The Yearling

by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

  Jody asked, “What’s that, Ma?”

  “Why, that’s his goozle. What’s a goozle? Well, if he didn’t have no goozle, he couldn’t squeal.”

  Eight hogs in all were dressed. Only the old boar hog, two young sows, and the brood-sow, peace offering from the Forresters, were left to begin the cycle over again. These must take their chances in the woods. They would be fed the slops, and a little corn at evening, to toll them into their pen to be shut up at night for approximate safety. For the rest, they must root for a living, maintaining life if they could, dying if they must.

  Supper that night was a feast, and the table seemed lavish long afterward. There would soon be collards in the garden behind the house, and wild mustard greens all about the clearing. There would be bacon to cook with them, and with the dried shelled cow-peas. Cracklings would hold out for crackling bread for months. The Baxters were in fair shape for the winter. The season was the most abundant of the year. The scarceness of game would not be so serious with the smoke-house full.

  The flattened sugar-cane had sent out whiskered roots along the stalks and had to be torn free of the clutching earth. The stalks were like ragged mops. The extraneous roots had to be cut off before the cane could be ground. Jody drove old Cæsar around and around the small cane-mill and Penny fed the thin, fibrous stalks into the revolving gears. The yield was low, and the syrup was thin and acid, but there was again sweetening in the house. Ma Baxter dropped oranges into the last boiling of syrup and the result made a rich preserve.

  The corn was not much damaged, even the ears that had stood in the field through the rains. Jody spent hours every day at the millstone. The lower stone had small grooves that waved out from the center like the spirals on a snail shell. The upper stone rested on it, and the pair sat in a wooden frame with four legs. The shelled corn was fed into a hole in the center of the upper millstone, and when the ground meal reached a certain fineness, it sifted out through the waste hole and was collected in a bucket. Swinging the overhead lever in a circle hour after hour was monotonous but not unpleasant. Jody dragged up a high stump and when his back was tired, sat on it by way of rest and variety.

  He said to his father, “I do most o’ my figgerin’ here.”

  Penny said, “I hope you do a heap of it, for the flood’s done you outen a teacher. The Forresters and me had it settled to board a teacher between us for you and Fodder-wing this winter. When Fodder-wing died, I still figgered I’d do some trappin’ and git cash money that-a-way. But the creeturs is so scarcet now and the hides so pore, hit’s no use.”

  Jody said comfortingly, “That’s all right. I know a heap now.”

  “That jest proves your ignorance, young feller. I do hate for you to grow up and not know nothin’. You’ll jest have to make out this year with what leetle I kin learn you.”

  The prospect was more than acceptable. Penny would start him on his reading lesson or his sums, and then, before either of them knew it, would be off on a tale. Jody went on with his grinding with a light heart. Flag came up and he stopped to let the fawn lick the meal at the waste-hole. He often took a taste himself. The stones became hot from friction and the meal smelled like popcorn or cornpone. When he was hungry enough, a mouthful was palatable, but it never tasted as good as it smelled. Flag was bored with the inactivity and wandered away. He was becoming bolder and was sometimes gone in the scrub for an hour or so. There was no holding him in the shed. He had learned to kick down the loose board walls. Ma Baxter expressed the belief, only because it was her hope, that the fawn was going wild and would eventually disappear. Jody was no longer even troubled by the remark. He knew that the same restlessness came to the fawn that came to him. Flag merely felt the need of stretching his legs and exploring the world about him. They understood each other perfectly. He knew, too, that when Flag wandered away, he moved in a circle, and was never out of hearing of Jody’s call.

  That evening Flag got himself in serious disgrace. The sweet potatoes had been cured and heaped in a pile on the back porch. Flag roamed there while every one was occupied and found that by butting the pile, the potatoes would roll. The sound and motion charmed him. He butted the pile until it was strewn over most of the yard. He tramped on the potatoes with his sharp hooves. The odor enticed him and he nibbled one. The taste pleased him and he went from one to another, nibbling. Ma Baxter discovered him too late. Grave damage had been done. She drove him furiously with a palmetto broom. The game was much the one of chase that Jody played with him. When she turned away, he turned as well, and, following, butted her in her ample rear. Jody came in from his grinding to a hullabaloo and a crisis. Even Penny upheld Ma Baxter in the gravity of the matter. Jody could not endure the expression on his father’s face. He could not keep back the tears.

  He said, “He didn’t know what he was doin’.”

  “I know, Jody, but the harm’s as bad to the ’taters as if he done it for meanness. We got scarcely enough rations now to do the year.”

  “Then I’ll not eat no ’taters, and make it up.”

  “Nobody wants you should do without ’taters. You jest got to keep track o’ that scaper. If you keep him, it’s your place to see he don’t do no damage.”

  “I couldn’t watch him and grind corn, all two.”

  “Then keep him tied good in the shed when you cain’t watch him.”

  “He hates that ol’ dark shed.”

  “Then pen him.”

