The Yearling

by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

  “Why, a man allus has huntin’ in his mind.”

  “Hit’s mighty quare you toted a dog along wouldn’t be no good to you.”

  The Forresters looked about at one another. They fell silent. Their black eyes were riveted on the feice.

  “The dog’s no good and my old muzzle-loadin’ shotgun is no good,” Penny said. “I’m in a pure fix.”

  The black eyes darted to the walls of the cabin, where the Forrester arms hung. The array, Jody thought, would stock a gun-shop. The Forresters made good money trading horses, selling venison and making moonshine. They bought guns as other men would buy flour and coffee.

  “I never heered tell o’ you failin’ to git meat,” Lem said.

  “I failed yestiddy. My gun wouldn’t shoot and when it did, hit back-fired.”

  “What was you huntin’?”

  “Old Slewfoot.”

  A roar broke.

  “Where’s he feedin’? Which-a-way did he come from? Where’s he gone?”

  Pa Forrester thumped the floor with his cane.

  “You fellers shut up and leave Penny tell it. He cain’t tell a thing, and you-all bellerin’ like bulls.”

  Ma Forrester banged a pot-lid and lifted a pan of cornbread as big, Jody thought, as a syrup kettle. The good smells from the hearth were overwhelming.

  She said, “Don’t git Mr. Baxter started ’til he’s et. Where’s your manners?”

  “And where’s your manners,” Pa Forrester reproached his sons, “not givin’ comp’ny the chancet to wet his whistle afore dinner?”

  Mill-wheel went into a bedroom and returned with a demi-john. He pulled out the corn-cob stopper and handed the jug to Penny.

  “You’ll excuse me,” Penny said, “if I don’t drink deep. I ain’t got as big a place to put it as you fellers.”

  They laughed uproariously. Mill-wheel passed the jug about the room.

  “Jody?”

  Penny said, “He ain’t old enough.”

  Pa Forrester said, “Why, I were weaned on it.”

  Ma Forrester said, “Pour me a noggin. In my cup.”

  She ladled food into pans big enough to wash in. The long trenchered table was covered with steam. There were dried cow-peas boiled with white bacon, a haunch of roast venison, a platter of fried squirrel, swamp cabbage, big hominy, biscuits, cornbread, syrup and coffee. A raisin pudding waited at the side of the hearth.

  “If I’d of knowed you was comin’,” she said, “I’d of cooked somethin’ fitten. Well, draw up.”

  Jody looked at his father to see whether he too was excited by the savory plenty. Penny’s face was somehow grave.

  “All this here is fine enough for the governor,” he said.

  Ma Forrester said uncomfortably, “I reckon you folks gives thanks, to your table. Pa, hit won’t hurt you none to ask a blessin’, long as we got comp’ny.”

  The old man looked about unhappily and folded his hands.

  “Oh Lord, once more Thou hast done see fit to bless our sinnin’ souls and bellies with good rations. Amen.”

  The Forresters cleared their throats and fell to. Jody sat opposite his father, and between Ma Forrester and Fodderwing. He found his plate piled high. Buck and Mill-wheel slipped choice morsels to Fodder-wing. He passed them on under the table to Jody. The Forresters ate with concentration, silent for once. The food melted away before them. An argument arose between Lem and Gabby. Their father pounded on the table with his withered fist. They protested a moment at the intervention, then subsided. Pa Forrester leaned close to Penny and murmured in a low voice.

  “My boys is rough, I know. They don’t do what they ought. They drink a heap and they fight and ary woman wants to git away from ’em has got to run like a doe. But I’ll say this for ’em—they ain’t nary one of ’em has ever cussed his mammy or his pappy at the table.”

  Penny Tells the Story of the Bear Fight (p. 54)

  Chapter VII

  PA FORRESTER said, “Well, neighbor, let’s have the news about that tormented bear.”

  Ma Forrester said, “Yes, and you scapers git the dishes washed afore you git too deep into it, too.”

  Her sons rose hurriedly, each with his own plate and some larger dish or pan. Jody stared at them. He would as soon have expected them to tie ribbons in their hair. She tweaked his ear on her way to her rocker.

  “I got no girls,” she said. “If these fellers wants me to cook for ’em, they kin jest clean up after me.”

