[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek

by Jan Watson

  “Yeah,” he replied around a mouthful of cold potatoes. “Sure a lot quieter than my house anyway. Someday I’ll build us a cabin over there. That’s a good place . . . right by the creek.”

  “Us?”

  “Think about it, Pest. If we was to marry, couldn’t nobody send you away.”

  She choked on her corn bread. “Marry? Why’d we want to do something stupid like that?”

  He looked at her as if she didn’t know up from down. “Folks cain’t just take up housekeeping without a license. It ain’t fitting.”

  “Hmm, I never thought about marrying.” She stood and shook the crumbs from her lap. She walked over to the creek. “Whoever built here wouldn’t have to haul water.”

  The sun fell in a slant across her shoulder. It was nearly noon—the day was wasting.

  “We’ve got to go,” Copper insisted. “Mam will be looking, and I’ve still got to find a hedge-apple tree. I told her I was going to hunt for some to keep the spiders out from under the beds. Here, Paw-paw!”

  The dog trotted back on all threes, a wood chip in his mouth.

  John poured the last of the buttermilk out in a little depression in the flat rock so Paw-paw could lap it up. Then he took Copper’s basket. “There’s a hedge-apple tree off the side of the boneyard. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  They filled her basket full of the knobby green fruit. John stuffed some into his pockets and down his shirtfront to take to his mother.

  Copper hoped Mam wouldn’t question why she’d been gone so long. The full basket would help explain her absence. They would have enough hedge apples to put under all the beds and in each corner of the house. That’s good. Mam hates spiders.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gully-washing rains kept Copper from exploring the caves for weeks. When the sun finally came out, it was mid-September and time to finish preparations for winter. All of a sudden the mountains were on fire with color. Brilliant red, gold, purple, and orange leaves swirled like cascading jewels when the wind blew, ushering in cooler days and cold nights.

  Copper loved the fall. There was a sense of urgency in the air. Mam took the heavy quilts and woolen blankets from the trunk, scattering smelly mothballs across the floor, and hung them on the line to air out. Daddy stayed busy harvesting crops and laying by a store of coal and wood for heating and cooking. Copper and the twins gathered potatoes, onions, turnips, and yams and sandwiched them between layers of clean, sweet-smelling straw on the dirt floor of the cellar.

  Even last Sunday’s preaching spoke of the harvest: “ ‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise,’” Brother Isaac had admonished as he read from Proverbs, “ ‘which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.’”

  My family has gone to the ants for sure, Copper thought. For the harvest was at hand—apple-butter time. Willy and Daniel carried basket after basket of red apples from the trees behind the house and dumped them on the porch at Copper’s feet. Her job was to peel each one, a burdensome task that nearly suffocated her with boredom. She hated paring the apples as much as she loved eating the butter.

  “You have to pay the fiddler if you want sweets this winter,” Mam reminded Copper as she peeled and peeled and peeled.

  The fiddler’s paid so one can dance. Copper bit back the tart reply. Mam would never let me dance anyway, although sometimes my feet just itch. She distracted herself with thoughts of the cave and how she’d fix it up with gingham curtains, never mind the lack of windows, and then she’d dance if she had a mind to—dance and sing the day away and nobody would boss her again.

  Splut, splut. The peelings hitting the weathered porch entertained a blue jay as he strutted and pecked at the ripe fruit.

  “Shoo, shoo!” Copper stood and waved her arms. “How can I see which letter I’ve made if you eat the parings?”

  The jay hopped a few feet away, cocked his head, and waited for Copper to take her seat before he returned to forage the long curls of apple skin, his beak making a soft thud, thud, thud against the floor behind her.

  “What an endless, thankless duty,” Copper grouched to no one in particular as she settled back, knife in hand, to her chore. She had been working since early afternoon with only a short supper break. Her fingers were stiff and sore, and a blister had popped on her right index finger, but ten five-gallon buckets of sliced apples sat on the floor beside her. She figured she had two buckets to go.

  “Remember to cut out the bruises,” Mam admonished, covering a bucket of sliced fruit with a clean linen cloth. “We’ll have lumps in the butter if you don’t.”

