“Well, I aim to take it out of him and Mansell, too; come down on ’em like a hen on a June-bug, I will. You see ef I cook a bite, now, when Manse comes a-Sunday! Not till that there fince is mended.”
“On a Sunday?”
“On a Sunday! The better the day, the better the deed. Ah—ho—hum! I ain’t goin’ back to bed for this little piece of a night. You can.” And ’Bithie did, while the young wife sat beside the hearth alone, considering what she should say to the Captain.
“I hate to raise a fuss with him; Aunt Minar Bushares was good to me when I was sick. And she’s a own sister to him, though nobody’d think it. But thar’s all our truck spiled!”
By the earliest light she prepared breakfast—corn cakes baked on the coals, coffee and a wee rasher apiece of the salt fat which is the regulation meat of the mountaineer. Then they ate, hurriedly washed the two plates, made haste to redd up the house, and set forth—florescently sunbonnetted though the sun was not yet risen—for Captain Charley Bushares’.
A morning mist hung over the budding woods, shaken with all the sounds of April—frog trills and bird song, and the hum of honey-lovers’ wings. But the two girls did not notice these things. They walked with nods and gestures and quaint posturings, making threats against the Captain and his mare as their warlike mood dictated.
The old soldier’s habitation was not a hollow tree, though a glance at his beady eyes twinkling from out a thicket of furry gray might have led to that supposition; he lived with camplike simplicity and neatness in a cabin by the Gap road. Almost from his door the mountain side fell away in a magnificent sweep of unbroken forest. Behind the house was the spring, where they found the old fellow filling a bucket.
The ceremonious greeting, with its usual “Toler’bles,” and the customary invitation to stay to breakfast, were far off the key Letty intended to strike, but for the life of her she could not see how to omit either. No, they had just been, she said; and no, they couldn’t stay long enough to set, even on the puncheon bench by the spring-house. She hesitated in great embarrassment and finally plunged, trembling a little.
“Your mare she went ’n’ got into our corn again last night, Cap’n Charley. I do think on my soul you ought to do what’s right about it. Hit’s—now—hit’s jist more’n I aim to put up with, her a-roguin’ this way every summer.”
The grizzled Captain eyed her a moment, then set down his bucket and dropped into something like a fighting crouch. As if by instinct he made straight for the weak point in her battle front. “Now, here-here, Miz’ Kindred, let me remind you, the woods is free in this part o’ the State. Has your corn got ary fince around it?”
Letty thought best to evade this point. “You know how last year she come in and eat up the whole patch—”
“Oh, Miz’ Kindred; not the whole patch—no-no-no! And for what she did eat I paid you with my ’pologies—now didn’t I so?” He began to prance about in a semicircle. “That’s what I done, wasn’t it, Miz’ Kindred?”
Letty was a little disconcerted by the formal “Mrs.,” and more than a little anxious to keep the conversation off the condition of the fence. At the same time, she wasn’t going to be diverted from her claim.
“You paid us a dollar, Cap’n. But I never come over here a’ter no dollar this morning. Hit ain’t right and hit ain’t fair, the way you let that mare run over folks’ places, and I want you to stop hit and pay for what she’s done. I jist wisht you’d come over to my house and look at our gyarden.”
“I don’t see how I’d stop her without you’ns built a fince. I cain’t keep her in the stall all the time.” He came to a stand, with the air of being ready to listen. “Now, I ain’t a onreasonable man, Miz’ Kindred. What do you hold the rights of the matter to be?”
She was not clear on this point either. Oh, if she could have consulted Mansell! But now she had come she must say her say, and coerce this old man and his mare, alone. If only he wouldn’t crouch and stare like a wild creature about to spring! She put up one hand to her burning cheek uncertainly.
“Two dollars, tell him,” whispered ’Bithie, plucking at her sister-in-law’s sleeve. “Let’s take hit and go.”
“Two—two dollars,” stammered Letty.
Captain Charley jumped as though on the release of springs, his stubby forefinger emphasizing every word: “Two dollars! Two dollars! Why, Miz’ Kindred, you surprise me. I don’t believe there’s a truck patch on Sourwood Mountain wuth, as hit stands to-day, two dollars for everything in hit; I don’t for a fact.”
