by James Still
The pony wheeled, and they set off for the mill. The drummer’s woman looked back, her eyes hard upon the baby.
That night we children sat at the table with empty plates. Grease frizzled the dove Father was cooking for Mother. “They hain’t a finickier set o’ chaps in Kentucky,” Father groaned. “I bile stuff by the pot, I bake and I fry, still these young ’uns will hardly eat a mouthful. By jukes, if I don’t believe they could live on blue air.”
I wrinkled my nose. A musky smell came from somewhere. I spied at the bowl of potatoes, at the bud eyes staring. “I hain’t hungry,” I said, but I was. Hunger stalked inside of me.
The musk grew. Lark and Zard pinched their noses and grunted. Yet Fern didn’t seem to mind. She spread her hands flat upon her plate, and they were pieded with candle-drip warts.
I grew envious of the warts. I bragged, “I’ve got a spool will blow soap bubbles the size o’ yore head.”
“Baby’s got the world beat for bubbles,” Father said. “Blows ’em with her mouth.”
“A varmint’s nigh,” Mother said, covering the baby’s face. She rocked her chair by the stove to fan the smell. “Traps ought to be set under the house.”
Father poked a fork into the dove. “I met a skunk in the barn-loft,” he chuckled. “Stirred the shucks and out she come, tail high. I reckon it’s my pea jacket by the door riching the wind.”
“Polecats have got the prettiest tails of any critter,” Fern defended. “Hain’t allus a-miaowing like nannies.”
“Their tails are not bonny as the drummer-pony’s mane,” I said.
“Haste that garment to the woodpile,” Mother told me.
I snatched the jacket and went into the yard, leaving it on the chopblock. I looked about. The mulberry tree stood black-ripe with dark. Below, in the bottom, the mill cracks shone. I planned, “Come morning, I’ll get a close view o’ that nag. I’ll say to the drummer, ’Was Poppy of a notion, would you swap to our mare?”’ I spat, thinking of our beast.
Father was talking when I got back. “I’ve set traps the place o’er, but every day they’re sprung, bait gone, and nothing snared. I say hit’s a question. The only thing I’ve caught’s an old she in the millhouse, and I figure little ones were weaned.”
“Once I seed two varmints walking,” Lark said. “I run, I did.”
Fern stuck her chin out, vengeful and knowing. “I told them folks that mill was a puore den.”
Mother saddened. “I’ve never heard a child talk so brashy to olders. I was ashamed.”
Fern raised her hands, tick-tacking fingers. “Humph,” she said willfully.
The thought came into my head that Fern’s playhouse might be close to the mill. I stung to go and see.
“One thing’s gospel,” Father laughed, not wanting Mother to begin worrying, “chaps nor varmints won’t tetch my bait. I load the traps and table, for nothing. They’re independent as hogs on ice.”
“These chaps are slipping out o’ hand,” Mother said, her lips trembling. “Fern, in partic’lar. Eleven years old and not a sign o’ womanly pride. I can’t recollect the last time she combed her hair.”
“Might’s well buy her breeches and call her a boy,” Father teased, “yet I’m a-mind she’ll break over. Girls allus get prissy by the time they’re twelve. Hit’s on the books.” He eyed Lark and me. “I know two titmice hain’t combed their topknots lately.”
“You ought to make Fern wear plaits,” I spoke. “The drummer’s woman wears ’em.”
“I hain’t going to weave myself to ropes,” Fern said. She walked fingers around her plate, skippety-hop. “Hair tails hanging. Humph! Ruther to be baldy.”
“Ah, ho,” Father laughed. “I come by the mill before dark and talked to Doc Trawler. I saw him with his hat off. Now, his woman don’t need a looking-glass. She kin just say, ‘Drap yore head down, old man. I aim to comb my lockets.’ ”
“Once I seed a horse go by with a wove tail,” Lark said.
The dove browned, and was lifted to a plate. Father handed it to Mother. The bird was small, hard-fried, and briny it was bound to taste. Father always seasoned with a heavy hand. I thought, “It would take a covey o’ doves to satisfy me.” I felt that empty. I thought of berries wasting in the bottom; I thought of the mulberry tree. I spooned a halfcooked potato from the bowl, speaking under my breath, “That baby’s to blame. She hain’t nothing but a locust-bug.”
Mother fiddled with the bird. Zard slid off the bench to get a morsel. Presently Mother gave it all to him, saying, “I can’t stir an appetite. I can’t force it down.”
