The Education of Little Tree

by Forrest Carter

  They had picked up my trail, for they were angling up the mountain. I whistled and heard them yelp and bark. In a minute, they was covering me up, licking my face and jumping all over me. Even ol’ Ringer had come, and him might near blind.

  Me and the hounds come down off the mountain. Ol’ Maud couldn’t stand it, and run ahead barking and howling to tell Granma and Granpa I had been found. Aiming to take all the credit herself, I reckined, though she couldn’t smell a lick.

  As I come down the hollow I saw Granma, out in the trail. She had lit the lamp and was holding it before her like she had set a light to guide me home. Granpa was with her.

  They didn’t come up the trail but stood and watched as I come along with the dogs. I felt good about it. I still had my fruit jars and had not broke any of them.

  Granma set the lamp down and knelt to meet me. She grabbed me so hard, she nearly made me drop my fruit jars. Granpa said he would carry the fruit jars the rest of the way.

  Granpa said that he couldn’t have done any better hisself, and him going on seventy-odd years. He said that I was likely coming on to be the finest whiskey-maker in the mountains.

  Granpa said I might wind up being better’n him. Which I knew wasn’t likely, but I was proud he said it.

  Granma never said anything. She toted me the rest of the way home. But I could of made it, more than likely.

  Trading with a Christian

  The next morning, all the dogs was still jumping around, stiff-legged and proud. They knew they had done something which helped. I felt proud too … but I wasn’t uppity about it, because such was part of the whiskey-making trade.

  Ol’ Ringer was missing. Me and Granpa whistled and hollered for him, but he didn’t show up. We walked all around the cabin clearing, but he wasn’t to be found anywhere. So we set off with the hounds to find him. We went up the hollow trail and the Narrows but could find no trace of him anywhere. Granpa said we had better backtrack up the mountain the way I had come down the night before. We did; first through the brush tangles, searching, and then up the mountain. Blue Boy and Little Red found him.

  Ringer had run into a tree. Maybe it was the last tree he had run into, for Granpa said it looked like he had run into a lot of trees or else been hit with a club. His head was bloody all over and he lay on his side. His tongue was stabbed through with his teeth. He was alive, and Granpa picked him up in his arms and we carried him down the mountain.

  We stopped at the spring branch, and me and Granpa washed the blood from his face and loosened his tongue from the teeth. There was gray hairs over his face and when I saw them I knew that ol’ Ringer was very old and had no business running off in the mountains looking after me. We sat with him by the spring branch, and in a little while he opened his eyes; they were old and bleary and he could barely see.

  I bent low to ol’ Ringer’s face and told him I ’preciated him looking for me in the mountains, and I was sorry. Ol’ Ringer didn’t mind, he licked my face, letting me know he’d just as soon do it all over again.

  Granpa let me help carry ol’ Ringer down the trail. Granpa carried most of him, but I toted his hind feet. When we got to the cabin, Granpa laid him down and said , “Ol’ Ringer is dead.” And he was. He had died on the trail, but Granpa said he knowed that we had come and got him, and that he was on his way home, and so he felt good about it. I felt some better too—though not much.

  Granpa said ol’ Ringer died like all good mountain hounds want to die: doing for their folks and in the woods.

  Granpa got a shovel. We carried ol’ Ringer up the hollow trail, up by the corn patch that he prided so in guarding. Granma come along too, and all the hounds followed, whining, with their tails between their legs. I felt the same.

  Grandpa dug ol’ Ringer’s grave at the foot of a little water oak. It was a pretty place; red sumach all around in the fall, and a dogwood tree standing by with white blooms in the spring.

  Granma laid a white cotton sack in the bottom of the grave, and placed ol’ Ringer on it and wrapped it around him. Granpa put a big board over ol’ Ringer, so the ’coons couldn’t dig him up. We covered up the grave. The hounds stood around, knowing it was ol’ Ringer, and ol’ Maud whined. Her and ol’ Ringer had been partners at the corn patch.