“You owe me two dollars for that mare’s damagin’,” insisted Letty, but feebly.
The agitated finger came closer. “I do not owe you a cent, madam, not a cent. I’ll give you two dollars ef you air in need of hit; but I won’t be held up for no sech amount—”
He recoiled a step as if from the attack of a “flog” hen defending a brood, and the overset water-bucket rolled down the hill unheeded.
“You won’t neither give me—You won’t do no sich a thing, you great big ole—” she hesitated and used no word at all. “You talk about givin’ me ary cent only my dues—why—” Her little fists were clenched, her eyes flashing; she stamped her foot.
“Oh, well, I’ll take that back—I’ll take hit back ef you say to.” Instinctively he made shooing motions with both hands.
“You better!”
She found that she couldn’t, to save her, think of another word. Nor could he. But neither disputant was standing still. To the sole onlooker it seemed they were dancing round and round each other like a pair of belligerent bantams; and so absorbed was ’Bithie in the spectacle that all her ten fingers stood out in ten different directions.
The old soldier was the first to recover the thread of argument—probably because he and his mare had already figured in several court-rooms.
“Now, here-here, Miz’ Kindred. As I’m a livin’ sinner, madam, I didn’t know nothing about this—didn’t know you’ns had a gyarden even. And I may say I don’t like to be jumped onto onexpected this way, let alone threatened.”
“I ain’t aimin’ to threaten ye,” said Letty more mildly. “But ef I was you I would be keerful how I talked and went on.”
“Ef you, or either your husband,” he began judicially, “had a-come to me in the first place, and told me the mare was breakin’ in; and ef then I had reefused and neglected to keep her up; and ef then your fince was showed to be in fair good order and condition at the time she jumped hit—why then, Miz’ Kindred, you might have reason to fault me with your troubles, and you might recover damages accordin’. That’s the Law. That’s how the Law reads. But you come and jump on a gray-headed ol’ soldier disabled sence the Wah, for somethin’ he knows ab-so-lute-ly nothin’ atallabout—I tell ye, madam, and you’ll find hit so, there ain’t a court in Tennessee that’ll sustain ye.”
“Ef I had a Bloody Sixth record endurin’ the war, the less there was said about hit the better I’d be suited,” retorted Letty in the heat of the moment. She had not meant to pour such vials of contempt upon her antagonist; for the Bloody Sixth had been a disreputable bushwhacking company, never proved to have taken part in a single genuine engagement, although the Government, after some litigation, had given its surviving pensioners the benefit of the doubt. Locally, the whisper of “Bloody Sixth” was accounted the bitterest of taunts.
“That ain’t the p’int; that ain’t got nothing to do with hit,” argued the Captain unabashed. “I ax you, Miz’ Kindred, why didn’t you come to me the first time you seen the mare in your field; or else why didn’t you ketch her and put her up, as the law requires?”
His calm refusal to be crushed by her heavy ammunition daunted Letty, who was sure his war record ought to be at least as sore a spot as Mansell’s fence. She felt her courage flagging, and knew that she was going to cry. “Aw, I ain’t got no time to run around; and you know I cain’t come within bridle-reach of that mare’s heels.”
“Then where’s Mansell
?” he pursued.
“Why, he’s a-workin’ in the valley.”
“Workin’ for my brother, too, ain’t he? Now look here. My brother’s give Mansell a job that’s kep’ him all winter; and ef you was to count up all that my folks have done for you and him, at one time and another, hit would ’mount to more’n a dozen truck-patches—ain’t that so? What do you think Minar Bushares’ll say when she hears how you’ve talked to her pore ol’ brother?”
He had missed the psychological moment for this. Letty had retired some paces, but now whirled and flung off her bonnet. “That’s every word true,” she exclaimed. “Your folks air good folks, Cap’n. I ain’t got a better friend on earth than Aunt Minar; and ef you tell her what I’ve said to you this morning, I want you to be shore and put in what-all you’ve said to me, too. ’Cause ef you don’t, I will. They’ve done for me time and again, your folks have; but ef ever you’ve done ary thing for anybody but your own self, Cap’n Charley, I never did hear of hit. And what’s more, I don’t believe you’ve got a brother nor yit a sister that would keep stock that bothered the neighbors.”
