When you’re scared you take on the strength of two or three ordinary women. I set down on the upturned bench and kicked with both my feet to knock the stump loose. At first it didn’t give. Them sourwood pegs held solid. I swung around and kicked at the other stump but it wouldn’t budge either. It seemed impossible to loosen the heavy pieces. I set there thinking the next pain might hit me any second. I had to prepare myself if I wanted to survive. That’s when I got mad at your Grandpa. It was your Grandpa that left me with not even a gun and no firewood to last the night, and no granny woman to help, and nobody to explain what I needed to do. It was your Grandpa that took me off into the wilderness and got me with a baby and then didn’t find a midwife.
My frustration come to a point right then. I seen that stump like it was your Grandpa’s head, and I hauled off with both legs and kicked it. It was like I gripped the boards with my back and kicked. I would have killed Realus had he been there. But I felt that stump give a little. I kicked again and the pegs broke and the stump rolled off by the hearth.
Quick as I could, I swung around and kicked the other stump until it give way. Then I rolled both stumps into the fireplace. I couldn’t put one stump on top of another. They was too heavy to lift, and they wasn’t room anyway. They liked to smothered the fire, and some smoke come out into the room. But the coals was still hot, and they caught the stumps even through the bark.
I picked up the heavy boards of the seat and braced them against the door. It was all I could do to lift the heavy planks. And I tried to dig the other ends into the dirt floor so they wouldn’t slide back.
While I was doing that, the next pain hit and I really felt things tearing loose inside me. I dropped back on the bed and rolled over, but nothing would stop the pain. It was like something sharp was going through me. I held my belly and pushed. I pushed inside.
You can’t do this, I said to myself. You can’t never do this on your own. I propped my legs against the bedposts and pushed, near beside myself with pain. My eyes was full of tears and sweat, and I guess I was hollering. All I could think of in the heat and terrible strain was, this is what it takes to be alive.
My back rolled around on that bed. It was like I was thrashing around in the dirt even though I was on the bed. I had took my best quilt off the bed, the one my Mama had give me, and left nothing but old sheets and blankets on it. I pushed against them sheets so hard it’s a wonder they didn’t tear.
The big stumps must have caught for they was more light in the room, as well as the candle beside the bed. I guess the room must have warmed, but I was sweating too much to tell. The pains was almost steady. It was new pains, and new levels of pains coming. Every time I thought I couldn’t stand it they would come another pain and it would be worse. I didn’t know they was such pain. Every pain just kept opening into a bigger one.
I squeezed my eyes closed and pushed against the bedposts, and I pushed against the burden in my belly. It was like a nest of knives was pushing through me. And yet, at the worst moment, they was this solid thing down there that put a deep, sweet feeling inside the awful pain that was working out through me.
I reached down there into myself and felt among the blood and water this greasy thing coming through like a bud out of a seed. That’s when I pushed the hardest ever, because I knowed then it might work, that I might on my own get this over with. That was my main wish then, to get it over and done with.
The last push was the hardest. It was a wonder I didn’t break down the bedposts. I pushed so hard I could have pushed the cabin up the hill, or pushed the whole earth an inch or two back if I’d had a place to grab hold of it. I squeezed my eyes and pushed away from the fire, and it was like I shot myself through a tunnel of pain and the baby come out in the opposite direction.
I felt down there and held what was coming through. It wasn’t no bigger than a Wolf River apple, all slick and greasy. I pushed again like I was trying to push the whole future ahead by a second. I partly set up and pulled on the little head. I still couldn’t see nothing. But it was like the baby flopped inside me, worked its back through like a weasel coming out of a burrow.
Then the little shoulders come through and I could see in the mess of blood the little arms. It was the wonderfullest feeling, to see that it had all worked inside me, that the little human being was complete and real. I reached down and took hold of the little feller. He was all slick and covered with the buttery stuff babies is covered with. And the dark cord was all twisted around, attached to the belly and coming out from inside me. I pulled at that thing, and most of it come out, but it didn’t come loose from him. They wasn’t no way to get it free. So I leaned far as I could and bit that bloody thing in two. And I seen among the blood and all that sticky stuff that it was a boy.
