My Old True Love

by Sheila Kay Adams

  LATER ON THAT MONTH Mommie and Daddy had a big frolic at their house. We carried every stick of their furniture out and piled it up in a big pile so there would be more room to dance. We danced and danced and it got hot as fire in the house. I went out to catch my breath and while I was standing there I looked back through the open door. We had danced so hard that we’d kicked up a layer of dust that was level with everybody’s knees. It looked like they was all floating on a cloud and I was full struck by it.

  As was the custom when Hackley and them got tired of playing, we all set into singing the old songs. Them was such good times when we’d be ganged up and all of us would sing. I can still recall the thrill I’d get when I would hear somebody sing something I did not know. That night Rosa Wallin sung the prettiest version I would ever hear of “The Little Farmer Boy.”

  “Well met, well met, my own true love,

  Well met, well met,” cried he,

  “For I’ve lately returned from the saltwater sea

  And it’s all for the love of thee.”

  That song has got Zeke’s favorite verse of any song in it and it goes like this:

  “Oh, take me back,

  oh, take me back Oh, take me back,” cried she,

  “For I’m too young and lovely by far

  To rot in the saltwater sea.”

  Seeing as how she’d traipsed off and left her little babe setting in the floor, I can only say, Whatever did she think? She got no more than what she richly deserved.

  I had seen Larkin and Carolina with their two black heads together right before we started singing but had no idea of the surprise they was cooking up for me. My mouth hung open like a gate when she stood up right in front of everybody and allowed that she wanted to sing. When she shut her eyes and started, I could not believe the sweet sound that come from her mouth. My girl sung “My Dearest Dear” just like it was meant to be sung and even throwed in a verse she would have had to learn from Hackley since I had never heard nobody but him sing it.

  Oh my old mother’s hard to leave, my father’s on my mind,

  But for your sake I’ll go with you and leave them all behind.

  But for your sake I’ll go with you, I’ll bid them fare-thee-well

  For fear I’ll ne’er see you no more while here on earth we dwell.

  Folks made such a do about her singing that her and Larkin sung a back-and-forth and it were one of the sweetest things in this world. Larkin started it out.

  I’ll give to you a paper of pins and that’s the way our love begins

  If you will marry me, me, me, if you will marry me.

  I won’t accept your paper of pins if that’s the way our love begins

  And I’ll not marry you, you, you, and I’ll not marry you.

  I’ll give to you a dress of red skipped all ’round with a golden thread

  If you will marry me, me, me, if you will marry me.

  I won’t accept your dress of red skipped ’round with a golden thread

  And I’ll not marry you, you, you, and I’ll not marry you.

  I’ll give to you a dress of green and you’ll be dressed fit as a queen

  If you will marry me, me, me, if you will marry me.

  I won’t accept your dress of green for I don’t care to dress fit like a queen

  And I’ll not marry you, you, you, and I’ll not marry you.

  I’ll give to you a key to my desk and you can have money at your request

  If you will marry me, me, me, if you will marry me.

  If you’ll give to me a key to your desk and I can have money at my request

  Then I shall marry you, you, you, then I shall marry you.

  Oh, I’ll take back the key to my desk and you can’t have money at your request

  And I’ll not marry you, you, you, no I won’t marry you.

  They about tore the house down over that one and I could not help it, I started to bawl like a baby. I cried because I was proud of her and because I would have give anything in this world if her daddy had been there to hear it. The saddest part was I did not know if he would ever get to hear her and that was almost more than my heart could stand.

  When I went outside later I realized it was the night of the hunter’s moon. My mind flew back to this time last year. I was not the only one remembering. Larkin was out in that strange light standing with his arms out in front of him and I knew in his heart he was holding Granny as she’d breathed her last.

  God bless her sweet soul. I hope they’re having a frolic wherever she is.

  BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS, THE beast of war was literally roaring. We was starting to hear it too. We read in the paper how Tennessee had barely scraped up enough votes to secede. But right over the line in the eastern part, the vote had been two-to-one to stay in the Union. When the Confederacy moved troops over there, they really stirred up a hornets’ nest. I can understand it, because most of them saw that as nothing more or less than that they was being invaded. And that pot that had been just sort of simmering boiled plumb over.

  Mommie got a letter from her cousin Davina over in Greeneville that said her husband Ross had fell in with a gang that had meant to burn all the railroads that the Rebels controlled. It didn’t work out but the Confederates come through anyways and arrested a bunch of men. They tried them and hung every one of them. Davina wrote and these are her words: “They’s mor sojers than you can shak a stik at. We aim to mov frum here Nance. We air cumin home.” And it was not long before an absolute flood of people come pouring over the border into Madison County. Among them that crossed over was one John Kirk and one David Fry. John Kirk was the brother of the as yet unheard of George Washington Kirk, and David Fry was the ringleader of them would-be bridge burners. None of them was famous when they first come but, oh, they would be soon enough. It was not long at all till word was going around that they was recruiting for the Union army.

  Finally the letters started to roll into Sodom, and in January Daisy got one from Big John. He had hooked up with some like-minded men from over in Mitchell and Yancey Counties, and they had made their way north to Kentucky. He was with the Union army up in the Cumberland Gap. “I’ll not mak it hom in tim to plow,” he wrote. “Tell Larkin I said to hep you.”

  Do you know what a happy woman I was when my Zeke’s letter come through? I had not knowed where he was or if he’d been killed or nothing for the longest seven months that had ever rolled over my head. I had tried and tried to go along, but Lord, it had been an ever present pure-D torment not knowing where he was or if he’d made it through, but praise be, make it he had. Him and Hugh was also in the Cumberland Gap and he mentioned nothing about no fighting up there, though he did send me twenty dollars. He only talked about how pretty it was and that if he stood just in the right spot, he believed he could see plumb to North Carolina. He was homesick and I could tell it. I was Zeke-sick and he closed his letter out with this and these are his own words: “May God bless and keep you my dear wife and if we never meet any mur on urth Arty let us so live that we may meet abuv.”

  I cried the whole time I was writing him back but I did not let on to him. I did say to him that we now had a precious Pearl.

  Andrew, Andy, and Shadrack were in and out of Sodom so much you’d have thought they was swinging doors set up down at the forks of the road. They called themselves the Madison Rangers, a Confederate company raised up by Lawrence Allen who was the clerk of court over in Marshall. Now reckon who comes up with the names for these outfits and why did all of them sound so high and fancy?

  And you could not have blowed Hackley off his fence with a keg of dynamite.

  LORD HAVE MERCY, I thought that winter was just going to go on forever. It was cold and snowy right up through the middle of April. When it finally thawed out enough to plow, us women had to go it alone. There was just not enough of Larkin, Fee, and Hackley to go around, although I will say Hackley tried to be everywhere at once, if you know what I mean. I had never plowed in my life and to t
ell you the truth had thought myself to be above it, but by Ned and God I did come of it. But that was not the worst of it. I had to drag the ground with the spiked harrow to bust up the big clods and then come the scrubbing with the big log. Every night it seemed like something else pained me to the point of distraction. Except for my arms.

  For that first three weeks or so they always felt like they was being jerked out of their sockets. After that though they quit hurting, and I swear I was strong as most men. Though I had never been soft-bodied like a lot of women, now I was lean and did not have one bit of fat on me. I want you to know it was with the most satisfaction and no small amount of pride I carried in my heart as I walked through them fields and seen the first shoots of corn and wheat coming up.

  When it first started to rain I was so thankful, but after a week my heart went heavy as a rock. Day after day it poured and my spirits sunk even more as I watched the water run and run and keep running. I swear the fields seemed to just melt right before my eyes. It looked like a river of mud coming down the road out from the house and all my seedlings looked like merry little green boats as they went bobbing by.

