I set off up the trail. Mr. Slick helped Mr. Chunk out of the poison ivy patch and they kind of staggered along behind me. They left their coats in the patch. Mr. Chunk said they would get the coats on the way back.
I got to the top of the mountain a long time before they did. The high trail was part of a lot of trails, old Cherokee trails that ran along the rim of the mountain, but forked, going down the mountain on the other side, and forked four or five times on the way down. Granpa said the trails led maybe a hundred miles back into the mountains.
I set down under a bush where the trail made a fork; one branch running the top of the mountain, the other dipping over the mountain down the other side. I figured I would wait on Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick, and we would all set here until Granpa come.
It took them a long time. When they finally come over the top of the mountain, Mr. Chunk had his arm over Mr. Slick’s shoulders. He had hurt his foot, more than likely, for he was limping and hopping pretty bad.
Mr. Chunk was saying that Mr. Slick was a bastard. Which surprised me, as Mr. Slick had not said anything about being a bastard too. Mr. Chunk was saying that Mr. Slick was the one who originally thought up the idea of putting mountain hicks to work for them. Mr. Slick said it was Mr. Chunk’s idea to pick this damn Indian and that Mr. Chunk was a son of a bitch.
They was talking so loud, they passed right by me. I didn’t have a chance to tell them we had all ought to wait, as Granpa had learnt me not to interrupt when people was talking. They went on down the trail on the other side of the mountain. I watched them until they disappeared amongst the trees, heading into a deep cleft between the mountains. I figured I had better wait on Granpa.
I didn’t have to wait long. Blue Boy showed up first. I saw him sniffing my trail, and he come up, tail wagging. In a minute I heard a whippoorwill. It sounded exactly like a whippoorwill … but as it was not dusk dark yet, I knew it was Granpa. I whippoorwilled back, might near as good.
I saw his shadow slipping through the trees in the late evening sun. He wasn’t following the trail, and you could never hear him, if he didn’t want to be heard. In a minute there he was. I was glad to see him.
I told Granpa that Mr. Slick and Mr. Chunk had gone on down the trail, and also everything I could remember they said while we was walking. Granpa grunted and didn’t say anything, but his eyes narrowed down.
Granma had sent us vittles in a sack, and me and Granpa set down under a cedar and ate. Corn pone and catfish cooked in meal taste good in the air of a high mountain. We finished off all of it.
I showed Granpa the dollar, which I reckined if Mr. Chunk figured I had done my job I could keep. I told Granpa soon as we got some change we could split it. Granpa said I had done my job, as he was here to see Mr. Chunk. Granpa said I could keep the whole dollar.
I told Granpa about the green and red box at Mr. Jenkins’ store. I said I figured, more than likely, it wasn’t much over a dollar. Granpa said he figured that too. Far off, we heard a yell down in the cleft of the mountain. We had plumb forgot about Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick.
It was getting dusk dark. Whippoorwills and chip-wills had started singing on the side of the mountain. Granpa stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth. “WHOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEE!” Granpa hollered down the mountain. The sound bounced off another mountain as plain as if Granpa had been over there; then it bounced into the cleft and on up the hollows, getting weaker and weaker. There wasn’t any way of figuring where the sound had come from. The echoes had barely died away when we heard three gun shots from down in the cleft. The sound bounced around and traveled off.
“Pistols,” Granpa said. “They’re answering with pistol fire.”
Granpa cut loose again. “WHOOOOOOEEEEEEEE!” I did too. Which both of us hollering made the echoes jump and bounce even more. The pistol went off again, three times.
Me and Granpa kept hollering. It was fun, listening to the echoes. Each time the pistol answered us, until it didn’t answer the last time.
“They’re out of bullets,” Granpa said. It was dark now. Granpa stretched and yawned. “No need me and ye thrashing around down there tonight, Little Tree, trying to git ’em out. They’ll be all right. We’ll git ’em tomorrow.” Which suited me.
