by Pamela Morsi
Determinedly she focused her attention back on Oather Phillips and the other folks who surrounded her. It had turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant evening. Her mother-in-law had kept her distance and none of the McNees clan had even mentioned marriage to her all night. Oather was an excellent dancer. He moved on the floor with such grace that Althea felt the two of them were almost gliding on ice. And he didn't, as some other gentlemen, stand too close or let his hand stray to her waist. Nor did he try to sweet-talk, tease, or flatter her. He kept himself at a respectable distance and a civil tongue in his head. He therefore proved to be a pleasant companion. She was enjoying herself. She needed this, she was sure. Her isolation and worry of the past few months were surely part of the cause of her unseemly behavior with Jesse. A fun-filled frolic away from the cares of the farm would do much to sort out her strange temperament. And she was having fun.
However, when Tom McNees, Orv Winsloe, and Eben Baxley stepped up to the schoolhouse porch and stopped the music, a sense of unease settled in Althea's heart.
"Kangaroo court!" Orv called out. "We're calling a kangaroo court."
The crowd immediately began to laugh and cheer. Althea did not. Her father-in-law was a man almost completely devoid of anything resembling a sense of humor. His calling out for a kangaroo court somehow did not ring true as an invitation to fun and games. A niggling worry skittered through her heart. Inexplicably she glanced toward Jesse. He was looking straight at her. His eyes reflected the worry in her own.
"Who's it to be, Orv?" someone called out. "Who's up for justice?"
"Has one of these young rascals been peekin' in the church privy again?" another hollered.
"Whoever it is, let's roust 'em by sunup!" a third voice joined in with laughter.
The kangaroo court was a well-loved amusement on the mountain. It had come about as a way to teach folks who had never left the mountain about laws and courts and the ways of the world outside. But it was as exciting, entertaining, and comedic as any play put on for city folks. Defendants accused of such humorously heinous crimes as swallowing watermelon seeds, singing to hogs, or putting wishweed under their pillow at night were tried before a jury of their peers. Lawyers spoke for each side of the story. And a judge handed out punishments.
Pigg Broody made his way to the schoolhouse porch. "I'll be a-judging," he announced. "I ain't had a turn at it in a month of Sundays."
There was a smattering of applause at that announcement. Pigg was a character any time of the day or night, but as a judge, he was unequaled in brass buffoonery.
Tom, Orv, and Eben had their heads together for a minute and then Orv spoke.
"Pigg Broody suits us fine as judge, we accept."
The old man snorted sort of offhand in acknowledgment and seated himself on the edge of the porch, his tobacco spit can beside him at the ready.
"Who you wanting to try?" he asked Orv.
"Althea Winslow," Orv answered loudly.
Pigg's eyes widened. "What's the charge?"
"Failing to remarry."
A gasp of surprise went through the crowd. Althea stood still as a stone and mute as folks turned to look at her. This was not like making a pie with green apples or collecting rainwater in a leaky barrel. There was no intent to be fun here and Althea saw no possible outcome but a bad one.
"Go arrest her," Judge Broody directed.
Tom McNees hurried toward her, the folks in front moving away to allow him a path. He grabbed her arm. Althea found her voice.
"No!" she said sharply. "Let me be. I'll not have any part of this."
"The accused never wants to go on trial," Pigg pointed out to the gathering.
"There is no reason to bring me to court," Althea insisted.
Pigg leaned forward and eyed her speculatively. "So you've remarried and just ain't tole us."
That statement was greeted with laughter by the assembled.
"I haven't remarried," she answered with deliberate calm. "But that's not a crime."
"That's for the court to decide," Orv told her sharply. 'The judge and the jury can say that. The accused cannot."
Althea huffed with indignation. 'The kangaroo court is supposed to be a game," she said. "This is no game, Orv Winsloe. You're up to something."
He shrugged. "I'm only up to the truth. I think these folks want to find out the truth."
“Truth is something you find in church," Althea countered, with a contemptuous glance toward Tom McNees. "The kangaroo court is not for truth, it's supposed to be fun. And this is not my idea of fun."
