Tom forced himself to meet her eyes. “I think so, ma’am.”
“Just remember,” she said earnestly, “you mustn’t ever let anyone make you blame your pa for what happened. Not anyone.”
Puzzled, Tom watched her walk toward the house. What had she been trying to tell him? He ran his mind back over her words, searching for her meaning, and all at once his stomach lurched and he had to swallow hard to keep his breakfast down. She knew it was Pa’s apple brandy Sol and Doc had been drinking! And she’d as much as told him her husband was going to blame what had happened on the brandy and on the man who’d made it. What if folks believed him? What if they blamed Pa instead of the Mowbrays for what had happened to Mrs. Brown?
Tom squeezed his eyes shut, trying unsuccessfully to blot out the image of last night’s terrible events. A commotion in front of the woodshed distracted him, and he blinked when he saw Preacher Taylor, a jar in each hand, pouring Lance Rigsby’s apple brandy out into the dirt. The men—even Pa—just stood there and watched him do it.
“‘Who hath woe?’” the preacher called out in the ringing voice he used in the pulpit. “‘Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause?’” He paused meaningfully and looked at each of the men standing uncertainly before him. Then he raised his gaze to the women listening from the porch and asked, “‘Who hath redness of eyes?’” Looking back at the men again, he provided the answer: “‘They that tarry long at the wine; they that go and seek mixed wine.’”
Tossing the empty jars into a clump of dead grass, Preacher Taylor said, “Those words of scripture could have been written for the people of Bad Camp Hollow and Nathan’s Mill, because we are all gathered here, woeful and sorrowing….”
Why, he said “we,” Tom thought with surprise. And then to his even greater surprise, he noticed that the men were listening respectfully, and that some of the women had come closer so that they could hear better.
Preacher Taylor drew his impromptu sermon to a close, saying, “The doctor has done all that is humanly possible for Mrs. Brown. She is in God’s hands. Let us bow our heads and ask that she may once again walk among those who love her.”
After the prayer was finished and the quiet echoes of heartfelt “Amens” had faded away, Tom whispered to Pa, “How come Lance let Preacher Taylor pour out all his apple brandy? An’ how come everybody listened to him talkin’ that way?”
“Don’t you think goin’ back in that burnin’ burn for Miz Brown—an’ tryin’ to go back again lookin’ for Sol—earned that man the right to do an’ say pretty much whatever he pleases ’round here?” Pa asked gruffly.
Slowly beginning to understand, Tom said, “I think it made him think ‘we’ instead of ‘you people,’ too. You gonna check your Bible an’ make sure he wasn’t just pretendin’ it said all that about woe an’ sorrow from drinkin’?”
“Nope. It said that, all right.”
“How come you’re so sure?”
Pa looked down at him and said, “‘Cause if he’d made it up, he’d of said apple brandy instead of wine.”
“I guess he would of,” Tom agreed. “You think he knows we made that brandy?”
“Nah. If he knew, he wouldn’t of been able to keep quiet about it this long.”
Tom decided Pa was right. The preacher wasn’t one to bide his time. And that meant Mrs. Taylor hadn’t told him she’d found out—or figured out—Pa was making fruit brandy now.
“I can’t believe there’s going to be a picnic at a time like this,” Amy said, suddenly appearing beside Tom. She gestured toward Lonny’s brothers, who were laying wide boards across sawhorses to make tables.
“The women bring food to ‘most any kind of gathering—hog-killin’ time, a marriage, funerals, too,” Tom said. “One day soon we’ll have a barn raisin’ for the Rigsbys, an’ the women will bring food here again.” His eyes turned toward the charred rubble where the barn had stood.
“Look at all they’re bringing out,” Amy said, interrupting his thoughts. “I’d better go help.”
Hoping the rain that had been threatening all day would hold off awhile longer, Tom wandered over to join Lonny and Harry. Their earlier scuffle forgotten, the three boys waited impatiently until all the grown-ups had filled their plates. When it was finally their turn to go up to the long table, Tom’s eyes fell on a dish of cucumber pickles like the ones the Widow Brown always made. With a pang, he thought of the old woman “resting quietly” instead of bustling around and making sure the bowls and platters of food were refilled. And then the preacher walked by, talking earnestly to Andy, and Tom caught the words “whole tragic series of events would never have been set in motion if that jar of moonshine hadn’t—”
“Ain’t you gonna eat?” Harry asked as he loaded his plate with fried chicken.
