The Yearling

by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

  But the Forresters had passed beyond persuasion or interference.

  Buck said, “Now you-all he’p me git fixed. I’m aimin’ to scare the devil right outen that church buildin’.”

  Lem and Mill-wheel draped the bear-skin over him. He got down on all fours. He could not get an effect realistic enough to suit him, for the hide, split down the belly, allowed the great heavy head to slide forward. Penny was impatient to be inside and to reassure Ma Baxter, but the Forresters were in no hurry. They donated two or three pairs of boot laces and laced the hide together across Buck’s chest. The result was all he could ask for. His bulky back and shoulders filled out the hide almost as completely as the original owner. He gave a trial growl. They crept up the steps of the church. Lem swung the door open to let Buck pass inside, then pulled it back, leaving a crack wide enough for the rest to watch through. It was a moment or two before the visitor was noticed. Buck swayed forward with so true an imitation of a bear’s rolling gait that Jody felt the hair crawl on the back of his neck. Buck growled. The assembled company turned. Buck halted. There was an instant of paralysis, then the church emptied through the windows as though a gale of wind had blown a pile of oak leaves.

  The Forresters entered through the door, bellowing with laughter. Penny and Jody followed. Suddenly Penny leaped for Buck and pulled the bear’s head away so that the human face was exposed.

  “Git outen that thing, Buck. You want to git kilt?”

  His eye had caught the glint of a gun-barrel at one of the windows. Buck stood up and the hide slipped to the floor. The frolickers crowded in again. Outside, a woman screaming could not be quieted and two or three children wailed in fear. The first reaction of the gathering was one of anger.

  One man called, “This be a purty way to come celebratin’ Christmas Eve. Scarin’ young uns outen their wits.”

  But the holiday spirit was strong, and the drunken joviality of the Forresters was infectious. Interest centered in the great bear hide. Here and there a man guffawed and at last the crowd was laughing, and agreeing that Buck had looked more like a bear than old Slewfoot himself. The big bear had done damage for several years. His reputation was known to all.

  Penny was surrounded by most of the men and boys. His wife greeted him and bustled away to bring him a plate of food. He sat on the edge of one of the church benches, pushed back against the plain bare walls, and tried to eat. He swallowed a few mouthfuls. Then the men’s eager questions enmeshed him and he was away on the flowing stream of his tale of the hunt. The food sat in his lap, uneaten.

  Jody looked shyly about in the unaccustomed color and brightness. The small church was decorated with holly and mistletoe and donations of house plants; sultanas and geraniums, aspidistras and coleas. Kerosene lamps shone from brackets along the walls. The ceiling was half hidden with suspended ropes of colored paper, green and red and yellow. At the front, where the rostrum stood for services, a Christmas tree was hung with tinsel and strings of popcorn, figures cut from paper, and a few shining balls that had been a present from the captain of the Mary Draper. Gifts had been exchanged and the wrappings were strewn under the tree. Little girls moved trance-like with new rag dolls clutched to their flat gingham breasts. The boys too young to be engrossed with Penny, played on the floor.

  The food was on long plank tables near the Christmas tree. Grandma Hutto and his mother bore down on him to lead him to it. He found that glory hung about him, too, in a sweet aroma. Women crowded around him and pressed food on him. They too asked questions about the hunt. At first he was struck dumb and could not answer. He felt hot and cold and spilled salad from the plate in one hand. The other hand held three varieties of cake.

  Grandma Hutto said, “Now leave him be.”

  He was suddenly afraid he would not have a chance to answer the questions and would miss the shining triumph of the hour.

  He said quickly, “We follered him near about three days. We jumped him twice. We got into mud Pa said would bog a buzzard’s shadow, and we wrangled out of it——”

  They listened with flattering attention. He was filled with enthusiasm. He began at the beginning and tried to tell it as he thought Penny would do. Half-way through, he looked down at the cake. He lost interest in the account.

  “Then Pa shot him,” he ended abruptly.

  He crammed a chunk of pound cake in his mouth. The clustered women turned to bring him more sweets.

  Ma Baxter said, “Now you begin on cake, you’ll not be able to hold nothin’ else.”

