Spencer's Mountain

by Earl Hamner, Jr.

  The old grandfather was too busy eating his pork chop to comment, but he knew the story Clay was leading up to and he gave his son a wink.

  “Yes sir,” Clay continued. “We used to be hungry half the time. I remember one winter we was so poor we didn’t have nothen to eat but a slice of bacon. Mama was good at maken out, though. I’ll hand that to her. She sure made that piece of bacon last a long time. What she done was tie a string to it and let each one of us chew on it for a while. If one of us swallowed it she’d pull it back and hand it to the next one.”

  “Aw, Daddy!” the children cried, half-believing him.

  “Don’t you pay no ’tention to that crazy man,” the old grandmother cried. “He’s maken them stories up.”

  “Mama,” Clay teased. “You’re just sayen that because you’re so old you’ve forgot what it was like.”

  “I never forgot a thing in my life,” the old woman insisted, “I fed you children good and didn’t have to know no science or biography or any of them courses they teach up there at the school these days. I knew what to give my family and don’t you tell me any different.”

  “Sorghum molasses and black-eyed peas,” Clay commented. “That’s what we got most of the time.”

  “That’s a fact,” the old woman agreed. “I fed you plenty of black-strap molasses, but I never to this day found anything half as good-tasten and half as good for you. The world would be a heap healthier place if everybody would eat more black-strap molasses.”

  When Clay had finished his supper he leaned back in his chair and said, “Man, oh man, them was prime pork chops.”

  “Have another one, Clay,” urged Olivia. “There’s plenty.”

  “Can’t do it, woman,” he said. “Thanks all the same. A meal like that always puts me in mind of that natural-born homen pig I run up against one time. I ever tell you babies that story?”

  “No Daddy, you never did,” a chorus of voices answered. It was one of their favorite stories and he never tired of telling it.

  “Aw, I think I told y’all that story,” he said, remembering the exact moment and time of the last telling.

  “I don’t remember the way you told it,” Clay-Boy said. “Please tell it again.”

  “Well,” Clay began, “it happened the year I was eleven years old and bought me a bicycle. Earned the money setten out tobacco plants for Old Man Godsey, lived over yonder in the Glades. Pap had come down with that trouble he had and took to bed and everybody pitched in to help Mama bring us kids up.

  “One day word come from Mama’s brother Uncle Benny Tucker, lived over yonder in Buckingham County, for her to send one of us boys over there and pick up a shoat-pig he wanted to give us.

  “Mama wanted that shoat powerful bad and me and Brother Anse wanted a trip to Buckingham County just as bad so nothen would do but we take off one day about four in the mornen to go after that pig.

  “Buckingham County is a long sight of a way from here, but Anse and me made it on that bicycle by about the middle of the day. Found Uncle Benny Tucker plowen his winter wheat, but he knew us boys was anxious to start back home again so he come in out of the field and took us down to the pigpen and said, ‘Y’all boys go out in the pen there and pick out a nice-sized shoat. Don’t catch one so big you can’t lug him home on that bicycle,’ Uncle Benny said. So me and Anse got out there in the pen and wasn’t long before we had us a nice-sized shoat. Uncle Benny said come on by the house and have dinner with them, but Anse and me wanted to get back home before fall of night so we said we’d better start on home.

  “Well, I was bigger than Anse so I did all the footwork on that bicycle, but Anse didn’t have it no easier than I did ’cause he had to sit on the handlebars and hold that pig at the same time, and if you haven’t ever tried to do a thing like that it’s kind of hard to get it in your mind. We got him home though and gave him a name which was Jabez. Mama was powerful glad to get the pig and said it was one of the finest she’d ever seen and she was sure she could get him up to three hundred pounds by killen time. Anse and me turned him loose in the pen and we was two tuckered-out boys that night, I’ll tell you.