Me and Granpa pulled spring boughs under the cedar tree to sleep on. If you’re going to sleep out in the mountains during spring and summer, you had better sleep on spring boughs. If you don’t, red bugs will eat you up. Red bugs are so little, you can’t hardly see them with the naked eye. They are all over leaves and bushes, by the millions. They will crawl on you and bury up in your skin, causing rashes of bumps to break out all over you. Some years they are worse than others. This was a bad red bug year. There are also wood ticks.
Me and Granpa and Blue Boy crawled up on the spring boughs. Blue Boy curled up by me and felt warm in the sharp air. The boughs were soft and springy. I commenced yawning.
Me and Granpa clasped our hands behind our heads and watched the moon come up. It was full and yellow, slipping over a far mountain. We could see might near a hundred miles, Granpa said, mountains humping and dipping in the moon spray, making shadows and deep purples in their hollows. Fog drifted along in threads, far below us … moving through the hollows, snaking around the sides of the mountains. One little patch of fog would come around the end of a mountain like a silver boat and bump into another one and they would melt together and take off up a hollow. Granpa said the fog looked alive. Which it did.
A mockingbird set up song right near us in a high elm. Far back in the mountains, we heard two wildcats mating. They sounded like they were screaming mad, but Granpa said mating feels so good that cats can’t help but scream about it.
I told Granpa I would might near like to sleep on a mountaintop every night. He said he would too. A screech owl screeched down below us, and then there was yells and screams. Granpa said it was Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick. He said if they didn’t settle down, they would disturb practical all the birds and animals on the mountainside. I went to sleep looking at the moon.
Me and Granpa woke at dawn. There is not anything like dawn from the top of the high mountain. Me and Granpa, and Blue Boy too, watched it. The sky was a light gray, and the birds getting up for the new day made fuss and twitters in the trees.
Away across a hundred miles, the mountaintops humped like islands in the fog that floated below us. Granpa pointed to the east and said, “Watch.”
Above the rim of the farthest mountain, on the end of the world, a pink streak whipped across, a paintbrush swept a million miles across the sky. Morning wind picked up and hit our faces and me and Granpa knew the colors and the morning birth had come alive. The paintbrush run up in streaks—red, yellow and blue. The mountain rim looked like it had caught fire; then the sun cleared the trees. It turned the fog into a pink ocean, heaving and moving down below.
The sun hit me and Granpa in the face. The world had got born all over again. Granpa said it had, and he taken off his hat and we watched it for a long time. Me and Granpa had a feeling, and I knew right off that we would come again to the mountaintop and watch the morning come.
The sun cleared the mountain and floated free in the sky, and Granpa sighed and stretched. “Well,” he said, “ye and me have got work to do. Tell ye what,” Granpa scratched his head, “tell ye what,” he said again, “ye trot down to the cabin and tell Granma we’ll be up here awhile. Tell her to fix ye and me something to eat and put it in a paper sack, and fix them two big-city fellers something to eat and put it in a tow sack. Can ye remember now—paper sack and tow sack?” I said I could. I started off.
Granpa stopped me. “And Little Tree,” he said, and commenced grinning about something, “before Granma fixes the two fellers something to eat, ye tell everything ye can recollect that the two fellers said to ye.” I said I would, and I set off down the trail. Blue Boy went with me. I heard Granpa commence to call up Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick. Granpa was yelling, “WHOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEE!” I would have
liked to stayed and hollered too, but I didn’t mind running down the trail, especially early in the morning.
This was the time of morning when all the creatures were coming out for the day living. I saw two ’coons, high in a walnut tree. They peeped down at me and talked as I passed under them. Squirrels chattered and leapt across the trail. They set up and fussed at me as I walked by. Birds dipped and fluttered all along the trail, and a mockingbird followed me and Blue Boy a long way, dipping down at my head, teasing. Mockingbirds will do this if they know you like them. Which I do.
When I got to the cabin clearing, Granma was setting on the back porch. She knew I was coming, I figured, by watching the birds, though I suspicioned that Granma could smell anybody coming, for she was never surprised.
