Simple Jess

by Pamela Morsi

The little boy wasn't completely won over, but a quick kiss on the forehead helped somewhat. A decisive knock rattled at the door.

  Althea stiffened. For one irrational moment she felt like a cornered animal. It might be her mother-in-law. Or it might be Tom McNees coming to pray for her errant soul. It could be any of the neighbors come to gawk and gossip. It could even likely be one of her prospective suitors attempting to get an early start. She didn't want to see any of them. In truth, she wanted to pretend that last night had not happened at all. She wanted to pretend it for as long as possible.

  "Who's there?" she called out warily.

  "Jesse Best."

  Baby-Paisley broke away from her and scrambled to open the door. "Morning, Jesse!" Baby-Paisley called out excitedly. "Are we gonna work on the deer hide today?"

  "Maybe so," he answered, giving the little boy a warm glance and a quick tousle of his hair. His attention immediately went to Althea. He smiled at her, a little uncertain, and just stood there, waiting. He filled the doorway, strong and stalwart and sure. The gaze of his vivid blue eyes was only for Althea.

  "I come to work today, just like regular," he said. There was as much question as challenge in his tone.

  "I'm glad you did," she answered. And she knew the words were the truth as soon as she heard them come out of her mouth. “Take the sheets outside, Baby-Paisley," she said as she stood up. He hurried to do as he was bid. And she waited until the child was outside to speak again.

  "I didn't know if you would come back today," she said.

  Jesse nodded. "I didn't know if I should," he admitted. "Pa said no I shouldn't. Roe and Meggie, too. They said that I shouldn't ever be seen on your land again. That you wouldn't want to see me. And that folks won't like me over here no more."

  He looked around uncertainly for a moment, then once again straight into Althea's eyes. "I don't hardly never defy my pa, Miss Althea," he said. "But I told him I was coming here to see you. And that he couldn't stop me. I told Roe and Meggie that if you are mad at me, I probably deserve it. But I said I would be coming here, so I had to come to you, like I said I would."

  "You defied your family to keep a promise to me?" Althea's question was a whisper.

  Jesse nodded.

  A door opened inside Althea's heart. She felt it, but she didn't understand it. The meaning escaped her at that moment, but the feel, the joy, the sweet power of the emotion pulsed through her with a gladness that was far out of proportion to the deed done.

  "You went contrary to keep a promise to me." It was a quietly spoken revelation.

  "I told Pa I'd take a lickin' from him when I get back, if that's what he wants. But knowing that wouldn't keep me home."

  "What did he say?"

  "He said he 'spected a lickin' wouldn't do no good nohow. And that I wasn't the first feller to make a fool of hisself over a woman."

  "Have you made a fool of yourself over a woman?"

  He shrugged and chuckled lightly. "Most folks think that I was a fool already. I just ... I just hope you ain't too mad at me."

  "Of course I'm not mad," she said. "I knew what you meant. I knew what you were trying to say."

  "It's just a shame I can't say things a little better," he complained.

  "Oh, Jesse, I'm so sorry."

  "You're sorry? Sorry for what?"

  "For ... for everything."

  Jesse was thoughtful for a long moment. "Well, I'm not sorry for everything," he said. "I'm sorry those folks made such a fuss of things last night. And I'm sorry that I said the wrong thing when I was trying to say what was right." His brow crinkled thoughtfully. "But, Miss Althea, I'm not sorry that I kissed you." His voice became quiet, almost shy. "It was about the nicest thing that ever happened to me. I mean besides having a pa and a sister and things like God gives you."

  Althea felt a strange longing well up within her chest and she covered the pain of it with her clasped hands.

  "Oh, Jesse," she whispered. The surge of emotion she felt was unexpected and a little uncomfortable. Like the memories of the evening before, she forcefully pushed it away. "Thank you, Jesse," she said. "Thank you. It was . . . well, I liked it, too."

  He grinned at that. "You liked it, too?"

  "It ... it was a very nice kiss," she admitted.

  Jesse nodded, clearly pleased with her words, then his smile turned to a naughty grin.

