by James Still
“What’s in the bundle?” a complaint sounded. “We’re buying a pig in a poke.”
“Don’t you trust me?” asked Mace.
“Gee-o, no!” was the reply.
“Well, my wife doesn’t either,” Mace sighed. “The reason I’ve got to hurry.” He passed the hat, cajoling and pleading. “Cough up, you tightwads, you eagle chokers. Forty dollars will buy peace. And recollect it’s in your children’s behalf.”
None took Mace seriously, though most were willing to help the prank along. They flung money into the hat and laughed.
But to Argus, who shucked loose a dollar bill, Mace said, “We’ll not accept a penny from you.”
Argus was puzzled. “My money will spend the same as the next person’s,” he said.
“Hold your ’tater,” Mace said, “and directly I’ll tell what you’re assessed. You’re to give the most.”
“Huh!” grunted Argus in bafflement.
When it appeared the last dime had been bled out of the crowd, the money was counted. It lacked ninety cents of reaching the full amount.
Argus offered, “I’ll finish the pot.”
Mace shook his head.
Zack volunteered, “Mace, I’ll throw in the remainder if you’ll agree to one simple thing.”
“Say on,” bade Mace.
“Confess how you came by your half-dollar.”
“You wouldn’t believe the truth, did you hear it.”
“Speak it, and I’ll try.”
Mace squirmed on the stool. He moaned, “I oughten to throw away a precious secret. After you know, you’ll all follow the practice, and money will get too common. It won’t buy dirt.”
“Tell and be done.”
“I hate to.”
“We’re listening.”
Mace yielded grudgingly. “Fetching that fifty-cent piece was the cause of my tardiness,” he said. “I had to travel clear to the breaks of the mountains to upturn a rock I’d spit under six months ago. A pity I couldn’t have waited a year. By then it would have grown to a dollar.”
The package was brought. The crowd moved warily aside as Mace unclasped his knife, thrust the handle toward Zack, and said, “Cut the twine and open it.”
“Aye, no,” Zack refused. “Someone else can play the goat.”
“Upon my word and deed and honor!” Mace blared. “Do you think it’s full of snakes?”
“It’s untelling,” Zack said.
Mace appealed to Argus. “Open it quick. I’m bound to hustle.”
“Scared to,” Argus replied honestly.
Mace lifted his hands in sorrow. He groaned, “I’ve come on a bitter day. I’ve totally lost the confidence of my fellowman.” As he spoke, he moved toward me, proffering the knife. “Here,” he said, “prove I’m not a false speaker.”
I shrugged. I’d as lief as not. Hadn’t Argus said courage was honored on Keg Branch? I accepted the knife, and mouths in the crowd stretched to laugh. I cut the twine and broke the wrappings, and out rolled a volleyball, a basketball, baseballs, nets, and bats.
As we blinked Mace told Argus, “You’re to donate the playground—a piece of the land you own across from the schoolhouse. The scholars need elbow room to burn up their surplus energy.”
All stared in wonder, but mine was the only face that bore a fool’s look.
Mace clapped on his hat and strode toward the door. At the threshold he glanced ’round, his eyes shining. “I’m going home and tell my wife to skin me alive for mixing in sorry company.”
It turned out that I taught through the entire session on Keg Branch—and two more besides.
The Burning of the Waters
We moved from Tullock’s lumber camp to Tight Hollow on a day in March when the sky was as gray as a war penny and wind whistled the creek roads. Father had got himself appointed caretaker of a tract of timber at the far side of the county, his wages free rent. We were to live in the one-room bunkhouse of an abandoned stave mill.
Father rode in the cab with Cass Tullock, and every jolt made him chuckle. He laughed at Cass’s complaint of the chugholes. He teased him for holding us up a day in the belief we might change our minds. Beside them huddled Mother, the baby on her lap, her face dolesome. Holly and Dan and I sat on top of the load and when a gust blew my hat away I only grinned, for Father had promised us squirrel caps. Holly was as set against moving as Mother. She hugged her cob dolls and pouted.
