by James Still
“Says her name is Olander Spence,” Bot would say. “Says she lives in Perry County, not more’n twenty miles from Oak Branch. Says she’s fifty-five November coming, and tuk loving care of her pappy till he died, the reason she never married. Says she can cook to suit any stomach, says she washes clothes so white you’d swear dogwoods bloomed around the house on Mondays. And listen! Says she can trash any man hoeing a row of corn.”
The letter pleased Uncle Mize. It livened him more than the cherrybark tea or the greasy rag. A day arrived when he said, “I’ve settled on the idea I do need a woman fiddling around the house, waiting on me, and hewing out the garden. The hours get teejous counting cracks in the ceiling and listening to the roosters crow. The Perry County woman sounds smart and clever, not afraid to bend her elbows. I’ve decided to have her fetched.”
When Uncle Mize took a notion to do a thing, he was all grit and go. As with the plowing, he got into a fidget, and if he hadn’t been plagued by weakness he would have mounted a horse and traveled to Perry County himself. Or if the corn hadn’t been overtaken by crabgrass and foxtail, he might have sent me. Broadus and Kell swore and be-damned if they would go. Kell put his number-twelve shoe down flat. “I’m here,” he made oath, “and I’m not moving.” Kell was too lazy to kill a snake anyhow. Broadus said, “Hain’t my wedding nor funeral. I might bring a woman for myself, but I’ll do no wife-hauling for another.”
Either Broadus or Kell plime-blank had to make tracks. Uncle Mize swore their breeches wouldn’t hold shucks if they didn’t make up their minds which. When they held out against all argument, he touched on their weakness. They wouldn’t shun money. He drew a taw line in the yard and set them playing crack-o-loo. He fished two silver dollars out of his snapping pocketbook for bait. “Farthest from the line goes to Perry County,” he decreed, “and both can keep the dollar.”
Broadus pitched, coming close to the mark. Kell took a hair sighting, aiming like measuring death, and beat him; he straddled the line with the U.S. eagle. Broadus let in cussing, but he started getting his readies on. Uncle Mize jumped lively for a change, fixing the saddlebags, bridling two horses. Broadus set off, giving the animals their heads, letting them take their sweet time. Being poky was his revenge.
It was a Tuesday that Broadus started for Perry County, and had he returned the following day there would have been a wedding in the middle of the week. Forty miles should have worked out to a day-and-a-half trip. Kell saw to the marriage license. Those years you didn’t need your blood “tasted,” and you could send for the knot-tieing document. El Caney Rowan, the preacher, came to do the hitching, and along trotted Elihu DeHart. Where you see Elihu you see his fiddle, and him itching to play. Folks within walking distance came. Most everybody on Oak Branch except Maw. Some rode over from Ballard, Snaggy, and Lairds Creek.
But Broadus didn’t show up. I hadn’t supposed he would make a beeline, being he had gone against his will and want. Broadus’s head was as hard as a hicker nut. People waited, the day stretched, and no Broadus. I kept thinking of the crabgrass crowding the corn, the knee high foxtail, and me wasting time. Late afternoon arrived, the cows lowed at the milk gap, the calves bawled. The sun dropped, and folks had to go home frustrated.
I didn’t get my natural sleep that night. Uncle Mize sprung a pain in his chest, and I had to sit up with him. I heated a rock to lay to his heart; I boiled coffee strong enough to float wedges; I drew bucket after bucket of fresh well water to cool his brow. He eased about daylight, and before I could sneak a nap for myself, aye gonnies if folks didn’t start coming back, only more of them. Overnight the word had spread further still.
People turned from Burnt Ridge and Flat Gap, from Cain Creek, and from as far away as Smacky and Sporty Creek. Oak Branch emptied out totally—even Maw. Maw’s curiosity got stronger than her religion. People waded the yard and weeds led a hard life. A pity they couldn’t have tramped the balks of Uncle Mize’s corn.