I told her Granpa wanted something to eat in a paper sack for me and him, and for Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick, something to be put in a tow sack. Granma commenced to cook up the vittles.
She had fixed mine and Granpa’s, and was frying fish for Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick, when I recollected to tell her what they had said. While I was telling her, of a sudden she pulled the frying pan off the fire and got out a pot which she filled with water. She dropped Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick’s fish in the pot. I reckined she had decided to boil their fish instead of frying, but I had never seen her use the root powders, in cooking, that she put in their pot. Their fish got a good boiling.
I told Granma Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick ’peared to be good-spirited fellers. I told her that I originally thought we was all laughing because I was a bastard, but it turned out, what they was more than likely laughing at was Mr. Slick’s being one too, as I had heard Mr. Chunk remind him.
Granma put some more root powders in the pot. I told her about the dollar—that Granpa said I had done my job and could keep it. Granma said I could keep it too. She put the dollar in my fruit jar for me but I didn’t tell her about the red and green box. There was not any Christians about, as I knew of, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.
Granma boiled the fish until the steam got heavy. Her eyes was watering down over her face and she was blowing her nose. She said she reckined it was the steam. Granma put the fish for the big-city fellers in the tow sack and I set off up the high trail. Granma turned all the hounds out, and they went with me.
When I got to the top of the mountain, I didn’t see Granpa. I whistled and he answered from halfway down the other side. I went down the trail. It was narrow and shaded over with trees. Granpa said he had practical called up Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick out of the cleft. He said they was answering him pretty regular and ought to be coming in sight pretty soon.
Granpa taken their sack of fish and hung it down from a tree limb, right over the trail where they couldn’t miss it. Me and Granpa moved back up the trail a ways, and set down under persimmon bushes to eat our dinner. The sun was might near straight up.
Granpa made the dogs lay down, and we et on our corn pone and fish. Granpa said it had taken him some time to get Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick to understanding which direction they was to take toward his voice but they was finally coming. Then we saw them.
If I had not known them right well, I couldn’t have recollected as having ever seen them before. Their shirts was tore up complete. They had big cuts and scratches over their arms and faces. Granpa said it looked like they had run through brier patches. Granpa said he couldn’t figure how they got all the big red lumps on their faces. I didn’t say anything—as it was none of my business—but I figured it was from laying in the poison ivy vines. Mr. Chunk had lost a shoe. They come up the trail slow and heads down.
When they saw the tow sack hanging over the trail, they taken it loose from the tree limb and set down. They ate all of Granma’s fish, and argued pretty regular over which was getting the most of it. We could hear them plain.
After they finished eating, they stretched out on the trail in the shade. I figured Granpa would go down and get them up, but he didn’t. We just set and watched. After a while, Granpa said it was better to let them rest awhile. They didn’t rest long.
Mr. Chunk jumped up. He was bent over and holding his stomach. He run into the bushes at the side of the trail and pulled his britches down. He squatted and commenced to yell, “Oh! Goddam! My insides is coming out!” Mr. Slick done the same thing. He yelled too. They groaned and hollered and rolled on the ground. In a little while, both of them crawled out of the bushes and laid down on the trail. They didn’t lay down long, but jumped up and done it all over again. They taken on so loud that the dogs got excited and Granpa had to quieten them.
I told Granpa it ’peared to me that they was squatting in a poison ivy patch. Granpa said it looked like they was. Also, I told Granpa, they was wiping theirselves with poison ivy leaves. Granpa said more than likely they was. One time, Mr. Slick run from the trail back into the poison ivy patch but did not get his britches down in time. He commenced to have some trouble after that with flies buzzing over him. This went on for might near an hour. After that, they laid flat out in the trail, resting up. Granpa said more than likely it was something they had ate which didn’t agree with them.
Granpa stepped out in the trail and whistled down to them. Both of them got on their hands and knees and looked up toward me and Granpa. Leastwise, I think they looked at us, but their eyes were swelled might near shut. Both of them yelled.
