Sporty Creek

by James Still

  “The same difference,” said Pap.

  Sawmilling was as slack as mining, and on off days Pap had taken to searching the woods for wild herbs. A string of ginseng roots hung from a nail on the porch wall.

  To low-rate Uncle Jolly’s farming, Pap went on, “Lumbering beats grubbing newground in February and pushing a hardtail* along a corn furrow in the heat of the gnats.”†

  “I’m hearing you,” said Uncle Jolly, “but I’d bet my ears you’ll be moving again. Here you are on your honkers in the middle of the week.”

  “He’s talking it,” said Mother.

  “Yes, sir,” admitted Pap. “The hawk appears about to light.”

  “A born gypsy if one ever walked the earth,” breathed Uncle Jolly.

  Then Uncle Jolly noticed me, and the baby, and Holly. To me he said, “Hey-o, dirty ears.” I regretted not having on my sharp-toed boots. I was barefoot, hardening my soles for the winter. Of the baby he asked, “From what worm tree** did you shake this grub?” As many times as he had pranked with it on Sporty, he acted like he’d never glimpsed it before. He keened his eyes at Holly and said, “This young lady is still at home, ay? I’d of sworn some boy rooster would of crowed by now, and she’d of gone a-running.”

  Holly pitched her chin. “Silly,” she scoffed, and turned her back.

  Pap reproved her, “I wish you’d change your byword again. I’m getting burnt out on this’un.” And to Uncle Jolly he said, “Speaking of matrimony, how’s the wife hunt?”

  “Courting to marry,” chimed Uncle Jolly.

  “You’ve been singing that tune a dozen years.”

  “The trouble is females don’t trip over each other to get to me.”

  “The switchtail you sparked on Bee Branch four or five seasons—what’s become of her?”

  “She chose another.” Uncle Jolly sighed. “And you know what? I was beginning to like the girl.”

  “Like?” Pap repeated. “Is that the right word?” His chest began to heave. “So you’ve run out of courting material.”

  Pap had to laugh a spell before he could go on.

  Changing the subject, Uncle Jolly asked Mother, “Are you packing your plunder to move? I’m figuring you’re not long for the saw camp.”

  “With everything in a slump,” Mother replied, “it’s my hope. It’s up to Mr. Hard Skull.”

  Pap swept an arm toward the string of roots hanging on a nail. “Back to the Old Place some far day,” he said, “but not the next go. I’m speculating on something.”

  Pap turned grave. “Know what ginseng roots fetch nowadays? Thirty-five dollars the pound, and rising. These I found hereabouts, and they’re pea-jibbits* to what must grow in the wild place I told you about—the territory owned by a lumber company. Besides ginseng there’s snakeroot and golden seal and wild ginger and a host of other medicine roots that haul in big prices.”

  “It’s a nowhere place,” said Uncle Jolly. “A nobody world.”

  “Hit’s not altogether uninhabited,” defended Pap. He was wound up. “There are scatterings of settlers on the outer boundary, and there’s Kilgore post office. When the company lumbered it twenty years ago, they had their sawmill in what’s named Tight Hollow. The bunk-house is still standing, in dandy shape. Ay, I aim to talk to the lawyer in Thacker who has say-so over the property.”

  “They’ll call it Dunce Hollow hereafter, if you move there. But I figure you’re talking to hear your head rattle. Or you’re dreaming.”

  “If he’s asleep,” pronounced Mother, “he’d better wake up.”

  Pap rushed on. “Stands to reason such a territory is crammed with herbs, the waters jumping with fish, the woods crawling with game. Minks and muskrats who’ve never smelled a steel trap.” He paused, overcome by such prospects. “Have you an idea what a mink skin fetches in the market? A muskrat?”

  Uncle Jolly shook his head. He appealed to Mother, “Are you certain your man hasn’t been cracked on the noggin?”

  Mother answered dolesomely, “He’s given to bad judgment sometimes. I can’t picture myself stuck in such a wilderness.”

  Holly said, “I don’t aim to move a jillion miles from creation.”

  “I want to,” I cried. “I do.”

  “Me, too,” said Dan.

  Uncle Jolly jerked his chin in my direction. “I’d of sworn you favored Sporty where you can plow.”

  “I do,” said I.

  “First you want to go crawl with the varmints?”

  I thought about it. My mind spun. “I want to live everywhere,” I said.

