Grandfather Tales

by Richard Chase

  The boys were intent on what Tom was carving.

  “You ain’t never made anything like that before, have ye?” asked Steve.

  “Just remembered this trick here the other day. My grandpa used to make ’em. I tried one yesterday but I made a bobble of it. Think I can get it right this time.”

  “What’s it goin’ to be?” insisted Stan.

  “You’ll see. You just wait now till I get it done.”

  The boys who’d had to take the kids home stomped back in the house. “Hit’s done clouded over,” one of them announced; “not a star showin’.” They held their hands at the newly wakened fire, and then sat down on the floor with their feet thrust toward the warmth. “We ain’t missed no tales, have we?”

  ABOUT NINE-THIRTY. . .

  “I been tryin’ to get my mind on a tale,” said Old Rob, “while you was all lookin’ at Tom’s play-pretties. Hit was about a preacher named Dry Guy, or somethin’. Dad, you told it one day when I was helpin’ you cut timber over in the head of Morning Star holler; must ’a been ten years back. We was eatin’ our grub, and you was sittin’ on a big flat rock and I’d took my dinner-bucket and got propped up against a big poplar—and you told that tale. I can remember it like yesterday—all but the tale. Everybody had to get shet of the old preacher somehow, and—”

  “‘Old Dry Frye’?”

  “That’s the very one! Tell it again.”

  Old Kel had been crumbling tobacco in the palm of his hand, and now he scooped it up and tamped it into a little store-bought cob pipe, and pondered, mumbling something about “can’t recollect all of it just right—one part there I can’t get . . .”

  Stan broke off a dry splinter from a stick of firewood, lit it, and held it to Uncle Kel’s pipe.

  “Well, I’ll try to get it started and it’ll come out all right, I reckon. I’ll put it together some way or other.”

  Old Dry Frye

  One time there was an old man named Dry Frye. He was a preacher but all he preached for was revival collections and all the fried chicken he could eat. And one time he stayed for supper and he was eatin’ fried chicken so fast he got a chicken bone stuck in his throat. Choked him to death. Well, the man of the house he was scared. “Law me!” he says, “they’ll find old Dry Frye here and they’ll hang me for murder sure!” So he took old Dry Frye to a house down the road a piece and propped him up against the door. Somebody went to go out the door directly old Dry Frye fell in the house. “Law me!” says the man of the house. “Hit’s old Dry Frye!” (Everybody knew old Dry Frye.) “We got to get shet of him quick or we’re liable to be hung for murder!”

  So he took old Dry Frye and propped him up in the bresh ’side the road. And way up in the night some men come along, thought it was a highway robber layin’ for ’em. So they chunked rocks at him, knocked him down, and when they seen who it was (everybody knew old Dry Frye) they thought they’d killed him, and they got scared they’d be hung for murder ’cause they’d passed several people on the road who’d ’a knowed who was along there that night.

  Well, they took old Dry Frye and propped him up against a man’s cornhouse. And that man he went out early the next mornin’; and he’d been missin’ corn—so when he seen there was somebody over there at his cornhouse he ran and got his gun. Slipped around, hollered, “Get away from there or I’ll shoot!”

  And when old Dry Frye never moved he shot and Dry Frye tumbled over and hit the ground.

  “Law me!” says the man. “I believe that was old Dry Frye.” (Everybody knew old Dry Frye.) “Now I’ve done killed him and I’ll sure get hung for murder.”

  So he went and saw it was him and seen how dead he was, and went to studyin’ up some way to get shet of him. Well, he throwed him in the cornhouse to hide him, and that night he took old Dry Frye down to a baptizin’ place ’side a bend in the river where they were fixin’ to have a big baptizin’ the next day, propped him up on a stump on the riverbank—over a right deep place where the bank was pretty high—propped his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. Made him look awful natural. Left him there, went on home and slept sound.