  Granpa pulled off his hat and said, “Good-bye, ol’ Ringer.” I said good-bye ol’ Ringer, too. And so we left him, under the water oak tree.

  I felt total bad about it, and empty. Granpa said he knew how I felt, for he was feeling the same way. But Granpa said everything you lost which you had loved give you that feeling. He said the only way round it was not to love anything, which was worse because you would feel empty all the time.

  Granpa said, supposin’ ol’ Ringer had not been faithful, then we would not be proud of him. That would be a worse feeling. Which is right. Granpa said when I got old, I would remember ol’ Ringer, and I would like it—to remember. He said it was a funny thing, but when you got old and remembered them you loved, you only remembered the good, never the bad, which proved the bad didn’t count nohow.

  But we had to get on with our trade. Me and Granpa toted our wares over the cutoff trail to Mr. Jenkins’ crossroads store. “Wares” is what Granpa called our whiskey.

  I liked the cutoff trail. We went down the hollow trail, and before we reached the wagon ruts, we turned and beared left to the cutoff trail. It ran over the ridges of the mountains that sloped toward the valley like big fingers pushing out and resting in the flatlands.

  The hollows we crossed were shallow between the ridges and easy to climb out of. The trail was several miles long; passing through stands of pine and cedar on the slopes; persimmon trees and honeysuckle vine.

  In the fall of the year, after frost had turned the persimmons red, I would stop on the way back and fill my pockets, and then run to catch up with Granpa. In the spring, I done the same thing, picking blackberries.

  Oncet, Granpa stopped and watched me pick blackberries. It was one of the times he was put out about words, and how folks was fooled by them. Granpa said, “Little Tree, did ye know that when blackberries is green, they is red?”

  This total confused me, and Granpa laughed. “The name is give to blackberries … to describe ’em by color … folks use the color green … meaning they ain’t ripe … which when they ain’t ripe, they are red.” Which is true.

  Granpa said, “That’s how the damn fool word-using gits folks all twisted up. When ye hear somebody using words agin’ somebody, don’t go by his words, fer they won’t make no damn sense. Go by his tone, and ye’ll know if he’s mean and lying.” Granpa was pretty much down on having too many words. Which was reasonable.

  There was also hickor’nuts, chinkapins, walnuts and chestnuts usually laying by the trail side. So, no matter what time of year it was, coming back from the crossroads store kept me busy gathering.

  Totin’ our wares to the store was a pretty good job. I would sometimes fall far behind Granpa, carrying my three fruit jars in the sack. When I did, I knew he would be settin’ down somewhere ahead, and when I got to him, we would rest.

  When you toted that-a-way, by going from one settin’ down place to another, it was not so hard. When we got to the last ridge, me and Granpa always set down in the bushes while we looked for the pickle barrel in front of the store. If the pickle barrel was not settin’ out front that meant everything was all right. If it was settin’ out front that meant the law, and we was not to deliver our wares. Everybody in the mountains watched for the pickle barrel, for other people had wares to deliver too.

  I never saw the pickle barrel settin’ out front, but I never failed to look for it. I had learned that the whiskey-making trade had a lot of complications to it. But Granpa said every trade has, more or less, some complications.

  He said did ye ever think how it would be in the dentist trade, having to look down folks’ mouths all the time, day in and day out, nothing but mouths? He said such a trade would drive him total crazy and that t
he whiskey-making trade, with all its complications, was a sight better trade for a feller to be in. Which is right.

  I liked Mr. Jenkins. He was big and fat and wore overalls. He had a white beard that hung down over the bib of his overalls, but his head was near totally without hair; it shined like a pine knob.

  He had all kinds of things in the store: big racks of shirts and overalls and boxes of shoes. There was barrels with crackers in them, and on a counter he had a big hoop of cheese. Also on the counter he had a glass case which had candy laid on the shelves. There was all kinds of candy and looked like there was more candy than he could ever run out of. I never seen anybody eat any of it, but I guess he sold some or he wouldn’t have had it.