"Yer sure entitled to yer ideas," Judge Pigg agreed thoughtfully before taking a good long spit into his can. "But I don't think they's anything in the rules that says kangaroo court has to be fun. I ain't never heared of a rule like that. Did you, Orv?"
"Never," Althea's father-in-law replied.
There was a murmur through the crowd.
"Bring her up here, Tom."
Satisfaction upon his face, Tom McNees half-led, half-dragged Althea forward. She stared daggers at Tom McNees.
"You shouldn't be a party to such a thing as this," she told him in a harsh whisper. "You were Paisley's own uncle. And our preacher as well."
Tom didn't answer. Those things were true. But Althea knew that he was also Beulah Winsloe's brother and he'd been doing exactly what that woman told him all his life. Althea had no illusions about who was behind this little game and why.
She stood before the judge, her head high and her jaw tight. Althea was grateful that the torches could not well reveal her color. She felt as pale as death.
"Well, we will be needing a jury," Pigg said, punctuating his statement with a spit of tobacco. "Labin, you got shorted on the debate this evening, you want in on this one?"
"Sure, I'm willing," the man answered as he stepped through the crowd to stand on the edge of the porch.
Pigg scanned the crowd once more. "Miz Pease, how about you?"
The woman nodded and made her way to the front.
"Jesse, you want to be on this jury? You always seem to enjoy yourself a-doing it."
Althea looked up at see him standing to the left of the crowd. He'd put his fiddle back into its pillowcase and appeared wide-eyed and confused. He was looking straight at her. His expression was questioning. Kangaroo courts were supposed to be fun. Clearly he sensed that this one was not.
"He can't be on the jury," Orv interjected. "Simple Jess is being called as a witness."
"He's a witness?" Pigg's tone was condescending.
"Yessir, Yer Honor," Orv answered.
Pigg shook his head and spit his tobacco. "Well, all right, Jesse. You just stay where you are. Let's see here, ah—all right, Dora Weston, how about you?" He indicated the woman standing with Beulah Winsloe.
"It'd be my pleasure," she announced. She gave Althea a long assessing look as she passed by to take her place among the jury.
Pigg had just begun to peruse the crowd once more when Granny Piggott stood up and called out to the Broody twins.
"Ned! Jed! You take my chair up to the porch, I'm a-sitting on this jury."
"Now, Granny," Pigg interrupted. "Folks don't choose to sit on the jury, the judge picks who'll be on it."
Granny clamped her pipe between her teeth and put her hands on her hips. "All right, Judge Piggott Dunderwaulf Broody, pick somebody for your jury."
Pigg winced visibly at the sound of his middle name. "There're two women on the jury already," he said.
Granny shrugged with unconcern. "I'm neither a man nor a woman no more. I've lived long enough to see both sides of the question. And I've lived long enough to remember when you were still in short pants."
His Honor the judge gave a heavy sigh of resignation. "Granny Piggott for the final juror."
The twins carried her rocking chair to the porch and helped her into it. She immediately began smoking and rocking, her expression thoughtful.
"All right now. Are you the prosecutor, Orv?"
"No, I'm going to let Eben do that."
"You?" Althea's tone was incredulous as she stared at him in horror. "How dare you make accusations against me."
"I'm making the accusation," Orv insisted. "I'm just letting this young fellow here speak for me. He's family after all."
"I am family." Althea's tone was harsh with anger.
"Oh, stuff and nonsense," Pigg broke in. "We're all family of one kind er another. We're either Piggotts or McNees and most of us got in-laws on the other side. So let's not be making this into some kind of feud."
The crowd murmured agreement.
"Who's to defend ye, gal?" Pigg asked.
"I'll defend her," Oather Phillips piped in, stepping up beside her.
Althea turned to stare at him in surprise.
'Trying to please the lady, Oather?" Eben asked. His voice was heavily laced with sarcasm. "Well, it might work, I suppose. But most of us fellers know ways that are quicker."
There was a hoot of risqué laughter from some of the young men present. Oather ignored the jibe.