The tract lay beyond Marlett and Rough Break, and beyond Kilgore where the settlements ended—eleven thousand acres as virgin as upon the first day of the world. Father had learned of it while prospecting timber for Cass and resolved to move there. To live without work was his dream. Game would provide meat, sugar trees our sweetening; garden sass and corn thrive in dirt black as a shovel. Herbs and pelts would furnish ready cash.
Father had thrown over his job, bought steel traps and gun shells and provisions, including a hundred-pound sack of pinto beans. He had used the last dime without getting the new shoes he needed. He told us, “Tight Hollow is a mite narrow but that’s to our benefit. Cold blasts can’t punish in winter, summers the sun won’t tarry long enough overhead to sting. We can sit on our hands and rear back on our thumbs.”
Once Father made up his mind, arguing was futile. Still Mother had spent her opinion. “Footgear doesn’t grow on bushes to my knowledge,” she said.
“You tickle me,” Father had chuckled. “Why, ginseng roots alone fetch thirteen dollars a pound and seneca and goldenseal pay well. Mink hides bring twenty dollars, muskrat up to five. Aye, we can buy shoes by the rack. We’ll get along and hardly pop a sweat.”
“Whoever heard of a feller opening his hand and a living falling in it?” Mother asked bitterly. “My reckoning, you’ll have to strike more licks than you’re expecting.”
Mother’s lack of faith amused Father. “I’ll do a few dabs of work,” he granted. “But mostly I’ll stay home and grow up with my children. Kilgore post office will be the farthest I’ll travel, and I’ll go there only to ship herbs and hides and rake in the money.” He poked his arms at the baby, saying, “Me and this chub will end up the biggest buddies ever was.”
The baby strained toward Father, but Dan edged between them. Dan was four.
Mother inquired, “What of a school? Is one within walking distance?”
Holly puffed her cheeks and grumbled, “I’d bet it’s a jillion miles to a neighbor’s house.”
“Schools are everywhere nowadays,” Father said, his face clouding. “Everywhere.” He was never much for jawing.
“Bet you could look your eyeballs out,” Holly said, “and see nary a body.”
Annoyed, Father explained, “A family lives on Grassy Creek, several miles this side. Close enough, to my fancy. Too many tramplers kill a wild place.”
“Tullock’s Camp is no paradise,” Mother said, “but we have friendly neighbors and a school. Here we know the whereabouts of our next meal.”
Father wagged his head in irritation. He declared, “I’ll locate a school by the July term, fear you not.” And passing on he said, “Any morning I can spring out of bed and slay a mess of squirrels. We’ll eat squirrel gravy that won’t quit. Of the furs we’ll pattern caps for these young ’uns, leaving the tails for handles.”
“Humph,” said Holly. “I’ll not be caught wearing a varmint’s skin.”
Mother would not be denied. “Surely you asked the Grassy folks the nearest school?”
Father’s neck reddened. “I told them we’d move the first Thursday in March,” he spoke sharply. “They acted dumfounded and the man said, ‘Ah!’ and his woman mumbled, ‘Well! Well!’ The whole of the conversation.”
“They don’t sound neighborly,” Mother said.
“Now, no,” agreed Holly.
“Upon my word and honor!” Father chuffed. “They’re good people. Just not talky.” And on his own behalf, “Let a man mention the opportunity of a lifetime and the women start picking it to pieces. They’d
fault heaven.”
Mother had sighed, knowing she would have to allow Father to whip himself. She asked, “When you’ve learned we can’t live like foxes will you bow to the truth? Or will you hang on till we starve out?”
Of a sudden Father slapped his leg so hard he startled the baby and made Dan jump. “Women aim to have their way,” he blurted. “One fashion or another they’ll get it. They’ll burn the waters of the creek, if that’s what it takes. They’ll up-end creation.”
“Men can be pretty hardheaded,” Mother had said.
Daylight was perishing when we turned into Tight Hollow. The road was barely a trace. The tie rods dragged and Cass groaned; Cass groaned and Father chuckled. The ridges broke the wind, though we could hear it hooting in the lofty woods. Three quarters of a mile along the branch the stave mill and bunkhouse came to view, and, unaccountably, a smoke rose from the bunkhouse chimney. The door hung ajar, and as we drew up we saw fire smoldering on the hearth.
