Tree of Freedom

by Rebecca Caudill

  “What’s the matter, Steffy?” asked Bertha. “Don’t they taste good?”

  “I was just thinkin’, Mammy,” explained Stephanie. “Looks like the first beans’d be a fittin’ present to take to Lonesome Tilly. I could take him part of mine,” she added. “I don’t want nearly so many.”

  “You can take some of mine, too,” said Bertha.

  Stephanie glanced at Bertha’s plate. Only a little portion of broken beans lay on it. The rest she had given to the young uns.

  “Mine’ll be enough without yours,” Stephanie told her.

  But Bertha had her way. “Looks like I’ve done without beans so long, I’ve lost my taste for ’em. Hurry up, young uns. As soon as you finish, we’ll all go to see Lonesome Tilly.”

  They set out through the woods, Stephanie leading the way, carrying the ax on her shoulder. Rob carried the frow. Bertha carried the grubbing hoe in one hand and the plate of beans in the other, while Cassie and Willie filled up the gaps in the line.

  Their feet on the springy ground were as noiseless as the padded feet of varmints. Down through the May apple bed they went, pulling the mawkish apples that were ripening now, and eating them as they walked; through undergrowth; through lacy ferns that brushed softly against their ankles and tickled their bare legs.

  After half an hour Stephanie stopped and peered through the underbrush at the grassy knoll held in the elbow of the stream, but nowhere was the strange old man to be seen. Only one thing could they see moving about the knoll, a lone bee that lit on a cardinal flower rearing its long stalk beside the stream, and set its scattered velvety blossoms to trembling like little fires glowing in the green shade.

  “We’ll cross over and sit down and wait,” said Bertha.

  They had not sat long on the knoll facing the tiny cabin when the bushes beside it parted, and Lonesome Tilly peered through at them, raking them with surprised, questioning eyes.

  Cassie clutched Bertha’s skirt and Willie moved closer to her.

  Bertha held out the plate of beans.

  “We brought you somethin’, Tilly,” she said. “It’s our first beans. We wanted you to have some.”

  He hesitated a minute. Slowly the dark trouble in his heifer-like eyes turned first to trust, then, as they came finally to rest on Willie, to pleasure. He shuffled forward, took the plate from Bertha’s hand, made the hint of a bow with his shaggy head, then disappeared inside his cabin.

  “Wonder what he’s aimin’ to do?” whispered Rob, staring after the old man.

  “Let’s go, Mammy!” begged Willie. “Let’s go before he comes back.”

  “Can’t he say one little bitty word?” whispered Cassie. “Nary one?”

  At that moment Lonesome Tilly came out of the cabin, carrying the plate of beans in one hand, and in the other a popple leaf basket filled with big frosty-blue huckleberries.

  He handed the basket to Bertha, then sat down on the grass a little distance from her. He picked up a fork full of the beans, but before putting them in his mouth, he motioned Bertha to taste the huckleberries and to pass them to the young uns.

  It was a queer feast they ate there on the knoll, with no one talking but Bertha. First, she said to Lonesome Tilly she had never tasted such sweet huckleberries, and if she only had some pig’s lard flavored with laurel leaves and some wheat flour and some maple sugar, she would make him a huckleberry pie. When Tilly made no answer to that, she told him she noticed his corn growing in a patch back of his cabin was higher than the Venables’ corn, and it looked as if he might be having roasting ears soon. When Tilly still made no answer, Bertha said to Cassie the huckleberries were a match for her eyes, and to Willie that they would have to look for huckleberries on the way home.

  The Venable young uns, however, had no more than Lonesome Tilly to say to Bertha. In awe of the silent old man, they ate their berries in silence, too, while their sheepish eyes studied the knoll and the cabin, and the corn patch beyond.

  When Lonesome Tilly had finished the beans, he stood up and handed the plate to Bertha, and the Venables, having finished the huckleberries, rose to go.

  “Come over soon,” Bertha said to Lonesome Tilly.

  He did not move, but stood watching them as they crossed the little run that separated the knoll from the woods.

  Willie kept looking back as long as he could get a glimpse of Lonesome Tilly.

  “I wish he’d talk,” he said.

  “He ha’nts me,” declared Rob.

