The Hills Remember
Page 34
Hands raised the room over, begging leave to talk. Scholars spoke unbidden:
“I seed a bench-legged dog once, trained to raise and walk on her hind legs. Upon my word and honor, she had a peck o’ brains.”
“One day my mom passed Jolly Middleton and he was all hey-o and how-are-ye. He tipped his hat, and out flew a bird.”
“Biggest fun box ever was, my pap claims.”
Rue Thomas began, “Once on a time there was a deputy sheriff aimed to arrest Jolly Middleton—”
Duncil found his tongue. “I grant there’s a nag with more gumption than her master. Now, hush.”
Ard fetched in a bucket of water. He whispered to me, “Tomorry I’m bringing my bow and spike for shore.”
Rue Thomas tried again, “Once the Law undertook to corner Jolly Middleton—”
“Hush!” Duncil ordered. He lifted his chin, rummaging his mind for a way to sober us. He noted the hour—thirty minutes until breaking. He said presently, “We’ll have a season of story-telling to finish the day. Accounts of honor and valor.” He nodded at Mittie. “Young lady, take the floor and lead with the history of the Trojan horse in days of yore.”
Mittie stood and went forward without urging. I harkened although I opened the dictionary and pretended to study. She told of the Greeks building a mighty wooden nag, hollow as a gourd, and with a door in its belly; of the critter getting drawn into Troy-town for a sight to see, and warriors climbing forth at night and sticking spears through everybody. We listened, still as moss eating rocks.
When school let out I ran the whole way home. Pap sat on the porch and the rocker of his chair was scotched by a book. Before I could quit chuffing he announced, “That scamp of an uncle has been here again. And he has confounded creation by doing a worthy deed. He’s talked the superintendent into promising new texts for Surrey, and you’re to notify Duncil Burke.”
I stared at the book, too winded to speak.
Pap bent to free the rocker. Raising the volume he added, “And Jolly says for you to read this till your head rattles.”
I seized the book. A giant strode the cover, drawing ships by ropes, and the title read “Gulliver’s Voyage to Lilliput.” I opened the lid, eyes hasting: “My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons. . . .”
I wore it like a garment. Under my pillow it rested at night, clutched in my hand it traveled to school of a day. I turned stingy. I wouldn’t loan it, declaring, “I’ll be the only feller fixed to tell about Lemuel Gulliver and what he done. I’m bound it will cap any old wooden horse yarn.”
Ard said, “Rather to see a person cutting up jake on a horse than hear a lie-tale. I’d give a peck o’ books would Jolly Middleton come along right now. My bow and spike’s waiting under the floor.”
I said, “Uncle Jolly could brush off arrow-spikes, the same as Gulliver did.”
“Aye gonnies,” Ard swore, “I’d make a dint.”
But nine days passed before Uncle Jolly returned, and before I had a chance to relate Gulliver’s voyage. By then our textbooks were shedding leaves to match frostbitten maples. Come the slightest draft pages flew. Scholars bundled their books and tied them with string, or weighted them with pencil boxes and rulers. Pless Fowley’s child stored her primer in a poke.
When I reported Uncle Jolly’s message to Duncil he twitted, “Any news that rogue puts out has a sticker in it. Not an earnest bone in his body, to my judgment.”
Mittie tossed her head, agreeing. Yet she mumbled, “I wish a whirly-wind would blow our books to nowhere. Then somebody would be bound to do something.”
“The ones on hand will endure a spell longer,” Duncil said flatly.
A fourth-grader blurted, “A trustee took notice of my ragtag speller and asked, ‘What kind of a pauper place are we supporting at Surrey?’”
“Fight Creek and Slick Branch are making light of us,” another said.
“They’re calling Surrey a rat’s nest.”
“Naming us the hind tit.”
Duncil’s ire raised. He lifted his pointer. “Bridle your tongues,” he said, “else you’ll taste hickory.”
A fifth-grader asked unheeding, “If Jolly comes, what are we aiming to do?” And Rue Thomas opened his mouth to tell of a happening but didn’t get two words spoken before Duncil’s pointer whistled and struck a bench and broke.
Still when Uncle Jolly passed on a Tuesday morning with corn for Bryson’s mill, Duncil gave over teaching. Uncle Jolly rode feet high and legs crossed, and he came singing “Meet Little Susie on the Mountain Green.” A sack petticoat draped the mare’s hindquarters, a bow of ribbon graced her headstall, and her face was powdered white.
