Part 10

Snead dropped back and put an end to my list of contingencies. His voice was intimately lowered and I caught Sam’s eye following him furtively.

“I hate to see a woman git the worst of it when she’s tryin’ to be fair,” he began. “You’ve got a fine hog-claim, an’ you ought to be gittin’ something out of it. How many hogs hev the boys brought in fer ye this year?”

“This is the first time we’ve been after them.”

“’Course, though, the boys hev been out more’n onct amarkin’ shotes?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do, fer I’ve seen ’em.” He called to Sam. “Sam, how many shotes did ye git marked that day I seed ye out fer ’em?”

Sam did not flinch under the attack. “We marked a fine lot,” he said. “I don’t jest remember how many. I been meanin’ to tell ye ’bout that, Mis’ Dolly, ’cause you’ll be wantin’ to ’low us something fer the markin’. It’s shore hard work. That wuz when you’s gone to Hiwassee, an’ I fergot to tell ye when you come home. I knowed you’d make it all right.”

“What’s it worth to mark hogs, Sam?”

“It’s _worth_ more’n ketchin’ ’em, ’cause we’ve got to ketch ’em an’ mark ’em, an’ turn ’em loose. But we’re goin’ to make it easier on you than that.”

I exonerate Sam from any intention of charging me for “turning them loose.” He was merely embellishing his defense. But by a brief calculation I saw that if I gave half the value of the hogs for catching and bringing them in, and the other half, or a little less, for marking the young, I would have to pursue my profit with a microscope.

Snead again took up his confidential tone. “I ain’t a man fer makin’ trouble, an’ there ain’t anybody in a hundred miles o’ me can swear I ever accused him o’ sellin’ other folks’ hogs; but I wish you’d a gone by Ham Copp’s next day an’ seed what he had in his pen. I ain’t sayin’ what, an’ I never will say what, in court er out, but I ’low you’d know yer own mark.”

Sam and Len had hastily entered upon a subdued conference of their own, and just then Sam called to Snead.

“Wha’d you say, Uncle Ag, ef we don’t he’p ye to-morr’, an’ call it square about them shotes you ain’t paid fer yit?”

He was staggered, taken in the open, but rallied jauntily.

“All right, boys; jest as you say.”

Sam turned to me. “We didn’t tell ye ’bout them shotes Uncle Ag got, ’cause he was in sech a hole ’bout payin’ fer ’em, an’ nacherly we didn’t want to worry ye till we got it fixed. Now he gits our part o’ the shotes fer he’ppin’ us to-day, an’ we’re willin’ to take _yore_ part fer the markin’ you owes us, an’ wait on Uncle Ag fer it, seein’ we made sech a slow trade fer ye.”

By then I was in a position to foretell just the amount of revenue that in all time to come I was going to derive from my claim.

“We don’t want to take any downright money from ye, Mis’ Dolly,” explained Sam. “You’ve never been hard on us, an’ we kain’t afford to be hard on _you_. An’ by fixin’ it the way I said, ever’body’ll be satisfied, an’ you won’t be out nothin’ but a few shotes.”

“And a few shotes, Sam, don’t matter when I’ve got the woods full of them.”

“That’s what I wuz goin’ to say.”

“A man with the woods full of hogs is in a pretty good fix, isn’t he?”

“Jest about fat rich, Mis’ Dolly.”

“Then you and Len are rich. The hog-claim is yours.”

They thought it a joke at first, and I labored to convince them; then they insisted on my keeping half of it.

“No, boys,” I persisted generously. “That would mix up our calculations. As it is, you’ll know what you’ve got, and I’ll know what I’ve got.”

“You’re right about that,” said Sam.

“I want to say, too, that this deal works backward. If there’s anybody owing for hogs, the debt is yours, and you needn’t ever bother me about it.”

“An’ if any meddlin’ ol’ loafer comes tellin’ ye ’bout seein’ hogs here, there, an’ yander, in other folks’ pens, from time back,” said Sam, with the dignity of righteousness, “it won’t be wuth a blue bean to him.”

