by Pamela Morsi
Althea poured a big mug of the warm, fresh milk for each of them. "I'll have these eggs rustled up in a jiffy," she promised them.
Turning toward the fireplace, she pulled the baking pot away from the ashes, lifted the lid, and with her bare hand began jerking the perfectly browned biscuits out and into her apron. She carried them to the table and piled them haphazardly upon the cloth.
"Here's something for you all to start with. Do you want sorghum or preserves, Simple Jess?" she asked as she placed the brown butter crock in front of him.
"Sorghum," he answered.
"What about you, Baby-Paisley?"
The little boy's eyes narrowed. "Preserves," he answered, his little voice full of challenge.
Althea, tamping down her growing exasperation, quickly supplied each with his choice and urged them to make some headway with the biscuits while she stirred up the eggs.
She emptied most of the bacon drippings into the grease crock on the shelf. She cracked six of the eggs into the rest of it and set the skillet inside the hearth. Squatting down next to the blazing coals, she carefully smoothed her skirts away from the flame. The eggs popped and crackled in the grease. She jiggled the frying pan slightly to assure herself that the eggs weren't sticking.
Behind her she could hear an uncomfortable silence, punctuated only by the occasional plunk of a tin mug against the tablecloth.
Baby-Paisley's fractious behavior was wearing a little bit thin. She was definitely going to have a long talk with that young man and if she didn't get some results, that young fellow was going to be spending some time counting cobwebs in the corner.
When the whites were cooked and the yolks still soft, Althea pulled the skillet away from the flames. She continued to rotate the pan gently as she located a plate. Setting the plate on the table, she eased the circle of eggs onto it.
"Smells mighty good, ma'am," Jesse said. She glanced up to see him eyeing it eagerly. He'd pulled his spoon out of his pocket and was wiping it on the edge of the tablecloth.
"Let's see how it tastes," she said, slicing off four onto his plate.
Jesse didn't wait for further invitation, but took a big bite. Althea watched as he closed his eyes and appreciatively savored the plain breakfast fare.
"My sister Meggie ain't never cooked eggs this good in her life," he said.
Althea smiled, pleased with the compliment. "Your sister is happier at the weaving loom," she said. "I love to cook so it comes easier to me."
"It sure goes easy to my mouth, ma'am," he answered.
Althea watched him eating with such unconcealed enjoyment. She was not the best cook on the mountain, or even the second best, but she was good at it and could turn a tough piece of gamey rabbit into a savory broth. It was something she had worked hard to learn and it was good to be appreciated. It had been a long time since anyone had bothered to acknowledge her effort. Her relatives had always been fairly generous in praise. But she hadn't cooked for Uncle Nez or Aunt Ada for several years. These days the only person who tasted her wares was her son. And Baby-Paisley didn't know there was any other cooking in the world.
Her mother-in-law, Beulah Winsloe, always found fault with any dish she presented and Orv never disputed his wife.
Paisley had enjoyed her cooking. That was obvious from the tremendous quantities of food he'd consumed. But her husband's idea of a compliment for a good meal was a hearty belch once he had all he'd wanted.
It was good to hear the words aloud. It made her feel... it made her feel somehow like cooking was really worth the trouble.
"What are you thinking about?"
The question came from Jesse. She glanced over at him.
"I can see that you're thinking about something," Jesse said.
"Oh." Althea blushed a little at being caught daydreaming. "I was just remembering things from the past. Old things, things that don't matter anymore."
She had intended her words to be light, but somehow as they came out they were not quite so much so. She smiled brightly at the young man to assure him that they were.
Jesse was looking at her closely. His eyes were bright blue and very serious, as if he were studying her. As she gazed into those eyes she saw what she recognized as great depth of feeling and sentiment. It was as if he knew her, really knew her and understood all that was inside. For a moment it was almost as if some pent up something had burst within her and a flood of feelings threatened to pour out. She stared with almost desperate relief at the clear blue eyes that offered such sweet assuagement. Then she blinked in puzzlement. Just as quickly as it had come, the strange feeling departed as she realized who owned those eyes. Jesse Best, Simple Jesse Best.
