by Vicki Lane
“Reckon why she wants to put them flower pictures all over herself?” Frowning, Birdie cocked her head. “I asked her would they wash off and she said they weren’t supposed to. And a ring in her nose like an ol’ bull— I never heared of such.”
The little woman measured out a double length of twine, secured it to the side rail of the chair, and began to weave. Over three, under two, over three, under two. “I hate it about that big feller. He was a pretty good somebody. Did you know he come down and cleared out my gutters atter that last big rain? I offered to pay him but he wouldn’t take no money. So I give him a jar of my bread-and-butter pickles— I’d just finished three runs of them. He set right there where you’re a-settin’, Lizzie Beth, and et ever last pickle in the jar. Said they was the best he’d ever tasted.” Birdie smiled happily at the memory. “’Em three was right quare dudes but leastways they was always friendly. Not like them Florida people moved in down the branch, won’t even throw up their hand when they ride by.”
It was quickly established that Birdie knew what there was to be known about the fire. Except for the part about the so-called nanny, thought Elizabeth. Kyra must not have told the sheriff about that last night.
“I guess we’ll know more about it when they get done with the investigation, Miss Birdie. Kyra’s going to be at my place for a while—”
“Reckon that’ll be all right with Ben.” Birdie glanced sideways at Elizabeth and smiled knowingly. “I seen ’em go down the road together this mornin’.”
Elizabeth sighed and wondered briefly if anything ever happened on Ridley Branch without Miss Birdie’s knowing about it. “Miss Birdie, one reason I stopped by was to see if you could lend me some quilts.”
* * *
Some were on the beds; some were folded on closet shelves. A once-beautiful Grandmother’s Flower Garden, now tattered and faded to a pale shadow of its original splendor, was in use as an ironing board cover. Triangular scorch marks dotted the little pastel hexagons that some hand had so carefully stitched together. “Ain’t much left of that one,” Birdie remarked cheerfully, seeing Elizabeth run her hand gently over the old quilt’s soft surface. She dumped two quilts from the closet unceremoniously on the bed. “These here is in the best shape.”
“These here” were a gaudy red-and-blue Jacob’s Ladder in prints and plaids from the fifties and a crazy quilt made from thin woolens in autumnal colors. A determined herringbone embroidery stitch covered every seam, and embroidered flowers, animals, names, and initials were worked in many of the larger patches. Elizabeth spread the quilt out to study the embroidery. Some was crude and straggling; some was beautifully executed. “Who made this one, Miss Birdie?”
The plump little woman frowned. “Ay law, let me think on it. Now, I believe that one belonged to my brother’s wife. Britty Mae’s been gone, must be twenty-four years come November. And Lexter, he died in a car wreck two years after she went. Didn’t none of their childern want this quilt, so I took it.”
The old woman leaned down to peer at an embroidered motif in the center of the quilt. A heart encircled the names Britty Mae & Lexter and the date 1931. “I believe she told me that some of her friends from home give it to her when her and Lexter got married. Look at that piece of wool crepe.” Her gnarled finger rested lovingly on a mulberry-hued triangle. “I had me a dress out of goods just like that.”
Miss Birdie’s fingers absently traced an embroidered flower. “Britty Mae weren’t from here. She was raised up over beyond Hot Springs— place called Shut In. But she had went to school to learn to be a beauty operator and she got her a job in Ransom and went to boardin’ there. That’s where Lexter met her— saw her in the dime store. He come home and told me he’d seen the girl he aimed to marry.”
“I went to Shut In yesterday,” Elizabeth offered. “A friend of mine has an aunt—”
“I seen you and your feller headin’ out.” Miss Birdie gave a knowing nod. “He ain’t been around much lately, now has he? I figgered you and him must of fell out. Now look at this,” she continued, ignoring Elizabeth’s attempts to set her straight, “ain’t that the purtiest thing?”
Her fingers rested on a large embroidered sunflower— the most beautiful of any of the work on the quilt. The many petals twisted and fluttered as though caught in a breeze, their carefully shaded yellows and golds adding unusual depth to the stitchery. The dark brown center was a swirl of tiny French knots representing the ripening seeds. Just below the graceful heart-shaped green leaves on the flower’s sturdy stalk were tiny embroidered letters.
