The Moonflower Vine

by Jetta Carleton

  Sometimes, though, when he felt guilty and took it out on her, it was hard to keep quiet. She wished she could dress him down proper. But she held her peace and did what she could, with sassafras tea, wild greens, and patience, to thin his blood, keep his bowels open, and hasten his return.

  Jessica was seven years old that spring, in her first year at school. Each morning Matthew dropped her off at Bitterwater on his way to Renfro. In the afternoons she walked home across the fields or a neighbor gave her a lift. Leonie, who had just turned five, had begged to go to school all year. And on a morning in April—a particularly warm fine morning—she was allowed to go with Jessica to “visit.” Matthew was cross, having to drive the buggy that day; it delayed his getting to school. But Leonie had run them ragged and he supposed he might as well take her.

  Callie waved them out of sight and hurried in to start the morning’s work. Since the day was fine, she put the bedding out to air, hanging the quilts on the line and spreading the featherbeds on the grass. Reluctant to go inside, she decided to go looking for her broody-hen. The cantankerous thing, she had hidden a nest somewhere and they hadn’t been able to find it.

  She walked down through the pasture thinking of the hen—the soft, plump, stupid thing, hidden away somewhere on the warm eggs, drowsing and waiting out her time, till she should come out, a fussy old biddy with yellow puffballs cheeping after her on their twiggy feet. She smiled to herself. Even a hen took pride in her babies. And a hen didn’t know the half of it. How much prouder it was having babies because you loved someone. “Oh, Matthew!” she said aloud, woefully. What was the matter with that man, and why didn’t he act like he used to! She missed him. She missed her chickens, too. She wished she had kept Leonie at home. It was lonesome with no one there at all. These days, it was lonesome even with them. She sighed and, after a desultory search, went back to the house.

  She was working in the kitchen when a sound from the front caught her attention. Hoping it might be a neighbor passing, she ran eagerly to see. To her alarm, a strange man was coming through the gate. He was dark-skinned. He wore a plume of redbud in his hat, and he jingled as he walked. Gypsy! she thought in panic, but was instantly reassured by the pack slung over his shoulder. He was a peddler, and though it was early for them, peddlers were no cause for alarm. Nevertheless, he was a man and a stranger, and her finger came down instinctively on the screen door hook. She would have run away and hid, except that he had seen her.

  “Good morning!” he called. He came across the yard with a prancing step, a young man, rather slight of build. The jingling came from a harness bell on his shoe. Now that she saw him closer, he was not as dark as she thought; part of his color came from the sun. But his hair and his eyes were black, and there was something about him that marked him, if not as a gypsy, as some sort of foreigner. He stopped at the doorstep, slipped the pack from his shoulder, and took off his hat. “Fine day today!” he announced, looking as pleased as if the weather were his own doing. “May I present myself—Marco Polo of the wilderness, a caravan of one, with a cargo of riches—silks, laces, and jewels, the pearls of the Orient, also pins, needles and plug tobacco—and,” he added, taking the sprig of redbud from his hat, “flowers for the ladies!”

  He held it out with a big friendly smile. But if he thought she was going to open the door for him, he was mistaken. “That ain’t a flower, it’s redbud, and I got a woods full of it.”

  He laughed as if she had made a joke. “Is that your woods back there? Then it was yours in the first place. I stole it,” he admitted cheerfully. “But since it belongs to you, I’ll give it back, none the worse for wear. On second thought,” he said, barely pausing for breath, “I think I won’t. Since you have a woods full and I have this one little branch, I’ll keep it, with your permission.”

  “You can have it.”

  “Thank you!” He stuck it back in his hatband and looked up with his bright smile.

  “Ain’t it a little early for you peddlers?” she said.

  “As a matter of fact, yes! And I didn’t intend to be here so early, or to be here at all.”

  “Then how come you’re here?”

  “I’m lost!” he said happily, flinging out his arms. “I know I’m somewhere in Missouri and a quarter hour’s walk from a redbud tree, but aside from that, I don’t know where I am.”

  “Well, my land, how’d you get here?”

  “I walked.”

  “Where from?”