  Althea laughed. The sound was strange and unexpected. Her mind in a whirl, her world turned upside down, she couldn't imagine that she still had the ability to laugh. But she did. And Jesse laughed, too. It was a warm, fine moment in the warmth and privacy of the snug little house. And Althea began to take heart. For the first time since the events of the previous evening, she began to believe that somehow, some way, things might actually work out.

  "I am glad you're here, Jesse," she said. "I'm very glad that you're here."

  "Well, I still got to earn my dogs," he said. "They are the finest pack on this mountain. It takes a lot to earn 'em. And now I'll have to do it before Christmas. Before you're to get married up."

  That sobered Althea a little. But she deliberately held on to her lighter mood.

  "Yes, I think it's best if you earn your dogs and take them before Christmas," she said. "I wouldn't want Eben or Oather to have them."

  Jesse nodded. "No, they don't appreciate them," he agreed. "Eben's a lazy hunter and Oather don't hunt at all. Course, I don't want Eben or Oather to have you neither."

  Momentarily Althea looked startled.

  "I guess there ain't nothing to do about that," Jesse said.

  Althea laughed, forcing gaiety. "Not this morning there isn't. You should have spoken up last night," she said, teasing. "You should have declared yourself as my suitor."

  Jesse choked lightly and blushed scarlet.

  "I couldn't a-done that, Miss Althea," he said.

  "Oh, I see," she said, feigning criticism. "You aren't the marrying type then, Mr. Best? You're not interested in tying the knot?"

  "It ain't that," Jesse answered quickly. "It's . . . it's . . . I don't want to make no promises I cain't keep."

  "And you think wedding vows are promises you couldn't keep?" she asked, laughing delightedly.

  "Not the wedding vows. I could keep them," Jesse said. "No, it's that other promise. The one not to . . . not to stir the bed with you like a husband and wife." The tone of his voice went low and soft. "If I was your man, Miss Althea, I couldn't keep a promise like that for one day."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The deer hide was looking fine and worthy, though still a little green. It had been soaking in wood ash and water for several days to loosen the hair. Now that it would slip off more easily, Jesse had spread it out over a homemade tanning beam. The beam, a smooth peeled half log, had one end flush to the ground. The other end was propped up on a sawbuck, making it waist high to Jesse and easy to work. The hair had come off easily and now with a curved fleshing knife, Jesse worked in strong, smooth downward motions to remove anything unwanted that remained on the hide.

  Buckskin was not truly tanned hide. It could not be used for harness or binding because it stretched badly when wet. But buckskin was soft, pliable, and required little more than brain paste or soft soap to cure it. Deer hides made wonderful buckskin, as soft as chamois and stronger and warmer than cloth.

  Jesse worked quietly, steadily, and concentrated fully on what for others might well have been a boring, repetitive task. Baby-Paisley sat eagerly beside him waiting to run for more soap or another blade. Jesse explained what he did in the same singsong recitation voice that the little boy had grown accustomed to.

  "Once it is roughed and smoked," he said, "it will be pretty and strong and it will be useful to us long after we've eaten every scrap of the meat it brought us."

  It was hard for Jesse to learn things. His growing-up years had been fraught with foolish mistakes and unsuccessful attempts. But once he learned a task, a word, a rule, he never forgot it. He relied upon his
memory, because he couldn't rely upon his intellect. Once a thing had been worked out in his head, he kept that solution. There were too many solutions to be worked out to refigure an old one time and time again.

  "What are ye gonna do with this hide?" Baby-Paisley asked suddenly, breaking into his recitation.

  Jesse stopped in midmotion and thought for a long minute.

  "Well, I don't know," he said. "It's half yours. What do you want to do with it?"

  "It's half mine!" Baby-Paisley was startled, but clearly delighted.

  "Don't you remember I told you that on a hunt the kill is shared. When there's two, then it's shared half."

  "I didn't know that meant the hide, too."

  Jesse nodded. "It means the hide, too."

  "So whatta you wanna do with it?"

  Shrugging, Jesse considered. "Well, it's a good hide. It could make a coat."

  "Coat's nice."

  "But if we cut it in half, there's not enough for a coat," Jesse said.

  "Oh."

  "So we could make gloves."

  "Yeah, gloves." That appealed to Baby-Paisley.