“I’ll send him to you and Len. It will be your affair, not mine.”

At that, Len came over to me. His face was serious but glowing. “I knowed you’s white,” he said, “but I didn’t know jest how white you wuz. Abe Siler’s beggin’ me underhand to leave you an’ work on his place. Next time he asts me, I’m goin’ to bust my knuckles on them two big front teeth o’ hisn.”

Len, who was noted as a “clean-crop-man,” was the most coveted tenant within three townships. I had bought his loyalty cheap.

Sam, of coarser but shrewder mind, spared me any disconcerting gratitude. Before their early bedtime I was to hear his comment to Coretta, who was shedding grateful tears.

“Aw, shet up, K’rettie. I reckon she’s got sense enough to know that the woods full o’ hogs ain’t wuth much to a woman.”

VII

SERENA TAKES A BOARDER

I

“But where do they sleep?” my “foreign” friends would ask, with the impertinence of civilization, whenever they returned from a call at the shack where Len and Serena, after nightfall, compressed their spreading family into two rooms and a loft.

With a light answer I would callously shunt investigation. “Oh, Serena tucks them away!”

Rectitude, founded on bathtubs, with privacy at one’s mere discretion, had lost its power over me during the years in which I had hoped for a season sufficiently free from disaster to enable me to add two morally indispensable rooms to Len’s cabin; nevertheless the desire hung like a vague compulsion in the back of my mind, unaffected by the indifference of Serena, who, oblivious to restriction, remained the smiling magnet of her swarm.

I did go so far as to give Len the lumber from an old house which I had torn down with the luxurious intent of lining my own cabin from the material. I found that it contained enough sound chestnut to provide an ample kitchen for his house, and we spent a happy evening making the plans. There was to be a big fireplace, built by Uncle Ben Copp, an authority on chimney structure, and plenty of “shevs,” about which Len was enthusiastic, though Serena, innocent of industrial vision, liquidly inquired: “Whatever’ll I put on ’em?”

Len was to build the kitchen. He was untrained, but not inapt, and rarely finished a job without a proud touch of invention that gave him as much pleasure as the pay he received. But, as the only member of his family possessing the slightest energetic fire, “ever’ turn was hisn,” and he was always two or three years in the rear of his more ambitious intentions. The lumber made a promising stack in the back yard, and occasionally during the season that followed, Len would say to me: “Reckon my work’ll ever let up so’s I can git at that kitchen?”

The pile gradually receded, very noticeably after a few days of rainy weather, and by the end of the second year it had withdrawn to invisibility. No one ever spoke of the kitchen again, and I would have been the last to mention it; but when the winter winds found the crevices in my cabin and, with the gaiety of discoverers, attacked my spine, I thought longingly of my lumber that had disappeared in Serena’s cook-stove; and one day I had the pleasure of hearing Si Goforth ask, as he passed through Len’s yard, whatever they’d put their stack o’ chestnut into? Getting no answer from a hurt and silent group, he added slyly: “A lumber pile nigh the house is as bad as a rail fence; it sucks itssef.”

I never had the hardihood to probe into the sleeping arrangements of Serena’s household; but I could see the two beds in the room where they kept a fire, sat and talked, picked the banjo and received their company. I knew there were beds in the loft for the boys, and that granpap placed his own there when he chose to live with Len and exchange, for a time, Coretta’s fidgety ambition for the cheery fatalism of Serena. There was no bed in the room where they cooked and ate, but this was for lack of space only. The necessarily long table, benches, and chairs devoured any vacancy left by the cook-stove, cupboard, and water-shelf. From chance remarks I gathered that if visitors were men-folks they ascended to the loft; if women, Len went above, leaving the guests below with Serena and the girls. There were “ticks” which could be placed on the floor when the beds overflowed, as they did quite frequently. Just where they were put was something to wonder over, but I kept the whole matter in a sort of kindly murk, waiting the day when I should be able to act with deference due to an articulate conscience.