  “A railway stop. Not a town, only a stop, somewhere in the wilds.”

  “I reckon you mean the junction, back that way. Trains that don’t go through Renfro stop there sometimes.”

  “Renfro?”

  “The closest town. Is that where you was headed?”

  “I don’t think so! I was headed south, to the hill country, where it’s almost summer already. But yesterday—you remember what a fine day it was, like today, only this one is better—yesterday the thought hit me to get off at this—junction, wherever it is, and have a look at the countryside. It’s nice around here, the sun was warm, and I was tired of riding. There would be another train to take me where I was going. So away I went! I started walking along the road, thinking that if I came to a house, maybe I could make a sale. If I didn’t, then I wouldn’t. The only trouble was—I got lost in the woods.”

  “Why didn’t you keep to the road?”

  “I find it hard.” He smiled, cocking his head to one side like a robin, which was in fact what he made her think of, with his bright black eyes and his flickering step, and being so early in the season. “There was a path,” he said. “I can never resist a path. No telling where it will lead you! Well, this one led me to a stream and left me. But that was not bad. I caught a beautiful fish! I ate him for supper.”

  “How did you cook it?”

  “I built a fire. And I have a pan. I carry one here,” he said, nudging the pack with his toe, “for I never know where mealtime will find me. After my supper, I curled up in my coat, by my little fire, and had a good night’s rest.”

  “You stayed all night in the woods?”

  “There was no place else!”

  “My land, though, wasn’t it cold?”

  “It was! But with my fire and my coat, it was all right. I don’t mind the cold. This morning I had a dip in the stream. Yes,” he laughed, seeing her shudder, “I was numb to the bone. But I thawed in the sunshine. I felt good. All I had to do now was find my way back to the railroad. So I took my bearings and started out. But if you say the junction is that direction, then I am not a very good woodsman. I’m only a lucky fellow, delighted to be here!”

  “If you’re going to be lucky enough to catch that afternoon train, you better get started.”

  “Is there a later one?”

  “Not till late tonight.”

  “Then if I miss the one, I can take another. In the meantime, with your permission, I’d be pleased to show you my wares.”

  “I’m sorry you had to walk all this way,” said Callie, “but there ain’t anything I need. You might as well not waste your time.”

  “But I have the whole day,” he said, spreading his arms.

  “Well, I haven’t. I’ve got work to do.”

  “And here I stand, taking up your time. Forgive me!”

  “Oh, that’s all right.”

  “But as long as I’m here,” he said, bright as a button again, “and if you are too busy, perhaps I could open my pack for the children—only to entertain them; you don’t have to buy. You have children?”

  “Two little girls. They’re both at school.”

  “Then your husband?”

  “My husband’s—at work. In the barn,” she added firmly. “There ain’t anything he needs, either.”

  “Then you,” said the peddler, with a pleading smile. “Why don’t you have a look? It won’t take a moment. I have silks—fine silks for pretty dresses? Ribbons? Gold buttons? Please—as long as I’m here?”

  �
�Well…” She looked thoughtfully at the pack. She did love those glittering grab bags. “Well, all right, I’ll take a look. Just a look, though; I can’t buy nothin’.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said, tugging at the straps.

  “Spread it out there on the porch. I can see from here.”

  “Yes ma’am.” The pack burst open like a ripe melon, rich with color and seeded with small necessities, pin papers, needles, spools of thread.

  “My, you sure carry a lot!”

  “Everything your heart desires, and I know the hearts of the ladies.” He began to pull out lengths of bright silk, crimson and silvery green and one with a broad purple stripe. Not a serviceable black in the lot.

  “Tss!” said Callie. “Ain’t them the prettiest things!”

  He pulled out another and spread it open with a flick of the wrist. It was taffeta, russet and green like the feathers of a Rhode Island Red. Its restless colors glistened in the sun and made a whispering sound.

  “My!” she breathed. “It’s just lovely.”

  The peddler scattered gilt buttons across it, as if they were a handful of corn. Then he brought out loops of ribbons, pink ones, blue, yellow, and red. Callie looked at them with shining eyes, thinking of the little girls.

