The Yearling

by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

“No, I’d not. I’d jest like to take Grandma home to live with us. But we’d have to make Ma mind her.”

  Penny chuckled.

  “Pore boy,” he said, “has got to grow up and learn women——”

  Chapter XII

  JODY heard the freight and passenger steamer pass the Hutto landing about daylight. He sat up in bed and looked out of the window. The lights of the steamer were pale under the early morning sky. The paddle wheels churned thickly through the water. The steamer blew its thin high whistle at Volusia. He thought he heard it stop and then go on up the river. Somehow, its passing concerned him. He could not go to sleep again. Outside in the yard old Julia growled. Penny stirred from his sleep. Watchfulness lived sentinel in his brain. Sounds no heavier than the wind aroused him.

  He said, “The steamer stopped. Somebody’s comin’.”

  Old Julia barked deeply, then whined and was still.

  “Hit’s somebody she knows.”

  Jody cried, “Hit’s Oliver!” and jumped from the bed.

  He ran naked through the cottage. Fluff awakened and dashed from his bed by Grandma’s door, barking shrilly.

  A voice shouted, “Turn out, you lazy landlubbers!”

  Grandma ran from her bedroom. She had on a long white nightgown and a white nightcap. She fastened a shawl around her shoulders as she ran. Oliver took the steps in one bound like a buck and Jody and his mother were on him in a whirlwind. He lifted his mother by the waist and swung her. She thumped him with her small fists. Jody and Fluff yelped for attention. Oliver swung them in turn. Penny joined them sedately, fully dressed. They pumped hands in greeting. In the dim light of dawn, Oliver’s teeth flashed white. Grandma’s eye caught another flashing.

  “Now you jest give me them ear-bobs, you pirate.”

  She stood on tip-toe to reach up to his ears. Gold hoops swung from the lobes. She unscrewed them and put them in her own ears. He laughed and shook her and Fluff barked in a frenzy. In the tumult, Penny spoke.

  “Lord save us, Jody, you’re plumb naked.”

  Jody froze in his tracks. He turned to run. Oliver caught him. Grandma pulled the shawl from her shoulders and tied it around his waist.

  She said, “I’d of run naked, too, if I’d had to. Oliver don’t come home but twice a year, do he, boy?”

  He said, “Hit was dark when I set out, anyways.”

  The commotion quieted. Oliver picked up his duffel-bag and carried it inside. Jody trailed him.

  “Where you been to this time, Oliver? Did you see whales?”

  Penny said, “Leave the man ketch his breath, Jody. He cain’t turn out tales for young uns like a spring turns water.”

  But Oliver was bursting with his tales.

  “That’s what a sailor comes home for,” he said. “To see his Ma and his gal and to tell lies.”

  His ship had been in the tropics. Jody tore himself away long enough to slip into his borrowed shirt and breeches. He called questions and Grandma called questions. The homecomer answered back and forth. Grandma dressed in a flowered dimity and arranged her silver curls with special care. She went to the kitchen to start breakfast. Oliver opened the mouth of his duffel-bag and dumped the contents in the middle of the floor.

  Grandma said, “I can’t look and cook at the same time.”

  Oliver said, “Then for the Lord’s sake, Ma, cook.”

  “You’re thin.”

  “I’m skin and bones, waitin’ to get home to eat.”

  “Jody, come get that fire to roarin’. Slice that ham. Slice that bacon. Slice that venison.”

  She took bowls from cupboards, beat eggs and batter. Jody helped her, then ran back to Oliver. The sun rose and flooded the cottage. Oliver and Penny and Jody squatted on their haunches over the contents of the duffel-bag.

  Oliver said, “I’ve got somethin, for everybody but Jody. Funny, I forgot him.”

  “You didn’t. You ain’t never yit forgot me.”

  “See can you pick out your present.”

  Jody passed over a roll of silk. That was of course for Grandma. He pushed aside Oliver’s clothes, spiced and musty with strange foreign odors. A small packet was wrapped in flannel. Oliver took it out of his hands.

  “That’s for my gal.”

  A loose sack was filled with agates and translucent stones. Jody passed on. He lifted a parcel to his nose.

  “T’baccy!”

  “For your Pa. From Turkey.”