"Have another biscuit," she said quickly as she turned from the sight of him at her table. She poked, unnecessarily, at the fire in the hearth. Her hands were trembling. What on earth had come over her?
She turned back to the table, but deliberately focused her attention upon her son. Somehow she couldn't quite look at Jesse. What had she thought she'd seen?
They didn't call him Simple Jess for no purpose. He was feebleminded, weak in the brain. He could no more know her fears and feelings than he could fly. Getting out of bed so quickly this morning must have made her lightheaded. Determinedly, Althea joined the fellows at the table. A good breakfast in her stomach would clear up the giddy fancies in her head, she was certain.
* * *
Darkness was almost upon him as Jesse hurried along the ridge toward home. Under the trees it was already black as night, but Jesse had no fear of getting lost. He took a sniff of the air around him. It was scented with pine and forest duff and just a whiff of wood smoke from Ma Broody's fire. He knew it was Ma Broody's 'cause her place had more than its share of sweetgum trees and the old woman was always trying to use the soggy but aromatic culls for firewood.
The scents of the mountain were all familiar to Jesse. He'd once heard Tuck Trace brag that he could find his way home blindfolded. Jesse hadn't understood why that was a thing to brag about. Anybody ought to be able to do that. Jesse's eyes were sharp as a coon's, but the scent of the trail was always clearer than the sight of it. And while the landmarks could and did often change, the clear, distinct smells of plant, animal, and men remained the same.
Jesse knew this in the same way that he knew how folks sometimes felt. He didn't understand it. His mind was not smart enough to understand things, but he could know them nonetheless.
Like he knew that Miss Althea was unhappy. No, maybe unhappy wasn't quite the word, he thought. Miss Althea was lonesome. Not in the sense of being alone. She had Baby-Paisley and her in-laws and any number of folks around her. But maybe it was that she was different from them. Jesse was different, too. Maybe that was why he knew her feelings. He wished he could make it better, but he couldn't, of course. Being different just was. Not a fellow, nor a woman neither, could just stop being different. It was something that just had to be resigned to. Jesse had resigned himself, in most ways. Miss Althea would have to do it, too.
Of course, Jesse didn't know how that was to be done. It was sort of like going to sleep, he thought. You couldn't make yourself do it and the harder that you tried the less apt you were to succeed. But somehow you'd wake up and realize that you'd been snoring away all night long and not be able to remember how it happened.
Miss Althea would be fine, he assured himself. She was just lonesome. And she had the boy to think of and no man to help her get ready for winter. Jesse'd help her. He wanted to do that, he realized. Even if there were no dogs, he wanted to help Miss Althea.
The clearing was deserted as he came up the path to the small homestead carved out of the steep side of Marrying Stone Mountain. It was not a large place and boasted only a modest poled cabin with a half loft and an add-on in the back. The familiar farm smells of laid-by crops and domestic animals mingled with the scent of wood smoke and the vague odor of scorched beans. Home. The place where Jesse had lived his entire life.
It w
as full dark now and the glow of the fireplace spilled bright yellow light through the open doorway and across the porch. Jesse hurried his step as he came closer. From the edge of the porch he could see them all, his family.
Meggie, his sister, bustled nervously around the kitchen. Her face was smudged with flour and her apron splattered with grease as she hurriedly reached into the fireplace to save a pan of half-burnt, half-raw corn bread. Always a notoriously bad cook, marriage and motherhood hadn't improved her abilities. No one in the Best household had ever gone hungry, but there had been plenty of meals when they would have been quite willing to do so.
Onery Best, Jesse's father, sat at the far end of the table watching his daughter's frantic activity with curious acceptance. He was a contented man. A fact that perhaps seemed strange to some. He'd given up his life as an itinerant fiddler a quarter of a century before to become a farmer and father, two occupations for which he was not particularly well suited. But he'd loved his wife and had been loved in return. He apparently had no regret or bitterness at the fate that had left him alone and raising two children for twenty years.