  “I don’t want nothin’ else.”

  Grandma Hutto said, “Leave him be, Ory. He kin eat cornbread the rest o’ the year.”

  “I’ll eat it tomorrer,” he promised. “I know you got to have cornbread to grow on.”

  He went from one kind of cake to another and back again.

  He asked, “Ma, did Flag come in ’fore you left?”

  “He come in yestiddy at dark. I declare, hit worried me, him comin’ in without you. Then Nellie Ginright was here a while tonight and reported you.”

  He looked at her with approval. She was really handsome, he thought, in the black alpaca. Her gray hair was combed smoothly and her cheeks were flushed with her contentment and her pride. The other women addressed her respectfully. It was a great thing, he thought, to be kin to Penny Baxter.

  He said, “I got somethin’ purty for you, home.”

  “Have? ’Twouldn’t be red and shiny, would it?”

  “You found it!”

  “I got to clean house now and agin.”

  “You like it?”

  “Purty as kin be. I’d of wore it, but I figgered you’d want to give it to me. You want to know what I got hid for you, or no?”

  “Tell me.”

  “I got a sack o’ pep’mint candy. And your Pa made you a deer-leg scabbard for the knife Oliver give you. And he made a buckskin collar for your fawn.”

  “How’d he do it without me knowin’?”

  “When you’re oncet asleep, he could put a new roof over you, and you’d not know it.”

  He sighed with repletion of soul and body. He looked at the remnants of cake in his hands. He thrust them at his mother.

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “About time.”

  He looked about at the company and was again stabbed with shyness. Eulalie Boyles was doing a hop-skip-and-jump in a corner with the wordless boy who sometimes ran the ferry. Jody stared from a distance. He would scarcely have known her. She had on a white dress with blue ruffles and blue bows of ribbon swung at the ends of her pig-tails. He was swept with resentment, not of her, but of the ferry-boy. Eulalie in a remote fashion belonged to him, Jody, to do with as he pleased, if only to throw potatoes at her.

  The Forresters had formed a group of their own at the end of the church near the door. The bolder of the women had taken them plates of food. To look twice at a Forrester was to invite scandal. The more roistering of the men were with them, and the bottles were going around again. The Forrester voices boomed above the hum of the festivities. The fiddlers went outside and brought in their instruments and began to tune and scrape. A square dance was formed and called. Buck and Mill-wheel and Gabby induced giggling girls to be their partners. Lem frowned from the outskirts. The Forresters made a violent and noisy affair of the dance. Grandma Hutto retired to a far bench. Her black eyes snapped.

  Jody and Flag (p. 353)

  “You’d never of got me here, did I know them black devils was comin’.”

  “Nor me,” Ma Baxter said.

  They sat stonily side by side, for once in agreement and harmony. Jody was half-drunk himself with the noise and music, the cake and the excitement. The outside world was cold, but the inside of the church was hot and stuffy with the roaring wood-stove and the heat of the packed and sweating bodies.

  A man, a newcomer, entered the door. A cold gust of air followed him, so that every one looked up to see what had brought it. A few noticed that Lem Forrester
spoke to him, and the man answered, and Lem said something to his brothers. In a moment the Forresters went out together. The group around Penny had been filled and satisfied with his story of the hunt and was now supplementing it with tales of their own. The square dance continued with a reduced number. Some of the women went to the group of hunters, protesting their absorption. The newcomer was brought to the still-loaded tables for food. He was a traveller who had disembarked from a steamer that had stopped for wood at the river landing.

  He said, “I was tellin’ the men, ladies, there was other passengers got off here. I reckon you know ’em. Mr. Oliver Hutto and a young lady.”

  Grandma Hutto stood up.

  “You sure o’ that name?”

  “Why, yes, Ma’am. He said his home was here.”

  Penny was pushing his way toward her. He took her aside.

  He said, “I see you’ve done had the news. I’m feered the Forresters has gone to your house. I’m fixin’ to go there to try to ward off trouble. You want to go? Could be, they’d behave theirselves better was you there to shame ’em.”

  She bustled about for her shawl and bonnet.