  “Why, Oliver.” Penny opened it, marvelling. The rich aroma drifted across the room. “Why, Oliver. I cain’t remember when I’ve had me a present.”

  Jody pinched a long narrow bundle. It was heavy and metallic.

  “This is it!”

  “You can’t tell without seein’ it.”

  Jody unwrapped the bundle madly. A hunting knife fell to the floor. The blade was keen and shining. Jody stared. “Not a knife, Oliver——”

  “Now if you’d rather have one of them ground-down files like your Pa has——”

  Jody pounced. He swung the long blade to catch the light.

  “There ain’t nobody in the scrub,” he said, “has got sich as that. Not even the Forresters has got sich a knife.”

  “That’s what I figured. We can’t let them black-beards get ahead of us.”

  Jody looked at the small flannel-swathed parcel Oliver held in one hand. He was torn between Oliver and the Forresters.

  He burst out, “Oliver— Lem Forrester says Twink Weatherby is his gal.”

  Oliver laughed and tossed the parcel from one hand to the other.

  He said, “No Forrester ever told the truth. Nobody takes my gal away from me.”

  Jody felt a wave of relief. He had told both Grandma and Oliver and washed his conscience clear, and Oliver was not disturbed. Then a memory came to him of Lem’s dark face, brooding and sullen, as he scraped the strings of his fiddle. He put the picture from him. He sunk himself in the treasures his friend had brought home from far places across the sea.

  Grandma, he noticed, did not touch her plate at breakfast. She kept Oliver’s filled. Her bright eyes hovered over her son like hungry swallows. Oliver sat tall and straight at the table. His skin was bronzed where his shirt was open over his lean throat. His hair was sun-burned, with a red light in it. His eyes were the color which Jody imagined was the color of the sea, gray-blue, with a flashing of green. Jody ran his hand over his own snub nose and freckled skin. He felt surreptitiously across the back of his head, where the straw-colored drake’s-tails stuck out stiffly. He was immensely dissatisfied with himself.

  He asked, “Grandma, was Oliver borned good-lookin’?”

  Penny said, “I kin answer that. I kin remember when he was uglier’n you and me both.”

  Oliver said complacently, “You’ll grow up handsome as I am, Jody, if that’s what’s botherin’ you.”

  “Jest half as handsome’d do,” he said.

  Oliver said, “I’ll call you in to tell that to my gal today.”

  Grandma wrinkled her nose.

  “Sailors belong to do their courtin’ before they come home,” she said.

  “From what I hear,” Penny offered, “sailors don’t never quit courtin’.”

  “How about you, Jody?” Oliver asked. “You got a sweetheart yet?”

  Penny said, “Why, ain’t you heered, Oliver? Jody’s sweet on Eulalie Boyles.”

  The Fight at Volusia (p. 119)

  Jody felt a murderous fury creep over him. He wanted to roar like the Forresters and frighten every one with his rage. He stuttered.

  “I—I hate girls. I hate Eulalie most of all.”

  Oliver said innocently, “Why, what’s the matter with her?”

  “I hate her ol’ twitchy nose. She looks like a rabbit.”

  Oliver and Penny shouted and slapped each other.

  Grandma said, “Now quit tormentin’ the boy, both of you. Can’t you remember that fur back, yourselves?”

  His venom melted under his gratitude to
her. Grandma was the only one who ever stood up for him. No, he thought, that was not true. Penny himself usually helped him fight his battles. When his mother was unreasonable, Penny always said, “Leave him be, Ory. I remember when I were a boy-—” It came to him that his father only teased him here, in the hands of friends. When he needed help, Penny never failed him. He grinned.

  He said to his father, “I jest dare you tell Ma I got a gal. She’d rare worse’n if I had me a varmint.”

  Grandma said, “Your Ma rares at you, do she?”

  “At me and Pa both. Worse at Pa.”

  “She don’t appreciate him,” she said “She jest don’t know any better.” She sighed. “A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.”

  Penny stared modestly at the floor. Jody was consumed with curiosity as to whether Mr. Hutto had been good or bad. He dared not ask. At any rate, Mr. Hutto had been so long dead that he supposed it no longer mattered. Oliver rose and stretched his long legs.

  Grandma said, “You leavin’ me, the very minute you get home?”