Nobody stirred for a moment. We could not think how this might be. Father called a hey-o and got no reply. Then he and Cass strode to the door. They found the building empty—empty save for a row of kegs and an alder broom. They stood wondering.
Cass said, “By the size of the log butts I judge the fire was built yesterday.”
“Appears a passing hunter slept here last night,” Father guessed, “and sort of fanned out the gom.”
We unloaded the truck in haste, Cass being anxious to start home. Dan and I kept at Father’s heels and Holly tended the baby and her dolls, the while peering uneasily over her shoulder. Our belongings seemed few in the lengthy room, and despite lamp and firelight the corners were gloomy.
At leaving, Cass counseled Father, “When you stump playing wild man you might hanker to return to civilization. Good sawsmiths are scarce.” And he twitted, “Don’t stay till Old Jack Somebody carries you off plumb. He’s the gent, my opinion, who lit your fire.”
“I pity you working fellers,” Father countered. “You’ll slave, you’ll drudge, you’ll wear your finger to nubs for what Providence offers as a bounty.”
“You heard me,” Cass said, and drove away.
The bunkhouse had no flue to accommodate the stovepipe, and Mother cooked supper on coals raked onto the hearth. The bread baked in a skillet was round as a grindstone. Though we ate little, Father advised, “Save space for a stout breakfast. Come daybreak I’ll be gathering in the squirrels.”
Dan and Holly and I pushed aside our plates. We gazed at the moss of soot riding the chimney-back, the fire built by we knew not whom. We missed the sighing of the sawmill boilers; we longed for the camp. Mother said nothing and Father fell silent. Presently Father yawned and said, “Let’s fly up if I’m to rise early.”
Lying big-eyed in the dark I heard Father say to Mother, “That fire puzzles me tee-totally. Had we come yesterday as I planned, I’d know the mister to thank.”
“You’re taking it as seriously as the young ’uns,” Mother answered. “I believe to my heart you’re scary.”
“Not as much as a man I’ve been told of,” Father jested. “He makes his woman sleep on the outer side of the bed, he’s so fearful.”
When I waked the next morning Mother was nursing the baby by the hearth and Holly was warming her dolls. Dan waddled in a great pair of boots he had found in a keg. The wind had quieted, the weather grown bitter. The cracks invited freezing air. Father was expected at any moment and a skillet of grease simmered in readiness for the squirrels.
We waited the morning through. Toward ten o’clock we opened the door and looked upcreek and down, seeing by broad day how prisoned was Tight Hollow. The ridges crowded close; a body had to tilt head to see the sky. At eleven, after the sun had finally topped the hills, Mother made hobby bread and fried salt meat. Bending over the hearth, she cast baleful glances at her idle stove. Father arrived past one and he came empty-handed and grinning sheepishly.
“You’re in good season for dinner,” Mother said.
Father’s jaws flushed. “Game won’t stir in such weather,” he declared. “It’d freeze the clapper in a cowbell.” Thawing his icy hands and feet he said, “Just you wait till spring opens. I’ll get up with the squirrels. I’ll pack ’em in.”
The cold held. The ground was iron and spears of ice the size of a leg hung from the cliffs. Drafty as a basket the bunkhouse was, and we turned like flutter-mills before the fire. We slept under a burden of quilts. And how homesick we children were for the song of the saws, the whistle blowing noon! We yearned for our playfellows. Holly sulked. She sat by the hearth and attended her dolls. She didn’t eat enough to do a flaxbird.
Father set up his trap line along the branch and then started a search for sugar trees and game. Straightway he had to yield in one particular. There was scarcely a hard maple on the tract. “Sweetening rots teeth anyhow,” he told us. “What sugar we need we can buy later.” Hunting and trapping kept him gone daylight to dark and he explained, “It takes hustling at the outset. But after things get rolling, Granny Nature will pull the main haul. I’ll have my barrel full of resting.”
When Father caught nothing in his traps two weeks running he made excuse, “You can’t fool a mink or muskrat the first crack. The newness will have to wear off the iron.” And for all of his hunting, my head went begging a cap. Rabbits alone stirred. Tight Hollow turned out pesky with rabbits. “It’s the weather that has the squirrels holed,” he said. “It would bluff doorknobs.”