Because of Serena’s apathy toward gardening, canning, drying, and preserving, and her persistent habit of letting the children “run along and milk,” the family diet through the greater part of the year was without surprise or adventure. Corn bread, coffee, fried meat, ’taters, and ’lasses satisfied hunger, with no concessions to either infancy or age. Let me not forget pickled beans. That dish was a mainstay for babe and man. But notwithstanding the depressing fare, there was always company at Len’s. Constant good humor and unflagging welcome made for an open house. “Stay with us,” Len would say, and add the mountain jargon, which in this case was almost literally true: “We can give you plenty o’ spring water, pickled beans, an’ satisfaction.”

Sometimes I tried a carefully padded remonstrance, such as: “Don’t you think it is too hard on Serena to have so much company?”

“Reenie don’t bother hersef. They take what comes.”

“With so many children, Len, you’ll kill yourself soon enough without providing for others.”

“You kain’t call what I give ’em providin’. I tell Reenie to hand ’em out some salt an’ let ’em pick ’round the yard.” And with his laughter filling the air, he would rush off to whichever of his many jobs was driving him the hardest.

My approaches to Serena were alike futile. I have good reason to remember the last one, which took place on my front porch one Sunday morning.

“We’re bound to take keer o’ the Madison folks when they come out,” she said, in response to a tentative protest from me. “The Merlins used to live back there, an’ so did all o’ my folks.”

“But Len isn’t the only Merlin around here.”

“He’s the one they think the most of anyhow,” she returned proudly.

“They’re not all from Madison. What about the people from over the ridge?”

“As to them, Mis’ Dolly, you know as well as I do that we’re up here half-way ’twixt all o’ Nighthawk settlement an’ the stores an’ post-office down at Beebread. When them folks git on top o’ the mountain, goin’ er comin’, they’ve got to set an’ rest. Ef it’s dinner-time, of course I lay ’em a plate, an’ ef it’s leanin’ toward night you wouldn’t want me not to ast ’em to stay. A barn cat would be civiller than that an’ let ’em sleep in the hay.”

“There are other houses on the ridge, Serena.”

“Yes, here’s yorn right here, but you’re livin’ by yersef an’ company makes trouble. I’ve got sech a big fam’ly I don’t notice it when a few more drap in. Lots o’ times,” she continued, in an attempt to save my feelings and underrate her own popularity, “they say to me let’s go round to yore house, an’ I know you’re busy, so I tell ’em we’ll go after we set a bit. Then I wait till it’s too late to come over. ’Tain’t because they don’t like you, an’ don’t you git to thinkin’ it.”

I had understood that Serena always interpreted me favorably to the community, but I had not realized until that moment how much I owed to her sense of proprietorship in me and my affairs. More eager than ever to reciprocate, I pursued the argument.

“You haven’t explained Sunday. Very likely you’ll have to cook dinner for half a dozen people to-day, besides your own family.”

“I’m sort o’ expectin’ it. Some young folks told Lonie and Ben they’s comin’ up to-day. You’re always sayin’ let the childern have a good time, an’ I reckon you wouldn’t want me to shet off Sunday. There wouldn’t be much left fer ’em.”

She knew I would find this unanswerable, and thus encouraged entered on doubtful ground.

“Har’et Drake said maybe she’d come too, with her man an’ the young-uns. She said they’d take dinner with you er me, one er t’other.”

“With me?”

“Har’et thinks a heap o’ you, but maybe she’ll stay at my house. I knowed her out in Madison.”

My eyes sought their familiar refuge, the horizon, and even as my glance swept the hill it fell upon Mrs. Drake, her man, and the five children in undeviating approach. Serena’s eyes followed mine.

“Looks like they’re comin’ here,” she said. “They’ll git a better dinner anyway. I ain’t got what I ought to hev fer anybody that’ll climb all the way up here jest a-neighborin’.”

