The Education of Little Tree

by Forrest Carter

  Granpa would carry the pack. Mr. Wine usually had a clock with him that he let me carry. He worked on clocks. We didn’t have one, but we helped him work on his clocks on the kitchen table.

  Granma would light the lamp and Mr. Wine would put a clock on the table and open its insides. I was not tall enough to see by setting down, so I always stood on a chair next to Mr. Wine and watched him take out little springs and gold screws. Granpa and Mr. Wine talked while he worked on the clocks.

  Mr. Wine was maybe a hundred years old. He had a long white beard and wore a black coat. He had a little round black cap that set on the back of his head. Mr. Wine was not his real name. His name started off with Wine, but it was so long and complicated we couldn’t get it straight, so we called him Mr. Wine. Mr. Wine said it didn’t matter. He said names was not important, it was more or less how you said it. Which is right. Mr. Wine said some Indian names was beyond anything at all that he could say proper so he made up names hisself.

  He always had something in his coat pocket; usually an apple, one time he had an orange. But he could not remember anything.

  We would eat supper in dusk evening; then, while Granma cleared the table, Mr. Wine and Granpa would set in rockers and talk. I would pull my chair between them and set too. Mr. Wine would be talking and stop. He would say, “It seems like I’m forgetting something, but I don’t know what it is.” I knew what it was, but would not say anything. Mr. Wine would scratch his head and comb his beard with his fingers. Granpa wouldn’t help at all. Finally Mr. Wine would look down at me and say, “Could you help me remember what it is, Little Tree?”

  I would tell him, “Yes, sir, more than likely, you was totin’ something in your pocket that you couldn’t recollect.”

  Mr. Wine would jump straight up in his chair and slap at his pocket and say, “Whangdaggle me! Thank you Little Tree, for reminding me. I’m gettin’ so I can’t think.” Which he was.

  He would pull out a red apple that was bigger than any kind raised in the mountains. He said he run acrost it and picked it up, and was intending to throw it away, as he didn’t like apples. I always told him I would take it off his hands. I stood ready to split with Granma and Granpa, but they didn’t like apples either. Which I did. I saved the seeds and planted them along the spring branch, intending to raise lots of trees that give up that kind of apple.

  He could not remember where he put his glasses. When he worked on the clocks, he wore little glasses on the end of his nose. They were held together with wire and the handles that went behind his ears had cloth wrapped around them.

  He would stop working and push his glasses up on his head while he talked to Granpa. When he started back to work, he couldn’t find them. I knew where they was. He would feel around on the table and look at Granpa and Granma, and say, “Now where in devil’s torment is my glasses?” Him and Granpa and Granma would all grin at each other, feeling foolish that they didn’t know. I would point to his head and Mr. Wine would slap hisself on the head, total stumped that he had left them there.

  Mr. Wine said he could not work on his clocks if I had not been there to help him find his glasses. Which he couldn’t.

  He learnt me to tell time. He would twist the hands of the clock around and ask me what time it was, and would laugh when I missed. It didn’t take me long before I knew everything.

  Mr. Wine said I was getting a good education. He said there wasn’t hardly any young’uns at all my age that knew about Mr. Macbeth or Mr. Napoleon, or that studied dictionaries. He learnt me figures.

  I could already figure money somewhat, being in the whiskey trade, but Mr. Wine would take out some paper and a little pencil and put figures down. He would show me how to make the figures and how to add them, and take away, and multiply. Granpa said I was might near better than anybody he had ever seen, doing figures.

  Mr. Wine gave me a pencil. It was long and yeller. There was a certain way you sharpened it, so that you didn’t make the point too thin. If you made the point too thin it would break, and you would have to sharpen it again; which used up the pencil for no need at all.

  Mr. Wine said the way he showed me how to sharpen the pencil was the thrifty way. He said there was a difference between being stingy and being thrifty. If you was stingy, you was as bad as some big shots which worshipped money and you would not use your money for what you had ought. He said if you was that way then money was your god, and no good would come of the whole thing.