Uncle Mize ate common at breakfast: two hoe cakes, butter and molasses, a slice of cob-smoked ham. Then he went onto the porch and people crowded to pump his hand, the men sniggering fit to choke, the women giggling behind handkerchers. Elihu struck up “Old Joe Clark” on his fiddle, and Uncle Mize cut three steps rusty to prove his limberness. I knew Uncle Mize wasn’t up to it though. His cheeks were ashen, his ears tallow. After he wrung every hand within reach he told me he aimed to go inside and rest a bit, and for me to rouse him the first knowledge I had of Broadus.
In the neighborhood of eleven o’clock I heard a yelp and glanced toward the bend of the road, and there did come Broadus. You couldn’t hear the clop of hoofs for the rattle of voices. Folks hung over the fence; they stood tiptoe; they stretched their necks. There came Broadus astride the first horse, leading the second. And nobody rode the second animal. On shading my eyes I discovered the woman sitting behind him, riding sidesaddle.
Bot Shedders cracked, “That other nag must of gone lame, or throwed a shoe. No female ever sot that close to Broadus Hardburly.”
I hustled to Uncle Mize’s room. The door was shut. I poked a finger through the hole and lifted the latch, calling as I entered. There was no reply. The shade was pulled and the room dusty dark. I waited until my eyes adjusted and then I saw Uncle Mize flat on the bed, his breeches and socks on. I started to shake him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not a sound came from him. He wasn’t breathing. I stood frozen a moment, then I skittered off to bring Kell. Kell reacted as I did, scared and shaky. We took a long solid look at Uncle Mize, and it was the truth. He wasn’t with us any more.
“Let’s tell Broadus,” Kell said. We closed the door, not speaking a word to anybody. Broadus had ridden in at the wagon gate and was helping Olander Spence to the ground. I saw right then Uncle Mize had made a good choice. Olander Spence seemed not too bad a looker, and her hands were big and thick and used to work. Her buckteeth were as white as hens’ eggs.
Broadus unbuckled the saddles and flung them onto the woodpile. He said to the Spence woman, “You sit here on the chopblock while I stable and feed the horses.”
We walked into the barn, Broadus, Kell and me. They opened the stall doors while I climbed up into the loft for hay, and when I came down Kell had told his brother.
“He blowed out like a candle,” Kell explained.
Broadus leaned against the wall, his mouth open.
Kell grumbled, “That brought-on woman has got us into a mess of trouble. A pure picklement. You fetched her here, and you’re the one to take her back home.”
Broadus shook his bur of a head. He wasn’t much for telling his business, but now he had to. “She hain’t going nowheres,” he said. “Me and her done some marrying yesterday.”
Broadus and Kell latched the stall doors and hung up the bridles. They went toward the house, and I just stood there. I didn’t want to go back into the room where Uncle Mize was. I felt like cutting down a tree or splitting a cord of wood—anything to brush my mind off of Uncle Mize. I got me a hoe, slipped behind the barn, and on to the farthest field. I slew an acre of crabgrass before sundown.
So Large a Thing as Seven
I was seven on the twelfth of April, and I remember thinking that the hills to the east of Little Carr Creek had also grown and stretched their ridge shoulders, and that the beechwood crowding up their slopes grew down to a living heart. Mother told me I was seven as we ate breakfast. Father looked at me gravely, saying he didn’t think I was more than six. Mother said I was seven for sure. Fletch looked down into his bowl of boiled wheat, for he was only five and stubborn. Euly laughed, a pale nervous laughter edged with a taunt. She was going on thirteen and impatient with our childishness.
I knew then it was good to be seven, but I did not know how to think of it. Mother held the baby up and he looked at me, making an odd little cluck with his tongue sucked back in his throat. And I thought that if I could know what the baby was thinking, I would know what a large thing it was to come upon another year.
/> After breakfast I went out into the young growth of stickweeds beyond the house, believing my whole life was balanced on this day, and how different it must be from any other. I walked on down into the creek bottom. Bloodroot blossomed under the oaks and I sat down on a root knoll, giving no thought to picking the flowers as Euly would have done, knowing they would droop almost at the touch. Sitting there I thought that I would grow up into a man like Grandpaw Baldridge, learning to read and write, and to draw up deeds for land.