"I know a lot about the law," he explained, more to Althea than to the crowd. "I know the real law. And I think I am a worthy match for such as Eben Baxley."
Eben chuckled unkindly and addressed the crowd. "Yep, a worthy match. We can all still see the bruises on yer face."
More laughter erupted.
Phillips's brow narrowed in anger. "I don't mind fighting in defense of women."
"I suppose not," Eben answered, speaking more to the crowd than to Oather. "You're about half woman yourself."
The taunt could not be ignored. Phillips took a threatening step forward. His father muscled his way through the crowd.
"You trying to start something, Baxley," Buell snarled. "I'm here to help finish it."
"Little Oather is going to need help," Eben answered.
"Now, now, fellers." Pigg Broody rose to his feet to stand between the two threatening combatants. "There ain't nothing here to bring us to fisticuffs. And I'd think the both of ye to have sufficient taste of that recently."
The likely menace lessened, but the two young men stared daggers at each other.
"Baxley," Pigg continued. "Yer comments were dang libelous and clear outer line. Apologize."
"Apologize?"
Pigg's tone was stern. "Apologize, or I'll find ye in contempt of this court."
Eben glanced momentarily at Orv and Tom, who were watching him expectantly. Deliberately he relaxed his shoulders and let go of his breath.
"I apologize," he said quietly. "Didn't mean a thing by it, I assure ye."
"Good, then that's settled," Pigg announced. The Phillips men took a half step backward, but neither appeared particularly happy.
"Widder Winsloe," Pigg said, determinedly moving forward and directing his questions to Althea. "Do you want Oather Phillips here to defend you?"
Althea was appalled at the near outbreak of violence and angry at being in the center of it.
"No, I won't have him defending me," she said.
"Then who do ye want?"
"No one. I don't need anyone," she insisted. "I haven't done anything!"
"Then you choose to defend yerself," Pigg announced.
"I have done nothing wrong!"
"That's for the jury to decide, young woman. So we'd best be at it. You about ready, Eben?"
Baxley gave Althea a long look, it was almost kindly. He leaned forward slightly to whisper to her. "You look mad enough to spit, honey," he said. "Don't you remember I told you that starchiness is downright unattractive to fellers?"
Her answer was a furious glance that caused him to actually laugh out loud.
"No need to take on so, honey. Things are going to work out for the best."
"Call me Mrs. Winsloe."
He grinned. "Right, Miz Winsloe." He turned back to the judge. "I'm ready, Your Honor."
Pigg nodded. "Then call up yer first witness."
"I call Beulah Winsloe."
Althea's mother-in-law took the stand, which was simply a seat next to Pigg, with the regal superiority of a queen ascending to her throne.
Eben was smiling and confident as his first witness settled in.
"Miz Winsloe," he began and glanced back toward Althea. He oozed of charm. "This is a bit confusing having Miz Winsloe as the accused and Miz Winsloe as a witness. I suspect I should call you Miz Winsloe, the elder, but truth to tell, you two don't look much apart in years."
Beulah tittered almost girlishly.
Althea rolled her eyes.
"Miz Winsloe, what is your kinship to this woman here standing accused?"
"She's my daughter-in-law."
"And your son?"
"Paisley Winsloe," she answered. "As fine a young man as ever walked these mountain paths, God rest his soul, he passed on nearly two years ago."
"Two years," Eben repeated. "That's a long time. Of course as his mother you still grieve."
She nodded solemnly. "Yes, I grieve every day. But life does go on."
"Yes," Eben agreed. "Life does go on. Now, Miz Winsloe, your daughter-in-law, does her life go on?"
Beulah's sorrowful tone disappeared like magic. "Indeed it does."
"Do you think that she grieves for your son?"
"Of course I do!" Althea blurted out angrily.
"Don't interrupt," Pigg ordered. "You'll get yer time to question the witness."
"She doesn't grieve as I do," Beulah answered.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I think she's sad that he'd dead, but I don't think it's the same. Why, she was only wed to him a short while. He's been my son since the day he was born."