  Every time we delivered our wares, Mr. Jenkins asked me if I would go to his woodpile and pick up a sack of wood chips for the big stove that set in the store. I always did. The first time, he offered me a big stick of striped candy, but I couldn’t rightly take it just for picking up wood chips, which wasn’t hardly no trouble at all. He put it back in the case, and found another piece which was old and which he was going to throw away. Granpa said that it was all right for me to take it, seeing as how Mr. Jenkins was going to throw it away, and it would not be of benefit to anybody. So I did.

  Every month, he come across another old stick, and I guess I might near cleaned out his old candy. Which he said helped him out a lot.

  It was at the crossroads store where I got slickered out of my fifty cents. It had taken me a long time to accumulate the fifty cents. Granma would put aside a nickel or dime in a jar for me each month we delivered our wares.

  It was my part of the trade. I liked to carry it, all in nickels and dimes, in my pocket when we went to the crossroads store. I never spent it and each time when we got home I put it back in the fruit jar.

  It was a comfort to me, carrying it in my pocket to the store, and knowing it was mine. I kind of had my eye on a big red and green box which was in the candy case. I didn’t know how much it cost, but I was figuring that maybe next Christmas I would buy it for Granma … and then we would eat what was in it. But as I say, I got slickered out of my fifty cents before then.

  It was about dinnertime of a day right after we had delivered our wares. The sun was straight overhead and me and Granpa was resting, squattin’ down under the store shed with our backs against the store. Granpa had bought some sugar for Granma and three oranges which Mr. Jenkins had. Granma liked oranges, which I did too, when you could get them. Seeing Granpa had three, I knew I would get one.

  I was eating on my stick candy. Men commenced to come to the store in twos and threes. They said a politician was coming and was going to make a speech. I don’t know that Granpa would have stayed, for as I say he didn’t give a lick-damn about politicians, but before we got rested here come the politician.

  He was in a big car, kicking up rolls of dust from the road, so everybody saw him a long way off before he got there. He had some feller driving his car for him, and he got out of the back seat. There was a lady in the back seat with him. All the time the politician talked, she throwed out little cigarettes that she had smoked part of. Granpa said they were ready-roll, tailor-made cigarettes, which rich people smoked as they was too lazy to roll their own.

  The politician come around and shook everybody’s hand; though he didn’t shake mine nor Granpa’s. Granpa said this was because we looked like Indians and didn’t vote nohow, so we was of practical no use whatsoever to the politician. Which sounds reasonable.

  He wore a black coat and had a white shirt with a ribbon tied at his neck; it was black and hung down. He laughed a lot and ’peared to be mighty happy. That is, until he got mad.

  He got up on a box and commenced to get worked up about conditions in Washington City … which he said was total going to hell. He said it wasn’t a thing in the world but Sodom and Gomorrah, which I guess it was. He got madder and madder about it and untied the ribbon around his neck.

  He said the Catholics was behind every damn bit of it. He said they was practical in control of the whole thing, and was aiming to put Mr. Pope in the White House. Catholics, he said, was the rottenest, low-downest snakes that ever lived. He said they had fellers called priests that mated women called nuns, and the young’uns that come of the matin’, they fed them to a pack of dogs. He said it was the awfulest thing he had ever seen nor heard tell of. Which it was.

  He got to hollerin’ pretty loud about it, and I guess, conditions being what they was in Washington City, it was enough to make a man holler. He said if it wasn’t for him puttin’ up a fight agin’ them, that they would be in total control and spread plumb down to where we was at … which sounded pretty bad.

  He said if they did, they would put all the womenfolks in convents and such … and would practical wipe out the young’uns. There didn’t seem hardly any way at all to whip them unless everybody sent him to Washington City to see that it was done; and he said even then it would be a hard fight, because fellers was selling out to them all over the place, for money. He said he wouldn’t take no money, as he had no use for it, and was total agin’ it.

  He said he felt like might near giving up sometimes and quittin’ and just takin’ it easy, like we done.

  I felt right bad, takin’ it easy; but when he finished talking, he got down from the box and commenced to laugh and shake hands with everybody. Which it looked like he had plenty of confidence he could handle the situation in Washington City.

