My Old True Love

by Sheila Kay Adams

  AND JUST IN CASE you’re interested, I did find myself in the family way for the seventh time. And I knew somehow that this one was a girl and I allowed that I would name her Pearl.

  SO THAT WINTER PASSED just like every other one we’d ever lived through. I was not sick a single day, and Zeke said I had never been prettier in my life than I was then. That is how I recall that spring. I felt so good and was strong as a mule.

  Mommie was pleased as could be with her new daughter-in-law, which I must say might have in itself been reason enough for me to be hard on Mary. These are Mommie’s own words: “I am so glad Hackley did not get trapped up with one of them old road whores in spite of all them what was after him.” I flew mad at that because though she did not mention any names I knew she was meaning Maggie. But I just felt too good to argue with her so I did not. I did, however, pick just that time to tell her I was breeding again and must admit I went to feeling even better when that big grin dropped off and she went back to looking all pinched up with that smell-something-bad look.

  So I was not at all ready for my feelings about Mary to start softening up when I went over there to help her cook when Hackley had his barn raising toward the end of March. But soften up they did. Her little place was as neat as a pin, and you could tell she was really trying to be a good wife and she seemed as happy as a little girl with red shoes on. It did not hurt one bit that she was courting my affections either. She asked my advice a dozen times in that one day, and I could not help it if that went to my head and by the time supper was on the table me and her was laughing and talking like old pals. While we was washing up I told her I was expecting, and, oh, how wistful her face got with the news. She said, “I want to have Hackley’s babies more than anything in this world, Arty.” And I laughed and said, “You ought to be enjoying the time you have with just him, honey. The babies will start and then they’ll just keep coming and coming.” Later in mine and her life we would talk about that conversation and each and every time her face would carry that same look. I would reckon she thought about it right up till when she died. They would be just the one child born to her that was my brother’s. And that would end like so much in life what turns out to be sweet as honey and bitter as gall at the same time.

  But during that spring I decided that whatever had come before might as well be forgiven and forgotten, and me and her put together a good friendship that weathered well the rest of our lives. I cannot help but believe that if things had just been allowed to go their natural course and times had not changed for us in the awful way they did, I would surely not be telling this tale. But telling it I am, for the times they did change.

  It come a big wet snow right about the time the sarvice trees were blooming, and some of it was still on the ground when Larkin come by the house. He was on his way over to help Hackley do some fencing. He was looking fine as snuff and twice as dusty, which means he was a big pretty man. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face when I said, “And how is Miss Maggie getting on?” And he blushed plumb to the roots of his hair and mumbled that she was fine. I had high hopes then that maybe he was moving beyond his old feelings for Mary and I felt a debt of gratitude in my heart for Maggie. As soon as the sun climbed high enough, I told Larkin I had to go let the cows out and he said he’d walk that far with me and then he probably needed to get on over the hill. I linked my arm through his and we strolled along looking at how green everything was. I found the first violets peeping out of the grass along the path to the barn, and we talked about how he used to pick them for me and put them in the water bucket where I’d be sure to see them.

  Up in the day I took my littlest young’uns and crossed the ridge myself to see Mary. We set on the porch talking, and I thought, It does not get much better than this. There was a little breeze playing about the yard and the sun felt so warm and the young’uns were just drunk with it all. Larkin and Hackley come in and we all set for a while just watching the young’uns. Then Larkin asked if we’d heard they was having a big politicking over at Laurel on Thursday. I allowed that me and Zeke were aiming to go and Mary said her and Hackley was too. I said we ought to go camping and stay all night and they all allowed what a fine idea that was. We flew to making us some plans and by the time I got up to go home, I was looking forward to a big time. I wished Zeke Jr. had not come running to me crying with a skinned elbow. Then I would not have reached over in that water bucket for a handful to wash it off with. But things happen for a reason, even if we do not know what it might be. All I know is that when I brought my hand out, it was covered with violets and I did not even have to think twice’t about who might have put them there.

  I COULD NOT BELIEVE how many people were on the roads that Thursday and every one of them heading for Shelton Laurel. By the time we got there the big cleared field beside the store was already full of wagons, horses, and mules. And the whole place was just throbbing with hundreds and hundreds of people. And this was a rare thing in the spring of the year. Any other year would have found us at the house working in the fields, so they was a right festive air with everybody wanting to visit. Men was standing around clumped up in little groups, talking and waving their arms around while they did it. Us women left them to it and clumped up ourselves. And a thousand sweating young’uns was wild as bucks running and winding their way through what must’ve looked like a forest of legs. Carolina’s eyes was as bright as new pennies, and when she found Sophie Rice she squealed and grabbed her hand and said “Let’s pretend we’re two blind girls” and they went staggering off like two drunks. I hollered after them that they’d better keep their eyes wide open if they knowed what was good for them. She was the only one of my bunch that took off but then she always was one that could not be still. Abigail flew right into helping me set up camp while the little ones stood looking about with great big eyes. I said, “John Wesley, quit standing there like you’ve took root and help your sister.” I guess my voice must have got that tone to it that makes Zeke nervous because he said, “Arty,

  honey, why don’t you go get what all we need at the store.”