  “How much would them cost, I wonder?”

  “My ribbon is six cents a yard. It’s nice and wide, good quality.”

  She figured it in her head, frowning. “I’d have to have about four yards.”

  “I’ll make you a price. Four yards for twenty cents.”

  “Hm…” She held her lower lip between her teeth. Blue for Jessica, yellow for Leonie, such pretty sashes for their new dresses. But if she bought the ribbon, she would have to open the door. Though he seemed a nice young man, you couldn’t be too careful. “Well, no,” she said at last, “I just can’t do it. I’m real sorry.”

  “So am I—if you want the ribbon. Make it fifteen!”

  “No. But thank you just the same. I better get along without it. I’m sorry to waste your time.”

  “I’m not sorry at all,” he said with his quick smile.

  “If you hurry, you can still get to the junction by train time.”

  She watched him fit the treasures back into the pack, folding and tucking, his slender brown hands flickering among the silks. Scraps of sunlight lay on his bent head. The hair was thick and glossy and it curled on the back of his neck. It needed trimming, she thought, but noted that his neck was clean. He closed the pack and began to buckle the straps.

  “You left something out,” she said.

  “I know it.”

  She looked at the coil of blue ribbon left on the porch, and back at him, and a glare of suspicion kindled in her eye. “What’d you do that for?”

  “I’d like to make you a trade.”

  “What kind of a trade?” she said, backing away. The shotgun was in the kitchen, and she knew how to use it.

  He went on working with the straps. When they were fastened, he straightened up, holding the ribbon. “If it wouldn’t be too much to ask, could I please trade you the ribbon for an egg?”

  “An egg!” It was so far from what she expected that she had to laugh. “What for?”

  “I am hungry!” he said, with such a comical look on his face that she laughed again.

  “Well, forever more! I reckon you are, lost in the woods all night, like you were.”

  “I chased a cow, but I couldn’t milk her.”

  “Put your ribbon away,” she said; “I reckon I ain’t going to let you starve.”

  “No, no, we’ll make a fair trade. The ribbon for an egg. Or maybe—it’s a nice long piece, four yards at the very least—maybe two eggs?”

  “I got plenty. I can fix you all you want.”

  “I didn’t ask you for that, ma’am.”

  “Well, you ain’t going to eat ’em raw, like a ’possum!”

  “I have done it. It’s not so bad.”

  “Ain’t any use in that. I’ll fry ’em for you.”

  “But I have taken up enough of your time—you have work to do.”

  “Well, yes, I do,” she said, recalling her words.

  “I’ll cook them myself, as I cooked the fish. I can build a fire, I have a pan. I’ll make out, as I always do.”

  “Well—” She considered a moment. “If you want to cook your own breakfast, I reckon I could let you do it out in the lot. That way, you’ll be handy to water.”

  “That would be all right?”

  “I think it would. Just be careful you don’t set nothin’ on fire.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  “But you don’t have to unpack all your stuff. I’ll give you something to cook in. Come on around to the back.”

  “Thank you!”

  She ran through the house, hooked the back screen, and waited till he came around the corner. “You go on and get your fire started, out there by the cultivator. Don’t get too close to the stump. I’ll put the things here on the step and you can come and get them.”

  When he was safely beyond the gate, she took out a skillet and two large eggs and cut him a slice of bacon. After a moment’s thought, she added a third egg, and set them outside on the step, careful as she came in to hook the screen again.

  She could see him from the kitchen window. He had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Within a few minutes, he had a small blaze going. He knelt beside it, fanning it with his hat. Seeing him start toward the house, she moved back from the window. He came to the step, the harness bell jingling, and jingled away again. Going to the door, she saw that he had left the ribbon, neatly folded on a burdock leaf and weighted down by an egg. He had taken only two.

  She smiled as she stepped outside. “Thank you,” she called, waving the ribbon. He waved back.

  She might have given him a slice of bread. “Why didn’t I think of that?” she said, going back to the kitchen. She cut a thick slice, spread it with butter, and set it on the step in a saucer. “Here’s some bread for you.”