  “I’m being careful,” Copper replied and slung a peel over her shoulder. She glanced behind her. “Q? How surprising. So far, I’m supposed to have sweethearts whose names begin with L, C,P, and now Q. Do you know any Qs, Mam?”

  “You’ll have to leave these mountains to find a Quincy, Laura Grace. Now please stop playing and finish the apples. We need to get up early in the morning.”

  He’ll probably be a lawyer, Copper daydreamed. Quincy Adams, like the president—John. Hmm, but I’ll never marry Cletus Curtis, no matter what the peelings say. Why, the very thought made her shudder. P might be all right. She’d caught Silas Parker peeking at her during the benediction at church. But then again, she wasn’t sure if you could trust a person who didn’t keep his eyes closed during prayer . . . like she did.

  She thought about John Pelfrey’s suggestion. If they married she wouldn’t have to listen to Mam, and Mam couldn’t send her away. If he would promise not to try any more of that kissing stuff, she just might take him up on his proposal. They’d have a sweet little cabin up mountain by the stream that ended in a waterfall. She daydreamed until she held the last apple in her hands.

  One more apple, one more sling—“S ? Who could that be?”—and she was nearly finished. She lugged the buckets into the kitchen. She didn’t aim to work all day only to feed the possums and raccoons. Lazy things. She went back out and swept the porch before she was off to bed, where she dreamed delicious dreams of boys standing all in a row, each holding a shiny red apple . . . hers for the picking.

  At 6 a.m. Copper glanced at the mirror over the washstand. Red tendrils sprung in all directions from the blue bandanna she’d tied around her hair. “Some big floppy shoes and I’d look just like a clown.” She sighed as she retied the scarf and went outside.

  A fire already roared under the big copper kettle in the side yard. Mam was waiting for the small measure of water to boil. The twins danced and whooped around the fire, giving themselves Indian names like Running Deer and Crow Flies.

  Daniel stumbled, nearly falling into the fire.

  Copper caught his arm. “I name you Sitting Bear,” she stated. “Sit here and measure this. And, Daniel, warriors don’t eat sugar.”

  He sucked the finger he had stuck into the sack and started portioning the sugar into a glass measuring cup.

  Copper knew which boy to trust with which task, for they’d been in her charge since the first day they toddled across the sitting-room floor. Mam had been more than glad to turn them over to Copper once they started showing independence and getting into things. Copper cherished the job. She knew the boys inside out.

  She kept Willy close beside her but allowed him to poke at the fire to keep it burning evenly as she stirred the boiling water and Mam poured the first two buckets of fruit into the kettle.

  As the apples cooked down, more were added, a bucket at a time, until the pot was half full. Copper and Mam took turns wielding the heavy wooden paddle, stirring continuously to keep the apples from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

  Copper watched Mam carefully, learning from her precise ways. She liked being outdoors working beside Mam, even though the work was hard. Mam wasn’t as fractious as when she was inside, where the walls seemed to close in around them. Besides, if Copper managed to keep herself out of boarding school, she’d need to know how to
make her own butter soon enough. Dreaming, she could see herself standing in front of her own cabin, stirring her own apples, from her own trees, in her own pot. Then she’d be free to do as she pleased. She wouldn’t have to listen to Mam or anybody else.

  By noon the cooked fruit began to change color. Careful stirring continued until Mam judged the butter dark enough. Daniel was allowed to pour his cups of sugar into the pot, while Willy added the expensive oil of cloves and the powdered cinnamon.

  “Sissy,” Willy sang out, “this cinnamon’s the same color as your hair. If we run out we can just stick your head in.”

  Copper reached for the bandanna that had slipped down over her eyes. “Oh, fudge!”

  “Daughter!” Mam admonished, one eyebrow raised, the paddle, dripping fruit, pointed in Copper’s direction.

  Copper ripped off the kerchief and flung it toward the faded summer rosebush, where it caught and fluttered on a thorn. She should have known that the day wouldn’t pass without Mam getting after her about something. “Fudge is not a swearword. It’s not even in the Bible.”