  He said if you was thrifty, you used your money for what you had ought but you was not loose with it. Mr. Wine said that one habit led to another habit, and if they was bad habits, it would give you a bad character. If you was loose with your money, then you would get loose with your time, loose with your thinking and practical everything else. If a whole people got loose, then politicians seen they could get control. They would take over loose people and before long you had a dictator. Mr. Wine said no thrifty people was ever taken over by a dictator. Which is right.

  He had the same consideration as me and Granpa for politicians.

  Granma usually bought some thread from Mr. Wine. Little spools of thread was two for a nickel and there was big spools that was a nickel apiece. Sometimes she bought buttons, and once she bought some red cloth with flowers on it.

  There was all kinds of things in the pack; ribbons of every color, pretty cloth and stockings, thimbles and needles, and little shiny tools. I would squat by the pack when Mr. Wine opened it on the floor and he would hold up things and tell me what they was. He give me a figuring book.

  The book had all the figuring in it, and told you how to do it. This was so I could learn to do figuring all through the month. I got so far ahead each month that when Mr. Wine come by, he was total stumped.

  Mr. Wine said figuring was important. He said education was a two-part proposition. One part was technical, which was how you moved ahead in your trade. He said he was for getting more modern in that end of education. But, he said, the other part you had better stick to and not change it. He called it valuing.

  Mr. Wine said if you learnt to place a value on being honest and thrifty, on doing your best, and on caring for folks; this was more important than anything. He said if you was not taught these values, then no matter how modern you got about the technical part, you was not going to get anywheres at all.

  As a matter of fact, the more modern you got without these valuings, then you would more than likely use the modern things for bad and destroying and ruining. Which is right, and not long after that was proved out.

  Every once in a while we had a hard time fixing the clocks, so Mr. Wine would stay with us a day and another night. Once he brought a black box with him which he said was a Kodak. He could take pictures with it. He said he was not very good at it—taking the pictures. He said some folks had ordered the Kodak and he was taking it to them, but he said it would not hurt it at all or show any use if he taken our picture.

  He taken a picture of me, and of Granpa too. The box would not take the picture unless you was facing d’rect at the sun, and Mr. Wine said he was not too took up with the whole contraption anyhow. Granpa wasn’t either. He was suspicious of the thing and would not stand but for one picture. Granpa said you never knowed about them things and it was best not to use anything new like that until you found out what would happen over a period of time.

  Mr. Wine wanted Granpa to take a picture of me and him. It took us practical all evening to take it. Me and Mr. Wine would get all set. He would have his hand on my head, and we would both be grinning at the box. Granpa would say he couldn’t see us through the little hole. Mr. Wine would go to Granpa and get the box leveled up and come back. We would stand again. Granpa would say we would have to move over a ways, as he couldn’t see anything but an arm.

  Granpa was nervous about the box. I suspicioned he figured they was something in it that was liable to get out. Me and Mr. Wine faced the sun so long that neither one of us could see a thing before Granpa finally got the pi
cture taken. It didn’t work out though. The next month when Mr. Wine brought the pictures, mine and Granpa’s showed up plain, but me and Mr. Wine was not even in the picture that Granpa had taken. We could make out the tops of some trees and some specks above the trees; which after studying the picture awhile Granpa said was birds.

  Granpa was proud of the bird picture and I was too. He taken it to the crossroads store and showed it to Mr. Jenkins, and told him he had personally taken the picture of the birds.

  Mr. Jenkins couldn’t see good. Me and Granpa worked at it for might near an hour, pointing out the birds; and he finally saw them. I figured me and Mr. Wine was more than likely standing somewhere down below the birds.

  Granma would not have her picture taken. She would not say why, but she was suspicious of the box and would not touch it.

  After we got the pictures back, Granma was taken with them. She studied them a lot and put them on the log over the fireplace, and was continually watching them. I believe she would have stood for a picture after that; but we didn’t have the Kodak, as Mr. Wine had to deliver it to the people who had ordered it.