Tom shook his head. “I don’t feel so good. Tell Pa I’ve gone on home,” he said, setting down his empty plate.
Walking slowly up the mountain, eyes downcast, Tom tried to sort things out. Who was he to believe, Mrs. Taylor or the preacher? Mrs. Taylor was right that the fire was an accident, but the preacher was right when he said the accident was “set in motion” by men who were drank. And there was no getting around the fact that the Mowbray brothers were drank from Pa’s apple brandy.
Did that mean what happened was Pa’s fault? And maybe his fault, too, since he’d helped Pa make the brandy? Would it be his fault if Mrs. Brown died?
In an anguished voice, Tom cried out, “If she gits well, I’ll never make moonshine—any kind of moonshine—again as long as I live!”
27
When church was over the next morning, little clumps of neighbors stood some distance from the building, talking quietly and shaking their heads. Before the service, as news spread that the Widow Brown seemed to be recovering, the mood of the crowd had been almost festive. But now the atmosphere was sullen.
Tom stood listening to the men talk, hoping the preacher’s sermon against moonshine hadn’t made them blame Pa for the fire.
“If Preacher Taylor thinks I’m gonna stop passin’ ’round a jar of drink ’cause of what happened Friday night, he’s got another think comin’,” Lance Rigsby declared. “He just don’t understand hospitality.”
Heads nodded in agreement, and Harry’s father added, “An’ he don’t understand that if folks stayed away from wherever a jar of moonshine was gonna be passed ’round, they wouldn’t never go no place at all.”
“I don’t think nobody’s gonna stop stillin’ just ’cause the preacher blamed that fire on moonshine,” a man from Ox Gore Hollow said belligerently. “I sure ain’t.”
Tom felt weak with relief. The preacher might have earned the right to say whatever he pleased, but that didn’t mean folks had to agree with it, he thought.
Pa turned to leave. “I gotta arrange with Cat Johnson to git some of his late apples for our last ran of brandy,” he said.
“Your last ran of brandy,” Tom muttered, following Pa with his eyes.
“Who you think you’re talkin’ to?”
Tom turned and saw Lonny and Harry grinning at him. “Myself, I guess,” he admitted.
“Looks like you can talk to your girlfriend now, instead,” Lonny said as Amy walked past. “Hey, Amy,” he called. “I didn’t know you approved of drinkin’ likker.” Obviously enjoying her shocked reaction, he added, “An’ don’t tell me you don’t, ’cause I saw you there at our com shuckin’, an’ your pa said just now that bein’ where folks was drinkin’ was the same as sayin’ you approved.”
Amy’s eyes flashed with anger. “I didn’t know there’d be liquor! Tom never told me that.”
“You an’ your pa never left when Doc an’ Sol started drinkin’,” Lonny said, giving Tom a look that clearly held him responsible for Amy and the preacher being at the corn shucking.
“Your pa didn’t say nothin’, neither. Guess he only feels safe enough to object when he’s up there in his pulpit,” added
Harry.
Tears of rage filled Amy’s eyes. “How dare you—” she began, her voice shaking.
“Preacher Taylor was gonna say somethin’, but Pa told him since he was a guest he’d better keep still,” Tom said, coming to her rescue.
Deflated, the two boys wandered off, and Amy turned to Tom. “Thanks, Tom,” she said. Lowering her voice, she added, “I’m almost glad I have to leave tomorrow. Being homesick wasn’t nearly as bad as being home.”
Tom glanced quickly around to make sure no one was listening, and then he whispered, “I gotta tell you somethin’ before you go. Amy. Remember that day you asked me what I was gonna be when I grew up an’ I said—”
“I remember what you said,” Amy interrupted.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Tom! That’s wonderful news!”
Heads turned toward them and Tom quickly said, “I don’t mean it to be news. It’s still kind of a secret.”