  “‘Let your speech be alway with grace,’” Mam cautioned, “Colossians 4:6.”

  “And ‘seasoned with salt,’” Copper replied saucily, taking her turn at the paddle and stirring vigorously.

  Copper saw it coming when Mam squared her shoulders and looked her way with eyes that stung like a bee. Why, she wondered, can’t I ever keep my mouth shut? Why must I always stir the hornets’ nest?

  “You may copy Luke chapter 6 verse 45 twenty-five times before you go to bed tonight, Laura Grace,” Mam said, her voice as sharp as her eyes. “And be prepared to recite it to me at the breakfast table.”

  “Yes, Mam,” Copper replied, head hung. Mam’s so old-fashioned. Stir . . . fudge! Stir . . . fudge! It’s just a word . . . just a word. Her anger against Mam bubbled up as hot as the mixture she stirred.

  “Mam?” Willy whined. “Can I have the first taste? I did the hardest work. Daniel just sat around measuring while I stoked this hot ol’ fire and carried heavy buckets of water.” He wiped imaginary sweat from his brow.

  “Young man, the word is old, not ol’. Daniel’s work is no less important because he used his brain instead of his brawn.”

  Copper couldn’t help but notice Mam’s voice was considerably softer than when she had chastised her.

  Mam peered into the pot, then let hot sauce drip from the end of the paddle. “This is not thick enough yet.”

  Copper suppressed a groan. Her back and shoulders ached, and her eyes stung from the smoke, but she knew better than to complain, for a sermon was sure to follow. Besides, she loved apple butter. Just the thought of hot biscuits dripping with the fruit added vigor to her work.

  By midafternoon they were ready for the first taste. Copper put a small amount into a tin cup and handed it to Willy. “Now, King William of Troublesome,” she intoned, “you are the keeper of the cup. You must find a willing subject to taste this potion for you.”

  As befitted his royal status, Willy handed the cup of the tasty mixture to his brother.

  “Yup,” Daniel stated importantly after his first bite, “this butter’s ready for biscuits.”

  There was much work to do, however, before the biscuits could be baked. Copper began filling the washed and sterilized jars. She ladled hot butter to nearly the top of each jar, then ran a kitchen knife around the inside to remove air pockets before she carefully wiped each rim with a clean feed-sack towel.

  Last winter, during the first snow, she had gone to the cellar to fetch a jar of fruit for breakfast, only to discover a fine fur of green mold on the surface. Twelve jars were ruined. Mam said it was because a speck of fruit had broken the seal. That won’t happen this year, Copper determined, eyeing her work one last time before she snapped the glass lids on with the metal bail.

  The boys helped her lug the jars to the kitchen, where Mam took each jar, turned it upside down to help the seal, and nestled them all on the windowsills. They’d sit there and cool until morning, when Copper would carry them to the cellar.

  Forty jars of apple butter glinted like amber in the fading evening light before Copper finished her day’s work. She leaned headfirst into the deep copper kettle, scrubbing away at some butter that had stuck and burned on the very bottom despite their careful stirring. “Willy,” she called out, “bring me a corncob. I need it straightaway.”

  “Whatcha going to do, Sissy?” Willy teased, putting the cob behind his back. “Make corncob jelly?”

  “I will scrub the bottom of this pot with your head if you don’t give that to me right now!” she snapped. “And it’s ‘What are you going to do?’ not ‘whatcha,’ for heaven’s sake!”

  Willy handed over the corncob, beating a hasty retreat as Copper huffed and puffed.

  I sound just like Mam, she reflected. I’ll be a spinster schoolteacher wasting away up some holler waiting for my Q, S, or P to come carry me away, while I beat backward mountain boys over the head with grammar.

  Words, just words. There were so many much more important things to learn in order to survive on Troublesome Creek. Mam just didn’t understand. She had begun to despair of Mam ever understanding. Mam wanted a fine lady for a daughter, and Copper didn’t see the point.

  Oh, well. That’s fodder for another day. Pushing the tangled hair from her eyes, she realized she must look a sight. “I can’t go milk like this,” she muttered. “I’ll scare Molly to death!”