  Mr. Wine said he was going to get another Kodak but he didn’t for this was his last summer.

  Summer was getting ready to die, dozing away the days at the ending. The sun commenced to change from the white heat of life to a hazing of yeller and gold, blurring the afternoons and helping summer die. Getting ready, Granma said, for the big sleep.

  Mr. Wine made his last trip. We didn’t know it then, though me and Granpa had to help him across the foot log and up the steps of the porch. Maybe he knew.

  When he unstrapped his pack, there on the cabin floor, he taken out a yeller coat. He held it up and the lamp shined on it like gold. Granma said it reminded her of wild canaries. It was the prettiest coat we had ever seen. Mr. Wine turned it round and round in the lamp light and we all looked at it. Granma touched it, but I didn’t.

  Mr. Wine said he didn’t have any sense and was always forgetting things, which he was. He said he had made the coat for one of his great-grand young’uns which lived acrost the big waters, but he made the size for what his great-grand young’un was years ago. After he got it made, then he remembered that it was a total misfit. Now there wasn’t anybody could wear it.

  Mr. Wine said it was a sin to throw something away that could be used by somebody. He said he was so worried that he couldn’t sleep, because he was getting old and couldn’t stand any more sin put on him. He said if he couldn’t find somebody which would favor him by wearing the coat that he reckined he was total lost. We all studied on that for a while.

  Mr. Wine had his head bowed and looked like he was done lost already. I told him I would try to wear it.

  Mr. Wine looked up and his face broke out in a grin amongst the whiskers. He said he was so forgetful he had plumb forgot to ask me for the favor. He pulled hisself up and danced a little jig around and said I had totally lifted a sin and a big load off of him. Which I had.

  Everybody put the coat on me. Granma pulled on the sleeve, while I stood there with it on. Mr. Wine smoothed the back and Granpa pulled the bottom down. It fit perfect; as I was the same size as Mr. Wine had remembered his great-grand young’un.

  I turned round and round in the light, for Granma to see all sides. I held out my arms so Granpa could see the sleeves, and we all felt of it. It was soft and slid smooth and easy under our hands. Mr. Wine was so happy that he cried.

  I wore my coat when we et supper and was careful to keep my mouth over the plate and not spill anything on it. I would have slept in it, but Granma said sleeping in it would make it wrinkle. She hung it on the post of my bed so I could look at it. The moonlight coming through my winder made it shine even more.

  Laying there, looking at the coat, I determined right off that I would wear it to church and to the settlement. I might even wear it to the crossroads store when we delivered our wares. It ’peared to me that the more I wore it, the more sin would get lifted off Mr. Wine.

  Mr. Wine slept on a pallet quilt. He laid it out on the floor of the settin’ room, across the dogtrot from our sleeping rooms. I told him he could use my bed, as I liked to sleep on a pallet, but he would not do it.

  That night, as I lay abed, somehow or other I got to thinking that even though I was doing Mr. Wine a favor, maybe I’d ought to thank him for the yeller coat. I got up and tiptoed across the dogtrot and eased open the door. Mr. Wine was kneeling on his pallet and had his head bowed. He was saying prayers, I figured.

  He was giving thanks for a little boy who had brought him so much happiness; which I figured was his great-grand young’un acrost the big waters. He had a candle lit on the kitchen table. I stood quiet, for Granma had learnt me not to make a noise while people was saying prayers.

  In a minute, Mr. Wine looked up and saw me. He told me to come in. I asked him why he had lit the candle, when we had a lamp.

  Mr. Wine said all his folks was acrost the big waters. He said there was not but one way he could be with them. He said he only lit the candle at certain times, and they lit a candle at the same time, and that they was together when they did this for their thoughts was together. Which sounds reasonable.

  I told him we had folks scattered far off in the Nations, and had not figured such a way as that to be with them. I told him about Willow John.

