclosing the place. On the beach side there was more room. Little Snowbird had a gentle slope at the bottom with few trees and some thickets of calico plant and laurel scattered between the rocks. Between the road and the creek there was a wide bank covered with green grass. This was a favorite place for those who had brought lunch. They could use the flat rocks for tables and sit around in comfortable family style. Those who did not have jugs of cider went to the creek side and drank.

  Granpap, who had accepted something stronger than cider from a neighbor, nevertheless took a drink of creek water. He came back to the place Emma had selected for their lunching place and spoke to Basil who was eating his piece of corn pone and bacon.

  “Now,” he said to Basil, “the preacher can’t baptize ye. I’ve swallowed the creek, holy ghost and all.”

  Basil did not answer. With his bread in one hand and the bundle of clothes in the other he walked away up the road toward the place where the men were to dress.

  “It was ugly of you to say that,” Emma reproved Granpap.

  “Shucks, Emma,” Granpap said. “He knowed I didn’t mean anything.”

  “You should talk better before the young ones,” Emma went on. “It’s you that helps Kirk in his bad ways.”

  Granpap was silent. He would not defend himself too much before a woman. Emma began again to wonder about Kirk. He had not appeared for dinner. She was keeping his part of the lunch and wanted to find him. Jesse McDonald, Fraser’s son, passed and she called him.

  “You seen Kirk?” she asked.

  “No’m,” Jesse said, and went over to the Frank McClure group where Sally was helping Ora with the younger children. Sally was faithful that day for she was to be baptized. She was full of a spirit of helpfulness. Jesse did not tell Emma that he had been looking for his friend. Kirk had vanished. And since he could not find him among the company, Jesse had decided that Kirk must have gone to visit the still again.

  “Come along, Son,” Granpap said to John. “Maybe we can find him.”

  They walked off together, John tagging along at Granpap’s heels like a faithful puppy. Emma and Bonnie joined Ora McClure.

  “Now, you run along, Sally,” Ora said taking a sly look at Jesse who was hanging around, waiting to get a chance to speak with Sally. “You run along, Sally. Emma’ll help me. But remember, you’re going to be baptized with water to-day.”

  Sally blushed almost to her fingers’ ends. Sometimes her mother said the most indecent things. Sally could bear it very nicely when other girls whispered with her and they spoke of experiences that were ahead of them. But when her mother said them she was ashamed, especially when Jesse McDonald was waiting as she well knew to walk down the road with her until it was time to dress.

  “No,” Sally said firmly. “I’m a-going to stay right here.” And she blushed again for Jesse was looking at her steadily.

  “You go right along,” Ora said, sorry now that she had confused Sally. Taking him all in all, Jesse was a good boy, the son of a good father.

  “But,” Ora said to Emma when the two had stepped off up the road, “I hope she remembers she’s a-marrying with the holy ghost to-day.”

  “She’s a good girl,” Emma said, and Ora nodded. She had raised her child right, in the fear of God and man.

  Granpap wandered about with John at his heels. People were scattered along the banks in groups and on the side of the hill there were others. Now that dinner was over there was a breathing spell until time for the preacher to come. He was having a regular table dinner at Hal Swain’s.

  The sun was very bright and the women’s dresses made fine irregular patterns of color. Up on the hillside some rosepink calico plants were still blooming and there was wild honeysuckle, a rich orange. The dresses seemed to be growing there just as the flowers and when a woman moved it was as if a plant got up and made a new place for itself or joined itself to'another to make a new color against the grass or the gray of some rock. Not all the dresses were bright. Some of them had been washed many times and were faded. And among the older women were several wearing dark homespun or flannel. Granma Wesley wore a brown homespun dress, dyed with walnut juice. Her mother had woven and dyed it. At a distance it did not stand out as the flimsier but more colorful dresses of the others. But it was carefully woven and sewed with small stitches.


  The old woman walked in front of Granpap and John across the road. They could not see her face for she had on her sunbonnet and she looked neither to the right nor to the left but straight ahead as if she was making for some goal. Behind her walked Sam Wesley’s young daughter. Her waist was blue calico. But the skirt was homespun, dyed red with pokeberry juice, and around the bottom were bands of blue and yellow woven in. The child was twelve years old and the skirt dragged on the ground, for Granma Wesley would never allow her few pieces of home-spun to be cut.

  Granpap watched them. “Pore old Granma,” he said. Since she had risen from her sick bed Granma Wesley had not been exactly right in her mind. She wandered about looking for her sheep. She could not or would not believe they had been killed. Just as soon as he could make the money Sam planned to buy two others exactly like the old ones. He hoped that would ease her last days on this earth.

  “We’ll go to the bend,” Granpap said to John. “Maybe Kirk will be a-coming along from Fraser’s.” The old man did not sound very hopeful. Like Jesse he had his own notion of the place where Kirk might be found.

  Down the road near the bend, drawn apart from the others as if they did not belong, or as if they felt they were too good, was a group of people. The men had not left their wives and children to mix with the other men along the road, and the women sat listlessly on the bank of the stream as if they expected no company and wanted none.

  These people were from near South Range and Granpap knew them. On one side they were kin of the rich Tates who had taken Granpap’s land. But the Tates did not recognize them as kin. This branch of the family had intermarried with the McFarlanes. They lived in a little settlement on Pinchgut Creek, ten miles from South Range. While Granpap talked with one of the McFarlane men, John stood behind the old man and looked around his legs at the people. They paid little attention to him. A dog barked at him and one of the children about his age opened its eyes and peered around Granpap to see this boy of six or seven who had come so near. The child had a pale face splotched with red. Its hair was whiter than John’s, and its ears were larger than any John had ever seen on man or child. He went closer, edging around Granpap’s knee and saw that the women and men, too, had mottled faces and big ears.