  Jody rose before day the next morning and began work on a pen in the corner of the yard. He studied its position with an eye to using the fence for two corners of the pen, and to having it where he could see Flag from most of his own work-spots, the millstone, the wood-pile and the barn lot in particular. Flag would be content, he knew, if he was in sight of him. He finished the pen in the evening, when his chores were done. The next day he untied Flag from the shed and lifted him into the pen, kicking and struggling. Flag was over the bars and out and at his heels again before he reached the house. Penny found him again in tears.

  “Don’t git in a swivet, boy. We’ll work this out, one way or t’other. Now the ’taters is near about the only thing he’ll bother, do you keep him outen the house. They’d ought to be under kiver, anyway. Now you take down that tipply-tumbly pen, and build a coop to kiver the ’taters. Like a chicken coop, with two sides comin’ to a peak. I’ll start you on it.”

  Jody wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  “I shore am obliged, Pa.”

  With the potatoes bedded and covered, there was no more serious trouble. Flag had to be kept out of the smoke-house as well as the house, for he had grown so large that by rearing on his hind legs he could reach the hanging sides of bacon and lick the salt.

  Ma Baxter said, “I don’t want nobody but me lickin’ the meat I eat, let alone a nasty creetur.”

  Flag was annoyingly curious, as well, and butted over a can of lard in the smoke-house to hear the cover fall and see what was inside. The day was cool and the thin loose lard was discovered before it had run out. But such intrusions could be taken care of simply by keeping the doors shut, as was desirable in any case. Jody developed a good memory for such details.

  Penny said, “Hit’ll do you no harm to learn to be keeraful. You got to learn takin’ keer o’ rations comes first of all—first after gittin’ ’em.”

  Penny Teaches Jody His Sums (p. 257)

  Chapter XXIII

  THE first heavy frost came at the end of November. The leaves of the big hickory at the north end of the clearing turned as yellow as butter. The sweet gums were yellow and red and the black-jack thicket across the road from the house flamed with a red as bright as a camp-fire. The grapevines were golden and the sumac was like oak embers. The October blooming of dog-fennel and sea-myrtle had turned to a feathery fluff. The days came in, cool and crisp, warmed to a pleasant slowness, and chilled again. The Baxters sat in the evening in the front room before the first hearth-fire.

  Ma Baxter said, “Don’t seem
possible fire-time’s here agin.”

  Jody lay flat on his belly, staring into the flames. It was here that he was often able to see Fodder-wing’s Spaniard. By squinting his eyes and waiting for the blaze to shift just-so up a crotched log, he could picture, with no trouble at all, a horseman in a red cape, wearing a shining helmet. The picture never lasted long, for the wood stirred and the logs fell, and the Spaniard rode away again.

  He asked, “Did the Spaniards have red capes?”

  Penny said, “I don’t know, son. Now you see how handy a teacher’d be.”

  Ma Baxter said wonderingly, “Now what put sich a idee as that in his head?”

  He rolled over on his side and stretched one arm across Flag. The fawn lay asleep, his legs tucked under his stomach, like a calf. His white tail twitched in his sleep. Ma Baxter did not mind his being in the house in the evening, after supper. She even turned an unseeing eye on his sleeping in Jody’s bedroom, for at least then he was into no mischief. She took him for granted with the critical disinterest she showed the dogs. They were outside, sleeping under the house. On bitter nights Penny brought them in too, not that it was necessary, but because he enjoyed sharing his comfort.

  Ma Baxter said, “Throw a stick on the fire. I cain’t quite see to foller my seams.”

  She had cut down a pair of Penny’s winter breeches for Jody.

  She said, “Now take another notion to grow like you done this spring, and I’ll be cuttin’ down your breeches to fit your daddy.”

  Jody laughed out loud and Penny pretended to be offended. Then his eyes twinkled in the firelight and his thin shoulders shook. Ma Baxter rocked complacently. They were all pleased whenever she made a joke. Her good nature made the same difference in the house as the hearth-fire had made in the chill of the evening.

  Penny said, “You and me had ought to be gittin’ out that speller, boy.”

  “Mebbe the roaches has ate it.”

  Ma Baxter poised her needle in the air. She pointed it at him.

  “You best study your grammar, too,” she said. “You’d ought to say, ’The roaches has eat it.’”

  She rocked again, placidly.

  Penny said, “You know, I got a idee we’ll not have no great cold this winter.”

  Jody said, “I like it cold, if ’twa’n’t for totin’ in wood.”

  “Yes, sir, hit look like a good winter. We come out a heap better’n I figgered on the crops and meat. Mebbe a feller kin git his breath now.”

  Ma Baxter said, “About time.”

  “Yes, sir, ol’ Starvation’s doin’ his huntin’ another place.” The evening wore on without further speech. There was no sound but the hearth-fire simmering, the puff of Penny’s pipe, and the creak-pat, creak-pat of Ma Baxter’s rocker on the board floor. Once a great whistling passed over the house, like a sudden wind in the pine trees. Ducks were flying south. Jody looked up at his father. Penny pointed the stem of his pipe upward and nodded. If he were not so comfortable, Jody would have liked to ask what kind they were and where they were going. If he could know such things as his father knew them, he could manage, he thought, without the sums and the spelling. He liked the reading. Most of it was tales, not as good as Penny’s—none was—but still, tales.