A look of understanding came over Amy’s face and her eyes strayed to Pa. “I won’t tell anyone but my parents,” she promised. “It’s all right if I tell them, isn’t it?”
“You can tell your ma,” Tom said reluctantly, “but I ain’t ready for nobody else to know yet.” He didn’t want the preacher thinking it was that sorry sermon that had changed his mind about being a moonshiner. He didn’t want the preacher to know before Pa did, either, and he still hadn’t figured out how to tell Pa.
* * *
Tom wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Taylor asked him to stay after school the next day. “Amy told me you’ve decided not to be a moonshiner,” she said, beaming the smile that always made him melt inside. “I was so glad to hear that! And I know your mother would be proud of your decision if she were alive.”
Tom’s heart fell. It was one thing to mislead Amy—or the preacher—and quite another not to be honest with Mrs. Taylor. “Ma is alive,” he said reluctantly. “‘Least I think she is. When I said she’d been gone six years. Amy thought I meant she’d died. But she didn’t die. She left.”
Mrs. Taylor’s eyes widened in surprise. “Left? Your mother left you?”
Miserable, Tom nodded. “Took my little sisters an’ went off, leavin’ me for Pa to raise up.”
“The poor, poor woman,” Mrs. Taylor whispered, as if to herself. “How very desperate she must have been!”
The poor, poor woman? That wasn’t the reaction Tom had braced himself for! He’d never thought about how his mother might have felt when she left him and Pa. Tom stole a look at Mrs. Taylor. She was staring out the window, and he wondered if she’d ever been tempted to take Amy and leave the preacher.
Quickly putting that idea out of his mind, he said, “Me an’ Pa get on fine. ’Least we have till now. But he don’t know yet that I ain’t gonna help him make moonshine no more.” Realizing too late that Mrs. Taylor hadn’t known he worked with Pa, Tom explained uncomfortably, “It’s pretty hard for just one person to ran a still, you see.”
Mrs. Taylor gave him a searching look and said, “The thing that puzzles me is how an honest man like your pa can justify running a still after he promised the judge he’d stop.”
“He never promised he’d stop stillin’, ma’am. He just promised he wouldn’t make com likker no more.”
A look of understanding crossed Mrs. Taylor’s face. “And now you’re worried about what will happen when he finds out you’re not going to help him any longer.”
Tom nodded. “He’ll be plenty mad, all right. Guess he’ll have to hire out at apple-pickin’ time to get money to pay his land taxes. He don’t trust nobody else to work with him, you see.” Nobody else but Andy, that is, he added silently. And once Andy had written his chapter on moonshine, he’d want to be off collecting more songs and stories instead of helping Pa.
“It’s a pity there’s not something your pa could do all year,” Mrs. Taylor mused. “A man like him needs to keep busy.”
Tom wondered how she knew that. It was something he’d never thought about, but remembering how irritable Pa always was during the winter, he realized it was true.
“Isn’t there something else he can do besides make moonshine?” Mrs. Taylor asked, frowning.
“He can fix ’most anything, an’ he can make chairs,” Tom answered.
“Chairs! I should have thought of that, since I’m sitting on a chair he made.”
Wondering why she seemed so pleased, Tom hesitated a few moments before he asked, “Can I go see Princess now?”
Mrs. Taylor gave a little start and then smiled at him. “I was a million miles away, Tom—or a couple hundred, anyway. Of course you may go, and I should, too,” she said, standing up. They left the building together, and as they walked toward the mission house, Mrs. Taylor rested her hand on Tom’s arm. “I have an idea that might help your pa—and a lot of your neighbors—earn some money and bring other people pleasure at the same time.”
As Tom threw a stick for Princess and played tug-of-war with her when she brought it back, he thought about what Mrs. Taylor had said. He couldn’t imagine what she was talking about, but somehow he felt a little better, anyway.
That evening after supper, Tom and Pa were sitting in front of the fire when they heard a holler. It was woman’s voice, and they looked at each other in surprise for a moment before Tom hurried to the door.
“It’s Miz Taylor!” he said. What was she doing here? He ran to open the gate for her.
“Come right in an’ set down, Miz Taylor, while Tom here pours you a cup of coffee,” Pa called from the porch.