  They had what they called a bust-out on further north of us. I had never heard of such a thing. They said this woman was in her house cooking supper with two of her young’uns and all at once it come the biggest clap of thunder she’d ever heard but it did not come from the natural place. It come from under her feet and everything went perfect black and then everything started to slide. They found the house at the bottom of the mountain and it took them over an hour to dig them out. It was a pure and simple miracle that she lived to tell the story as they said every bone in her was broke. The only thing they could figure was that it had rained so much that the ground held as much as it could and then what it could not just busted out. As if I did not have enough to worry about, I laid awake night after night worrying about us having one of them bust-outs here.

  Yes, I was getting to be a pretty decent worrier.

  But the rain finally slacked off and quit way up toward the first of May and I could hardly stand to wait for it to dry off enough before I hit them fields with a vengeance. Things was no more than up and tender green when it come a hard freeze on the second day of June that killed most everything I had.

  I don’t know what I would have done without Larkin and John Wesley. I guess we would have starved to death that winter for sure, though we come damn near to it as it was. But I’m trying to get ahead of myself here.

  The time come for Hackley to jump off that fence but he didn’t jump. They had to push him off.

  LARKIN AND ME WAS in the field behind the house planting what few rows of corn I had left when here come Julie just tearing up stumps. She was hollering the whole time saying, “Larkin, Arty, Larkin, Arty, Larkin, Arty.” I thought she was going to fall up before she finally managed to say, “Mary wants you to come. A bunch of soldiers has come and took Hackley and a whole passel of others with them. They was just going past Jim Leake’s store when I went by down there.” And I said as if it really made some sort of difference—but in my own defense I was sort of addle-brained—“What kind of soldiers?” And she looked at me like I was a fool before she went back down the hill at a dead run, “Gun-toting soldiers is all I know.” A look went between me and Larkin and then both of us broke to run too.

  I dashed by the house and grabbed Pearl and screamed out for Abigail to mind the others and fix them supper. I swear it is a thousand wonders that my young’uns had not took to calling her Mommie. I was truly blessed to have had such a fine oldest child. She, however, might not have thought she had been thusly blessed with her mommie.

  I done the milking for Mary and by that time it was dark in their cabin. Mary had not lit so much as a candle, and I had to feel around on the fireboard till I found one. As it sputtered to light, I saw Larkin squatted down by her stool and he had his arm up around her shoulders and she was sort of leaning into him. It rose up in me that this was not right, but what could I say? Holler out big and loud, “You get away from there, Larkin?” I think not, even though one look at Julie’s poor stricken face surely made me want to. But I did mean for them to take note that they was not in this house alone, as much as they might want to act that way so I spoke up and my voice was big and loud. “Mary, tell me again what they said.” Larkin looked at me and said, “She’s already told us once,” and I jutted my chin out at him. He knowed better than to mess with me when my chin was out like that so he told me himself.

  “Something about them being with the Buncombe County militia. They was a big-mouthed feller that kept saying something about rounding up anti-Confederates, and though Hack kept saying he weren’t against nobody they grabbed him up anyways. Said she saw Sol and Greenberry and your brother David and a bunch more and that she even saw Fee and it looked like they’d hit him in the head with something.”

  As I said a while ago I had already heard this, but him repeating it had served its purpose. He got up from Mary and was just standing there with his hands hanging down.

  And it is a good thing, as right about then I heard feet come pounding across the porch and Mommie come flying through the door with her hair out of its bun and I knowed she’d been caught just as her and Daddy was fixing to go to bed.

  “Lord have mercy, Mary.” Mommie went to her and grabbed up the very same hand Larkin had just been holding. “Oh, honey. Your poor hands are cold as ice.” She rubbed them between hers.