  It took me forever to finally get down there because they was so many folks I knew. I could not go any more than a step or two when somebody would holler out, “Arty, Arty, come over here a minute.”

  When I finally made it, who did I meet coming through the door but Larkin. Him being way taller than me, I was asking him to look out there and tell me who he could see. Of a sudden this big, red-faced man come jostling his way up onto the top step, elbowing everybody out of the way. It was only when he nodded at me and I saw his big round bald head that I knew him to be the great preacher Lester Lydell. Back when he was young and more slender he would take a run-a-go and jump clear over the pulpit, but he was not so young now nor was he slender, so I reckon his jumping days was over. He could still talk a good preaching though. “Brothers and sisters, God spoke to me in a dream. He said to me, ‘Preacher, you get out yonder and deliver my message. I didn’t call you to set around and say nothing. I called you to preach.’ Clear as a bell I heard Him say what I’m saying now. He says we are to leave the Union, separate ourselves from the heathens in the North. God would be on our side if we leave. If we stay in it’d be a sin and disobedience. They’ll be punishments heaped upon us if we don’t heed his wishes.”

  Just then a great flood of people come pouring out of the store and he got caught up in them, and the last I saw of him he was waving his Bible in the air still preaching while being carried along by the tide.

  Larkin laughed and I did, too. Oh, it was a wonderful day we was having. I turned around still laughing and come smack up against Vergie Hensley. She was as round as could be and had on an orange dress and what went through my mind was, Oh, how much like a punkin she

  looks, but what come out my mouth was, “Why, howdy, Vergie.”

  Her eyes was all glassy-looking and they sort of slid over my face and then they fastened themselves right onto the front of Larkin’s britches and they
did not move the whole time we stood there talking. I swear to you that this is no lie, and I thought to my never that I was going to bust wide open I wanted to laugh so bad. I just kept on talking asking her questions about her young’uns, if Maggie was there, when was the last time she’d seen Mommie. I was talking about anything just to see how long she would stand there staring right at Larkin. Finally I said, “Larkin and me have to go, Vergie,” and I took him by the arm and pulled him off the porch.

  When we got around the corner, I fell against him just dying and all he could do was shake his head. “What do you reckon that was all about?” I said, “I reckon she’s heard you like them older women, honey.” And he said, “Not that damn old,” which set me off to laughing again. We was standing there laughing so hard we was crying when Mommie come around the corner. She come bustling up calling out, “Arty, you, Arty,” and she looked and sounded so much like Granny it come near to taking my breath away. I could not help myself, I started to just bawling. “Don’t pay me no never mind,” I said to Larkin. “I am just some woman who is bigged.”

  You would have thought I had stuck Mommie with a hot poker the way she sucked in her breath. “Arty Wallin, don’t talk about such to him.”

  I said, “Why not? Is this not a grown man here that has seen me in the family way before?”

  I will spare you further details. Suffice to say it was like a thousand other arguments that me and Mommie somehow managed to get into every time we caught a whiff of one another.

  • • •

  AFTER WE’D EATEN I wandered over to where Mary was talking to Gracie Franklin and Patsy Bowman. And for all of you that thinks Arty’s big nose must be stuck in everybody’s business, I must tell you that I had not heard the story what was being told.

  “Clemmons just up and left,” Gracie was saying. I reckoned they must be talking about Red Boyce’s son since he was the only Clemmons I knew. “He come in one evening and throwed a big fit. Lindy had been to the barn and already done the milking. Had her buckets setting on the table and he took his arm and swiped bucket, milk, and all right off into the floor. They ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since. Lindy’s having an awful time of it, they say.”

  “I reckon she would be having it hard! Her and them two little babies.” Patsy was red-faced and mad. “Tell you one thing, if it was me he’d done that-a-way he’d better never come back around me again. He’d better just keep going!”

  There was that saying I mentioned before, If it was me.

  Mary patted Patsy’s arm. “I swan. And nobody has seen him since?”

  “A man like that ain’t worth the powder it would take to kill him.” Patsy said.

  Hackley popped up where he’d been stretched out on a pallet of quilts laid out on the wagon bed. “Sound like you girls has done got poor old Clemmons tried by jury and hung.”

  “You better watch it, Hackley Norton, you rogue,” Gracie said.

  “You keep running that mouth and I’ll have to come over there and straighten you out.”

  Butter would not have melted in her mouth and I thought to myself, You had your chance a long time ago, honey, and you didn’t do it then.

  “Ah, Miss Gracie. How you make my head spin with all them pretty words.” Hackley swept his old flop hat off and laid it over his heart.

  And I said, “I’ll loan you my gun if you want it, Mary, just don’t aim for his head. Shooting him in the head wouldn’t even addle him, let alone kill him.”

  Mary stood and shook out her skirt as she studied him. “I don’t know if I want to waste a perfectly good bullet.”