“Maybe there’s a lack of mast trees too,” Mother said. “Critters have sense enough to dwell where there’s a living to be got. More than can be said for some people I know.”
Holly said, “I bet it’s warm at the camp.”
“It’s blizzardy the hills over,” Father chuffed edgily. “I don’t recollect the beat.”
Mother said, “Not a marvel the hollow is cold as a froe, having sunlight just three hours a day. For all the world like living in a barrel.”
“At Tullock’s Camp,” Holly said, “you could see the sun-ball any old time.”
“And the houses were weather-boarded,” Mother joined in. “And my cook-stove didn’t sit like a picture.”
“Now, yes,” chimed Holly.
Father squirmed. “Have a grain of patience,” he ordered. And to stop the talk he said, “Fetch the baby to me. I want to start buddying with the little master.”
During March Dan and I nearly drove Mother distracted. We made the bunkhouse thunder; we went clumping in the castaway boots. The stave mill beckoned but the air was too keen, and we dared not venture much beyond the threshold. Often we peered through cracks to see if Old Jack Somebody were about, and at night I tied my big toe to Dan’s so should either of us be snatched in sleep the other would awake.
In a month we used more than half of the corn meal and most of the lard. The salt meat shrank. The potatoes left were spared for seed. When the coffee gave out Father posed, “Now, what would Old Dan’l Boone have done in such a pickle?” He bade Mother roast pintos and brew them. But he couldn’t help twisting his mouth every swallow. Rabbits and beans we had in plenty and Father assured, “They’ll feed us till the garden sass crosses the table.” Holly grew thin as a sawhorse. She claimed beans stuck in her throat, professed to despise rabbit. She lived on broth.
The traps stayed empty and Father said, “Fooling a mink is ticklish business. The idea is to rid the suspicion and set a strong temptation.” He baited with meat skins, rancid grease, and rabbit ears; he boiled the traps, smoked them, even buried them awhile. “I’ll pinch toes yet,” he vowed, “doubt you not.”
“The shape your feet are in,” Mother remarked, “the quicker the better.”
“We’re not entirely beholden to pelts,” Father hedged. “Even if I had the bad luck to catch nothing, the herbs are ahead of us—ginseng at thirteen dollars a pound.”
“I doubt your shoes will hold out to tread grass,” said Mother.
Coming in with naught to show was awk
ward for Father and he teased or complained to cover his embarrassment. One day he saw me wearing a stocking cap Mother had made and he laughed fit to choke. He warned, “Shun wood choppers, little man, or your noggin might be mistaken for a knot on a log.” Again, spying Holly stitching a tiny garment, he appealed to Mother, “Upon my deed! Eleven years old and pranking with dolls. I recollect when girls her age were fair on to becoming young women.”
“Away from other girls,” Mother asked, “how can she occupy herself?”
“Stir about,” said Father, “not mope.”
Holly said, “I’m scared to go outside. Every night I hear a booger.”
“So that’s it,” Father scoffed.
“The plime-blank truth, now.”
Mother abetted Holly, “Something waked me an evening or so ago. A rambling noise, a walking sound.”
“My opinion,” Father said, “you heard a tree frog or a hooty-owl. Leave it to women to build a haystack of a straw.”
Mother saw my mouth gape and Dan’s eyes round. Without more ado she changed the subject. She prompted Father, “Why don’t you go visit the Grassy Creek people? Let them know we’re here, and begin to act neighbors.”
“They knew we were coming,” Father reminded. And he said, “When I have hides for Kilgore post office I might speak howdy in passing.”
“The fashion varmints are shying your traps,” Mother said. “That’ll be domesday.”
Father looked scalded. He eyed the door as if on the verge of stalking out. He said, “Stuff your ears nights, you two, and you’ll sleep better.”
The cold slackened early in April. It rained a week. The spears of ice along the cliffs plunged to earth and the branch flooded. The waters covered the stave mill, lapped under the bunkhouse floor, filled the hollow wall to wall. They swept away Father’s traps. When the skies cleared, the solitary trap he found near the mouth of the hollow he left lying.
“Never you fret,” Father promised Mother, “herbs will provide. I’ve heard speak of families of ginseng diggers roaming the hills, free as the birds. They made a life of it.”