  “Damn them all to hell in a handcart!” Daddy said and went to pacing back and forth. “What do they mean coming in here and pulling such a trick as this here? It’s that damn bunch from Tennessee what’s caused this.”

  “Don’t blame them for this. They can’t help it.” Mommie said.

  “Damned if they can’t!” Daddy was just this side of screaming.

  “That bunch over on Shelton Laurel has brought the whole damn southern army down on us, sure as I’m standing here.”

  Mommie rose and her back was stiff as a poker. “You hush, William Norton. Raring and raising hell ain’t going to do nobody a bit a good. You go to the spring and git me a bucket of water, and I need you to have a cool head when you come back.”

  Now they had never been no doubt in my mind who was really the boss with Mommie and Daddy, but this was the very first time I had ever in my life seen it so out in the open. Mommie always took care to make sure Daddy thought he was in charge, and she could play him like a fine-tuned fiddle. I waited for a blow that never happened. Daddy’s eyes was red as blood and he was blinking and blinking and then he finally just grabbed the bucket and went storming out the door.

  Mommie’s voice was calm as could be. “He’ll be all right when he gets back. He’s just hidebound as to what to do. He gets that way sometimes, bless his heart.” She handed me another candle. “Light this, Arty. It’s dark as pitch in here.”

  And from then on I did not have to worry who was in charge.

  Mommie turned to my baby brother Tete. “I want you to go to the house and gather up some of your things. I hoped to wait but it appears the time for waiting is over.”

  It is funny how I never even paid any attention to that one of my brothers. I was already married and gone long before he’d even been born, and I was thunderstruck to have just seen how big he had got.

  “I’m sending him to Knoxville,” Mommie said. “A man that Granny Nance is friends with is taking him to Greeneville. He’ll be working with a captain in the Union army. Only way I could figure to keep him safe during this mess.” She looked Larkin right in the face. “I can send you too, if you want to go.”

  Oh, how I wish I had throwed the awfulest fit in the world right then and just made him go. That is one of them moments we all look back down our lives at and know that we could’ve changed everything that was to come.

  “I can’t, Aunt Nancy.” His eyes were dark and I could read nothing in them by the dim light of the candle. “I’ve got too many folks depending on me�
�Daisy, Arty. I can’t.”

  And my heart cried out and said, Not me, but Mary. I looked at Mary to see if she was setting there all full of herself and felt sorry in an instant. Her poor little face looked like it had caved in on itself and bore such a look of suffering that I felt scalding tears flood my eyes. We was rowing the same boat now, Mary and me was, and I was ashamed of my feelings of a minute before.

  I said nothing and simply went to peeling some shriveled up taters because that is what Mommie told me to do.

  I HAD LAID DOWNwith Pearl way up in the night just to try to rest as I knew I would not sleep, and it was just getting daylight when we heard footsteps on the porch.

  Mary come up out of that chair like she’d been scalded and jerked open the door. “Oh, Hack, Oh, Hack!” she kept saying over and over.

  But the way he acted you’d have thought he’d just been out hunting. For once I think he was really trying to put our minds at ease, and especially Mary’s. “Hell, honey. I ought to git rounded up and took off more often, if this is how I’ll be treated when I get back.”

  “Are you all right, son?” You could tell Daddy was just worried to death.

  “Finer than frog hair.” And he grinned at all of us but I noted how pinched he looked around his eyes and then knowed for certain it was all just a big show.

  “Come and eat,” Mommie said, holding his arm and all but dragging him to the table.

  “All right, all right. Let me get untangled from Mary and I’ll eat. I am plumb starved, sure enough.”

  It was while he was eating that he told his tale. He said they’d went along rounding up men until they had joined up with another group coming down from Shelton Laurel. They had been asked a bunch of questions, and then they had made some of them join up with the Confederacy on the spot. When it come his turn, one of the fellers had asked him if he was Andrew Chandler’s son-in-law. They had asked him to sign his name on a paper and let him come home.