Being so full of this thought I could not sit still. I went on around the hill where wild strawberry plants edged into an old pasture no longer used, for we had no stock and the rails were tumbled and rotting. I ran through a budding stubble, feeling the warm tickling on the soles of my feet. Euly and the birds had been in the strawberry patch already. Bare tracks were there on the grassless spots and the fruit was pecked and torn. A few berries were left, half-green and turning. Euly had been there, saying to Mother there might be enough for a pie sweetened with molasses, but she had gobbled them all down.
I sat on the rail fence. Blackbirds called up the hill their hoarse tchack, tchack, tchack. Young crickets drummed their legs in the grass—young, I knew, for their sounds were thin and tuneless.
Suddenly there was laughter, long and thin and near. I searched the weed-filled gullies, looking at length into a poplar rising full-bodied and tall at the lower end of the pasture. Euly was swinging in the topmost bough. Fear for her choked me. I called to her to come down, half envious of her courage, but more afraid than anything. She laughed, swinging faster and holding one hand out dangerously.
Fletch was over the hill. He heard us shouting and came up the slope, setting his feet at an angle to climb the steepness with his short legs. His hands were clutched against his pockets.
I ran to meet him, and Euly came down out of the tree to see what Fletch had. He reached one hand into a pocket to show us. It came out filled with partridge eggs, broken and running between his fingers. Euly’s face became as white as sycamore bark. She began to cry, knotting her fists and shaking them about. Then she opened one hand swiftly, slapping Fletch on the cheek, and was gone in a moment, running silently as a fox over the hill.
Fletch squalled until he was hoarse, the eggs and tears mixing on his face. I had to find him a pocketful of rabbit pills to get him to stop.
I remember that on the day I was seven Clabe Brannon came for Father. His mare was in labor, and he had come for help, bringing an extra nag for Father to ride. Father was handy with stock and knew a lot of cures. He knew what to do for blind staggers, the studs and bloats. He knew how to help a mare along when her time came.
Fletch and I had just come from the strawberry patch when Clabe rode up. Father came out of the garden where he had been hoeing sweet corn. Clabe was in a hurry and would not get down, but Mother fetched him a pitcher of cool spring water. Father got on the nag and the stirrups were too short. His legs stuck out like broomsticks. Mother laughed at him.
“Biggest load’s on top,” she said. “You’d better give that nag a resting spell afore long.”
“Size don’t allus speak for strength,” Father grinned. “This here nag could carry me twice over and never sap her nerve.”
Father looked down at me, standing there laughing with Mother. “Think I’ll fotch this little dirty mouth along for ballast,” he said. He reached down, pulling me into the saddle behind him, and I went up over the hind quarters limp with surprise, for Father had never taken me along before. We rode off down the hill, but I did not look back for all my joy, knowing that Fletch’s face was shriveled with jealousy, and knowing that I was seven and this thing was as it should be.
We went along up Little Carr Creek, the nag nervous with our unaccustomed weight, her flesh shivering at the touch of Father’s heels, and her hips working under me like enormous elbows. Her hind feet bedded in sand and Father clucked. She jumped, almost sliding me off. Clabe took the lead at the creek-turn, reining his mount back and forth across the thin water, keeping on firm ground.
We were soon beyond any place I knew and white bodies of sycamores stood above the willows. The hills were a waste of fallen timbers. Sprouting switches grew from the stumps, and the sweet smell of a bubby bush came down out of the scrub.
“That there is Stob Miller’s messing,” Father said. “He’s got a way o’ leaving as much timber as he takes out. A puore fool woulda knowed white oak is wormy growing on the south side o’ the hill and mixed up with laurel and ivy.”
And we went on. I counted four redbirds flying low in sumac bushes, and there was a wood thrush repeating its alarmed pit pit somewhere. Around more turns there were patches of young corn high on the hills in new-grubbed dirt. Chickens cackled up in the hollows. Sometimes I could see a house set back in a cove, and even when I couldn’t see for the apple trees and plum thickets, I knew people lived there by the homeplace sounds coming down to the creek. I knew a big rooster walked in the yard, and there were hound dogs under the puncheon floors and stock hanging their heads over the lot fence.