  I said I was going to tell Willow John about the candle. Mr. Wine said Willow John would understand. I plumb forgot to thank Mr. Wine for the yeller coat.

  He left the next morning. We helped him acrost the foot log. Granpa had cut a hickory stick and Mr. Wine used it as he walked.

  He went down the trail, hobbling slow, using the hickory stick and bent under the weight of his pack. He was out of sight when I remembered I had forgot. I run down the trail, but he was far below me, picking his way along. I hollered, “Thankee for the yeller coat, Mr. Wine.” He didn’t turn and so did not hear me. Mr. Wine was not only bad about forgettin’; he couldn’t hear good either. I figured, coming back up the trail, that him always forgettin’ he would understand how I forgot too.

  Even though I was doing him a favor—wearing the yeller coat.

  Down from the Mountain

  Fall came early to the mountains that year. First, along the rims high against the sky, the red and yellow leaves shook in a brisking wind. Frost had touched them. The sun turned amber and slanted rays through the trees and into the hollow.

  Each morning, the frost worked its way farther down the mountain. A timid frost, not killing, but letting you know that you couldn’t hold onto summer no more than you could hold back time; letting you know that the winter dying was coming.

  Fall is nature’s grace time; giving you a chance to put things in order, for the dying. And so, when you put things in order, you sort out all you must do … and all you have not done. It is a time for remembering … and regretting, and wishing you had done some things you have not done … and said some things you had not said.

  I wished I had thanked Mr. Wine for the yeller coat. He didn’t come that month. We set on the porch in late evenings and watched the hollow trail, and listened; but he didn’t come. Me and Granpa determined we would go to the settlement to see about him.

  Frost touched the hollow; light, barely reminding. It turned the persimmon red and ran yellow trimmings around the edges of the poplar and maple leaves. The creatures who was to stay the winter worked harder putting up their stores so not to die.

  Blue jays made long lines, flying back and forth to the high oaks, carrying acorns to their nests. Now they didn’t play or call.

  The last butterfly flew up the hollow. He rested on a cornstalk where me and Granpa had stripped the corn. He didn’t flex his wings, just set, and waited. He had no purpose in storing food. He was going to die, and he knew it. Granpa said he was wiser than a lot of people. He didn’t fret about it. He knew he had served his purpose, and now his purpose was to die. So he waited there in the last warm of the sun.

&n
bsp; Me and Granpa got in stove wood and fireplace logs. Granpa said we had grasshoppered around all summer and now was pushed to get our winter’s warm settled up. Which we had.

  We dragged dead tree trunks and heavy limbs from the mountainside into the clearing. Granpa’s axe flashed in the evening sun and rang and echoed up the hollow. I toted in the wood chips for the kitchen bin and racked the fireplace logs against the cabin side.

  This is what we was doing when the politicians came. They said they was not politicians, but they was. A man and a woman.

  They would not take the rockers offered to them, but set straight in the high back chairs. The man wore a gray suit and the woman wore a gray dress. The dress was choked so tight around her neck that I figured it made her look the way she did. The man held his knees together like a woman. He kept his hat on his knees and was nervous, for he continually turned the hat round and round. The woman wasn’t nervous.

  The woman said that I had ought to leave the room, but Granpa said that I set in on everything there was to set in on. So I stayed and set in my little rocker and rocked.

  The man cleared his throat and said people was concerned about my education and such. He said that it had ought to be looked after. Granpa said it was. He told them what Mr. Wine said.

  The woman asked Granpa who Mr. Wine was, and he told her all about Mr. Wine—though he didn’t mention how Mr. Wine was always fergittin’ everything. The woman sniffed her nose and brushed around at her skirts like she figured Mr. Wine was somewheres about and fixing to get under her dress.

  I seen right off she total discounted Mr. Wine; which she did us too. She give Granpa a paper which he give to Granma.

  Granma lit the lamp and set at the kitchen table to read the paper. She started to read it out loud but she stopped. She read the rest of it to herself. When she finished she stood up and leaned over—and blew out the lamp.