  “And what is it you want to do in the world?”

  I weighed that in my head. “Everything,” I said. There was no other truth.

  Uncle Jolly reached and tapped my head and listened. “Not quite as empty as it used to be. Something in there, a little something.”

  On the porch of the dwelling across the plank road, a neighbor began to pick a familiar song on his guitar. We could see the guitar player’s head bobbing, his arm jerking. The Plunker, Pap had nicknamed him. Presently a girl of six or seven skipped into our yard with a stick of peppermint in her hand. She dropped it into Dan’s lap and departed without a word.

  “Dadbum!” Uncle Jolly swore. “Six years old and already drawing the women. Never saw the beat.”

  “The neighbors are ruining him,” complained Mother. “He’s so spoiled salt wouldn’t save him.”

  “You’ve done your share,” reminded Pap.

  I scurried indoors and pulled on my sharp-toed boots. On returning, Uncle Jolly had the baby in his arms, counting its fingers. He tallied, “Thumbo, Lickpot, Long Man, Ring Man, Little Man.” He wagged his chin in mock surprise. “I expected six.” Then he glimpsed Dan hiding his crippled hand in a pocket.

  “Golly Moses!” Uncle Jolly crowed. He surrendered the baby to Mother and declared, “Dan is in luck. With a pair of fingers short, the picks and shovels* won’t get him, the army won’t capture him. It opens up the world. My belief is he’ll amount to a really something, something worth the candy.† Ay, he’ll be a somebody.”

  I forgot the boots. They were nothing compared to this. To do something; to be somebody! I was half envious. Mother said quickly, “Yes,” and again, “Yes.”

  “If Dan is to have a chance,” Uncle Jolly said, “teachers such as Duncil Hargis and his sort won’t help. And with school closed on Sporty, Buffalo Wallow is a far piece to walk. I say send him to the Settlement School at the forks of Troublesome Creek. There the scholars work out their room and board.”

  Dan pursed his lips. “I hain’t a-going.”

  Uncle Jolly turned solemn. “Listen,” said he. “The Settlement’s teachers are the knowingest. They will do for you. They’ll fit you for living in a hard world. Anyhow, the Buffalo Wallow teacher is a whip-jack.* He’ll put the bud† to you. A bad sign.”

  Pouting, Dan snuffed, “I don’t want to.”

  A cry raised on my tongue. “I do! I aim to!” Menifee Thomas, a Sporty Creeker, had told me a bushel about the Settlement.

  “Send the both,” Uncle Jolly said, and spying at me, he added, “When I tapped your head last, I heard more brains than I let on. Didn’t want to get you stuck up.”

  He was staring at my boots as he spoke. He closed an eye, cracked it, and shut the other, acting as if he couldn’t credence what he beheld. “I swear to my Never!” he blurted. “If I had a pair as good-looking as that, I could borrow money at the Thacker bank.”

  Pap explained, “They’re his calf boots. Bought them out of his own pocket. First dollars earned.” He sighed, feigning envy. “Wears better leather than his own pappy.”

  Pap’s shoes were in sad shape. He bought for himself only when he had to.

  *last button on Gabe’s coat: deciding issue

  *hickory sugar: candy flavored with hickory bark

  †law: sue

  *hardtail: mule

  †heat of the gnats: midsummer, also work under compulsion

  **wor
m tree: catalpa

  *pea-jibbit: small clay marble

  *picks and shovels: coal mine employment

  †worth the candy: worth doing

  *whip-jack: given to corporal punishment

  †bud: hickory limb

  9

  tight hollow

  We moved from Plank Town to Tight Hollow on a day in March when the sky was as gray as a war penny and wind whistled the creek roads. Pap had got himself appointed caretaker of the tract of timber he had long told us about, his wages free rent. He had made a quick trip in, returned to say nothing was lacking. He had talked to the people on Grassy Creek who were to be our closest neighbors.

  Cass Logan took us in his truck. Pap rode in the cab with Cass, and every jolt made him chuckle. He laughed at Cass’ complaint of the chugholes, and he teased him for holding us up a day in the belief we might change our minds. Beside them huddled Mother, the baby on her lap, her face dolesome. Holly and Dan and I sat on top of the load, and when a gust blew my hat away, I only grinned, for Pap had promised us squirrel caps. Holly was as set against moving as Mother. She hugged her cob dolls and pouted.