“Can you make that out, Lizzie Beth? What does it say?”
Elizabeth leaned closer. “Tildy…it looks like…Rector.”
“I might of knowed,” sniffed Birdie. “Couldn’t no one else ’broider like that.” She straightened, pressing the backs of both hands to her back. “Ay law, Tildy Rector. I ain’t thought of her in many a year. Course I didn’t really what you might say know her. Only seed her the oncet. But Britty Mae knowed her good. Her and her sister.” The old woman frowned. “Now what was that sister’s name? I cain’t remember nothin’, seems like.”
Birdie leaned back over the bed, scanning the quilt intently. “Her name had ought to be on here too. Now where—?”
“Is this it?” Elizabeth held up the lower left corner of the quilt. A blue daisy consisting of a lumpish French knot surrounded by six uneven loops for petals was stitched loosely above crooked block letters spelling out FANCHON TEAGUE.
Elizabeth studied the daisy, then looked back at the sunflower. Something seemed wrong, something…
“That’s her. I mind Britty Mae showin’ me them two flowers. She laughed about it— how them two girls was so different. She said that Fanchon could do ever thing in the world— sing and play the banjo and make all the young fellers to fall in love with her— but when it come to needlework, she might as well of had two left hands. Tildy was ahead of her there. Seems like Britty Mae said that didn’t nobody like Tildy much— said Tildy was as plain as an ol’ boot and had a way of allus sayin’ just the wrong thing. Tildy didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Britty Mae said, but most folk took against her. Fanchon was the one that ever one made much of, her so pretty and sweet-talkin’. But fer all that, it was Tildy that was Britty Mae’s friend.”
Miss Birdie’s gaze lingered on the sunflower. “Law, how it all comes back to me now. Tildy had told Britty Mae about the way that Fanchon done her— why, it was a pitiful thing— and Tildy the rightful daughter. I mind it like as it was yesterday, Britty Mae standin’ there in her and Lexter’s bedroom, holdin’ this very quilt and a-sayin’, ‘Fanchon may fool a lot of folks, like she fools Miss Caro and Miss Lily, but I’ll tell you what’s the truth— that huzzy is a street angel and a home devil.’ ”
* * *
It was late afternoon. The sun had dropped behind the mountain and Elizabeth was in her salad garden, tearing out the bitter old lettuce that was bolting in spite of the shade cloth. She packed the uprooted plants into an old feed sack and was on her way down to delight the chickens with a treat of fresh greens when she became aware that a single heifer was loitering on the flat spot under a big tulip poplar at the edge of the woods— the same heifer, if she wasn’t mistaken, that had been there early in the morning. She looked toward Pinnacle’s peak— yes, the rest of the herd had moved up the mountain for the lusher grass at the top.
“I wonder— there was one heifer that Ben said was bagging up— maybe I ought to go check to see if her calf’s starting to come.” She left the bag of lettuce and started for the gate into the pasture.
For the most part, the cows of Full Circle Farm gave birth unattended and with little trouble. Occasionally a heifer bearing her first calf would require assistance, particularly if she was small. But as Elizabeth neared the big poplar she was delighted to see a small dark red calf curled up on the ground. The cow, a heifer no longer now that she had produced a calf, lowed softly and began to lick her tiny offspring. The little
creature at once rose, hind end first, balanced on wobbly legs, and teetered to its mother’s swollen bag. It thrust its little head at the udder in a series of surprisingly hard butts, captured a dripping teat, and began to suck.
“What a good mama! A fine baby and it’s a heifer too!”
After a quick check to be sure that there was no retained placental tissue dangling from the cow’s rear, Elizabeth decided to walk on into the woods for a little way. Now that the sun had set, it was almost cool among the huge poplars and hemlocks, maples and hickories. She walked on, savoring the breeze that rustled the leaves above her and listening to the small scurryings and tappings of the wild inhabitants of this bit of the farm. The staccato hammer of a pileated woodpecker brrred out like machine-gun fire, and a gray squirrel’s raucous warning chatter sounded from a tree just ahead.
