Grandfather Tales

by Richard Chase

  you can break all you want

  till your basket is full.”

  He thought a minute or two—and he knew that his old dog always came lopin’ out in the road whenever he got in home. The old hound wasn’t much good anyway—so he answered, says:

  “Whatever meets me

  first at the gate,

  you can come take it

  whenever you want.”

  Went ahead and broke white rosebuds till his basket was full. Got on his horse and rode on in home.

  He kept lookin’ for his dog to come out but the old hound was up under the house asleep and before he could whistle for it here came his youngest girl flyin’ out the gate to meet him.

  He hollered to her and motioned her to go back but she wasn’t payin’ him any mind, came right on. She took his basket and was a-carryin’ on over how pretty the roses were. So she thanked him and went to helpin’ him unload his saddlebags, and when they got to the house she saw he was lookin’ troubled, says, “What’s the matter, Daddy?” But he wouldn’t tell her.

  And he never came to the table when they called him to supper, just sat there on the porch lookin’ back down the holler. So the girls they ate their supper, and it got dark directly and they lit the lamp. Sat there sewin’ and talkin’, and all at once they heard a voice out in the road—

  “Send out my pay!”

  Their daddy came in the house then, and told ’em what’n-all he had heard when he broke the roses. The oldest girl she said to him, says, “Aw, just send out the dog. How could it know what met you first?”

  So they called the dog and sicked him out toward the gate. He ran out barkin’ and then they heard him come back a-howlin’, scared to death, and he crawled way back under the floor and stayed there. Then they heard it again—

  “Send out my pay!”

  So the two oldest girls said they wasn’t afraid, said they’d go see what it was. Out they went, and directly there was a commotion at the gate and the two girls came tearin’ back to the house so scared they couldn’t speak. Then it hollered louder—

  “Send out my pay!”

  Then the youngest girl said, “I’ll have to go, Daddy, but don’t you worry; I’ll come back some way or other.”

  So she gathered her up a few things in a budget and kissed her father and went on out to the gate. There stood a big white bear.

  “Get up on my back,” it told her. So she crawled up on its back and it started off.

  The girl was cryin’ so hard her nose bled and three drops of blood fell on the white bear’s back. They went on, went on, and ’way up in the night she made out how they went past a big white rosebush out in a thick wilderness. Came to a fine house out there and the white bear stopped, told her, “Get off now.”

  So she got off and went on in the house. The white bear came in behind her, says, “Light that lamp there on the table.” So she lit the lamp, and when she turned back around there stood a good-lookin’ young man. The minute she looked at him she thought the world of him. He said to her then, says, “This house and everything in it belongs to you now, and there’s nothing here to hurt you.”

  Then he took the lamp and they went through all the rooms lookin’ at all the fine things, and directly they came to a pretty bedroom and he told her, says, “Now I got a spell on me and I can’t be a man but part of the time. From now on I can be a man of a night and stay with you here and be a bear of a day, or I can be a bear of a night and sleep under your bed and be a man of a day. Which had you rather I’d be?”

  So she thought about it and she didn’t like the idea of a bear layin’ under her bed of a night so she told him she’d rather he’d be a man of a night. So that was the way it was. He was a bear in the daytime and he’d lie around outside while she kept house, and when dark came he’d be a man. He kept plenty of wood and water in the house and they’d talk together and he was good company.

  So they kept on and she lived happy even if her husband did have to be a bear half the time. He told her how it was he’d been witched, said he’d get out of it some day but he didn’t know just how it would be. And after three or four years she had three little babes, two boys and a girl. Then when her least one was big enough to walk she told her husband she wanted to go back; to see her father again. It looked like that troubled him but he told her all right, they would go; but he said she would have to promise him not to tell anybody anything about him, and never to speak his name.

  “If you speak my name to any living soul I’ll have to go away. And you will see me going off up the mountain and it will be awful hard for us ever to get together again.”

  So she promised him and early the next mornin’ he took her and the three children on his back, and he let them off at her father’s gate and she took her babes and went on to the house.

  They were all proud to see her again and told her how pretty her children were and commenced askin’ her who her husband was and where they lived and all. She told ’em she couldn’t tell. Well, they kept on at her and she kept tellin’ ’em she couldn’t possibly tell, so her sisters they started actin’ mad and wouldn’t speak to her. Still she wouldn’t tell; but the next day her daddy took her aside and spoke to her about it, says, “Just tell me his name.” She thought surely she ought to tell her own father what her man’s name was, so she whispered it to him—

  “Whitebear Whittington”

  And she hadn’t but spoke it when she looked up and saw her husband and he was in the shape of a man, and he was goin’ off up the Piney Mountain, and on the back of his white shirt were three drops of blood.

  Well, she loved him; so she left the children there with her father and started out to try and find her man again. She took out the way he went over the Piney Mountain but she never did see him on ahead of her. But she went on and went on. Sometimes she’d think she was lost but a white bird would fly over and drop a white feather with a red speck on it, so she’d go on the way that bird was headed. Then she’d stop at a house to stay the night and they’d tell her about the fine young man had stayed there the night before, had three drops of blood on his shirt.