  “Well, the next mornen I come to the breakfast table and Mama said, ‘Son, go out yonder and feed that pig and I’ll have your breakfast ready time you get back.’ I went out to the pen, but I didn’t see sign one of Jabez. I figured maybe he was inside the little shed so I poured his slop in the trough and hollered, ‘Soueeeeeeee! Souoo Pig,’ but no Mr. Pig. Finally I got tired of foolen around with him so I didn’t do nothen but jump over in the pen and looked in the shed where I figured he was sleepen. He was gone. I looked around a little more and then I found out what happened. There was a hole underneath the fence, just big enough for Jabez to slip through—and that’s what he’d done. Well, we looked for that pig for a week without finden so much as a pound of lard.

  “One day about a week later, who should turn up at the house but Uncle Benny Tucker and what was he carryen in a bag but Old Jabez! Don’t ask me how Jabez did it, but he’d found his way forty miles back to Uncle Benny’s farm. Uncle Benny gave him to us again, and I fixed that pen air tight. Couldn’t hardly a mosquito squeeze out of that pen once I finished with it, but I’ll tell you somethen hard to believe. Next mornen when I went out to slop Jabez, he was gone again. This time we didn’t bother to look for him. I got on my bicycle and went on over to Uncle Benny’s. I told him what’d happened and we went down to the pig pen. Jabez wasn’t there. We started back for the house and hadn’t got more than halfway across the field when I spotted somethen comen towards us lickety-split. He was muddy and briar-scratched and lean as sin, but that was one happy pig.

  “Uncle Benny didn’t have the heart to send him off again so he give me one in place of Jabez and we didn’t have no trouble with the new one to the day we ground him up for sausage. And Uncle Benny never slaughtered Jabez. He kept him around till he just plain died of old age. I never knew to this day whether that shoat just plain loved Uncle Benny Tucker or whether he was a natural-born homen pig.”

  “Lord-a-Mercy, Clay,” said Olivia, “you and your long-winded stories. Look at Pattie-Cake fast asleep. I’ve got to get these children to bed.”

  Olivia organized her forces to cope with the complicated process of seeing that everybody got his Saturday-night bath and was put to bed.

  “Becky, you wash the baby and put him to bed. Shirley, you take care of Pattie-Cake. Matt, you keep the fire goen so there’ll be plenty of hot water and Luke, Mark and John will keep the woodbox full.”

  “What can I do for you, Livy?” asked the old woman.

  “Anything you feel like doen, Grandma,” replied Olivia. “I’d appreciate a helpen hand with the dishes.”

  Clay-Boy had no assigned task; it was understood that he would operate as a kind of flying squad to pitch in wherever trouble developed, to prod the boys along with their bringing in the firewood, to rescue the baby if he should slip in the bathtub, to help along the assembly line that began at the bathtub and ended with each child in clean pajamas and in bed.

  Finally when they were alone Clay and Olivia sat together in the living room to get caught up on what had happened to them while they were away from each other during the day.

  “Colonel Coleman stopped by,” said Olivia.

  “What did he want?” asked Clay.

  Colonel Coleman was the general manager of the stone company, but in spite of the difference in their economic and social levels he and Clay were friends who shared a common interest in hunting and fishing. The Colonel would never buy a hunting dog without asking Clay’s advice and seldom went hunting without asking Clay to accompany him.

  “He said he had to spend tomorrow in Washington and he wondered if you’d stop by over there and feed his dogs for him sometime duren the day,” answered Olivia.

  “You told him I’d do it,” asked Clay.

  “I said I was sure you’d be glad to do it for him,” said Olivia. “I thought at first he’d
come over to make you another offer for that land on the mountain.”

  “He knows I’m never goen to sell that little piece of land,” said Clay. “I took him by there once on a hunt and showed him where I’m putten up the house and he even said he’d try to see to it that no quarries ever got opened up over that way.”

  “I reckon he’s a good-hearted man after all,” said Olivia.

  “The salt of the earth,” said Clay.