The Captain tossed his head as she got breath, and sneered: “Then I must be the only scoun’l they is in the family.” But he felt the need of a more effective reply.
’Bithie, fearing that her side was getting the worst of the encounter, shrilled forth unexpectedly: “I thest aim to maul the ghost out of that ol’ nag anyhow, ef she jumps in to-night.”
He turned on her: “Air you the malicious little whiffet that raised sech a welt on my mare’s jaw? I seen she’d been hurt, when I fed her this morning. Now I let ye know, that’s more’n ye dare do, whatever she eats. You understand that! Jist you lay a hand on her again, that’s all!”
“Then you pay for what she’s eat and tore,” cried Letty. “My mustard—all pulled up and trompled. You never was hongry—you’ve got your pension—”
“I don’t owe you nary—”
“Tell that to Mansell a-Sunday; I bet you don’t shake your finger in his face!”
The old fellow looked at the offending member with compunction, really sorry to have forgotten his manners; but he seized the opening for a new line of attack.
“Mansell he comes home of a Sunday? Was he there last Sunday?”
“Yes; he brung some provisions.”
“Well, had the mare broke in afore that date? Did he know—”
“I told him, and so did ’Bithie, but—”
“Then—” the uncontrollable finger emphasized the point—“what’s the reason he didn’t come to me last Sunday?”
Letty, white and trembling, laid one hand over her racing heart as if to cover a wound. Whatever was said or left unsaid, she must not admit Mansell in the wrong!
“Because—because,” she stammered, “Manse is jist like everybody else round here—he thinks there ain’t no use comin’ to you for any rights or fairness between neighbors; and I see now he was edzackly right!”
It was but a Parthian arrow, and the last in her quiver. She turned, and holding ’Bithie’s hand, took the road along which they had come—defeated. The younger girl looked behind at the turn and saw the gray figure still prancing with extended forefinger and still vociferous.
“Letty, Letty, he’s a-callin’us.”
“Oh, I don’t want to talk to you!” Letty sent back wildly, and burst into tears. The two went home slowly, under drooping sunbonnets.
Once inside the quiet cabin, however, Letty seated herself on the edge of the bed and talked over the situation calmly enough. Her wrath against the Captain had well-nigh expended itself; she was half-laughing as she commented.
“Well, I’ve always mistrusted them fine manners of his’n, and now I’m glad to know what they’re wuth.”
But her resentment against Mansell’s neglect went deeper, ached cruelly. He knew that she had worked hard planting and hoeing that handful of truck. What did he mean, leaving things in this shape? He might at least have kept up the fence; there was plenty of rail timber in the woods. Hadn’t he spent half of last month picking the banjo?
’Bithie, casting about for comfort to offer, suggested that they go together to seek a mess of “wild sallat” or “sissles.” The hardy rosettes of this humble member of the dandelion family would not replace the lost mustard, but would be a bite of green. An abandoned field near by was chosen as the likeliest hunting ground, and the two girls set forth once more, this time with a half-bushel basket woven of oak splints.
The lines of long-vanished fences yielded few “sissles” to their eager scrutiny, but there were also tender shell-shaped leaves of plantain, bunches of speckle-john and narrow-dock, Indian lettuce, bear-grass, and silvery tips of lamb’s-quarter in the old field, among dry sedge and last year’s leaves. They patiently culled every least sprout; but the final result scarcely covered the bottom of the basket. The season was so late at this altitude—and far below them spread the kindly valley, visibly and luxuriously green!
On reaching home they washed their precious hoard at the spring, and hung it over the fire in a pot with a tiny cube of pork for seasoning. Neither spoke of dinner, though the sun was past the noon-mark on the floor.
Their hunger grew with the passing of the hours. A catbird sang in the garden over his meal of cutworms; a drift of dogwood petals blew across the porch; a yellow “news-bee” hung round the door and buzzed off into the world again. There was nothing to do but wait, from time to time putting a handful of chips under the pot. As the shadows lengthened they mixed and baked a dodger in the hearth-oven. At sunset they turned the handful of greens into a dish.