  So she went on, went on, for seven years and that bird would fly over whenever she got down-hearted, so she didn’t give up. Then late one evening she stopped at a house and called to stay the night and an old, old woman awful stricken in age came to the door, looked like she was over a hundred years old and she was walkin’ on two sticks, told her to come on in. The old woman looked at her, says, “Girl, you’re in bad trouble, now ain’t ye?”

  So she told the old lady about what’n-all had happened, and how she’d been tryin’ to find her man again; and directly the old woman told her, says, “You just stay here with me now, and get rested up a little, and it may be I can help you. I got a lot of wool to work and I need somebody. Will you stay and help me about my wool?”

  She said yes, she would. So the next day they got all the fleeces out and she helped pick out the burs and trash, and washed the wool in the creek, while the old woman carded. Carded so fast the girl had a time keepin’ up with her and they got it all done by sundown. And that night the old woman gave her a gold chinquapin. The next day the girl she helped with the spinnin’: handed the rolls of carded wool to the old lady, and it was a sight in the world how she could spin. They got it all spun up about dark, and that night the old woman handed her a gold hickory nut. Then the third day the old woman she sat down at her loom and the girl kept fixin’ the bobbins and handin’ ’em to her and the old loom went click! wham! click! wham! all day long, and just ’fore dark the weavin’ was all done. So that night the old woman gave her a gold walnut, says, “Now you keep these three gold nuts and don’t you crack ’em till you’re in the most trouble you could ever be in. And if the first one don’t get ye out, crack the next, and if you have to crack the last ’un you surely ought to be out of your trouble by then.”

  So she thanked the old lady and the next mornin’ she left with the three gold nuts in he
r apron pocket. She went on, went on, and in three days she came to a river and she went along the river till she came to a washin’ place where a great crowd of young women was gathered, and there in the middle of all them women she saw her husband. She got through the crowd and went up to him but when he looked at her it was just as if he never had known her before in all his life.

  He didn’t have any shirt on and she saw the women lined up before the washin’ place and one girl was down on her knees washin’ his shirt with all her might. She listened and heard ’em talkin’ about how that young man had said he’d marry the one could wash the blood out of his shirt. So she got in the line and fin’lly got down to the washin’ place. The one ahead of her was a big stout woman and she was down on her knees a-washin’ that shirt so hard it looked like she’d tear it apart. Soap it and maul it with the battlin’ stick and rinse it and soap it and maul it again, but the blood just got darker and darker. So directly the girl said she’d like to have her turn. That other woman didn’t get up off her knees, looked at her, says, “Humph! If I can’t get this blood out I know a puny thing like you can’t do it.”

  Well, that girl she just leaned down and took hold on his shirt and gave it one rub and it was white as snow. But before she could turn around the other woman grabbed it and ran with it, says, “Look! Look! I washed it out!”

  So the young man he had to go home with her.

  His real wife knew now that she was in the most trouble she could ever be in. So she followed ’em and saw what house it was, and about dark she went there, went right in the door and cracked her gold chinquapin. It coiled out the finest gold wool you ever saw—just one long carded roll ready to be spun. So she started pullin’ out the gold wool and pretty soon that other woman came in and saw it, says, “Oh, I must have that! What will you take for it?”

  “Why, I couldn’t part with my gold nut.”

  “You name any price you want now, and I’ll give it to ye.”

  “Let me stay this night with your man and you can have it.”

  “Well! I must have that gold chinquapin. You go on out and wait till I call ye.”

  So she took the gold chinquapin and put it away. Then she put a sleepy pillow on the young man’s bed and just before he went to go to bed she gave him a sleepy dram, and then she called that girl, and when she went in to him he was sound asleep. She sat down beside him and tried to wake him up but he slept right on. So she stayed there by him all night cryin’ and singin:

  “Three drops of blood I’ve shed for thee!

  Three little babes I’ve born for thee!

  Whitebear Whittington! Turn to me!”

  And when daylight came that other woman made her leave. Well, the girl came back that next evening and broke the gold hickory nut. A fine spinning wheel came out of it, stood right up in the floor and started spinnin’. All you had to do was put the gold chinquapin in a crack in the logs and set the end of the wool on the spindle, and it spun right on—spin and wind, spin and wind all by itself. Hit was the finest gold thread you ever saw. And when that woman came in and saw it, said she just had to have the wheel. So the girl let her have it for another night with her man. But when she went to him he slept right on through the night because that sleepy pillow was still under his head and that woman had gone and given him another sleepy dram. So all night his wife stayed by him tryin’ to wake him up—

  “Three drops of blood I’ve shed for thee!

  Three little babes I’ve born for thee!

  Whitebear Whittington! Turn to me!”

  And early in the morning that other woman came, said, “Get on out now. Your time is up.”

  Well, the next evening the father of that woman called the young man just before bedtime. Said he wanted to have a word with him. So they walked out a ways and the old man said to him, says, “I couldn’t sleep a bit the last two nights. There’s some kind of a cryin’ noise been goin’ on in your room, and somebody singin’ a mournful song right on up through the night.”