  I felt a little better about it, dependent on his gittin’ back up there so he could whip the Catholics and such.

  While he was shaking hands and talking to folks, a feller walked up to the fringe of the crowd leading a little brown calf on a rope.

  He stood around watching the crowd and shook hands twicet with the politician, each time he come by. The little calf stood spraddle-legged behind him with its head down. I got up and edged over to the calf. I petted it oncet, but it wouldn’t lift its head. The feller looked down at me from under a big hat. He had sharp eyes that crinkled nearly shut when he smiled. He smiled.

  “Like my calf, boy?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and stepped back from the calf, as I didn’t want him to think I was bothering it.

  “Go ahead,” he said, real cheerful. “Go ahead and pet the calf. Ye won’t hurt ’em.” I petted the calf.

  The feller spit tobacco juice over the calf’s back. “I can see,” he said, “that my calf takes to ye … more’n anybody he’s ever taken up with … seems like he wants to go with ye.” I couldn’t tell that the calf looked the way he said, but it was his calf, and he ought to know. The feller knelt down in front of me. “Have you got any money, boy?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, “I got fifty cents.” The feller frowned, and I could see it wasn’t much money and was sorry that it was all I had.

  He smiled after a minute and said, “Well, this here calf is worth more’n a hundred times that much.” I seen right off it was worth that much. “Yes, sir,” I said, “I wasn’t figuring no way at all to buy it.” The feller frowned again. “Well,” he said, “I’m a Christian man. Somehow or ’nother, even costing me all that this here calf is worth, I feel in my heart ye’d ought to have it, the way it’s taken up with ye.” He thought on this for a while, and I could see right off that it pained him a lot to think of parting with the calf.

  “I ain’t—ner wouldn’t take him at all, mister,” I said.

  But the feller held up his hand to stop me. He sighed, “I’m a’goin’ to let ye have the calf, son, fer fifty cents fer I feel it’s my Christian duty, and—no—I won’t take no fer an answer. Jest give me yer fifty cents, and the calf is your’n.”

  Since he put it that-a-way, I couldn’t hardly turn him down. I taken out all my nickels and dimes and give them to him. He passed the calf’s rope to me, and walked off so quick, I didn’t know which way he went.

  But I felt mighty proud of my calf, even though I had more or less taken advantage of the f
eller—him being a Christian, which, as he said, handicapped him somewhat. I pulled my calf around to Granpa and showed it to him. Granpa didn’t seem as proud of my calf as I was, but I reckined it was because it was mine, and not his. I told him he could have half of it, seeing as how we was practically partners in the whiskey-making trade. But Granpa just grunted.

  The crowd was breaking up around the politician, everybody being more or less agreed that the politician had better git to Washington City right off and fight the Catholics. He passed out pieces of paper. Though he didn’t give me one, I got one off the ground. It had his picture on it, showing him smiling like there wasn’t a thing wrong in Washington City. He looked real young in the picture.

  Granpa said we was ready to set out for home, so I put the politician’s picture in my pocket, and led my calf behind Granpa. It was pretty hard going. My calf couldn’t hardly walk. It stumbled and wobbled along, and I pulled on the rope best I could. I was afraid if I pulled too hard, my calf would fall down.

  I was beginning to worry if I would ever get it to the cabin, and that maybe it was sick … even though it was worth a hundred times what I paid for it.

  By the time I got to the top of the first ridge, Granpa was nearly at the bottom fixing to head across a hollow. I seen I would be left behind, so I yelled, “Granpa … do ye know any Catholics?” Granpa stopped. I pulled harder on my calf and commenced to catch up. Granpa waited until me and the calf come up to him.

  “I seen one, oncet,” Granpa said, “at the county seat.” Me and the calf caught up, and was resting as hard as we could. “One I seen,” Granpa said, “didn’t look particular mean … though I figgered he had been in some kind of scrape … he had got his collar twisted up, and more than likely was jest drunk enough that he failed to notice it. He ’peared to be, howsoever, peaceful enough.”