There I was, with the blood and stuff all over me, and coming out of me, and this red little animal of a baby in my hands. I didn’t know if he was alive, and I didn’t know what to do next. I couldn’t get up because I was too weak and I couldn’t slap the baby on his bottom like I’d always heard about, ’cause I had to hold him with both hands. So I just shook him a little. I shook him like I was listening for a rattle or a sign. And he started crying. He sounded like a little sheep and got louder. It was a cry that seemed to fill the whole cabin. I was so tired I just set there and held him for a minute while he cried.
We don’t need to go into all the details about how I finally laid the baby on the blankets and cleaned myself up a little. That was when I noticed the painter again, still up there on the roof growling. He must have smelled the blood and the baby. The stumps was still burning, and the fire was hotter than ever.
All the mess I wiped up, and put the dirty sheets in a bucket. I poured hot water in a pan and washed myself off. I was almost too sore to touch myself, and was shaky from the strain. The real cleaning up would have to be done later. I just did what had to be done. I washed the baby off careful and wrapped him in a blanket. Then I took us both to the bed and covered us with the big blanket. That’s when I felt the soreness and itching in my breasts for the first time. They hurt, but they also itched. I put the baby up next to me, and his mouth just naturally grabbed hold of a nipple. I was tired to death, but I wasn’t sleepy.
Of course, I did go to sleep. I dropped off with the baby at my breast. I didn’t even know I was asleep. It seemed I was laying there and the cabin was warm and I thought it was summer and green. It was so warm I could take the baby out with me when I went to the spring. It was like I could remember the painter and winter, but it was already blossom time, and birds was fussing in the stubble. They was a scratching somewhere.
Then I realized I had been asleep, for the scratching was coming from the chimney. Dirt and pieces of sticks fell in the fireplace. The stumps had burned down low and the painter was leaning over the top of the chimney. He could smell the milk coming from my breasts. I got up gentle as I could and laid the baby on the blankets. I was so weak my hands shook, and I like to fell back. That woke me up, and I grabbed hold of the bedpost.
They was nothing else to burn but the cradle, and the planks propping the door. If I took down the planks the cat could knock the door down. But at least they was two of the boards. I unstuck one from where it was jammed against the bolt. But I had no way to chop it up. That board was eight feet long and wouldn’t fit in the fireplace except if you poked it in longways. The danger was the fire would spread back on the board before the end was burned up enough to push the plank in further.
But I didn’t have no choice. I pushed that board in the fire on the coals. I figured if the painter come down the chimney I’d pick up the end of the board and shove it in his face.
Just when I got the plank in the fire, the baby started crying. I had to pick him up and hold him while I watched the plank.
For what seemed like hours, I walked back and forth real slow trying to shush the baby that already had the colic. I guess Wallace was born with the colic, though he growed into a mighty healthy f
eller. Maybe it was the scare before he was borned that caused it. But he hollered and took on, and I didn’t know what to do except hold him and sway to quiet him, which helped a little.
And I kept pushing that plank further in, a little at a time, as it burned. One big piece of wood will never burn as well as little pieces, because the big piece can’t get air except on the outside. But I kept the hot coals around the board and it burned enough to give some light and keep smoke going up the chimney. I walked back and forth until my feet was numb. I couldn’t hardly feel my toes, or my steps, but my legs just seemed to keep walking on their own.
I might even have gone to sleep while walking. I’ve heard tell of such a thing. I kept swaying the baby and talking to him and pushing the board further into the fire every twenty or thirty times around the cabin. “Little un,” I kept saying to Wallace, “Little un, you better go to sleep.”