  The tract lay beyond Marlett and Rough Break, and beyond Kilgore where the settlements ended—eleven thousand acres of forest. Although clear-cut years before, the woods had regenerated and trees were again nearly to saw timber size. It was Pap’s belief that game would provide our meat, sugar maples our sweetening. Garden sass and corn would thrive in dirt as black as a shovel. Herbs and pelts would furnish ready cash.

  Pap had thrown over his job, which had shrunk to a couple of days a week, and bought steel traps and gun shells and provisions, including a hundred-pound sack of pinto beans. At the last moment he even rented our mare to Cass. Mother held out against an outright sale. Pap had used the last dime without getting the new shoes he needed. He was still wearing the pack peddler pair. He told us, “Tight Hollow is a mite narrow as valleys go, but that’s to our benefit. Cold blasts can’t punish in winter; summers the sun won’t tarry long enough overhead to sting. We can sit on our hands and rear back on our thumbs.”

  Once Pap had made up his mind, arguing was futile. Still, Mother had spent her opinion. “Footgear doesn’t grow on bushes to my knowledge,” she said.

  “You tickle me.” Pap had chuckled. “Why, ginseng roots alone bring thirty-five dollars a pound, and seneca and golden seal pay well. Mink hides sell for twenty dollars, muskrat up to five. Ay, we can buy shoes by the rack. We’ll get along and hardly pop a sweat.”

  “Whoever heard of a fellow opening his hand and a living falling into it?” Mother asked bitterly.

  Mother’s lack of faith amused Pap. “I’ll do a few dabs of work,” he granted. “But mostly I’ll stay home and grow up with my children. Kilgore post office will be the farthest I’ll travel, and I’ll go there only to ship herbs and hides and rake in the money.” He poked his arms at the baby, saying, “Me and this little chub will end up the biggest buddies ever was. And I’ll have the peace of mind to think him up a fitting name.”

  The baby strained toward Pap, but Dan edged between them.

  Mother inquired, “What of a school? Is there one within walking distance?”

  Holly pulled her cheeks and grumbled, “I’d bet it’s a jillion miles to a neighbor’s house.”

  “Schools are everywhere nowadays,” Pap said, his face clouding. A school hadn’t occurred to him.

  “Bet you could look your eyeballs out,” Holly said, “and see nary a soul.”

  Annoyed, Pap explained, “A family lives on Grassy Creek, several miles this side. Close enough to my notion. Too many tramplers kill a wild place.”

  “Plank Town is no paradise,” Mother said, “but we have friendly neighbors and a school. We know the whereabouts of our next meal.”

  Pap wagged his head in irritation. He declared, “I’ll locate a school by the July term, fear you not.” And passing on, he said, “Any morning I can spring out of bed and slay a mess of squirrels. We’ll eat squirrel gravy that won’t quit. Of the furs we’ll pattern caps for these young-‘uns, leaving the tails on for handles.”

  Mother sighed and asked, “When you’ve learned we can’t live like foxes, will you bow to the truth? Or will you hang on until we starve out?”

  Of a sudden Pap slapped his leg so hard he startled the baby and made Dan jump. “Women aim to have their way,” he blurted. “One fashion or another they’ll get it. They’ll burn the waters of the creek, if that’s what it takes. They’ll upend creation.”

  Daylight was perishing when we turned into Tight Hollow. The road was barely a trace. The tie rods dragged. Cass groaned, and Pap chuckled. The ridges broke the wind, though we could hear it hooting in the lofty woods. Three-quarters of a mile along the branch the sawmill and the bunkhouse came to view, and unaccountably, smoke rose from the bunkhouse chimney. The door hung ajar, and as we drew up, we saw fire smoldering on the hearth.

  Nobody stirred for a moment. We could not think how this might be. Father called a hey-o and got no reply. Then he and Cass strode to the door. They found the building empty save for a row of kegs and an alder broom. They stood wondering.

  Cass said, “By the size of the log butts I judge the fire was built yesterday.”

  “Appears a passing hunter slept here last night,” Pap guessed.

  We unloaded the truck in haste, Cass being anxious to start home. Dan and I kept at Pap’s heels, and Holly tended the baby and her dolls, the while peering uneasily over her shoulder. Our belongings seemed few in the lengthy room, and despite lamp and firelight, the corners were gloomy.