  “Just for a little while. I got to go around and get acquainted in the neighborhood again.”

  “That little yellow-headed Twink, eh?”

  “Sure.” He leaned over her and tousled her curls. “Penny, you-all ain’t goin’ home today?”

  “We got to do our tradin’ and head for the scrub, Oliver. I hate it, I hate to miss the Sat’day frolic. We come on a Friday so’s to git our venison to Boyles in time for the north boat today. And ’tain’t right to leave Ory alone too long.”

  “No,” Grandma said. “A panther might get her.”

  Penny looked at her quickly, but she was arranging the folds of her apron with great care.

  Oliver said, “Well, see you over the river.”

  He was gone, slapping his sailor’s cap on the back of his head. His whistle sounded after him. Jody was desolate. Something would happen to keep him from hearing Oliver’s tales. He could feel it. He would have liked to sit on the river bank all morning while Oliver yarned. He had never had enough. Oliver told a tale or two, and some one came, or Oliver stopped to do something else, and never finished.

  “I ain’t never yit had me a bait o’stories,” he said.

  Grandma said, “I’ve never had him long enough, neither.”

  Penny loitered over his leaving.

  “I hate to leave,” he said, “pertickler, now Oliver’s here.”

  “I miss Oliver worse,” she said, “when he’s here, and away from me, than when he’s at sea.”

  Jody said, “Hit’s Twink. Hit’s gals does it. I don’t never aim to have no gal.”

  He was resentful of Oliver’s leaving them. The four of them made a close community, and Oliver had torn it to tatters. Penny basked in the peace of the cottage. He filled his pipe again and again with the foreign tobacco.

  He said, “I do hate it, but we got to go. We got our tradin’ to do, and hit’s a fur piece home, a-foot.”

  Jody walked along the river bank and threw sticks for Fluff. He saw Easy Ozell running toward the cottage.

  Easy called, “Git your Pa quick. Don’t let Mis’ Hutto hear.”

  Jody ran through the garden and called his father. Penny came outside.

  Easy panted, “Oliver’s fightin’ the Forresters. He took a crack at Lem outside the store and all them fightin’ Forresters come down on him. They’re killin’ him.”

  Penny ran for the store. Jody could not keep up with him. Easy trailed behind both of them.

  Penny called over his shoulder, “I hope we kin settle it afore Grandma gits into it with a gun.”

  Jody called, “Pa, we fightin’ for Oliver?”

  “We’re fightin’ for whoever’s takin’ a lickin’ and that’s Oliver.”

  Jody’s brain whirled like a wind-mill.

  He said, “Pa, you said no man couldn’t live on Baxter’s Island without the Forresters was his friends.”

  “I said so. But I ain’t goin’ to see Oliver hurt.”

  Jody was numb. It seemed to him that Oliver deserved his punishment. He had gone away and left them, to see a girl. He was almost glad the Forresters were after him. Perhaps Oliver would come home from the fight and be done with his nonsense. Twink Weatherby— Jody spat into the sand. He thought of Fodder-wing. He could not bear never to be friends with him again.

  He called to his father’s back, “I ain’t goin’ to fight for Oliver.”

  Penny did not answer. His short legs churned. The fight was in the sandy road in front of the Boyles’ store. A cloud of dust rose ahead, like a whirlwind in the heat of summer. Jody heard the shouting of the watchers before he could make out the figures of the fighters. All of Volusia was there.

  Penny panted, “That white ’possumed crowd don’t keer who’s kilt, long as they git to see a fight.”

  Jody saw Twink Weatherby on the outer circle. Men and women all called her pretty, but he wanted to tear out her soft yellow curls, one by one. Her small pointed face was white. Her wide blue eyes were fixed on the fighters. She twisted a handkerchief around and around in her fingers. Penny pushed his way through the crowd. Jody followed behind him. He clutched at his father’s shirt.

  It was true. The Forresters were killing Oliver. Oliver was fighting three of them at once, Lem and Mill-wheel and Buck. He looked like a buck deer Jody had once seen, wounded and bleeding, with the dogs tearing flesh from its throat and shoulders. Blood and sand covered his face. He was boxing warily, trying to take on one Forrester at a time. Lem and Buck rushed in on him together. Jody heard a heavy fist crack against bone. Oliver dropped in the sand. The crowd roared.