At some point I come to myself and realized they wasn’t no sounds from the roof or chimney anymore. Between times when the baby was squalling, I couldn’t hear a thing up there. I leaned over and listened, and they was nothing but a puff and whisper of the fire, like when it’s raining and the chimney starts dripping inside. It’s too cold to rain, I thought. It was cold and clear when I went to the spring at dark.
With the baby crying, I listened as best I could at the door. They wasn’t no sound far as I could tell. I wondered if that painter was standing on the roof still as he could to fool me. Or was he standing before the door waiting for me to open it?
Only place in the cabin where you could see out was the crack at the eave on the west end. I was too sore to climb on the logs, and they wasn’t nothing to stand on. But I had to see out. I had to look in the yard. I put the baby on the bed, and wrapped him up in the quilt Mama had give me. Then I walked over to the corner and reached up high as I could to the top log. My arms trembled as I pulled myself up, but on the third try I made it.
Soon as I put my face to the crack it was like somebody spit at me. Something cold and wet hit my cheek. And then I thought, has Realus plugged the crack with cloth or cotton wool? For it was white outside, and what hit me on the cheek was a snowflake. It was already light and snow covered everything I could see through the crack.
I dropped back and felt my insides sore as a rising. But I had to look outside. I run to the door and lifted the other plank from its bracing. The board fell on my foot but I didn’t hardly pay it no mind. I opened the door a crack and looked out, and didn’t see no painter. Everything was white and snow was falling steady. They was just the swishing sound of flakes touching and piling up. I stepped out the door to look at the clearing. They was big tracks in the snow getting covered up. You could see where the painter had jumped off the roof and headed out past the shed to the woods, though the tracks was already filling and blurred by new snow.
Your Grandpa didn’t get back that day till after dinner time. By then I had slept some, and cleaned up the cabin a little. When the baby got to sleep, I run out to the woodpile and raked the snow off some sticks to carry in. It was a fine, dry snow, like flour or baking soda. I hauled in enough wood to last through the day and night if it had to. I piled wood in the corner where it dripped and run, but I knowed it would be dry enough to burn in a few hours. I was almost too sore to move, and every time I did something I rested a spell. For dinner I reheated my pot of beans and baked a corn pone on the hearth.
When Realus finally come, I couldn’t wait for him to see what I had done. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was proud of myself. Any woman is proud of her baby, and I’d done it all by myself. He come in covered with snow looking white as a ghost. He stuck his head in the door, white as one of them polar bears. He had a sack covered with snow too. Snow fell off him in scraps and drops.
“Don’t shake that stuff off in here,” I said, sounding firm and concerned. “You’ll put the fire out.” He turned around and brushed snow off his shoulders and off the sack in the doorway.
“And don’t let a draft in here,” I said. “Some of us could get cold.” I wanted to see how long it took him to notice things was different. Your Grandpa was always a quick man, but he had come a long way and was probably stiff from riding, and hungry.
He put the sack down in front of the fire. Then he stomped his boots in the doorway and closed the door. He still hadn’t said nothing, though he must have seen the bench was gone except for the one plank. He leaned his gun beside the fireplace.
“Did you find a midwife?” I said.
He turned and looked directly at me. “Don’t need a midwife,” he said. And his face, though it was stiff and burned by cold, begun to break out all over in a grin. Your Grandpa had that kind of face that when he was happy seemed to grin from the tip of his beard to the ears.
“Don’t need no midwife,” he said, and pulled me up and kissed me. That was the kind of man he was. You couldn’t help but love him. All my anger and resentment trickled away like the snow on the sack. You couldn’t stay mad at Realus. When he was away I could work up a rage. But I never could keep it in his presence.
He looked at the baby sleeping on the bed, and then he rubbed his hands before the fire. After his hands was warm he picked up the baby like he’d never seen anything so curious. Men don’t take to newborn babies like women does. But he was still proud. And you could see how struck he was. He didn’t know how you hold a baby. His big hands could reach all the way around the bundle and the baby looked smaller when your Grandpa was holding him.