  Jody looked at his father, pleading mutely that this piece of heresy be not taken home to Baxter’s Island. The Forresters made short work of the dishes. Fodder-wing hobbled after them, gathering the scraps for all the animals. Only by feeding the pack of dogs himself could he be sure of saving tid-bits for his pets as well. He smiled to himself, that there would be so much today to take to them. There was even enough cold food left for supper. Jody gaped at the abundance. The Forresters finished their work in a clatter, and hung the iron pots and kettles on nails near the hearth. They drew up their cowhide chairs and hand-hewn benches around Penny. Some lit corn-cob pipes and others shaved parings of tobacco from dark plugs. Ma Forrester lipped a little snuff. Buck picked up Penny’s gun and a small file and began to work on the loose hammer.

  “Well,” Penny began, “he taken us plumb by surprise.”

  Jody shivered.

  “He slipped in like a shadow and killed our brood-sow. Laid her open, end to end, and only ate a mouthful. Not hongry. Jest low-down and mean.”

  Penny paused to light his own pipe. The Forresters bent to him with blazing splinters of fat pine.

  “He come as quiet as a black cloud, into the wind. Made a circle to git his wind right. So quiet, the dogs never heered nor scented him. Even this un—even this un—” he leaned to stroke the feice at his feet—“was fooled.”

  The Forresters exchanged glances.

  “We set out after breakfast, Jody and me and all three o’ the dogs. We tracked that bear acrost the south scrub. We tracked him along the edge o’ the saw-grass ponds. We tracked him thu Juniper Bay. We tracked him thu the swamp, the trail gittin’ hotter and hotter. We come up with him—”

  The Forresters gripped their knees.

  “We come up with him, men, right smack at the edge o’ Juniper Creek, where the water flows swiftest and deepest.”

  The story, Jody thought, was even better than the hunt. He saw it all again, the shadows and the fern, the broken palmettos and the running branch water. He was bursting with the excitement of the story. He was bursting, too, with pride in his father. Penny Baxter, no bigger than a dirtdauber, could out-hunt the best of them. And he could sit, as he sat now, weaving a spell of mystery and magic, that held these huge hairy men eager and breathless.

  He made the fight an epic thing. When his gun back-fired, and old Slewfoot crushed Julia to his breast, Gabby swallowed his tobacco and rushed to the fire-place, spitting and choking. The Forresters clenched their fists, and sat precariously at the edges of their seats, and listened with their mouths open.

  “Gawd,” Buck breathed, “I’d o’ loved to o’ been there.”

  “And where’s Slewfoot gone?” Gabby begged.

  “No man knows,” Penny told them.

  There was silence.

  Lem said at last, “You ain’t never oncet mentioned that dog you got there.”

  “Don’t press me,” Penny said. “I done told you he’s wuthless.”

  “I notice he come outen it in mighty good shape. Not a mark on him, is there?”

  “No, there’s nary mark on him.”

  “Takes a mighty clever dog to fight a bear and not git ary scratch on him.”

  Penny puffed on his pipe.

  Lem rose and walked to him, towering over him. He cracked his knuckles. He was sweating.

  “I want two things,” he said hoarsely. “I want to be in at the death o’ ol’ Slewfoot. And I want that dog there.”

  “Oh my, no,” Penny said mildly. “I’d not c
heat you, tradin’ him.”

  “No use lyin’ to me. Name your trade.”

  “I’ll trade you old Rip, instead.”

  “Think you’re foxy. I got better dogs than Rip right now.”

  Lem went to the wall and took down from its nails a gun. It was a London Fine Twist. The double barrels shone. The stock was walnut, warm and glowing. The twin hammers were jaunty. The fittings were chased and intricate. Lem swung it to his shoulder, sighted it. He handed it to Penny.

  “Right from England. No more muzzle-loadin’. Fill your own shell-cases easy as spittin’. Stick your shells in—breech her—cock her—Bam! Bam! Two shots. Shoots as true as a eagle flies. Swap even.”

  “Oh my, no,” Penny said. “This here gun is valuable.”

  “There’s more where it come from. Don’t argue with me, man. When I want a dog, I want a dog. Take the gun for him or by God I’ll come and steal him.”

  “Well, all right, then,” Penny said, “if that’s the way it stands. But you got to promise before witnesses not to beat the very puddin’ outen me after you’ve hunted him.”