  So early the next mornin’, ’fore anybody else, a little old feisty boy came down there foolin’ around the baptizin’ place. Saw old Dry Frye, hollered, “Howdy, Mr. Frye.”

  Went over closer.

  “Howdy, Mr. Dry Frye.”

  Old Dry Frye sat right on.

  “I said Howdy, Dry Frye.”

  Old Dry Frye kept on sittin’. That boy, now he was just as feisty as he could be. He didn’t care how he spoke to nobody.

  “Look-a-here, Old Dry Frye, if you don’t answer me Howdy I’m goin’ to knock your elbows out from under you.—Howdy, Mr. Frye!”

  So that feisty boy he reached over and swiped old Dry Frye a lick and over in the river the old man went, right down the bank into that deep water, sunk clean out of sight. Then that boy thought sure he’d drownded Dry Frye. He got scared about bein’ hung for murder but he couldn’t do nothin’ about it right then ’cause he’d seen folks comin’ down the road for the baptizin’. So he hung around and directly everybody gathered for the baptizin’, and they waited and waited for old Dry Frye to come and preach, but he didn’t come and didn’t come and when they got to askin’ who’d seen old Dry Frye, one man said he’d left his place right after supper, and another man said why, no, he’d not seen old Dry Frye since last meetin’. And that feisty boy he ’uld let out a giggle where he was sittin’ on one of the benches in the back, and the other boys ’uld ask him what he was laughin’ at but he’d just get tickled again and not tell ’em nothin’. So fin’lly the folks sung a few hymns and took up a collection. So meetin’ broke and everybody went on home, and that boy he went on home, too.

  Then ’way along late that night he went down and hooked old Dry Frye out of the river and put him in a sack. Got his shoulder under it and started down the road to hide him somewhere. Well, there were a couple of rogues comin’ along that same night, had stole a couple of hogs and had ’em sacked up carryin’ ’em on their shoulders. Them rogues came over a little rise in the road, saw that boy and they got scared, dropped their sacks and run back lickety-split and hid in the bresh. The boy he never saw the two rogues so he came on, saw them two sacks and set old Dry Frye down to see what was in the other sacks. Then he left old Dry Frye layin’ there, picked up one of the hogs and went on back home.

  So the two rogues they slipped out directly and when they saw the two sacks still layin’ there, they picked ’em up and kept on goin’. Got in home and hung the sacks up in the meathouse. Then the next mornin’ the old woman got up to cook breakfast, went out to the smokehouse to cut some meat. Ripped open one of them sacks and there hung old Dry Frye. Well, she hollered and dropped her butcher knife and she got away from there in such a hurry she tore down one side of the smokehouse, broke out two posts on the back porch, and knocked the kitchen door clean off the hinges. She was sorta scared. She hollered and squalled and the men come runnin’ in their shirt-tails and fin’lly looked out in the smokehouse, saw old Dry Frye hangin’ up there in the place of a hog.

  “Law me!” says one of’em. “Hit’s old Dry Frye!” (Everybody knew old Dry Frye.) “We’ll sure be hung for murder if we don’t get shet of him some way or other.”

  Well, they had some wild horses in a wilderness out on the mountain. So they rounded up one of ’em, got him in the barn. Then they put an old no-’count saddle on him and an old piece of bridle, and put old Dry Frye on. Stropped his legs to the bellyband, tied his hands to the saddlehorn and pulled the reins through, stuck his old hat on his head; and then they slipped out and opened all the gates. Opened the barn door and let the horse go. He shot out of there and down the road he went with that old preacher-man a-bouncin’ first one side and then the other. And them rogues run out and went to shootin’ and hollerin’, “He’s stole our horse! Stop him! Somebody stop him yonder! Horse thief! Horse thief!” Everybody down the road come run
nin’ out their houses a-shoutin’ and hollerin’ and a-shootin’ around, but that horse had done jumped the fence and took out up the mountain and it looked like he was headed for Kentucky.