“Wait a minute,” Mr. Chunk hollered. Mr. Slick kind of screamed, “Hold on, man—for God’s sake!” They got to their feet and scrambled up the trail. Me and Granpa went on up the trail to the top of the mountain. When we looked back, they was limping behind us.
Granpa said we might as well go back down the trail to the cabin, as they could now find their way out, and would be along d’rectly. So we did.
It was late sun by the time me and Granpa got to the cabin. We set on the back porch with Granma and waited for Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick to come along. It was two hours later and dusk dark when they made it to the clearing. Mr. Chunk had lost his other shoe and ’peared to tiptoe along.
They made a wide circle around the cabin, which surprised me, as I figured they wanted to see Granpa, but they had changed their minds. I asked Granpa about keeping my dollar. He said I could, as I had done my part of the job. It was not my fault if they changed their minds. Which is reasonable.
I followed them around the cabin. They crossed the foot log and I hollered and waved to them, “Good-bye, Mr. Chunk. Good-bye, Mr. Slick. I thankee for the dollar, Mr. Chunk.”
Mr. Chunk turned and ’peared to shake his fist at me. He fell off the foot log into the spring branch. He grabbed at Mr. Slick and nearly pulled him off, but Mr. Slick kept his balance and made it across. Mr. Slick reminded Mr. Chunk that he was a son of a bitch, and Mr. Chunk, as he crawled out of the spring branch, said that when he got back to Chattanooga—if he ever did—he was going to kill Mr. Slick. Though I don’t know why they had fell out with one another.
They passed out of sight down the hollow trail. Granma wanted to send the dogs after them, but Granpa said no. He said he figured they was total wore out.
Granpa said he reckined it all come about from a misunderstanding on Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick’s part, regarding me and Granpa working for them in the whiskey trade. I figured more than likely it was too.
It had all taken up the best part of two days of mine and Granpa’s time. I had, however, come out a dollar ahead. I cautioned Granpa that I was still willing and stood ready to split the dollar with him as we was partners, but he said no, I had earned the dollar without any connection in the whiskey trade. Granpa said all things considered it was not bad pay for the work. Which it wasn’t.
Willow John
Planting is a busy time. Granpa decided when we would begin. He would run his finger into the ground and feel for the warmth; then shake his head, which meant we wasn’t going to start planting.
So we would have to go fishing or berry picking or general woods rambling, if it wasn’t the week to work at the whiskey tr
ade.
Once you start planting, you have to be careful. There are times when you can’t plant. You must begin by remembering that anything growing below ground, such as turnips or ’taters, these have to be planted in the dark by the moon, otherwise your turnips and ’taters won’t be any bigger than a pencil.
Anything that grows above ground, such as corn, beans, peas and such, must be planted in the light of the moon. If it isn’t, you’ll not make much of a crop of it.
When you have figured this out, there are other things. Most people go by the signs in the almanac. For example, you plant running beans when the sign is in the arms to make the best beans. If you don’t, you will have a lot of blooms but no beans.
There is a sign for everything. Granpa, however, didn’t need an almanac. He went by the stars d’rect.
We would set on the porch in the spring night, and Granpa would study the stars. He would have them set, how they formed on the ridge of the mountain. He would say, “Stars’re right for running beans. We’ll plant some tomorrow if the east wind ain’t blowing.” Even with the stars right, Granpa would not plant running beans if the east wind was blowing. He said the beans would not produce.
Then, of course, it could be too wet—or too dry—to plant. If the birds quietened, you didn’t plant either. Planting is a pretty tedious proposition.
When we got up in the morning, we might be all set to do some planting, going by the stars the night before. But right off, we would see that the wind was not right or the birds, or it could be too wet or too dry. So we would have to go fishing.
Granma said she suspicioned some of the signs had to do with Granpa’s fishing feelings. But Granpa said women couldn’t understand complications. He said women thought everything was simple and plain out. Which it wasn’t. He said women couldn’t help it, because they was born suspicious in the first place. Granpa said he had seen day-old females that looked suspicious at a sucking tit.
The Education of Little Tree Page 13