I gave the guests a welcome which I hope did not reveal a daunted heart. There was still a chance that they would go with Serena, and my day of sun and solitude be restored to me. The Madison influence might prevail. Unexpectedly I found myself blessing that contemned affiliation.

When Serena rose to go she proved to be the preferred hostess. Mr. Drake had brought a banana muskmelon from home, which he left with me in gentle propitiation for his desertion; and as the family accompanied Serena around the curving road I may have had a slight feeling of humiliation but no sense of injury. I knew that as an entertainer I could not compete with Len and Serena. They were reservoirs of mountain song and story, and their lingual flow never permitted a conversational vacuum. No wonder that I was passed by.

Serena undulated from my sight, but left illumination behind her. In a whirl of emotion I went to my smoke-house and took down from my store as much as I could carry in a generous basket, and, taking a back trail, brought the stuff to Serena’s kitchen door while her guests were “chowing” with Len on the front porch.

“The gardens haven’t come in yet,” I apologized, when Serena appeared at the door, “and I was afraid your canned stuff had given out.”

It was always out by Christmas, and this was April.

“Yes,” said Serena, “it’s jest about gone. An’, I declare, I was out o’ sugar an’ lard too! I’ll shore pay you back.”

“Never mind that. The Drakes don’t get up here often. I want you to set them a good dinner.”

“I told Len,” she said, with a touch of triumph, “that he’d got it all wrong ’bout you not wantin’ us to have so much company. I told him you’s as free-hearted as ef you’s born in the mountains.”

With humbled step I turned into the trail home, and never again offered any admonitions against excessive hospitality.

Through the spring and summer I continued to make apologetic contributions to Serena’s table, glad in this way to lessen any debt of festivity that I owed the community. A more trustful spirit seemed to reign on the mountain, and there was a happy impetus toward no one cared what. All might have gone well for a much longer period if, toward the end of the summer, I had not become too deeply concerned over the emaciated appearance of little Ross, and the fact that Len, long overburdened, showed signs of failing health, apparently evident to none but me. An encounter with Serena brought my feelings to the surface. She came in one day to tell me of an incident that had amused her “past common.”

But here I should explain that Serena insisted on “raising” ducks every year. I had striven in vain to induce her to transfer her love from the unprofitable duck to the remunerative hen. Ducks amused her, and at first I shared her pleasure when she took me to see a brood that had just “broke through.” A nestful of chickens is tame in comparison with ducklings that seduce the eye with their deeper, ineffable downiness and their constant vibratory motions that seem to annex the air to their twinkling contour. As they grow older the entertainment deepens. The rôle of parent, for good reasons, is enacted always by a hen, and she will soon learn to wander unconcernedly on the bank while her charges are diving and paddling in the water, but it is another matter when, a little after sundown, she attempts to hover ducklings that are determined to straggle about until after dark. The desperate mother wears herself out clucking, squawking, and spluttering as she tries to prevail upon the rebels to change their nature and go to sleep. Sometimes they impishly gather under her and are quiet for a moment, then as soon as the hen is in a merciful doze, out they come. The morning also has its drama, for the ducklings are awake and ready to run about before daylight, while the hen is still longing for sleep. Throughout the day she will droop from weariness and distractedly revive to pursue her duty unthanked and derided.

As time passed, Serena’s ducklings remained out later, and finally would stroll home, drabbled and noisy, around nine o’clock. In the early morning one might see the hen roaming disconsolately without an offspring to cheer her, all of her brood being far in the woods searching the little streams and wet banks for the food ancestrally beloved. Their number lessened as wild creatures devoured them. Even dogs considered them rightfully their own, if found far from the barnyard, and by the end of the summer Serena would be as duckless as at its beginning, but she had had many a pleasant, shady jaunt in search of them “outdoin’est things.”

“I’ll try again,” she would say. “Duck-feathers make sech good pillers.” But she never got a feather.

On the day I have mentioned, she rippled in and said: “You know I set that gray hen on duck-eggs again.”

“So late in the year? Of course you’ll lose them.”

