[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek

by Jan Watson

  A single sheet of stationery fell from the nightstand to the floor. Retrieving it, Copper shook her head. She should have known. Mam often took to her bed after receiving a letter from her friend Millicent. Reading about that woman’s wonderful life in faraway Philadelphia always stirred up trouble. A shriek from Willy sailed in through the screen. Mam moaned and turned to the wall.

  Copper straightened the sheet around her shoulders. “Should I take them for a walk?”

  Only Mam’s soft grunt acknowledged her, so she slipped from the room.

  She pushed the screen door open with her hip and carried the heavy pan of rinse water out. The boys stood on one end of the porch, their clothes in a soggy pile. They shivered as she poured cups of water over their heads and washed them clean with a bar of lye soap. Willy giggled when she rinsed them with dippers full of warm water from the rain barrel. They stood in the sun to dry as she scraped mud from their overalls with an old butter knife. Once that was done, she draped the overalls over the porch rail. It was two days ’til washday. Copper knew the clothes would sour if left in a wet heap. She’d put them with the rest of the laundry when they dried.

  “Boys, would you like to scout for locust shells?” she asked softly. She grabbed at Willy, who hopped wildly across the porch, one leg in, one leg out of his clean overalls. He was impulsive, strong-willed, and always busy—a little whirlwind with his blond hair sticking straight up and his eyes dancing. He stood a head taller than his twin and was built like Daddy with broad shoulders and wiry muscles.

  Daniel was a dreamer. He puzzled over things, taking his time, thinking before he acted. He was so slight he looked younger than Willy. With his white-gold hair and his sleepy green eyes, he didn’t favor his twin. He took off to the cellar and came back with a canning jar.

  “Stand still, Willy,” Copper whispered harshly. She combed their hair, slicking Daniel’s behind his ears and pulling Willy’s into bangs across his forehead. “You’ll have to be as quiet as Indian scouts. Any noise could make the locusts fly away.”

  Copper tied the strings of her brown-and-blue-gingham sun-bonnet under her chin, tucked a spool of black sewing thread in the pocket of her matching dress, and proceeded down the limestone walk that split the front yard. The two little boys, lips tightly sealed, faces drawn in concentration, waddled like ducklings behind her, scuffling only once as Willy tried to wrest the jar from Daniel.

  Copper stopped. Willy was so preoccupied with the jar that he smacked into Copper’s backside. She turned to face them and arched her right eyebrow, a perfect mimic of Mam. Willy released his hold on the jar, leaving Daniel to carry it importantly, clutched to his little round belly.

  They approached the creek several yards upstream from the family’s favorite picnic spot. They were hidden from view because the brook twisted in upon itself there and formed steep banks covered with tall weeds and blackberry brambles.

  Copper led the boys to a stately sycamore. Chances were, she knew, locusts had picked that tree on which to shed their skins. The tree probably reminded the insects of a giant locust, seeing how it was also shedding. Long strips of gray-white bark lay scattered along the ground and crackled when they stepped on them. Sure enough, several empty shells clung to the tree. They made fine playthings and were surprisingly sturdy. The boys would have a good time with them.

  “All right, scouts,” she said to her big-eyed brothers. “I am going to leave you here to collect these rare specimens while I commence on up the creek to see if I might come upon a snakeskin to add to our collection. Can you handle this job alone?”

  Two heads nodded in unison, and two little mouths remained clamped shut.

  Copper hurried up the creek to the point where her father’s farm was separated from Daniel Pelfrey’s by only a narrow crook of water. She hoped to see Daniel’s son John working in the cornfield there. She needed to talk to him. Oh, she was so tired. She stopped and stretched and rubbed her eyes, thinking of the night before. . . .

  They’d eaten a cold supper without Daddy, and he didn’t come in for the Bible reading. Mam sent them to bed early, and Copper tried to sleep despite the loud creaking of Mam’s chair.

  She’d roused as the mantel clock bonged eleven times and the screen door slapped shut.

  “What do you want from me, Grace?” Copper heard through the walls of her bedroom.

  A heavy silence.

  Footsteps sounded across the floor. The rocker stopped.