“Don’t that smell good!” exulted ’Bithie. She took a mouthful and looked up, puzzled. “Why—why, Letty this here sallat—hit’s bitter!”
Letty, who was breaking the steaming pone on a plate, made haste to investigate the strange flavor. They looked at each other in consternation. The child had by mistake gathered some leaves of bitter dock!
Letty did not scold her; instead, she comforted when ’Bithie showed a disposition to cry. But she cried herself, after the young girl fell asleep and night had closed on the cabin. Oh, why couldn’t Mansell provide better—give them just enough to eat!
Again a sound of trampling, thrashing feet brought her instantly upright, straining forward, hunger adding to her exasperation. She seized a billet of firewood and opened the door.
“I certainly will brain ol’ Soapstick this time—Why! Manse! I wisht I may never! Ef you hadn’t a-spoke I’d a-knocked your head off.”
She took his basket that he might have one arm free to put round her, and they entered the cabin together.
“I was tired enough to have waited till morning,” he admitted, throwing the bag of provisions off his shoulder. “But this mornin’ we was clearin’ around a ol’ burnt shack, and I come on a patch o’ poke. Everything’s forwarder in the valley, and I ’lowed you and ’Bithie hadn’t had ary mess o’ poke yit. So I brung up a basket afore the leaves had time to wilt.” He laughed.
“I started ’bout a hour by sun, and could a-made hit home for supper, but I come by ol’ Cap’n Charley’s and nothin’ would do him but I must go in and eat with him. He given me a big bunch o’ them early shallots o’ hisn. Said he owed ’em to you’ns. I couldn’t make hit out—he talked funny, like he’d been drinkin’—but here they air in the basket. They’ll go good with pork and greens. What’s the matter? You sick?”
Letty went limp all over as though fainting. “Hit ain’t nothin’—nothin’ at all, Manse. Only—I’m so glad you brung me somethin’. Our supper was all spiled. And I thought—I thought shore the ol’ Cap’n was mad at me and maybe Aunt Minar Bushares would be, too, and then maybe you’d lose your job—and hit would be all my fault.” And she told him all about it.
“Oh, well,” was Mansell’s conclusion, “hit ain’t as big as all that comes to; but ef you was to werry yourself sick, now, that would be a whole dime’s wuth o’ nickels.” He laughed again, wit
h huge enjoyment of the Captain’s manner. “I reckon he jist didn’t want to turn loose two dollars.”
Next morning the gray mare, edging round and round the clearing, a glimmering shape in the gold and green of the shadowless April woods, distinguished a new odor among those issuing from the cabin chimney. Mingled with sharp frying fat and richly browning meal was a savory tang of boiling pokeweed. And cocking an ear, she caught a sound of singing. Letty was recalling a ballad of her scarce-past girlhood:
“Oh, green grows the laurel and so does the rue,
So lost was I, Polly, at parting with you.”
None of this interested old Soapstick much; but another sound, close at hand disturbed her so that she shook her head till her shaggy ears rattled impatiently against her bur-encrusted foretop. It was a noise of maul and wedge, of hammering and splitting. Mansell Kindred was risking the disapproval of the neighbors and the probable condemnation of the Recording Angel, defending and maintaining the welfare of his house and home by Sunday labor in main strength and awkwardness.
He was mending the fence.
seventeen
Turkey Luck
From Youth’s Companion 95 (October 13, 1921): 568; illustrated by Sears Gallagher
Miles’s last story, “Turkey Luck,” was published posthumously, two years after her death. Most likely she had sold the story to Youth’s Companion several years earlier. Reminiscent of her book The Spirit of the Mountains, this tale recounts many of the folkways of mountain people—from simple celebrations of Christmas to superstitions about the first visitor on New Year’s Day. Old Dartus and Aunt Lucy, known for their never-empty coffeepot, show themselves to be congenial hosts, eager to hear the news and to share their provisions with those who stop in. While so many of Miles’s stories rail against the dominance-versus-submission relationship that exists in most mountain marriages, this one reveals equality and true companionship between the elderly husband and wife. The unexpected ending follows the local colorist heart-of-gold formula that the author sometimes utilizes. Perhaps the warmth and positivism of this final story are Miles’s own Christmas gift to the reader.
The Common Lot and Other Stories Page 26