“Let’s call him Wallace,” he said. “After my grandsire on my Mama’s side.”
That was the first I ever heard of his Grandpa Wallace on his Mama’s side. But I didn’t say nothing. It was fine with me if we called the baby Wallace. It was a good strong name.
Your Grandpa went out and got two more stumps at the woodpile and put the plank on them for a bench. And we must have set there for two hours, holding the baby and talking. We eat the beans and corn pone, and Realus went out and sliced a piece of deer meat in the shed. I fried that meat over the fire for supper.
“I must have rid fifty miles,” he said, “before I come to another settlement. And they wasn’t no doctor or midwife there. But they sent me on to a place called Peasticks where they was a store and tavern.”
When the baby cried I carried him, and then Realus would carry him. I was waiting for him to ask what happened to the bench, and to the ladder pegs in the wall. I was busting to tell him about the painter, but I wanted him to ask. I think he was teasing me by not asking. Or maybe he was too distracted and happy to notice anything but the baby. Finally, I couldn’t wait no longer.
“They was a painter here,” I said. He walked in front of the fire with the baby trying to quiet him like I had done all night.
“They was a painter here that tried to get down the chimney.”
“I knowed it,” he said.
“How could you know it?” I said. “If you was fifty miles away?” He didn’t take his eyes off the baby.
“’Cause I seen the top of the chimney was tore up,” he said. “Nothing but a painter would do that. I seen it soon as I rode into the clearing.”
I didn’t know whether to be mad at him, or pleased that he figured it all out from the tore-up chimney.
“Next time he comes around, I’ll shoot him,” Realus said. And he did.
But that evening he got back, we set by the fire and talked. And he brought out all the things he’d carried in the sack from the store. They was a piece of red cloth for me to make a dress.
“Ain’t got nowhere to wear a fancy dress,” I said.
“You can wear it here, for me,” he said.
Then he brought out a poke of powder, and some shot. And he had a sack of sugar, and some tea. That was the best thing he had brought, really. I hadn’t had no tea since our supply run out in the summer, though we sometimes parched bran and made a kind of brew. I boiled some water right then and made a pot. Nothing I ever drunk tasted better. The smell of
that tea filled the cabin. It even seemed to make the baby quiet down. And when I drunk a cup, it made the cabin seem bright and realer.
I don’t need to tell you how busy I was in the months following, looking after the baby and keeping things clean. I kept the washpot going almost every day that winter. Your Grandpa split wood and got the fire started in the morning, before he went out to clear new ground. He was clearing up a whole section further down the creek and burning up the logs.
Every morning I put my diaper rags and dirty things in the washpot and let them boil. And I strung another line to the shed to dry things on. We put a string up over the fireplace for drying when it rained or snowed. My hands got cracked from all the washing, and I put deer grease on them.
I’d try to find out more about the settlements from your Grandpa, but he wouldn’t hardly say nothing. We’d be talking about getting us a hog for next fall, and I’d say, “Why don’t you ride into the settlement and buy us a couple of pigs?”
“It’s too far to drive pigs,” he’d say.
“Couldn’t you get little uns and carry them in sacks on the horse?”
“And what would little pigs eat?” he’d say. “They wouldn’t be no milk for them.”
Another time we’d be talking about getting flower seeds to plant around the cabin come spring. I wanted some big flowers. “Couldn’t we go to the settlement and buy some seeds and bulbs and get some more tea?” I said.
“Can’t leave you alone,” he’d say.
“Then we could go with you.”
“It’s too far to take the baby.”
“The baby can stand anything we can stand,” I said.
Along in March your Grandpa did go back to the settlement and buy a new grubbing hoe and some more tea, and some pea seed and cabbage seed. He didn’t bring back no flower seeds, but he did carry some chickens in a sack on the horse. That seemed really the beginning of our farming. You can’t make a farm without animals. It was a different place with hens clucking and a rooster crowing in the morning.
The Hinterlands: A Mountain Tale in Three Parts Page 9