  Penny said, “Well, it’s go to sleep here, or find the bed.”

  He rose and knocked out his pipe on the hearth. As he bent, the dogs began to bark and dashed from under the house. It seemed as though his stirring had awakened them from sleep, and they had plunged after an imaginary enemy. Penny opened the front door and cupped his hand to his ear.

  “Now I don’t hear a thing but them dogs.”

  The calf bleated. The cry was at once of terror and pain. There was another that lifted to a scream, then was abruptly muffled. Penny ran to the kitchen for his gun.

  “Fetch a light!”

  Jody chose to believe that his mother was indicated. He ran after his father with his own gun, which since old Slew-foot’s last visit he was allowed to keep loaded. Ma Baxter followed unwillingly with a lighted splinter, feeling her way with slow feet. Jody climbed the lot fence. He was sorry now that he had not brought the torch himself. He could see nothing. He could hear only a tumult of fighting and snarling, a snapping of many teeth, the voices of Rip and old Julia silenced. Above it came the desperate voice of his father.

  “Git ’em, Julia! Hold ’em, Rip! My Lord, the light!”

  Jody turned back over the fence and ran to his mother and took the torch from her. The thing that was happening was for Penny to handle. He ran back again. He lifted the torch high in his hand. The wolves had invaded the lot and killed the heifer calf. A band of them, three dozen or more, milled about the enclosure. Their eyes caught the light in pairs, like corrupt pools of shining water. They were emaciated and rough-coated. Their fangs glistened as white as gar-fish bones. He heard his mother screaming beyond the fence and became aware that he was screaming, too.

  Penny shouted, “Hold that light still!”

  He tried to steady it. He saw Penny lift his gun and shoot once, then again. The wolves turned and flowed over the fence in a gray wave. Rip snapped at their heels. Penny ran shouting after them. Jody ran behind him, trying to keep the light on the swift forms. He remembered that he had his own gun in the other hand. He pushed it at his father and Penny took it and shot again. The wolves were gone like a thunderstorm. Rip hesitated, his light hide plain in the darkness, then turned and limped back to his master. Penny stooped and petted him. He, too, turned, and walked back slowly into the lot. The cow was bellowing.

  Penny said quietly, “I’ll take the light.”

  He lifted it and swung it about the enclosure. The shredded body of the calf lay in the middle. Near it lay old Julia, her teeth in the throat of a gaunt wolf. The wolf was taking its last breaths. Its eyes glazed. It was tick-ridden and mangy.

  Penny said, “All right, gal. Leave go.”

  Julia released her hold and stood back. Her teeth, worn by age to the flatness of corn kernels, had accounted for the only casualty. Penny looked at the mangled calf, and at the dead wolf. Then, as though he stared into the green eyes of an invisible enemy, he looked off into the night. He seemed small and shrunken.

  He said, “Well——”

  He handed Jody his gun and retrieved his own from the side of the fence. He leaned and picked up a hoof of the calf and walked decisively toward the house, dragging the carcass. Jody understood, shivering, that his father meant to have it handy if the marauders returned. He was still frightened. A panther or a bear at bay always terrified him. But there the men had always stood with leveled guns. There the dogs had room to dart in and get away. The fierce pack in the lot had made a sight he wanted never to see again. He wished his father had dragged the carcass into the woods. Ma Baxter came to the door and called quaveringly.

  “I had to come to the house in the dark. I never been so scairt. Were it bears agin?”

  They went into the house and Penny brushed past her to go to the hearth to the swinging kettle for hot water for the dogs’ wounds.

  “Wolves.”

  “Oh dear Heaven! Did they kill the calf?”

  “They kilt it.”

  “Oh dear Heaven! And hit a heifer!”

  She followed him about while he poured hot water in a basin and bathed the dogs’ wounds. They were not serious.

  “I wisht I could git the dogs on them beasts one at a time,” he said grimly.

  In the warm safety of the house, bold now because his mother was afraid, Jody could speak at last.

  “Will they be back tonight, Pa? Will we go hunt ’em?”

  Penny rubbed boiled pine gum into Rip’s one deep wound, a jagged tear on one flank. He was in no mood for answers or talk of any kind. He did not speak until he was done with the dogs and had made them a good bed under the house near his bedroom window. He did not mean to be taken by surprise again. He came in and washed his hands and warmed them by the fire.

  “Now this
be the kind o’ time a man needs a snort,” he said. “I shore aim to beg a quart offen the Forresters tomorrer.”

  “You goin’ there tomorrer?”

  “I got to have he’p. My dogs is all right, but a big woman and a leetle man and a yearlin’ boy is no match for that many hongry wolves huntin’ in a pack.”

  It gave Jody a strange feeling to have his father admit that he could not handle anything alone. But the wolves had never before descended on the clearing in a band. Deer and small animals had been plentiful to feed them. Only a few had come, singly or in pairs, skulking about timorously, running at the first alarm. They had never before been a major menace. Penny took off his breeches and turned his back to the fire.

  “Now I was scairt,” he said. “My very bottom’s cold.”