  Copper wished for sleep; she pulled her pillow over her ears against their angry voices. Mam’s accusations about his traipsing around all night. Daddy’s rejoinder. But then her own name perked her ears. She might as well listen if they were going to fight about her.

  “Why are you so set on sending her off somewhere strange?” Daddy’s voice. “There’s nothing she needs to learn that you can’t teach her right here.”

  “Will, she needs to experience other things, other places. You’re being selfish. . . .” Mam’s voice trailed off.

  “How do you know you’re right? She’s happy here.” His voice was exasperated.

  “For how long? She’s not your little girl anymore. Can’t you see that?”

  “Grace, give me time. I don’t know if I can send her away.” He sounded so sad it made Copper want to weep.

  Mam’s silence spoke volumes. Copper could picture

  Mam turning away from Daddy, how she’d present her straight back and rigid shoulders to him, the way she often did to Copper. Mam closed you off like she lived behind a screen door. And she’d rarely let you slip the latch.

  Her father sighed. “I’m going to take a smoke.”

  Two sets of footsteps sounded in opposite directions. Their bedroom door opened and closed. The screen door slapped again.

  Copper had knelt, her featherbed mattress sinking under her knees, and stared out the window at the big yellow moon floating over the tall pines in the backyard. Mam won’t send me away, she’d vowed. I’ll leave this house before I leave this mountain. . . .

  Now Copper stood hidden behind a tree on her side of the creek. She clutched a handful of green acorns, their little caps stuck tight to their shells, and bided her time. She watched John Pelfrey shuck an ear of corn. He tested its hardness with his thumbnail. “Not quite ready,” she heard. “Another week or two.” His hound sat at his feet and gazed up at him as if she understood. John popped a few kernels into his mouth, then handed the ear to Faithful, who wrestled it along the ground.

  “Oh!” He rubbed his arm and jerked around. “Ouch!” He stood on one foot and rubbed his ankle against his leg.

  His dog dropped the corn and wagged her tail, looking off across the creek.

  Copper flashed a smile and took off running. She laughed when John yelled threats and followed her, splashing across Troublesome Creek. She’d have to be fast, for John was much taller and could cover ground quickly. He was also stronger, though she would never admit it.

  He caught her before she ran twenty feet and locked her head in the crook of his arm. “Drop it!”

  She clenched her fist and looked up at him. He wasn’t smiling, and his green eyes had a serious look. He scrubbed her scalp with his knuckles until she opened her hand and let several acorns fall to the ground.

  “Uncle!” she yelled.

  “I’ve a mind to keep you here ’til the sun sets.” John scrubbed her head again.

  Copper pinched his arm hard and danced away, laughing.

  “You’re not being very ladylike, Pest.”

  “I don’t want to be a lady, John Pelfrey.”

  “Well, you ain’t. That’s for certain sure. What’re you doin’ here?” He pushed his thick wheat-colored hair off his forehead, his face softening as he looked at her.

  “Just came to aggravate you.”

  “Well, you did.” John turned to cross the creek again. “I got work to do.”

  “Wait—please—I need to talk to you. Can you meet me down by the creek tomorrow night?”
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  “Sure,” he replied. “But cain’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Not now, John. I’ve got to get back. See you tomorrow night.”

  When Copper got back, the boys were right where she left them. They each had three locust shells clinging to their denim overalls, and several live ones thrummed inside the Mason jar.

  “Did you find any sheds?” Daniel asked.

  “Just one.” She unwrapped a long, dry skin from her wrist. “But it’s a good one. Must be four feet. Probably a blacksnake’s.”

  Willy took the shed. “Nope,” he said. “This here’s from a king cobra from India, like Mam showed us in that picture book.”

  “Huh.” Daniel stroked it with one finger. “Wonder how it got here.”

  “Swum clean across the ocean.” Willy draped it across his shoulders. “They’re fine swimmers once they get out of them baskets.”