  “Shake.” A hairy paw closed over Penny’s hand. “Here, boy!”

  Lem whistled to the feice. He took him by the scruff of the neck and led him outside, as though fearful even now of losing him.

  Penny teetered in his chair. He balanced the gun indifferently across his knees. Jody could not take his eyes from its perfection. He was filled with awe that his father had outwitted a Forrester. He wondered if Lem would keep his promise. He had heard of the intricacies of trading, but it had never occurred to him that one man could get the best of another by the simple expedient of telling him the truth.

  Talk went on into the afternoon. Buck had tightened up Penny’s old muzzle-loader so that he thought it could be counted on. The Forresters were unhurried; unoccupied. Tales were told of old Slewfoot’s smartness; of other bears before him; but none so clever as he. Chases were described in every detail. Dogs twenty years dead were called by name and by performance. Fodder-wing grew tired of them and wanted to go to the pond and fish for minnows. But Jody could not bear to leave this telling of old tales. Pa and Ma Forrester chirped and shrilled occasionally, then dozed off in between, like sleepy crickets. At last their infirmities took them over, and they slept soundly, side by side in their rockers, their dried old frames stiff even in their slumber. Penny stretched and rose.

  He said, “I hate to leave good comp’ny.”

  “Spend the night. We’ll have a fox-chase.”

  “I thank you, but I don’t like to leave my place without no man on it.”

  Fodder-wing tugged at his arm.

  “Leave Jody stay with me. He ain’t half seed my things.”

  Buck said, “Leave the young un stay, Penny. I got to go to Volusia tomorrow. I’ll ride him by your place.”

  “His Ma’ll rare,” Penny said.

  “That’s what Ma’s is good for. Eh, Jody?”

  “Pa, I’d be mighty proud to stay. I ain’t played none in a long while.”

  “Not since day before yestiddy. Well, stay, then, if these folks is shore you’re welcome. Lem, don’t kill the boy if you try out the feice afore Buck gits him home to me.”

  They shouted with laughter. Penny shouldered the new gun with his old one and went for his horse. Jody followed. He reached out one hand and stroked the smoothness of the gun.

  “If ’twas anybody in the world but Lem,” Penny murmured, “I’d be too shamed to go home with it. I’ve owed Lem a trimmin’ since he named me.”

  “You told him the truth.”

  “My words was straight, but my intentions was crooked as the Ocklawaha River.”

  “What’ll he do when he finds out?”

  “He’ll want to tear me down. And after that, I’m hopin’ he’ll laugh. Good-by, son, ’till tomorrer. Be good now.”

  The Forresters followed to see him off. Jody waved after his father with a new sense of aloneness. He was almost tempted to call him back; to run after him and climb up in the saddle and ride home with him to the snugness of the clearing.

  Fodder-wing called, “The ’coon’s fishin’ in a puddle, Jody! Come see!”

  He ran to watch the ’coon. It was paddling about in a small pool of water, feeling with its human hands for something only instinct told it could be there. He played with Fodder-wing and the ’coon the rest of the afternoon. He helped to clean the squirrel’s box and build a cage for a crippled red-bird. The Forresters had game chickens, as wild as themselves. The hens laid their eggs all over the adjacent woods, in brierberry tangles, under piles of brush, and the snakes ate as many as the hens hatched. He went with Fodder-wing to collect the eggs. A hen was setting. Fodderwing gave her the eggs they had gathered. There were fifteen in all.

  “This un’s a good mother,” he said. It appeared that he took charge of all such matters.

  Again Jody longed for something of his own. Fodder-wing would give him the fox squirrel, even, he believed, the baby ’coon. But past experience had taught him not to aggravate his mother with another mouth, no matter how small, to feed. Fodder-wing talked to the setting hen.

  “You stay on the nest now, you hear me? You hatch all them eggs into biddies. I want yellow biddies this time. None o’ them black uns.”