"Ah yes, I see," Eben answered. "Now this woman," he continued, pointing to Althea. "This woman has flatly refused to remarry. Is that correct?"
Beulah nodded. Her voice took on an affronted tone. "She told me to my face that she wouldn't have another husband."
"Because she still grieves for her husband?"
"No, that's not why at all."
"She told you why?"
"Yes, she did. She told me that she wasn't giving up that farm to anyone."
"The farm. Ah . . . that's your son's farm."
"Yes."
"And your daughter-in-law wants it for herself."
"I want it for my son!" Althea blurted.
"Wait your turn," Pigg scolded once more.
"She wants it for herself," Beulah said firmly, looking Althea square in the eye. "And she wants her son for herself, too. She don't want no interference from any man on raising her boy. She don't even want me and Orv to have any say about him neither. That farm is my son's, and that boy is my son's. And she don't want me to have no say in neither. Althea Winsloe is just selfish through and through."
"That's all the questions I have, Judge."
Clearly Eben felt that he'd won the round. He accepted the nods and encouragement of the crowd gracefully.
Pigg nodded. "You can ask whatever you like now," he told Althea.
Althea hesitated. Her mind was awhirl. She didn't know what to say. She felt naked, exposed. She felt that they were all against her. She had a right to live her life how she pleased. To do what she thought best for her son. To keep her husband's land for him. She didn't want Baby-Paisley to be some man's stepchild. She knew what that was like and she wanted better for her boy. There was nothing wrong in that. Her frustration grew. Her question came from that frustration.
"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked Beulah painfully.
"Object!" Eben said sharply. "That's not a proper question, Your Honor. This witness is a witness. She hasn't brought the accused to this court, we have."
"He's got the right of that," Pigg told her. "You got a better question, Althea?"
Nearly bristling with determination, Althea attempted to gather her wits about her, to form a plan for her defense.
"Mother Winsloe," she began. "Is every woman who becomes a widow on this mountain expected to marry
?"
"No, of course not. Some are, some aren't."
"And what determines whether a widow should remarry?" Althea asked.
Beulah hesitated. "Well, her age, I suspect, and her health."
"What about her feelings? Does a woman's feelings have nothing to do with whether she remarries?"
"The feelings of her family count as much as her own," Beulah stated adamantly.
Althea let those words go unchallenged. She glanced over at the jury.
"Granny Piggott was still a young woman when she was widowed. The Piggotts didn't make her remarry. Why is the McNees family different?"
Beulah huffed. "Granny Piggott was forty if she was a day when her man died."
"That's a bald-faced lie," Granny contended, shaking her pipe at Beulah. "I barely had the rose off my cheeks."
The crowd chuckled in humor at her reaction.
"Yer outer order, Granny," Pigg told her.
"I'll put her outer order, if she ain't real careful," the old woman threatened.
When the chatter died, Althea asked her question again. "Why must the McNees women remarry and the Piggotts not?"
"It ain't Piggott or McNees," Beulah answered. "It's the woman herself."
"But you just said it was the family," Althea pointed out. "If it's the woman herself, then this woman simply chooses not to."
There was some murmur of agreement.
"Sometimes a woman don't know what's best for her and her family has to help her to do what's right."
Mumbles of concurrence for that statement filtered through the crowd.
"Help her to do what's right," Althea repeated Beulah's words. "Do you mean what's right for the woman or what's right for the family?"
"It's the same thing."
"Is it?" Althea's expression was skeptical. "Do you want your grandson, Baby-Paisley, to inherit the farm that you gave your son?"
"I surely do."
"If I were to remarry, wouldn't that inheritance be in jeopardy?"
"Not if you married someone in the family."
Althea nodded thoughtfully and rephrased her mother-in-law's answer. "So you not only insist that I remarry, for my own good," she added, turning halfway toward the crowd with emphasis, "but you get to choose who the groom will be."
"Object, Your Honor," Eben interrupted. "Miz Winsloe has not insisted on anything. She's telling this court a few things about her daughter-in-law."