  Copper carried the jar and let the boys run ahead to the shade of the porch. She took the spool from her pocket and tied a length of heavy thread to a back leg of two of the buzzing bugs. She handed a thread to each of the twins. “Hold tight.” The tethered insects flew in circles above their heads. “Play quietly now. I’m going in to check on Mam and start supper.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Washday dawned, and muddleheaded Copper stared sleepily into her oatmeal. She’d sneaked out of the house the night before, just after the clock struck midnight, to meet John Pelfrey down by the swinging bridge. He was her best friend and the only boy she liked. Sometimes it seemed like they were kin they were so close. She even called his ma and pa Aunt and Uncle, even though they were no relation.

  Aunt Emilee liked to tell stories about when Copper and John were little. Copper’s favorite was of when they were babies, and though John was older by a good six months, she learned to walk first. Aunt Emilee said he would sit like a fat king and hold out his hand for Copper to help him up as she toddled by. If she didn’t do what he wanted, he would grab her ankle and drag her down beside him.

  Now Copper loved to go to Aunt Emilee’s to help with the Pelfrey’s latest babies, twins like Willy and Daniel. There were twelve boys, counting John, in their family, and their house was full of fun. Unlike her own house, she thought, which was full of work, work, work.

  As if to prove her point, Mam called from the front porch, “Laura Grace, please finish your breakfast and come help with the wash.”

  The big, steaming copper kettle sat over a fire Willy was stoking, fueled by small twigs and hickory logs. Mam was stirring the first load of dirty clothing with a long-handled laundry paddle. Nearby, the washboard sat in a smaller tub of water. Copper took over stirring while Mam used the board. Mam rubbed a pair of Willy’s pants up and down its ribbed front, applied lye soap to a stubborn grass stain, then doused the pants under water before scrubbing them again. Finally she placed them on a steadily growing mound of laundry waiting to be placed in the boiling wash water.

  The sun was beginning to warm the day, and Copper paused to take in the beauty of the moment. God is good. She wished she could be up in the mountains in the distance, where the same sun that warmed her shoulders was burning off the fog that rose like gauzy gray ribbons of smoke.

  “Mam,” Copper said, “look how pretty the mountains are this morning.”

  Mam stayed hunched over the washboard. “Stop daydreaming.”

  Stung, Copper fished whites from the kettle with the wooden paddle and dropped them into a galvanized tub of clean rinse water. As Mam dumped shirts, church pants, skirts, and aprons into the wash, Copper rinsed the whites, wrung them out, and hung them to dry on the clothesline in the sunny side yard. Forgetting Mam’s rebuke, she hummed a tune as she worked.

  Soon the line was full of shirt—tails up, seam to seam—pegged to the sagging cord with wooden pins that Daddy had whittled. Copper folded sheets in half and hung them with matching pillowcases. Towels, tea towels, and a tablecloth merrily embroidered with butterflies and daisies stretched to meet nightgowns that danced in the breeze beside bashful pantalets and camisoles. She laid sturdier articles on the grass, artfully arranging Daddy’s work shirts and overalls with his long brown socks until the yard looked like an army of resting headless men.

  While Mam and Copper were busy with the wash, Willy and Daniel were charged with keeping the dog and chickens out of the yard until the clothes dried. They stood like soldiers, wooden play guns poised, ready to chase any creature foolish enough to venture into their territory. Copper thought washday must be their favorite day of the week. They loved to pester the chickens.

  Quietly, Willy waited while a hapless hen came close, pecking and scratching at the ground. Then, screaming like a banshee, he charged the poor thing, causing her to spread her wings, trying to fly as she ran awkwardly back to the barnyard.

  “I got one, Daniel,” he crowed. “I sure scared that Johnny Reb back where he belongs.”

  “Willy,” Mam said, “for heaven’s sake, just shoo the chickens. Don’t frighten them to death. And where did you get the term Johnny Reb? I don’t think that was in last week’s history lesson.”

  Copper listened to Mam admonish her little brother. She knew Willy had picked up more than one expression Mam wouldn’t like while playing after church. It seemed the men and boys of the community would never let that terrible war die. It had been years since the last battle, yet still the boys chose sides as Yankees or Rebels and fought it all over again. And grown men still argued which side was wrong and which was right.

  “Mam, those two are busy making next Monday’s wash,” Copper said. “Maybe we should just let them run naked.”