  They turned back toward the cabin. The ’coon came crying to meet them. It scrambled up Fodder-wing’s crooked legs and back and snugged down, clasping his neck. It closed its small white teeth over his skin and shook its head with pretended ferocity. Fodder-wing let Jody carry it to the cabin. It looked up at him with inquiring bright eyes, aware of his strangeness; then accepted him. The Forresters had scattered over their land at chores which they took leisurely, in their stride. Buck and Arch drove the penned cows and their calves to the pond to water. Mill-wheel fed the string of horses in the corral. Pack and Lem had disappeared into the dense woods north of the cabin; perhaps, Jody speculated, to their still. There was ease and abundance here, as well as violence. There were so many of them to do things. Penny Baxter carried the work of a clearing almost as large as theirs, alone. Jody remembered guiltily the unhoed rows of corn he had left behind him. But Penny would not mind finishing them.

  Pa and Ma Forrester were still asleep in their chairs. The sun was red in the west. Darkness came quickly into the cabin, for the live oaks kept out light that would have been still bright at the Baxters’ clearing. One by one the brothers trooped into the cabin. Fodder-wing started up the fire on the hearth to heat the left-over coffee. Jody saw Ma Forrester open one careful eye, then close it again. Her sons piled the cold food on the table with a clatter that would have awakened an owl in the daytime. She sat up and prodded Pa Forrester in the ribs and joined the rest at their supper. This time they cleaned every platter. There was not even food left for the dogs. Fodder-wing mixed a pan of cold cornbread with a bucket of clabber and took it outside for them. He swung crookedly from side to side, tilting the bucket, and Jody ran to help him.

  After supper, the Forresters smoked and talked of horses. The cattle-men in the county, and farther to the west, were complaining of a scarcity. Wolves and bears and panthers had raised havoc with the spring’s colts. The traders who came usually from Kentucky with strings of horses had not appeared. The Forresters agreed that it would be profitable to go north and west and trade for cattle ponies. Jody and Fodder-wing lost interest in the talk and went into a corner to play mumblede-peg. Ma Baxter would never have allowed pocket knives to be flipped into her clean smooth floors. Here, a few splinters more or less could make no difference. Jody sat up erect from the game.

  “I know something I bet you don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “The Spaniards used to cross the scrub right in front of our gate.”

  “Why, I knowed that.” Fodder-wing hunched close and began to whisper excitedly. “I’ve seed ’em.” Jody stared at him. “What you seed?”

  “I’ve seed the Spaniards. They’re tall and dar
k and have shiny helmets and they ride black horses.”

  “You couldn’t see ’em. There ain’t none left. They’ve done left here, jest like the Injuns.”

  Fodder-wing closed one eye wisely.

  “That’s what folks tell you. You listen to me. Next time you go west o’ your sink-hole—you know that big magnolia? With dogwood all around it? You look behind that magnolia. There’s allus a Spaniard on a black horse ridin’ past that magnolia.”

  The hair stiffened on Jody’s neck. This was, of course, another of Fodder-wing’s tales. This was why his father and mother said Fodder-wing was crazy. But he longed to believe it. It would do no harm at least to look behind the magnolia.

  The Forresters stretched and knocked out their pipes or spat out their tobacco. They went into their bedrooms, dropping their suspenders and loosening their breeches. There was a bed for each, for no two of them could sleep together in any double bed. Fodder-wing led Jody to his own bed in a shed-like room under the kitchen eaves.

  “You kin have the pillow,” he told him.

  Jody wondered if his mother would ask him if he had washed his feet. How freely the Forresters lived, he thought, tumbling into bed without it. Fodder-wing began a tall tale about the end of the world. It was empty and dark, he said, with only clouds to ride on. At first Jody was interested. Then the tale became dull and rambling. He dropped off to sleep and dreamed of Spaniards, riding clouds instead of horses.

  He awakened with a start late in the night. Din filled the cabin. His first thought was that the Forresters were fighting again. But the shouts held a community of purpose, and Ma Forrester called encouragement. A door was banged open and several of the dogs were halloo-ed inside. A light shone in the doorway of Fodder-wing’s room and the dogs and men poured in. The men were stark naked, and they looked thinner and less bulky, but they seemed as tall as the cabin. Ma Forrester held a lighted tallow candle. Her grasshopper frame was lost inside a long gray flannel nightgown. The dogs shot under the bed and out again. Jody and Fodderwing scrambled to their feet. No one troubled to explain the commotion. The boys followed after the hunt. It led through every room and ended with a mad exit of the dogs through the torn mosquito netting that covered one window.