  “Reckon we’ll ever know why he won’t talk, Mammy?” asked Willie.

  “Chances are, we won’t,” Bertha told him. “Apt as not, we’ll never know much of anything about him—where he came from, or why he wanted to live out here with varmints and red men ’stid of with his kinfolks, or what ails him that he can’t talk. You’ll just have to take Lonesome Tilly the way you find him, young uns, and ask no questions.”

  They trudged on a distance in silence.

  “You’ll meet up with lots of queer folks in your lifetime, young uns,” Bertha said to them. “And not all of ’em that talk say words to match what they’re thinkin’. But you’ll grow wise as you grow old, and then you’ll learn that what folks are is in their faces. Take Lonesome Tilly’s face, now. Main thing I see in it is hurt, and starvation—starvation a lot deeper than a body’s hunger for the first beans.”

  They stopped to watch a squirrel building a nest in the crotch of an oak tree.

  “You don’t know it now, young uns,” said Bertha, “but that sort of starvation can seal a body up airtight, and a poor soul can never find his way out ’cept through folks’ human kindness.”

  It was sundown when they reached their clearing, for they had rambled through the woods looking for huckleberries. When they finished their chores, Stephanie, with her mind on Lonesome Tilly, took down Noel’s dulcimer, sat on the doorstep, and sang lonesome words to fit a sad, lonesome tune she twanged on the strings.

  “The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree;

  Sing willow, willow, willow!

  With his hand in his bosom, and his head upon his knee;

  Oh! Willow, willow, willow, willow,

  Oh! Willow, willow, willow, willow,

  Shall my garland be!

  Sing all a green willow, willow, willow, willow,

  Ah, me! The green willow must my garland be!”

  12. “Indians!”

  As soon as the light faded that night, Bertha bolted the door and the Venables lay down on the buffalo skin as they had every night since Noel went away, Bertha on one edge with her hand on the ax, Stephanie on the other edge with her hand on the frow. But Rob had no sooner lain down than he got up again.

  “I’m might’ nigh smothered to death,” he complained, “sleepin’ between so many womenfolks.”

  Stephanie could hear him stumbling around over the puncheon floor, feeling his way in the dark.

  “Where do you aim to sleep, then?” she asked.

  “In the loft,” he said. “On my own pallet. Where I can have a little elbow room.”

  Suppose red men came, thought Stephanie. It would take time, precious time they could ill spare, to go up the ladder and wake Rob.

  “Why don’t you fix a pallet down here, Rob?” she asked. “You can sleep on it by yourself.”

  “Why can’t I sleep in the loft, I’d like to know?” he grumbled.

  “Rob, bring your pallet down here,” Bertha told him quietly.

  Rob stumbled up the ladder. Though Stephanie could not see him, she knew his face was sulky, his arms were dangling out of his coarse linsey shirtsleeves, and his short breeches were well above the knees of his lanky legs. Why, Rob wasn’t a little shaver any more, Stephanie realized. He was growing as lank as bracken in a thicket. Apt as not, he was growing the same way on the inside, too, growing bigger than the notions and the ways he had when he was a young un, pushing out at everything, trying to make room for himself, and getting mad as a hornet at anybody who tried to keep him
cooped up where he’d been all his life.

  “Rob,” she said, when he backed down the ladder with an old blanket, “why don’t you lay your pallet over there by the chimney? That’s a place somebody ought to be handy to, don’t you s’pose? You can sleep with the maul.”

  After a while the cabin grew quiet. Cassie and Willie fell asleep almost before they could nestle their bodies down into the rough places in the floor, and Bertha and Rob were asleep soon afterwards. Sleep did not come so easily to Stephanie, however. It was crowded to one side by uneasy wonderings—what had happened to her pappy, why didn’t Noel come back, what was a body to do with Rob who was plainly getting too big for his breeches, what stark, fearful thing had fashioned the strange face and the stranger ways of Lonesome Tilly, what had become of Frohawk?

  She yawned, and dozed, waked up, listened, yawned, and dozed, and waked up. She wondered what time it was. It might be midnight, but she hadn’t heard the rooster crow.

  Something in the clearing moved.

  Stephanie lay as still as a shadow, listening. Something, somebody had bumped into the hominy sweep, she knew.