Father groaned. “Be-dabs, if the whole gin-works hain’t got the punies. Even the mare tuck a spell today. She wouldn’t eat corn nor shuck.”
“What ails the mare?” Mother asked quietly. The baby had whimpered in her nap.
I didn’t pity the beast, being contemptuous of her. I scoffed, “Bet they’s folks would say hit’s writ in a book. Now, they’s no book got everything printed already.”
Father answered neither Mother nor me, but his eyes were sharp and bright. He said, “I forgot that drummer sent a bottle o’ tonic. Swore it’d red the blood and quick the appetite. Hit’s yonder in my pea jacket. One o’ you fellers fotch it.”
“I be to go,” Lark said. He brought in a tall bottle of yellow medicine.
Father held the bottle aloft, jesting, “If this would arouse hunger, I’d dose chaps, traps, and the mare. Allus been said, when the sick take to eating, they’re nigh well. A shore promise.” He set the bottle on a high shelf and chuckled. “I wonder from what creek Doc Trawler dipped that yaller water.”
“Is the mare’s sickness natural?” Mother insisted.
“I heard a gander honk last fall,” Father said, “but hit’s no sign we’ve got a goose nest.”
Lark said, “I bet she up and et berries.”
“Old plug mare,” I mumbled. I spoke aloud, “That drummer’s got a healthy nag. Hain’t much bigger’n a colt. Was she mine, I’d not swap for gold.”
“I glimpsed that play-pretty of a nag,” Father said. “She’s old as Methuselum’s grandpappy’s uncle. Teeth wore to the gum. Thar she was eating out o’ a plate, like two-legged folks. If a woman hain’t got chaps to spile, she’ll pamper a critter to death. The way with women.”
The baby waked suddenly, crying. Father leaned over Mother’s shoulder. He clucked. “See her ope her eyes?”
I said, “Ruther to hear a bullfrog croaker.”
Lark scowled. “Wust I come on a little ’un nested in a stump, I’d run far and not go back.”
Fern twickled her warty fingers at me and Lark; she made a hop-frog of her hands. She knew how to rile us.
“Woe, woe,” Father moaned. “I reckon we might’s well give this child to the drummer-woman and be done. She’s got nothing to pet on but that nag and bald-head man.”
I looked squarely at Fern. “I’ve a fair notion where your playhouse is,” I said. “I’m going a-searching.”
“Humph,” Fern said, but she became uneasy. She rubbed her hands together, flaking the tallow warts. “Unkiver my play-nest and I’ll get level with you. I’ll pay back double.”
Mother sighed, “If a pot o’ soup could be made tomorrow, I believe I could eat. Soup with a light seasoning.” She rocked her chair impatiently as Fern and I kept quarreling. “I long to tame these chaps,” she said.
“You’d have to do what Old Daniel Tucker done in his song,” Father said. “Comb their heads with a wagon wheel.”
The mulberries were ripe. They hung like caterpillars, ready to fall at a touch. I sat high in the tree crotch among zizzing locusts, longing to taste the berries, and watching Fern. I saw Fern crawl under the house; I saw her skitter up the barn-loft ladder. She went here and yon, and was gone, and never could a body tell where.
I hurried toward the mill. The cow tunnels winding through high growth in the bottom were empty. I listened. A beetle-bug snapped and a bird made clinky sounds. I heard diggi
ng. A thing went rutch rutch in dirt. I tipped-toed; I craned my neck. There amid tall briers the drummer knelt, digging herb roots. The pan of his head was glassy in the sun.
“Did some’un go this way?” I asked.
The drummer rested. Sweat drops beaded his forehead. “While ago a skunk come in smelling distance. I had to stopple my nose.” He sorted the roots, pressing them between his thumbs until sap oozed; he frowned and the meat of his jaws tautened. “It’s the contrary season to gather herbs, yit a kettle o’ tonic’s got to be brewed ere I set off tomorry.” He plucked a weed sprig from his grab pocket. “Only could I find more o’ this ratsbane.”
“I know where they’s a passel,” I said.
His face slackened. “Help me gather some and I’ll be obliged. I can pay.”
I cut my eyes about, ashamed to say the thing I’d planned. The words pricked my tongue. I took note that blackberries grew large as a toe in the bottom, and both hunger and the pony grew in my mind. “Would you be in a notion swapping your nag to our mare?” I ventured at last. “I allus did want me a little beast.”