  And as far as I know old Dry Frye is over there yet a-tearin’ around through the wilderness on that wild horse.

  “Rhody,” said Granny, “did I ever tell you about Catskins?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You girls’ll like this one,” said Delia.

  Granny London clasped her thin hands together over her knee and leaned forward . . .

  Rhody’s boyish restlessness seemed to leave her as the tale unfolded. She listened breathlessly, her eyes dreaming with a quiet intensity as Granny evoked the ancient spell—the fate of the beautiful young girl who once, in ages past, had to play her part sitting in the ashes . . .

  Catskins

  Once there was a girl had no father and mother. She stayed with some people and they made her work for what she ate. They never paid her a thing, didn’t give her any clothes or nothin’. All she had was one old dress, and when it got ragged all she could find to patch it with was old cat-hides; and fin’lly her whole dress wasn’t nothin’ but cat-skins—cat-skins all over, with the tails hangin’ out. So they called her Catskins.

  Well, this man’s wife she took sick and died. And one day, fairly soon after the buryin’, the man was out in the fields plowin’; and Catskins she washed herself and put on the dead woman’s weddin’ dress: went out in the yard and started walkin’ around. That man he saw her and came runnin’ to the house. He looked at Catskins and asked her would she marry him.

  “Well,” she says, “you get me a dress the color of all the fish that swim in the sea.”

  So he got her the dress. Said, “Will you marry me now?”

  She says to him, says, “Will you get me a dress the color of all the birds that fly through the air?”

  He got her that kind of a dress, says, “Will you marry me?”

  “Now,” she says to him, “you’ll have to get me a dress the color of all the flowers that grow in the world.”

  So he went and got her that dress, says, “Now will you marry me?”

  “I might marry ye,” she told him, “if you give me your flyin’ box.”

  He didn’t want to part with his flyin’ box, but he wanted to marry Catskins awful bad; so he went and got her the flyin’ box.—“Now, let’s get married.”

  “Well,” she says, “you go on out so I can put on one of my dresses.”

  And time the man left out the back door Catskins dragged the flyin’ box out the front door, put all her dresses in it; then she got in the box right quick, says:

  “Rise and fly!

  ’Way up high!”

  And the box rose up in the air and Catskins flew on off from there.

  She flew right on across the country till she saw a big house—

  “Light me down!

  Right to the ground!”

  The box lit, and she got out—

  “Sink and lock,

  under this rock!”

  So the box sunk out of sight under the rock, and Catskins she went on to the big house in her old cat-skin dress. It was a rich man lived there, and Catskins went around to the back door and knocked. The woman of the house opened the door and looked out; and when she saw Catskins, she jumped.

  “Law me! What do you want?”

  “I want to work.”

  “Do you think I’d hire a thing like you?”

  The old woman’s girl was standin’ there by the door, says, “Don’t be so hard-hearted, Mother. Let her work in the kitchen.”

  “All right then—but never a bite she cooks will go in my mouth.”

  So Catskins went to the kitchen to go to work; and time she walked in the door with them cats’ tails a-hangin’ out all over her, the kitchen folks was scared to death. They ran out of there like somethin’ was after ’em! Then some of ’em slipped back and peeked around the doors, and hollered “Scat!” But when they saw it was just a poor girl and not any sort of varmint they came on back; and so Catskins went to work with the poor folks there in the kitchen.

  Well, they were havin’ a big dance at the King’s house one night and Catskins was helpin’ that girl get ready to go.

  “You want to go, Catskins? You can look in the windows with the other poor folks.”

  Catskins said she didn’t think she’d go: she might—and she might not. Then when they’d all left, she went to her box—

  “Rise again,

  and let me in!”

  And the box rose from under the rock and unlocked itself for her. She took out the dress that was the color of all the fish in the sea and put it on and got in her box and flew on up to the King’s house.