  "I got gloves," Jesse pointed out. "And your fingers are still growing."

  Baby-Paisley nodded, looking down at his own mitten covered hands. "Mama made these for me."

  "So gloves don't seem quite right," Jesse said.

  "Well, what else can we make?" the child asked.

  "Lots of things, or we don't have to make nothing," he said. "We can take the hide to Phillips Store and trade it."

  "We can trade it? Like for candy?"

  Jesse's eyes widened and he laughed with delight. "It'd be a bellyache's worth of candy," he said.

  The little boy laughed with him. It was undoubtedly true.

  A deer hide was probably worth more than all the candy in Mr. Phillips' store.

  "We could trade it for something that you and me both want," Jesse suggested.

  Baby-Paisley thought about that for a long moment. "What do you an' me both want?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Jesse said. "I know I don't want a bellyache's worth of candy."

  The little boy giggled. "Me neither."

  "Maybe we could get something for your mama."

  "Somethin' for Mama? Yep, that'ud be good."

  "For Christmas," Jesse said. "We could get her something for Christmas."

  "Cwissmas!" The little boy's eyes were suddenly wide with excitement. "We're gonna have Cwissmas?"

  "Pretty soon," Jesse told him.

  Baby-Paisley lowered his voice cautiously. "Is that Santy Claus feller comin' agin?"

  "He come by your house last year?"

  Baby-Paisley began nodding excitedly and then abruptly stopped. "Mama said he come," the little boy said tentatively. "But Gobby Weston said there ain't no such a feller, an' he never come."

  Jesse was momentarily thoughtful. He gave Baby-Paisley a long assessing look. Then turned his eyes and his attention back to the deer hide before he asked casually, "Did you check the chimney?"

  "Check the chimley?"

  "Yep," Jesse said. "If this Santy Claus come down and up the chimney like he's supposed, he'd get black soot all over him, wouldn't he?"

  Baby-Paisley thought about that for a moment and then nodded in agreement. "He sure would. I crawled up in the hearth last summer and got real black. Mama was fit to skin me alive."

  Jesse nodded. "So if Santy Claus was to climb down and then back up, why they'd be soot all over the outside of the chimney."

  "That's right," Baby-Paisley agreed.

  "That's how I know when he's really been to visit me."

  "Has he really been to visit you?"

  "Yes, lots of time," Jesse said. "But I check the chimney before I say anything. I don't want to be fooled by nobody."

  "That's what I'll do!" the boy declared. "This Cwissmas, I'm a-gonna check the chimley."

  Jesse smiled at the little boy. He was glad that Baby-Paisley liked him now. Since the deer hunt, the boy stayed closer. Daily, it seemed, they shared more. He was a smart little rascal, Jesse thought, and a fine fellow to have for a friend. But he wasn't exactly a friend. Jesse had had playmates who were much younger than he was. But what he felt for this little boy was not so much a playmate. It was something more. Something that made him feel proud of the boy and eager for him, too. Jesse didn't understand the new feeling, but it was a nice one.

  Once Miss Althea was married, Jesse would miss him. Whether she took up with Oather or Eben wouldn't matter. Jesse wouldn't be welcome. At least the boy wouldn't miss him. Baby-Paisley would be too busy getting used to his new pa to even think about his deer-hunting friend.

  "So do you think we should trade the hide for a Christmas gift for your mama?" Jesse asked.

  "Yep," he answered. "Let's get Mama somethin' nice."

  "What would she like?"

  The little boy was thoughtful for long minutes. He looked all around the gloomy gray yard as if seeking inspiration. His gaze stopped on the line full of drying sheets.

  "I know what she'd really like," he said.

  "What?" Jesse asked.

  "She'd like me to stop peeing the bed."

  Jesse was momentarily taken aback and gave the little boy a long look. "I didn't know that you pee the bed."

  "Doan ya see the sheets ever' day?" The boy's cheeks were bright pink with humiliation. "It's a baby thing," he said.

  Jesse looked at the sheets. He had seen them every day, but he had not taken the trouble to think about what they might mean.

  "I don't know that it's a baby thing," he said.

  "You doan do it, do ya?" Baby-Paisley asked harshly.