Suddenly, she heard a single explosive bang just as something whistled past her head. Incredulous, she stood frozen. There was complete silence for a moment, then a clatter of wings as the big black and white woodpecker flapped away.
At last she found her voice. “Goddammit, get out of here! No hunting! There’re cows and dogs and people here, for god’s sake!”
She waited, listening hard. At last she heard a stealthy rustling that quickly diminished into nothingness. Idiot kids, she raged, probably the Robertses from the next holler. I know Ben’s had to run them off before. By god, I think I’m going to call Morris Roberts and complain. We’ve always gotten along just fine but now that his new wife’s kids are living with them…
Fuming, she turned back, the pleasure of the walk spoiled. The pale splintered wound in the big maple just a few yards behind her made her catch her breath. Sweet Jesus, that was close. Her heart was pounding as she strode quickly back down the path toward the garden.
FROM LILY GORDON’S JOURNAL— THIRD ENTRY
Today I came across an article about Leo Frank, the Atlanta Jew who, years ago, was unjustly accused of the rape and murder of a young Gentile girl. I had almost forgotten the story— but I was struck by a photograph of him in the courtroom— a faraway, doomed stare, as if he knew what lay ahead— the unjust guilty verdict, the anti-Semitic crowds, the rabid lynch mob, the noose and the slow strangling death. I remember too being moved by that same expression not long ago in a film on the television— The Last of the Mohicans it was— the kidnapped girl at the edge of the cliff— her Indian captor beckoning her to move away from the perilous edge and that same lost, hopeless look— the look of a spirit already leaving the body— crosses her face before she turns and deliberately plunges to her death. And I have seen it one other time— not in a film nor a photograph, but on a face I loved, a face whose eyes looked into mine, then turned away forever.
But I run ahead of myself. I must tell the story as it occurred and in its entirety, beginning with my arrival in Hot Springs, North Carolina— early April of 1934.
I had changed trains in Asheville without time for a look at this thriving Southern town. My only impression was that it was certainly no Boston. And as the train for Hot Springs sped along the narrow railway that clung to the rocky cliffs high above the dashing French Broad River, it seemed to me that we were on a journey back in time. From my window I could see log cabins, rudely built unpainted barns, ramshackle outbuildings, men turning the red soil behind teams of mules or even oxen. A tiny child, sitting on a quilt at the edge of a field, waved at me when the train made one of its many stops to pick up or discharge a passenger at some rural crossroads, and I saw that his feet were bare though the air was still cold.
Miss Geneva, as she was called by one and all, met me at the train station in a quaint farm wagon pulled by a sorrel mule. She raised her eyebrows at the amount of baggage that I had with me, but said nothing beyond, I hope we have room; I’ve been buying supplies.
Indeed, the wagon bed was heaped with boxes and bags and it was only with much careful maneuvering that my three large valises were added to the rest. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that I had not, as Mother wished, brought my steamer trunk too.
Miss Geneva, a short sturdy woman of about forty, handled the reins skillfully, urging the red mule into a quick walk as we turned onto the rutted wagon road that led to Shut In and the Appalachian Women’s Crafts Center. She explained that while the Center owned an automobile, it was difficult to manage on the unpaved back roads, as well as being prone to inexplicable breakdowns. And as I’m no mechanic, she told me, and Caro won’t even learn to drive an automobile, we bought old Pete and the wagon from a family that was moving to Detroit.
I replied somewhat absently for I was looking all about me in wide-eyed wonder, trying to absorb the new sights. Miss Geneva said nothing for a time, then exclaimed, I hope you’ll stay longer than our last recruit. She took one look at our outhouse and had me drive her back to the station. I shuddered inwardly but answered that I was prepared to “rough it.” Miss Geneva laughed, not unkindly, and said, We’ll see.
We had been traveling for some while when we pulled up at a big log house with a tidy front yard a-bloom with jonquils. I’m going to pick up work from two of our girls, Miss Geneva said, handing me the reins. Pull back hard if he tries any foolishness.