Onery Best was an old man now. What hair he had left was silver as frost on walnut branches. He'd let his beard grow until it hung halfway down his shirtfront. His bad leg was propped up on a stool and wrapped tightly in an elm and vinegar poultice that was pungent enough to overpower the aroma of the dinner just cooked.
To his left sat Jesse's brother-in-law, Roe Farley. Roe had been Jesse's friend before he'd become his sister's husband. And Jesse was proud to call him friend still. Roe was like no one else on the mountain. He came from someplace far away. Roe said that the river at that place was called the Atlantic Ocean and that it was so wide a fellow couldn't see across it on the clearest day in summer.
He was a different looking fellow than he'd been four years ago. He'd been slim and pale then, and his hands had been as soft as a girl's. Hard work and mountain life had broadened his shoulders, darkened his complexion, and callused his palms. But he seemed happier and stronger for it.
Roe was not much of a farmer, but he was learning and did better this year than last. Roe could do things that lots of farmers couldn't do. When he put his spectacles on his nose, Roe could read faster than most men could think. And he could write down music on paper, not just the words, but the sounds, too. It looked kind of like squash growing on a fence, but it was the sounds of songs. Jesse could make the sounds on his fiddle, but he knew he would never read them or write them.
Kneeling tall in the chair next to Roe was Little Edith, Roe and Meggie's daughter. Her pretty blonde curls were pulled away from her tiny heart shaped face and temporarily confined to two long plaits at either side of her head. She was very pretty. According to Granny, Edith got the Piggott good looks. Jesse wasn't so sure about that. She really favored her daddy more than his sister Meggie. But Jesse would never dream of contradicting Granny Piggott. When she said a thing was so, it was best just to agree with her and get on with the business of living.
Jesse just stood there for a long minute, staring at the four of them. His family. The people who loved and cared about him more than any in the world. The picture was full and complete even as Jesse looked in on it. Unbidden, a vision of Althea Winsloe's dinner table came to his mind. It was only her and the little boy. The two of them sitting across the table. He with his babyish talk, she with her thoughts by herself. There was something missing in that scene.
Jesse's brow furrowed in thought, but he had no time to ruminate about what it was. Meggie glanced up at that moment and caught sight of him in the doorway.
"It's about time you got home," she said. "Are you going to just stand there or are you gonna come on in to supper?"
"Uncle Jesse!"
Little Edith stood up in her chair and heedlessly threw herself in his direction, knowing that Jesse would catch her, which he did. He hoisted her up high into the air until she brushed the shock of herbs hanging from the rafters and she giggled as the branches tickled her nose.
"I missed you all day," she declared as she wrapped her hands around his neck and hugged him tightly. "Nobody stops to play with me when you're not here."
Jesse nodded solemnly. "Then you know how Matilda feels when you leave her in the laundry basket and run off to the yard to chase the chickens," he said.
Edith gave a guilty glance toward the basket where Matilda, a small bundle of rags that bore a vague resemblance to human form, lay carelessly cast.
Little Edith turned back to Jesse and shook her head. "Oh, no, Uncle Jesse," she said. "Matilda likes to be left alone sometimes. She's a sickly child and needs her rest."
Jesse stared at his niece, momentarily puzzled and then his eyes brightened and he smiled broadly. "I never knew Matilda was sickly," he said.
"Oh, yes," Edith answered gravely. "She's got the consumption and some days she can scarce draw a breath."
Onery laughed heartily at his granddaughter's explanation. "Lord Almighty, that girl can tell a tale," he said, slapping his thigh. "Roe, you'd best plant a grove of hickories around this house. You're gonna need switches aplenty 'fore you get that little gal growed and gone."
"Papa don't never switch me," the little girl bragged proudly. "He says that it'd just hurt him and wouldn't do me no good at all."
“Then I might have to take up the task myself," Onery warned.
The little girl giggled as if her grandfather had told a good joke. "No, you won't," she said with certainty. "Besides, it's too late. Granny Piggott says I'm already 'spoilt beyond redemption.'"