  “Is that an appropriate thing for a young lady to say?” Mam arched an eyebrow. “Though the thought does have merit. Let’s sit on the porch in the shade for a minute and catch our breath. I’ll get some tea.”

  Copper sat on the plank floor, letting her legs dangle off the side, watching the wash flap in the summer breeze. Mam was being nice; it made her feel guilty about sneaking out of the house last night.

  Lord, Copper prayed silently, selfishly, please don’t let Mam find out.

  “Laura Grace,” Mam said through the screen door, “have you seen the blackberry jam? I thought I put out a new jar this morning.”

  “No, ma’am. I had honey on my biscuit.”

  “I don’t understand what is happening around here lately.” Mam handed Copper a glass of tea. “Things keep disappearing. Last week it was the sugar bowl. The week before, my tortoiseshell comb. I’ve got to keep a better eye on the boys, though they deny any wrongdoing.”

  “Maybe it’s a raccoon. Remember a couple of years ago when one stole all of Daddy’s quarters?”

  “But a sugar bowl, Laura Grace?” Mam took off her spectacles and pinched the bridge of her nose. “That doesn’t seem possible.”

  “I don’t know, Mam. They have hands just like a man. Maybe they pair up and one holds the door open while the other one pilfers from our kitchen.”

  Mam shook her head. “Your imagination. I sure miss my comb. I’ll have to order another. . . . If it is coons we’ll have to keep the windows down at night. They’ll tear up the screens.”

  Copper fanned her face with her hand and sipped her tea. “Oh, that would be miserable hot, Mam. We should just let Paw-paw sleep in the kitchen. He’d scare the varmints away.”

  “Yes, and eat everything in the house at the same time,” Mam declared. “That dog would be worse than the raccoons.”

  After a few minutes of resting from the morning’s labor, Copper stood and stretched, rubbing the sore spot on her lower back—the one that appeared like clockwork every Monday, following hours of stirring a pot of heavy laundry.

  By afternoon, Mam went inside to start supper, saying she had a mess of pole beans to snap.

  Copper gathered the sun-dried, sweet-smelling laundry, then folded towels, dishrags, and the boys’ everyday clothes. She piled them in a basket to put away directly. After supper, she’d spri
nkle clean water over the starched whites and Sunday clothes. Then she’d roll them up, tuck them into the woven laundry basket, and cover it with a damp towel ready for ironing. She’d help Mam with that tomorrow.

  She’d saved her least favorite job for last—scrubbing down the outhouse. She poured a bucket of soapy water from the cooling copper kettle and carried it to the two-seater. They kept an old, nubby straw broom in the corner, and she used its handle to knock down a fresh mud dauber’s nest, closing her eyes against the dust, hoping the wasp wouldn’t fly in and take revenge.

  Just who, she wondered, would scrub the outhouse if Mam sent me away? And who would milk the cow? Who would mind the boys? It seemed like she did enough work to warrant her place in the household. She felt certain that if she left for a few days Mam would see that she couldn’t get along without her.

  Sticking her broom in the bucket of water, she scrubbed the bench seat, then sluiced water out and washed the floor. She used the damp broom to swipe spiderwebs out of the corners and sprinkled lye down the toilet hole. It left a fresh, clean smell.

  Pleased with a job well done, Copper finished the task by placing sheets of torn newsprint in the basket kept for that purpose. She put the broom back in the corner. It would be handy in case there was a lizard lurking about. One good whack against the bench would send the beady-eyed, nosy little creature scurrying away. Lastly, she propped the door open so the sun and breeze could freshen and dry the toilet.

  She dreaded the thought of more work waiting for her back at the house. The porch needed mopping; the steps needed scouring. And the rinse water needed emptying into the barrel kept to store water clean enough to use again for baths or to clean the house. Nothing was wasted.

  As she worked, Copper pondered things she’d heard Mam and Daddy say. She’d caught snippets of conversation before— “finishing school,” “old enough,” “better for her,” and the dreadful “young lady”—but she’d always thought Daddy’s will would prevail. She’d never fretted about it. But since her fifteenth birthday, things had subtly shifted. She was afraid Mam was wearing Daddy down.