  “Oh, God!” Gracie whooped. “I’ll bet you folks would give money to hire it done. I’ll go to collecting it right now!” She went off looking back over her shoulder at Hackley and went twisting right up to these two men what was propped up on another wagon.

  I looked back at Hackley, and them lazy eyes that never missed a trick was watching Gracie. He had his thumbs hooked in the waist of his britches, and for the first time in my life I wanted to see him as a man and not my own brother.

  He was not much taller than me but his shoulders was wide for a man his size and for all that he was blond, he had what Granny called a good high color. His eyes were the prettiest shade of blue I have ever seen. Standing there beside that wagon, I believe I come awfully close to seeing what it was that turned the head of most every woman. Some of it was just in how he held himself sort of slouchy-like. But they was a coiled-up something in him, something that was not tame, and when he fixed them eyes on you, it felt like he was just going to spring on you and eat you up.

  And then with a little smile he picked up his fiddle and bow and started to play.

  I’ve played cards in England, I’ve gambled in Spain,

  I’m going back to Rhode Island, gonna play my last game.

  Jack a diamonds, Jack a diamonds, I know ye from old.

  You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

  I’ll tune up my fiddle and rosin up my bow

  And I’ll make myself welcome wherever I go.

  Jack a diamonds, Jack a diamonds, I know ye from old,

  You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

  I’m gonna drink, I’m gonna gamble, my money’s my own,

  And them that don’t like me can leave me alone.

  Jack a diamonds, Jack a diamonds, I know ye from old

  You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

  If the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck,

  I’d dive to the bottom and I’d never come up.

  Jack a diamonds, Jack a diamonds, I know ye from old.

  You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

  But the ocean ain’t whiskey and I ain’t no duck,

  So I’ll play them “Drunken Hiccups” and trust to my luck.

  Jack a diamonds, Jack a diamonds, I know ye from old

  You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

  Rye whiskey and pretty women have been my downfall,

  They beat me and they bang me but I love them ’fore all.

  Jack a diamonds, Jack a diamonds, I know you from old.

  You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

  I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll drink when I’m dry.

  If I git to feelin much better gonna sprout wings and fly.

  Jack a diamonds, Jack a diamonds, I know you from old.

  You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

  As he gave a long stroke of the bow to end the tune, I thought to myself, Now, Arty, what woman would not trade her soul for all of that?

  Hackley nodded to the crowd that was clapping and hollering, bowed to Gracie, placed his fiddle on the quilt, and said “I know you folks didn’t just come to hear me and looks like the speech making is fixing to start.”

  Larkin took me by the elbow and we made our way through the crowd that had gathered around a little stage of a thing that they’d built up for the speakers. I wanted to get as close to the front as I could because I wanted to see this Zeb Vance person. Zeke talked about him like he was God’s gift, and his name had been all over the papers for months. Daddy said he had given twelve speeches in fourteen days begging for us to stay in the Union. He was only six years older than me, which would’ve made him thirty-one. My eyes was scanning the crowd looking for somebody who looked to fit that bill and I must say I was surprised when Larkin poked me in the ribs and nodded at this tall man standing across from us. He looked like he was carrying the weight of the world and was wore out from it. Looking back, I reckon he was carrying it. Much later he said that he knowed that all his speech making was doing little to change people’s minds, and that nothing he could say would stop what he called the rush to secede. But he done it anyway. And if what he said to us was any proof, he done everything he could.

  I pulled on Larkin’s arm and said, “Who is that standing with him?”

  “That’s Nick Woodfin, one o
f the biggest slaveholders in Buncombe County. He’s come to give us the other side of things,” Larkin said.

  Oh, I had read about him in the papers. He had wrote this big long piece about how the South was guaranteed the right to pull out of the Union by the Constitution. Him and Vance had argued back and forth about all this down in Raleigh and finally Woodfin had hollered out, “You know the Constitution of the United States, don’t you, Mr. Vance?” And Vance had fired right back, “Yes, Mr. Woodfin, I know of the Constitution. Right now I feel like I helped write the damn thing. Whether we have the right is not the issue,” he said. “If we’re making our political bed, then I want to be certain we can sleep in it.” Now that is my kind of man that can talk about sleeping in the bed you have made.

  I looked hard at this Woodfin, because to my knowledge I had never seen nobody what owned slaves. He had on a white linen suit and looked like what I had always thought somebody like him would look, which is to say all proper and sort of citified.

  “I like Vance the best,” I whispered to Larkin.

  “How do you know, Amma? You ain’t heard them talk yet.” He whispered back.

  “I just do,” I said. And I did. I could see what Zeke saw in Vance. He looked like he could walk right in the store over home and not draw attention to himself. He had big rough-looking hands and Woodfin’s hands looked smooth as a woman’s. I made fists of my own and hid them in my skirt because his hands did not look like mine.

  Go it, Vance, I thought just as he stepped up on the stage. The crowd quieted right down, and he took a deep breath and sort of bowed to us and then he started to talk. I had never heard the likes of that in all my life and do not much expect to hear it again before I die.