  After a little while Clay and Olivia too went to their room, and once the lights were out and everyone was in bed, all the people in the house began to call good night to one another. From the girls’ room Becky called, “Good night, Luke,” and Luke answered, “Good night Becky, good night Pattie-Cake,” and Pattie-Cake called, “Good night Luke, good night Mama,” and Olivia answered, “Good night, Pattie-Cake, good night, Shirley.” Other voices would join in a round song of good nights until all thirteen people in the house had said so many good nights that they could not remember who they had said good night to and who they had not and the whole good-night chorus might start all over again unless Clay would finally give the long sleepy yawn which was a signal that everyone had been bidden a proper good night. After that a tentative good night or two might rise from a couple of the younger children and then they would fall silent too.

  Clay slept and dreamed of his house. It was a proud thing to have a house a man had built with his own hands, a place to call his own. He saw it in his mind, white and shining in the sunlight, Olivia planting petunias along the front walk and the children playing about her in the grass.

  Outside, the night was filled with sound. The high mechanical screech of the cicadas was a metallic din which gradually whined into silence. A turtle dove called. His mate answered, far off, and then her voice sounded again and his voice cried out, closer now. In the distance, flowing over the pine trees, from the swamp, over the pond, came the thousand-voice choir of frogs. Once only came the saddest sound in the world, the single unanswered voice of a whippoorwill, but there was no one to hear it. Everyone in the house was asleep.

  Chapter 4

  The whole week went by without Clay’s being able to do any work on the house on the mountain. Three nights he worked late at the mill, and while he regretted the time lost on building his house he welcomed the extra money he got from working overtime for the company. One night there had been rain and the other night he might have worked on the house he had spent helping his father-in-law, Homer Italiano, saw stovewood.

  At breakfast that Saturday morning, Clay-Boy asked, “You goen to need me to work on the house today, Daddy?”

  “You got somethen you got to do?” asked Clay.

  “I got exams comen up,” said Clay-Boy. “I thought maybe I’d do some studyen if you didn’t need me.”

  “You had better study then,” said Clay. His mind was on a pile of fieldstone he had noticed at the foot of the mountain, and he was eager to collect it with the idea that one day they might become the fireplace and chimney of the house.

  But after breakfast, as he stepped out of the back door and looked up at the sky, his mind was filled with the vision of a certain fishing hole he frequented on Rockfish River. He could see the slow strong movement of the deep slate-colored water, dappled with sun and shadow and fairly jumping with carp and bass and catfish. The fact that he had announced that he would work on the house nagged him for a moment, but then he answered the voice of his conscience with the excuse that a nice mess of bass for the supper table would please Olivia. Besides, he had worked hard all week and deserved a few hours of peace and rest in some quiet place.

  In the end he compromised and decided that he would take his rod and reel and stop by the river until he had rested and then continue on to the foot of the mountain and the fieldstone.

  On the back porch he went to the shelf where he kept his fishing equipment and took down his rod and reel.

  “You are the first man I ever saw build a house with fishen tackle,” teased Olivia through the screen door.

  “What do you know about builden a house, woman?” Clay laughed.

  “I don’t know much,” replied Olivia, “but every one I ever saw built was put up with hammer and nails. This must be a right funny house you’re slappen together up there on the mountain. I’ve never seen you carry hammer or nails away from here yet.”

  “There ain’t a thing to nail together yet, old woman,” he said. “I been spenden all my time on the basement. You want a place to keep your canned goods, don’t you?”

  “I got me a place to store my canned goods, and sometimes I think you’d be smarter to work on this place than spenden all your time on that castle up there.”

  “That’s what it’s goen to be all right,” he retorted. “A castle fit for a royal-butted king. And you’ll change your tune once you see it.”

  “You watch how you talk, Clay Spencer. There’s innocent young children around this place, and I’m doen my best to make Christians out of them.”

  “Nobody ever made me into a Christian, and look what a tall dog I turned out to be,” Clay teased her.

  “Humphf!” she said with pretended disgust and turned into the house. Clay laid down his fishing tackle, eased the kitchen door open and grabbed Olivia up in his arms. She struggled with pretended anger, but he held her so her feet could not reach the floor. Her cries of outrage mingled with the children’s howls of delight as Clay danced Olivia around and around the room, alternately kissing and tickling her. Finally, out of breath, he put her on the floor again and she rearranged her clothing and her hair.