“Fifteen years we’ve fed that pony,” the drummer said. He arose, stretching his legs. “She’s nigh a family member, and my wife thinks more o’ that nag than she does her victuals. She’d skulp me, was I to trade.”
How bitter I felt toward our mare. “Our critter’ll never have a colt like it was promised,” I grumbled.
The drummer stacked his hands. He looked wise as a county judge. “She needs a special medicine,” he advised. “I mix a tonic that cures any ill, fixes up and straightens out man or beast—the biggest medicine ever wrapped in glass.” He patty-caked his palms. “Now, there’s one trade I do fancy. Show me where the ratsbane grows and I’ll make you a present of a bottle. One’s all I’ve got left.”
I spoke, “Bet was a feller to eat wild fruit, a dram o’ that tonic would cuore the pizen. I bet.”
A woman’s voice called from the mill. “Doc Trawler! Oh, Doc!”
The drummer started off. “You stay till I see what my wife’s after,” he said. I waited, and soon heard him returning, and the cow tunnels were filled with his laughter. He came back shaking with merriment. “That devil of a pony!” he said. “Oh, hit’s a good thing we’re leaving tomorry.”
We went to grabble ratsbane and the drummer chuckled all day. He was a fool about that nag. We dug till my back sprung; we dug till the sun-ball stooped in the sky.
Late in the afternoon we stood by the mill with a poke crammed full of roots. I breathed in the smell of cooking victuals and fairly starved. The drummer slapped the poke; he treated it like a human being. “I’ll get your pay,” he said, and fetched a bottle out of the mill, a bottle no taller than my uncle-finger. “Hit’s strong as Samson,” he said. “And wait. My wife’s fixing something for your mother.”
“Is this medicine bound to work?” I asked, sliding the bottle inside of a pocket.
“Hit’ll fix that mare right up, shore as Sunday-come-Monday.”
The nag walked around the millhouse. She stuck her head in the door, and drew back crunching an apple. The drummer smiled. “See that thar. Didn’t I say this hardtail’s nigh one o’ the family?”
“My colt’s going to have folk sense,” I bragged.
“This pony’s bound to stick her noggin into places,” the drummer said. His face wrinkled happily. The crown of his head shone. “Now, what do you reckon she found this morning? A chap’s playhouse. Leave it to a long-nose beast to sniff things out. Me and my wife looked, and what we saw we couldn’t believe, but thar it was to prove.”
“I’d give a pretty to know,” I pleaded. “I’ve got to larn.”
The drummer frowned. “For a good reason I don’t want that place disturbed till we leave.” He scratched his headtop, undecided whether to tell. “Swear you won’t take a look till we’re on the road and gone?”
” ’Pon my word and deed.”
“Hit’s yonder then,” he said, pointing to the lower side of the millhouse where the floor rested on high pillars. “I can’t blame your sister for trying to scare us with talk o’ spiders and lizards. Oh, she’s a wild ’un.”
The drummer’s woman brought a bowl capped with a lid. The plaits of her hair tipped her shoulders, and her eyes were sad as a ewe’s. “Reckon we could steal a child off these folks?” she joked her man. “Five in their house. One wouldn’t be missed.” She handed the bowl to me. “Take this cobbler to your mother. Tell her every berry’s been split; tell it’s safe to eat.”
I ran home, and my heart pounded as I went.
Mother sat alone with the baby. Father stirred soup in the kitchen, and I heard Lark and Zard quarreling there. I uncovered the cobbler, reaching it to Mother. The sweety smell rose in my face. My mouth watered. I spoke loudly, for Mother had plugs of wool in her ears to dim the cry of locusts; I said what the drummer’s woman told me to say. The baby leaned to see. Then we heard Father coming, and Lark and Zard following. Mother whispered quickly, “I’m grateful, and hit’s a pity to waste, yet we can’t trust eating berries. Haste the cobble-pie to the pig pen, and don’t name to the others.” But time was only left to shove the bowl under the bed.
“All the locusts in Egypt couldn’t make a racket equaling these two,” Father told Mother. “Fussing o’er nothing but who could blow the largest spool bubble. I mixed hope with that soup you’d soon be up and at these young ’uns. I biled enough to last two days.”
“I’ll mend once the plague’s ended,” Mother said. “Any day now the locusts will hush. I long to give these chaps a taste o’ soap and water.”