“I’d lose ’em anyway,” she said, surrendering fundamental ground for temporary defense. “An’ I want to tell you ’bout that hen. You know what an awful time that first set give her this summer. They wuz the head-longest bunch I’ve ever had, an’ they kept her about crazy. I wouldn’t hev set her again ef there’d been another hen ready. I felt sorry fer the pore thing. To-day it wuz time fer her to come off an’ I went to the nest to see about her. I didn’t hear no yeepin’ an’ I stood around fer a good spell. All at onct there come a ‘yeep’ like a slit--you know how different a duck’s ‘yeep’ is from a chicken’s--an’ when that hen heard it she jumped off the nest an’ flew fer a smart stretch a-squawkin’ like she wuz skeered crazy, an’ run up the hill out o’ sight, an’ I ain’t seen her sence she took off. ‘Yeep,’ an’ she’s gone! She’d been showed, that gray hen had.”

“Serena,” I said, determined upon judgment, and refusing to smile more than once, “it is time for you to quit fooling with ducks. There are so many things you could be doing.”

“What things?”

“Your spring needs cleaning out. It is full of rotting leaves.”

“Yes, I’ve been wishin’ Len could git time fer that.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“It ’ud ruin a spring fer a woman to clean it out.”

“It was a very lazy woman who started that superstition, Serena. I clean my spring all the time.”

“Yes, an’ it ain’t what it used to be. I’ve been noticin’ that. It’s druggy.”

“Because the fine roots of that big maple have reached it. I’ll have Len take that tree out as soon as he gets time.”

“Looks like he gets busier ’n busier.”

“Of course, when the children are getting bigger and bigger and are not doing their share of the work. Len is killing himself trying to bring in enough for ten.”

“The boys don’t take after their poppie. An’ if they did, it wouldn’t keep him from workin’ as hard as he could anyhow. I do all I can fer him.”

“You could give him better food.”

“Ain’t beans good?”

“Didn’t you notice yesterday that Len left the table without eating a single bean? He was hot and tired--and _pickled_ beans! He drank a lot of coffee and ate two bites of yellow bread. Then he went to the field to work until night.”

“I ain’t ever heard him complain.”

“You never will. He’ll die believing you are the only woman on earth.”

“He ain’t goin’ to die.”

“No. You are going to quit living out of a lard can, a coffee bucket, and a pickle barrel.”

She was crying a little. “I ain’t got cans fer puttin’ up stuff,” she said.

“I’ll look out for the cans, Serena. You know you can work. I’ve seen you.”

“But I kain’t keep it up.”

She knew her weakness. Work one day and rest six was her version of the great example.

“Lonie will help you, and the boys. Len will plough and harrow all the good land you want for gardens and patches. We’ll put in a fall garden too, and have all kinds of green things through the winter--spinach, lettuce, collards, turnip-tops, celery--besides the keepers, parsnips, carrots, salsify, sweet potatoes put up in sand--_and_ beans!”

I rushed on, with plans undigested but dazzling, and her few tears dried in shining twinkles. “I’ll try,” she said, “if you’ll keep right after me.” I smiled too, and she started home.

“I wonder where that gray hen is by now,” she turned to say. “Ef you’d seen her when that duck-diddly yeeped, you’d be laffin’ yet.”

II

Serena tried. Her lifelong acceptance of things as they happened had kept her unaware of the complexities of an occupation made up of a jumble of industries, as farm life must ever be until the ferment of organization begins to heave effectively in the mind of the last individual, the man on the land. But she was favored by nature with a good brain, and began to be pleased when she found that it would work.

A neighbor made a dress for Lonie and the product was so hopeless a bungle that Serena, perforce, had to attempt remaking it. With no help from me except the initial urge, a trifle imperious, perhaps, she got at it, and the result was so charming that I asked in surprise why she had taken it to Mrs. Hite.

“I didn’t feel like foolin’ with it.”

“But you see you did have to fool with it. And you had to wash for Mrs. Hite in exchange for the sewing.”