"Well, you'd better let your Uncle Jesse sit down to eat his supper," her mother interrupted. "Or I'm likely to spoil your evening by putting you to bed without yours."
Edith and Jesse shared a look that indicated neither believed Meggie's threat. But she did allow Jesse to put her back in her chair. He washed his hands while his plate was being dished up.
"So how was your first day as the hired man, Jesse?" Onery asked.
"There's a lot of work to be done," Jesse said. "The fences and buildings have been let go since Paisley died, I guess. I got a good start on it."
He sat down at his place at the table and pulled his spoon from his pocket. Gazing down at the plate of unappetizing meat and beans before him, Jesse was reminded of the wonderful breakfast and noon meals that he'd been served at Miss Althea's. The memory of that good tasting food made the fare presented to him even less appealing than usual.
"How about them dogs?" his father asked. "Did you check 'em over good? They might be wormy, ye know. Has she been taking care of 'em fair?"
Jesse nodded. "They look real fine, Pa," he said. "I looked 'em over for ticks and scabs and they're pretty clean."
The old man nodded, pleased. "If you take some copper scrapings from the forge—don't get no iron now, just the copper—put that in the dogs' food and you'll worm 'em better than any potion you'd think to mix up."
Listening obediently, Jesse very deliberately added copper scrapings to the mental list of things he was trying to remember.
"What are they going to need for the winter?" Roe asked. "Have you looked the stores over?"
Jesse assured his brother-in-law that he had. Roe had more confidence in Jesse's knowledge than did his father. Perhaps it was because Roe, not knowing a thing about farming himself, had had to depend upon Jesse.
"She's going to need meat," he said. "She's got that one hog to butcher, but it won't feed the both of them if the snows is long."
His father nodded. "The way them squirrels have been hoarding, I don't think old man winter's going to let us off easy this year."
"Well, we'll have to go hunting pretty soon then," Jesse said. "You just tell me the day, Pa, and I'll let Miss Althea know I ain't coming."
The old man sighed heavily. "My leg's about to kill me, but it might loosen up some if I get it out a-romping across the country."
"I could go with him," Roe suggested.
Onery nodded. "
When we have to, I'll be counting on you," he said. "But I've a need to wait 'til we have to."
"I'd like to bring her a deer," Jesse said. "I can get her all the rabbits and possums she can eat with snares. But if you'd let me borrow your gun, Pa, I think I could bring her a deer."
"We could use some venison around this place, too," Meggie stated adamantly.
Her husband looked up at her, teasing laughter in his eyes as he feigned surprise. "I thought that this was venison," he said, holding up a haunch of meat.
"That's a pork roast!"
"All your cooking tastes like ambrosia to me, Mrs. Farley," her husband answered.
Laughter flittered all around the table. Even Meggie couldn't hang on to her affronted feelings for more than a minute.
"What else are you going to be doing over at the Winsloe place?" Roe asked.
"They need fuel for the winter," Jesse answered. "That's a real good sized house. Miss Althea's going to need a lot of wood. She's been burning the brush near the house until it's nearly clean enough to plow. There's not a stick within walking distance on a snowy morning."
"Ain't her in-laws been helpin' her a'tall?" Onery asked.
"I guess not. I'll be going up on the mountain to bring down a tree. Won't be much time for curing, but it'll keep them from freezing."
Roe nodded. "I suspect so."
Jesse glanced up to see his father looking at him speculatively. The old man seemed to be choosing his words.
"What kinder tree you thinkin' to bring down, son?" he asked softly.
Jesse was just ready to dip his spoon into his plate, but stopped in midtask and swallowed nervously. He looked closely at the old man sitting across from him at the table. His father's eyes were loving and accepting, but they were serious. This was a test. Jesse's heart began to hammer.
Onery Best had voiced no complaint when Jesse had announced that he was going to be working for Miss Althea. It left more work on his father and Roe, but there hadn't been even a whisper of complaint about Jesse's decision.