Pless Fowley’s child moaned, “Hit’s the De’il, hit is.” She gathered her primer into a poke. Scholars watched, mouths sagged in wonder. Ard breathed to me, “I’m seeing my pure pick of a bull’s-eye.”
Uncle Jolly rode into the schoolyard and bowed, and the mare bent a knee and dipped her head. He set her sidestepping, hoof over hoof, shaking her hips, flapping the skirt. She ended in a spin, whirling like a flying-jenny. Then, pinching her withers, he cried, “Fool stutter!” The mare nickered, and Uncle Jolly laughed. He laughed fit to fall. And away they scampered, and while still in view the critter lost her petticoat.
A scholar sang out, “He yelled school butter!”
“School butter wasn’t named,” I said.
“The next thing to it.”
The upper grades boys leaped to their feet, angry and clamorous, thinking their ears might have deceived them. They would have taken after Uncle Jolly had not Duncil raised a new pointer—a hickory limb as long as a spear.
Duncil brandished the pointer and the scholars quieted. They settled, knowing Uncle Jolly would return directly when Bryson had ground his corn. Duncil closed the grammar he held. Until Uncle Jolly went his way it was useless to try to teach. Forthwith he inquired, “Which of you is prepared to entertain us with a narrative of ancient days? A tale to discipline our minds.”
Rue Thomas said, “I can speak of a deputy aiming to capture a mischief-maker and what happened. Aye, hit’s a good ’un.”
“It’s not what I requested,” Duncil said sharply.
Ard’s hand popped up. “Here’s a feller ready with a tale about Old Gulliver. A back-yonder story.” He wagged his thumb toward me.
“Come forward,” Duncil invited.
I played shy. I let him beg twice, not to seem too eager. Then I strode to the front. I told of Gulliver riding the waters, of the shipwrecking, and of his swimming ashore. “He took a nap on dry land and tiny folks no bigger than a finger came and drove pegs and tied him flat with threads. They fastened him to the ground limb and hair. And a dwarf mounted Gulliver’s leg bearing a sword, and he was a soldier, and brave . . .”
I related the voyage to Lilliput beginning to end, though scholars barely attended my words and kept staring along the road. Whether Mittie listened I couldn’t discover, for she loosened the biscuit on her head and let her hair fall over her face.
“Be-dog,” a voice grumbled as I finished, “I’d ruther hear the truth.”
“Ought to hear of Jolly Middleton nearly getting jailhoused,” Rue Thomas said. “A gospel fact.”
Duncil groaned. And he checked the clock. There was still time to reckon with. He gave in. “Maybe we can have done with the subject by talking it to death, wearing it out plumb. Say on.”
Rue Thomas babbled, “Once Jolly Middleton took a trip to town. Rode by the courthouse and blocking his path was a deputy sheriff ready to arrest him for some antic. There stood the Law, a warrant in his fist. You think Jolly would turn and flee? Now, no. Not that jasper. Up he trotted into the Law’s teeth, and he jabbed his beast in the hip, and low she bent to the balls of her knees. He reached and shook the deputy’s hand, and was away and gone ere the Law could bat an eye.”
A primer child whimpered, “What air we aiming to do when the De’il comes?”
Bull yearlings couldn’t have held us. We rushed to the windows. Even Mittie craned her neck to see, her mouth primped with scorn. And Ard snatched the water bucket and ran outside. I thought to myself, “Ard Finch couldn’t hit a barn door with an arrow-spike.”
The mare drew up in the schoolyard and Uncle Jolly lay prone a moment. Then he stretched his arms and legs and made to rise. He yawned near wide enough to split. And, in the middle of a yawn, he gulped unaccountably, his eyes bulged, his tongue hung out. He seemed stricken. He began to twist and toss. He yelled, “Oh,” and, “Ouch!” and, “Mercy me!” As in torment he slapped his breeches, his chest, his skull.
The scholars watched, not knowing whether to pity or jeer.
Uncle Jolly reached inside his shirt and drew out four crawdabbers. He pulled a frog from one pocket, a grannyhatchet from the opposite. His breeches legs yielded a terrapin each, his hat a ball of June bugs. He rid himself of them and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he straddled his mare, spoke “Giddy-yap,” and started away.