  Wide awake, her eyes stared into the darkness. Her heart pounded like the pestle in the hominy block as she got to her feet.

  Gripping the frow, she laid her ear against a crack between the logs. After a minute she heard the sound again. Somebody, a whole passel of folks, it sounded like, were fumbling their way under and around the sweep.

  Stephanie never knew how she got to her mammy’s side. She remembered only that she mustn’t wake Willie and Cassie. Young uns might fret and whimper and be a hindrance.

  “Mammy!” she whispered, close to Bertha’s ear. “Wake up!”

  She tiptoed across the floor in the direction of Rob’s pallet. Her hands, cold with fright, felt for his shoulder. She shook him like a dog shaking a cat.

  “Wake up, Rob! Get up! Quick! Get the maul!”

  She didn’t know her own voice, it sounded so almighty skittish.

  The three of them tiptoed to the door. Close together they huddled, waiting, the ax, the frow, and the maul ready.

  They could hear footsteps now, hurrying footsteps, fumbling in the dark, making straight for the cabin door.

  “Don’t move, young uns,” whispered Bertha. “They’ll try to prize the door down. When one of ’em gets his head in, stand back and hack hard.”

  It warmed some of the fright out of Stephanie to hear her mammy taking command like a general. Rob brushed against her, feeling out the rough handle of the maul with his fingers. He put his fingers to his mouth and wet them with spit, like a man.

  A hand fumbled at the door.

  Stephanie gripped the frow handle, raised the frow to strike.

  “Jonathan!” a deep voice whispered loudly outside the door.

  The three waited.

  “Jonathan Venable!” the whisper came again, hoarse and rasping for breath.

  Finally Bertha spoke.

  “Who’s a-callin’ Jonathan?” she asked.

  “Me,” the voice answered. “Jason Pigot. An’ Prissie an’ the young uns. Let us in, quick, Berthy!”

  Stephanie moved to unbolt the door, but Bertha touched her arm. Still they waited.

  “Prissie,” said Bertha, talking low in her throat, “say somethin’ in your own voice.”

  “Lord ’a’ mercy, let us in quick, Berthy!” whimpered Prissie.

  Her voice froze Stephanie. It held all the terror of the wilderness corked up and ready to spout over.

  As quickly as they could, Stephanie and Rob unbolted the door. Jason and Prissie pushed the Pigot young uns inside and crowded in after them, stumbling over one another in their hurry.

  “Lordy, Berthy, the red men are on a rampage!” Jason jerked out in a tight voice. He fumbled for the puncheon with which the door had been double-bolted and shoved it hard against the door. “Didn’t you see the fire?”

  “What fire?” asked Bertha.

  “The whole sky’s lit up, like Jedgment Day!” said Jason. “Whar’s Jonathan? Ain’t he here?”

  “He’s been gone more’n a month,” Bertha told him.

  “Jonathan has?” Jason’s voice was full of concern. “Whar’d he go to?”

  “To Williamsburg. Expressin’ for Colonel Bowman,” Bertha said.

  “Then why didn’t you let a body know?” Jason scolded. “Who is here?”

  “Rob and Steffy,” Bertha said. “And the little young uns. They’re asleep here on the floor. Mind you don’t trample ’em.”

  “Noel?” asked Jason. “Whar’s Noel? Ain’t he here?”

  “He’s with Colonel Clark,” Bertha told him.

  “Consarn!” Jason muttered between his teeth. “Of all the nights on earth for menfolks to be away from home!”

  Prissie began to cry, smothering little whimpering noises in her throat. A body could tell the tears were rolling down her cheeks like a salty fresh.

  “Hit’s north of us a little—little ways,” she sobbed. “The claim next to ourn. Some new folks cleared there a month ago. Hit—hit’s their place a-burnin’ up. Us Pigots—Pigots are next.”

  Prissie was shaking like the queer popple trees that shake all the time—the popple trees that Bertha said Jesus’s cross was made of.

  “Looky!” said Jason. “You can see the fire from here. Look through the cracks by the chimney.”

  They huddled together in the west end of the cabin, in the chimney corner, and peered through the cracks. The sky over the place where the Pigots allowed the new settlers had raised their cabin looked like a great wide meadow full of blazing bee balm. It didn’t look like fire, said Rob. It looked like blood.