  Ma Baxter said, “Now I’ll jest go with you. I’d as soon give them varmints a piece o’ my own mind.”

  Jody trailed behind them. They piled in the Baxter wagon and turned back toward the river. The sky was strangely bright.

  Penny said, “Must be a woods fire some’eres. Oh, my God.”

  The position of the fire was unmistakable. Around the bend of the road, down the lane of oleanders, flames were shooting high into the air. Grandma Hutto’s house was burning. They turned into the yard. The house was a bonfire. The flames showed details of the rooms within. Fluff ran to them, his tail between his legs. They jumped down from the wagon.

  Grandma called, “Oliver! Oliver!”

  It was impossible to approach within yards. Grandma ran toward the blaze. Penny pulled her back.

  He shouted above the roaring and crackling, “You want to git burnt to death?”

  “Oliver’s there! Oliver! Oliver!”

  “He cain’t be. He’d of got out.”

  “They’ve shot him! He’s in there! Oliver!”

  He struggled with her. In the bright light the earth was plain. It was cut and trampled with the hooves of horses. But the Forresters and their mounts were gone.

  Ma Baxter said, “There’s jest nothin’ them black buzzards won’t do.”

  Grandma Hutto fought to break free.

  Penny said, “Jody, for the Lord’s sake, drive back to Boyles’ store and see kin you find somebody seed where Oliver headed when he left the boat. If there’s nobody there, go on to the doin’s and find out from the stranger.”

  Jody clambered to the wagon seat and turned Cæsar back up the lane. His hands seemed wooden and he fumbled with the reins. He was panicked and could not remember whether his father had told him to go first to the doings or first to the store. If Oliver was alive, he would never be unfaithful to him, even in his mind, again. He turned into the road. The winter night was bright with stars. Cæsar snorted. A man and woman were walking down the road toward the river. He heard the man laugh.

  He cried, “Oliver!” and jumped from the moving wagon.

  Oliver called, “Now look who’s drivin’ around by hisself. Hey, Jody.”

  The woman was Twink Weatherby.

  Jody said, “Git in the wagon, quick, Oliver.”

  “What’s the hurry? Where’s your manners? Speak to the lady.”

  “Oliver, Grandma’s house is a-fire. The Forresters done it.”

  Oliver tossed his bags into the wagon. He lifted Twink and swunk her to the seat, then vaulted the wheel and took the reins. Jody scrambled up beside him. Oliver groped with one hand inside his shirt and laid his revolver on the seat.

  “The Forresters is gone,” Jody said.

  Oliver whipped the horse to a trot and turned down the lane. The frame of the house stood revealed around the flames, as though a box enclosed them. Oliver caught his breath.

  “Ma wasn’t in it?”

  “She’s yonder.”

  Oliver stopped the wagon and they climbed down.

  He called, “Ma!”

  Grandma threw her arms in the air and ran to her son.

  He said, “Easy, there, old lady. Quit tremblin’ now. Easy.”

  Penny joined them.

  He said, “No man’s voice was never more welcome, Oliver.”

  Oliver pushed Grandma aside and stared at the house. The roof crashed and a fresh blaze leaped to the moss in the live oaks.

  He said, “Which-a-way has the Forresters gone?”

  Jody heard Grandma murmur, “Oh God.”

  She braced herself.

  She said loudly, “Now what in tarnation you want o’ the Forresters?”

  Oliver wheeled.

  “Jody said they done it.”

  “Jody, you fool young un. The idees a boy’ll git. I left a lamp burnin’ by a open window. The curtain must of blowed and ketched. Hit worried me all through the evenin’ at the doin’s. Jody, you must want a ruckus mighty bad.”

  Jody gaped at her. His mother’s mouth was open.

  Ma Baxter said, “Why, you know——”

  Jody saw his father grip her arm.

  Penny said, “Yes, son, you got no business thinkin’ sich things of innocent men is miles away.”

  Oliver let out his breath slowly.

  He said, “I’m shore proud ’twasn’t their doin’. I’d not of left one alive.” He turned and drew Twink close to him. “Folks, meet my wife.”