“Humph,” came a grumble, “I thought he was going to do a real something.”
Uncle Jolly gained the road and halted. He looked over his shoulder and a wry grin caught his mouth and he shouted,
School butter, chicken flutter,
Rotten eggs for Duncil’s supper.
Boys hopped through the windows before Duncil could reach for the pointer. Girls and primer children struck for the doors. And Ard came around a corner with a spike fitted to his bow and let fly. The spike grazed the mare’s hip and she sank to her knees, and caught unawares Uncle Jolly tumbled to the ground headforemost. The poke burst, the meal spilled. Up they sprang as scholars sped toward them. The mare took flight across the bottom behind the schoolhouse, Uncle Jolly at her heels. They ran to equal Sooners. Duncil Burke was left waving a pointer in the yard.
I kept pace with the swiftest. I went along for the running, satisfied we could never overhaul Uncle Jolly, and I traveled empty-handed, having forgotten my book. Uncle Jolly and his beast outdid us, the way we shook the short-legged scholars. They took three strides to our one. And on nearing the creek they parted company, the mare veering along the bank, Uncle Jolly plunging into the willows. When last we saw him he was headed toward the knob.
At the creek we searched the dry bed for tracks. We combed the willows and the canes beyond. We threshed the thicket between the creek and the foot of the knob. And up the knob we went, fanning out, Rue Thomas warning, “Keep your eyes skinned, you fellers. What that mischief will do is untelling.”
We climbed to the first bench of the knob and paused to catch our breaths. We looked abroad. We stared upon the schoolhouse roof; we could almost spy down the chimney. From somewhere Duncil’s voice lifted, calling, calling. Of a sudden we saw scholars hurrying back across the bottom, crying shrilly. We saw Uncle Jolly run out of the schoolhouse and papers fluttered from his arms like butterflies.
We plunged downhill. We fell off of the knob, mighty near, and tore through the canes. We scurried to join the scholars gathering beyond the play yard. And there under a gilly tree Uncle Jolly lay snoring, a hat covering his face, bare feet shining. The mare was nowhere in sight. Ard Finch stood close, but only Mittie Hyden wasn’t the least afraid. She walked a ring around him, scoffing, “He’s not asleep. Hit’s pure put-on.”
The bunch crept closer.
A little one asked, “What air we aiming to do?”
“We’d duck him in the creek if it wasn’t dry,” Rue Thomas said.
“It would take a block and tackle to lift him,” a scholar said.
“He’s too heavy to rail-ride,” another made excuse.
Mittie accused, “I’m of a mind you fellers are scared.”
“I hain’t afraid,” Ard said, and he moved alongside Uncle Jolly to prove it.
“Better not tip Old Scratch,” Pless Fowley’s child wailed, and she ran away to the schoolhouse.
Ard said, “I know a thing we can do. Fix him the same as the Lilliputians done Old Gulliver. Snare him plug-line.”
“Who’ll tie the first string?” Rue Thomas posed.
“I will,” said Ard. “Fetch me some sticks for pegs and I’ll show you who’s game.” And after they were brought he pounded them into the ground beside Uncle Jolly’s feet. He cut his bowstring into lengths and staked the toes.
Uncle Jolly snored on.
The scholars grew brave. They dug twine and thread out of pockets. They unwound three stocking balls. They fenced Uncle Jolly with pegs and made fast his legs, arms, neck and fingers. Fishing lines crisscrossed his body, pack threads tethered locks of his hair. Even the buttons of his shirt suffered tying. They yoked him like a fly in a web, and still he kept snoring.
And when they had him bound Ard played soldier. He stepped onto Uncle Jolly’s thigh and mounted proudly to his chest; he balanced his feet and drew forth his knife and brandished it for a sword.
The hat slid from Uncle Jolly’s face. His eyelids cracked. His eyes flew wide at sight of the blade. And of a sudden he bucked. Strings parted and strings went flying, and Ard teetered. He bucked again and Ard upset and fell, and the blade raked Uncle Jolly’s nose from saddle to tip.
We stared, not moving though we heard the mare’s hoofs rattling, though we saw Duncil coming pointer in hand. Pless Fowley’s child ran among us, holding an empty poke, crying, “All the books have been dropped into the well. Nary a scrap is left.” And Mittie Hyden looked squarely at me. She said, “Jolly Middleton is the best devil ever was.”