Tom’s hand shook a little as he lifted the coffeepot from the hearth. Even though he talked to Mrs. Taylor every day at school, he felt awkward and tongue-tied now.
“Chilly evenin’ for a ride,” Pa said casually, and Tom realized that he, too, felt a little strange about having Mrs. Taylor as a guest.
“I’m not out for a ride,” she said, slipping into a chair. “I came up here to ask you something.”
“Wal, I’ll answer it for you if I can, ma’am,” Pa said, looking surprised.
“Why don’t you make chairs instead of moonshine, June?”
Tom caught his breath, but Pa didn’t seem to object to the question. “‘Cause everybody ’round here’s already got chairs,” he said, “an’ chairs don’t git used up. Moonshine, now, it gits used up right fast, an’ then folks want more.”
“That makes sense, June. But couldn’t you sell chairs in Buckton?”
“Nowadays, them folks don’t want no homemade furniture. They want everything factory made.”
Mrs. Taylor leaned toward Pa and said earnestly, “June, there are people who would pay good money for chairs like yours. People who want things made by craftsmen instead of turned out by machines.”
“Wal, ma’am,” Pa drawled, “when you find them people, you let me know, an’ I’ll make ’em all the chairs they’ll buy.”
Tom saw Mrs. Taylor’s eyes light up. “Is that a promise, June?”
“That’s a promise,” Pa said, “but I ain’t gonna worry none about havin’ to keep it.”
Better not be too sure of that, Tom thought.
“I should be on my way,” Mrs. Taylor said, handing Tom the empty coffee cup. “It’s getting late.”
“I’ll git Ol’ Sal an’ ride back with you,” Tom said.
Mrs. Taylor looked relieved. “It would be wonderful if you’d ride with me to the Rigsbys’, Tom. Charles is meeting me there at eight o’clock.”
So that was how she got to come up here by herself, Tom thought as he went to whistle for the horse. She must have told the preacher she was going to the Rigsbys’ to sit at the Widow Brown’s bedside and didn’t bother to mention that she was coming up to their place first. “It’s no wonder she an’ Pa git along so well,” Tom muttered. “The way the two of ’em have with words, they’ve got a whole lot in common.”
28
Tom had no idea what an ice-cream social would be like, but he knew it was something he d
idn’t want to miss. As he and Pa approached the mission the next Saturday afternoon they heard shouts and laughter, and Tom paused at the edge of the clearing to see if he could spot Lonny and Harry.
“You pay your regards to Miz Taylor before you run off,” Pa said sternly, and embarrassed by the reprimand, Tom followed him through the crowd toward the preacher and his wife.
After Mrs. Taylor greeted them warmly, she turned to her husband. “You can fill the freezers now, Charles,” she said. “The young men have chopped one of the blocks of ice Mr. Barnes brought from town.”
Everyone crowded around to watch while the preacher poured ice chips and rock salt around the inner containers of the freezers, and Harry asked, “Who’s gonna crank them things, Preacher Taylor?”
“We’ll start with a couple of you boys and end up with the two strongest men,” he answered.
Tom saw Mrs. Taylor give her husband a look of sheer exasperation and knew she realized there would be fights to settle the question of who was the strongest. Tom wished he could tell her not to worry. These fights would be fair contests, not angry brawls. And nobody would be drunk. He was almost disappointed when Pa spoke up.
“Andy and I will crank the whole time,” Pa said, rolling up his sleeves, “an’ while we do, Andy will tell us a tale.”
But before they could begin, there was a great stir as the Rigsbys’ wagon drove up and someone called, “They’ve brought Miz Brown.” Tom ran to see for himself.
It was true! While Lance Rigsby lifted the tiny, quilt-wrapped figure from a mattress in the back of the wagon and headed for a sunny spot, Tom raced to the schoolhouse-chapel and brought out the chair Pa had made for Mrs. Taylor.
“You all just settle down now so I can hear Andy’s tale,” Mrs. Brown scolded as everyone gathered about her. “It takes more ’n a bit of smoke to stop me. Or to keep me inside on a beautiful Indian-summer afternoon,” she added, giving Tom a special smile.
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