  “You old fool,” she cried.

  “That woman is plumb crazy about me,” Clay laughed. “I wish I had twenty more just like her.”

  “Pick her up again, Daddy,” the children cried.

  Clay started after her, but Olivia ran out of the room.

  “Y’all be good babies,” Clay called to the children. He kissed them all and went up through the back gate. As he came out on the road, he met his mother-in-law, Ida Italiano.

  “Where you gallivanten off to, Miss Ida?” he called.

  “Up to the Baptist parsonage, Clay,” she replied. “The Ladies Aid Society is cleanen it up for the new preacher.”

  “That’s a fact?” said Clay, falling in step with Ida. “Livy did mention there’s a new preacher comen in.”

  “They tell me he’s a powerful good speaker,” said Ida. “You ought to come down to church in the mornen and listen to his sermon.”

  “Lord, Miss Ida,” laughed Clay. “The roof would fall in if I ever walked in that Baptist church.”

  “Don’t joke about it, Clay,” admonished Ida. “Don’t you want to save your soul so you can go to Heaven and be with all decent folks when you die?”

  “Miss Ida,” said Clay, “the Baptists have got one idea of Heaven and the Methodists have got another idea and the Holy Rollers have got still another idea what it’s like. I’ve got my opinion too.”

  “I can just imagine what your idea of Heaven is,” sniffed Ida. “A fishen pole and a river bank.”

  “That’s part of it, yes ma’am,” agreed Clay. “I use up a little bit of Heaven every day. Maybe it’s just haulen off and kissen the old woman, or haven one of my babies come and crawl in bed with me at night and snuggle up against my back, or a good day’s work on my house up on the mountain.

  “I don’t have to wait to die for it, Miss Ida. I got Heaven right here.”

  “That’s not Bible Heaven,” said Ida.

  “It’s the only one I ever expect to see,” said Clay.

  “I’ll pray for your soul anyway, Clay, if you don’t mind,” said Ida.

  “Appreciate the favor, Miss Ida,” replied Clay sincerely.

  They parted at the Baptist parsonage and Clay continued on down the road toward Rockfish River.

  When Clay reached the bank above his favorite fishing hole he set down the box he carried his fishing tackle in. Looking for a lead sinker, he pushed back one o
f the upper trays and found—forgotten but happily nearly full—a quart of whiskey. He remembered now he had hidden it there the last time he had been drinking.

  He pulled the cork out of the bottle, sniffed the contents. This was a habit he had acquired after Olivia once found a hidden bottle and diluted its contents with castor oil. Satisfied that the bottle held what it was supposed to, he lifted it to his lips, tilted it back and took a long gurgling throat-searing drink.

  “That’s prime whiskey,” he said to the world.

  He searched around in the tackle box, found the sinker he had originally been looking for and attached it to his line. Then out of the minnow bucket he lifted a large black chub, saucy and active, hooked it through the flesh beneath the dorsal fin and dropped it into the water to recover from the shock of the hook. The minnow shook itself fiercely. Satisfied that it was an inviting bait, Clay cast into the river in a little eddy just above an outcropping of stone.

  Clay lay back on the bank and there began in his mind a fantasy he often enjoyed after throwing a particularly inviting minnow into a particularly productive-looking pool. “That looks like a place where the grandaddy of all the bass in the river lives. That old ripstaver is layen down there against that rock hopen some June bug is goen to come floaten past him and when he sees that minnow I got on my line he ain’t goen to believe it. He’ll just sit there for a little while and stew about it, but after a while that minnow is goen to make him so hungry he’s goen to priss over there and see if he’s real or not. Then he’s goen to open that big old mouth of his and chomp down on that minnow and that’ll be the last of you, Mr. Bass. Come on, you slippery monster! Bite.”

  Clay’s daydream was interrupted when a car came to a stop on the highway above the bank. Presently Clay heard the car door open and slam shut, and a head appeared above him. The face was a friendly one and though the man had a city look to him—he was dressed casually in a sport shirt and slacks—Clay liked him immediately.