  “Who’s that?” everybody said when she walked in. “Who can that be?” But nobody knew who she was.

  The King’s son was there and he took off with her right now! Kept her for his partner and they led off in every set they danced. That boy he kept his eyes on Catskins every minute but she hardly let him talk to her; and directly they were doin’ Lady-’Round-the-Lady, and she and that boy got around the set to the couple near the door, and when Catskins did Lady-’Round-the-Gent-and-the-Gent-Don’t-Go she slipped out the door and ran to her box and flew on back. And when they all came home there she was sittin’ by the kitchen fire in her old cat-skin dress.

  “Were you there, Catskins?”

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “Did you see that pretty girl?”

  “Yes, I saw her.”

  “Well, the King is havin’ another dance tonight. I wonder will that girl come.” Said, “You let me sleep till three o’clock tomorrow; I want to be beautiful for that dance.”

  So the next night Catskins helped that girl get her hair done up, and after they all left she went to her box. And when she walked in that time she had on her dress the color of all the birds in the air.

  “There she is!” they all went to whisperin’. “That’s her!” But nobody knew who she was.

  The King’s son he got her again and they danced and she talked to him a little. She had a hard time gettin’ away from him because he wouldn’t pay attention to anybody but her—but fin’lly she slipped out the door and took off; and when they all got back to the house there was little old Catskins sittin’ in the kitchen.

  “O Catskins! Were you there?”

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “And did you see what a pretty dress that girl had on this time?”

  “Yes, I saw it.”

  “They say the King’s boy is struck on her—hard. He’s goin’ to have another dance tomorrow night. Don’t you wake me up till four o’clock. I want to be real beautiful, because this is the last dance.”

  Well, the next night the girl said to Catskins, “If you want to go, I’ll lend you one of my dresses, and you can come on in and dance.”

  “Humpf!” said the old woman. “You can lend her a dress if you want to, but never a dress of mine will go on her back!”

  So the girl got one of her old dresses for Catskins, and Catskins thanked her and when they’d all left she went to her box and got out her dress the color of all the flowers in the world. And when she walked in the King’s house that time everybody just carried on over how beautiful she was, and they all tried to figure out who she could be, but nobody knew her.

  The King’s boy wouldn’t let go of her hand all evenin’, and they danced and danced—every figure, from Four-Hands-Round to Killiecrankie—and she talked to him, and they laughed, and everybody had the best kind of time. Then, just about midnight, he slipped a ring on her finger and when he did that he let go of her hand a second, and Catskins was out the door and gone ’fore he could turn around.

  So she hid her dresses and that ring in the flyin’ box and made it hide again under that rock—and when they all came back in home there was little Catskins sittin’ in the kitchen up against the fire place with soot and ashes all over her
face and hands.

  “Oo, Catskins! Were you there tonight?”

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “Why, I never saw ye.”

  “I saw you.”

  “Well, did you ever see such a pretty dress as that girl had on?”

  “Yes, it was right pretty.”

  “Well, there won’t be any more dances now; and they say that when that girl left nobody saw which way she went or nothin’. And they tell me the King’s boy never did learn her name or where she came from.”

  The very next day the King’s son started huntin’ for the girl who wore the three beautiful dresses. He hunted and he searched, and he asked everybody he met up with but nobody could tell him a thing; but he kept on searchin’ and huntin’ for her, and he wouldn’t eat, and fin’lly he was sick-in-bed. The doctors came and they said he was lovesick: said he’d die unless that girl was found.

  Well, all the girls tried to make up to him; baked him cakes and took ’em up there to where he was lyin’ sick-in-bed. So one day Catskins said she’d bake a cake for him.

  “I say!” That old woman went to squawkin’. “You bake him a cake! He would get sick if you was to bake him a cake!”

  “Aw, Mother, don’t be so hard-hearted. Let her bake him a cake if she wants to.”

  “Well! There’ll be no bite of it go in my mouth!”