Uncle Jolly sat up. He pinched his nose together, and his face wrinkled with joy. “I can’t laugh,” he said. “Upon my honor, I can’t.”
The Nest
Nezzie Hargis rested on a clump of broomsage and rubbed her numb hands. Her cheeks smarted and her feet had become a burden. Wind flowed with the sound of water through trees high on the ridge and the sun appeared caught in the leafless branches. Cow paths wound the slope, a puzzle of trails going nowhere. She thought, “If ever I could see a smoke or hear an ax ring, I’d know the way.”
Her father had said, “Nezzie, go stay a night with your Aunt Clissa”; and Mam, the woman her father had brought to live with them after her mother went away, explained, “We’d take you along except it’s your ailing grand-paw we’re to visit. Young ’uns get underfoot around the sick.” But it had not been the wish to see her grandfather that choked her throat and dampened her eyes—it was leaving the baby. Her father had reminded, “You’re over six years old, half past six by the calendar clock. Now, be a little woman.” Buttoned into a linsey coat, a bonnet tied on her head, she had looked at the baby wrapped in its cocoon of quilts. She would have touched its foot had they not been lost in the bundle.
Resting on the broomsage she tried to smile, but her cheeks were too tight and her teeth chattered. She recollected once kissing the baby, her lips against its mouth, its bright face pucked. Mam had scolded, “Don’t paw the child. It’s onhealthy.” Her father had said, “Womenfolk are always slobbering. Why, smack him on the foot.” She had put her chin against the baby’s heel and spied between its toes. Mam had cried, “Go tend the chickens.” Mam was forever crying, “Go tend the chickens.” Nezzie hated grown fowls—pecking hens and flogging roosters, clucking and crowing, dirtying everywhere.
Her father had promised, “If you’ll go willing to your Aunt Clissa’s, I’ll bring you a pretty. Just name a thing you want, something your heart is set on.” Her head had felt empty. She had not been able to think what she wanted most.
She had set off, her father calling after, “Follow the path to the cattle gap, the way we’ve been going. And when we’re home tomorrow, I’ll blow the fox horn and come fetch you.” But there were many trails upon the slope. The path had
divided and split again, and the route had not been found after hours of searching. Beyond the ridge the path would wind to Aunt Clissa’s, the chimney rising to view, the hounds barking and hurrying to meet her, and Uncle Barlow shouting, “Hold there, Digger!” and, “Stay, Merry!” and they would not, rushing to lick her hands and face.
She thought to turn back, knowing the hearth would be cold, the doors locked. She thought of the brooder house where diddles were sheltered, and where they might creep. Still across the ridge Uncle Barlow’s fireplace would be roaring, a smoke lifting. She would go to the top of the ridge and the smoke would lead her down.
She began to climb and as she mounted her fingers and toes ached the more. Briers picked at the linsey coat and tugged at the bonnet. How near the crest seemed, still ever fleeing farther. Now more than half of the distance had been covered when the sun dropped behind the ridge and was gone. The cold quickened, an occasional flake of snow fell. High on the ridge the wind cried, “O-oo-o.”
Getting out of breath she had to rest again. Beneath a haw where leaves were drifted she drew her coat tight about her shoulders and closed her eyes. Her father’s words rang in her ears:
“Just name a thing you want. . . . I’ll bring you a pretty.”
Her memory spun in a haste like pages off a thumb. She saw herself yesterday hiding in the brooder house to play with newly hatched diddles, the brooder warm and tight, barely fitting her, and the diddles moist from the egg, scrambling to her lap, walking her spread palms, beaks chirping, “Peep, peep.” Mam’s voice had intruded even there: “Nezzie! Nezzie! Crack up a piece of broken dish for the hens. They need shell makings.” She had kept quiet, feeling snug and contented, and almost as happy as before her mother went away.
Nezzie opened her eyes. Down the slope she saw the cow paths fading. Too late to return home, to go meeting the dark. She spoke aloud for comfort, “I ought to be a-hurrying.” The words came hoarsely out of her throat. She climbed on, and a shoe became untied. She couldn’t lace it anew with fingers turned clumsy and had to let the strings flare.