  The young man said he had slept uncommon sound the last two nights, hadn’t heard a thing.

  “Well now,” says the old man, “I want you to be sure to stay awake tonight, and listen and see what all that carryin’ on is.”

  So that night the girl came and cracked the gold walnut and a big loom came out of it—just r’ared up in the house time she broke the nut. It was warped with gold warp and all you had to do was feed it bobbins of that gold thread and it wove right on—all by itself. The woman she heard it a-beatin’ and she came running.

  “Oh, my! I must have that! What’ll you take for your loom?”

  The girl told her.

  “Well!” she says, real hateful-like, “You can stay with him tonight but I’ll tell ye right now it’s the last time.”

  So she made the girl go out and then she looked about that sleepy pillow bein’ still on the bed, went and fixed that sleepy dram, made it real strong, and when the young man came in to go to bed she handed it to him, made him drink it; but he kept it in his mouth and when she left he spit it out. Then he looked at that pillow and threw it off the bed. Laid down and closed his eyes. The woman she looked in at him to make sure he was asleep, then she let that girl in. She came in the room and saw him there with his eyes shut and her grief nearly killed her. She didn’t know what she’d do. She came and sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on his shoulder and started cryin’:

  “Three drops of blood I’ve shed for thee!

  Three little babes I’ve born for thee!

  Whitebear Whittington!—”

  Well, time she called his name he opened his eyes and turned to her, and then he knew her. So he put his arms around her, and they went on to sleep.

  The next morning that other woman came and found the door locked and she was mad as time. And after they got up, the young man he came and called that woman’s father, said, “Let’s step outside. I want a word with you.”

  So they went out and he told the man, says, “If you had a lock and a key, and the key fitted the lock perfect, and you lost that key and got a new one; then you found the old key again, and it fitted the lock much better than the new one—which key would you keep?”

  The old man answered him, says, “Why, I’d keep the old one.”

  “Well,” says the young man, “I found my old wife last night and she suits me a lot better than your daughter does, so you can just have her back.”

  So they left and got their three children and went on home, and that spell on him was broke so he never was a bear again, and they lived happy.

  “Now that’s one tale I always did like,” admitted Sarah.

  Uncle Kel spoke up: “Speakin’ about these tales comin’ down from old times—did ye ever hear that ’un about the boy that killed the King’s deer?”

  Jeems, who knew my constant and hopeful search for Robin Hood ballads, shot me a grin as I looked up from my yellow pad, flexed my fingers, and picked up my pencil again.

  “There used to be a King over this country,” stated Old Kel, “and I reckon this tale must be an old one. Hit must’a happened before the battle of King’s Mountain. Well, anyway—”

  The Outlaw Boy

  The king claimed he had a lot of deer out in the wilderness places, and he made a law that anybody who shot his deer would be hung. Now this young feller in the tale—Robin, that was his name—he had been out a right smart with the Indians and had got to be an awful good hand with the bow ’n arrow. He was a good shot knock a dead center a hundred steps off. He liked to go out in the woods after wild turkeys and squirrels, but he never had bothered none of the King’s deer.

  Then one day he was out in the mountains and he met up with a deputy sheriff. They walked along together a piece and they got to talkin’ about shootin’, and directly they tried some shots. The deputy he’d draw his gun and shoot, come right close to the mark, but that boy would pull his arrow back and hit it right square in the center ever’ time. That riled the deputy sher
iff, havin’ a young feller like that outdo him with a bow ’n arrow, but he never let on.

  So directly they looked out down a holler and saw a deer feedin’ about a hundred yards from where they were at. The deputy says to him, says, “I’ll bet ye twenty dollars you can’t hit that deer yonder.”

  “Oh, no. I’ll not shoot no deer.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll not arrest ye. Anyhow, you can’t hit it from here.”

  “I won’t break the law, I’ll tell ye that right now.”

  “If you happen to hit it, I’ll not turn ye in; not never mention it. Are ye afraid to bet?”

  “Put up your money!” Rob told him; and they laid twenty dollars apiece there on a stump.

  So Robin drawed his bow and when he let loose the arrow that deer dropped right in its tracks. He reached down to take the money and that deputy grabbed him, says, “Now I got ye! You’ll hang for this sure. You got no witness, and they’ll take my word against your’n.”

  They scuffled around and the boy throwed him, and then the deputy reached for his gun, so Robin grabbed his bow and had an arrow on it quicker’n you could turn around and time the deputy sheriff drawed on him Robin shot him in the arm, and that deputy got up and ran off from there as fast as his legs ’uld carry him.

  Well, that boy knowed he’d get into trouble if he went back to the settlements, so he decided he’d live in the wilderness. And it wasn’t long till several others who’d got in trouble with the King one way or another j’ined Robin out there. They built ’em up a good campin’ place, and after a while there was a big gang of’em. They lived off game: killed a deer once in a while, gathered berries and nuts, and they did fairly well. They couldn’t get no powder nor lead, so they all made bows and arrows and they got to be as good shots with them as anybody else with long-rifles. Hit got to be known all over the country about them bein’ such dead shots with the bow ’n arrow.