  Jody’s mind whirled in confusion. Oliver deserved it, for leaving the cottage and going to a girl. But three against one was never fair. Even when the dogs bayed a bear or panther, it seemed to him an uneven matter. The Forresters, his mother said, were black-hearted. He had never believed her. They sang and drank and frolicked and guffawed. They fed him lavishly and slapped him on the back and gave him Fodder-wing to play with. Was this black-hearted, for three to fight together against one? Yet Mill-wheel and Buck were fighting for Lem, keeping his girl for him. Was not that good? Was that not loyal? Oliver came to his knees, then wavered to his feet. He smiled through the dirt and blood. Jody’s stomach turned over. Oliver was being killed.

  Jody jumped on Lem’s back. He clawed at his neck and thumped his head. Lem shook him off and turned and sent him sprawling. His face stung from the impact of the big hand. His hip ached from the fall.

  Lem snapped, “You keep outen this, you leetle panther.”

  Penny called loudly, “Who’s judgin’ this fight?”

  Lem said, “We’re judgin’ it.”

  Penny pushed in front of him. His voice was high against the shouting.

  “If it take three men to whop one, I say that one is the better man.”

  Lem advanced on him.

  He said, “I’m o’ no mind to kill you, Penny Baxter. But I’ll smack you flat as a skeeter if you don’t git outen my way.”

  Penny said, “Fair is fair. If you aim to kill Oliver, shoot him honest and hang for murder. But be men.”

  Buck shuffled his feet in the sand.

  He said, “We’d of fit him one at a time, but he lit right in.”

  Penny pressed his advantage.

  “Whose fight is it? Who done what to who?”

  Lem said, “He come back stealin’, that’s what he done.”

  Oliver wiped his sleeve across his face.

  He said, “It’s Lem that tried to steal.”

  “Steal what?” Penny pounded one fist inside the other. “Hounds, hogs, guns, or hosses?”

  On the outer rim, Twink Weatherby began to cry.

  Oliver said in a low voice, “This is no place to tell it, Penny.”

  “Then be this the place to fight it out? Like a pack o’ dogs fightin’ in the road? You two fellers fight it out alone another day.”


  Oliver said, “I’ll fight a man anywhere, that says what Lem said.”

  Lem said, “And I’ll say it again.”

  They started together. Penny pushed between them. He seemed to Jody like a small stout pine tree, bending against a hurricane. The crowd roared. Lem drew back his fist and struck Oliver over Penny’s head. The blow sounded like the crack of a rifle. Oliver crumpled like a rag doll to the sand and lay still. Penny brought his knuckles under Lem’s jaw. Buck and Mill-wheel came at him from the sides. Lem sunk his fist in Penny’s ribs. Jody moved with a fury that caught him up from the outside, like a strong wind. He sunk his teeth in Lem’s wrist. He kicked the big shins. Lem turned, like a bear annoyed by a puppy. He knocked Jody clear of his feet. It seemed to him that Lem struck him again in midair. He saw Oliver sway to his feet. He saw Penny’s arms swinging like flails. He heard a roaring. It was close at first, then it faded. He dropped into blackness.

  Chapter XIII

  JODY thought, “I dreamed the fighting.”

  He stared at the ceiling in Grandma Hutto’s spare bedroom. A freight steamer was thrashing up-stream. He heard the sidewheel paddles drinking the swift current of the river. They gulped great wet mouthfuls and let it spill out again. The steamer blew for the Volusia landing. He must certainly have only now awakened in the morning. The steamer’s chugging filled the river bed and beat against the western wall that was the scrub. He had had a nightmare about Oliver Hutto, coming home to fight the Forresters. He turned his head to look out of the window and watch the passing vessel. A sharp pain shot through his neck and shoulder. He could only turn his head part-way. Memory went through him, thrusting like the pain.

  He thought, “The fighting was true.”

  It was afternoon. The sun shone in the west across the river. A bright band lay across the counterpane. The pain stopped, but he felt faint and dizzy. There was movement in the room. A rocker creaked.

  Grandma Hutto said, “His eyes are open.”

  He tried to turn his head toward her voice but could not, without pain. She leaned over him.

  He said, “Hey, Grandma.”