  Grandma Hutto wavered, then walked to the girl and kissed her cheek.

  “Now I’m glad you got it settled,” she said. “Mebbe Oliver’ll take time to visit with me now and again.”

  Oliver took Twink by the hand and went to circle the house. Grandma turned fiercely on the Baxters.

  “If you dast to let it out— You think I aim to have two counties strowed with Forrester blood and my boy’s bones, for a burnt-up house?”

  Penny laid his hands on her shoulders.

  “Ol’ lady,” he said. “Ol’ lady— Did I have the sense you got——”

  She was quivering. Penny held her and she quieted. Oliver and Twink returned.

  Oliver said, “Don’t take it too hard, Ma. We’ll build you the best house on the river.”

  She gathered her strength.

  “I don’t want it. I’m too old. I want to live in Boston.”

  Jody looked at his father. Penny’s face was drawn.

  She said defiantly, “I want to go in the mornin’.”

  Oliver said, “Why, Ma— Leave here?”

  His face lightened.

  He said slowly, “I always ship out of Boston. Ma, I’d love it. But do I turn you loose amongst them Yankees, I’m feered you’ll start another war between the states.”

  Chapter XXVII

  THE Baxters stood at the river landing in the cold dawn, saying good-by to Grandma and Oliver and Twink and Fluff. Around the bend to the south, the north-bound steamboat whistled for the landing. Grandma and Ma Baxter embraced. Grandma caught Jody to her and held him tight.

  “You learn to write, so you kin write to Grandma in Boston.”

  Oliver shook hands with Penny.

  Penny said, “Jody and me’ll miss you fearful.”

  Oliver put out his hand to Jody.

  “I thank you for stickin’ by me,” he said. “I’ll not forget you. Not even in the China Sea.”

  Grandma’s chin was a flint arrowhead. Her mouth was tight.

  Penny said, “If you folks ever change your minds and want to come back, there’s a welcome at the Island day or night.”

  The steamboat rounded the bend and warped in to the landing. It carried a few lights, for the river between its banks was still dark.

  Twink said, “We ’bout to fergit what we got for Jody.”

  Oliver fished in his pocket and handed her a round parcel. />
  She said, “This is for you, Jody, ’cause you he’ped fight for Oliver.”

  He was numb with the happenings of the day. He took it and stared stupidly. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. Her touch was strangely agreeable. Her lips were soft and her yellow hair was fragrant.

  The gang-plank was thrown down. A bundle of freight was tossed to the dock. Grandma stooped and gathered Fluff in her arms. Penny took her soft wrinkled face between his hands and laid his cheek against hers.

  He said, “I got a real love for you. I—” His voice broke.

  The Huttos filed up the gang-plank. The paddle-wheels thrashed the water, the current sucked at the boat. It swung out into mid-stream. Grandma and Oliver stood at the rail and waved to them. The boat whistle blew again and the steamer moved down the river. Jody stirred in his numbness and waved violently.

  “Good-by, Grandma! Good-by, Oliver! Good-by, Twink!”

  “Good-by, Jody——”

  Their voices trailed away. It seemed to Jody that they were moving away from him into another world. It was as though he saw them die. There were rosy streaks across the east but the daylight seemed even colder than the night had been. The ashes of the Hutto house glowed faintly.

  The Baxters drove home toward the scrub. Penny was wracked with sorrow for his friends. His face was strained. Jody was swept with so contradictory a tumult of thoughts that he gave up trying to sort them and snuggled down on the wagon-seat between the warmth of his mother and father. He opened the package Twink had given him. It was a small pewter canister for his gunpowder. He hugged it to him. He remembered that Easy Ozell was on the east coast, and wondered if he would follow Grandma Hutto to Boston when he found her gone. The wagon jogged on to the clearing. The day would be cold but brilliant.

  Ma Baxter said, “Now if ’twas me, I’d not of left without havin’ the law on them baboons.”

  Penny said, “Nobody couldn’t prove a thing. Them horse tracks? Why, the Forresters’d only say they seed the fire and come to watch it. They could say the county was full o’ horses and ’twasn’t even them had been there.”