  She waited for him, just inside the door, not bothering this time to hook it. “Two eggs ain’t much of a breakfast. I figured you’d like some bread with it.”

  “You’ve done more than enough. I shall have to give you more ribbon,” he said with a smile.

  “You don’t have to do that. Enjoy your breakfast.”

  A few minutes later, she stepped outside again with a bowl of apple preserves. She started to call him, but it seemed foolish to keep him running back and forth. She walked out as far as the gate. He was kneeling at the fire with his back to her, and as he still had not seen her, she went on out. “I brought you some preserves.”

  “Oh, hello!” he said, springing up. “What’s this you’ve brought me?”

  He was not as tall as Matthew, but taller than she. “They’re apple,” she said.

  “I like apples.” He dipped his finger into the bowl and licked it. “Good.”

  “I’m partial to ’em. Some folks ain’t.” She stood for a second or two and, thinking of nothing else to say, turned to leave.

  “Won’t you stay?”

  “Oh no, I’ve—”

  “You’ve got work to do. Well, I know how it is. I’m as busy as a bee, myself, cooking and sweeping and dusting the furniture—” He capered about, flicking his handkerchief over the stump and the cultivator. He dusted the metal seat. “Sit down!” he said, with his boyish grin.

  She couldn’t help laughing. “I ought to get back.”

  “But it’s such a fine day!”

  “Well, yes, it is,” she said, looking at the sky. It was as blue as she’d ever seen it.

  The peddler flung out his arms. “Behold, the winter is past,” he cried, “the sun shines and the birds sing and gather ye redbud while ye may, or whatever it says in the Bible.”

  “You’ve got it all mixed up,” she said, laughing. “It don’t say anything in the Bible about stealin’ redbud.”

  “Why,
it does,” he said solemnly.

  “It don’t either.”

  He bounded to the stump and fished a small book from his coat pocket. “I have a Bible right here, I can prove it.” He flipped it open and pretended to read, “ ‘Gather ye redbud while ye may in the land of milk and honey!’ Here, read it for yourself.” And he tossed her the book with a merry laugh. “Well, anyway, it sounds like the Bible, doesn’t it? And it is a beautiful day. You’d be turning your back on the Lord Himself to go inside in such weather.”

  “Well, I’ll stay just a minute.” She climbed up on the cultivator and wriggled into the metal seat. It was warm from the sun and felt good to her bottom.

  “Now this is jolly!” said the peddler, hopping onto the stump. He tossed the eggs into the air and began to juggle them, as she had seen a man do at a Fourth of July picnic. “I trade for an egg and I get all this—meat, bread, and apples, and good company, too.” He caught the eggs and burst out singing. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” It was more shout than song, and if God didn’t hear it, He was mighty deaf. The red rooster skittered to safety. “Behold the fowls of the air, they toil not, neither do they spin, but the Lord in His mercy provideth, and I am Solomon in his glory!” He flipped himself off the stump, heels over head, and landed on his feet.

  Callie stared at him, bedazzled. He was a little daft, but whether from a secret nip in the woods or the tonic of the weather, she couldn’t tell. At any rate, he was as frisky as a colt, and it made her laugh. “I don’t know how you can be so lively without any breakfast,” she said.

  “Oh, I like to be hungry when I know I’ll be fed.” He dropped down by the fire and broke the eggs into the skillet. They hissed in the hot fat, curling around the edges like starched doilies. “But if I am any hungrier, I won’t be able to eat. I’ll be dead of starvation. And I should hate to be dead on a day like this and waste such a breakfast. To your health, ma’am, and to mine,” he said, lifting the skillet. He set it on the stump. “Good bread, good meat, praise God, and I eat.” And with that blessing, he fell to.

  He ate ravenously and yet with a kind of niceness, not gobbling but eating quickly, with a gusto that made her almost taste the food. It was downright flattering to have fed him. She watched him curiously, fascinated by his quick silky movements. There was a luster about him, a clean healthy shine to his hair and skin. She thought he was young, probably no more than twenty, though it was hard to tell. One minute he acted like a ten-year-old boy, the next minute he seemed older than she. In spite of his nonsense, she felt he was well brought up, educated.