  “We’d better get to the Fort, Berthy. Quick,” said Jason.

  “I’ll wake up Cassie and Willie,” offered Rob.

  Bertha made no move to get ready.

  “Prissie,” she asked, “can you make it to the Fort?”

  “Looks like—I can’t go one—one step further, Berthy,” she sobbed, trying not to make a noise. “Not even—not even if a tomahawk was—was hangin’ over my head.”

  “Then we won’t go,” said Bertha. “I reckon we’re a sight safer takin’ our chances here than traipsin’ four miles through the woods in the pitch dark with all these young uns.”

  She felt for Prissie’s hand.

  “Here, Prissie,” she said. “Sit down on my bed. Jason, you’ve got a rifle. You and Steffy can guard the door. Rob, you stay by the chimney. Where’re the young uns?”

  One by one Bertha found the three Pigot young uns and set them on the bed beside Prissie. She picked up Willie and Cassie from the floor and laid them on the bed beside the Pigots. Then she took up the buffalo skin.

  Stephanie could hear her moving about the cabin.

  “What’re you doin’, Mammy?” she asked.

  “I aim to put all five young uns in the tater hole. On the buffalo skin,” said Bertha. “If the red men come, we’ll hide the young uns with the puncheons, and fight it out.”

  Jason put in to arguing all over again that they should go to the Fort while there was time. It was as big a piece of foolishness as a body had ever dreamed of to be so stubborn about forting.

  “If you go fortin’, you go without Prissie,” Bertha told him sharply. “Anyhow,” she added, “mightn’t be red men at all. It might be a cabin a-burnin’ up from folks’ own carelessness. Carelessness has lit as many fires in the wilderness, I reckon, as red men ever did.”

  When Bertha got the five young uns settled on the buffalo skin in the potato hole, she felt her way to the fireboard and took from it the hickory knitting needles Noel had whittled for her, and a skein of thread dyed brown with walnut hulls.

  “Here,” she said, laying them in Prissie’s hands. “There’s nothin’ like doin’ somethin’ with your hands to work the worry out of a body. You knit, Prissie, and the rest of us’ll watch. Start knittin’ a pair of man-sized socks. I have a mind to give ’em to Lonesome Tilly.”
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  13. Chinking Talk

  Until the sun began to edge its way over the clearing, the watchers stood at their posts, every now and then gazing anxiously through the cracks at the western sky from which the red glow slowly faded. Daylight found Prissie still at her knitting. All night long her needles had clicked in the dark like a ticking beetle.

  “I’m a-thinkin’ I’d better go into the Fort,” announced Jason, “soon’s I eat a bite, an’ see what I can learn. Hit mought ’a’ been carelessness that set the cabin afire, ’stid of the red men, like you said, Berthy.”

  “But it mought ’a’ been red men,” Prissie told him. “You won’t—stay till after dark?” she begged, having no more shame than a young un about parading her fears.

  It was good to hear voices again, speaking out loud, even though they were taut and sharp at the edges, and bore signs of the sleepless, anxious night.

  “Naw,” promised Jason. “I’ll be right back, Prissie, soon as I hear somethin’.”

  Jason cut out through the woods in the direction of the Fort as soon as he had eaten his breakfast, but a body could see he took no relish in traipsing off by his lonesome. Instead of carrying his rifle in the hollow of his shoulder, he carried it in both hands as he walked warily along. He didn’t aim to be taken unawares, he said.

  It was almost dark when he came hurrying out of the woods.

  “Closer to home I got,” he explained, “the more hit seemed like somethin’ or other was a-crowdin’ me in the bushes.”

  Prissie stared at him helplessly, afraid to ask what he knew, afraid not to ask.

  “Looks like—like you didn’t get back as soon as you thought for,” she said to him, weakly.

  “I was waitin’ for the searchin’ party to get back,” explained Jason. “They’d set out before I got there.”

  The Venables and the Pigots crowded together in the cabin, the door bolted securely. Some of them sat on Bertha’s bed, some on the three-legged stools, while the little boys squatted on their haunches, waiting for Jason to go ahead and tell all he knew.