  The least she could do was tame her hair. Where was her scarf? The rosebush where she’d tossed it earlier in the day gave off a musty perfume when she shook its brown and drooping blossoms. Copper scratched her head. “Willy? Daniel? Have you seen my blue bandanna?”

  “No, Sissy, but since you’re looking for things, have you seen Mam’s biscuit cutter? Me and Daniel’s in trouble ’til we find it. What I want to know is, why does everyone think we’re always the guilty ones?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Copper answered, rolling her eyes. “What’s that behind your back?”

  “Apple butter. I snuck some,” Willy confessed boldly. “Do you want a bite?”

  Copper turned toward the barn, calling back, “No, I’ll wait for supper. I’ve got to go milk. Want to help?”

  Grace watched Copper and Willy walk toward the barn and then went about her business, retrieving her wooden bread bowl from the curtained-off pantry. She kept flour sifted with baking powder and salt ever ready so all she had to add was an egg-size dollop of lard and a splash of milk. She stirred the mixture until dough formed, then sprinkled a circle of flour on the kitchen table. Dumping the dough out, Grace kneaded it with the heel of her hand. She patted it until it was about half an inch thick and reached for her biscuit cutter, only then remembering it was gone. Flour smudged her brow as she wearily rubbed a hand across her eyes and rummaged in the pantry for a small tin can to make a new cutter.

  What was to become of the girl she’d raised and had such high hopes for? Laura Grace was already taking on a womanly figure, and the young men were beginning to notice. Just last Sunday there’d been a scuffle in the churchyard between John Pelfrey and Henry Thomas, both wanting to walk her home.

  Next, Laura Grace would be in trouble like her mother had been. Oh, that had been a terrible time. Their father so sick and Julie sneaking around, pleasing herself instead of helping Grace take care of him. And then, of course, Julie left with Will with never a thought of what she left Grace to bear alone. The neighbors all talking—first about Julie, then about her father. They said he killed himself, but she knew better. He died of a broken heart; he’d quit living when her mother passed on, though it had taken him years to die.

  But there was still hope for Laura Grace. She simply had to think of a way to get her off the mountain.

  “Lord,” she talked to God as she worked, “sometimes I despair for my children. The boys take things and then deny it. Laura Grace sasses and has no repentance. Give me strength.”

  Afte
r cutting the biscuits and putting them in the oven, Grace went to the mirror over the washstand and wiped flour from her face with the hem of her apron. Her eyes stared back through eyeglasses as round and thick as nickels, the bridge of her nose eternally red from where they rested. Sometimes she didn’t even recognize herself anymore. A familiar despair wrapped around her and blocked the light as effectively as the brooding mountain outside the door. She needed air. She wrenched up a window and propped it open with a folding screen.

  Will had installed windows all along the front-room wall when she carried the twins. No easy task, for he’d had to saw through logs put in place nearly a hundred years before. But she hadn’t been able to stand the oppressive darkness in the low-ceilinged room . . . the feeling of weight. She washed those windows with vinegar water every Friday and polished them with newsprint. When he finished the windows, he’d added two bedrooms for he knew she needed privacy.

  Suddenly Grace wrinkled her nose at the smell of something burning. The biscuits! She rushed to the kitchen and pulled them from the oven. She’d have to scrape the bottoms when they cooled. Sighing, Grace shook herself as if flinging off her cares and finished her family’s supper—biscuits with fresh apple butter and glasses of milk for her and the children, plus leftover fried chicken for Will. Men had to have meat.

  Moments later, Will opened the screen door; the boys followed close on his heels. “My, something smells good,” he said. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

  “If I was a horse, I’d be wild so’s you couldn’t eat me, Daddy.” Willy neighed and pranced around.

  “Then I’ll take this old plow horse.” Will scooped up Daniel and nuzzled his belly. “Mrs. Brown, what would you take for this give-down horse? I’d like to have him for supper.”

  She pasted on a smile and played the game. Her husband and children deserved better than the mood she was in. “Oh, kind sir, he’s not for sale. He lives in my house and eats apple butter on biscuits.” She turned her back and tucked her handkerchief back into her pocket.