“Fern come into the kitchen,” Father said, “and it tuck a minute to tell be she varmint or vixen. Hit’d worry the mare’s currycomb to thrash the burrs.”
Zard peeked at the baby and sulled. He was green jealous. He dropped to his knees and crawled toward the bed. He scampered under.
“Another sight I glimpsed today,” Father went on, “and hit was that drummer’s woman combing a nag’s mane. I never stayed to see if she bowed it with ribbons.” He turned upon me, keeping his face sober. “And I’ve looked up our mare in the books. One more page-leaf to turn before knowing when.”
“Only would Fern take a lesson,” Mother said uneasily, making a sign. I snatched the bowl, and neither Lark nor Father noticed, for Mother raised the baby’s head. Father chuckled, “See the bubble she’s pucked with her mouth. Beats any you fellers can blow.”
“No bigger’n a pea,” Lark discounted.
Father snapped a thumb and forefinger. “Be-jibs, if we hain’t got to get rid o’ this little ’un. Not a kind word’s allowed her.”
I stole away to the pig pen, uncovered the bowl, and found the berry cobbler half eaten. Zard had gobbled it. I was fearful, believing him poisoned, thinking he might die. I remembered the bottle of medicine. Could I persuade him to swallow a dose? A thought sprung in my head. I’d dose all—the mare, Mother, and Zard. The drummer had vowed it would straighten out man or beast. They’d take medicine, and not know.
I hastened to the barn, pouring a knuckle’s depth of the medicine into a scoop of oats. The mare poked her great yellow tongue into the grain; she ground her teeth. She ate the last bit, and licked the trough. She was mighty fat, I recollect.
On I hied to the house. I tipped inside the kitchen. There was the soup pot boiling on the stove, and I emptied nearly all of the medicine into it. All but one draft went into the soup.
Suddenly a tick tick sounded behind the stove. I thrust the bottle pocket-deep, and looked. It was Fern, hidden with a comb in her hand.
“Humph,” Fern said, hiding the comb. I could scarcely see her eyes through a brush of hair. She spoke threateningly, “I saw that baldy drummer show you where my playhouse is. If you go there, they’s something will scare yore gizzard.”
“Humph,” I said, mocking.
The next morning the locusts had hushed. Cast skins clung to trunks and boughs, and it was as quiet as the fi
rst day of the world. Ere dew dried I waited in the bottom for the drummer folk to go. So great the stillness was, my breath seemed a thunder in my chest. I saw the drummer and his woman climb into their wagon and drive up-hill to our house; I saw Father shake the drummer’s hand in farewell. Fern, Lark, and Zard were staring.
I crept to the lower side of the mill where the floor stood high. I crawdabbed under. Nothing I saw in Fern’s playhouse, nothing save four stone pillars growing up, and an empty pan sitting. “Humph,” I thought.
I heard footsteps. I sprang behind a pillar. Fern came underneath the floor bringing a cup of milk and meat crumbs; she brought the bait from Father’s traps. Her hair was combed slick and two plaits tipped her shoulders, woven like the drummer-woman’s. My mouth fell open.
The milk was poured into the pan. Fern squatted beside it, calling, “Biddy, biddy, biddy,” and four little polecats came walking to lap the milk, and three big varmints began to nibble the meat. I blinked, shivering with fright, and of a sudden the critters knew I was there, and Fern knew. The polecats vanished like weasel smoke.
I recollect Fern’s anger. She didn’t cry. She sat pale as any blossom, narrowing her eyes at me. But not a mad or meany word she spoke. The thing she said came measured and cold between tight lips.
“You hain’t heard the baby’s been tuck,” she said. “Poppy give it to the drummer.”
I stood frozen, more frightened than any varmint scare. When I could move I ran toward the house, running with loss aching inside of me.
I thrust my head in at the door. Father was carving spool pipes for Lark and Zard. Mother ate soup out of a bowl, and her lap and arms were empty. Mother was saying, “Now this is the best soup ever I did eat. Hit’s seasoned just right.”
Father grinned. “You can allus tell when a body’s getting well. They’ll eat a feller out o’ house and home.” He saw me standing breathlessly in the door; he laughed, not trying to keep his face grave. “Well, well,” he said, “I’ve closed the books on that mare. A colt’s due tomorrow or the next day. That’s a shore fact.”