  At leaving, Cass informed Pap, “I haven’t told you before, but here’s the lowdown. My mill has to close next month for lack of orders. Otherwise I’d have refused to haul you to such a godforsaken area.”

  Pap grinned. The moving was now justified in his eyes.

  Cass went on, “When you tire of playing wild man, let me hear. I’ll haul you to Sporty Creek or as near to your Old Place as I can get. I’ll keep the mare for you and use her for my gin work.” And he twitted, “Don’t stay till Old Jack Somebody carries you off plumb. He’s the gent, my opinion, who lit your fire.”

  “I pity you working stiffs,” Pap bantered. “You’ll slave, you’ll drudge, you’ll wear your fingers to nubs for what Providence offers as a bounty.”

  “You heard me,” Cass Logan said, and drove away.

  The bunkhouse had no flue to accommodate the stovepipe, and Mother cooked supper on coals raked onto the hearth. The bread baked in a skillet was round as a grindstone. Though we ate little, Pap advised, “Save space for a stout breakfast. Come daybreak I’ll be gathering in the squirrels.”

  Dan and Holly and I pushed aside our plates. We gazed at the moss of soot riding the chimney back, the fire built by we knew not whom. We missed the sighing of the sawmill boilers. We longed for Logan’s camp. Mother said nothing, and Pap fell silent. Presently Pap yawned and said, “Let’s fly up if I’m to rise early.”

  Lying big-eyed in the dark, I heard Pap say to Mother, “That fire puzzles me. Had we come yesterday as I planned, I’d know the mister to thank.”

  “You’re taking it as seriously as the young’uns,” Mother answered. “I believe to my heart you’re scary.”

  When I waked the next morning, Mother was nursing the baby by the hearth and Holly was warming her dolls. Dan waddled in a great pair of boots he had found in a keg. The wind had quieted, the weather grown bitter. The cracks invited freezing air. Father was expected at any moment, and a skillet of grease simmered in readiness for the squirrels.

  We waited the morning through. Toward ten o’clock we opened the door and looked upcreek and down, seeing by broad day how prisoned was Tight Hollow. The ridges crowded close. A body had to tilt head to see the sky. At eleven, after the sun had finally topped the hills, Mother made hobby bread* and fried rashers† of salt meat. Bending over the hearth, she cast baleful glances at her idle stove. Pap arrived past one, and he came
empty-handed and grinning sheepishly.

  “Game won’t stir in such weather,” he declared. “It’d freeze the clapper in a cowbell.” Thawing his icy hands and feet, he said, “Just you wait till spring opens. I’ll get up with the squirrels. I’ll pack the gentlemen in. Then you can break out Old Huldey.”*

  The cold held. The ground was iron, and spears of ice the size of a leg hung from the cliffs. The bunkhouse was drafty as a basket, and we turned like flutter mills before the fire. We slept under a burden of quilts. And how homesick we children were for the whine of gang saws, the whistle blowing noon! We yearned for our playfellows. Holly sulked. She sat by the hearth and attended her dolls.

  Pap set up his trap line along the branch and then started a search for sugar trees and game. There was scarcely a maple to be found. “Sweetening rots teeth anyhow,” he told us. “What sugar we need we can buy later.” Hunting and trapping kept him gone daylight to dark, and he explained, “It takes hustling at the outset. But after things get rolling, Granny Nature will pull the main haul. I’ll have my barrel full of resting.”

  When Pap caught nothing in his traps two weeks running, he made excuse. “You can’t fool a mink or a muskrat the first crack. The newness will have to wear off the iron.” And for all the hunting, my head went begging a cap. Rabbits alone stirred. Tight Hollow turned out pesky with rabbits. “It’s the weather that has the squirrels holed,” he said.

  “Maybe there’s a lack of mast trees,”* Mother said. “Critters have sense enough to live where there’s food to be had. More than can be said for some people I know.”

  Pap squirmed. “Have a grain of patience,” he ordered. To stop the talk he said, “Fetch the baby to me. I want to start buddying with the little master. I might even think up a right name for him.”

  During March, Dan and I nearly drove Mother distracted. We made the bunkhouse thunder. We went clumping in the castaway boots. The abandoned sawmill beckoned, but the air was too keen, and we dared not venture much beyond the threshold. Often we peered through cracks to see if Old Jack Somebody was about, and at night I tied my big toe to Dan’s so should either of us be snatched in sleep the other would wake.