  "Not no more," Jesse answered. "Granny Piggott cured me.

  Baby-Paisley's eyes widened and his attention was perked.

  "She cured ya?"

  Jesse nodded.

  "How?"

  "With a penny," Jesse said.

  "A penny?"

  "She made me to swallow a copper penny and it cured me up overnight," he said.

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  Baby-Paisley jumped up and took off toward the house.

  "Where you going?" Jesse called out.

  "I got a penny saved up for candy," he hollered back. "Gwanpa Orv gave it to me."

  Jesse went back to his work, a smile on his face. After only a few moments the smile faded. Unhappily he remembered Miss Althea's face in the woods when she thought her little boy was lost. Jesse had done wrong then. He had scared her. He vowed not to do that again. Suddenly he was afraid that he'd done it again.

  Quickly he hung the deer hide in the tree, wiped his blade on the rag, and hurried to find her. It took little more than a minute to locate her carrying water from the spring.

  "Miss Althea!" he called out.

  She stopped in her tracks and he hurried up to her.

  "Miss Althea," he said when he got close. "Baby-Paisley was telling me that he's been peeing the bed. And I told him it could be cured by swallowing a penny and then he said that he had a penny."

  Her eyes, at first puzzled, got wider and wider as he told his tale.

  "Where is he?" she interrupted, her tone anxious.

  "He went up to the house."

  Miss Althea took off running and Jesse was right behind her. He had done wrong. He had scared her. What was it? What exactly was it? He still wondered, but didn't stop to ask. He hurried on to the house. Beating her to the door, he held it open as she ran past.

  "Baby-Paisley!" she called out. "Baby-Paisley, where are you?"

  "Right here, Mama," he said, coming down the ladder, a big happy grin on his face.

  "Thank God!" Althea said, dropping into a chair gratefully. She held her arms open to him and he hurried into her embrace eagerly.

  "What's wrong, Mama?"

  "Jesse said you were trying to swallow a penny and it scared me."

  "Doan be scared, Mama. I done swallered it."

  "What?"

&nb
sp; "I done swallowed it," he repeated. "Now I woan never pee the bed agin."

  "Oh, no. Oh, no!"

  Althea began to pound Baby-Paisley on the back.

  "Mama, stop it!" the little fellow complained.

  "Cough it up, Baby-Paisley. You've got to cough it up."

  "No." He pulled away from her. "I doan wanna cough it up."

  "Oh, my God, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?"

  "I'll go get Granny," Jesse said.

  "Granny?"

  "I'll go get Granny. Granny knows all the cures. She'll know what to do," Jesse assured her. "Don't worry about nothing. I'll go get Granny."

  He didn't wait for a reply, but hurried out the door. The last thing he heard was two voices behind him.

  "Let Mama put her finger down your throat, Baby-Paisley," Althea pleaded.

  "No, Mama, leave me be. Leave me be!"

  * * *

  Althea Winsloe's fear had turned to frustration nearly an hour later as she stood with Oather Phillips and Eben Baxley under the huge red oak at the far side of the house, gazing up at Baby-Paisley, who had scrambled to a limb nearly twenty feet off the ground.

  "I'll just climb up there and get him," Baxley was saying.

  "Oh, that's a great idea," Phillips said sarcastically. "You've already chased him up in a tree. Why don't you just get him way out on a limb and maybe he'll just fall down."

  "I don't see that you were doing much good talking him to death," Eben argued.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, both of you hush," Althea snapped furiously. "Baby-Paisley! You come down here this instant or you're going to find yourself sitting in the corner for the rest of the day."

  "I ain' coming down," the little fellow answered. "He ain' shaking nothin' outer me."

  "What he needs is a good dose of a hickory limb on his backside," Baxley commented.

  Althea ignored that opinion.

  "I won't let him shake you again, sweetheart. Just please come down. Mama's afraid you're going to fall."

  From the child's pale features, it was clear that he was at least somewhat afraid of the same thing.

  She had gotten nowhere with her attempts to get the baby to throw up the penny. He wouldn't let her gag him, either with her finger or with a tonic of pukeweed. She was nearly at her wit's end when Oather showed up at her door.