“They’s liable to be a colt a-coming over at Clabe’s place,” Father said. “How would you like to have a leetle side-pacing filly growing up to ride on?”
“If’n I had me one I’d give nigh everthing,” I said, “but I’d want it to be a man-colt.”
“Clabe might not want to git shet o’ him though,” Father said. “I reckon he wouldn’t want to promise off a colt afore he was weaned.”
“Reckon I could git that colt?” I asked, my heart pounding, and knowing suddenly there was nothing I wanted more than this. To have a colt, living and breathing, was more than being seven years old; it was more than anything.
“There ain’t no sense trying to see afar off,” Father warned. “It’s better to keep your eyeballs on things nigh, and let the rest come according to law and prophecy.”
We crossed the shallow waters of the creek, back and forth to firm sand-bars. Silver bellied perch fled before the nag’s steps, streaking into the shallows under the bank. Father looked down at them, laughing at their hurry.
“Skin your eyes and see the fishes,” he said.
Clabe’s wife came out on the porch to meet us, her spool legs thrust down in a pair of brogans. Two children hid under the porch, looking out with dirty faces, and an old hen pecked in the yard, bare of feathers behind the wings. Guineas stretched their long necks through the fence palings.
“You was a spell a-coming,” Clabe’s wife said. “It’s a wonder the mare didn’t bust afore you got here.”
We went around the house to the barn. The hip-roof was broken and sagging. Oates, Clabe’s boy, waited for us in the lot, watching the mare. He was older than I, taller by a half-foot, and he had buck teeth. Two of them stuck down in the corners of his mouth like tushes. He grinned at us and I thought, looking hard at him, that he had a face pine-blank like a possum.
The mare lay beyond on the ground, her great eyes moist and sorrowful. Clabe had thrown down a basketful of shucks, but she had rolled away into soft dirt where the pigs had rooted. Father walked up to her. She trembled, though not moving in her agony, and a spasm of flesh quivered her flanks. He put his hands on her neck for a moment, then the mare thrust her moist nose into his palms, and let her slobbering tongue hang out between yellow teeth.
The mare began to strain, drawing her muscles down into cords, and I saw two small hoofs. Father stood over her, looping a grass rope around the colt’s thin legs. I knew then the pain of flesh coming into life, and I turned and ran with this sight burning before my eyes, and my body cold and goose-pimpled. Standing behind the barn I was ashamed of my fear, though I could not go back until it was over. My humiliation was as loud as the guinea fowls crying in the young grass at the lot gate.
“It’s a natural thing,” I thought. “It’s a natural thing and me running away. It’s there and a-going on if’n I see it or not.”
I did not go back until Father called me. Oates was watch
ing and hadn’t turned a hair. The children were on their knees looking between the fence rails.
The mare was standing now, mouthing the loose shucks on the ground. The foal rested in a pile of wheat straw. His spindling legs were drawn under him and the straws were stuck over his damp body. A horsefly sang around his nose, and he swung his head, having already learned their sting. He looked at us gently and unafraid, then closed his eyes and drooped his head on the ground. I hungered to brush the dark nose, to get near enough to touch the smooth flanks.
“If’n I had me this colt, I’d do a plenty for it,” I thought. “When his teeth growed out, I’d pull a mess o’ pennyrile and feed him ever day till they wouldn’t be a bone showing. I’d take a heap better care o’ him than Clabe Brannon, or Oates, or them dirty-faced children. I’d do a puore sight.”
Oates walked up to the colt, but the mare drove him away, blowing through her nose, and lifting her heavy lips until her yellow teeth were bared. The colt lay still, its heavy lids closed.
“Colts ain’t no good without proper raising,” Clabe said, beginning to bargain with Father. “When he’s weaned off, I’d be right glad if you take and raise him. He ought to make a fine stud-horse.”
“He’s looking a leetle puny to me,” Father said. “I figger he might o’ got hurt a-borning. He ought to be standing up and walking around by now.”
“I’d like the finest kind to give you something for helping out,” Clabe said. “I shorely would, but they ain’t a cent on the place. I ain’t doing much crapping this spring. Jist a couple o’ acres. We et up a passel o’ the seeds afore planting time.”