She climbed down from the wagon and approached the house, calling out, Fanchon! Tildy! Almost immediately the front door opened and one of the loveliest creatures I had ever seen stepped out to the porch. Be right there, Miss Geneva, she sang out. The faded shapeless housedress could not conceal her perfect form, and her thick, wavy red-blonde hair skewered in a loose knot atop her head brought immediately to mind the words “crowning glory.” At this time almost all other girls of her age had succumbed to the Dutch bob or Eton crop— short severe haircuts that made pretty girls plain and plain girls ugly. Fanchon’s hair, as I would learn later, fell below her waist.
She ducked back into the house for a moment, then reappeared with a large bundle wrapped in burlap. Behind her with a similar bundle was another girl, also in her late teens but of such different appearance. She was lumpish and sallow and her mousy brown hair, cut fashionably short, frizzed uncontrollably around her blotchy face. Hard luck on her if they are sisters, I thought.
The girls brought their bundles out to the wagon and were introduced. Fanchon, the beauty, was shy and would hardly look at me, but Tildy at once peppered me with questions about where I had come from and what was my dress made of and whose picture did I have in that there locket. I could understand less than half of her chatter, so thick was her mountain brogue, and I found her eager importuning a trifle distasteful.
As indeed, I think, did Miss Geneva. The minute the bundles were crammed in amongst the supplies and my valises, she climbed back to the wagon seat and took the reins. That’ll do for now, Tildy. Miss Lily will be at the Center when you come to get your earnings and to pick up more material. Miss Geneva hesitated, then said to her, almost unwillingly, We have a special project in mind for you. Her tone was brusque but her voice softened when she turned to Fanchon. You come too, child.
As we traveled on, Miss Geneva told me about the two girls— both did handicrafts that were marketed through the Center. Fanchon hooked rugs and Tildy was one of the Center’s most accomplished needlewomen. It had been decided to entrust to her the making of a wonderful quilt— a showpiece for her talents— that would be presented to President and Mrs. Roosevelt in appreciation of their work for the poor of the area. It should help to bring the Center more recognition, Miss Geneva said. If only we can get our name better known, then we can build a wider market for our ladies’ work. We sell a good amount in Asheville through The Three Mountaineers, but Caro and I have set our sights on outlets in big cities like New York and Chicago.
We arrived at the Center— a modest farmhouse with a barn that had been converted to a workroom. Miss Carolyn came to meet us, a tall slender woman with something of a vague and ethereal manner. She was trailing bits of wool and brushing at the white fluff that clung to her skirt. Welcome, my dear
, she cried, holding out her hand to help me down from the wagon. Please excuse my appearance; I’ve been spinning and it does so adhere!
We hauled my valises to what would be my room; I was shown the dreaded outhouse and was delicately instructed in the use of powdered lime, then told to settle in while the ladies unloaded the wagon. I was glad for a little time alone to absorb the new atmosphere. It was far more rustic than any place I had ever visited but nothing like the horrors my mother had imagined. I decided, however, that I would not mention the outhouse in my letters home.
My room was simple and scrupulously clean. An iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, a small table and chair, and a wooden rocker were the furnishings. A row of pegs on one wall were my closet; a kerosene lamp on the table, my illumination. But there was a soft pink and green hooked rug on the floor, a white and pink quilt on the bed, and airy white embroidered curtains hung at the window. Outside the window was a gnarled apple tree and beyond it lay a charming vista of rolling meadows and wooded slopes.
I had done no more than remove my hat and tidy my hair when Miss Carolyn tapped at my door. The kettle’s on the boil, she trilled. Why don’t you join us in the kitchen for a cup of tea?
We sat around a battered old wooden table, its top worn smooth by use. The pungent aroma of mint rose from the teapot— a heavy-looking thing of dark brown pottery. Miss Carolyn beamed as she filled my mug— more heavy pottery— and I smiled to think of Mother’s pronouncement that tea may only be served in fine porcelain— preferably of an eggshell thinness.
We dry the branch mint ourselves, Miss Geneva explained, and the honey’s from a neighbor’s gums.
I looked apprehensively at the little jar of dark honey and Miss Carolyn giggled. Oh, Geneva, we’ll have to teach her the language.